I’m a PC gamer, which means that technically, I cannot get platinums. Why? Because that is a PlayStation thing. I do have a PlayStation 4, but most of my not-plats as I call them (because I was never going for the plat in the first place. Well, ok, I was. It was how I tricked myself into not freaking out about it). Before the pandemic, I never even thought about them because that was not my thing. At all. Then I watched Krupa do the plat for the original Dark Souls game and decided to check to see how close I was to the plat myself.
I told myself I had no intention of actually getting the plat, which was why I called it the not-plat. But. I was really close. I played the game enough to get all the boss trophies, the two endings trophies, and the covenant trophies as well. I had the bits and bobs trophies as well as the Strongest Weapon trophy. What I needed was the______ trophies, such as sorceries, pyromancies, and miracles. I also needed to max out a weapon of each kind. The kind meaning different material such as crystal, fire, etc., not kind as in rapier, greatsword, etc. And, the biggest pain in the ass for that not-plat was Knight’s Honor, which meant accruing all the rare weapons on one character. This means that I had to go into NG++ because Sif (sob) had three weapons you could make with her soul. By the end, I had a Word doc on the run with what I needed for the hundo cheevo.
I am saying that with my tongue in cheek because when I mentioned getting plats on the PC, where were more than a few people in the RKG Discord who were saying you cannot call it a plat if it’s not on the PS. Which, I mean, yes, they are correct, but they are the same damn achievements no matter which platform you play it on. I think it’s precious to say it’s not a plat on the PC, but whatever.
It was a slog to get the Knight’s Honor because you needed all the boss souls, tail cuts, and other unique weapons. Some of which the drop rate for is abysmal. For example, the Channeler’s Trident. There is something like a .5% drop rate, and people have reported grinding it for multiple hours without success. I was fairly lucky to get it on my fiftieth try or so. By the time I went for the tail cuts on Priscilla and Seath, for example, I was in NG+ and nervous about it. I had never gone for their tails before so I Googled it because I did not want to mess it up. I didn’t mess either up, much to my surprise. That was probably the easiest part of the plat.
The Dark Souls not-plat wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t terrible, either. Emboldened, I decided to go for the DS III not-plat. That was a big mistake. HUGE. Dark Souls III is my favorite game of all time. Yes, with Elden Ring platted as well. Why is this one so painful? because of the covenant items you needed to farm in order to exchange for items/spells. I can’t think about it without shuddering. I’ll get to that in a second.
There was also having to get all the rings–all versions. That meant going to NG++ and beating the Nameless King for the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring +2. That was not great because my character was crazy OP with levels from the grinding so I could not summon anyone to help me with the Nameless King. I was not on the RKG Discord at that time, so I was not able to summon slugs. That was the last thing I needed, and I honestly wondered if I could get it.
Back to the covenant items. Some of them were fine. 10 Pale Tongues? No problem. 10 Human Dregs? Easy. 30 Sunlight Medals? Not too bad because you can get summoned to help with a boss and get one if you defeat said boss. 30 Wolf’s Blood Swordgrass? That was a bit more painful, but not too terrible. Three hours did it, quite frankly. The two that were the major pains in the ass were the Vertebra Shackles (30) which you needed for the Warmth Pyromancy. This was the last covenant item I grinded. I was so done with it at this point. I got the first 12 through the game and by grinding the asshole skeletons in the Carthus Catacombs. But, I couldn’t do it. I simply could not grind the last 18. I asked Ian to let me invade him and kill him repeatedly and that’s how I got the last 18 Vertebra Shackles.
Let’s talk about the 30 Proofs of a Concord Kept. Dear god. This is the one we speak about in hushed tones and try not to think about it. Why? Because you need 30 and there is no way to cheese it. You either do the Darkmoon Covenant and do PvP or you grind out the Silver Knights of Anor Londo to get them. There are two near a bonfire (and a third a little further in that I liked to include in my loop). I did my Hidden Body/Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring combo and killed these three Silver Knights over and over and over again. I probably had two or three already from the game, which meant I needed to get about 27 more. Which took me roughly 10 hours. I’m not shitting you. I grinded those three Silver Knights for 10 hours to get 27 Proofs.
Krupa is now at that part of the plat. We all tried to warn him how terrible this grind was and that we could not help him with it. He kept saying, oh I can put in a couple hours to do this. A couple hours, my foot. Today, he grinded the two Silver Knights for three hours and got 5 (I missed seeing four of them, damn it!). He has eight in total. He did manage to get the last of the Sunlight Medals he needed.
It’s been an eye-opener watching him because how the hell did I put up with it? I can’t believe I spent 10 hours grinding Silver Knights. Ian said that it was a stupid thing to have in the game, and I agree. It’s not adding anything to the game. It’s just busywork. And by the time I finished the plat, I hated the game. I wanted nothing to do with it. I didn’t touch it for two or three months, and, frankly, I questioned whether it was worth it. It was my favorite game of all time and by the time I finished the plat, I never wanted to see it again. Thankfully, I got over that, but I still don’t know if it was worth it.
In comparison, Dark Souls II was a walk in the park. Yes, there were two covenant items (getting 30) which were a pain in the ass, and, yes, I had to get to NG++ to get a pyromancy and a… I want to say miracle, which was a jerk move. But I got to do the crazy game-breaking thing of feeding souls into the castle door to open it for the first time, so that’s something. I will say that I think it was the easiest of the plats save Elden Ring. That was a breeze and if I had gotten the save-scumming to work, it wouldn’t have felt like a grind at all. There was no grinding for covenant items for that game (indeed, there were no covenants), and it was such a relief.
I don’t want to talk about the Bloodborne plat, which is my only actual plat of the bunch. I hated it. I hated what I had to do. That is all.