Rat Holding a Platinum Trophy

Whenever I fire up a new game on a PlayStation console, I tell myself that I’m going to see it through to the very end and add another Platinum Trophy to my collection. The thing is, by the time I get close to the end of any game, I’ve usually given up this quest entirely.

But 2020 was different. In 2020, I was able to earn eight Platinum Trophies. While I still haven’t managed to score that elusive Plat in Red Dead Redemption 2, there are some pretty tough Plats in my collection now.

Here’s a complete list of every game I managed to earn a Platinum Trophy in this year, ranked from shortest to longest.

A Hero and a Garden

A Hero and a Garden

I picked up A Hero and a Garden on a whim, and I ended up really liking it. It’s not a complex game by any means — you simply tend a garden and pick berries while saving money to buy upgrades and such. Yet, the writing is incredibly charming, if not a little too saccharine, and it’s short enough that it doesn’t outstay its welcome.

This was a really, really easy Plat, and I estimate that this one took me maybe two and a half or three hours.

Carto

Carto game

Carto is a really neat game in which you solve puzzles by moving parts of the world around like puzzle pieces. It’s not super difficult, though there’s a lot of missable stuff if you just blaze through the game without taking a lot of time to just look around at stuff. And really, exploration is such a key part of this game that you shouldn’t just zip through this. Take some time, soak in the beautiful art style, and get to know the characters a bit.

If you play with a guide, you could probably get this Platinum Trophy in five hours. If you end up having to revisit old chapters, that might extend to maybe seven-ish hours, depending on how much stuff you missed. Still, it’s not a difficult Plat, and it’s worth seeking out, since it means spending a little more time in this delightful little world.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

I had a blast playing Warzone this year, so I figured I would go for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare‘s super-quick Platinum Trophy. There are a few parts of the game that, on the hardest difficulty, are roadblocks, but I didn’t find it to be overly difficult as a whole.

The clear time for this Platinum Trophy is really close to Carto‘s, though there was a storm that knocked my power out in the middle of it, which caused me to have to play through a chunk of the game over again. All in all, I think this one took me about ten hours.

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales

The follow-up (though not quite a full-on sequel) to Marvel’s Spider-Man is absolutely fantastic, though it’s not very long. In my opinion, that’s a mixed blessing. It’s almost a full-priced game, which makes it a much poorer value for your hard-earned bucks than the original if you’re looking to really indulge in an open-world superhero experience. On the other hand, the shorter runtime allows the writing to feel better paced and more compact than the original, which makes the story hit so much harder.

Even though this does require two complete playthroughs for the Plat, this one took me maybe 18 hours in total. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is not difficult at all, and the game is short enough that your New Game+ playthrough whizzes by.

Morbid: The Seven Acolytes

Morbid: The Seven Acolytes

Morbid: The Seven Acolytes is a pixel-art Bloodborne-like that manages to break away from the traditional Soulslike formula of collecting souls and spending them to upgrade your stats at bonfires (or any analog thereof). It’s challenging yet rewarding, and there’s a whole lot of neat stuff to see and do in its grimdark world.

It’s tough to say how long this one took me, because I was writing guides for a good portion of my playtime, but I think 30 hours seems like a pretty good estimate.

The Trophy that’s going to make or break this one for most people is called Strive for Perfection, which asks players to bring down one of the Acolytes without taking damage of any kind. It’s not easy, but I found a way to cheese it a bit, so I created a handy guide for anyone who’s interested in attempting this. Hope it helps!

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is one of 2020’s best games, though it seems like it got tragically overlooked. It’s one part visual novel, one part tactics game, and one part Wikipedia? That combination sounds kind of off-putting, but I assure you, telling this particular story in any other way would have been so much less rewarding. If you passed this one by because of its premise, I beg you to reconsider.

I believe this one took me about 48 hours, and I was writing guides the whole time, so most people will probably complete it in less time. If you simply finish the game, you’ll be most of the way to earning the Plat, and cleanup after that is fairly easy.

In case you need any help with that, I’ve made a complete guide to earning a Platinum Trophy in 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim.

Marvel’s Spider-Man

Marvel's Spider-Man

Yes, there are two Spider-Man games on this list.

Marvel’s Spider-Man didn’t come out in 2020, but it was in my backlog for way too long. I finally had the chance to give it a go this year, and man, did it ever suck me in.

It’s hard to say how long this one took, and you actually don’t need to get every Trophy to pop the Plat (there are four sets of DLC Trophies that you can skip and still pop the Plat). I did it, though — I earned 100% Trophy completion in this one, and I loved (just about) every minute of it. For 100% completion, my estimate is about 120 hours, though that’s really a shot in the dark.

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Final Fantasy VII Remake is by far the most difficult Platinum on this list. I doubt I would have gone for it in a normal year, but in 2020, when a lot of us spent much of the year in quarantine, I really sank my teeth into this one. It’s also one of the best games that came out this year, so that was time well spent, if you ask me.

When I finally popped the Plat, my playtime was just under 200 hours. This was a serious commitment.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x