Sometimes ‘achieving’ something in a video game can be a shallow, hollow feeling. Maybe the game was too easy, or the game was so linear or guided that you didn’t feel like you yourself had any impact on whether the goal was ‘achieved’ or not. Personally, I enjoy games that provide you with a genuine sense of attaining some sort of goal. So my question today is: what are some of your own personal greatest gaming achievements?
Me? Perhaps finishing Super Meat Boy, or getting gold on all tracks (including tournaments) on Trials Evolution. I also never, ever forget beating the Capra Demon in Dark Souls. Those are just a few of mine.
What about you? What are your greatest gaming achievements?
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85 responses to “Tell Us Dammit: Greatest Gaming Achievements”
Still have fond memories of completing Ultima V, and call it my favourite game of all time to this day, even though I have certainly played modern games that are far more advanced/compelling. It was the first Ultima game I finished, back in about 1989. Took me months, had to keep a little handwritten journal in a notepad of conversations and clues etc.
I eventually went on to finish a few of the other ultima’s, but UV has the best memories and sense of achievement for me.
Mine?
It’s completing all 10 Levels of the ‘Deep Dungeon’ within Final Fantasy Tactics and getting all hiddens items including that final summoning spell.
Killing all bosses in Dark Souls ranks up there for me. Admittedly, I was using magic which is totally and completely fair and balanced.
There have also been some great multiplayer moments. Playing Dota and setting up the perfect team fight which turns into a win is a pretty special thing. Or just having a really great game with some non-assholes on your team.
Beating Gears and Gears 2 with my friend stands out. We played them through each in a single night while sitting on the same night.
EDIT: I almost forgot! Getting S rank on every non-X-mission in Trauma Center and S ranking most of the X missions (I fucked up X1 and X7). Even though I didn’t get everything, I still feel pretty damned awesome for pulling that off.
Oh wow, I didn’t see your edit when I made my post. I grovel at your feet, Trauma Master.
I just looked up my old review of it and you commented on it.
Looks like this is a conversation we’re doomed to have every couple of years.
Hahahaha, it’s not deja vu if you completely forget the first occurrence, right?
Beating Battletoads on NES.
Beating both Lou on Expert in GH3 (properly, not using the easy-out at the start of the song which nobody told me about til after managing it) as well as TTFAF, which I’ve only managed to do once. Barely.
100% Completed F-Zero GX, including all cups and all story chapters on all difficulties.
Those are the biggest ones that come to mind first, though I’m sure there’s more I could scrounge up.
I got through Super Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts (as in played through the whole thing twice because fricken Guinevere is stupid). Even if I did have it set to the max number of continues 😛
I don’t think I could beat Contra 4, but I managed to eventually beat all 40 challenges. To me that’s achievement enough.
Shinobi 3DS is so freakin hard. I think even getting through it on Beginner where you have infinite continues is a task. Hats off to anyone who can manage to do it with proper restrictions.
I think I may possibly have gotten all gold medals in Rogue Leader. Some of those were pretty tough.
I’d probably throw beating F-Zero X on there. The harder difficulties can get particularly brutal, and the extra cups in the expansion kit even moreso.
100%’d Pikmin 3, getting a platinum on all the missions got pretty tough. Maybe not quite to the same calibre as some of the others though.
All gold medals in both Rhythm Heaven on DS and Rhythm Tengoku on GBA, they took a while to nail. Still gotta pick up the Wii one.
Oh, you know what? Beating both Wave Race and Wave Race Blue Storm. Those games are so hard to get back into, I have no idea how I ever managed to do it.
Oh yeah, @lonewolf reminded me. Beating EBA, Ouendan and Ouendan 2 on all difficulties. But in particular, managing to 100% Jumping Jack Flash on the hardest difficulty. Not quite a perfect run, it was a mix of yellows and greens, but I got there. And sure as hell made sure to save my replay 😛
Finishing Super Meat Boy for sure, such a great game. I also managed to beat the The Guy warp zone level, took me about three hours, don’t think my thumbs were functioning properly after that…
Talking about bosses in Dark Souls, I was so happy once I killed the Four Lords in that Abyss area. One-on-one wasn’t too bad, but three more quickly spawn in and gank you.
