I think one category of its own is also achievements which require you to complete a mission or level in a linear game. It's nothing special, but despite those achievements being basically placeholders I think they're a good placeholder because they allow easy access to a statistic: How many people played how much into that game.
it can also be really funny. did you know that getting S ranks in sonic generations is so piss easy, more people have gotten an S rank than have beaten the second zone?
I usually like to separate the achievements in 3 diferent categories: 1. History achievements: achievements that you need to get to progress through the story, you should have all the achievements in this category unlocked after you beat the game. 2. Challenge achievements: the types of achievements that tell you to do something, and if you do that thing, you will be rewarded, they are the most common ones, and can be either really easy or insanely hard. 3. Cumulative achievements: these ones count some kinda of stat, and when that stat reaches a certain number, you unlocked the achievements, example: kill 1000 enemies, collect 10 red gems, hit 100 headshots. You will usualy get these by just playing the game normaly, although these take more time than the history achievements.
Achievements were necessary in order for the game to be compatible with Xbox, which is why Toby forced them in. Steam is an even more interesting case, because developers can use them as progression flags to get feedback about how players interact with your game, and you can even use them as a rudimentary form of anti-cheat. EDIT: Wrote this before the video started
How would they work as an anti-cheat measure? You can tell that someone is cheating because they got several achievements suspiciously quickly, or because a lot of people have unlocked really hard achievements?
@@vlc-cosplayer There are achievements that the game flat out does not have code to hand out. It's also safe to ban anyone who has the "play for 5 years" achievement on a game that's only been out for one. That funny man who shows up on shorts also has it set up so that the game uses your achievements as a save file, so if you cheat you flat out just can't play the game.
@@omegahaxors3306 "There are achievements that the game flat out does not have code to hand out." Reminds me of dictionaries and phone directories adding non-existing words/numbers and addresses to catch unauthorized reproductions 😆 I see, thanks for the explanation!
I checked out the site, and I would like to commend whoever named the earthbound achievements. They gave us gems like "Is this legal?,", "It's a secret to everyone", "Four fried chickens and a coke" (and other Blues Brothers references) and "Jumping the sharks". These names are great, and all fit the actions you need to perform the terrible achievements.
I think Undertale's PS4 trophies are more than just funny joke achievements, they're thematically relevant to the story itself. The story of Undertale has always had a big focus on fading emotional investment, especially under the lens of completionism. How far will you go just to say you've done *everything?* What point is there even to doing everything when it starts to deconstruct your attachment to the world, turning funny and lovable characters into repeating lines of dialogue? Will you take away their happy ending, just to see another? Will you do the worst thing possible just to see what happens? Will you sit in front of this dog box constantly sliding in individual pieces of money, doing something patently unfun just to say you've completed something? "Don't you have anything better to do?" That's not just a sick burn from Toby after you get through the thing he specifically designed for people not to do, it's a line from the game itself (And spoilers so stop reading if you haven't gotten to this part of the game.) It's a line from Asriel, and Flowey by proxy. Who is the concept of fading emotional investment more than anything else - he's someone who had the ability to save, reload, reset. And he used to do all the good things, before getting bored. And starting doing other things, seeing what would happen, if he could get the things that everyone else said to change just a little. Even if it meant murder. Even if it meant genocide. He's the end result of what happens when a player stops caring about the characters, and starts caring about seeing everything he can. And then, at the end of the game, when he's given a soul, given a chance to feel, when that emotional invest has returned to him, when he can feel and care about these people again, you can find him after backtracking through the entire game in the final moments. And when you've literally walked your entire journey back to the beginning, he just asks... Don't you have anything better to do?
Flowey actually says it on more than just that occasion. Basically anywhere that you can redo encounters with him, he'll eventually say it as his final line. But since it's Flowey, not Asriel, it's much snarkier in nature in those instances. The point is that it's pretty much the catchphrase of the game for those who look for it.
I like it when the achievements are fun little challenges. Something like "defeat 20 enemies with environmental hazards", "reach the boss of level x within 1:45 and without taking damage" or " defeat three enemies with a single attack." Freedom Planet has a few fun achievements like that that reward players for doing things like using an ability at just the right spot to skip a door puzzle or disabling the boss' barrier before he finishes his monologue.
Extra challenges and silly hidden achievements are the best thing ever, personally love Library of Ruina (a singleplayer card game), which gives an achievement if you begin a turn without actually playing cards. The achievement's description even reads you probably did that by mistake, and I definitely did-
@@lisatroiani6119steam achievements sucks because you can cheat and earn without playing the game, it would be cool if steam screenshotted your game if you got a achievement
Into the Breach actually had fun with achievements like that. You had a bunch of achievements that were connected to none of your mech squads (more general stuff, like beating the game on Hard once, or doing a full run where you did all four islands), but then every mech squad except the secret one had three achievements each that related to their play style and actually make you think about just what kind of stuff you can do with each squad. And you do get rewarded for trying these out, since every achievement gives you a coin ingame, which you use to unlock the other squads beyond the default one you start with.
@@guichagas1517 and? i don’t get achievements to flex them off, i get ‘em because it’s fun! hell, i accidentally got one of those games on steam that just gives you like 5000 achievements as soon as you open it and to this day i have not opened the game because i don’t want those worthless achievements clogging up my steam profile (i do have one achievement that i can think of that was technically “cheated in” but i was playing with mods and a mod i was playing with gave me so many coins i got an achievement for it but the mods’ page didn’t say it would do that. i also hate that it was a really rare achievement so it shows up in my rare achievement showcase on my profile and it kinda stings because i didn’t really earn it)
One thing that I love about Celeste is that the Achievements alone will have you stop playing for them at 176 berries, the goldens which are the hardest part of the game go out of their way to ensure that you do them for yourself, not some reward, or a platinum trophy, or whatever, you do it for the intrinsic value of growing as a player and going that extra mile, which makes them brutal, but also a special kind of satisfying.
@@Cabinet_Man 716 is the official number of people who have recorded runs of it right now. There's definitely a small number of people who didn't record them collecting it too.
I HATE achievements where you have to do a crazy amount of grinding or trying to build up something. When done wrong they aren't even challenging, just really annoying.
@@NotArmani31 You might wanna try it (but don't try do 100% the achievement for your sanity, especially in Casual but Casual is ruined by bad actors hosting bots currently so only Community Servers is playable)
Bro FF3 3D remaster has a achevement to get all jobs to level 99... FOR ALL 4 PARTY MEMBERS. Each party member can only level 1 job at a time and there's around 20 jobs. What were they thinking!?
I find John Gutter's achievements specifically to be a stroke of genius. You basically get the first one for free, wheras the other two require what is basically a speedrun and a P-rank. Since you got that one achievement, the other two will probably bug you until you're skilled enough to get them, allowing the level to serve as not just an introductory level for the game, but also as an introduction to the postgame.
personally, i think henry stickmin has really good achievements because of how they don't force you to change how you play the game, they're just things to collect/spot while going through
Someone in my game dev studio passed this video over, and I wanted to say that you are MORE than capable of getting sponsored. While you may feel small as a channel right now, know that you're not too small to ask for sponsorships when making videos. Do what you love, love what you do, and that little bit of cash will start showing up more and more. You're gonna do great.
I like the way Terraria does achievements. Some are obvious like defeating bosses, or killing certain enemies, but others are downright useless, hilarious, or torture. One is called “Unusual Survival Strategies” and requires you to drink water, which restores 20 health, while drowning. Another called “And Good Riddance” requires you to purify the world of Crimson, Corruption, and Hallow, which are biomes that spread to adjacent blocks. This achievement is very difficult.
I usually never look at achievements, like why would I look at spoilers for a game I’m going to play? Which is why I don’t get all achievements, I just get a nice surprise when I do something cool or unexpected!
Here's the thing. 99% of people won't look at achievements before playing a game, and just play the darn game. If an achiv directs you towards a fun side gag, isn't it better that a person who would've missed it otherwise, st least got to see it? And when the person doesn't see it, then I doesn't change anything since they will find the gag on their own and then the achievement will pop up after. I don't think the game acknowledging the fact that you did something, ruins the fact that you did it. Achievements are intrinsically worthless. A bad, un-fun achievement can always just be skipped. Imagine if there was, for example, an achievement that has a 1% chance of appearing when you open the game. Now, that's an awful achievement, but no-one's forcing you to get it. I do think that skill/gameplay focused games like pizza tower just have an advantage when it comes to achievements beacuse for simplistic RPG's like earthbound and Undertale, there just aren't any Gameplay related achievements that are fun to get. For my indie rpg example, Sea of Stars. It has achievements related to story progression (beating bosses), completion (finding hidden treasure chests, etc.), and only a few handful of Gameplay related achievements. The only one I can think of from the top of my head is to bounce the boomerang special attack (think: green shell from Mario and Luigi) 20 times in a row. Sea of Starts already has a much more engaging battle system with blocks and stuff (like in paper Mario), and even then it's struggling. All in all. Being rewarded with an extrinsic achievement for an otherwise intrinsic action doesn't take away the intrinsic value of it. You can do a job because you like it, and because you get paid to do it (literally what you're doing with UA-cam, even if it's a hobby, you're getting paid). If there was an achievement in Undertale for stacking 30 hotdogs on your head, that doesn't take away to hilarity of the situation. And for a person that might've missed the joke, they wouldn't have gotten any reward otherwise at all.
I imagine most people don't look at achievements before playing a game, but they will look at them AFTER beating a game, looking for things to do. At that point, it does take away the feeling of the moment compared to finding it yourself. Yes, people get to see that fun side gag, but finding that gag through exploration and happenstance is very different from deliberately looking for it. It's no longer an organic secret, but an excuse to milk time out of you for a miniscule amount of side content. Regardless of whether achievements are actually worth anything, that's the mentality they set in a player's mind.
@@lukebytes5366But the thing is that nowadays we have so many games to play that after most people beat a game they go play another game. So having the achievement gives you a reason to come back after playing
Finally had a chance to watch this, and i 100% agree. while the dopamine from achivements is nice, i feel like far too often they are simply there as time wasters. I platinumed Bloodborne and Spiderman because the tasks the achievements gave me were genuinely interesting challenges, but more importantly it wasnt tied to literally everything in the game (and as such, the non achievement side content was also fun)
Never even thought about seeing achievements like this, but this is super interesting the pizza tower achievements are so genius, as you say they guide you towards how to improve while still making you rely on your own skill to actually earn them, it's perfect for this type of platforming game I think the earthbound custom achievements COULD work but not in the game they are in. Potentially for something like an MMO where grind is inherent, and where what you gain from it isn't just a waste of time, but rather grants you resources you can use elsewhere and also a flashy badge to show off to other people in the same game
As someone who discovered RA last year, I'd like to weigh in with my thoughts on the matter. Not every game is suitable to have achievements, I will give you that. I can't speak for Earthbound in particular because I haven't played it (yet), and I must admit that some achievements aren't well designed (case in point: the SM64 set originally had achievements for getting every coin in every stage. These have since been moved to their own subset after some backlash). However, not only are most achievements on the site rather fun to hunt down, but the mere purpose of the site itself is bound to attract people who'd enjoy earning them and drive away those who don't. I can confidently say that playing Banjo-Kazooie and Star Fox was made substantially more enjoyable by virtue of achievements existing. I even endured trough 200 hours of repetive grind on Destiny Islands merely because it was a set on RA. I just enjoy getting achievements that much that I'm willing to push trough for the mastery badge, and I believe most of the site's active users are no different than me. Not to mention, the entire site is entirely made for and by its community. People can vote to modify achievement sets if they disagree with the creator's choices. Games on RA don't have achievements because some people demanded for it to be so (like with Undertale on PS4), they have them because someone cared enough to develop a set for it. Every developer on the site is a volunteer. They do get shiny badges on their profile for being developers, but if they do it they must enjoy making achievements to some degree. That's how I feel about the site as a whole, really. The games themselves are fun as is, but for some people it's even better when you slap an achievement set on top of it and that's why RA exists.
