Journal Entry #24: The Dark Cloud Saga

Platinum #24 - Dark Cloud (PS2 port)

While I was in Teslagrad, I found a library full of old books.

"Are you interested in ancient legends of other worlds, sir?" asked the librarian.

"Sort of," I said, feeling my cheeks flush with intrigue.

"Well, here is a book you might enjoy. It tells of a world called Blue Terra." The man handed me a very old book with silver bindings. "Please take it."

"To own?" I asked, shocked. "I couldn't..."

"I am getting old and children these days do not care about the legends of old," said the old man, waving me off. "It would please me to see a young man like yourself take care of this book. The stories in it are unbelievable but very beautiful."

I took the book back to my hotel room and read through it.

"A long, long time ago, when the two moons were shining, there were two continents in the world, living separately but peacefully. In the East there was an advanced civilization; the development of technology had brought prosperity and wealth there. In the West the people lived in harmony with the natural world, co-existing peacefully with the spirits and animals around them. Then came the time of darkness. A great evil was unleashed, and a Dark Cloud overshadowed the Western continent. Whole villages were destroyed. Entire families mysteriously vanished. And a magical adventure began."

I absorbed everything about the boy, Toan, and his adventures to stop the evil entity they called "The Dark Genie." I even found a picture of him and had it photocopied on my computer. I dreamt of the adventures of this boy and his five companions and his fight against the Dark Genie on the way back home and put the picture in my cabinet to honor this brave young man.

Me on the live stream of GE-MA Productions on Episode 22 of the Dark Cloud Platinum Live Stream. ^_^

FINALLY. X(

 

AFTER THOUGHTS: I decided to do this for the Platinum Leap Event on PSNProfiles.com, because I had only a couple of trophies left for it.

When this game and its sequel came in the first wave of PS2 ports on the PS4, I grabbed my cash card and bought PSN cards to buy this. Actually, I bought DC2 but you get the point. Once again this game got second banana to its sequel. ;P

Nevertheless, this is probably the easiest RPG to platinum ever because there are only 30-something trophies, and 1/5 of them are beating the bosses of each of the story dungeons. Dark Cloud is a dungeon-crawler which created randomly-generation dungeons.

The worst and hardest trophy for you to get is Sticky Fingers because it's all luck-based; the only weapons which have the Steal ability, which is needed for this trophy, are in big chests - you cannot buy them. So you have to farm levels in a dungeon a zillion times and pray that a big chest appears and doubly pray that it has a Bandit Slingshot or Bandit Ring - I highly suggest farming Floor 2 in Wise Owl Forest because you only need to worry about getting a blade for Toan or a slingshot for Xiao(who I named Koko after a famous cat in literature that I love ^_^) - if you try for the ring, you also have hammers to deal with at minimum. I was a bit lucky that the Bandit Slingshot appeared after ten farming trips or else I would have been playing Dark Cloud all day.

Anyways, this is still a great and easy platinum if you can get the Bandit Slingshot early - I didn't get it until after I beat the game and then I just save-scummed until the chest with the weapon appeared.

Getting closer to Golden Completed

I must be insane to fight this guy. (Not, he was a pushover, all he did was spam Megidoloan)

Here we go, two more Persona 4 Golden trophies in the bag. All that's left requires me to finish the first playthrough and do a New Game Plus. ;)

Journal Entry #23: Of Lightning and Magnets

PLATINUM #23: TESLAGRAD (FOR PS4)

 

After being cooped up in the office for so long, I packed up and went on a grand tour of Europe, only to stop in Russia for a brief period of time. I got lost due to a snow flurry(it was that time of year) and found myself holing up in a small town known as Teslagrad. The odd name was punctuated in the morning when I went sight-seeing and found a giant tower that pierced the heavens.

"Young man," said a native elderly woman. "Do you wish to know the story of this town?"

I shrugged. "Sure, and of the tower."

"Long ago, this town was ruled by a despotic king. Nobody could oppose his tyranny as he had the power to summon the lightning. But one rainy night, he had his army scour the city to find and seize a young boy who, according to prophecy by those who opposed him, had the power to defeat him."

 "That young boy, whose name is lost to legend, fled into this tower, a place created by the king as a symbol of arrogance and filled with the deadliest traps based on electricity and magnets. So vain was he of his power to control the lightning that he had this tower built... but those who opposed him, the very sages who gave this king his crown, created four mighty weapons to help the young lad gain his own powers over the magnets in the tower..."

