The first thing to note is your shiny platinum is going to require no fewer than five playthroughs. It is technically possible to do it in four, but that will require an exhaustive playthough on hardcore and a fairly extensive playthrough on insanity which may end up taking longer. With five playthroughs (one of which will be incomplete), the last two will be story missions-only, which doesn't take very long at all.
To get a platinum, you have to:
- Play as an engineer
- Play as a soldier (or, maybe, infiltrator)
- Play as an adept
- Complete the game on hardcore
- Complete the game on insanity
- Take one character to level 60
Before you start, decide which class you want to take to level 60 and through insanity. In my opinion, the Mass Effect 1 engineer isn't a very heroic class and you might find insanity unmanagable. Soldier (eventually) can keep master immunity up continuously which makes him very hard to kill, while the adept is, shall we say, more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Also decide which alignment you'll go with (reason being that you'll play the opposite on your first playthough).
Some trophies pop out automatically just by playing the game. I won't expand on these further, but they are:
- Distinguished Service Medal (complete Eden Prime)
- Spectre Inductee (complete Citadel)
- Search and Rescue (get Liara)
- Medal of Heroism (complete Feros)
- Honorarium of Corporate Service (complete Noveria)
- Council Legion of Merit (complete Virmire)
- Colonial Savior (complete Bring Down The Sky)
- Medal of Honor (complete the game; required to unlock levels 51-60, and hardcore mode)
- Long Service Medal (complete the game twice)
- Power Gamer (reach level 50)
- Completionist (do most of the missions in the game; you can't unlock companion trophies without also getting this one)
- First Aid Specialist (use medi-gel 150 times)
- Dog of War (150 organic kills)
- Geth Hunter (250 synthetic kills)
- Medal of Exploration (land on a planet other than the ones required to advance the story)
Playthrough 1
This will be done on the casual difficulty. There are three reasons for this:
- You'll be trying to take as little health damage as possible
- You'll be using weapons that you're not trained in
- You're going to get Liara without doing any side missions so you'll have some hard battles at a very low level
Anyway, these are the missable trophies that you'll be going for:
- Scholar (codex entries for council races, non-council races and extinct races)
- Paramour (romance one of Ashley, Liara or Kaidan)
- Rich (get 1000000 credits)
- Charismatic (do one of three persuades)
- Paragon / Renegade (get your bar three-quarters full)
- Asari Ally (complete most of the game with Liara)
- Other companion ally (suggest Wrex so "Krogan Ally")
- Shotgun Expert (150 shotgun kills)
- Sabotage Specialist (use sabotage 75 times)
- Damping specialist
- Overload specialist
- AI Hacking specialist
- Neural Shock Specialist
- Tactician (take more shield damage than health damage)
The Paramour achievement is only missable if you're really stupid. Talk to your chosen love interest frequently and simply don't choose the "no, p*ss off" conversation options. Words to the wise: Ashley requires listening to some nauseating poetry recitals while Kaidan requires to bite your tongue and not call him a wimp. This makes Liara the most palatable option, so long as you don't mind blue-skinned aliens with tentacles on their heads.
Rich is impossible to miss simply because it's practically impossible to complete Mass Effect 1 with less than 9999999 credits to your name. However, I'd advise buying nothing other than medi-gel / grenade upgrades because 1000000 credits unlocks spectre weapons which are not only the best weapons in the game but also the only ones actually worth buying. Spectre weapons then become available for subsequent playthroughs.
Charismatic is not required in the first playthrough, simply because you'll automatically get enough charm / intimidate points to get it by taking your real characer to insanity and level 60. However, on this casual playthrough I would suggest putting eight points into either charm or intimidate (depending on whether this playthrough is paragon or renegade). Not only does this enable you to get the conversation options that you'll otherwise miss (and some of the renegade ones are highly amusing) but it also helps in getting the Paragon / Renegade trophy.
Anyway, Charismatic is achieved by doing one of three persuades:
- Talking Wrex down on Virmire
- Planting seeds of doubt in Saren's mind that he's being controlled by Sovereign on Vimire
- Proving to Saren that he's Sovereign's tool in the Citadel tower during the endgame
Asari Ally is harder than other companion trophies because you get Liara rather later than other companions, at least one main story mission later to be precise. Do the minimum necessary to get control of the Normandy (recruit Garrus, recruit Wrex, resuce Tali, get made Spectre) then go to Therum to fetch her. You have a couple of relatively hard battles to face (geth armature and krogan warlord), but not too hard because we're on casual difficulty, remember? Now go back to the Citadel and start doing all those side missions you skipped (scanning keepers et al). Talk to people like Admiral Kahoku to pick up other side quests and then play the game as normal - explore the galaxy thoroughly, do all optional bits in the main story missions, etc. Liara's trophy should pop out after, say, Bring Down The Sky or Virmire (as will the trophy for other companion).