Pizza Tower's achievements might be the great, but what isn't great is McPig's (lead dev) driving skills (in reference that in a recent stream he fucked everything up while playing Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers)
My favorite achievement in any game is the one from ghost trick, it basically challenges you to do a reverse puzzle that removes a key puzzle element from play which triggers funny dialogue. That and the achievement for doing all the optional sliding puzzles, that was a good time
probably some of my favorite achievements ever are on your only move is hustle which is a fighting game, while it has a handful of generic progress achievements like "win x matches" it also does something fantastic with a couple of its achievements, which is tasking you with figuring out advanced techniques on your own to get them. Stuff like "combo off of burst", "combo off of robot's command grab", "launch yourself with wizard's spark bomb" and "land 3 palm strikes in one combo as ninja" are all basically optional mini-tutorial puzzles that just say "hey here's this cool thing you can do, can you figure out how?". None of them are particularly hard to get if you just experiment with your character's kit, and the game also clearly focuses on the fact that the challenge is only to figure it out and not to apply it in a real match, since every achievement of this type is obtainable in training mode where you have full control over both characters, i wish more games used achievements to teach obscure tech like this
I've put tens of thousands of hours into RetroAchievements. I never really cared about official achievements, it's the user generated nature of the website is what keeps me playing - it's like Mario Maker for can you beat stuff plus checklists to truly exhaust doing everything a game has to offer. For these games that I've played hundreds of times, it's amazing having new stuff to do with them and reasons to do parts of the game that I never bothered with before. But this is a double edged sword. I actually like those checklist type achievements you complained about the Earthbound set having... but only for games I've already played. I would never want to play Earthbound, or most RPGs for that matter, for the first time on RA (or ever in some cases). To earn these types of achievements, my options are either follow a guide the entire time, ruining my first playthrough, or miss content and be forced to 100% the entire game again, neither of which is fun at all. There's also the sets that go too far in general - Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 is one of my favorite childhood games. It was one of the first if not the first racing game I ever played, and started a lifelong obsession with racing games. That being said, I could never recommend the set to a single human being on the planet other than myself. The set requires you to do the maximum of 8 laps on every single track in both modes with every car class. This is insane and the game never expects you to do this at all (after a few attempts, the game actually crashes after a restart. lmao). Just 8 lap races would be doable for me EXCEPT THERE'S THE EXTRA RESTRICTION THAT YOU HAVE TO WIN THE COP RACES WITHOUT GETTING BUSTED AT ALL! These races are 30 to 40 minutes long, in a mode where the cops do not screw around at all - one mistake or even a bit of bad luck and your ass WILL get busted. This set took me 140 hours to master and about 90% of that was these stupid races. The thing with RA is that unlike other platforms, we're in the unique position where we have solutions to all these problems - sets can be revised if they're truly egregious. There's also these things called Subsets where essentially it's extra achievements that aren't a part of the main achievement set. There's also a Beaten status for every game and a leaderboard for how many games you've Beaten. I think expanding all of these features is the solution to making everyone happy, whether you just want an excuse to enjoy these games or completely ruin a children's game by doing the most sadistic challenges possible. I'd actually really enjoy those Hot Pursuit 2 achievements if they were in a [Subset - Endurance Races] since at that point it's just extra stuff to do in a game I've already completed, rather than being a requirement. I'm actually a set developer on RA. This doesn't apply to every RA developer but I mostly make sets for myself to play - I won't add achievements to a main set that I wouldn't want to do myself. My tolerance for stuff is probably higher than the average player so I've had the honor of many people, including those in this very comments section, completely shit all over my work, but at least I try.
If I could make an addition as someone who often hunts achievements and has 100%ed several achievement lists for games I love I can absolutely say there are good achievement lists, and bad achievement lists. But I think your look at them as purely extrinsic is limiting. I find achievements less like a checklist and more like a map. I don’t want to miss anything, I want to experience everything, and achievements are a good way of doing that for me. The little chime is one thing, but I’ve always valued what they lead me to more than anything. Not to mention, achievements are almost like a snapshot of your playthrough. There are days where I’ll scroll through my achievements and reminisce on the moment. You’re framing achievements as if they’re this dispassionate list of tasks that takes away from the experience, that makes it just a bunch of items to collect. I’m not gonna lie, some lists are like that. But I don’t think tying a small, in-game event to an achievement ruins the value of that event. It doesn’t spoil that interaction. It doesn’t stop you from reading the text. It just lets you know “hey, this exists” and gives you a little badge for deciding to do it. The badge is nice, but the real meat of the achievement was what it led you to. The badge is really more of a souvenir than anything. Still, this is a very well-made and well-argued video, and I can certainly understand your stance even if I don’t agree with it. It’s very clear you value games as an art, and this clearly comes out of a love for the medium and not out of hate for achievements. I like that.
Personally I don't get where he's coming from at all. I just don't see how achievements being there take away from an experience. The people who'll enjoy them will get them and the people who won't just ignore the set altogether.
I like RetroAchivements, and I like Super Mario 64 and its ROM hacks. But those two things DO NOT mix. Like, there’s a bunch for just collecting stars, beating stars cannonless, beating the bosses no-hit, then finding all the warps (?), doing combo moves (What does that even mean? This is a Mario game), getting all the extra lives, random speedrun tricks, and getting the red coin stars damageless? Why? And these aren’t even the bonus achievements, by the way. The BONUS achievements include doing a 0 star speedrun, collecting the impossible coins, 100% the game without dying, clip out of bounds, do the Lakitu skip, doing the hat in hand glitch, doing a bomb clip, doing cannonless, doing the A Button Challenge, doing the green demon challenge, and… going idle? Really, they put carpetless, an INCREDIBLY hard trick to perform, in the main category, meanwhile going AFK is considered bonus.
but here is the thing, well the counterpoint. I did sm64 retroarchievements and i would never have done some of the tricks before because they are slower than doing it the right way or with a speedrun trick. but RA made me actually try some hard tricks. heck the bonus category while i havent done it still teaching me a lot of my favorite game. Tricks that i know that it exist but never tried before
On the topic of Undertale, I like how the console versions' exclusive rooms have a tiny connected story between the platforms in the order they were released. On playstation you donate to the annoying dog to help it build up a shrine, on switch it's all worn down and abandoned, so Mew Mew uses it as her hiding place, and on xbox the whole shrine gets bulldozed in place of the casino that raised the whole game's age rating only on that platform lol
Why are you viewing them as tasks? That's not what they are. They're not forcing you to do anything. No game creator expects you to get all of the achievements. Achievements are supposed to commemorate your... well, achievements. Honestly, I think you're looking too deep into Pizza Tower, but even if you're not, that kind of stuff has never been a standard. Achievements also highlight stuff you could do if you want more playtime and provide recognition for doing impressive stuff. They were never meant to just be tests of skill really. Also, there are such a thing as hidden achievements on steam, which don't spoil you or direct you to anything. Also, I think if you're looking in the achievements to find what to do, especially before a game, you shouldn't complain when the reward is extrinsic. The kind of silly achievements in PlayStation Undertale are exactly what I want. Achievements aren't forced, and they're not requirements unless you want to 100% a game, which isn't what you're really ever intended to do. (I do agree, though, that forcing achievements makes literally no sense)
Like I agree video games should be completed as the author intended (at least first). But you keep making achievements out to be a forced standard of completion, when they're only like the last third of that.
On the subject of "Sesame Seed tier" cheevs... I'm actually the sort of player that, without something pointing me towards these little moments, will completely bypass them. Not because I wouldn't care about their intrinsic value, but because I wouldn't look outside of "100%" much. Having achievements of this sort directs me to these sorts of moments, meaning that for my personality, _they are essential to experiencing said moments._ On the _other_ hand, I'm not a fan of traditional RPGs. Outside of Chrono Trigger, every single one has had something that either discounts it as such in my mind (Paper Mario is prominent there), or is way too easy to enjoy (Pokemon Red), or is obnoxious with grinding (Final Fantasy 9 and 10)... so the presence of the "random drop" cheevs definitely doesn't help. Not to mention, because all the cheevo sets are made by different people, quality isn't always consistent. There are of course standards, but some are standout while others lack something. My own sets for instance: they're excellent in terms of titles and descriptions, but are pretty lacking in non-progression.
@@Granad784 No... I mean "way too easy to enjoy". See the following point where I say others are obnoxious with grinding? That's true of _every single one I consider traditional,_ with the sole exception of Chrono Trigger.
how did you have to grind in ff10, did you just run from every battle you ran into other than bosses did you do advanced sphere grid and just make your builds random i have never once had to grind in that game
One of my favorite achievements in a game is the platinum for Don't Starve. When Ps4 forced them to add trophies, the devs of the game were pretty annoyed at that, so they added a new item called the Accomploshrine. When you craft the shrine (using a pretty hefty amount of materials, mind you), you get the first achievement "Look upon my works, ye mighty...". You can then crank the lever on the Accomplishing to wind it up. After you wind it 25 times, a firework will shoot out, and your character will be like "yay I did it!" or something along those lines. Okay, funny joke, you get the achievement from that and are done right? Wrong. In order to get the achievement, you need to wind the Accomploshrine up an additional SEVEN-HUNDRED TIMES. Each time shooting another firework and having your character get excited again. Only then will you get the second achievement, "...and Despair", and earn the platinum. The achievement names reference the poem Ozymandius, referring to how the Accomploshrine was meaningless, just like the king's "works" from the original poem. I'm pretty sure that the reason they didn't want to add achievements is because in old versions of the game, they actually DID have achievements, but it created an issue where most players just did all the achievements and then stopped playing, whereas the point of the game is just to survive as long as possible in creative ways, so they removed them.