Sadly, this is the best quality I can get from my camera. :(

"And soon, he confronted the evil king and destroy him, and it was said that this boy took over the rule of this town and made it a wonderful place to live. We have a statue of the child in the center of town, if you are interested."

I was very interesting, so I investigated the legend and it had some hints of truth to it. I picked up a souvenir to take home and hang in my cupboard.
 
AFTER THOUGHTS: Wow, it's been a long time since I got a platinum. And wow, this game. There is no a single word of dialogue, but the game really brings the plot home. Oh, and I didn't really fight the evil king, as the trophy list doesn't require you to beat the game, you just need to collect all 36 scrolls. But some of the scrolls are tricky to get.

I recommend this game for your list if you don't mind having a little frustration in trying to figure out how to complete the various magnetism-based puzzles and fighting the four tricky bosses before the final one. As I said, you don't need to fight the final boss to get the Platinum. ^_^

MORE NOTES: I actually have a few games ready to platinum, I just need to find some more tough trophies for them. My next platinum should either be Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (the last trophies I need involve some frustration fuel) or Dark Cloud(I just need to farm for a specific weapon and then I can complete the game). I also have Persona 4 Golden(complete the first playthrough and then bum rush through the second and get all those Rise lines), Jak and Daxter The Precursor Legacy(for the Vita, I bought the Jak collection for that), and Dark Cloud 2(really need to clear the medals in Moonflower Palace ASAP) on the back burner but on the way to completion.

More Jak? Nonsense!

(I'll start putting narrative in a 'film noir' color from now on for my avatar.)

Once more into the breach...

 Yep, I took the plunge and got the Jak Collection for my PS Vita... and it stinks. The Precursor Valley is a nightmare because the Zoomer controls like a janky mecha and it's hard to control. Still, I'm doing good and got 27% of the original J&D trophies so far. I plan on trying to platinum Jak 2 and 3 on the Vita first to practice for when I have to do it on PS3. (I'm still upset at the races.)

I loved Ratchet and Clank. Will I go for R&C Collection on Vita? NO. First off, I'd have to download it from PSN because Gamestop doesn't own a copy, and two, I was warned that the controls are even more janky on the Vita version of the games, so the hoverboard trophies would be impossible. :(

I'd like to thank Dragon-Archon, one of the mods of PSNProfiles.com(which is my #1 source for trophy information) for warning me about this danger and saving me years of frustration and a possible backlog that will rot forever. A shame, the Vita has such potential. If you follow the link to Dragon-Archon's trophy checklist, give a tweet to him and tell him DetectiveCJ sent ya. ;)

Time Travel Stinks (trophy update)

I love how Sanzaru references the other members of the Mascot Trinity(Daxter, Ratchet and Clank). :)

Wanted to put this here as a memorable photo op - the last map was the boss battle I hate the most in this game.

And I missed one mask in this mission but it was ironic that this is where I got the next trophy.

I heard that Sly Cooper is living in Ancient Egypt now, is that true? I have to investigate this...

As of now I have 88% of the trophies in my Vita version of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. This is a great game, don't get me wrong - I really like how Sly does a bad Italian accent in one mission. :) - but the last few trophies are murder. Doing speed-runs is never my thing and the fact that the speed run in question requires an unskippable cutscene beforehand and you have to redo that cutscene every time you mess up(because Sanzaru put checkpoints all over the place) is painful. :(

So far, I'm close to platinum on these games:

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (Vita)
Persona 4 Golden
Dark Cloud (PS2 port)
Dark Cloud 2 (PS2 port)

I am also doing Teslagrad for PS4(rented) but one scroll is ticking me off. And I'm starting a bunch of games for the second Platinum Rain Day event. (I put a link so you can go check out that thread.)

Eating Humble Pie - with whipped cream!

Okay. I can admit that I need to take a page from the Panda King and eat humble pie. I made a vow for Lent to myself that I would not be tempted to give up on games just because they are kicking my frustration into overdrive. Therefore, the statements I made about Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves being backlogged forever were a bit... rash. (I have deleted that post to conserve my pride a bit.)

