Earlier this week, you might have noticed that I ever so diplomatically shared the fact that I had finally conquered the Online Portion of Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 which was a terrible hurdle considering the way the online portion of DWG3 is set up. Not well, that is. It is set up not well. It's not good, is my point. And I am free of it now - never again must I sully my enjoyment of all things Warriors by waiting fifteen minutes to play a minute of the game with people I don't honestly care one whit about. Now, the manner in which I obtained this, my nineteenth Platinum Trophy, is quite strange and amusing to me, but let's do a little backstory before I get to that, yes?
Now, as the picture in the tweet above states quite clearly, you have to complete 100 Online Missions to get that trophy which is honestly one of the longer trophies in the game since this was KOEI's first foray into Online with Gundams and it shows, which was rather unfortunate. To do a mission, you choose from the about two dozen missions offered (if that many) and you can join a party already underway or create one of your own. Fairly standard, of course, and the parties can be from 2 to 4 players. Unfortunately, this early stage is actually where the first wrinkle shows up because after making a match, you can't then adjust it or force a start - so if you have a four person party opened but can't quite find a last person, you wait or you close it out and try again. And while you're waiting, this is where the second wrinkle comes in, and it's quite an annoying one.
DWG3 features a "Play While You Wait" option for Multiplayer Participants which is exactly what it sounds like; you choose your Gundam and hop into the map early to mess around in it and play the game. Sounds alright on the surface, right? Well, the problem with this mode is that it is entirely fluff. If you hop in it and end up beating the mission before someone else joins your game (which is an entirely real possibility), absolutely none of it saves, you don't get a tick in your online missions played, nothing. You are then merely dumped back into the waiting room, as it were, to wait for that last person to join still which is as sad as it sounds. The other bad part of this is that, when you enter it, it doesn't force everyone in, however, if the room fills up while one or more people are playing while they wait, it has to get them out of the map before it can count down to start the Gundam selection which precedes the countdown to start the map, also known as a loading screen. Basically, it adds unnecessary seconds to an already too-long process, which just annoys me. The worst part about it is that after you do this successfully, you play the map and they generally take all of one to five minutes to complete. You'll have waited more than played in most cases and all you get is another notch.
Then you do it 99 more times. Like, literally, the exact same process. There are no persistent rooms - when you create a match that's exactly what you do, create a single match. So even if you have a buddy to help ensure that you'll get these plays done up, that's 100 matches you have to set up individually, which as I said is a time-wasting process no matter how you go about it. It takes the mere prospect of joy out of the equation and leaves you with an experience that is as lackluster as you might expect, because there is simply not enough gameplay pulled from the amount of time you have to invest in this poorly slapped-together mode. It took several nights of effort and frustration and the last outing in this was by far the worst; population has dwindled severely as you might expect, and it's rather difficult to pull three people together in a single match, much less four, but 13 times I managed it, bringing me to my 99th match completed. So close. So. Close. I could almost taste it. The three matches before had been gotten into easily enough, but then I came upon a horrifying sight.
There were no open matches.
Not a single match was open for someone like me to hop in and play and it took five minutes of refreshing the list before I found anything. However, those matches were all 1/4 or I just simply could not join, presumably because the open slot(s) were private ones, thus keeping me out, unable to attain this last match. And that happened for ten minutes until finally one new match opened in a fight against the Psycho Gundam, piloted by Four Murasame. As if someone had sensed my anxiousness, they opened a match with only one slot as if to beckon to me. "Come here, Mogs. Play this last match, end this torture for yourself." And so I did, and it was good. The match went on as they ordinarily do, I charged the giant enemy and kept wailing on it until it died while support from my partner kept us afloat, and within two minutes, the trials were over. I was victorious. The trophy dinged, I saved, exited the game, synced my trophies and backed up my save, just like that, and then I went to bed.
It was a bittersweet victory, however, as I knew the true challenge lay ahead, in finishing the task of raising all the characters to Friendship Level 5, which I believe I have talked about at length here before, so I will refrain from bringing that back up. When I stopped playing Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 before picking it back up for Online Missions, I was well on my way, but my spirit had simply been downtrodden too much, it was more than I could be happy with, so I had to step away to return at a later date. That later date was today and, with a resigned sigh, I dove into the game and looked up my friendship scores to see who needed a little attention. It was then that a miracle happened.
I hit up to go to the bottom of the graph, to see just who were not in the "Level 5" category, and I went to the bottom, assuredly. The...bottom of the Level 5 Category. In those moments of confusion, the 'ding' of a trophy sounded out, and the popup of "Purebread Innovator" in the upper right corner distracted my eye to it. Still, it didn't sink in just what had happened, nor did I realized what was then going to happen. Directly after that single pop-up disappeared, yet another 'Ding!' sounded out, almost more cheerfully than the first, and the words "Ultimate Dynasty Warrior Gundam" finally brought it home. I was done. The Platinum trophy was mine.
I don't know how it happened, nor do I know why. My theory is that Friendships persist and grow in the online mode as well, since that's the only way I can make any sense of it. The only problem with that is that I simply don't remember who was at Level 4 or even 3, so I can't really confirm that I fought alongside those people, nor was I informed of any of these Friendship ups, but you know what? I don't care, I'm done. I can put the experience of Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3, mixed as it was, behind me and continue on to different ventures, to different games and enjoyment. It may have been the most anti-climactic Platinum Trophy I've earned to date, but it's no less satisfying. And with Nineteen down, I just have to soldier on towards number Twenty, emboldened by this new victory.
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