I dont think its fair to compare achievements on a turn based rpg like earthbound with an action platformer like pizza tower, there arent much achievements to be made on turn based rpg other than "get to the max level" or "here is a list of the sidequests and easter eggs, go get them"
It's nice to see others concerns about placing achievements into everything. I feel like I can especially vibe with the first portion of this video because I have a similar story. So, I made a ROM hack of my favorite game and eventually discovered someone actually made achievements for it in RetroAchievements. It was a bitter-sweet feeling. On one hand, I was honored that enough people enjoyed it that they were willing to put the time and effort to make up achievements for it. But on the other, I felt like I lost a bit of agency to my own creation. More importantly, however, I was worried people wouldn't be able to enjoy it as much because achievement hunters might feel obligated to do things that they didn't find fun. The biggest offender was an achievement that required a sequence break that I accidentally introduced into the game. The fact it existed wasn't a problem to me, but the fact there was an achievement behind it spotlighted it and made people feel like they had to do it to "100%" it. I think the worst part I think if I had more agecny over my own achievements, I'd be more happy with them. Anyways, great video. It's nice to see people talking about this. Not because I think achievements are inheritely bad, but because they have pros and cons that I feel go underlooked, due to them being considered part of a "staus quo".
Good achievements should be built on strengths that are already present in the game. If the game is built around optional tools that make the game easier like mega man or shovel knight, make an achievement that forbids those tools. If the game is built on exploration and secrets, turn the achievement list into it's own hint map. Achievements exist in the first place because people want to get more out of the game, not because people want to do chores that happen to be in a game format. (I'll give undertale credit though since satire is it's own strength)
I find it interesting how LEGO games have to tackle their Trophies/Achievements because they have almost no challenge factor. Outside of completion, they make achievements that require you to do specific things or play as specific characters for the sake of a joke. Or padding. While some come off as desperate, others can be downright hilarious. Let’s say you’re playing LEGO Lord of the Rings and are already familiar with the source material. The first level, to be exact. You fight a massive horde of Orcs, slay Sauron, and conclude by scaling Mount Doom as Isildur and Elrond to cast the One Ring into the fire. Finally, you make it to the bridge to reenact the inevitable. But…hang on. The cutscene doesn’t trigger until you reach the end of the bridge, and you still have control over Isildur. What if you just had him…jump? Y’know? Achievement Unlocked! “It Won’t Be That Easy!”
(Part way through the video) I think my least favorite kind of achievements are online only achievements, especially when those games shut down. It just puts a time limit to getting them. I will never be able to complete the Halo 3 achievement list because the servers are dead. Same with so many other games
Really good, thoughtful, and well put together video. I really do love the concept of achievements, but feel like so many games drop the ball when figuring out how to implement them in a meaningful way. Achievements, to me, shouldn’t so much push menial, grindy, or luck based tasks, but ways to push a player to achieve challenging goals or hone their skill at a game. Some of my favourite childhood gaming memories are playing on Hypixel and working to win at mini games while simultaneously managing odd restrictions that made me view them in a whole new way. This isn’t to say it handles achievements perfectly (believe you me it has a lot of sucky, grindy ones), but at its best I think it demonstrates how achievements can work to better games, rather than detract from them.
I watched a video from cadicerusa or whatever how his names correctly spelled and in the Ratatouille video game he got an achievement for watching a cutscene which was the very first cutscene in the game and he hadn't even done anything yet, the only other achievement that's even as close to being pathetic was when he got one for pressing the left stick in bee movie.
I'm not going to be the guy to correct you, because "Cadicerusa" is the damn funniest and honestly most unbelievable misspellings of that username that could exist. I'm sure Jim would make a joke about that, but maybe not.
When Flowey kindly asked me to leave everyone in peace after a pacifist run, I genuinely felt bad I was planning on doing a GENOCIDE run. I haven’t touched Undertale in years because of that.
I think the best example of badges I've seen are the ones for Yume Nikki Online. Yume Nikki along with its fangames in general are extremely non linear, with no real goal and the only collectibles being effects, so achievements work well as a motivation to explore the world. Along with this, the achievements (called badges) don't have any information until you get them as a means of not spoiling things. Add in some amazing fanmade pixel art and online interaction and the badges become a great way to come back to the game.
I have a friend who, when playing a game, will make sure to unlock every single achievement, even if the game ends up not being fun for him. This also means that if there's knowledge of a certain achievement that it's less than desirable, he will most likely not play the game, which is a shame because he's missing out on Final Fantasy IX
I think it’s pretty neat when you find one of those cute interactions and the game basically says: great job! But it’s kinda bad when you’re actively trying to get them So, I think you should always play a game before hunting (specifically games like undertale, earthbound etc, the games that are actual experiences)
I mostly disagree with your points here, more than anything because I don't think extrinsic achievements are a thing in most games. You'll only go out of your way for an achievement if *YOU* want to. If all you get is a trophy, sticker or whatever, that's just the game rewarding you for doing an achievement you wanted to do. Not only achievements, but 100%ing a game as well. No, getting those endings in Undertale was not a waste of time more than any other thing I did in the game, I did them because I wanted to see them. I got nothing out of it neither did I want to, the reward was completely intrinsic.
Personally, I find achievements really helpful because there's like 800000 billion games out there in the world now so it's just nice QoL to have a goal-oriented way to go about playing a large number of games. I especially love the achievements that point me towards cool easter eggs or hidden content that a ton of people would otherwise miss. Just think about how popular "game breakdown", "hidden secrets of X game", and easter egg videos are UA-cam are - it makes sense that achievements built into games would help people to experience these as well.
I have a massive love/hate relationship with achievements. I like being able to show that I managed to do something challenging. My favorite achievements are usually some rather unorthodox challenges which make you play a game in some strange non-intuitive way. Not always difficult but different. It is a wonderful tool from dev side of things to encourage certain behaviours (and test the limits of the game) like you mentioned. I just really dislike completionist stuff in general. As a player I have to actively fight the urge to fill some weird quota for busywork. As a dev I'm under constant struggle of trying to design how I want to manage achievements. I want acknowledge the player's effort directly, but I don't want to make anyone do it FOR the acknowledgement itself. People are gonna burn themselves out doing things for it so it isn't worth it for the sake of the general experience. I generally think achievements work best as tools to direct the player or acknowledge some pretty wide things like beating the game or some very specific challenge, not for filling arbitrary quotas. This is the first video I've seen from you and I hope you keep up the good work!
Really cool video! Another reason why Pizza Tower's level achievements work so well is because they can all be beaten in one attempt (except for the first level), creating an extra intrinsic challenge to practice when just getting a p rank becomes too easy. This makes the 101% speedrun category feel fun, but not too tedious. Really recommend it😄
@bulb9970 there are plenty of good turn based rpgs, but imo your experience of them mainly isn't gameplay driven. It's a mix of things usually, but a good story can keep one hooked better on a mediocre battle system.
I often forget achievements exist. When I get one I go, "oh yeah, that's a thing" and then proceed to keep playing. My favorite thing about them though is actually using them as a reminder/log of what I did during my last play session. I just played Hollow Knight for the first time, and when I had to take a week break between sessions, I would glance at my achievements to get a feel for what I was doing before. The only game I ever "achievement" hunted in was Banjo Kazooie, only because beating the main story gives you most of them, I wanted to get 100% which gives you even more, and then the last two weren't too much work and I figured it would be neat to have all the achievements. It's also a useful statistic to see how far people get in games or what mechanics are being engaged with. I was actually going to make my own Minecraft enchanting video, but when looking between the different versions with public achievements, I found that only about 20% of players made an Enchantment Table and only 40% got full iron armor on average. But finding 17 different biomes? 50%. Absolutely baffling.
My favorite achievements are those that are directly related to gameplay, whether it be to teach or to test you. I remember learning about the mechanic called EX skills from the achievement list in the mega man zero collection, and it has since become one of my favorite games mostly in part to that mechanic. I also got hours of fun doing all the challenge runs in the shovel knight series.
I will never forget the statement Toby gave on if the PS4 port will have a achievements I'm sorry So it won't have them? No, it will. That's why I said I'm sorry.
So the makers of Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together used to be fully against achievements as a whole so when porting Don't Starve over to PlayStation they added in 2 achievements as well as one new in game building known as the Accomploshrine. Simply building the shrine gave you the first achievement which was named "Look on my works, ye Mighty,". Now this building could be interacted with to spin a small hand fully once which caused a long hand to move slightly and to get the second achievement you had to interact with the Accomploshrine 725 times which would cause a very small and pathetic firework display to come out of the building, resetting the progress back to zero and having the character say the line, "I feel so accomplished." Nowadays they have warmed up more to the idea of achievements and the PlayStation port of Don't Starve has more on it now that is just tied to unlocking characters which other than Maxwell is basically a nothing burger of an achievement. Meanwhile the console ports of Don't Starve Together having more achievements that imo are mostly unneeded other than seeing a tallbird lay an egg. That one is 100% needed and makes the game better as a whole, the more people who see that animation first hand the better. However neither Don't Starve or Together have steam achievements as it isn't needed and they don't seem to be making new ones for the consoles as the game gets updated.
I found this achievement issue with Disco Elyisum, its obvious RPGs with many paths that the player can only build one path through weren't made for achievements. They did make some hilarious achievements related to DE's dialogue trees like: Unbelievably Boring F**k: Say 7 boring things Literally the Sorriest Cop on Earth: Apologize 10 (!!!) times World's Most Laughable Centrist: Defend the political centre 7 times. These, and many more achievements are cool because they encourage the player to role play and its clear that its not a ''collectible.'' However here's an example of a bad achievement: ''Medal dispenser'' requires you to get a medal item from a Veteran and then later you encounter a woman with dementia who thinks shes a police officer. You can pin the medal on her and bow to her with the very unlikely condition that your partner is not in your party. Its a very very sweet moment in the game that only a few people should have known about and it was ruined by the achievement telling me about it. The worst achievement is ''The Figurines Won't Win Her Back: They do nothing,'' this requires getting 2 figurine items at which point your character will suddenly have a revelation that his ex-wife loved figurines making it seem important. In the end-game, you can give the figurines to Her but she just thinks you're fucking weird for it. This would have been such a funny bit if she said, ''I don't want your figurines'' and left it at that, the achievement completely ruined the joke by making it seem like I did anything
You are comparing the achievements of a platformer with a ranking system to achievements you CHOSE to apply to your game via an outside tool in a JRPG. It is really not a fair or direct comparison to convey your point. Your overall point about how achievements should and shouldnt be designed is good, but your apples to orange comparison is quite stupid. Also one of your main complaints is that the achievements function as a checklist, you are using achievements from a website, these were not built into the game, if you dont want a checklist dont choose to read one its really that simple. Your point about games having intrinsic reward is true, but having an achievement to signify (shocker) an achievement of getting something, i.e a rare item, is valid, your example of the worthless house in EB giving an achievement is a good example of this being taken to far, however again this achievement is not apart of the game it is from a website which you chose to apply as a mark of accomplishment. I feel like you underplayed the legitimacy of having achievements purely for the sake of achievement rather than solely using them as teaching methods for you to improve. If you are against RNG/Rare drops in totality then fine, but giving an achievement for getting them really doesnt do anything but make it more satisfying when you do, or if you best a hard challenge. Especially when said hard challenges are from an optional website/tool you choose to apply.
