What are your greatest videogame achievements?

[Dracula]

About a month ago I got my first regular old clear of Dark Souls. This represents a half-decade, plus or minus, journey for me. I first played DS on Xbox 360 back in the mid-teens, and I put it down, after much teeth-gnashing, before even reaching Blighttown.

After selling the 360 I picked the game back up on Switch in 2020. This time I pushed much further into the game, but hit a wall at Ornstein & Smough. I put the game back down for almost a year.

Then, a couple months ago, I was filled with D E T E R M I N A T I O N and returned to Anor Londo for the final showdown. It felt so amazing when I got that fight down. The rest of the game was downhill from there. Not easy (except for Bed of Chaos, that was easy), but never feeling so thoroughly defeated as I did in Anor Londo.

It feels like an achievement because clearing the game turned me into a Dark Souls Fan. Since beating it I've dug deep into the lore, started a new save file with a different build, and started playing Dark Souls II. I have Sekiro waiting and I plan to play whatever other Souls I'm able to experience. It feels good!

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Congratulations! O&S is a hell of a fight, it's the other one that was tied with NKG for me before I beat GPW2 Bowser.

 

[lincolnic]

Great job, Drac! I remember how amazing my first O&S clear felt too.

 

[Troa11]

If I ever try it, I'll definitely keep a standard save file around so I can practice the harder stuff (colosseum 3 and Radiance) before doing them in the Steel Soul file. Most of the rest of the game isn't so bad, especially if you play it safe. Set yourself up a safe spot that you can dream gate back to whenever things get hairy, focus on safe charm builds that maximize health/healing/damage at a distance.

None of my 4-5 Steel Soul deaths were to bosses.

 

[Lokii]

After hours and hours and hours and days and days and days of attempts I got a 0.0 in Catcher Chocobo.

Tattoo this screenshot on my right buttock please

I started this round of FFX with every intention of a breezy playthrough. There would be no stress over the game's annoying particularities like swapping in each character for every battle (highly recommended) or bothering with ultimate weapon shenanigans. In the past, I nominally tried the weapon mini-games and when the scope of what was being asked became clear I abandoned with haste, but felt bad and resentful about it. The highest reaches of the character's development is tied to these weapons and giving up on them left a bad taste in my mouth. This time, I told myself, I would simply ignore them and have a good time.

And yet, when I got to the Calm Land I found myself curious, then a little bit invested, then furiously determined. It took so long and was so difficult. But I'm extremely proud to say that I did it. One of the hardest things in games I've ever overcome. If even one element of the minigame was removed it would be tough but reasonable. Together though—the fiddly controls, the small hitboxes on the balloons, the extra generous hitboxes on the birds, the way the birds home in on you, the chocobo steering itself (always away from balloons and always into birds), the invisible walls, the RNG balloon placement that can straight up just make the game unwinnable, the absolutely insane time requirement—all of it makes for a challenge that's simply beyond the pale. I get that they didn't want Tidus' weapon to be something you didn't have to work for, but this is such an extreme gate. And yet, despite the all frustration and the unfairness I did enjoy tackling this challenge and the satisfaction when finally pulling off a clean run easily met other such VG highs such as besting a notorious souls boss or getting a 2 in wordle.

Then I went and did 200 lightning bolts in like ten minutes. Downright easy after chocobos.

This one can go on the left

Well I'm proud as heck of this one. I'm finally a real gamer wark wark.

 

[That Old Chestnut]

Well I'm proud as heck of this one. I'm finally a real gamer wark wark.

You really are the Final Fantasy X


(I wanted to do exclamation marks after, but that just made it read as a different game title.)

 

[jpfriction]

Then I went and did 200 lightning bolts in like ten minutes. Downright easy after chocobos.

This one can go on the left

Well I'm proud as heck of this one. I'm finally a real gamer wark wark.

Congrats, you are more gamer than I. I’ll send you the crown.

 

[Troa11]

I just can't stop.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Congratulations! I’ve never tried this fight, especially the buffed version you did here, but I’m assuming it is Very Hard. How does this compare to your other achievements? And is it instant death if you get hit? I was surprised to see Grubberfly’s Elegy in use, but that would help explain it.

