The Reasons Why I created Mimic_Pot0 (and why I will never be a completionist on these games)

 (1) One Run Is Enough

First off, some games have trophies requiring multiple play-throughs, like the Final Fantasy VII remakes. You have to complete the game on normal difficulty to unlock the Hard mode and then you have the game again on Hard Mode to get a trophy.

On my very first account, I did three full playthroughs of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix in the PS3 version of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix because the trophy list makers forgot to link the difficulty trophies so playing the hardest difficulty would fulfill the conditions of all three difficulty trophies. These trophies were made to reward players who completed the story on easy mode, normal mode and hard mode, but didn't give all the trophies to those who skipped doing the easy and normal modes. That meant you had to play the story three times, once in each mode, to get all the trophies.

They fixed this in the PS4 version, Kingdom Hearts 1.5+2.5 Remix, but I find it surprising that I actually did three story playthroughs. Yes, you can skip cutscenes for the most part, but there are so many fights you have to go through and returning to the same bosses two more times is painful. Playing through a game's story once is enough for me. I've seen what it has to offer on tap, all the story beats, all the mechanics of the gameplay.

The story is the main reason why I skip cutscenes if I replay a game if it has the option. While I do respect the story of any RPG, drinking the soda the first time is fun and delicious, but on the second cup of that Zero Sugar Pepsi, the aftertaste is bland and I only drink it out of habit. I've already seen the cutscenes in FFXIV and after the first playthrough, I decided to just skip cutscenes to speed up my game time so I can get to Shadowbringers before Dawntrail drops in one and a half months. When 7.0 drops and introduces female Hrothgar, I don't intend to use a Fantasia to turn my character from a male Lalafell into a female lion-woman and run through every episode of New Game+. Instead, I would make a new female Hrothgar and run in through the entire story from start... which I swore never to do again as I would just speed through it and skip cutscenes again. :(

The problem is that RPGs, no matter how good their gameplay is, suffer from the "One and Done" effect that storytelling has to contend with - the story is only good the first time. As an example, I enjoyed a series of books involving cats who aid witches in a mystical town and how they help the main character solve murder mysteries that happen in the town from time to time, usually involving withcraft. These stories are mostly told by the main character in first-person narration and then sometimes switch to third-person narration from the cat Pandora's perspective.

However, when I tried to re-read those books as entertainment during my exercise walks, I found that they didn't hit the same notes as before. This is because I still remembered how the books concluded and therefore I knew the outcome, the cat would save the main character from the murderer and the murderer would get arrested. This is what happened when I read the Midnight Louie novels, which spanned 27 books before being ended. These 27 books spanned the love life of the main character, Temple Barr, as she tried to rekindled the sexual romance with her old boyfriend, a magician, and how she found Midnight Louie, a black cat who fancied himself a private investigator in Las Vegas, the city of sin, which is why there are sex scenes (non-graphic, of course) in those books.

But when I tried to read the books again, I knew how Temple Barr would end up. It was not as interesting as it was when I first got my hands on the books. I am packing those books up and giving them to my niece when she is 20 years old as reading material to ponder while she is busy in college. It is time for someone else to excite themselves over the murder mysteries.

Likewise, video games have the same issue. Once you know all the plot twists and conclusion, going through it again isn't worth it. Some of these games, like visual novels, have multiple endings. While that gimmick is better executed in a video game than a book because you won't accidentally read a page which has an ending you haven't witnessed yet(which is why I stopped reading the Choose Your Own Adventure series of illustrated books back in the day - well, that and the Wild West had a picture of a man with foot-long fangs that gave me nightmares as a kid), unlike game books, you can't just go back to the point of choice, you have to play through from the beginning.

There are also games with New Game+ options. This option was coined by the Square-Enix RPG Chrono Trigger, where you had many silly endings depending on when you beat the final boss and carried over your levels and equipment so you could beat him easily at any time by using a portal to get to him through the End of Time or the time machines. However, the rewards and trophies you get by doing a New Game+ of a game, even if it goes much faster since you don't have to grind levels and get all of your old stuff which makes you able to speedrun the game to the points you need to, is hollow and not worth the time investment. Even if you can cut the time you spend to 10%, the fact that you just get a ten-minute cutscene at the end is meh.

(Chrono Cross I can excuse as, like Chrono Trigger, you can just go to the Devourer of Time at the beach portal and just kill him at certain points in the game to get various endings. They are still long.)

Going back to Kingdom Hearts, I have seen people just do the hardest difficulty, get the story done and then go back and clean up on the hardest mode but I am not skilled enough to avoid dying constantly on a setting where enemies can one-shot you despite your defense. I am not that good so I would have to do a speedrun on the hardest difficulty to get it out of the way and then do 100% on the easiest difficulty, which is painful and leads to the second point.

(2)  Boring Tedium

AKA why I am starting to use story skips in FFXIV.

