Sliding Scale of Collectible Tracking: Difference between revisions

*** Exception: [[Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories]] gives you an option on your map to display the red balloons you ''have'' found and popped.

** The random collectibles from the space stage of ''[[Spore]]''. Literally could be anywhere. Except for Earth which has a fixed location.

*** 130 Buoy Tokens

*** 150 Skyscraper Tokens

*** 213 Hint Markers

*** Of all these, only the hint markers are shown on the map, but because the map is rendered in-game and they're so high, you can see the skyscraper tokens if you zoom in all the way and look closely.

*** This was fixed in ''inFamous 2'', see ''It's here'' below.

** The ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' games have the Energy Tanks, Missile Expansions, Ammo Expansions, and Power Bomb Expansions. You can see how many of them you have, but not which ones they are or how many are left, save for a counter on the menu screen that tells you what percentage of all the items in the game you have.

 

* '''It's Here Somewhere''': The game tracks your progress in individual sections of the game (often levels) so you know when you have every item in a particular area and don't need to search there further. (The game might not tell you the total number that can be collected in each area, but you can always look that up in a guide). How helpful this is depends on how big each section is, at least you're not wandering the entire world, but you still might have a lot of ground to cover, as there is still no way to know which items you've found within an area, only how many.

** ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' tells you how many flags/feathers are left in each city. Because of the size of the cities though, and the number of flags in each, it's still a trial.

*** ''Assassin's Creed 2'' breaks down the locations of the feathers into city districts.

** ''[[Rocket Robot On Wheels]]'' only tells you how many tokens and machine parts you've got. The game uses Individual Identification with the tickets, with each one graded based on difficulty and coupled with a hint.

** ''[[Spyro the Dragon]]'' has gems in levels and the games tells you which levels in which you don't have all the gems. However, in 2 and 3, (and others?) you could use Sparx to point in the general direction of a gem or gems.

 

* '''Individual Identification''': Each item is uniquely identified, so you know exactly which ones you have and haven't got. The game only helps track what you've got though, it doesn't give hints on what's missing, but this makes it much easier to use a guide to help you if you get completely stuck.

** In ''[[Okami]]'', feeding all of the animals can fall under [[Lost Forever]], as one dog can only be found {{spoiler|when you travel back in time to defeat Orochi}}. Each of the Stray Beads, however, is numbered, can be gotten until you reach the [[Point of No Return]], and has the area it's in listed.

** ''[[Crackdown]] 2'' shows every orb you've collected on a somewhat obscure map (it's under the achievements tab, and you need to select the achievement for the type of orb you're looking for) and allows you to 'ping' for orbs about once every ten seconds - if any orbs are near you, they'll show up on your radar briefly.

 

* '''Here's a Hint''': Some games make it easier by having a hint to prod the player in the right direction, which might be a pointer to the general area to search, or clues to the actions needed to uncover the collectible.

** ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]'' has a subquest where you can find some buried gold using treasure maps - the catch is that these maps are in no way integrated with your normal map. Instead they show where the treasure is in relation to landmarks (such as an arrow pointing to a campsite on a mountain, then another arrow pointing to a pass visible from that campsite, and so on.) Each treasure cache has the map to the next location inside, meaning that when you run out of maps, you've found all the gold.

** Most ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' games tell you how many Skill Points are on each world and give you their names, which are usually hints as to how to achieve them. (In the first game, you only got this information in a [[New Game+]].)

** ''[[Vexx]]'' has a rhyming hint and arrows to show you the way to each [[Plot Coupon]]. (You can turn off the arrows if you like on the pause screen.) However, this doesn't stop some of them being [[Nintendo Hard]] to reach.

** ''[[Ratchet and Clank|Ratchet: Deadlocked]]'' goes a step further than the other games and tells you exactly how to get each Skill Point. On the other hand, there are a lot more of them than in any other game.

** [[MARDEK]] has a map screen that shows you the exact location of all secret passages and treasures, including those not in chests, so long as you've gone reasonably close to them.

'''''Easiest'''''