Week of 10 Nov 2024
“…I thought the darkness would never end.”
Achievements Earned In:
- Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name
- Final Fantasy XV Multiplayer: Comrades
- Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
- Palworld
Sunday in Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name was pretty much all about the Coliseum and wrapping up, which also included recruiting more Joryu Clan members. I snagged a few Akame requests on the way to the necessary 15, but it was in service of completing the ones that end with someone joining my team. I thought these remaining achievements would require a lot of grinding, but everything from bonding with 10 clan members to obtaining 30k fans actually came fairly naturally. I did do a few extra Hell Team Rumble platinum-level matches for cash, so I’m sure that helped. There were also the Four Kings of the coliseum to defeat one-at-a-time. The first two were a joke and somehow the final one was even easier, leaving the third to be a pain in the butt. I think it’s mostly because you have to not only fight the Third King but also the first two along with a cadre of thugs. But for that to be, by far, the hardest thing in the game just shows how easy this entry in the series is by comparison. The final typical Amon fight is pretty tough, but, unlike the coliseum matches versus the Kings, you can use items so that gives you the edge.
Actually, there was something else I had to do: the hostess achievements. These were pretty cringe to get through, as the developers decided to forgo digital avatars in place of actual actors in FMV sequences. I guess it’s supposed to be titillating, and some of them are very lovely on the eyes, but it’s just too weird. Besides that unfortunate sidequest, I was happy to get back to this series! Great game to check off before it leaves Game Pass.
Achievements unlocked: 61 (+18) | Completed
No… I’m… good, thanks.
Rising from the dead (or at the very least the depths of Okinawa), Shawn1991 has been working his way through Final Fantasy XV Multiplayer: Comrades, which is an expansion to the decidedly single-player mainline entry in the series, Final Fantasy XV. Even more oddly, they not only added the achievements to that game, but then spun them out to a standalone title. That’s what this is, and he needed my help for his final achievement. Easy enough, but he also offered to help get through the completion, too, so why not? It seems pretty mindless, honestly, as you pick a mission from the hub world and jump into a small section of the original game to kill a monster or three, and then repeat. For now I’m only playing when he’s available, and the time difference (UTC+9 for him and UTC-6 for me) means that’s not gonna be a common occurrence. But I’m in no rush… unless the servers are threatened.
Achievements unlocked: 4 (+4) | Completion: 24%
With a moment between games, I figured I’d finally get around to finishing up the Dominique’s Curse II add-on in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. I hadn’t played any further since starting it briefly back at the beginning of October, but I followed the same guide I’d followed then. It lays everything out in a very efficient manner and made for a simple and quick completion! Like Bloodstained proper is an homage to Symphony of the Night, this add-on is an homage to the second game in the Castlevania series and is as annoying and obtuse as that game. But, the guide makes it much smoother, and it only took a couple hours before I was done with this one, too. I was always hoping for more achievements for this game, because it’s one of my favorites, but not like this.
Achievements unlocked: 57 (+10) | Completed
Whoa, watch it! Almost hit me with that thing.
Oh man, it feels so good to finally get to play Palworld. I’ve always stood by that I didn’t really wanna play without my kiddo, which is the entire reason I even started it to begin with. We always ran into issues with playing multiplayer, and the game would crash constantly. We decided to give it a show this week on a whim and sure enough it didn’t crash once! It meant it was finally time to start getting some achievements, and I was in a good place to do so with plenty of Pals and a pretty elevated level. The most expansive part of the completion is the added set of achievements from the Sakurajima Update released in June of this year. The base game was all “beat each boss” and “catch lots of Pals”, but the update asks you to craft a lot and collect stuff while also adding more bosses and Pals to catch. Oddly, the rarest achievement in the game is simply for collecting 40 of the various documents scattered around the islands. I can see why as even with a guide it is very tedious getting around to grab them all, and I can’t fathom trying to get even a large quantity of them without one. It took a few hours, but I managed to get the achievement on Thursday. As luck would have it, I caught a Ragnahawk as I wrapped up that achievement, and it’s so much faster to fly on than my previous mount. Figures.
I had also been trying to use the same IGN guide to collect Lifemunk Effigies as I grabbed the notes, but they’re everywhere and I felt it’d be easier to get them later. The trick to these is to get on a flying mount at night, get up high, and just look around below you and out into the distance. The Effigies glow very brightly even from great distances, so it’s rare to survey the area and not see at least one or two little dots of green across the landscape. I’ve been slowly collecting them since I started the game, and without really trying and while searching for a Pal I needed on Saturday I grabbed an effigy and the achievement for collecting 255 total popped! I still need them to level myself up, but nice to have the final collectible achievement unlocked. I think my next targets will be getting the 140 different kinds of Pals, and various ones for crafting a bunch of items. But I’m in no hurry overall!
Achievements unlocked: 12 (+5) | Completion: 39%
Highest ratio: 13.24
Trail of the Castaway (Palworld)
Lowest ratio: 1.03
City of Light (Final Fantasy XV Multiplayer: Comrades)