Using FFXIV as an example, I've tried to grind out levels and do the Main Scenario quests, but after getting back to the Chrysalis, the final multiplayer trial of 2.x, and knowing that the next trial is a solo duty, I decided to skip it and the story afterwards as it is just a bunch of boring quests that retell story that I have experienced several characters ago, back when Cape Westwind and the Steps of Faith were eight-man trials. (Ah, I remember how hilariously easy the boss of Cape Westwind was. :P)

And now I plan to skip the entire story of Heavensward after I defeat the Final Steps of Faith. Why? Because I don't care about the whole 2.4 and 2.5 story as it's a bunch of quests, some instanced duties and a couple of solo duties which led to a main character death. :(

What's the point of dodging lightning bolts in the Thunder Plains in FFX for, except to get a sigil to upgrade Lulu's onion knight doll's power, considering I never used Lulu when I played the original FFX on the Playstation 2? Just for a stupid trophy. Likewise, farming 8000 collectibles in FFXIV is boring and annoying and frustrating. I have limits, you know. :(

And you want me to (kupo) Assess every enemy, even one-time bosses, in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth? NO. This is too much.

Oh speaking of which, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has too many damn minigames. I don't mind beating every opponent in a card game(like Evoland 2) or find all the collectibles, but Twelve forfend that you make me do a tower defense game on super-hard difficulty or do a fighting game agianst Akuma-Zen. I'm not good at those games. And don't make me do a stupid flying challenge. I already did my duty in LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga with all those cursed "Fly through all the rings" challenges! X(

And that brings me to my third point...

(3) Frustration

There's a saying: "When the fun stops, stop."

It's very easy for me to not have fun anymore. For example, Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix added in a bunch of superbosses... that all have sixteen health bars. The final boss has no more than six health bars. And you have to be super strong and can't make as many mistake. Especially on Critical Mode when you only get half the maximum health from a normal run. It's very easy to get shredded to zero from full as the enemies in Critical Mode Kingdom Hearts II do double damage and you do half damage to them, meaning you take longer to kill them and they can one-shot you.

That is not my idea of fun. Let me just kill Xaldin and move on.

Now I am not saying I hate superbosses. I've defeated Ruby and Emerald Weapon with cheat codes and I can handle savage raids... while unsynced at Level 90. I'm sorry, I'm getting old and I don't have all the time in the world to keep hammering my head against a boss until it dies.

This is why I decided to stop doing difficulty challenges. I won't do Binding of Issac without the room save exploit as dying means a game over. This is what turns me off of most rogue-like games. I have played all of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeons to completion(except Super Mystery Dungeon) but I'm not really into the whole random dungeon and if you die you lose all your items mechanic.

The games I play on Prof7's account are very slow, relaxing turn-based or easy to handle action RPGs or adventure games like Shantae and the Seven Sirens, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, or Dragon Quest Builders.

The concept of completion, however, goes against this feeling. It generates a layer of stress that makes me get ill. Being pushed towards a goal instead of mucking around, filling out the map and finding all the collectibles, really hurts the experience. Yes, I know FF7 Rebirth is open world and you can do things at your own pace once you get the chocobo, but there are other damning factors. X(

Let's also talk about the Persona games. I like the stories, but the problem is that they require a guide due to the fact that you are on a time limit and time passes often, so you might end up missing an event you need to do to get a social link rank up, meaning you never get it to max level before the end of the story as you only have a year of game days... and 50% of those game days are forced cutscenes that prevent you from doing any progress. Not to mention the deadlines you have to respect lest you get a Game Over(for Persona 4 and 5) or a boss fight you were unprepared for(in Persona 3). If you want to get 100% in all social links you have to do days in a certain order and it's frustrating having to follow a railroad through the days until you reach the end. My friend missed the third semester in Persona 5 Royal because he didn't get a Social Link to Rank 9 before the day that the person in the Social Link left the story, so he had to do another playthrough. I will probably bypass Persona 6. I know Persona 3-6 are games about a teenager going through a year of high school, but I don't like time management as the window for certain events you need to get a trophy are so bloody tight! :(

And don't get me started on the Cat Quest series. There are so many side-quests you have to do to get experience and gold and most of them are just silly little stories that don't add much to the main narrative. I am hoping Pirates of the Purrabiean will rectify that, but it probably won't.

And that leads to the next point...

(4) Valueless tasks

Does the time you invest for completion actually mean anything?

There is no point in doing sidequests in FFXIV or any MMO, because while they might add some lore to the story, they don't add anything to the gameplay. For example, they added a small bland side-quest in FFXIV where you help a Lalafell journalist write a newspaper article about the life and times of Archon Louisoix. If you do this quest, you will learn who Archon Louisoix is, how he saved the entire sentient races from being made extinct by a giant rabid dragon and his sacrifice. This event was the event used to shut down the original FFXIV, aka 1.0, and give time to release the current version of FFXIV, 2.0. For those not in the know, the original FFXIV was a perfect storm of disaster, the worst MMO flop that made Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 look like a masterpiece work of gaming. If you want to know more, look up "FFXIV 1.0 history" on Youtube.

