Late last month, Square Enix introduced “Streamlined Progression” to the PlayStation 5 and PC versions of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, giving all players access to the extremely broken feature set, including the ability to always hit for 9,999 damage or have your HP and MP consistently recharged.
That, along with “Head Start Mode,” another feature that gave players an instant boost, made FF7's Remake campaign pretty trivial, and as a byproduct, its Platinum Trophy.
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Shouldn't be a problem right? The more people experiencing a game is good, and trophies are ultimately just virtual goodies with no real meaning. Well, there is a pretty vocal community that has some disagreements.
On PSN profiles, where registered users can track their Trophy progress, 17,755 have achieved FF7 Remakes Platinum, including a number of users in the past few days, including 50 between January 28th (Wednesday) and today (February 1st at 4pm).
It seemingly sparked a debate within the site's forums about the legitimacy of a Platinum after “cheating”.
“It waters down the hobby and (discourages) developers from producing harder content when they notice that players aren't actually participating in it,” wrote one of the most vocal people against the update.
“I, for one, value the journey so could never do such a thing,” someone else wrote against the premise on Reddit.
Others were seemingly unfazed. After all, the cheat does not void existing Platinum owners.
“As someone who got Platinum legit ages ago, I understand the anger,” wrote another. “But honestly, anything that makes games accessible to a wider audience is good, and someone using the features doesn't invalidate my own journey. I hope this comes to Rebirth as well. It's a game that I think has scared some people away with its difficulty, and that's unfortunate.”
Trophies have been broken long before FF7
With the prevalence of titles like My Name is Mayo, along with developers seemingly focusing on simple trophies like Breakthrough Gaming, the idea that Final Fantasy 7 Remake broke the sanctity of platinum is pretty ridiculous. That's not even counting games like Nier, where you can “buy” Platinum, or Telltale titles that hand out trophies like candy.
They are digital collectibles at the end of the day. That more people can potentially complete the game is great, and if Platinum happens to be that much easier, it's really not that big of a deal. Especially when you still need all the other trophies!
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