Top Five Annoying Platinum Trophy

Since Microsoft came up with achievements there have been two impressive feats. The first one being skill and the other one being dedication. While many people will bicker about what’s the most difficult feat, not many will consider where the greatest test of dedication is. Due to this, I have compiled a list of the 5 most tedious platinums of the 250+ games I’ve played.

#5 Disgaea 3

When people think of tedious tasks and trophies, generally the infamous pure bladestone (Demon Souls) comes to mind. There is no doubt that task is annoying (though skippable), but it’s nothing compared to getting all the pirates in Disgaea 3. To get the CHANCE of finding the rare three (Prinny, 10 Gents, Baal) you had to get to floor 91/100 in an item, which is also only possible in legendary items. Next you had to unlock the land of chaos, an area where enemy statistics are far higher. Finally you needed enough power to actually win the fight. Additionally at this point, any and all pirates could appear. Naturally, pirate appearances are extremely common here, but this does nothing except annoy you. Any time you hear the siren go off, it will make you hopeful it’s the last one in a seemingly endless quest.

The other running problem with most Disgaea trophies was based off time. Most of them were virtually impossible unless you spent roughly 50 hours leveling and powering up your team. Most people were not interested in that much work, to just have a chance at a trophy.

#4 Final Fantasy XIII

Just about every RPG fan was excited for the release of Final Fantasy XIII and as we know now it, it failed to meet our expectations. Most gamers had running problems with the game which made playing it very tedious to play. Most of the trophies were fairly simple, but completing every mission with 5 stars and obtaining every item was beyond annoying.

Anyone that played the missions would quickly learn there were only a finite number of ways to win. This was due to how the game was designed and ultimately caused most to require help. Additionally, it was NEVER fully clear how quickly you had to win a mission. That was thanks to a constant changing ratio between items equipped/level versus the actual mission in question. Sadly, obtaining every item was far more annoying.

The key to getting every item was gil (cash) and beating every mission (5 stars not needed). Interestingly enough, there were very few viable farming locations. This forced people to mostly farm something like Adamantoise. Additionally, reselling an item was out of the question. For instance I had a tier 3 stared spear for Fang. This item cost something like 8,000,000+ gil to make. If I were to sell it I would get sub 50,000 gil for it. Sadly this made the whole task feel far more pointless.

#3 Quantum Theory

Quantum Theory starts off by giving you a pretty awful control scheme. This made playing the game pretty annoying on its own, but the trophies do nothing to help its cause either. The first task you might tackle is Trusty Sidearm. This is a run where you must complete the game with only your pistol. Naturally, this might seem doable as Dead Space is far easier with just the plasma cutter, but this is not the case here. The pistol is slow, weak and has at most 150 bullets. This forces you to rely on great aim, plus finding as many ammo boxes as possible. The task’s difficulty becomes clear on chapter 2 when you have to kill some turrets. These take roughly 36 shots per turret on easy, so just imagine the difference on hard. Additionally, your ammo was continuous meaning the amount you end the chapter with, was also the amount you would start the next with. This is so bad that many gamers consider trying this on anything higher than easy virtually impossible.

Next you must replay the game on hard difficulty, but that isn’t a problem. The problem is finishing each boss on hard within a certain amount of time. There is a stage selection which removes some annoyance, although bosses appear towards the level’s end. This means failing to complete the boss in X time would require another try. As you might recall earlier, you will need to conserve good ammo/guns for the boss making your selection very limited. Finally no boss has an actual counter so it was complete guess work if you did it or not.

If story didn’t turn you off, then you still have multiplayer to deal with. Considering the demo and various other factors hurt sales, the online was dead. This made getting a ranked match very difficult (6/8 players in the room). If you accomplished, this then get ready for the worst level system ever. Since many ranked games have boosters, they wanted to fight this by making the online unenjoyable. You see for each rank bracket you fell under, there would be a “maximum skill” value. That is to say if you’re a newbie, then it is “impossible” for you to get over 25,000 points in a match. Why someone thought this was a good idea is beyond me and worst yet, level difference yielded more points. I am sure any FPS fan has played an online match where the guy 50 levels higher than you got there by playing a lot, not by being extremely skillful. Anyways if you break your limit, the game punishes you to an extreme degree. Let’s say you have 100,000 xp before the match and you get 30,000/25,000. After the match your new xp will be 70,000… YES breaking that point results in a reduction of the total xp you earned.

#2 Lost Planet 2

Arguably the most annoying platinum on the PSN, earned this title by making countless wrong moves. The first error was how the title system was presented to you. Everything is listed under question marks, but unlike Street Fighter/Marvel vs Capcom no description was given. This meant that all 500 tasks had to be figured out or someone had to post the strategy guide list. This help only went so far as many tasks were poorly explained. The most notable being “Band of Brothers” which is listed as “Complete all campaign levels with other players”, although the task is actually “Complete all campaign levels in split screen”. This was more than enough to cause mass confusion, plus the natural “it’s glitched” or “it’s impossible to do” forum posts.

