Either one or both works.
Mine is completing the Pokedex in the original Pokemon games. All you get is just Professor Oak giving you a wink and a small few second cut scene. And a congratulations text. Imagine spending all of your time then, getting all 151 and even 252 pokemon just for that? Yeah no thanks, I never completed the pokedex.
Going the Joja-Route in Stardew Valley. I say this mainly because, it is what you make of it. You forfeit being able to complete the Community Center by earning things, when you sign your soul away to Joja. What I would’ve liked is seeing Pierre go out of business completely. I just think that would add a route of depth in the game where you have to make ends meet through Joja because Pierre is permanently closed.
But, that doesn’t happen, he’ll still be in business despite his depression about Joja running things. Kindof ruins the whole concept of doing it for the achievements even.
Regarding collectables-based challenges, in my experience, all collectables that don’t unlock content or aren’t some kind of upgrade are a waste of time.
I remember collecting all the figments in Psychonauts 1, how frustrating and time consuming it was and how it was near useless to the regression of the game. I love Psychonauts and I would like to play it again over and over, but I would not collect those pesky figments ever again.
If the collectibles aren’t satisfying to obtain on their own, I don’t think putting an unlock behind them makes them retroactively better.
A good collectible is something like Strawberries in Celeste, each one requires you to take a more difficult path or do an additional screen. They’re fun to go for, and I think it actually would’ve detracted if some unlock made them feel like a required task rather than a bonus challenge.
Beg to differ on the Pokemon example, but then again I am a completionist so that type of challenge gives me lots of self satisfaction (plus now I have achievements through RetroAchevements so a little bragging rights). Frankly, things like that should have internal motivation, so literally no reward is fine by me. I’m literally doing a professor oak challenge right now, which is significantly worse, lol.
Where I draw the line is mostly challenges that I just don’t see myself being able to accomplish in a given lifetime. Like the Balatro golden chip on every joker is way too RNG and time consuming for me. I also generally prefer not to have to do a speed run, but that’s mostly because I have kids now and setting something down without worrying about time is ideal.
The professor oak challenge is rough lol. I tried it out on Pokemon Silver and must have spent well over 10 hours grinding to get my Feraligatr.
It’s mostly awful for the first two badges, but playing with fast forward I beat my first badge in White 2 with in game time around 65 hours (so probably around 15 hours). It’s insanely tedious, but I enjoy it late game.
Not worth it getting all the Korok seeds in BotW
I mean, it‘s videogames so any challenge that gives you the satisfaction of clearing it is worth it, any that doesn‘t isn‘t worth it. Could mean all of them are, could mean none of them are, and could mean anything inbetween. I‘m an achievement hunter so I go for those, but I‘m not super purist about it; if the challenge is to walk 40000km, I rubberband the controller lol
As someone who has in fact completed both the original Gen 1 and the full Gen 2 Pokedex (including Mew and MissingNo.), I genuinely can’t imagine playing through a Pokemon game without at least completing the regional pokedex. Collecting the creatures is what I play those types of games for.
And the reward isn’t the little completion diploma Oak gives you to print out. It’s the self satisfaction that comes with finishing your goal. Like getting all the achievements in a game; I don’t get anything whatsoever for that, but I still like to do it. Because I’m a completionist.
Super-bosses that award ultimate weapons… like why am I going to use this weapon now that the biggest challenge is done?
It’s for the secret boss!
You killed the ultimate boss; now with their drop you are the setting’s ultimate boss. You just need to wait for another plucky young upstart to rise and take you down.
Rarely even happens in-universe.
Diablo spoiler?
Or many of the Soulsborne games.
Tap for spoiler
Replacing Gehrman in one of the Bloodborne endings being the most direct example.
Ehhhhh… Kinda, not really. The wizard goes mad, the rogue aligns with evil and the warrior failed to contain the big evil and is possessed by it.
Doesn’t sound like final boss to me.
I may be wrong, didn’t follow the series much, but wasn’t Diablo2 BBEG the player from the first one turned evil?
Yeah, as I said, it was the warrior, who took diablo’s soulstone with himself, but succumbed to evil and was possessed by Diablo. So, yeah, kinda turned evil. Still, at that point I wouldn’t call that body the player from the first game.
Afaik originally in D2 we were supposed to kill him and that would be it, but the animator company decided that it would be cool to animate some dude piercing his forehead with a stone, and since there wasn’t anymore dev time Blizzard North decided to go with it. That gave way to to justification for the corruption/possession of the D1 warrior character and thus the story of D2 and kinda D3.
Oh, btw, Blood Raven, the second quest you do in act 1, is the rogue from D1; and the summoner you encounter at the end of the arcane sanctuary, the one who had Horazon’s journal, is the mage from D1.