I feel the same way about games like BOPL Battle, I loved discovering stuff like shooting a growth ray in water to reflect it onto yourself when I played the demo and when I saw that all of those funny little things are just spoiled to you in the steam achievements list... I was a bit sad to be honest
The only game I've gotten all achievments for (besides those that only have progression related achievements) is Ghost Trick, and that's only because it's a relatively short game that I love. The achievements themselves in that game aren't even that great, I'm gonna be real, they're usually "do [thing] without losing" and considering you can reset all puzzles whenever you want while playing them, you're likely not lose anyway on your first try. Not to mention the optional sliding puzzle achievements that barely relate to the game. There's only a couple of achievements that I thought were cool because they shined a spotlight on fun little interactions I never knew were in the game. One of them was basically a whole extra puzzle in itself where the solution is to fail at something that you shouldn't be able to fail.
I like how the Switch doesn't have achievements. It allows me to play through games without the stress of collecting everything. I only collect everything if I really enjoy a game or if there's extra bonus levels behind it. Achievements can be fun if you really enjoy a game and want to get more out of it, but they usually end up being more tedious than fun.
I don't get this. If you feel pressured to get achievements for a game you don't care about that's a you problem. I'd rather they be there for the people who love the game than not.
@@DoctorMario606 i see this argument a lot by the anti-achievement types, plenty here in this comment section even that "oh well then i gotta 100% then" or "people are gonna have to 100% these if you introduce them" but i just dont get it, maybe its because ive literally never felt like i HAD to 100% every game i play but it feels insane to look at something and feel like you have to play every little aspect of it "oh what if people have to do something unfun to 100%" they signed up for it when they decided they NEEDED to 100% stuff
@@sipcee personaly the only issue i have with 100% Achievments is when they are unobtainabe like when a component gets descontinued on a game that id like to 100% mainly those that are my faves
@@sipceeachievements are the very things that cultivate that mentality. Most people wouldn't care about true 100% if there wasn't a little bar rewarding you for doing it every time you close the game. Achievements make tedious busy work look like a badge of honor rather than a waste of time.
Great video! This is something I've never really thought about, but I cant say I don't agree. I've never been a perfectionist when it comes to video games, but achievements can stress me out because of the need to check all of the boxes. Even if I don't want to, but do it anyways because it looks unsatisfying if i don't. Like coloring over something and missing a tiny spot in the corner. The achievements that I do have an interest in are the ones that are incredibly vague. The ones that you earn, but the game doesn't tell you what you did to get it. Most of the time, it's just for getting multiple endings or something, but if you're going into the game with little knowledge then it's almost like a puzzle to solve. Using the clues in the game and what path you're on to try and get the ending or other secret thing that unlocks this achievement. I'm playing a game like that right now, and I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm having fun while I do it, and that's the most important thing :3 it's good for replayability as well!
Undertale not having achievements annoys me, because Undertale did everything for me when it came out. It was an incredible experience and had me laugh, I've played through it with many friends voicing it all. And in the end. There's nothing to show this love for it. 100% a game to me shows off how much I love a game or dedication. Yes I get the gimmick where "no that's not the point it's an experience" Yeah... and I'd love to show my experience and love for the game on steam, but the best I can do is put it as a fav game. And I have no real amount of hours on my account because I had them on my brothers account and when I played with friends they'd play on their accounts. I've seen everything through others and I have nothing to show on my steam profile, if there were achievements, as simple as the Easter eggs or endings I'd do them all. Because I love the game. No other reason, I've already seen all there is that has been found.
ok, with the sesame seeds example i can already see where you're going, i agree with whatever you said, probably not all of it but for the most part, good video
I feel like I and everyone ik irl views achievements way differently. They aren’t something to seek out, they are just fun pop ups and fanfare for cool or rare moments. Stumbling into achievements is really fun and they often enhance the experience of discovery and strengthen high moments (terraria in general, LISA’s “No...” and portal 2’s “The part where he kills you” are really good examples.) I guess this is a bit subjective, but if your goal is fun, actively seeking out achievements is just the wrong way to do it (which is why all achievements should be hidden by default imo.) Using achievements as a way to teach the game seems weird to me since they are often handled differently depending on the platform. Also, that is a way more intrusive way to teach something compared to a subtle in game tutorial since you are returning the players focus to the platform rather than the game, which can break immersion.
Why should games stop having achievements? It's great fun to try and get them if they haven't become imposible to do so. It brings extra satisfaction, I believe.
I only focus on achievements once I am done with the main game and had seen everything important that the game had to offer, achievement hunting afterwards can be really fun at times, but like it’s ultimately inconsequential, so I don’t have any qualms to use guides or look up what to do to reach them
retroachievements is cool until they pull bullshit like super mario 64 lifesaver. i like it whenever theres stuff like cannonless but the lifesaver stuff just isnt fun and feels like bloat what doesnt help that is the amount of rng that some of them require. like tiny huge island lifesaver is what made me literally give up on that achievement set i think its important to be able to separate the achievement set from the actual game, and use it less to "master" a game and more as just a tool to see what cool stuff you CAN do cause with these it can get to a point where it just isnt fun
this inspired me to make an achievement where you go through an entire rpg game and win while either having the bare minimum level or stuck at level one, testing true skill, timing, and strategies
I, personally, am an achievement addict. I just enjoy knowing that I have official made the most of the purchase of a game. It's also nice being rewarded for completing a difficult challenge in a less direct way than just an item Still, there are games that don't need them and a lot of developers forget that
The only game with linear ass achivements I can forgive is Thumper cuz that game is hard enough that just getting through it really feels like an achivement
A problem i find about achievements is that sometimes updates that bring new characters, features or mechanics make them way too easy. This happened to me with cuphead and pizza tower, i remember back in 2020 couldnt get the platinum of cuphead because i couldnt beat king dice on expert but in 2022 i came back with chalice and beat it at the third time. With pizza tower and the noise update happens the same, i spent like 80 hours to get all achievements before the noise update and after the noise came out all achievements were way too easier to do with him. Maybe some games shouldnt allow to get some achievements with new characters, it makes them lack difficulty. Anyway loved the video
i agree that achievements really don't fit games such as Earthbound or Undertale, albiet that I don't think it's entirely fair to hold Retroachievements to the same standard. That list was clearly made by some overeager fan rather than someone actively thinking of a good set of achievements. But yes, not every game really needs or even works with achievements. That being said I think they can serve a variety of purposes and that making achievement sets is kind of an art in and of itself. Challenge achievements like you mentioned are the most obvious, after story achievements I guess. I think achievements can be an additional way to try and steer players towards trying different things, like if you find people aren't using tools introduced later in the game you could add achievements that require their use to at least force them to sample it and find if they enjoy it. Incremental achievemetns also fit into this a bit. And to be honest I think even "sesame seed"-tier achievements can be alright at certain times if you're worried about people just completely missing it, if you don't spoil the bit in the achievement maybe. The big problem is more that playing to complete an achievement checklist is not very fun, but there's never going to be a magic solution to that since the people who would be doing that are often also seeing a game without achievements and feeling no desire to start playing.
As much as I like the game compared to most, Sonic Lost World probably does achievements the worst of any game I played. You don't just do an action and get the corresponding achievement; you have to complete 3 randomly selected missions at maximum, and when you beat one of these missions you get the achievement. Not only does this slow the pace to the ground when achievement hunting, but in Steam if you get the achievement and exit the level you still have the mission to complete, meaning you have to do the mission again to clear it out of the queue and therefore get a new one. That's not even getting into the fact most achievements can be collected by just playing the game normally, no out-of-the way achievements or secrets, just standard gameplay. Also Omachao is the one giving you missions, which may have been a bad sign. The worst achievement is those involving the Black Bomb Wisp, you get them as a rare powerup either by beating the Nights Into Dreams stage, which disappears after being completed and will only reappearance when you reach certain score thresholds, or by completing missions, which are both random and limited. Then you have to activate the Black Bomb and do the associated missions, and THEN complete the stage to get the mission cleared. That fact alone made me stop achievement hunting in Sonic Lost World, it's worse than the Red Rings, the dang Snowball Level, and the Deadly Dumbdumbs combined.
I think one category of its own is also achievements which require you to complete a mission or level in a linear game. It's nothing special, but despite those achievements being basically placeholders I think they're a good placeholder because they allow easy access to a statistic: How many people played how much into that game.
they also give me access to the knowledge of when I was that far in something the first time, which is cool if it's a game that I come back to
complete the tutorial: 60%
It's always funny seeing the percentage drop off at a particularly annoying part. Like that one desert mission in Ace Combat 7
@@psy-fi64the 40% are game joirnalists
it can also be really funny. did you know that getting S ranks in sonic generations is so piss easy, more people have gotten an S rank than have beaten the second zone?
why is sans in both 2nd and 3rd place
Teleportation
They are different characters.
@@MatthewConnellan-xc3oj no they arent sans is ness
game theory is never wrong
@@MatthewConnellan-xc3ojSans is Ness, look at Toby's tweet regarding MatPat's retirement
@@fedethegreat88Papyrus is also ness!!!
I usually like to separate the achievements in 3 diferent categories:
1. History achievements: achievements that you need to get to progress through the story, you should have all the achievements in this category unlocked after you beat the game.
2. Challenge achievements: the types of achievements that tell you to do something, and if you do that thing, you will be rewarded, they are the most common ones, and can be either really easy or insanely hard.
3. Cumulative achievements: these ones count some kinda of stat, and when that stat reaches a certain number, you unlocked the achievements, example: kill 1000 enemies, collect 10 red gems, hit 100 headshots. You will usualy get these by just playing the game normaly, although these take more time than the history achievements.
Skill points in the Spyro trilogy are also pretty good imo
Half-life 2:
some of these retro achievements feel like when you go out if your way to go to the dishes, but your mom tells you to, so now you don’t want to do it
Achievements were necessary in order for the game to be compatible with Xbox, which is why Toby forced them in. Steam is an even more interesting case, because developers can use them as progression flags to get feedback about how players interact with your game, and you can even use them as a rudimentary form of anti-cheat. EDIT: Wrote this before the video started
Also to appear in the Playstation Store
Which is why the Dog Shrine exists
I mean, he could have had vague achievements for random generic RPG things like "Buy an item" or "talk to 5 NPCs."
How would they work as an anti-cheat measure? You can tell that someone is cheating because they got several achievements suspiciously quickly, or because a lot of people have unlocked really hard achievements?
@@vlc-cosplayer There are achievements that the game flat out does not have code to hand out. It's also safe to ban anyone who has the "play for 5 years" achievement on a game that's only been out for one. That funny man who shows up on shorts also has it set up so that the game uses your achievements as a save file, so if you cheat you flat out just can't play the game.
@@omegahaxors3306 "There are achievements that the game flat out does not have code to hand out." Reminds me of dictionaries and phone directories adding non-existing words/numbers and addresses to catch unauthorized reproductions 😆
I see, thanks for the explanation!
I like achievements because they can give me stuff to do in games I don’t have much left to do.
EXACTLY.
Don’t you have anything better to do?
@@lisatroiani6119 bruh leave them alone loser.
