GameCube Gets Achievements Thanks To The Dolphin Emulator

What would be
Lovely if they would be able to update nintendont to support this!

Horjay, meaningless ass pats for doing mundane tasks in video games !

I dont like "achievements" never did.
I am in a minority of that though.

@KitsuneNight I'm right there with ya, but people REALLY seem to like them! Personally I only really go for achievements if there's some kind of in-game reward or unlockable element like a new character/ability/level to play; a number next to a nondescript trophy icon means nothing to me.

@Sketcz @Andee
I find achievements pointless, meaningless, wastes of time that do absolutley nothing for me.

If others like the virtual ass pats for doing the most mundane tasks in a game, like booting the game, or beating the first chapter , then good for them I suppose.

But they do nothing for me and generally speaking I ignore them.

The only "use" and i use that term loosely, they may have is to see how many gamers reach certain points and finish their games .

But other then that they are virtual knick knacks.

achievements are fun little things to unlock they make me happy

@VivianOblivion
Well at least not all of the comments in here are miserable grouchy sods.

@Sketcz Yeah, I think it was when I was setting up my PS4 for the first time, as soon as I saw the option to mute the notification I was like "get it the hell off" immediately. And yeah, nothing worse than being in the midst of a super emotional/gruelling final boss fight to have that stupid chime yank you back into reality

cheevos are fine, l2p

I love achievements on steam.

Only in a comments section on the Internet could people take the announcement of a new feature as an opportunity to tell everyone they are not a fan of that feature and find it a complete waste of time. Thanks for contributing to the conversation folks 👍

For the record, anyone who finds achievements a waste of time clearly has never perused an RA set. They have some bonkers difficult ones. Space Invaders 2600 has an achievement for clearing only the top line of aliens without hitting any underneath. Hardly the most mundane task. Took me an hour of attempts.

@mariteaux Yikes I know. It’s one thing to say “I don’t care for them”vs. go on a 2-3 paragraph rant about how much you hate them in detail.

I’m a goal oriented person, in my personal, professional, and hobby parts of my life so I enjoy having numerous goals to complete.

@Summer235 That's the thing--I don't NEED achievements to enjoy a game, but they have made me appreciate games I've never cared about before (Pole Position is a great example, I'd never beaten it and never learned how to beat it before going for the Namcomuseum 64 set) and given new life to games that went stale for me years ago. It appeals to me to look at a list of games I've mastered on RA and go "I spent time in all of these clearing them out and now I appreciate them more", or remembering the grind for some of the really annoying ones.

Achievements are unique in video game culture in that the people who don't like them seem to get more enjoyment out of telling everyone they don't like them and find them stupid than the people who do like achievements get out of actually playing the games and getting the achievements. I find it fascinating.

@mariteaux That's partly why I decided to comment. I have been following Retro Achievements and have contact with one of the folks there. They put a lot of effort into what they do. I never took that job because the coding and possible tech issues put me off but I appreciate their work.

Not my thing, but I do find it funny that GameCube now has achievements before Switch. For all of its success, Switch feels like kind of a half baked effort from Nintendo. Wii U gets this whole social network, and Switch doesn't even have folders (at least last I checked).

@slider1983 I did look into making a set of my own at some point, for Lock n Chase for the 2600, but I lost interest. It was fascinating stuff, peeking at memory addresses on the Atari, punching in values and seeing what would happen. I still have all my address notes, and I'd still like to make that set happen someday.

@mariteaux I think it was the tech aspects that put me off although it's fun to come up with ideas for them. I have recommended to the website however achievement tiers so people can still get 100% completion awards but at different difficulty tiers.

Why not trophy as well? People do like pretending they had something.

@slider1983 I think that's roughly implemented with the completion/mastery system. Completion is either beating the game or getting all achievements in softcore (I don't recall because I don't play in softcore mode), and mastery is all achievements in hardcore.

@mariteaux My idea was for mastery to be achievable in hardcore mode but different achievements for different difficulties. You could have Easy, Medium and Hard Mastery. Easy for instance could be achievements that allow you to cheat to get them, Hard obviously not. But I'm aware change on that website takes years.

I also think they could benefit from stating what is and isn't allowed for achievements, whether cheats are allowed or not and whether that includes save states, etc.

