I only bother with games that have middle of the road difficulty when I want to platinum them. But I’m more of a trophy hunter rather than a completionist.
I've never cared about trophies or achievements myself, even though I do tend to complete games. I usually complete everything BUT the trophies/achievements.
I think it's more like this show is telling us that game devs made achievements that are painful instead of fun because many devs know how to make good games but don't know how to create reasonable balance with their more difficult challenges
I never really understood what Jirard actually GETS out of being a completionist, when it feels like EVERY. SINGLE. VIDEO he talks about how the reward for completing the game wasn't worth it. Like, if the reward of doing what you do feels satisfying like ~1% of the time, whyyyyyyy do you do what you do and put yourself through so much frustration????? I mean I guess it's so the rest of us don't have to and we should thank him for that, I just can't remember the last time he reviewed a game and was fully satisfied with ACTUALLY completing it.
@@ovahlord1451 the messenger isnt hard (imo) so if you had trouble with that than YES this will test your patience. This goes back to 90s era hard to a fault with poor level design or enemy placement at times. It can be really fun for sure, but done expect this to be like the messenger or shovel knight
@@ovahlord1451 yeah maybe pass on this one then. I love hard games and I may not even bother to finish it. I will recommend to give the messenger another chance because it's SO good
Usually these episodes/reviews outside of the comp aspect have him dedicating lots of attention to detail so it's not too big a deal, but I can agree it can come off as being overshadowed
I can’t imagine what my life would be like without games, as a fellow completionist. What would I have channeled this weird type of ocd into? Would I be a hoarder? Collecting weird crap from everywhere. For the most part the frustration and misery for every unfinished game is offset by the joy of being a gamer in the first place. I love how satisfying 100% feels and I know very little else in life offers a definite “Congratulations you’re done you can rest now” ending than Videogames. It’s hard to explain to anyone who doesn’t have to scratch that itch of finishing something perfectly but there is a reason for it.
I think about this quite often. In one of Jirard's videos, he mentioned that he completes most games in a week. So 52 games a year. It's gotta be tough. I finished Cyber Shadow once via Game Pass, and I enjoyed it. I couldn't imagine pulling my hair out to complete the other feats.
"An achievement list so sadistic, it feels as if the devil designed it himself" You have caught my attention with the amount of pain in your voice lol.
Same here! But that phrase... I can't help but feel I've played a game with that exact "issue" before... _coughRabiRibicoughSteamversioncough._ Whoa, where did that come from?
that's like 99% of players though, he said that because it makes him unique in the RU-vid Gaming Community to be The Completionist, otherwise he'd be a likable dude with a beard and a belly, not to be a dick just saying that this is the identity he created for himself in order to stand out.
Aren't feats/achievements something usually meant for replay? If you played through once without going for the feats, then did a feat playthrough, you could've maybe known what to expect as you progressed & would've had an idea of when to act differently to get the feats. That might've taken you less time & effort than doing it all in one, as the situations couldn't then blindside you like some of them did. Considering the possibility of some of them coinciding, it might've even made sense to do the speedrun and no upgrade feats as your next two after a basic playthrough to just learn the game, and then have the final fourth playthrough be a feat cleanup to purposely grab whatever you didn't fall into getting in the first three runs, being a complete expert at the game by that point.
This comment sums up my thoughts exactly. Love your review of this game, Jirard. Hopefully coming back to this game later for a casual play through helps you see this game in a more positive light
I think the main issue is time. He probably tries to make decision on how to tackle achievements in order to save time due to his extremely busy workload - sometimes it pays off and sometimes it kicks his ass. He just lost the bet on this one. Thought provoking comment though, cheers.
I'm pretty far in but i'm not sure if i'll finish it. The difficulty means I end up replaying stages again and again and I often find myself more frustrated than anything else. The art style and world are very nice though. There's something quite compelling about cyber shadow but I'm not sure I enjoy playing it.
May I recommend Azure Striker Gunvolt? Mentioned in the video, and I HAVE played it. The achievements are in-game (no online required) and in ASG2, you can complete them at any point.
I just finished this game. It might be one of my new favorites. It is almost like this was the ninja gaiden 4 on SNES that never happened and I loved every minute of it
Yeah, I only buy physical games because I like plastic shells and I don’t like digital games. I’ll buy DLC or virtual console games but that’s it. I need to know that I actually own a game, and it won’t be accidentally deleted or something
it damn well better get a physical version! i don't care if it's full blown retail release or Limited Run, it NEEDS a physical release. digital can go fuck itself for all i care.