@lisatroiani6119 there's such a thing as having free time bruh
@@DoctorMario606 someone didn’t get the reference
I checked out the site, and I would like to commend whoever named the earthbound achievements. They gave us gems like "Is this legal?,", "It's a secret to everyone", "Four fried chickens and a coke" (and other Blues Brothers references) and "Jumping the sharks". These names are great, and all fit the actions you need to perform the terrible achievements.
I think Undertale's PS4 trophies are more than just funny joke achievements, they're thematically relevant to the story itself. The story of Undertale has always had a big focus on fading emotional investment, especially under the lens of completionism. How far will you go just to say you've done *everything?* What point is there even to doing everything when it starts to deconstruct your attachment to the world, turning funny and lovable characters into repeating lines of dialogue? Will you take away their happy ending, just to see another? Will you do the worst thing possible just to see what happens? Will you sit in front of this dog box constantly sliding in individual pieces of money, doing something patently unfun just to say you've completed something? "Don't you have anything better to do?"
That's not just a sick burn from Toby after you get through the thing he specifically designed for people not to do, it's a line from the game itself (And spoilers so stop reading if you haven't gotten to this part of the game.) It's a line from Asriel, and Flowey by proxy. Who is the concept of fading emotional investment more than anything else - he's someone who had the ability to save, reload, reset. And he used to do all the good things, before getting bored. And starting doing other things, seeing what would happen, if he could get the things that everyone else said to change just a little. Even if it meant murder. Even if it meant genocide. He's the end result of what happens when a player stops caring about the characters, and starts caring about seeing everything he can. And then, at the end of the game, when he's given a soul, given a chance to feel, when that emotional invest has returned to him, when he can feel and care about these people again, you can find him after backtracking through the entire game in the final moments. And when you've literally walked your entire journey back to the beginning, he just asks...
Don't you have anything better to do?
No
Yes
Ironically most of the people who backtracked for the Asriel dialogue did so because they were so attached to the world and characters
Flowey actually says it on more than just that occasion. Basically anywhere that you can redo encounters with him, he'll eventually say it as his final line. But since it's Flowey, not Asriel, it's much snarkier in nature in those instances.
The point is that it's pretty much the catchphrase of the game for those who look for it.
This comment has better writing skills than any essay i've ever worked on, what.
I like it when the achievements are fun little challenges. Something like "defeat 20 enemies with environmental hazards", "reach the boss of level x within 1:45 and without taking damage" or " defeat three enemies with a single attack." Freedom Planet has a few fun achievements like that that reward players for doing things like using an ability at just the right spot to skip a door puzzle or disabling the boss' barrier before he finishes his monologue.
tf2 has a buncha achievements like that!
Extra challenges and silly hidden achievements are the best thing ever, personally love Library of Ruina (a singleplayer card game), which gives an achievement if you begin a turn without actually playing cards.
The achievement's description even reads you probably did that by mistake, and I definitely did-
@@lisatroiani6119steam achievements sucks because you can cheat and earn without playing the game, it would be cool if steam screenshotted your game if you got a achievement
Into the Breach actually had fun with achievements like that. You had a bunch of achievements that were connected to none of your mech squads (more general stuff, like beating the game on Hard once, or doing a full run where you did all four islands), but then every mech squad except the secret one had three achievements each that related to their play style and actually make you think about just what kind of stuff you can do with each squad. And you do get rewarded for trying these out, since every achievement gives you a coin ingame, which you use to unlock the other squads beyond the default one you start with.
@@guichagas1517 and? i don’t get achievements to flex them off, i get ‘em because it’s fun! hell, i accidentally got one of those games on steam that just gives you like 5000 achievements as soon as you open it and to this day i have not opened the game because i don’t want those worthless achievements clogging up my steam profile (i do have one achievement that i can think of that was technically “cheated in” but i was playing with mods and a mod i was playing with gave me so many coins i got an achievement for it but the mods’ page didn’t say it would do that. i also hate that it was a really rare achievement so it shows up in my rare achievement showcase on my profile and it kinda stings because i didn’t really earn it)
One thing that I love about Celeste is that the Achievements alone will have you stop playing for them at 176 berries, the goldens which are the hardest part of the game go out of their way to ensure that you do them for yourself, not some reward, or a platinum trophy, or whatever, you do it for the intrinsic value of growing as a player and going that extra mile, which makes them brutal, but also a special kind of satisfying.
hardest part of the game? ermm… I think farewell is harder
@@EktoAnimfarewell golden
@@Cabinet_Man hmm does that even exist
@@EktoAnim yup and only a few hundred people have achieved it
@@Cabinet_Man 716 is the official number of people who have recorded runs of it right now. There's definitely a small number of people who didn't record them collecting it too.
I HATE achievements where you have to do a crazy amount of grinding or trying to build up something. When done wrong they aren't even challenging, just really annoying.
Team Fortress 2's achievement: *Sweat intensely*
Nobody's forcing you to obtain them
@@michaeljo9384 I've heard horror stories of those lol, thankfully I haven't played that game yet
@@NotArmani31 You might wanna try it (but don't try do 100% the achievement for your sanity, especially in Casual but Casual is ruined by bad actors hosting bots currently so only Community Servers is playable)
Bro FF3 3D remaster has a achevement to get all jobs to level 99... FOR ALL 4 PARTY MEMBERS. Each party member can only level 1 job at a time and there's around 20 jobs.
What were they thinking!?
I find John Gutter's achievements specifically to be a stroke of genius. You basically get the first one for free, wheras the other two require what is basically a speedrun and a P-rank. Since you got that one achievement, the other two will probably bug you until you're skilled enough to get them, allowing the level to serve as not just an introductory level for the game, but also as an introduction to the postgame.
personally, i think henry stickmin has really good achievements because of how they don't force you to change how you play the game, they're just things to collect/spot while going through
henry stickmin is the only game i have 100% completed
@@OctoAmbush-nc4xt Me too, what the hell
Got a thousand 'chievements in game but achieved nothin' in real life.
amen….
amen brother, straight bars in fact
Someone in my game dev studio passed this video over, and I wanted to say that you are MORE than capable of getting sponsored. While you may feel small as a channel right now, know that you're not too small to ask for sponsorships when making videos. Do what you love, love what you do, and that little bit of cash will start showing up more and more.
You're gonna do great.
I like the way Terraria does achievements. Some are obvious like defeating bosses, or killing certain enemies, but others are downright useless, hilarious, or torture. One is called “Unusual Survival Strategies” and requires you to drink water, which restores 20 health, while drowning. Another called “And Good Riddance” requires you to purify the world of Crimson, Corruption, and Hallow, which are biomes that spread to adjacent blocks. This achievement is very difficult.
supreme fishing minion 😔
the achievements also serve as a good way to know what to do next... sometimes.
I usually never look at achievements, like why would I look at spoilers for a game I’m going to play?
Which is why I don’t get all achievements, I just get a nice surprise when I do something cool or unexpected!
Here's the thing. 99% of people won't look at achievements before playing a game, and just play the darn game. If an achiv directs you towards a fun side gag, isn't it better that a person who would've missed it otherwise, st least got to see it? And when the person doesn't see it, then I doesn't change anything since they will find the gag on their own and then the achievement will pop up after. I don't think the game acknowledging the fact that you did something, ruins the fact that you did it.
Achievements are intrinsically worthless. A bad, un-fun achievement can always just be skipped. Imagine if there was, for example, an achievement that has a 1% chance of appearing when you open the game. Now, that's an awful achievement, but no-one's forcing you to get it.
I do think that skill/gameplay focused games like pizza tower just have an advantage when it comes to achievements beacuse for simplistic RPG's like earthbound and Undertale, there just aren't any Gameplay related achievements that are fun to get. For my indie rpg example, Sea of Stars. It has achievements related to story progression (beating bosses), completion (finding hidden treasure chests, etc.), and only a few handful of Gameplay related achievements. The only one I can think of from the top of my head is to bounce the boomerang special attack (think: green shell from Mario and Luigi) 20 times in a row. Sea of Starts already has a much more engaging battle system with blocks and stuff (like in paper Mario), and even then it's struggling.
All in all. Being rewarded with an extrinsic achievement for an otherwise intrinsic action doesn't take away the intrinsic value of it. You can do a job because you like it, and because you get paid to do it (literally what you're doing with UA-cam, even if it's a hobby, you're getting paid). If there was an achievement in Undertale for stacking 30 hotdogs on your head, that doesn't take away to hilarity of the situation. And for a person that might've missed the joke, they wouldn't have gotten any reward otherwise at all.
Looking at the achievements before playing a game is like looking at the comments before watching a video.
@@TheOnePrinceMeatballI feel targeted right now
I imagine most people don't look at achievements before playing a game, but they will look at them AFTER beating a game, looking for things to do. At that point, it does take away the feeling of the moment compared to finding it yourself. Yes, people get to see that fun side gag, but finding that gag through exploration and happenstance is very different from deliberately looking for it. It's no longer an organic secret, but an excuse to milk time out of you for a miniscule amount of side content. Regardless of whether achievements are actually worth anything, that's the mentality they set in a player's mind.
@@TheOnePrinceMeatball don't call me out like this
@@lukebytes5366But the thing is that nowadays we have so many games to play that after most people beat a game they go play another game. So having the achievement gives you a reason to come back after playing
Finally had a chance to watch this, and i 100% agree. while the dopamine from achivements is nice, i feel like far too often they are simply there as time wasters. I platinumed Bloodborne and Spiderman because the tasks the achievements gave me were genuinely interesting challenges, but more importantly it wasnt tied to literally everything in the game (and as such, the non achievement side content was also fun)
Hello Dani!
My favorite gaming achievement is the one in Stanley Parable where you have to stop playing the game for 5 years
Stanley Parable is probably one of the only games that subtly tells you to literally go outside.
my favourite is the one in the stanley parable ultra deluxe where you have to stop playing for 10 years
Never even thought about seeing achievements like this, but this is super interesting
the pizza tower achievements are so genius, as you say they guide you towards how to improve while still making you rely on your own skill to actually earn them, it's perfect for this type of platforming game
I think the earthbound custom achievements COULD work but not in the game they are in. Potentially for something like an MMO where grind is inherent, and where what you gain from it isn't just a waste of time, but rather grants you resources you can use elsewhere and also a flashy badge to show off to other people in the same game
As someone who discovered RA last year, I'd like to weigh in with my thoughts on the matter. Not every game is suitable to have achievements, I will give you that. I can't speak for Earthbound in particular because I haven't played it (yet), and I must admit that some achievements aren't well designed (case in point: the SM64 set originally had achievements for getting every coin in every stage. These have since been moved to their own subset after some backlash). However, not only are most achievements on the site rather fun to hunt down, but the mere purpose of the site itself is bound to attract people who'd enjoy earning them and drive away those who don't. I can confidently say that playing Banjo-Kazooie and Star Fox was made substantially more enjoyable by virtue of achievements existing. I even endured trough 200 hours of repetive grind on Destiny Islands merely because it was a set on RA. I just enjoy getting achievements that much that I'm willing to push trough for the mastery badge, and I believe most of the site's active users are no different than me. Not to mention, the entire site is entirely made for and by its community. People can vote to modify achievement sets if they disagree with the creator's choices. Games on RA don't have achievements because some people demanded for it to be so (like with Undertale on PS4), they have them because someone cared enough to develop a set for it. Every developer on the site is a volunteer. They do get shiny badges on their profile for being developers, but if they do it they must enjoy making achievements to some degree. That's how I feel about the site as a whole, really. The games themselves are fun as is, but for some people it's even better when you slap an achievement set on top of it and that's why RA exists.