In Halo: Reach, I always love it when I snipe someone with the Assault Rifle. Patience and timing surrounding the bloom is more rewarding then spamming some overpowered rifle and getting a random headshot.
I was happy when I survived for 7 days in Dead Rising 2.
Getting gold for all missions and side missions in GTAV.
Plenty of more that I can’t think of at the moment.
Biggest achievement for me has to be finally finishing Jumping Jack Flash on Elite Beat Agents on two-star difficulty.
It took me a long time and by the time I reached the level again on the next difficulty I could do it anytime. I never managed to beat it on three star difficulty though.
Man this takes me back. Elite Beat Agents was probably the best DS game I played. I vaguely recalled that I finished every song on 3 stars… but I might just be imagining that since it was so long ago.
Getting through that gauntlet of doom with all the bosses you have versed so far in it near the end of Ninja Gaiden 2 where I had left myself with precisely zero potions…. So … so so many attempts…
The mirror’s edge timed runs for each level. Never again…
EDIT: Also the bloody secret zombie easter eggs in all the COD:Zombie maps. Satisfying but ridiculously complicated especially when you add the fact that it has to be done 4-player co-operatively.
Oh boy. Yeah, I gave up after about level 8 or 9. There was one there that took about 10 minutes each try to get three stars. After about my fifth or sixth attempt I ended up being too slow by one second. That was it for me 🙂
One of the earlier levels almost had me throwing my controller out the window – it was one of the only times i felt i had almost lost it because faith mysteriously lost the ability to grab onto ledges, i fall down with the end in sight and by the time i get to the end (this was on my 8-9th attempt) i was out of time by 0.2 seconds.
Came back to it 6 months later and got it first go. Then the level after took 20 something attempts. Not fun at all…
the last level in the 1st mass effect was a nice ending and felt pretty epic.
100% in Red Dead Redemption was satisfying just because I love the game so much. It isn’t exactly hard, just very time consuming. I had to pick A LOT of flowers…
As for challenging achievements – finishing The Last of Us on hard mode. I hate playing a game on hard just to find that the only difference is that the enemies are bullet sponges. Having to scavenge and be so careful with resources while avoiding conflict when ammo was scarce made for some satisfying gaming!
Knifing a bear wasn’t hard?
Hahaha yeah! But not compared to trying to get past 3 clickers with 3 bullets in The Last of Us:)
Was going to post the same thing about RDR. For me, the greatest gaming achievements aren’t just the ones that were difficult. It’s the ones you’re most proud of and RDR definitely fits that.
Getting some of the perfect runs in Hatsune Miku Project Diva f. Epic moments.
My Gravity Rush platinum was pretty awesome too. It had a few tricky speed runs and score attack sections.
Getting all the Celestial Weapons in FFX. Wakka’s Blitzball took months of me trying to get it…
1st MOAB in MW2 was pretty satisfying. 🙂
Mario Galaxy, finished with Mario, all stars, then again with Luigi.
Achieving “The Dark Soul” trophy (all achievements unlocked) towards the end of NG++ in DARK SOULS will forever rank as one of the most satisfying chimes I’ve ever heard in my life as a gamer. To cap it off, I was amidst the upper Lost Izalith ruins (near the Bed of Chaos gate) with 400,000 souls, having used the covenant shortcut, no nearby bonfire active and no Estus (health replenish) when moments later was invaded by a malicious phantom player – the battle lasted for nearly 20min worth of counters, dodges, close shaves and near-deaths before I kicked him off the winding path into the magma lake. Don’t think I took a breath the whole time.
Beating Dark Souls and defeating all the bosses.
Beating ‘The Kid’ level in Super Meat Boy.
Beating Halo Reach solo on Legendary.
Finishing Halo 1 Legendary Co-op.
Never got past the second mission doing it solo.
The goddam Library! I almost gave up trying to finish that one on legendary.
Completing tetris on the gameboy, and Alexx kidd on the MS2
Zomg Alex Kidd was such a awesome game, I would have completed it too if it wasn’t for that last room with the symbols!
People who can beat the X missions in Trauma Centre are freaks. I have no idea how they do it, even watching a youtube of someone then trying to mimic it got me nowhere.