@@thecrryocorn9157 The Godmaster DLC broke me. I thought the Colosseum's Trial of the Fool was difficult but Godmaster shattered my spirit. Good luck to you! Tell me if you manage to pull it off
Just putting this out there, the Achievements for this game on Xbox One I feel are even more sadistic, because none of them are rounded up to the nearest 5 or 0, as if to say that you either complete the game or develop OCD-related problems. That's just fucked, man.
Friendly reminder; this game is getting review bombed on XBox by whiny babies who are sad they aren't getting given every Triple-A release on the service. I for one downloaded it and was pleasantly surprised. What a fun, challenging throwback game.
Probably the best implementation of it as well. A lot of these retro style games nowadays that add the feature usually feels off to me. Maybe its jus me idk. This game however it looks so good.
I cant believe that after so much time watching the same intro, I noticed that Jirard gets a scar on his face after he gets hit. Nice detail But I think Im blind
I HATED THIS GAME; IT WAS TOO HARD FOR ME. . .Especially Since I BARELY Made it to Chapter 2 IT'S TOO UNFORGIVING; AND I'M N-O-T A CHALLENGE GAMER; JUST THE EXACT OPPOSITE TBH. . .
I'm super bad at these kind of platformers too. I already died almost 1000 times after the third level and I don't even go for achievements - after which I stopped counting. I needed almost 100 hours to finnish it. But the game, while being quite tough, is also somewhat fair. It rewards keen observation and patience. I always got better a bit. At some checkpoints, I could speedrun through the first sections flawlessly until I got to the point where I still needed to figure out stuff because I've done it 20, 50 or even 100 hundred times. Like Jirard said, you really appreaciate the detail leveldesign from the developer after some time. Everything is at its place with exact purpose. All the timings you can hit once you know a section by heart are incredible. You really feel like a ninja. Like I said, I am horrible with platformers. If someone would've watched me playing, especially at the beginning, that person would've died of shame by enduring to look at my utter incompetency. But at the same time, for the first time, I properly tasted what speedrunning feels like and I even consider actually speedrunning it, because at this point, most sections are directly implanted in my brain through repetition.
I'm on chapter 9 and I can safely say it doesn't get any easier. The distance between checkpoints only seems to grow, currency becomes rarer and I end up replaying sections again and again. I decided to take a break and play more hades instead. I might come back to it later but it's a brutal game. I'm glad I got it on gamepass and didn't buy it.
You know, something that I don't think gets shouted out enough is Carlos's artwork at the end screen of each video. It's been a legitimate joy to watch his skills improve over the years.
I was legit going to send this game to you when a physical edition came out because I just finished it and wanted you to play it so bad. I audibly gasped when I got this notification 😂
considering all the instant death spikes on floors and ceilings you face before the halfway mark....yeah, no lie. Why the heck do mid-game chapters leave almost no room for error or variation in viable success options?
At least Cyber Shadow doesn't send you back 3 stages if you die on the final boss. Unlike Ninja Gaiden. Nor does it have Infinite Bird over death pit + bat + guy throwing things + football players rushing you. 6-2 Ninja Gaiden can go to hell.
It was his approach. Not flexing, but I completed it and trying to do all the hard shit the first time through would suck. Giving myself one casual playthrough first made the rest way easier and less frustrating than Jirard makes it out to be.
@@aikoluna3480 more likely the game fault thats not giving even a frickin nod of reward for the game to be fully completed like c'mon like there are completionist in this world other than Jerard
I hate these kind of games. They're full of bad things that ruined games 30 yrs ago. But because it's retro, all the cool kids think it's awesome game design. We hated all these problems back then, why would they be good now? They're not.
I got the platinum about a week ago. When I started my first playthrough, not being very good at platforming or these types of games whatsoever I told myself that I was going to complete all the feats I could. The very first one which you described in level 1 of not attacking enemies had me sitting on my sofa in despair thinking how I may never be able to complete this game. I stuck with it though. There were several other feats that left me in despair for awhile, but with perseverance, I pulled through and after an embarrassing amount of time and deaths I finished the first playthrough with all feats except the no upgrade, the deathless run to the dojo, and the speedrun. I was able to clean those up with 2 more playthroughs. This is a fantastic game that rewards the player for sticking with it. What you thought was brutally hard eventually comes easy(or at least easier) if you stick with it and don't give up.
i'm surprised he thinks the achievements are hard or sadistic.... Jirard completed games waaaaay worse in term of difficulty and waaaay longer... I usually don't complete games but I managed to do this one without much time into it... I dunno....I guess as always, experiences will be different for everyone
True, he has completed way worse. I actually feel bad for him cus a lot of the games he has left to complete for his new games plus series are some of the longest, hardest most tedious ones to complete like Skyrim.