Pizza Tower's achievements might be the great, but what isn't great is McPig's (lead dev) driving skills (in reference that in a recent stream he fucked everything up while playing Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers)
pizza towers achievements are the equavalent of "do this thing cus it would be funny or its a actuall challenge
9 hours and he only got first place TWICE
i am willing to bet my left liver that McPig got his driving license from a pizza box.
My favorite achievement in any game is the one from ghost trick, it basically challenges you to do a reverse puzzle that removes a key puzzle element from play which triggers funny dialogue. That and the achievement for doing all the optional sliding puzzles, that was a good time
probably some of my favorite achievements ever are on your only move is hustle which is a fighting game, while it has a handful of generic progress achievements like "win x matches" it also does something fantastic with a couple of its achievements, which is tasking you with figuring out advanced techniques on your own to get them. Stuff like "combo off of burst", "combo off of robot's command grab", "launch yourself with wizard's spark bomb" and "land 3 palm strikes in one combo as ninja" are all basically optional mini-tutorial puzzles that just say "hey here's this cool thing you can do, can you figure out how?". None of them are particularly hard to get if you just experiment with your character's kit, and the game also clearly focuses on the fact that the challenge is only to figure it out and not to apply it in a real match, since every achievement of this type is obtainable in training mode where you have full control over both characters, i wish more games used achievements to teach obscure tech like this
I've put tens of thousands of hours into RetroAchievements. I never really cared about official achievements, it's the user generated nature of the website is what keeps me playing - it's like Mario Maker for can you beat stuff plus checklists to truly exhaust doing everything a game has to offer. For these games that I've played hundreds of times, it's amazing having new stuff to do with them and reasons to do parts of the game that I never bothered with before.
But this is a double edged sword. I actually like those checklist type achievements you complained about the Earthbound set having... but only for games I've already played. I would never want to play Earthbound, or most RPGs for that matter, for the first time on RA (or ever in some cases). To earn these types of achievements, my options are either follow a guide the entire time, ruining my first playthrough, or miss content and be forced to 100% the entire game again, neither of which is fun at all.
There's also the sets that go too far in general - Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 is one of my favorite childhood games. It was one of the first if not the first racing game I ever played, and started a lifelong obsession with racing games. That being said, I could never recommend the set to a single human being on the planet other than myself. The set requires you to do the maximum of 8 laps on every single track in both modes with every car class. This is insane and the game never expects you to do this at all (after a few attempts, the game actually crashes after a restart. lmao). Just 8 lap races would be doable for me EXCEPT THERE'S THE EXTRA RESTRICTION THAT YOU HAVE TO WIN THE COP RACES WITHOUT GETTING BUSTED AT ALL! These races are 30 to 40 minutes long, in a mode where the cops do not screw around at all - one mistake or even a bit of bad luck and your ass WILL get busted. This set took me 140 hours to master and about 90% of that was these stupid races.
The thing with RA is that unlike other platforms, we're in the unique position where we have solutions to all these problems - sets can be revised if they're truly egregious. There's also these things called Subsets where essentially it's extra achievements that aren't a part of the main achievement set. There's also a Beaten status for every game and a leaderboard for how many games you've Beaten. I think expanding all of these features is the solution to making everyone happy, whether you just want an excuse to enjoy these games or completely ruin a children's game by doing the most sadistic challenges possible. I'd actually really enjoy those Hot Pursuit 2 achievements if they were in a [Subset - Endurance Races] since at that point it's just extra stuff to do in a game I've already completed, rather than being a requirement.
I'm actually a set developer on RA. This doesn't apply to every RA developer but I mostly make sets for myself to play - I won't add achievements to a main set that I wouldn't want to do myself. My tolerance for stuff is probably higher than the average player so I've had the honor of many people, including those in this very comments section, completely shit all over my work, but at least I try.
If I could make an addition as someone who often hunts achievements and has 100%ed several achievement lists for games I love
I can absolutely say there are good achievement lists, and bad achievement lists. But I think your look at them as purely extrinsic is limiting. I find achievements less like a checklist and more like a map. I don’t want to miss anything, I want to experience everything, and achievements are a good way of doing that for me. The little chime is one thing, but I’ve always valued what they lead me to more than anything. Not to mention, achievements are almost like a snapshot of your playthrough. There are days where I’ll scroll through my achievements and reminisce on the moment.
You’re framing achievements as if they’re this dispassionate list of tasks that takes away from the experience, that makes it just a bunch of items to collect. I’m not gonna lie, some lists are like that. But I don’t think tying a small, in-game event to an achievement ruins the value of that event. It doesn’t spoil that interaction. It doesn’t stop you from reading the text. It just lets you know “hey, this exists” and gives you a little badge for deciding to do it. The badge is nice, but the real meat of the achievement was what it led you to. The badge is really more of a souvenir than anything.
Still, this is a very well-made and well-argued video, and I can certainly understand your stance even if I don’t agree with it. It’s very clear you value games as an art, and this clearly comes out of a love for the medium and not out of hate for achievements. I like that.
Personally I don't get where he's coming from at all. I just don't see how achievements being there take away from an experience.
The people who'll enjoy them will get them and the people who won't just ignore the set altogether.
I like RetroAchivements, and I like Super Mario 64 and its ROM hacks. But those two things DO NOT mix. Like, there’s a bunch for just collecting stars, beating stars cannonless, beating the bosses no-hit, then finding all the warps (?), doing combo moves (What does that even mean? This is a Mario game), getting all the extra lives, random speedrun tricks, and getting the red coin stars damageless? Why?
And these aren’t even the bonus achievements, by the way. The BONUS achievements include doing a 0 star speedrun, collecting the impossible coins, 100% the game without dying, clip out of bounds, do the Lakitu skip, doing the hat in hand glitch, doing a bomb clip, doing cannonless, doing the A Button Challenge, doing the green demon challenge, and… going idle? Really, they put carpetless, an INCREDIBLY hard trick to perform, in the main category, meanwhile going AFK is considered bonus.
but here is the thing, well the counterpoint. I did sm64 retroarchievements and i would never have done some of the tricks before because they are slower than doing it the right way or with a speedrun trick. but RA made me actually try some hard tricks. heck the bonus category while i havent done it still teaching me a lot of my favorite game. Tricks that i know that it exist but never tried before
On the topic of Undertale, I like how the console versions' exclusive rooms have a tiny connected story between the platforms in the order they were released. On playstation you donate to the annoying dog to help it build up a shrine, on switch it's all worn down and abandoned, so Mew Mew uses it as her hiding place, and on xbox the whole shrine gets bulldozed in place of the casino that raised the whole game's age rating only on that platform lol
Why are you viewing them as tasks? That's not what they are. They're not forcing you to do anything. No game creator expects you to get all of the achievements. Achievements are supposed to commemorate your... well, achievements. Honestly, I think you're looking too deep into Pizza Tower, but even if you're not, that kind of stuff has never been a standard. Achievements also highlight stuff you could do if you want more playtime and provide recognition for doing impressive stuff. They were never meant to just be tests of skill really. Also, there are such a thing as hidden achievements on steam, which don't spoil you or direct you to anything. Also, I think if you're looking in the achievements to find what to do, especially before a game, you shouldn't complain when the reward is extrinsic. The kind of silly achievements in PlayStation Undertale are exactly what I want. Achievements aren't forced, and they're not requirements unless you want to 100% a game, which isn't what you're really ever intended to do. (I do agree, though, that forcing achievements makes literally no sense)
Like I agree video games should be completed as the author intended (at least first). But you keep making achievements out to be a forced standard of completion, when they're only like the last third of that.
On the subject of "Sesame Seed tier" cheevs... I'm actually the sort of player that, without something pointing me towards these little moments, will completely bypass them. Not because I wouldn't care about their intrinsic value, but because I wouldn't look outside of "100%" much. Having achievements of this sort directs me to these sorts of moments, meaning that for my personality, _they are essential to experiencing said moments._
On the _other_ hand, I'm not a fan of traditional RPGs. Outside of Chrono Trigger, every single one has had something that either discounts it as such in my mind (Paper Mario is prominent there), or is way too easy to enjoy (Pokemon Red), or is obnoxious with grinding (Final Fantasy 9 and 10)... so the presence of the "random drop" cheevs definitely doesn't help.
Not to mention, because all the cheevo sets are made by different people, quality isn't always consistent. There are of course standards, but some are standout while others lack something. My own sets for instance: they're excellent in terms of titles and descriptions, but are pretty lacking in non-progression.
"way too easy to enjoy" mean you like the traditional rpg
@@Granad784 No... I mean "way too easy to enjoy". See the following point where I say others are obnoxious with grinding? That's true of _every single one I consider traditional,_ with the sole exception of Chrono Trigger.
@@ShadwSonic Yes but i am not talking about that one you imbecile.
how did you have to grind in ff10, did you just run from every battle you ran into other than bosses
did you do advanced sphere grid and just make your builds random
i have never once had to grind in that game
@@ShadwSonic you are dumber than i thought
One of my favorite achievements in a game is the platinum for Don't Starve. When Ps4 forced them to add trophies, the devs of the game were pretty annoyed at that, so they added a new item called the Accomploshrine. When you craft the shrine (using a pretty hefty amount of materials, mind you), you get the first achievement "Look upon my works, ye mighty...".
You can then crank the lever on the Accomplishing to wind it up. After you wind it 25 times, a firework will shoot out, and your character will be like "yay I did it!" or something along those lines. Okay, funny joke, you get the achievement from that and are done right? Wrong.
In order to get the achievement, you need to wind the Accomploshrine up an additional SEVEN-HUNDRED TIMES. Each time shooting another firework and having your character get excited again. Only then will you get the second achievement, "...and Despair", and earn the platinum. The achievement names reference the poem Ozymandius, referring to how the Accomploshrine was meaningless, just like the king's "works" from the original poem.
I'm pretty sure that the reason they didn't want to add achievements is because in old versions of the game, they actually DID have achievements, but it created an issue where most players just did all the achievements and then stopped playing, whereas the point of the game is just to survive as long as possible in creative ways, so they removed them.
Optional content is still extrinsic if it has a award that's kinda the point extrinsic motivation is to 100% a game and the such
I dont think its fair to compare achievements on a turn based rpg like earthbound with an action platformer like pizza tower, there arent much achievements to be made on turn based rpg other than "get to the max level" or "here is a list of the sidequests and easter eggs, go get them"
It's nice to see others concerns about placing achievements into everything. I feel like I can especially vibe with the first portion of this video because I have a similar story.
