Just finished Stray (The kitty game) and I don't know what to think. If I was just playing it and enjoying it on its own I might have liked it more. Sadly I was going for the trophies and...that ruined it for me.

When a trophy guide says there are no missable trophies due to 'level select' or 'chapter select', they might as well be saying every trophy is missable. Because if I'm playing a level, and then it locks me out of an area thus forcing me to replay it, it's missable. It's easier to go back and try again if there's level select, but it's still missable. Like 2/3 of the trophies and collectibles fall under this category. I don't like that and had to strictly follow a guide so I didn't end up having to cycle through every level twice - once for the experience and one for the collectibles.

And there was a speedrun trophy. Those should be outright banned. a 2-hour speedrun resulted in 4-5 hours of stress for me because I had to: 1 - watch the 1.5+-hour stream of it so I knew what I was doing and where I was going. 2 - Had to emulate those 1.5+ Hours on my own play through. and 3 - another 1-2 hours on save scumming in case I fucked up and lost time to death or getting lost.

So if at the end of a 20-minute chapter I messed something up and lost precious minutes to a literal hoard of enemies you can't kill....better re-load the save from the cloud!

Speedrunning is impressive. I absolutely loathe it. but my OCPD and NEED to fill in blanks and clear things has meant that missing one trophy just wouldn't do. couldn't have that, so I HAD to do it.

Good game though. I just wish the collectibles were a bit easier to find/collect and I wish it didn't have a speedrun trophy. I only ever did one speedrun trophy before (Kaze and the Wild masks) and I actually really liked that one which was why I thought I'd give this one a shot. yeah, never again. I kinda wish trophies didn't exist. I miss the days where I could define my own completion criteria and move on when I was satisfied, not when the game told me I did all my chores.

Playing God of War (2018) in preparation for Ragnarok. 

I know some people liked the original trilogy more, but I'm not one of those people. 

The story and the characters are a huge improvement, it's amazing how they've gotten me to care about things I never did throughout 3 games previously. I wouldn't care about Ragnarok right now, if it was more of the first 3 games.

There's a few things about the gameplay that I think could be better, but overall it's awesome. The game seems to intentionally push you towards throwing the axe. Close combat doesn't seem to be as effective. I think it would be nice if that were balanced a little differently. And I would like it if dodging was more satisfying. But throwing the axe is probably one of the most satisfying gameplay elements I've had in any game.

Very much looking forward to Ragnarok.  And on that note, reviews coming this thursday.

Just started this the other night. On Chapter 4 atm.

As for the speed run trophy, why not just do it chapter by chapter over the period of like a week? That's what I'm going to do. 

On speedrun I usually do side-by-side instead of watching all, I only do those after finishing once so I already know the basic idea. But yes they are stressful

Playing God of War (2018) in preparation for Ragnarok. 

I know some people liked the original trilogy more, but I'm not one of those people. 

The story and the characters are a huge improvement, it's amazing how they've gotten me to care about things I never did throughout 3 games previously. I wouldn't care about Ragnarok right now, if it was more of the first 3 games.

There's a few things about the gameplay that I think could be better, but overall it's awesome. The game seems to intentionally push you towards throwing the axe. Close combat doesn't seem to be as effective. I think it would be nice if that were balanced a little differently. And I would like it if dodging was more satisfying. But throwing the axe is probably one of the most satisfying gameplay elements I've had in any game.

Very much looking forward to Ragnarok.  And on that note, reviews coming this Thursday.

Kinda what I ended up doing. Had it on, watched it so i knew where to go and what to do and what was expected, pause the video, then do the same thing in my game as fast as I could. 

ended up 3 minutes faster than the speedrun numbers the website gave me. (1:35:00, I got 1:32:00)

I may be an outlier here but I genuinely HATE the original trilogy. Hate em. I hate kratos, I hate the art style, I hate the combat system, I hate the RPG progression system, I HATE HATE HATE the story, I hated the excessive fetishization of violence and gore, I hated the exploitation of women, etc. I just didn't like them. they felt like a more childish, immature, shallower version of Devil May Cry. Which is similarly silly and immature but actually knew and understood that it was in fact silly and immature. Like, every synopsis or retrospective of God of War (At least the original one) Tells the story of a spartan corrupted by the Gods and tricked into killing his family...but I've played through the game multiple times and that's just not what happened. Kratos was an insufferably violent, immature brat of a man who suffered the consequences of his actions and blamed it on the gods because he figured he could get away with it. Everything about him and his backstory is stupid and pathetic and evil. and I hate him. Well, hated him. 

But then the 2018 version came out and fixed and acknowledged virtually everything I hated about the originals. He's mature, genuinely trying to be a good man and a good father. He resents his past, regrets his action, and knows he has to do better. He still hates the gods but is clearly trying to avoid conflict. the art direction was still glorious and fantastic without being toony. the combat system was deep and heavy and methodical more akin to Dark Souls while still retaining much of its hack and slash nature. the cinematography is something I think only Half-Life has ever accomplished in the history of the medium (and when you're compared favourably to Half-Life, you've done something right). Honestly, I genuinely feel that God of War 2018 is as close to a 'perfect' game as I can recall playing. The only slight missteps in the entire game for me was Atreyus' sudden and abrupt emo phase (which I didn't find as abrupt as others seemed to) and nifelheim. which can be avoided as it's a completely optional side-area in some ways mildly similar to Bloodborne's root chalice system (Semi-randomized quick dungeons meant to acquire the best equipment that is completely superfluous to the story). 

It's funny that I'm seen as some huge Sony fanboy when I hate or dislike half the exclusives they make (Not a fan of the Last of Us, God of War, Gran Turismo, or Uncharted). 

Listen here, you and your dastardly logic...

Trust me, if I could treat things rationally when it came to my crippling need to get things done, I would. The only reason I even care about the trophies is because I don't like feeling like I've not finished a game. you know how it's a natural human emotion to feel just a tinge of anxiety at abandoned, unfinished tasks? How we get a dopamine hit when we complete things? Well, take both of those and crank them up to 12 for me. I've gone MONTHS without working at my paid job (as a writer) because I got stuck on a story and couldn't bring myself to move onto other stories until this one was done. I've neglected DOZENS of games (maybe hundreds by now) because I felt I 'needed to finish up that trophy list' first. Right now I'm desperately wanting to return to God of War 2018 before the sequel comes out but I have 1% of the webbed trophies and thus I apparently HAVE to finish that game, first. 

IT's not logical. And it's exacerbated by a bad case of ADHD as well, so even though I NEED to finish things, to complete them and get them out of the way, I get distracted way too easily and have a hard time focusing on any one thing because I keep getting distracted and reminded of other things that need to be done. 

Except for the very rare time I'm able to hyperfocus on something and do a week's worth of work in a few hours. Like this weekend. I run a webcomic and we only do 2-4 pages a month but I wrote 8 pages in a matter of hours and I'm gonna wrap up the chapter's scripts tonight after Halloween Celebrations conclude. That's 3-6 months worth of work in a matter of hours. and I would have done more had my artist been around to approve the pages. 

So yeah, you and your logic. what you say is reasonable but unfortunately that doesn't mean much of anything to my brain. If I could harness my focus periods better I'd be unstoppable. But in the mean time I'll have to settle for getting what I can get done in those moments of power. and like with Stray yesterday, hyperfocused because I was so close to completion so I did the whole thing over an afternoon.