tvtropes.org

Retro Achievements - TV Tropes

  • ️Sat Nov 11 2017

Retro Achievements (Website)

Retro Achievements is a website created by Scott Davies, a former programmer from Rare in 2012. It's a site that uses modified emulators for earning achievements. Each game has achievements each worth different numbers of points (originally totalling 400 for every game, now different depending on the game) that can be earned by completing tasks ranging from basic progression to high scores or challenge runs. Depending on how rare an achievement is, it may have a different Retro Ratio, which can be a guideline on how difficult the game or its achievements is. There's also hardcore mode, which forbids using emulator-assisted features (except fast-forward), such as savestates, slow motion, and cheat codes.

The site has certainly expanded since its inception, having over 500,000 registered users and dozens of supported consoles added. Achievements have also been split to core sets and a variety of subsets. The Bonus subsets are meant for the hardest achievements that need to be separate from the original sets due to their difficulty, while the Multi subsets are for multiplayer modes. Also present are subsets for specific challenge runs, like "Professor Oak Challenges" for the Pokémon games. You can also earn achievements for ROM Hacks, demos and prototypes, and even homebrew games!

There's also regular events: Achievement of the Week, where you have to get as many of them across the year as you can, Challenge League, an annual challenge involving completing various tasks across the year, RAWR, which is similar to AOTW but has three random achievements chosen each week, DevJam and PlayJam, which involves developers making sets for a specific system, and then players beating as many of them as possible, and console launch events. All of these earn you an Event Badge, which is displayed on your profile in the same way as the Mastery Badges you get for completing all of a game's achievements.

Consoles supported:

This site provides the following tropes:

  • Achievement Mockery:
  • Achievement System: The whole point of the site.
  • Brutal Bonus Level: The Bonus subsets are used for achievements that are just too hard to be put in the main set. And it shows. For instance, beating Mega Man without taking any damage.
  • Easy-Mode Mockery: Some achievements can't be unlocked if the player is playing the game on Easy mode.
  • Easter Egg: Many games with these have achievements for finding them.
  • Effortless Achievement: A few achievements for just starting a game are available, but they're generally discouraged.
    • Some games have a 0-point achievement awarded at the start of the game as a way to communicate certain disclaimers and warnings (supported emulators/cores/settings, for example) to players.
    • Similarly, some achievements are obtained by dying in particularly difficult games.
    • Super Mario RPG has an achievement for watching the opening demo fully.
    • Adventures In The Magic Kingdom has two achievements that can be earned on the name entry screen, before any real gameplay.
    • Mario Paint awards a good chunk of its achievements from just clicking letters of the logo on the title screen to cause various goofy effects.
  • Forced Level-Grinding: The SNES version of Chrono Trigger has an achievement for defeating the Nu form of Spekkio, which only shows up once you've hit the level cap.
  • Good Bad Bugs: Occasionally Invoked.
    • The Sonic Heroes GameCube achievement list is full of this, from beating Team Rose stages later than you're expected (due to remnants of early object layouts), to hitting a switch as them out of bounds in Final Fortress.
  • Hard Mode Perks: Achievements earned in hardcore mode contribute their points to the hardcore leaderboard and have a golden frame.
  • Homage: The site's logo, until 7th September 2023, was based on the European Sega Mega Drive logo. The replacement and previously secondary logo is still based on Sega's, but now only reads RA.
  • No-Damage Run: Some achievements are unlocked by defeating a boss, or more rarely a whole level, without taking any damage. No damage runs for bigger sections or even the whole game are usually reserved for Bonus subsets due to difficulty concerns. Achievements for No Death Runs and No Continue Runs are also very common.
  • No Fair Cheating:
    • Enforced in hardcore mode, and can be done internally or externally. Internal protection covers in-game passwords and codes, while the external method is hardcore mode detailed above. Also, Game Genie is always disabled.
      • Averted in softcore mode (hardcore disabled), which now allows any emulator assistance, from savestates to TAS tools. Softcore achievements have their own completion tier and leaderboards, but you may not be taken seriously by other players and especially developers for reporting achievement issues.
    • You're not allowed to play the games on physical hardware to get achievements, and playing through an emulator like RetroArch is required. You also can't retroactively get achievements for things you've already done.
  • Obvious Rule Patch: Pokemon Renegade Platinum has different achievements for catching each legendary Pokemon (a difficult task), with the condition that you can't use a Master Ball. For context, you can only get one in the game, and it has a guaranteed 100% catch rate. The rule condition is to prevent players from just using a Master Ball on a legendary to catch it, get the achievement, then resetting their save and using it on a different legendary.
  • Over 100% Completion: Beating a game on hardcore mode used to give a 200% complete message. Nowadays it just says the game is Mastered. If you're in Softcore mode, you'll only have Completed the game, not Mastered it.
  • Shadow Achievement: The site normally disallows setting particularly unfair or esoteric achievements. However, it does allow creating "subsets" for those who want to try their hand at them anyway for categories such as extreme speedrunning challenges (such as "Beat Super Mario Bros. in under five minutes") or exploring glitches. Progress towards "mastering" a given game does not take these into account.
  • Timed Mission: Some games like Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest have achievements for beating the game in under a certain amount of time, requiring you to play very fast.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable: Certain sets have still not been cleared by anyone, since coding errors prevent some of the achievements in them from triggering.
  • Visible Silence: Used as the name for some of the achievements that are secrets, or are simply baffling.