So, I made a ROM hack of my favorite game and eventually discovered someone actually made achievements for it in RetroAchievements. It was a bitter-sweet feeling.
On one hand, I was honored that enough people enjoyed it that they were willing to put the time and effort to make up achievements for it. But on the other, I felt like I lost a bit of agency to my own creation. More importantly, however, I was worried people wouldn't be able to enjoy it as much because achievement hunters might feel obligated to do things that they didn't find fun. The biggest offender was an achievement that required a sequence break that I accidentally introduced into the game. The fact it existed wasn't a problem to me, but the fact there was an achievement behind it spotlighted it and made people feel like they had to do it to "100%" it.
I think the worst part I think if I had more agecny over my own achievements, I'd be more happy with them.
Anyways, great video. It's nice to see people talking about this. Not because I think achievements are inheritely bad, but because they have pros and cons that I feel go underlooked, due to them being considered part of a "staus quo".
What romhack did you make? I'm curious
I'm curious too.
0:14 ONE PIECE
My favorite achievement in a game is “The Part Where He Kills You” from Portal 2.
"how it encourages the players to keep going"
*meanwhile video with flowey telling the soul to die in the background*
Toby is a genius
Good achievements should be built on strengths that are already present in the game. If the game is built around optional tools that make the game easier like mega man or shovel knight, make an achievement that forbids those tools. If the game is built on exploration and secrets, turn the achievement list into it's own hint map. Achievements exist in the first place because people want to get more out of the game, not because people want to do chores that happen to be in a game format.
(I'll give undertale credit though since satire is it's own strength)
I find it interesting how LEGO games have to tackle their Trophies/Achievements because they have almost no challenge factor. Outside of completion, they make achievements that require you to do specific things or play as specific characters for the sake of a joke. Or padding. While some come off as desperate, others can be downright hilarious.
Let’s say you’re playing LEGO Lord of the Rings and are already familiar with the source material. The first level, to be exact. You fight a massive horde of Orcs, slay Sauron, and conclude by scaling Mount Doom as Isildur and Elrond to cast the One Ring into the fire. Finally, you make it to the bridge to reenact the inevitable.
But…hang on. The cutscene doesn’t trigger until you reach the end of the bridge, and you still have control over Isildur. What if you just had him…jump? Y’know?
Achievement Unlocked!
“It Won’t Be That Easy!”
Toby: "Collect Four Items"
Me: *dies*
(Part way through the video)
I think my least favorite kind of achievements are online only achievements, especially when those games shut down. It just puts a time limit to getting them. I will never be able to complete the Halo 3 achievement list because the servers are dead. Same with so many other games
Really good, thoughtful, and well put together video. I really do love the concept of achievements, but feel like so many games drop the ball when figuring out how to implement them in a meaningful way. Achievements, to me, shouldn’t so much push menial, grindy, or luck based tasks, but ways to push a player to achieve challenging goals or hone their skill at a game. Some of my favourite childhood gaming memories are playing on Hypixel and working to win at mini games while simultaneously managing odd restrictions that made me view them in a whole new way. This isn’t to say it handles achievements perfectly (believe you me it has a lot of sucky, grindy ones), but at its best I think it demonstrates how achievements can work to better games, rather than detract from them.
I watched a video from cadicerusa or whatever how his names correctly spelled and in the Ratatouille video game he got an achievement for watching a cutscene which was the very first cutscene in the game and he hadn't even done anything yet, the only other achievement that's even as close to being pathetic was when he got one for pressing the left stick in bee movie.
Left trigger, but I know
I'm not going to be the guy to correct you, because "Cadicerusa" is the damn funniest and honestly most unbelievable misspellings of that username that could exist. I'm sure Jim would make a joke about that, but maybe not.
When Flowey kindly asked me to leave everyone in peace after a pacifist run, I genuinely felt bad I was planning on doing a GENOCIDE run. I haven’t touched Undertale in years because of that.
I think the best example of badges I've seen are the ones for Yume Nikki Online. Yume Nikki along with its fangames in general are extremely non linear, with no real goal and the only collectibles being effects, so achievements work well as a motivation to explore the world. Along with this, the achievements (called badges) don't have any information until you get them as a means of not spoiling things. Add in some amazing fanmade pixel art and online interaction and the badges become a great way to come back to the game.
I have a friend who, when playing a game, will make sure to unlock every single achievement, even if the game ends up not being fun for him. This also means that if there's knowledge of a certain achievement that it's less than desirable, he will most likely not play the game, which is a shame because he's missing out on Final Fantasy IX
I think it’s pretty neat when you find one of those cute interactions and the game basically says: great job!
But it’s kinda bad when you’re actively trying to get them
So, I think you should always play a game before hunting (specifically games like undertale, earthbound etc, the games that are actual experiences)
counterpoint: getting a PlayStation trophy feels good
I mostly disagree with your points here, more than anything because I don't think extrinsic achievements are a thing in most games. You'll only go out of your way for an achievement if *YOU* want to. If all you get is a trophy, sticker or whatever, that's just the game rewarding you for doing an achievement you wanted to do.
Not only achievements, but 100%ing a game as well. No, getting those endings in Undertale was not a waste of time more than any other thing I did in the game, I did them because I wanted to see them. I got nothing out of it neither did I want to, the reward was completely intrinsic.
Personally, I find achievements really helpful because there's like 800000 billion games out there in the world now so it's just nice QoL to have a goal-oriented way to go about playing a large number of games. I especially love the achievements that point me towards cool easter eggs or hidden content that a ton of people would otherwise miss. Just think about how popular "game breakdown", "hidden secrets of X game", and easter egg videos are UA-cam are - it makes sense that achievements built into games would help people to experience these as well.
13:17 Honestly it sucks that most of the endings are lumped into the “neutral” route, because it kinda takes away from everything else.
I have a massive love/hate relationship with achievements.
I like being able to show that I managed to do something challenging. My favorite achievements are usually some rather unorthodox challenges which make you play a game in some strange non-intuitive way. Not always difficult but different.
It is a wonderful tool from dev side of things to encourage certain behaviours (and test the limits of the game) like you mentioned. I just really dislike completionist stuff in general. As a player I have to actively fight the urge to fill some weird quota for busywork.
As a dev I'm under constant struggle of trying to design how I want to manage achievements. I want acknowledge the player's effort directly, but I don't want to make anyone do it FOR the acknowledgement itself. People are gonna burn themselves out doing things for it so it isn't worth it for the sake of the general experience. I generally think achievements work best as tools to direct the player or acknowledge some pretty wide things like beating the game or some very specific challenge, not for filling arbitrary quotas.
This is the first video I've seen from you and I hope you keep up the good work!
Me when i see not only Peppino, but also Sans in one singular thumbnail: *click!*
I've never seen this guy in my life but this is some good content
KEEP GIVING EVERYTHING ACHIEVEMENTS!!!! PROGRESSION, CHALLENGES, EASTER EGGS, UNLOCKS, YOU NAME IT, KEEP GIVING EVERYTHING ACHIEVEMENTS!!!
0:48 Oatmeal, Kirby is a pink guy
Really cool video! Another reason why Pizza Tower's level achievements work so well is because they can all be beaten in one attempt (except for the first level), creating an extra intrinsic challenge to practice when just getting a p rank becomes too easy. This makes the 101% speedrun category feel fun, but not too tedious. Really recommend it😄
"having achievements... is le bad! even though they're completely ignorable and have nothing to do with the main game"
copetown population you
ace attorney retroachievements gives an achievement every time you finish a line of testimony by objecting to a statement
15:24 i once saw a video of someone getting legitimately mad at undertales achievements and it’s really funny lol
QUIT HAVING FUN!!!
Ah overstating how good earthbound is doesnt understand game design and is entirely incorrect. Textbook do not recommend.
Hey this video essay is different, he also talked about Undertale. And look, he even showed a bit of Celeste!
I got an achievement for watching the credits of an indie game, peak game design.
after all the hard work we do, we achieved a achievement that gets added into our achievements.
Point that he tried to make: Achievements are unnecessary
Actual conclusion: Gameplay of turn based RPGs sucks
@bulb9970 there are plenty of good turn based rpgs, but imo your experience of them mainly isn't gameplay driven. It's a mix of things usually, but a good story can keep one hooked better on a mediocre battle system.
I often forget achievements exist. When I get one I go, "oh yeah, that's a thing" and then proceed to keep playing. My favorite thing about them though is actually using them as a reminder/log of what I did during my last play session. I just played Hollow Knight for the first time, and when I had to take a week break between sessions, I would glance at my achievements to get a feel for what I was doing before.
The only game I ever "achievement" hunted in was Banjo Kazooie, only because beating the main story gives you most of them, I wanted to get 100% which gives you even more, and then the last two weren't too much work and I figured it would be neat to have all the achievements.
It's also a useful statistic to see how far people get in games or what mechanics are being engaged with. I was actually going to make my own Minecraft enchanting video, but when looking between the different versions with public achievements, I found that only about 20% of players made an Enchantment Table and only 40% got full iron armor on average. But finding 17 different biomes? 50%. Absolutely baffling.
My favorite achievements are those that are directly related to gameplay, whether it be to teach or to test you. I remember learning about the mechanic called EX skills from the achievement list in the mega man zero collection, and it has since become one of my favorite games mostly in part to that mechanic. I also got hours of fun doing all the challenge runs in the shovel knight series.
I will never forget the statement Toby gave on if the PS4 port will have a achievements
I'm sorry
So it won't have them?
No, it will. That's why I said I'm sorry.
So the makers of Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together used to be fully against achievements as a whole so when porting Don't Starve over to PlayStation they added in 2 achievements as well as one new in game building known as the Accomploshrine. Simply building the shrine gave you the first achievement which was named "Look on my works, ye Mighty,". Now this building could be interacted with to spin a small hand fully once which caused a long hand to move slightly and to get the second achievement you had to interact with the Accomploshrine 725 times which would cause a very small and pathetic firework display to come out of the building, resetting the progress back to zero and having the character say the line, "I feel so accomplished."
Nowadays they have warmed up more to the idea of achievements and the PlayStation port of Don't Starve has more on it now that is just tied to unlocking characters which other than Maxwell is basically a nothing burger of an achievement. Meanwhile the console ports of Don't Starve Together having more achievements that imo are mostly unneeded other than seeing a tallbird lay an egg. That one is 100% needed and makes the game better as a whole, the more people who see that animation first hand the better. However neither Don't Starve or Together have steam achievements as it isn't needed and they don't seem to be making new ones for the consoles as the game gets updated.
I found this achievement issue with Disco Elyisum, its obvious RPGs with many paths that the player can only build one path through weren't made for achievements.
They did make some hilarious achievements related to DE's dialogue trees like:
Unbelievably Boring F**k: Say 7 boring things
Literally the Sorriest Cop on Earth: Apologize 10 (!!!) times
World's Most Laughable Centrist: Defend the political centre 7 times.