@slider1983 I don't really see the point in trivializing mastery like that, especially since there's a good few sets that only have a few achievements or mostly completion achievements. You've either mastered a set or you haven't. There's no shame in not being able to master a set, but I don't think you should get rewarded for not being able to master it either.

I think it's pretty self-explanatory that cheats wouldn't allowed for achievements unless explicitly stated. Wouldn't be much of an achievement if you could just cheat your way to getting it. Save states are allowed in softcore but not hardcore.

@mariteaux That's why I felt having Easy, Medium and Hard Mode achievement masteries could be a good thing for the website. People can still feel they're mastering stuff but choose higher difficulty masteries and make sure not to use cheats.

@slider1983 I just don't see the appeal of cheapening masteries to let people who can't get them still feel like they're getting them. It's a website about completing objectives in games. Get good or accept that you can't do it.

@KitsuneNight I'm with you. Silly things, achievements.

Cheevers sure are preciously protective of them. Imagine throwing a fit because people are expressing opinions about an article's content in the comment box.

@mariteaux Another thing I like about achievements is that they extend the longevity of the game I play and make them really interesting. I’ve never tried RetroAchievements (also because I don’t have a good piece of hardware to run emulators supporting it) but I really love the Xbox achievements for the games I play, especially Rare Replay, because the challenges and achievements they put in for some of the more obscure and old as heck games made them more fun, and even the more harder ones were fun since it encouraged me to try to play the games in new and different ways, plus I love the little sound jingle that plays when you unlock them. It feels very satisfying! It is fine if people don’t like them, but I personally love them a lot.

@Coalescence Tell us how you really feel.

@Pastellioli Yeah like I said, I like them because it gives me something to do with both games that didn't work with me before and also games I already liked a lot. Basically every RA set I've done, I've walked away appreciating the game more (aside from Tetris GB, what a terrible version of that game).

@mariteaux I think that was the main argument against my idea although not everyone would agree with you.

I don’t think are achievements are really NECESSARY per se, but I do find them to be fun collectibles — either in game or out. Can it be frustrating to obtain some? Sure, but that makes getting one all the more satisfying.

This is coming from someone who Platinum’d LEGO Marvel Super Heroes.

@KitsuneNight
I agree!
Achievements in games like Smash Melee are fine.
When they are done for like every game, through the console like the HD Twins (M$ / $ony) are when they are pointless and annoying.

@KitsuneNight You might be in a minority, but I'm happy to be in that same minority. I find people who need achievements to enjoy a video game to be pretty unpleasant to interact with.

Puzzle League better get an achievement for breaking 50k in 2D Time Trial.

"meaningless ass pats for doing mundane tasks in video games"

Successfully completing a low% playthrough in Bunny Must Die is hardly what I'd consider a 'mundane task.'

Yuck. I've always hated Achievements/Trophies

Such an artificial way to try and extend a game's lifespan with pointless busywork.

The problem with the website is there seems to be tons of contributors but a complete lack of unified management control. The people in charge clearly don't have knowledge of playing these actual systems and are approaching it strictly through emulation...which is wrong.

They are very set in their ways and seem snobbish or not keen on new ideas or feedback. Might be why it takes them years to make changes to their website. Look at the problems I had trying to get PAL SMS games running at the correct speed. It wasn't them that got that done in the end! I can't believe no one questioned why PAL games were running at 60fps. At outsider coming in could see that was weird but they couldn't??? 😆 It's why I don't engage or give feedback to the website. If they aren't going to listen to someone with experience of those games there's no hope in me making suggestions in the future.

@mariteaux Good points, especially this line: "they have made me appreciate games I've never cared about before".

It might sound crazy at first (and sure, there are people who will play a game only for its achievements, but that's a different matter), but I think this is really the secret strength of achievements: encouragement to play and appreciate the game more.

For those of us who weren't gaming in the early '80s, achievements are an incentive to take a closer look at these seemingly repetitive games and understand their depth a bit better, rather than simply putting in five minutes and then walking away.

And even for somewhat newer titles, they can provide an excuse to go back and play an old favourite in a new way.

Nice, I hope RetroAchivements mantain a trend towards sets that recognize what is the game about, avoiding the meta-commentary that sadly plagues many titles, specially the popular ones.