Lost Planet 2 then ups the ante by requiring you to achieve #1 in the world on a leaderboard. There were roughly 53 boards to master, although to my knowledge none of them were ever reset and like most games had ***holes playing. By this I mean someone achieved #1 on multiplayer with a perfect ratio (cheated) and hasn’t played since. This makes that leaderboard impossible now. Additionally trophy sites had other losers devise ways to cheat at the training missions (what the leaderboards were for), making those impossible unless you cheated too. Considering many missions were difficult enough to gold, the requirements to get “Number 1” quickly became too great for just about anyone.

In addition to leaderboard, someone wanted to make sure you played this game to its full potential. This was achieved by putting a title out for doing X damage with everything (according to the guidebook). I can tell you from personal experience that the ratios were inconstant, but let’s go off what the book says. According to the guide, the highest plasma grenade did 40 damage and the last title required 300,000 total damage. This means you’re required to hit something roughly 7,500. As mentioned above everything in the game had a title like this. This includes the Vital Suits, Vital Suit Weapons, Weapons, Grenades and each required between 100,000 and 300,000 damage.

Next up in title hell is faction matches. Not only was the concept poorly done, but it was based completely off how many people were playing a given faction. I won’t get into how awful this mode was, but you had to win three times as each faction. This seems easy as one can win three a week, but the game only counts it once. This FORCES you to play the game every week for up to 15 weeks in hopes your factions will come up. Any week where things didn’t work out, was another week you had to launch the game.

Finally, you still had to get level 99 for each of the five factions, play 300 chapters (14+ cycles worth), kill 10,000 enemies offline, 1,000 online, play 500 online matches, beat the game on each difficulty (they didn’t stack), but this doesn’t even include the good jobs.

Contrary to titles, most good jobs relied on assistance or skill. Getting four people into Gordiant (Boss #1) for instance was very difficult as not everyone was a team player or was interested in getting inside of him. Even people attempting this task failed a few times due to someone messing up. However, beyond these tasks were the woefully mismanaged ones, like the taunt good job. The thinking behind it was great. Someone assumed that when a full team (8) won a match they would ALL taunt the enemy. It’s very possible that some people pulled this off, but eight people doing the same thing at the same time is very hard to control. Furthermore, this caused most people to boost the good job. Anyone that tried to boost something should know getting eight interested people is hard, but having them all willing/online is harder. Additionally, there were many support good jobs that were virtually impossible without good friends or boosting.

In the end, was anyone expecting a game with a trophy called “Committed ‘till the End” to be quick?

#1 Time Crisis Razing Storm

Rail shooters (lightgun games) have the same problem fighting games have. They’re extremely easy to do, if you put in the time to master them. Razing Storm starts by giving you various tasks to complete in the arcade. These must be done via ranking mode, so you can’t lower the difficulty settings. Each task is extremely situational. Getting 500 continual hits is all about avoiding damage, while still maintaining a combo. This sounds easier than it really is, because only five or so areas can even facilitate this amount. The remaining trophies are completely skill based. You must win without dying, score 3,000,000 and finish in less than 16 minutes. These are doable, although they’re completely based off avoiding damage, knowing where to shoot and winning the emergency mission, which requires you to blow up missiles before they hit you. Unlike other areas, your life is based off collectable dog tags making it extremely stressful. The biggest reason for the stress is failing isn’t an option. Messing this spot up will require another run thus nullifying anything you did up to that point.

Upon finishing arcade, they added a story mode. This mode is an FPS game which is a completely different demographic all together. Explaining this mode is so annoying I don’t think words can give it justice. To help you understand, I have included the control scheme (see below). To put it into perspective the follow are the current ratios off PSNprofiles.com. Apparently 56.69% started this mode and finished the first stage. Of this 56.59%, a mere 16.79% finished the next level which is maybe an hour long. The number of gamers which took the time to finish the game drops to a depressing 5.05%. This campaign is maybe five hours long, but lost a significant amount. Of the remaining percent, the total plummets to .81% that beat it on hard difficulty. Of these totals the highest side trophy is 5.49% and the lowest being .47%. All of this is most likely based off how unenjoyable the mode was.

If you’re still up to the challenge, there is also a sentry mode. Most of these trophies required near perfect aim and repeated headshots. Not a single trophy for this mode breaks the 1% barrier. This is due to the extremely low margin of error, combined with how annoying the controls were.

Overlooking all of the side tasks online, you’re forced to play an additional 765 online games. I am sure there are plenty of gamers out there that couldn’t pull this off on Call of Duty or Battlefield, let alone this game. Additionally, you had to max out your level three times, which forces you to play against the small pool of gamers still playing. Needless to say, this is a task only 4 gamers have completed (PSNProfile).

Naturally, everyone is going to be different, so what do you think the most annoying platinum is? Tell us below.