I’ve recently been playing a game called Celeste. I had heard many talking about how difficult Celeste is and, as I played through the game, I remember thinking how, while the game is certainly challenging, that it wasn’t as difficult as people had made it out to be. Then I came across a cassette tape that unlocked the B-side of a level. Playing through the B-sides of these levels truly shows how tough Celeste can be with many demanding near perfect timing and knowledge of some of the more advanced mechanics in the game. I’m now working my way through the C-sides but something I realised was, as much fun as these levels can be, a strong motivating factor is my pursuit of the achievements. Therefore, I thought I’d share my thoughts on achievements in video games, why I like them and my personal policy when pursuing them.
I first heard about achievements some time after the announcement of Gamerscore which would be implemented in the Xbox 360. Not owning an Xbox 360, I didn’t think too much of it. However, Valve, within a couple of years, began incorporating achievements into Steam which, given that I’m a PC gamer, drew my attention. I also owned a PS3 which later developed Trophies, a variant of achievements, but I never committed myself to earning Trophies. I can’t remember when it was that I actually took an interest in earning achievements but I do recall that my rarest achievement showcase, on my Steam profile, once showed that I had somewhere around a 25% game completion stat, that being 25% of achievements earned across all games that I had at least one achievement in, and I now have a 66% game completion stat.
As for why I was drawn to achievements in the first place, I can think of two reasons. The first is that I have a friend who is very enthusiastic about achievements. Hearing her excitedly talk about achievements made me think about them again. Before, they had been something that I got as I played the game, not something I pursued. However, as I began to take more note of them, something I began to appreciate was that seeking them would often expand my view of the game, allowing me to find new areas, side-quests and experiences than if I hadn’t pursued them.
However, not all achievements are created equally. While many of them can be very enjoyable and add to the adventure, there are some that I find to be quite aggravating. Taking an example of a game that I played recently, and even mentioned in my Steam Replay article, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is an excellent game that I played before on the PS3 but, in its remastered form on Steam, I sought to 100% the game in order to experience everything that I’d missed the first time round. This proved to be a really enjoyable experience until I reached the last two achievements that I needed which was to get about 90% of the familiars and about 90% of the alchemy items. What followed was an excruciating experience that relied on some really rough RNG which could result in a lot of time and effort amounting to very little. I eventually did get the achievements but I’d recommend that most people who play Ni no Kuni give those two specific achievements a skip.
Barring situations like Ni no Kuni where I’d already invested a lot of effort before realising how tedious it would be to earn the achievement, I developed a personal philosophy regarding achievements that I try to apply ahead of time. As far as I’m concerned, all achievements can be broken into one of four categories, short and fun to get, long and fun to get, short and not fun to get and long and not fun to get. Understandably, I have no problem with getting achievements that are fun, whether or not they take a long or short time. If an achievement is not fun but takes only a short while to get, I’ll typically do so as they can sometimes lead on to something that is quite fun and require relatively little effort. However, I have decided not to earn any achievements that I deem to be long and not fun as I have better things to do than to waste my time and effort doing something in my free time that I don’t enjoy. That’s why you’ll find many games in my Steam library where I’ve nearly earned all of the achievements but have stopped short because there’s one or two that I just didn’t want to do.
Achievements in video games can enhance the experience and that’s why I’ve found myself looking for many of them. However, not every achievement is worth getting and, if it’s tedious, I’ve learned to just leave it and move onto something else. Let me know your thoughts on achievements in video games, whether you like or dislike them, whether you agree that they can enhance the experience, your thoughts on my personal philosophy of not doing achievements that are not fun and take a long time to earn and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.