As of this moment, I've earned 1699 trophies.
Trophies are little achievement markers, signs of progress. And they're up to the game developers discretion. Often, you'll get a trophy for obvious things like completing Act 1 or beating the game, but there will usually be fun things like stun 5 enemies at once or 100 stealth kills or find all the hidden treasures, etc. They're not worth anything. It's not like you can redeem trophies for a new game or even new suits or gadgets. They're just for the video game player. Recognition that you've done something challenging or cool.
One of the things I like about video games is investing time in something and seeing progress. When I was younger, I loved sports games but didn't want to just play one-off games. I wanted to play a season and make it to the Finals. I also really loved when a game like NCAA 2005 gave you challenges, like playing historical classics. This game would check them off as you completed them, and it felt good to say I beat all the challenges. On the other hand, one of the reasons I never liked Mortal Kombat or really got into Goldeneye or Smash Bros. is because it's all designed around one-off matches. You play and either you win or lose. But no matter what you're back where you started.
Another example of progress, is in a game like Assassin's Creed or GTA or Far Cry, where you unlock the entire map starting from just a small space. A lot of these games give you opportunities to upgrade your player, unlock and upgrade gear, etc. By the end of the game, you're facing far more difficult enemies but you're a stronger character. Progress has been made.
So I've always liked trophies. When I get a game that I really like, I want to do everything in it. Whatever the developer thought was was worthwhile, I want to do it. It's a way of measuring, have I really mastered this skill or game. Another cool thing is that the game shows you what percentage of people that have played this game, have earned a specific trophy. The first trophy you get, will often be in the 90s. Like if you played for 15 minutes, you got this. By the end there are some trophies only 1 or 2% of players have earned. Always cool to feel like you did something most people didn't.
Trophies come in four varieties. Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum. Really the only thing I notice is platinum or not. Platinum means you've unlocked all the other trophies in the game. (More specifically, all the trophies in the main game at the time the game was released. Very often, games now release downloadable content that you have to pay extra for, but come with their own trophies. The platinum trophy doesn't hinge upon these new ones. Also, it's possible to earn a platinum and then the game add new ones so you have the platinum but are not at 100%.)
Here are my current stats.
Yep, out of the 1699 trophies I've earned, only 6 are platinum.
(Side note: very cool how trophies are seamlessly captured across PS3 and PS4. The fact that I can, from any computer, see the dates that I've played all games in the last twelve years across two different consoles is crazy.)
Platinum Trophies
Here are all the platinums I've earned, by date.
Assassin's Creed II - PS3
Rocket League - PS4
Assassin's Creed Syndicate - PS4
Spider-Man - PS4
So because I said the platinum means that I got every trophy, you might assume I'm at 100% trophy completion for all those games. Nope. Four of them have released DLC.
A few notes:
One of the biggest reasons I don't get a platinum trophy for a game is that it requires multiplayer trophies. I don't like multiplayer. I don't pay for it. I'm not going to seek it out just for a trophy.
The other factor is some games require tedious amounts of boring things, like shooting all 100 of the hidden birds spread across the entire map—and the only way to complete is to find a guide and follow along and even then you end up with 98 out of 100 and you're not sure which two you missed and it's just annoying.
Assassin's Creed II was a game I truly got immersed in. And the trophy list didn't have any multiplayer requirements. There was some tedious feather hunting, but there wasn't much beyond what I had already done.
Tony Hawk only had 17 trophies so I'm surprised it considered it a platinum. (Smaller games don't even get platinums, just gold as the highest one.) But there was challenge that required advanced skill, and it took me a while to practice, so I do feel like I earned this one.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate was another good game. The one tedious thing was you had to crash into 10000 objects on a stagecoach so I remember driving in circles for an hour.
Once I did Syndicate, I went back to get the platinum for Far Cry 4, a game I had started 8 months prior. This one required a co-op trophy, so I actually had to post on a message board to find someone willing to help me get this.
Rocket League had 36 main trophies. It took me 7 months because one of them was play online with a friend. Though this one I didn't have to seek out, because I was doing a short-lived experiment with multiplayer at the time.
Spider-Man was the most recent and it was pretty straightforward. No multiplayer. The crimes got a bit tedious at the end, but at least they were missions. My kids liked finding the hidden backpacks and they were shown on the map so it wasn't bad at all.
Games That I've Beaten But Didn't Earn A Platinum Trophy
Grand Theft Auto IV - PS3
I beat this game in the summer of 2008, the first game I played on PS3. Trophies didn't exist yet. They would come out soon after and GTA IV would eventually get trophies added. But they weren't retroactive. So I'll never know how close I was and if I could have platinumed this one.
Supersonic Rocket Powered Acrobatic Battle Cars - PS3
Got 13 out of 14 trophies. There was one challenge I couldn't beat. But there was no platinum anyways.
The Saboteur - PS3
Man, I loved this game. Great concept and great levels that allowed for multiple ways to approach them. In the free roam, you can plant bombs to blow up Nazi radio towers. Cool. There's over 1000 of these, 425 just in one district.
Uncharted 2 - PS3
Heavy Rain - PS3
LA Noire - PS3
Uncharted 3 - PS3
Sherlock Holmes Crimes and Punishments - PS3
Uncharted 4 - PS4
Journey - PS4
Unravel - PS4
All of these games were story-driven, linear games. I played through them once. Didn't ever think about going back through and trophy hunting.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood - PS3
Red Dead Redemption - PS3
Portal 2 - PS3
Assassin's Creed III - PS3
GTA V - PS3
Hitman Absolution - PS3
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag - PS3
Driver San Fransisco - PS3
The Last of Us - PS4
Tomb Raider - PS4
Assassin's Creed Unity - PS4
Far Cry 5 - PS4
Watch Dogs 2 - PS4
Red Dead Redemption 2 - PS4
Burnout Paradise - PS4
All of these games I completed but didn't get the platinum because they had multiplayer trophies.
Just Cause 3 - PS4
Great game. Looking through it there weren't multiplayer trophies. Just a lot of tedious ones.
Firewatch - PS4
Completed it, loved it. Too small for a platinum.
Mafia III - PS4
Another one that I loved. Looked at getting a platinum. Turns out you have to beat the game twice and I wasn't interested.
Steep - PS4
Great snowboarding/skiing game. The reason I didn't platinum this is I wasn't good enough to get all the gold medals. These challenges are really tough and I did well enough to get some rare trophies but not all. This is what a platinum should be about. They should be hard. I wish that this was the reason for more of the absences, instead of I got every single-player trophy and that's why.
Assassin's Creed Origins - PS4
This is where the series seemed like it switched to focusing on combat and not stealth. Completed but not platinumed.
Hitman 2 - PS4
And then there's Hitman. The game I've put the most time into ever and called the best gaming experience of my life. Because it was released episodically, there's no platinum. I have completed all of the trophies for the standard levels. (Didn't do all the trophies for the sniper levels which is really a separate game mode and includes multiplayer trophies.)
How about that. That's a lot of games. 31 games that I've beaten in the last 12 years without getting a platinum. And the 6 where I did get a platinum. That's not even counting the various sports games like Madden, Fifa, and NHL where I've played a decent amount but the trophy lists are ridiculous and multiplayer heavy.
Rarest Trophies
There's this one in Steep...
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