Therefore, now that PSNProfile's Mod Dragon-Archon is going to make the Platinum Rain Days a bi-annual event, I decided to put this game on the list. It's basically where you get all the trophies save one and then pop the platinum on the event date. I have seen a full video of the rest of Sly 3 and spoiled myself but I do plan on finishing this game up by buying a copy of The Sly Cooper series when I get the money, the HD Collection is still available at my local GameStop. Jak II and Jak 3 will also be on this list as I struggle to get through the stories of those games.

That said, I plan on having most of the games I actually own be platinumed for August 20th, which is the Platinum Rain Day for this year. Plenty of time to take in the Summer Olympics, no? ;)

Burn My Dread

It took a while to get over the shame of having a backlog by letting a Sly game beat me, so I decided to go back to RPGs and relax a bit. I plan on having a ton of games near-plat for the next Platinum Rain Day, but...

Anyways, I'm working on P4G right now for a thread on PSNProfiles. I want to get this game platted before Persona 5 comes out in the late part of the year. So I won't be having any more platinums for a while, sorry about that. Depends on whether GameFly is going to deliver my stuff on time considering its bad track record earlier. :(

A little something something

A little preview of what's coming up. ;)

Journal Entries #21 & 22: More Files on the Phantom Thief

Games #21/#22: Sly 2 - Band of Thieves (PS3/Vita)

After that odd dream and the strange egg-shaped trophy I got after waking up, I found another of the mask trophies and it read:

Thanks for helping with the Klaww Gang - S.C.

I decided to read over the second case file on the mysterious raccoon thief, Sly Cooper, and learned of his quest to destroy the body parts of his archenemy, Clockwerk, who had been shattered into pieces at the bottom of a Russian volcano after the thief defeated him.

Good right ahead, ruin the shot, you stupid truck. :p

However, the infamous Klaww Gang, a group of global criminals hell-bent on major crime, had been using the various Clockwerk parts to advance their own criminal schemes ranging from illegal drugs in India to deforestation in Canada. Despite not knowing it, Sly and his two comrades helped the International Police to bust this criminal gang and destroy it...

But an agent turned rogue and things got ugly when Clockwerk came back to life with a new soul. Once again Carmelita Fox and her rival worked together to bring down the robot bird and this time he stayed dead, but tragic happenings forced Sly Cooper to surrender in order to save his friends. I can't reveal what had gone down but I found the name of the trophy ironic indeed. I took a sip of my favorite soda and relaxed with one of my favorite books involving a writer and his two cats. ;)

AFTER THOUGHTS:

Just in case you think I'm a liar, here is the PS3 platinum. Excuse the image in the back, my TV was reflecting. :(

Another lumping of lists, but this is because I doubled up on this game like I did with Sly 1, only this time I did both games at the same time so they got platinumed consecutively - the PS3 first(because it is on a rental disc) and then the Vita one which took a couple of days. At least I am glad that is all over with as I was getting bored.

Don't get me wrong; the games were good. It's just that I need to get these games out of the way ASAP so I can focus on the harder games, and some of the parts were a bit stinky in the way of challenges, especially since I suck at stealth games. This game didn't make me want to plat Assassin's Creed II anytime soon. *sigh*

Still, it is a great story and the ending was sort of tragic. Play the games yourself, okay? (The screenshots mostly came from the Vita version as it's better for screenshots of a game which is across different platforms - I can't figure out how to upload screenshots from my PS4 and I have to rely on wonky camera shots for my PS3 screen.)

Smarter Than The Average Bear! ^_^

Another major milestone has been reached, ladies and gents...

Yep, I now have over A THOUSAND trophies! Bear Fight, from Sly 2: Band of Thieves for the PS3, has become my 1000th trophy. Sadly, I couldn't snap a shot of it because I forgot to get the Vita ready before I popped the trophy. *sigh* C'est la vie.

But this is a great moment in my career as a trophy hunter - it proves that I am ready to follow in the steps of Commander Carlos and get to 100 trophies, by hook or by Sly Cooper. ;)

More updates with my avatar once the next platinum is mine. I've decided to Platinum the rest of the Sly Cooper collection on PS3 right away so I can return the disc to GameFly, but have fun too.

Journal Entry #20! A major milestone has been reached!

I had a dream last night. I dreamt I was this strange boy with large ears and goggles. His friend had been turned into a talking animal companion.

I dreamt I was fighting this evil sage and his sister and used some powerful light magic called Eco to defeat them, saving the world from being flooded with Darkness.