That said, the game got pretty hard towards the end there as it was, even without the X missions. That final mission was one I was glad to see the end of.
The trick is learning not to throw your DS against a wall.
I was one of those people that used two styluses (styli?) and a good chunk of it came down to knowing the exact minimum you had to do to get the best score.
The one I tried had the patient just dying there on the table. The guy I watched was constantly scrubbing him with the healing gel stuff, which I tried to do. And it… did pretty much squat. I couldn’t actually get anything done because the guy would just die within seconds 😛
Things like that I’m happy to just completely give up on.
Healing gel was insanely strong in the first game. I’ve seen videos of people beating some of the harder missions in the game without using injections.
It’s been a long time since I last played. Kind of want to play again but I know I’ll never be as good as I was.
Aren’t those challenges designed so that you’ll need two stylus’s to complete them?
Quiting W.O.W after a 5 year addiction.
100%ing Super Meat Boy for sure. Getting the platinum medal on Trials Evolution’s Gigatrack. Going back in time, there was: 100%ing rhythm games like Elite Beat Agents, Osu! Tatakae! Ounedan! 1 and 2 and the original Rhythm Tengoku; 100%ing Blast Corps; finishing Sonic 2 without losing a life; beating Ultima IV (on the SMS!) without a playguide.
Very few super-awesome achievements in recent years though. Getting old and slow 😛
Ugh. I got all gold, saw “Now go for platinum!” and gave up. Amusingly, I auto-qualified for Platinum on Oyster Harbor from my previous time.
while i realise this is a bit off topic at first, it makes more sense if you read it all.
I wish achievements and trophys didn’t exist. They have almost no benefit for the vast majority of players and the pyscological impact they have, can utterly ruin any enjoyment in a game.
You can argue that, “you don’t have to get them” or “you can ignore them”, but both of these are besides the point. Yes you can ignore them, but doing so takes willpower and regardless of how well you ignore them they are still there. They still pop up, they are still geared to “keep” you doing some asinine task long past the point of enjoyment, to collect those 25 other flags, not because you want to, but because you feel you have too. They unarguably can have a severe negative impact on certain individuals and games. So BOTH of these are not adequate defences, until such a time that i can personally disable their existence, no pop ups, no score on my card, completely and utterly removed by my choice.
It can also diminish the sense of achievement when you manage to do something awesome that ISN’T recognised as an achievement.
It is for this reason I can’t recall a single time this entire generation where i felt i “achieved” something inside a video game. I know in previous generations I felt great achievement beating some of the more difficult T-RPG’s on PS one and beyond, like destroying Saridart (like he was made of paper) on Legend of Kartia without any grinding or plowing through the 2nd Vandal hearts game like a champ when even some adults complained of its difficulty (though once you learned the trick it got real easy). But now this never happens within a game setting.
However I just remembered how amazing i was at Cod 2 when it first came out on 360, probably because i was a teen and spent 1000’s of hours playing it. But every single one of my aussie friends refused to play with me by the end , because even with a handicap (i wasn’t allowed to shoot, only melee) I would beat them beyond recognition. Hell I even played the Shark jaws music into the microphone when i was sneaking up behind people, to give them a warning and also because it was hilarious watching them freak out before they died.
But even that was my own doing and had nothing to do with the game itself, which is why i think the use of achievements has removed any sense of achievement from most games.
On a side note I also don’t play games to “test myself”, I tried the first dark souls but got killed by a CHEAP un avoidable obstacle and died, some boulder if i recall, tried a few more times and found more of the same and promptly gave up on the title. Mainly because there is an astronomical difference between a difficult well designed game and something cheap.
I agree with what you’re saying about achievements, and I actually find it quite liberating to play Wii U versions of game for this very reason. I know you can switch off notifications, etc, but they are there. I am a completionist. I will feel compelled to “achieve” them.
But it sounds like you need to play some better games to get your achievements. The kinds that have simple yet solid rules, that you getter better at through practice and better understanding of the systems, such that progress itself is an achievement without the associated points. The Trials games are probably the best recent example of this. You first play to beat the levels. Then to get gold medals. Then to get platinum medals. Then to beat your friends. Then to beat the world! Each one of those goals feels like a massive achievement when you hit it. I would also consider Super Meat Boy and Rock Band to be similar experiences.
