All I had left to do in Heavy Rain was:
- Perfect ending: heroine, helpless, innocent left; ethan arrested/freed;Madison saves the day ending
- happy birthday: first chapter do optimal day
- kamikaze: perfect car drive?
- pride kept: take off no clothing only a button?
- im not afraid: twins no mistakes QTE
- best friends: good day w/ shaun, 2 rides, buy candy, leave
I completed all of these except for I'm not Afraid (might do it next year).
16th October - Happy Birthday and Best Friends
Gods bless the guides people write.
With the help of a guide I easily cleared both of these, though really they just remind you exactly what to do. I don't think I ever did the technical drawing as Ethan before for example.
Also for the second one I remember not being able to do the boomerang game properly so completely evaded doing that.
18th October - Pride Kept and All Endings
Madison was going to be the big damn hero in this second full playthrough. I had gotten the first 50 achievements in my first playthrough of Heavy Rain way back in October 2023 in abotu 20 hours; playing through once then reloading to get different endings.
Madison went to the clerb and only opened one button before lamping the seedy nightclub boss. Achievement get.
Madison escaped the killers house, Norman was dead in the junkyard, Scott was wandering the streets and Ethan was in jail - Helpless ending unlocked. Then I reloaded.
With Ethan in jail and Madison single/unforgiven, she would save the day by finding Shaun all by herself. Thus Madison unlocked the Heroine ending and Ethan got the Innocent ending.
20th October - Kamikaze
On the night of the 19th / morning of the 20th I booted up Heavy Rain and went straight in and completed this after two attempts. Had to go through the whole garage sequence twice. I was following a guide of course so just paused every time I completed a Quick Time Event and checked what was next. In retrospect some of them seem obvious now but whatever.
I was considering loading up the Twins chapter but fuck it. Maybe next year or some other time.
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I loaded up Star Ocean 2 R instead. I had cleared most of the achievements in 2023 when I first got it and at the start of this year I got all the Rena-related ones. All that was left was Cooking Master/Beat Yarma and the achievement for 100% completion tied to that.
I blitzed through on a Claude playthrough on Universe difficulty. I briefly tried Chaos but it was insane. Some other time. I got as far as Energy Nede easily enough then got tired of it. R is good but it's too polished. Being able to skip every dialogue and even most battles now just makes me miss the PSX version.
So I loaded up an old completed file where all my characters were level 255 and happened to be right at Fun City - I must have been trying to do this before.
25th October Five-Star Chef/Master of the Star Ocean
I had briefly attempted the Cooking Master once or twice before in the remake but did not understand it at all.
I watched a bit of a video of someone beating all the contestants. That helped me figure out what was necessary to do. You just gotta press X or click the left mouse button right before the white circle closes in on the dish you are about to make.
It took me a few attempts but I eventually got into the rhythm of it. Some of the contestants kicked my ass but then after replaying some of them I noted they would randomly fuck up and get KO'd. So I either beat all of them legit by points or by Pressure KO, either from me or by their own hand. I'd take anything.
Yarma himself was tough, besting me the first time but I got him on the second attempt. This unlocked the achivement and the final 100% achievement together. All of this took maybe an hour or so.
I could go back and keep playing my Claude Universe mode playthrough but eh. Something that's bothered me for a long time was not beating Universe on the PSX after clearing it normally and on Galaxy almost all the way. I think IIRC I got as far as Indalecio Limiter OFF on Galaxy (yep). I think I still have that save file on a memory card so might need to do that somehow then do Universe Mode on PSX. I think I just miss the old version.