 

[Troa11]

For the sake of a complete narrative, I'll answer here too. Doing a boss on Radiant difficulty means you have to beat them hitless. It's tough but there are some unique advantages. The Elegy becomes viable for one. Another is you can "safely" overcharm because there's no additional harm in doing so. Most bosses aren't too tough to do this for. Most have very predictable patterns or at least obvious tells to all their moves. Some like Markoth and AbsRad are a little more chaotic.

 

[ShakeWell]

Oh, wow, I just realized I never shared my 2-loop no-miss run in NES Contra.

I, uh... did the first two loops of Contra without taking a single hit.

 

[Sarge]

@ShakeWell: Major props for that! It's tricky enough to get the first run without a minor mishap, but the second brings even more chances to mess up.

 

[Falselogic]

Meaningless to most, but running a character (started as a mage ended as a paladin) through all five QfG games and seeing them crowned as the King of Silmaria at the end of QfG5 is one of my greatest game moments.

The other used to be beating X-COM: UFO Defense on Superhuman. Until, I learned that, due to a bug, every game after the first combat mission reverts to Beginner. I've not yet tried to go back and play it through with the bug removed.

 

[Sarge]

Ooh, that reminds me I need to get around to QfG again. Do you recommend rolling with the original or the AGD Interactive remake version of QfG2?

 

[Falselogic]

Ooh, that reminds me I need to get around to QfG again. Do you recommend rolling with the original or the AGD Interactive remake version of QfG2?

The original is probably my favorite game of all time. So I don't know if I can be trusted to give an honest answer when it comes to it.

As for AGD's remake I haven't played it yet! I think I knew about it when it was in development and then forgot about it completely until literally last week! I've got it downloaded but haven't started it yet.

 

[Sarge]

Was that your QfG2 let's play on the prior forum iteration? That was a fun read, and it and some other factors inspired me to finally play through the original game, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm going to bring my thief/mage hybrid forward through the series, hopefully.

 

[Falselogic]

It was! And thank you I can't think of a higher compliment than that they inspired you to play them! thief/mage is the most powerful combo!

 

[Sarge]

Excellent! You did a really great job on it.

 

[Syless]

The QFGII remake is a lot better, in my opinion, *except* the combat is what happens when you have a closed pool of hardcore fan beta testers, so the difficulty is very high. If you don't mind that, go for it. And then look for the easter eggs once you've reached Raseir.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I got a world record!

Waterworld is a kaizo SMW hack that is nothing but water levels - the most reviled levels of all! To be totally honest, this wasn't the hardest record to take. Only a few people have submitted runs to the leaderboard for this hack, and if a really serious kaizo speedrunner came along, they could best it without much difficulty. That said, I'm still pretty proud of this! I worked on the run off and on for about two months, including a long stretch where my time was stuck at around 28 minutes and I couldn't seem to improve it at all. But after taking a short break to play some Quest for Glory (shoutouts to Flawgic), I came back to it on Monday and finally broke through! It's a modest improvement over the old record, but a pretty big leap from where my PB was previously. I'd still like to try to bring it down into the 25-minute range...but I'd also kind of like to play something else for a bit. While you were partying playing Elden Ring, I studied the blade doggie paddle.

 

[FelixSH]

Congrats! Even without much competition, this sounds like quite an achievement.

 

[Kirin]

Nice! That was a fun watch too.

 

[FelixSH]

In my quest of squeezing every little bit of gameplay out of Celeste, I finally beat chapter 1 without a dash. That was some bullshit, good lord. I mean, it was fun, and I even think I got better at what you need to do to pull this nonsense of, but man, this is really hitting the end of the road of what you can do there. Like, this is the really pixel-perfect nonsense that the game avoids for all its regular challenges.

In the course of that, I learned how to neutral jump (basically, you can climb a wall without losing any stamina, which sounds really useful for the main game), which is a prerequisite for the last room. It is also really easy to do, if you know how, unlike the rest of the stuff you have to pull off. Never again, but I'm glad I got it once.

Still haven't got the Farewell strawberry. Just a question of time.