I know what you mean and OMG i forgot all about guitar hero, I can legitimately state the first time i finished expert after months of playing from easy was the best feeling of achievement I have ever gotten from a game, then going from there to passing the dragon force song on expert, through the fire and flames the one with the achievement . I got up there on the leaderboards too, got top 50 in some songs too, (though im in the 1000’s now since i never bothered to 100% and get perfect whammy and power timing for those extra few 1000 points.)
I actually 5* all but 1 song in the careers on the first few of the games too.
Moving on from that though, i haven’t found another game like that since. I tried to do it when the drums came out but with the dodgey carpet I had (pedals never stayed put) and breaking 3 sets in less than a week (all got refunded) I kinda gave up on it.
I might give trials a go though, if you add me to you FL it will give me something to compete against 😛 ( Names Kingpotato on XBL)
Turn off the achievement and trophy notification and ignore them all together. Problem fixed.
You can avoid that “cheap” boulder (which is a trap in the very section of the game) by rolling to the side. You can overcome everything else in the game in the same manner; by using your head.
Yes yes but its a burden of knowledge. I didn’t know about the boulder or evasive maneuvers, whether the large drop that rolling off the ledge would kill me or not and a myriad of other things all lead to a nigh guaranteed death for every new player (which makes it unavoidable and ergo cheap :P).
The tutorial was the worst thing i had ever seen and im then greeted with the first level killing me 100 different ways before all the controls have even been properly introduced the game was punishing me for ITS failures. Which is fine for some people but teaching me how to play your game by killing me and forcing me to lose my loot is un acceptable and as I said i don’t play many games to “be challenged”.
AS afar as the achievements go, no that doesn’t work. That turns of EVERYTHING, if i could turn only achievement notifications off i would. But it turns off all notifications like friends coming online message etc etc
As well as Batguy stated its too late i know they are there, I have a extremely mild (If at all, probably more to do with personality) form of OCD, nothing near the realm of turning the lights on and off 6 times before leaving a room but enough that i feel STRONGLY compelled to do things for no real reason on occasion, achievements feed into that. I WANT to complete a game and when I finish one and see i have 200/1000 score it really IRKS me, in a way that is hard to describe.
Its also things like I’ll check the list of achievements before i start a new game, because if i can reasonably get 1000/1000 i feel compelled too. Hell even if i can’t I’ll be in AC running around and notice flag 2 minutes out of my way and go get it, the flag isn’t hard to get, it doens’t give me anything in game, but if i collect them i get an achievement. This type of pyschology is very hard to ignore and before long you realise you spent the last 30 minutes NOT HAVING FUN running after flags for no tangible reason. So for me personally just removing everything achievement related would be preferable.
Granted this problem was much worse for me when the 360 first came out, nowdays i can ignore 99% of it the second i stop having fun, but the point still remains it has a negative effect.
I got the Supreme Allied Commander in Rogue Squadron, dang that sucked. I also fully unlocked all the extra modes in Star Fox 64 (Lylat Wars), that also took forever.
Getting the invincible cheat in Goldeneye was certainly up there.
And I feel like a boss everytime I play a music level in Rayman Legends.
edit – UNLOCKING TICK TOCK IN DKR!!! YEAH!
Hats off! I remember always racing TT as a kid and just being completely unable to get anywhere near him. I figured the whole unlocking him thing must just be a rumour, like those ones about how you can unlock Taj’s magic carpet as a vehicle.
Also I forgot about Lylat Wars too. Unlocking on-foot versus mode was a complete bitch.
I never heard the magic carpet rumour – it’s a good one though!
To be honest, my younger brother and I unlocked TT, it wasn’t all me. Using the Rooster character and taking your finger off the accelerator as you boost were key!
I never did get two cheats on Goldeneye, I think one was 2x Lasers and the other was Golder or Silver PP7. After I unlocked all guns, they didn’t really hold any appeal.
Man, I was so good at games as a kid. I bet young me could kick my ass. Maybe because I could play all day after school.
Oh yeah! I forgot about 100%ing the hard-as-nails N64 trio of Starfox (that’s what I’m calling it, dammit), Goldeneye and DKR. Man, I used to kick ass back in those days!
