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(Because yes, I know: Here comes Kikki with her Wall O' Text.)I'm talking about both internal and external game achievements here, though. Nintendo Switch HAS no external game achievements, unlike Playstation. (Dunno about Xbox, as I've never owned one.) Internal achievements are ones that are stored inside your game only, like being able to go check your shelf in Bokumono and looking up your trophies there, like how many times you've harvested maple syrup, or how many fish you've caught, etc.
I've had this argument online. When Nintendo does a Switch update, almost invariably, people used to beg for 1: themes, 2: folders, and 3: achievements. I also wanted all those things (tbh, I didn't care much about folders, but was behind it since so many others wanted it, and I do understand how they're useful, especially if your game library is large.) and it was surprising how outraged some people would become over the achievements. I've had a couple people start absolutely ranging on about how this is just a wish of arrogant toxic gamers who want to brag about how good they are and mock and look down on others who aren't as good.
My initial response to this was...whut?
After a little conversation, I at least knew where they were coming from, but I still TOTALLY DISAGREE. It's true you could use your achievements profile that way, if your name is Asshat Bumbrain. But just about everything in life can be used in an unpleasant way if someone has a desire to do so! I explained that the reason *I* wanted achievements is largely two-fold. The first is that it provides extra fun. Another layer of goals, an easy way to enjoy the content a little more. In Trails, for example, if you pay no attention to the achievements, you may find that you miss half the content of the game, because there is SO MUCH lore and story hidden in NPCs and other things done that aren't directly in the path of the main story.
Playstation has changed their trophy format since I last had this discussion...your overall rating was counted differently. At the time, my overall trophy rating was 12. When I told the person I was discussing this with what my rating was, to point out that I couldn't possibly want trophies as a bragging right since I had nothing to brag about, that kind of put an end to their argument, because 12 is a VERY LOW score. Low enough that they had no comeback (I suspect their own rating was notably higher lol, though they didn't say.) This is why I'm pretty sure we once had this discussion on Fogu, too...I'm pretty sure I revealed my overall score here, too, and one person said theirs was 13 and another said it was 14, and that stuck in my head, that we had 12, 13 and 14 together...all relatively low scores (with mine being the lowest.)
Anyway, I love achievements, and it has nothing to do with bragging or being a skilled gamer and lording it over others, passively or otherwise, because I am one of the least skilled gamers in all of Gamerdom, unless we're talking about stuff that greatly benefits from a very specific type of min-maxing. If it requires button-mashing skills or reaction speed, I am the dregs at the very bottom of this particular pot.
Gave my first reason already: it adds more goals to the game and can encourage you to play more deeply. But I have one other, and that's that if you have friends/other players to look up, you can immediately get a decent picture of how into each of their games they were, going by how much content they ate up. It's kind of like they're reviewing the game without having to say anything. (Not that this always works...some games are just extremely easy to earn trophies in...but in general, which trophies people got in a game shows what they were into. Like Tales of Arise is very easy to platinum compared to any previous Tales game, but if you look at mine, you'll see I never got max bond with Kisara or Dohalim, as I liked them less, nor did I get the fishing trophy, as I bloody detest fishing in video games.)
Anyway, I like trophies, and I wish Switch had them. I'd love to see trophies in friends' profiles...I feel like it gives a better overall picture of their gaming than just seeing that they've played 'over 500 hours' of ACNH.
Internal achievements are good, too, but less satisfying. I don't platinum many games, but the few that I do are usually the ones that turned out to be perfect for me, that I had a great time playing, and I like to have proof of it. Even if no one ever sees it, *I* can see it, and looking at the list of trophies reminds me immediately of everything I did. Internal achievements are usually much more boring, like just 'do x 100 times, 1000 times, 10000 times', which feels meaningless to me. But I'd love internal achievements if they had better rewards. Mentioned this in some other thread, but for example if you catch every fish in Trio, a great reward would be if villagers had a line or two of dialogue added to their pool, where they can mention they've heard you're a great fisher, or etc. Achievements that just add a line to a list are boring.
What do you guys think of achievements? The internal type or the external type. In favour? Against? Would your opinion change if the systems were altered in some way?