Other weapon trophy is to help take the pressure off your soldier playthrough. To help you get it, there are a number of planets with harmless wildlife that will count towards the required number of kills, most notably Eletania with the monkey colonies. Once you've got the shotgun trophy, switch to assault rifle (hopefully by this point you can buy a spectre weapon so you've got some hope of hitting stuff) or heavy pistol.
The tech achievements are why you have to play engineer: AI hacking is exclusive to that class. Sabotage, overload and damping can be spammed on thin air. Neural shock, on the other hand, has to be cast on an organic enemy while AI hacking has to be cast on an enemy geth / enemy drone. Because AI hacking, in particular, takes a while to unlock, getting all these trophies will take you until nearly the end of the game.
Tactician should pop out after defeating Saren. If you don't get it after doing casual with passive shield bonuses, try doing an adept playthrough on casual with master barrier. However, if you're having trouble on casual, then you probably won't be able to manage insanity.
Playthrough 2
This will not be a complete playthough. We will use a character that we don't want to take to level 60 and stop when we've got the trophies we want (weapon / adept skills and companion trophies).
For argument's sake, I'm going to assume that this playthrough will be soldier. As it happens, for me this playthrough was infiltrator, for two reasons:
- I'd unlocked assault rifles during my engineer playthrough
- Engineer skill unlocks don't synergize well with soldier, whereas AI hacking is perfect for an infiltrator.
Trophies that we're going for in this playthrough:
- Renegade / Paragon (whatever you didn't do last time)
- Assault rifles (150 kills, if not unlocked already)
- Sniper rifles (150 kills)
- Soldier Ally (majority of the game with Ashley)
- Sentinel Ally (majority of the game with Kaiden)
Playthrough 3
This is it; this is the character we're going to take all the way. For argument's sake, I'll assume that this is adept since this class, in my opinion, is the one best suited to the rigours of hardcore / insanity. Take assault rifle as a bonus skill and you cover the adept class's one weakness: direct damage output.
This playthrough will be exhaustive to maximize finishing level. Level 50 takes around 250000XP. Level 60 takes 850000XP. So level 50 is less than a third of where you're aiming for.
You don't need to put points into charm / initimidate. Across three playthroughs you'll automatically end up with twelve points in your preferred skill (and maybe six in the other).
These are the trophies we're going for:
- Heavy pistol (150 kills, assuming it's not already unlocked)
- Throw Mastery (use throw 75 times)
- Lift Mastery
- Warp Mastery
- Singularity Mastery
- Barrier Mastery
- Stasis Mastery
- Preferred alignment trophy (if not unlocked during playthrough 2)
- Quarian Ally
- Turian Ally
play as an adept. Warp and stasis have to be cast on enemies to count. A
single point in stasis is good enough. Since you're going to be using
stasis, you may as well go with the bastion specialization (bastion is a
better choice than nemesis anyway). Since you'll want to be keeping up a
barrier continuously (eventually the cooldown is shorter than the
duration), barrier mastery will pop out without trying.
Tali is a
good partner for an adept Shepard. Garrus has some overlap with her,
but you can concentrate points in his direct damage skills. FWIW,
squadmate points in sniper rifles are a bit wasted because sniper rifles
in ME1 just aren't all that good. Assuming you're attentive in doing
side missions, ally trophies should pop out a handful of side missions
after Noveria.
At the end of this, you should be level 54 / 55.
Playthrough 4
Set the difficulty to hardcore before you leave the Normandy. This will be a story-mission-only playthrough so won't take long - not much more than six or seven hours. Despite the name, the difficulty's not too hard, especially since you've got lots of maxed-out skills. A maxed-out lift can disable a geth colossus! The only unwinnable fight is the rachni horde at the end of Noveria - you'll die from poison if you try to take them on. Just use biotics (bring Kaiden and Liara if you're not an adept yourself) to disable as many as you can and run past the rest.
The only trophy we'll get here is Hardcore, which isn't really a lot to show for our effort. Shepard will be somewhere around level 58 - 59 at the end.
Playthrough 5
Set difficuly to insanity before you leave the Normandy. Enemies are a lot tougher now. I found that Thorian creepers, for example, took about thirty seconds of continuous fire from a Spectre X assault rifle to bring down. However, all enemies are still vulnerable to biotics which is why I'd recommend an adept Shepard. Change ammo for different types of enemies. For sheer damage, shredder VII is best against organics, tungsten VII against synthetics and polonium VII against krogan (it stops them regenerating). Good squadmates are Kaiden (really: barrier makes him more durable than, say, Garrus and he has excellent crowd control) and Wrex (high damage tank with master barrier).
Again, just do compulsory story missions. Somehwere along the way you'll hit level 60 for the Extreme Power Gamer trophy.
Come the final boss battle, you should have 12 points in charm or intimidate which means that you can get Saren to commit suicide. Not only does this make the final battle easier, but you'll get the Charismatic trophy if you didn't get it earlier.
As for Saren's second form, you know what? It can be lifted. Between you and Kaiden, you can keep it permanently disabled. Then all you need to do is whittle down its health (which, this being insanity, takes a while).
*Pling* out pops the Insanity trophy immediately followed by the platinum.
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