Secret shame, though? I never even *beat* Perfect Dark’s final levels until I played the 360 version :O I think it was cos I was playing on perfect agent difficulty, and those levels were soooo tough at the end.
Oh god, I forgot about that too. It took me years to get back to beating Perfect Dark, for ages I was stuck at the sunken ship level with all the green interiors. Just got wrecked by the guys with shotguns. Eventually managed to unlock the final bonus mission, and beat it too.
Can’t for the life of me remember if I beat GoldenEye properly though. I think I might have only done it with the push-button cheats, but I’m not certain.
My cheat was being in a chicken pox-induced fever when I did unlocked the last couple of cheats. I think the tough one was beating Egyptian on 00 Agent?
That was the one with Baron Samedi, right? Rolling all around the place. And those freakin turrets! The ones that activated if you stood on the wrong tiles, though I don’t know how you were supposed to know which were the right tiles other than through trial and error.
oh Getting a 3 star rating in every cup on Mario Kart Wii and unlocking Dry Bowser.. took me forever to beat rainbow road properly
Finishing Halo 1 On Legendary.
Battletoads.
100% Fallout 3 on all 3 systems.
‘Finishing Dark Void’
Which is weird, because at the same time, i havent been able to get past level 1 of Donkey Kong.
My greatest achievement was almost finishinga-spec on gt5 then not playing it for 2 years put it in the other day got a trophy for winning my first race.
I sat down to Defender on my Atari 400 with standard Atari joystick at 8am on a Saturday morning, determined to get past 100,000 points.
16 Hours later I had over 16 million points and a blister on the base of my thumb the size of a 50c piece. I couldn’t play any more, it took about 15 minutes of just leaving the game running for all my extra lives to run out.
A few months later I read the ‘World Record’ in Big-K magazine was about 320,000 points or something like that. I felt like I had just run 100m faster than Carl Lewis 🙂
Getting my pilots license in San Andreas – it took a lot of attempts – like we’re talking Trials level difficulty
While I never demolished Final Fantasy X like my friends did (I plan to for the HD remake, don’t you fear) I DID virtually complete all of Final Fantasy XII. It’s definitely not appreciated as much as like, say VII or X, but there was so much extra content, and all of it felt challenging or deep, ESPECIALLY the hunts system, and I’m so glad that there are other games who utilise it because it is such a great idea. The final hunt, a boss named Yiazmat, can be found on YouTube clocking in at over two hours with max level characters. I attacked it three times at levels lower than this – the first two Yiazmat killed my party within a few inches of his life, but the third time after a gruelling 3 1/2 hour session, dodging death an innumerable amount of times, I prevailed and earned the Yiazmat wall mount in my Sky Pirate’s Den. I just wish I could say I finished the den; I’m still missing two more characters. 🙁
Another would be Star Ocean 3. I completed everything there was to be done and got over 80% of the ridiculous Battle Trophy system, and I’ve only seen a select few people on YouTube who’ve done them all. While my Battle Trophies aren’t complete, everything else is and I still retain an innate knowledge about everything in that game and it gave me a wicked experience back when my PS2 saw regular life.
YOU KNOW WHAT’S AN AWESOME GAMING ACHIEVEMENT? THE PS2. <3
FFXII is a criminally underrated game, for the sidequests alone. Those hunts were amazing. The Gilgamesh fight was fun, i never made it to Yiazmat
Oh and getting Star Commander Class 1 ranking on Star Raiders, I remember punching the air and dragging my brother out of bed to witness it.
It used to reveal your rating in two parts, waiting to see if you achieved ‘Class 1’ felt like waiting for the oscar winner to be read out.
The over the top ending in another 8bit game I have forgotten the name of, but there was an almost endless ‘parade’ at the end, it was awesome.
In modern games, beating Halo on Legendary is about it. I don’t get the same sense of achievement in this gen of games.
Defeating Penance in FFX, that and clearing all the monsters in the Bestiary. Those were some epic battles. (the less said about the chocobo race, the better).
Getting the Platinum for both Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls
Pure Bladestones…. that was an epic grind right there.