Good God, this game is so good. I put it on my Steam wishlist back in June of 2019 and was so happy to see it get announced on Xbox game pass but ultimately bought it on the Switch because what better console to play an NES throwback than on a Nintendo console. Brutally frustratingly hard but fair. Oh, and the music; holy hell, the soundtrack is top.
Just a tip for the Biohunter problem you had getting the feat: Even if you buy the upgrade, after death you can run out of the checkpoint fast enough that you won't get the upgrade when it drops. It'll just sit on the ground. I lucked out and didn't buy any checkpoint upgrades at all until I realized they weren't like consumables about halfway through, but also found myself sometimes losing out on the upgrade item I purchased because I was too quick leaving. Just a thought
Honestly as a fully realized conplistionist myself I don't know if I should it sounds like pain difficult is one thing but pain is another after this review I don't want this game
@@pinkfoxboi1331 I’m something of an anti-completionist myself, meaning I’ve never actually completed a game before. So it’s no problem to just get it and not complete it.
I just saw we're four away from 400 games completed! I hope it will be something special. I also hope this year one of the games completed will be Mass Effect Legendary Collection.
@@Jawmax thank you so much! I always look for the number in the bottom right like on new game plus and think hmmm, maybe they forgot it this week. I’m apparantly dumb lol
My swag blade woes were when I had to race the monkey. A helpful npc told me I could use downward strike on lanterns to jump further but my swag blade kept destroying lanterns so it made the race so much tougher and there was no way of turning it off.
I think I know what your mistake was. You tried to do to much at once. This what I did. Playthrough 1: Just play and beat the game. Don't even think about those crazy achievements. After beating the game pick up a few of the achievements once fully powered up (stay airbore for 30 seconds, dash through 10 enemies etc.). Playthrough 2: Boss achievements. Playthrough 3: No powerups. Playthrough 4: Under three hours. Doing things this way would have made it easier for you. It worked for me. I have almost all the achievements doing the above.
Some of the feats are definitely challenging, but I'd agree with Jirard in that he made it a little more difficult for himself to complete by the way he decided to tackle them and I personally don't find them to be overbearing. . . In fact in terms of the overall difficulty of the game, in my opinion it's pretty much ideal and perfect for someone like myself, and I wish more games were developed with the sense of demanding mastery of the player in order to find success (not to say every game needs to be challenging and difficult to be worthwhile obviously, but it's just something I'd like to see more of these days). Anyway, Cyber Shadow is just an absolute masterpiece.
Not gonna pretend like this will be seen, but have you heard of a game called rain world? Its a great game, but its hard to get started with. That and it doesn't seem to stand out at first. Its hard to get into, but it starts to become clear why its good after a little while. Just know that the game itself isn't going to tell you...... much of anything really. It tells you the bare minimum, and has you figure out the rest on your own. Its a challenge, but not overly so. At least compared to things like pantheon of hollownest with all bindings, which you've done. (And for the record, the minimal amount of instruction is by design.)
The Messenger executed this formula way better IMO. I get that the devs wanted to make this game hard but adding more checkpoints / reducing frustration doesn't hurt that goal it just eases the suffering of the player. This is the kind of game that I give up on as it's just way too much of a grind than it should be.
I had fun for the first 2 hours, but then I quit when I saw how stupidly hard it was. And it's not a ''fun'' hard like TBOI or SMB. The level design is flawed and their is so many little things that ruins the experience (like the enemy always have the advantage on you because you cannot crouch or hit upward/downward, which is... completely nonsense for a game like this). I don't get how Yatch Club games allowed some of these flaws to be in the game before publishing it.
The Mekadragon was the point where I was starting to rethink playing this game. That fight went into frustration. Then getting the dash was my breaking point. I spent nearly an hour and a half trying to get across that one spiked area to get a health upgrade item only for the dash not go far enough, or would go far enough but I would hit spikes on the way down to the health item. The game felt like trolling for the sake of trolling. I tried to just skip it and move on through the level but then the game felt like work. Also, the deflect ability rarely worked as intended. The character is a freaking ninja and is always moving. Tapping the directional button in the right time before a bullet never felt right. The game could just a bit of tweaking
Bless your heart, Jirard. Not since Sekiro have I played a game that I feel actively hates the player like this one, so much so that it affected my enjoyment of the game.
