Week of 30 Nov 2025
“Jesus married a milkmaid.”
Achievements Earned In:
- Stranger of Sword City: White Palace
- The Casting of Frank Stone
TrueAchievements Twelve Days of Christmas:
- Power Rangers Super Samurai
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
- ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters 2000
- Duke Nukem Forever
- Delta Squad
- Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death
- Gaijin Charenji 1 : Kiss or Kill
As the month of November came to a close, my goal was to finally knock out Stranger of Sword City: White Palace. I was so beyond over it, and just wanted to be done with it and having to translate the entire game to tell what I’m doing. The guide continued to kinda be not enough, ignoring a lot of the mechanics of the game for a hard-lined path through the dungeons. I started using items I’d found, getting better equipment, and managed to finish the final zone (the eponymous White Palace) well under level and without really class changing. It wasn’t super easy, as you’re asked to face a final gauntlet of 4 very strong bosses, in a row. You can recover and heal between the third and fourth bosses but can’t go save or anything. Since this was my final challenge, I found some relief in that I could let my party members die if it meant winning out in the end. My successful run ended with zero deaths, though, and was actually pretty easy. So much of the game and your success in it comes down to both a good routine and straight up RNG. Like most turn-based RPGs, to be fair. Overall, I can’t say this was very “hard” at all (I mostly struggled when I didn’t know something due to the language barrier) but I highly doubt I’ll ever play the stack as I just don’t see how it being in English would help my actual enjoyment enough to warrant another tens of hours in this world.
Achievements unlocked: 44 (+4) | Completed
Don’t get me wrong, love the drip. But… what?
While Monday was technically December, I still had unfinished business: my November game for my goal of playing ignored/disliked games from 2024: The Casting of Frank Stone. This is… well, it’s certainly “a Supermassive game”, for better or for worse. But it’s set in the until-now unexplored Dead by Daylight universe, fleshing out the backstory of one of its Killers: ole Frank Stone, who has oddly not been added to that cavalcade of murderers yet. Even without much experience with the other game, I still recognized the tie-ins and hints at the multiplayer experience. Otherwise, it’s lots of unskippable cutscenes and QTEs, which is fun the first time through, but that’s never how these completions go. Sure, the story is interesting enough for a first pass (mostly), but I then have to circle back and replay through every branch and choice for the final achievement, also picking up any missed collectibles and miscellaneous achievements (usually also tied to various choices). It’s incredibly tedious and always sours my opinion of these types of games by the end. First playthrough done, then some clean up in the endgame using the early-game decisions I’d made, so now it’s time for my second full playthrough and I should be done!
Achievements unlocked: 24 (+24) | Completion: 75%
Oh, no no. I’ve seen this movie, you guys go without me. I’m going home.
As December blew in, bringing in snow and colder weather, so too did the yearly TrueAchievements Twelve Days of Christmas challenge come a-knockin’. The general concept is that every day through the first 12 days of the month, a new challenge will be revealed where you need to unlock achievements fitting whatever criteria they’ve revealed to unlock the next day. I always like to add my own wrinkle to this: start at least one new game with each challenge, favoring Xbox 360 games where possible. Let’s go Day by Day:
Day 1: 1 achievement with 100+ TA Difference
The first day may have been a challenge if I was starting fresh, since something with a high enough TA difference would be much later in the game, but I’m still working my way through Power Rangers Super Samurai! The achievements’ ratios are pretty inflated due to it being a janky Kinect game, so finishing up the training got me what I needed: a whopping 3.77 ratio and 40 Gamerscore does the trick.
Day 2: 2 achievements from games with 4+ site rating & 100+ votes
I decided to start my first new game, since this goal could be completed early on. And I got to pick something “popular” and “good”. I went with Rise of the Tomb Raider, which I’d been eyeing for a while anyway and have been recommended as a good time. There are some score challenge things that may be annoying later on, but for now this is on ice… unless, like any of these games, I can use it for another day.
Day 3: 3 achievements in games formerly in the top 100 of TA’s “Most popular Xbox games of the week” chart
I actually just went ahead and used The Casting of Frank Stone for this one. It was popular when it came out, garnering a lot of attention, so it had been charting for a hot minute. And I was playing it anyway!
Day 4: 4 achievements with three consecutive 0's in the game name, achievement name or achievement description
This one posed a challenge since numbers like that aren’t the most common in names and descriptions. Luckily, I don’t jump on every easy title like a lot of dedicated achievement hunters, so I had the entire ACA NEOGEO series still available, and the one for my needs is ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters 2000. Perfect! It’s also an easy completion, so it won’t be around long once I’m done needing it.
Day 5: 5 achievements in games released from 2006 to 2011
Wow, this was tailor made for me! I pretty much HAD to pick an older game now, so I went with Duke Nukem Forever, another one I’ve had on the backlog for a long time. There is a pretty short span between getting five achievements from start, so that won out. I’ll need to grab the DLC when I get to this for real.
Day 6: Spell 'SLEIGH' using the first letter of your achievement unlocks
This is the first really tough one. I could either find one game for the whole thing (near impossible), start a bunch of different games (eh…), or… maybe just use what I already have started and toss in a few new ones to continue the plan. For “S”, I went back to Delta Squad from last week and had to run through a few waves of the Survival mode. Next, for “L”, I started Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death, needing to play a little through the first level enough to get my first upgrade. I could just continue with more The Casting of Frank Stone for my “E” achievement, where I’d stopped right before the part in the story needed to turn down a particular “bribe” to begin work on this challenge with the intention of coming back here. I returned to double-dip in Delta Squad for what I thought would be a quick “I” achievement, but I didn’t realize how few Infantry units I’d killed the last time. I found a very quick “G” achievement in Gaijin Charenji 1 : Kiss or Kill, and I’m so curious to get beyond the character select screen at some point. It looks like a very strange game! Finally, back to ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters 2000 for a quick run in the HIGH SCORE Mode for the “H”. Whew!
Rarest Achievement:
Friendly Fire in The Casting of Frank Stone [4.56]
Most Common Achievements:
Savior in The Casting of Frank Stone [1.00]
Following in Father's Footsteps in Rise of the Tomb Raider (Xbox 360) [1.00]
Score 100 points in ACA NEOGEO THE KING OF FIGHTERS 2000 [1.00]
One-Eyed Freak in Duke Nukem Forever [1.00]
Achiever in Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death [1.00]