I’m a an avid gamer, but I’m also a bit shit so my best accomplishment that comes to mind is platinuming Hitman Absolution in 5 days. It felt like an awesome accomplishment but it’s not all that special anyway so yeah..
Beating Battletoads, TMNT and Mike Tyson’s Punchout on the NES. And to a lesser extend, getting Platinum on all Trails HD/Evolution tracks/skill games.
100 percenting Banjo Kazooie. 😀
I never finished it when I was younger, so I picked it up again a few ago, started again in an empty save file and finished that thing until the end. That final boss fight. >:C
Seriously though, the sense of accomplishment upon finishing it was crazypants. I took a photo of my stats and it’s been my Facebook header image ever since.
My BF got me Banjo Tooie for my birthday after I finished Banjo Kazooie. So that’ll be my next great gaming achievement!
Quitting WoW (for realsies this time) is my greatest achievement. It’s been over a year since I last logged in and with no expansion release announced I don’t foresee my resub any time soon.
That said, Blizzcon just around the corner…
Bayonetta’s “Non stop infinite climax” mode, done with Bayonetta,and Jeanne.
Unlocking Green Hill in Sonic Adventure 2.
Halo 1. Legendary. Solo. No deaths.
Beating Portal 2 co-op with my gf. We don’t work well together, and the first couple hours were pretty awful with a lot of petty arguing. Still, we stuck it out and by the end we were working flawlessly together, solving puzzles quickly and not once looking up a guide. Felt pretty good and was a big plus for our relationship.
Come to think of it, Mario Kart DS took quite a lot of work to get that three star rank next to your name.
OH, SUPER MARIO KART! Now there’s a total bastard of a game. For years I didn’t even realise it had a 150cc mode, til one day I returned and managed to actually beat Star Cup finally. Then somehow got through Special Cup too, and there it was.
A mate and I 100% super Mario kart and there was a time he lapped me when I was coming 2nd in bowsers castle. He was a absolute freak though and totally carried me.
Hmm.
Mgs 3 – the end (character) boss fight.
Shadow of the colossus – all colossi fights.
Call of Duty world at war – getting the platinum.
Journey – the whole experience.
Outlaws – before lucas arts started to suck.
Abes oddysee – first platform experience, will never forget.
Getting 1000/1000 Gamerscore for Shadowrun, including sneaking into the flag drop off without four enemy players waiting for me noticing.
Also killing the whole team(6 players) in COD4, Hardcore Search and Destroy.
You never did…DIRTY LIAR…
Not only clocking Demon’s Souls but also pronouncing that darn name aswell. Am I the only one who preferred over Dark Souls?
That, and getting all the Joker riddles in Arkham City. It was time consuming as hell, and pay off was underwhelming. But at least I can say it’s done.
completing Ikaruga on GCN with a single continue.
being able to S++ the first 3 levels and finally getting in the top 100 on the leederboard
My finest moments are probably beating Halo 3 and Halo reach on legendary and spending 7 hours in Halo 3 scouring the map for skulls with some mates as well as maintaining a ridiculous amount of world records in audiosurf 1 and 2.
Finishing Halo 3, Halo: ODST and Halo: Reach in co-op on Legendary with the same mate was awesome. So many feels of camaraderie!!!
The greatest achievements are those shared and celebrated with others!!
Donkey Kong Country 101% in under an hour. My best time was 56 minutes.
My 10,000G gamer score <3
Completing a ring section of Superman 64 with the screen size set to 20%
I still don’t know why that option is there….
Secret of Monkey Island. Took me years to get through it on my Amiga 500! Back then you couldn’t just look up the walkthrough on the internet …..
Getting 102% in DKC2. It took me a few years before I found out how to get to one of the bonus stages in Web Woods.
Also, getting my first AA in DDR all those years ago.
Beating every song on the hardest difficulty on Ouendan 1, ouendan 2 and Elite Beat agents….
why are the cute cheerleaders the hardest difficulty? 🙁
Getting through ANY Fire Emblem level without losing a unit!!
Completing Castlevania on the NES without using holy water.
100% Super Metroid in under 2 hours. Far from the fastest but I found all the secrets myself.
Being in the top 2000 for Battlefield Bad Company 2 on pc.