These, and many more achievements are cool because they encourage the player to role play and its clear that its not a ''collectible.''
However here's an example of a bad achievement:
''Medal dispenser'' requires you to get a medal item from a Veteran and then later you encounter a woman with dementia who thinks shes a police officer. You can pin the medal on her and bow to her with the very unlikely condition that your partner is not in your party. Its a very very sweet moment in the game that only a few people should have known about and it was ruined by the achievement telling me about it.
The worst achievement is ''The Figurines Won't Win Her Back: They do nothing,'' this requires getting 2 figurine items at which point your character will suddenly have a revelation that his ex-wife loved figurines making it seem important. In the end-game, you can give the figurines to Her but she just thinks you're fucking weird for it. This would have been such a funny bit if she said, ''I don't want your figurines'' and left it at that, the achievement completely ruined the joke by making it seem like I did anything
You are comparing the achievements of a platformer with a ranking system to achievements you CHOSE to apply to your game via an outside tool in a JRPG. It is really not a fair or direct comparison to convey your point. Your overall point about how achievements should and shouldnt be designed is good, but your apples to orange comparison is quite stupid. Also one of your main complaints is that the achievements function as a checklist, you are using achievements from a website, these were not built into the game, if you dont want a checklist dont choose to read one its really that simple. Your point about games having intrinsic reward is true, but having an achievement to signify (shocker) an achievement of getting something, i.e a rare item, is valid, your example of the worthless house in EB giving an achievement is a good example of this being taken to far, however again this achievement is not apart of the game it is from a website which you chose to apply as a mark of accomplishment. I feel like you underplayed the legitimacy of having achievements purely for the sake of achievement rather than solely using them as teaching methods for you to improve. If you are against RNG/Rare drops in totality then fine, but giving an achievement for getting them really doesnt do anything but make it more satisfying when you do, or if you best a hard challenge. Especially when said hard challenges are from an optional website/tool you choose to apply.
Does bro know what an opinion is
@@crosbycreates I literally said I agreed with their point are you stupid.
Does bro know how to respect people's opinions?! You said that, although you failed to respect the comment you replied to. Stay safe, you silly goose.
@@crosbycreates I don't even disagree with their opinion I literally said i agreed are you stupid.
@@Wimpyfox oh, ok my bad
Hey i know im a tad late but congrats on 3K subs!
I feel the same way about games like BOPL Battle, I loved discovering stuff like shooting a growth ray in water to reflect it onto yourself when I played the demo and when I saw that all of those funny little things are just spoiled to you in the steam achievements list... I was a bit sad to be honest
The only game I've gotten all achievments for (besides those that only have progression related achievements) is Ghost Trick, and that's only because it's a relatively short game that I love. The achievements themselves in that game aren't even that great, I'm gonna be real, they're usually "do [thing] without losing" and considering you can reset all puzzles whenever you want while playing them, you're likely not lose anyway on your first try. Not to mention the optional sliding puzzle achievements that barely relate to the game. There's only a couple of achievements that I thought were cool because they shined a spotlight on fun little interactions I never knew were in the game. One of them was basically a whole extra puzzle in itself where the solution is to fail at something that you shouldn't be able to fail.
I like how the Switch doesn't have achievements. It allows me to play through games without the stress of collecting everything. I only collect everything if I really enjoy a game or if there's extra bonus levels behind it. Achievements can be fun if you really enjoy a game and want to get more out of it, but they usually end up being more tedious than fun.
I don't get this. If you feel pressured to get achievements for a game you don't care about that's a you problem. I'd rather they be there for the people who love the game than not.
@@DoctorMario606 i see this argument a lot by the anti-achievement types, plenty here in this comment section even that "oh well then i gotta 100% then" or "people are gonna have to 100% these if you introduce them" but i just dont get it, maybe its because ive literally never felt like i HAD to 100% every game i play but it feels insane to look at something and feel like you have to play every little aspect of it
"oh what if people have to do something unfun to 100%" they signed up for it when they decided they NEEDED to 100% stuff
@@sipcee personaly the only issue i have with 100% Achievments is when they are unobtainabe like when a component gets descontinued on a game that id like to 100% mainly those that are my faves
@@sipceeachievements are the very things that cultivate that mentality. Most people wouldn't care about true 100% if there wasn't a little bar rewarding you for doing it every time you close the game. Achievements make tedious busy work look like a badge of honor rather than a waste of time.
Who was that brother guy who looked like a Pikmin? He seems pretty cool
Steve
10:00 or an achievement for Buying Magicarp in the Kanto games called "Fish out of water"
Great video! This is something I've never really thought about, but I cant say I don't agree. I've never been a perfectionist when it comes to video games, but achievements can stress me out because of the need to check all of the boxes. Even if I don't want to, but do it anyways because it looks unsatisfying if i don't. Like coloring over something and missing a tiny spot in the corner.
The achievements that I do have an interest in are the ones that are incredibly vague. The ones that you earn, but the game doesn't tell you what you did to get it. Most of the time, it's just for getting multiple endings or something, but if you're going into the game with little knowledge then it's almost like a puzzle to solve. Using the clues in the game and what path you're on to try and get the ending or other secret thing that unlocks this achievement. I'm playing a game like that right now, and I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm having fun while I do it, and that's the most important thing :3 it's good for replayability as well!
Undertale not having achievements annoys me, because Undertale did everything for me when it came out. It was an incredible experience and had me laugh, I've played through it with many friends voicing it all. And in the end. There's nothing to show this love for it.
100% a game to me shows off how much I love a game or dedication. Yes I get the gimmick where "no that's not the point it's an experience" Yeah... and I'd love to show my experience and love for the game on steam, but the best I can do is put it as a fav game. And I have no real amount of hours on my account because I had them on my brothers account and when I played with friends they'd play on their accounts. I've seen everything through others and I have nothing to show on my steam profile, if there were achievements, as simple as the Easter eggs or endings I'd do them all. Because I love the game. No other reason, I've already seen all there is that has been found.
You achieved an achievement, not go think properly-
Yes! Another Earthbound fan!
nice analysis!
That one guy who decided to use Retro Achievements for Sonic 2 must be *R E A L L Y* salty right now.
ok, with the sesame seeds example i can already see where you're going, i agree with whatever you said, probably not all of it but for the most part, good video
You have a poster of Hawaii: Part II in your virtual room so your take is automatically correct
Love the video man. I'm so excited for the next Hawaii part II video!
I feel like I and everyone ik irl views achievements way differently. They aren’t something to seek out, they are just fun pop ups and fanfare for cool or rare moments. Stumbling into achievements is really fun and they often enhance the experience of discovery and strengthen high moments (terraria in general, LISA’s “No...” and portal 2’s “The part where he kills you” are really good examples.)
I guess this is a bit subjective, but if your goal is fun, actively seeking out achievements is just the wrong way to do it (which is why all achievements should be hidden by default imo.)
Using achievements as a way to teach the game seems weird to me since they are often handled differently depending on the platform. Also, that is a way more intrusive way to teach something compared to a subtle in game tutorial since you are returning the players focus to the platform rather than the game, which can break immersion.
Why should games stop having achievements? It's great fun to try and get them if they haven't become imposible to do so. It brings extra satisfaction, I believe.
I only focus on achievements once I am done with the main game and had seen everything important that the game had to offer, achievement hunting afterwards can be really fun at times, but like it’s ultimately inconsequential, so I don’t have any qualms to use guides or look up what to do to reach them
this video luxied my hugs
jokes aside very epik video as always, your videos always make my day better and i hope you become famous one day
retroachievements is cool until they pull bullshit like super mario 64 lifesaver. i like it whenever theres stuff like cannonless but the lifesaver stuff just isnt fun and feels like bloat
what doesnt help that is the amount of rng that some of them require. like tiny huge island lifesaver is what made me literally give up on that achievement set
i think its important to be able to separate the achievement set from the actual game, and use it less to "master" a game and more as just a tool to see what cool stuff you CAN do cause with these it can get to a point where it just isnt fun
this inspired me to make an achievement where you go through an entire rpg game and win while either having the bare minimum level or stuck at level one, testing true skill, timing, and strategies
I, personally, am an achievement addict. I just enjoy knowing that I have official made the most of the purchase of a game. It's also nice being rewarded for completing a difficult challenge in a less direct way than just an item
Still, there are games that don't need them and a lot of developers forget that
The only game with linear ass achivements I can forgive is Thumper cuz that game is hard enough that just getting through it really feels like an achivement
A problem i find about achievements is that sometimes updates that bring new characters, features or mechanics make them way too easy. This happened to me with cuphead and pizza tower, i remember back in 2020 couldnt get the platinum of cuphead because i couldnt beat king dice on expert but in 2022 i came back with chalice and beat it at the third time. With pizza tower and the noise update happens the same, i spent like 80 hours to get all achievements before the noise update and after the noise came out all achievements were way too easier to do with him. Maybe some games shouldnt allow to get some achievements with new characters, it makes them lack difficulty. Anyway loved the video
Tally Hall AND Earthbound fan?!
i agree that achievements really don't fit games such as Earthbound or Undertale, albiet that I don't think it's entirely fair to hold Retroachievements to the same standard. That list was clearly made by some overeager fan rather than someone actively thinking of a good set of achievements. But yes, not every game really needs or even works with achievements.
That being said I think they can serve a variety of purposes and that making achievement sets is kind of an art in and of itself.
Challenge achievements like you mentioned are the most obvious, after story achievements I guess.
I think achievements can be an additional way to try and steer players towards trying different things, like if you find people aren't using tools introduced later in the game you could add achievements that require their use to at least force them to sample it and find if they enjoy it. Incremental achievemetns also fit into this a bit.
And to be honest I think even "sesame seed"-tier achievements can be alright at certain times if you're worried about people just completely missing it, if you don't spoil the bit in the achievement maybe.
The big problem is more that playing to complete an achievement checklist is not very fun, but there's never going to be a magic solution to that since the people who would be doing that are often also seeing a game without achievements and feeling no desire to start playing.
As much as I like the game compared to most, Sonic Lost World probably does achievements the worst of any game I played. You don't just do an action and get the corresponding achievement; you have to complete 3 randomly selected missions at maximum, and when you beat one of these missions you get the achievement. Not only does this slow the pace to the ground when achievement hunting, but in Steam if you get the achievement and exit the level you still have the mission to complete, meaning you have to do the mission again to clear it out of the queue and therefore get a new one. That's not even getting into the fact most achievements can be collected by just playing the game normally, no out-of-the way achievements or secrets, just standard gameplay. Also Omachao is the one giving you missions, which may have been a bad sign. The worst achievement is those involving the Black Bomb Wisp, you get them as a rare powerup either by beating the Nights Into Dreams stage, which disappears after being completed and will only reappearance when you reach certain score thresholds, or by completing missions, which are both random and limited. Then you have to activate the Black Bomb and do the associated missions, and THEN complete the stage to get the mission cleared. That fact alone made me stop achievement hunting in Sonic Lost World, it's worse than the Red Rings, the dang Snowball Level, and the Deadly Dumbdumbs combined.