Why Trophy/Achievement Hunting Can Be A Bad Thing

I recently got my 13th Platinum Trophy with the new God of War game and while I was doing the side stuff for some Trophy clean up I was thinking about the process of getting a Platinum Trophy or getting 1000 Achievement points. There is something addicting about doing all the stuff a game has to offer in order to get digital bling. It adds replay value to most games and you end up playing games three or four times longer than if you just want to do the main story and a few side things. A downside of doing all that is you might find yourself doing a ton of stuff you really don't want to be doing.

To me, games are meant to be fun and some of the stuff you are asked to do in some of these games in order to get a Trophy/Achievement can be nuts! Some ask you to play on the hardest difficulty, some have you collecting a ton of useless stuff, and others are multiplayer related. Most multiplayer ones are tough to get cause multiplayer matches are always random with how they will go. Star Wars Battlefront II has a ton of multiplayers ones and they are frustrating. Like having to defeat 500 enemies as a Hero for the "We Are The Spark" Trophy. You have to get a decent amount of points to get a hero in normal modes or you can play Heroes vs Villains. Either way it'll take forever to get. And if you're like me and don't care for that game mode, then it will really take you forever!

Multiplayer games can have some BS ones to get but single player games have ridiculous things they ask you to do! I got the Platinum Trophy in Assassin's Creed Origins and that game had a few Trophies that were collectables related. Completing them had no gameplay functions and no in-game reward outside of xp. I had to clear out all of the bases and that was fun for a while but got very tedious by the end. The Far Cry games all have Achievements to clear out all the enemy bases and those are fun cause there aren't as many in those games.

Having said all that negative stuff about Trophies/Achievements, there are some good ones to go for. Some games have you kill enemies in different ways and those are always fun cause it makes you do ridiculous things that you might not otherwise try out. A game like Overwatch has Trophies based on doing stuff with each character and I like those cause it makes you play as all the characters. Going for ones like that might let you find a new main that you may have never played as.

My main point writing this is to say that maybe going for all the Achievements points and the Platinum Trophy isn't the best for every game you play. I've found myself looking at games in the sense of what kind of Trophies it has and not just enjoying the game I'm actually playing. I've developed this pride in that if I love a game I feel the need to get the Platinum Trophy to prove it and that's such an odd point of view! I kinda understand why Nintendo doesn't have anything like that, they just want players to play the games to have fun and play them. And I want to point out that going for Platinum Trophies is fine, there's nothing wrong with that, I'm speaking strictly about me here. I love just messing around in Destiny 2 and not worrying about Trophies and I put hundreds of hours into Halo and Call of Duty multiplayer over the years and never thought about Achievement points.

These are all just recent thoughts that I've had and wanted to write this quick post about them. I remember I used to be a big Achievement hunter during the Xbox 360 days. I remember me and one of my friends rented Avatar the Last Airbender: The Burning Earth because you could get 1000 Achievement points in like 5 mins. You totally can and we totally did! While I was playing Far Cry 5 and God of War it just got me thinking and I miss just playing games to just play them. It was getting to the point that it felt like work to get Trophies. Like right now I'm playing though Kingdom Hearts on the PS4 and it crossed my mind to Trophy hunt but I really liked playing it on PS2 when it came out just to play the game. So I'm gonna chill with Trophy hunting in the future and try to get back to just enjoying games for the sake of playing them. You should play a game for fun and because you want to play it, not to make your online Trophies/Achievements look better. That's my new viewpoint anyway haha! I'm just gonna play the games and get the story Trophies and the ones that sound fun. That's my plan! And if a Platinum sounds fun to go for, then I'll go for it. No more grinding useless ones for me in the future though! Playing thought The Legend of Zeld: Breath of the Wild last year was the best gaming experience I've ever had in my life and there were zero Trophies/Achievements, I want more experiences like that!

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good one!