There is sadistic satisfaction to be had from absolutely nuking enemies who gave you trouble before.
I also like collecting shiny things.
You might need them for ultra-bosses that reward ultimate ultimate weapons.
I enjoy seeing the little achievement pop-ups, especially when it’s a rare one, but I almost never go out of my way to get any. Don’t see the point, tbh. I’m not interested in playing the game in a way that’s less fun for me, just to check an utterly meaningless box. I guess you could reasonably argue that every goal in a game (quests, completion, exploration, what-have-you) is meaningless, but achievements have always struck me as particularly hollow.
I’m an achievement hunter, I have 115 perfect games on Steam. Many of the games I’ve completed 100% are extremely difficult;
list of games
- Shovel Knight
- Offspring Fling
- Dead Cells
- Dark Souls, +2 +3
- Hotline Miami, +2
- Binding of Isaac, + Rebirth
- etc.
I have two points to make:
First, the Achievement Hunting community is autistic as fuck. I don’t mean that as an insult (I believe I’m on the spectrum myself), but rather, I’m convinced there is a correlation.
Second, I believe achievement hunting is like the difference between playing sports for fun, or playing sports competitively/professionally. The challenge of 100% is occasionally so far beyond whatever ‘difficulty setting’ the game ships with.
I believe some blend of these two factors are the impetus for achievement hunting (in most cases).
In any case, I don’t disagree with you, achievements can feel hollow. In some ways, I think they have contributed to games losing their magic.
Gone are the days of some rare and obscure secrets a game has, because you’ll always know there is something you missed when you check your achievements.
“Discover the secret in the rotting wood graveyard” OK, cool, just fucking ruin the surprise I guess?
From a development standpoint it kinda makes sense, you do want your audience to experience everything the team worked on, but yeah, magic gone…
I’m also on the spectrum. Sometimes I think the spectrum is so wide as to be functionally useless for describing behavior. I feel like my comment maybe implied that I think less of people that feel compelled to 100% games, which is not the case. I just have different compulsions.
I’ve been gaming for over 30 years, and probably have thousands of games in my digital library. I don’t think I’ve gotten all of the achievements in any of them. I tend to predominantly play rpg’s, and other games with a strong narrative bent, and I try not to peek at the achievements, so as to avoid spoilers. I appreciate when the developers hide them, so it isn’t an issue.
I’ve seen many people argue that achievements have had a net negative effect on gaming, and I tend to agree, but I don’t really have strong feelings about it, since it typically doesn’t affect my experience very much.
You can beat factorio with extremely inefficient gameplay, layout, etc. There are two achievements in that sort of “taught” me how to play better. First was the one that limited how many items you could handcraft, and second was the speedrun achievements. Both were doable but forced me to automate more and plan things out in advance, and I can’t remember any other game’s achievements that qualitatively changed how I played.
I 100% RDR and killing cougars with a knife still haunts me. It’s exactly as it sounds. Go do melee combat with a gigantic pissed off cat that almost always comes in pairs, sometimes a trio.
I fucking hate how if certain animals come at you at a particular angle, there’s literally nothing you can do. Sure they give you the button-mash prompt, but it does literally nothing, and you still get mailed to death. Every. Single. Time.
I know you meant mauled, but the image of a giant cat sticking you in a box and mailing you to the reaper was just too funny 🤣
Challenges in action games are worth completing most of the time because they’re typically designed to either drive home the intended purpose of individual combat mechanics, or outright reveal mechanics too advanced to cover by basic tutorials—e.g. dodge counter in Hi-Fi Rush.
Megabonk has some “fun” challenges that probably counts towards both. I did the “AFK gaming” one, where your character isn’t allowed to be moved by the player ( a huge handicap). It was kind of fun figuring out which character would be best, what pickups to prioritize etc.
I cleared all the question marks in Skellige in Witcher 3. I expected…something…anything?
i broke the boat in the middle of the water and then quit the game for few months
The payoff is in Cyberpunk.
I have the “Completionist” achievement for Half-Life2 cause it was a fun challenge to get them all (yes even the gnome one), but gave up on Osmos: fun and relaxing game, but the last levels were too much hassle.
Breath of the Wild: getting all 900 or whatever Korok seeds. The reward is a golden Korok seed whose shape makes it very obvious that you’ve been cleaning up Korok poop this whole time. Pretty funny prank for Nintendo to pull tbh.
I’m glad Nintendo did that. Almost all completionist achievements are shit compared to actual substance in a game especially one as rich as BotW. Give the achievement hunter their dessert.
Hey, that’s not fair. If you complete the original 150 Pokedex, you also get a little diploma you can print on your GameBoy Printer.