Then I woke up and found a giant platinum egg with strange runes on it. I translated them to read "Top of the Heap." I felt a thrill - this was my 20th platinum trophy! I put it in the case in a spot of honor and started my plans for the coming months - Valentine's Day would be soon. Sadly, I didn't have any girl to share affections with, but then again, romance is over-rated. ;)

AFTER THOUGHTS:

 

Welp, we hit our first major milestone - 20 platinums! Oh yeah! :D One-fifth of the way to my ultimate goal of a hundred plats.

I spent my grocery savings a bit early this week because I wanted to complete my dream of having the 'mascot trinity'(Ratchet, Sly and Jak) be my next three platinums, at least their first games. After finally getting Ratchet and Clank HD platinumed, I decided "Why not Sly and Jak?" I already had platinumed Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus on Vita earlier but after some hiccups, I got the Sly Cooper Collection for PS3 delivered as a GameFly rental and managed to knock out Sly 1 faster on PS3 since I didn't have clunky controls. So I decided Jak would be my crowning glory.

This game was the first platinum on my last account and I think it deserved #20 on this account as a place of honor. It is an easy game to get into, but not necessarily an easy one to complete, especially if you are very frustrated easily - you'll die so many times it won't be funny. Still, I finally got through the personal demons and cleaned this one up.

I bought the Jak Collection instead of renting it because it was there, and it would let me free up a GameFly slot so I could plat Jak 2 and Jak 3 at my leisure. Yep, spoilers, I do plan on platinuming the first three games of the Mascot Trinity come hell or high water. ;)

Journal Entry #19: Case Files for a Raccoon

As I promised, no more interludes - this time I can finally get back on the Road to 100 Platinums.

#19 - Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (PS3)

While cleaning up my office, I found the case file for Sly Cooper and decided to peruse it out of curiousity. I got that file a long time ago but had been busy elsewhere.

I looked over the files for this strange mammal-man criminal, Sly Cooper, and examined his background, but I found nothing to implicate him in anything bad; yes, he stole things, but the victims were far worse criminals.

I then got a mysterious mail package but I recognized the symbol on the return address, it was from Sly himself. It was a book which included his past adventures, so I started by reading about his conquest over the Fiendish Five and recovering his family legacy. It was good reading. I took a snapshot and hung it in the Hall of Platinums next to the platinum trophy statue I got earlier.

Platinum Time: February 5th, 2016; 10:11 PM

AFTER THOUGHTS: Yep, I got GameFly to come through and they delivered The Sly Cooper collection for PS3, which has all three games and Sly Minigames, which is probably going to be my first non-platinum trophy list, I didn't realize that Sly Minigames was on the disc! @_2

So I finally got Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus for both platforms. I would like Jak and Daxter to be #20, but I have a policy of no more than a month with rented games - I know GF has no late fee but I want to respect them for helping me get the game after the first delivery failed, so I have to plat through the other games as well ASAP. We'll see.

A mini-rant

I am getting really annoyed - two of the games I have rented via GameFly have gone AWOL and I had to reissue the order to get them. I blame the Postal Service - they must have replaced the guy who handles IMPORTANT mail with a teenaged slacker. X(

As such I wasn't able to get the games I wanted and now LEGO MARVEL Avengers is out, which ticks me off even more as I can't play it on launch!

I know, I know, I SHOULD be working on these titles, but I am autistic and that makes it hard for me to handle games this complex. :(

One of my old favorites is now on the list, thanks to Sony Entertainment.

OH COME OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!

I KNOW I HAVEN'T PLAYED THIS GAME IN, LIKE... SEVEN YEARS, BUT SERIOUSLY? KILLING ME IN THE FIRST BATTLE!!!??? X(

As you can guess, Sony has ported Dark Cloud 2 to the PSN store for a cheap price of $14.99, so I can hear the wails of anguish as PS2 owners have to burn their antique copies of this game. ;D

I loved this game as a kid and it's what got me as a Level-5 fanatic - the graphics and story-telling is sublime and now that Level-5 has teamed up with Studio Ghibli, more fun times abound.

And yes, Dark Cloud 2now has a platinum trophy attached to it, and to get it you will have to earn ALL of the medals in the game, so expect lots of cussing when I do Spheda or fishing. :p

We'll resume the adventures soon, I promise. My avatar is... resting for a while.