I adore games like this, but I always feel like they don't have fans like me in mind when they make them. I'm *not* a speed runner and I wish these games wouldn't assume I want to become one just because I enjoy this genre. I also like to beat games blind before attempting the feats I can achieve. Realizing there was no good way to revisit bosses to obtain those feats after I beat the game was enough for me to just turn it off and hope that maybe they patch something in so I don't have to play the entire damn game again to have a chance at them.
I think it took him longer to complete this game than he thought it would so maybe he’s just starting it a bit late. This episode was probably supposed to come out in January since he got an early review copy.
It’s definitely a passion project, but it’s not my cup of tea. It’s extreme difficulty and intolerance for mistakes were just too frustrating for me. Funnily enough shovel knight‘s difficulty was just right for me. I‘d say give it a go but be warned.
For the "pacifist" achievement it only took me 2 try's to figure out how to get past the guy because the knockback was something I made use of a lot after first hating how you can get sent into both directions (pretty far) . So when it was cleanup time I was like oh I'll just have this guy push me through.
I was excited about this game, but not playing a game that feels cheap and punishing just because it can. I gave it a go on xbox game pass and could tell on level 2 this game was going to be bs. Tired of this formula, it is dated developers how about focusing on making gameplay better?
Be honest, for someone who found shovel knight and the messenger to be just the right type of challenging, how does this compare in terms of pure difficulty?
Seems like an interesting game. I wonder if this was harder than Shovel Knight. Great work man! I would recommend you try completing The Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction and X-Men Legends 2 Rise of Apocalypse. They're really good.
Glad to see that Yacht Club is going the same route as New Blood. We need more publishers like this, and fewer evil mass-graves-to-be like Activision, Ubisoft, EA and Warner Bros.
This game made me feel the same satisfactory frustration as Ninja Gaiden in the old days :D I love every challenge. Haven't managed to complete everything, yet. But I aim for it! B)
13:20 Regarding that feat, a very easy way to do it is to apply a damage boost. Very common trick in classic Castlevania speedruns strats. Everytime you get hit you get pushed BACK. So you simply jump in a arc that will get you hit by the "wall enemy" and turn your back as late as possible. You'll be boosted in the direction of the door. Worst case scenario, you get hit twice but you have enough health to take the extra hit So... yeah, it seems it was properly DESIGNED. At least this one instance
I was so excited for this game an ended up AVIDLY HATING the first 5 chapters of this game, maybe even the first 6. Halfway through the game and you still do not have the ability to dash. Halfway through the game and you cannot double jump. Halfway through the game and there are spikes across every room's floors AND ceilings. The game didn't even offer temporary infinite SP to test out new abilities after you unlock them. The entire experience feels like it's designed for the second or third playthrough at the cost of a dramatically hindered first playthrough. And, as you said, the feats seem to rely on RNG, perfectly executed gameplay, and knowledge of what NOT to do to prevent yourself from locking yourself out of any particular achievement. This feels like a game designed for the second and third playthroughs at the cost of the experience of the first playthrough. The characters refer to Shadow as being on the brink of death throughout the game, and the game really makes you feel that way for at least the first half of the experience, before you unlock the level 2 versions of all of the skills
@shadowshinobi06 I love that one, but you also lose it anytime you die or take 3 hits after getting it, so it's not like it's a permanent option. It's only available in certain areas up until you take those hits or get a different familiar. Though, I will admit, that was my favorite familiar as far as conquering platforming challenges was concerned. Having that was the only time I ever felt like I could actually experiment in the game. Again, I wanted to love this game. I think the aesthetic is great and the platforming challenges are fun...when you have the upgrades. It just takes too long to get basic traversal options for my taste, and the mid game difficulty spike is just far too intense and leaves far too little room for error or experimentation. You're still learning new skills at that point and but the difficulty is still spiking when you've only just unlocked skills and haven't had the opportunity to master them yet. It's a cool game, they just leaned into retro difficulty and design a bit too much for they're own good. Which is a shame because this game does feel amazing when you actually get to fire off on all cylinders and utilize the full skillset. Back to The Messenger for me
@shadowshinobi06 Oh, I love metroidvania. It's got a bit of tedium on the first playthrough, as you figure stuff out, but NG+ lets you carry stuff forward, and you can increase the NG+ level each time you finish (so long as you don't game over) and it'll let you bring 1 new item each time you do a new playthrough, removing more and more of the tedium with each playthrough