But if you are just getting into FFXIV, you don't know anything about this. This quest is designed to retell the whole story and get you into the mindset of this ancient elf whose two grandchildren end up being your allies. However, if you do know the history, this quest is not really interesting. It's a tan side-quest which means it is optional, and it doesn't even give much of a reward, just a handful of gil.

Which is a shame as this quest gives value to the content by detailing the lore of a character which only people who played 1.0 would have ever met. Yes, you can meet Louisoix in a raid series, but only at the end and only in a raid series that is not even in the roulettes because they made the difficulty super hard as they assume that the MMO would be discontinued after the first story so they needed some super dungeon as a final challenge. As such, nobody plays the Coils of Bahamut except for masochistic fun, requirements for the Blue Mage Morbol mount, or just to get it over with. This is why Wizard101 has deleted the introductory quest introducing certain characters like the Shadow Weavers, because the dungeon at the end of the quest had enemies that had mechanics so hard to avoid that they caused TPKs over and over and no player wanted to do the Archives Tower in Marleybone, so they first made the quest optional and then completely deleted it when they remade Wizard City meaning that you don't know about Morganthe until you reach Celestia. :(

On the other hand, there is a side-quest in FFXIV where you help a bald man get a tonic to cure his baldness which involving killing tribble-like furball monsters. Is it interesting? Maybe. Is it worth the time to kill three Golden Fleeces to get the hair tonic for something that isn't part of the narrative? No.

But that doesn't mean that FFXIV should have no side content. If you look at the various raids, trials and alliance raids and the story behind them, you can see how interesting they are. The story of Bozja may be optional filler requiring you to do the Stormblood alliance raids to completion, but the reason you have to do the Return to Ivalice raids is because the land of Ivalice is in FFXIV as a country that was conjured by the Garlean Empire, just like Bozja was. The raids are a call back to the original Final Fantasy Tactics but instead of Zodiac Stones turning the bosses to monsters, it's auracite, a mineral you use in the main story to destroy the Ascians permanently, so it has a powerful connection. By helping the people of Ivalice, you gain the trust of the Bozjans who contact you to help liberate their land from the Garlean Empire's 12th Regiment, and you get a lot of lore. Sure, the gameplay there is frustrating but it's doable and I will gladly engage in it, just don't make me do those duels. XD

This leads to my final point:

 (Final) What I feel is completion of game.

When I have completed the story of a game and done everything that I feel the game can offer me, I can declare the experience complete and move on.

And that is why I made this account. I loved the original Kingdom Hearts 2 sans superbosses, and I do not mind doing some of the optional 100%s in that game like get all the puzzle pieces, max out my drive forms, and even go synth some of the ultimate equipment. Hell, I'll even suffer Finny Fun to get that final Orichalcum+ to get the Ultima Weapon for Sora. :)

But fight Sephiroth? Do the Paradox Hades Cup? Go for the Proofs? No thanks, I'm good. I don't want to murder myself with doing the Mushroom XIII puzzle battle, fight Data Org, or Lingering Well.

For that game, I'll gladly fight Final Xemnas but not Data Xemnas... even on Beginner Mode. I won't do Critical Mode ever, and I will delete the save data when I am satisfied with my Kingdom Hearts trophies, no matter how low the percentage is.

And my concept of 100% is more valuable to me than what developers think I should do for 100%. ProfSeajay7 will do 100% for the games chosen as I love those games and will gladly do what the developers want as they are reasonable goals. Cassilena_9 will get the platinums for games because I can use exploits and cheats to do what the developers want but I won't do their optional content unless it's interesting, like getting 120 Blue Magic spells in FFXIV. I love Blue Mage and thus I won't mind going for getting most of the spells... except for Angel Whisper, I am not going to do all 30 non-boss events in the Masked Carnival. :(

But Mimic_Pot0... here, I don't care about getting the platinum, I will casually play through the games given, enjoy the story to the end, maybe do a few side-quests or 100%s, and then delete the games off the PS4 or PS5, satisfied. I will die of old age without those platinums and that's just fine for me. I can let my nieces or maybe some crazed guy who wants to be the next Hakoom take my consoles and accounts and platinum those games, but I'm done with them.

In conclusion, that is why I made multiple accounts. I do have FF7 Remake trophies on Cassilena_9 but that was because I thought I could do the platinum, so that will be unfinished. Oh well, the only account I care about 100% trophies on is ProfSeajay7.

The next post is a list of games that Mimic_Pot0 will have on it. I've already earned my first trophy on that account so I could put it on PSNProfiles. Enjoy.