At the beginning of May, I came up with the idiotic idea to get a platinum trophy every day.
And I succeeded!
And it sucked.
So. Thirty one days of a new game a day. It sounded crazy. But I had a bunch of UK PSN codes burning a hole in my pocket, so I made heavy use of that account.
Due to the fact that I mostly played vaperware, I’m not gonna go through every game. Just some of the highlights. And yes, there were very few highlights. I really didn’t think this idea through very well.
There were three standout games over the course of the month. Yes, you read that right. Three. There were two others that weren’t total trash, but that’s about it. (And by trash, I don’t mean the games were completely awful. They just had easy or exploitable platinums.)
The two games that I would say were at least decent were Heal and Mahjong Adventure. Heal is a puzzle game with an intriguing story, through it was very finicky. I thought it was pretty good, though without a guide, you could get lost in sections, as there were no direction as to what to do. Mahjong Adventure is just your standard Mahjong tile-matching game. I enjoyed playing this one, mostly because I love playing Mahjong on my phone, though there were several times I had to use an in-game powerup, because the puzzle would be unsolvable otherwise.
As for games that I actually think were worth playing…
From studio Artifex Mundi, I played two games. The first was Demon Hunter: Revelation, which is actually the third game, but the first two didn’t make the jump to PS4. I wasn’t impressed with the story in this one, but some of the puzzles were fun. If you play through this one, I really recommend just skipping the cutscenes and using a guide. You’re not missing much.
Also from Artifex Mundi was Skyland: Heart of the Mountain. This one was slightly better, though I still have to suggest skipping cutscenes. There’s a lot of different, AM-stereotypical puzzles, but for the most part they worked well. The collectables were annoying, mostly because once you complete a chapter, you can’t go back if you missed something. Just a heads up, the voice acting is horrible. But then again, it always is horrible.
And then there was one. The only game this month that I can highly recommend (though, I also suggest using a guide for the collectables, because there are a lot). That is Concrete Genie. This is a tale about a young teenager named Ash in a small seaside town, who is heavily bullied by several local teens. Through art, he is able to express his feelings and keep his head up. When the town is overcome with darkness, his art and his courage are what helps drive it back.
This game was actually surprising. I picked it up on launch day in October 2019, but didn’t start playing it until September 2020, where I got through the first part of the game… then stopped. I picked it up again for this challenge, and I am glad I did. It’s a wonderful story wrapped in a tight game that just works. The collectables are plentiful, but they also aren’t a total pain to get. You just have to use the world around you. The only issue I had with the game was that they added a combat element for the back third act, and it just didn’t really fit, in my opinion. But if that’s my only complaint, I really can’t complain.
There are also VR trophies, and the game is entirely playable in PSVR, though it is not a requirement. Which is good, because I can’t play in VR without getting horribly sick.
The rest of the month was spent playing quick puzzle games and platinum bait, as well as a trilogy of games that can only be called horrible, mostly for their writing. There were some walking simulators that were somewhat fun, and a couple of dating sims that I blasted through (thank you, speed exploits), but on the whole, it was a waste.
And really, I didn’t try to do what I had initually set out to do.
One of my goals for May was to try to clear up some of my backlog of games. Instead of doing that, I ended up playing a bunch of horrible games that I’m never going to look at again. And that’s a shame. I have a couple games I’ve been sitting on for such an occasion. I was hoping May would inspire me to take the leap. Instead, they sat on my account unplayed, or still in their boxes on my shelf.
I’ve kinda taken a bit of a break from playing much of anything since May 31st, since I got so burned out. Now that I’m mostly back to normal, I’m probably going to jump into some of the games I didn’t get to over the course of the month. I want to finally finish Erica (so I can finally delete the app from my phone, and yes there is an app to play this game) and blast through Life is Strange 2 (since I accidently loaded it, so it’s on my trophy list). Actually, looking through my downloaded games, there are a lot that I haven’t finished yet. Maybe that should be my goal for the back half of the year.
Regardless, I’m never doing a gaming challenge like this again. Give me Febuwhump forever.
Until next time!
