Sooo, many of the achievements are story based or pretty self explanatory, but I figured I'd make a guide just to have all the achivements in one place.

I'm aware it's a bit of a mess. I might come back and make it less all over the place, but for now, I'm just putting it out there.

Hope this helps on your achievement hunting, and thanks for looking! (And thanks to Image & Form for making such a lovely game and sequel. Here's hoping a third one's in development!)

Keep advancing through the story and you can't miss these, but do note that the descriptions and pics could be seen as spoilers!



The Guiding Light
Defeat the first boss.



A Mysterious Garden
Enter Yarrow and discover a strangely verdant area



A Shining City
Discover the last refuge of a fallen civilization, The Oasis.



The Enlightened
Defeat the Great Prophet



Ghost of the Machine
Escape the grasp of Vectron



A New Frontier
Leave the Earth with your companion in tow

Maximum Potential
Reach experience level 14.


You need to be level 14 in order to max out a lot of your gear, but the workbench does tell you that. So I don't know why I did. Also, fun fact, the maximum level is 20! Can't go any higher than that. After that your experience bar dissapears. Guess that's the game's way of telling you to chill out already.


Is It Even a Pickaxe Anymore?
Upgrade your pickaxe to the highest level possible.



My Very Own Sun
Upgrade your lamp to the highest level possible.



That’s Armor-e
Upgrade your armor to the highest level possible.



Hard Carry
Upgrade your backpack to the highest level possible.



Hopeless Gearhead
Buy all upgrades available at the workbench.

Achivements that require you to do something.


Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Bot
Hit 15 flyers with your Hook Shot.


My favorite achivement. Hitting them is so satisfying. Though if you hit one lava bird into a bunch of others, you only get one kill towards this achivement.


Donk.


Two Birds, One Stone
Kill two enemies with one crushing rock.


You'll probably get this one just digging around, but if you're having trouble making it happen, this is the way I did it.


Go to this area of the East Temple with all the flyers,


have ramjet vigor equipped on your jetpack, kite lava birds around until they're under a block, and fly up through the dirt. Since they follow you around, so it's easier to tell where they're going to be when the block drops.

Splat


Right Back At Ya!
Kill an enemy with its own projectile.


Another very satisfying thing to do. You can use the aramid armor, or the projectile hitting picaxe upgrade. Possible targets include both types of cultists, and the pink shooty plants in Yarrow.


Lazy Person
Travel a distance of 100 tiles horizontally without touching the controls.


This one's fun too. Note that it has to be a continious 100 tiles, not cumulative.
Start from this area in the East Temple




And ride it all the way down. Remember to clear the path of dirt blocks first! (You may take some fall damage along the way, but you'll still get the achivement).















Hook, Line and Sinker
Collect 15 resources with your Hook Shot.



Not a tough one if you're actively trying. Just make sure you don't have the magenetism upgrade on, because even if you hit it with your hookshot, the magnetism will activate once it gets close.

Demajen's guide is great for finding the cogs/artifacts you're missing (and helped me find the last artifact I was missing).
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1144149252


Hobbyist Collector
Collect 10 artifacts.



Skilled Collector
Collect 25 artifacts.



Master Collector
Collect 42 artifacts.





At Least It’s Shiny
Collect 10 Silver ore resources.


Here's your silver medal! You can find silver, which is a mid-level ore I would say, all over the place. I guess this achivement is sort of a gimme, and no one will have trouble with it, but I figured I would say something...


It Makes the World Go Round
Sell $2,500 worth of resources.



Barnacle’s BFF
Sell $10,000 worth of resources.


Not difficult if you're trying to hit it. I think if you upgrade all your gear, it's about this amount. Use the treaure tracker to scope things out, save some secret gems to sell when your sell bonus is high, and maxing out your backpack gives you an extra 30%. Also, blood gems will always drop into end game, so if you were really desperate...


Arguably these are more about selling things, but you do have to collect the things to sell them, so they're going in this section.




O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Find all missing Yonker brothers.

Credit to Demajen's guide for the last brother's location.
If you just want a hint: One's in Archea, one's in the West Desert, and one's in Yarrow
Further hints: You need the jackhammer to reach the 1st, you need to backtrack to find the 2nd, and the 3rd is very close to an entrance into Yarrow

The exact images are behind the spoilers here (I totally didn't know you could mark screenshots as spoilers before I posted this guide, so I'm doing that now 12/16/17)

1st brother


2nd brother



3rd brother




Again, you're not really collecting these guys, but think of it like pokemon, I guess.

Cave Diver
Complete 5 caves.


I'm not actually sure if you have to have five caves with green check marks, or if quest caves count, or the exact specifics. But I can't imagine anyone reading this guide (ie caring enough about achivements to actively go after them) would need help with this one. You're pretty much bound to get it playing through the game.


Splendiferous Spelunker
Complete 20 challenge caves.


There are about 22 challenge caves, ie caves that are not necessary to the quest, in the game. So you can get this achivement without beating them all (in case The Floor is Lava is giving you trouble).


Gold Farmer
Finish the game with a gold star in the Wealth category. Get filthy rich!


I think this achievement isn't too hard to get if you're actively going for it, and it's definitely the easiest gold star to get. And remember that the higher your level, the higher the sell bonus. Maxing out your backpack and using the minimap resouce upgrade are also good ways to get dat money. Thanks to icedwarrior for sharing the exact amount you need to get gold, which is 15,000.





Explorer
Finish the game with a gold star in the Secrets category.



Find 100% of the secrets in all areas that have a percentage (ie not El Machino). That means finding all cogs, artifacts, Yonker brothesr, and completing all caves. Some things will say they're a secret area when you find them, but don't actually count towards the percentage. In general, any gems or ore you find inside caves will count torwards your secret percentage, and are necessary to complete a cave. And gems found in 'secret' areas not in a cave don't count. There are other things to find and do that don't count towards your secret percentage, but they don't matter for this achivement.

Demajen's secret guide helps here, you can find the link in the section above this one.


Speedrunner
Finish the game with a gold star in the Time category. How fast is that, exactly? It’s up to you to find out!

I've done some rough experimenting, and it looks like you need to beat the game in under 4 hours to get gold. My fastest time is 2:06:44, but I was focusing exclusively on time. All the other stars were bronze lol.


Hardcore
Finish the game with a gold star in the Deaths category. You can’t even die once, buddy!


Watch out for rocks, because not even true survivor can bring you back if you're a steambot pancake.


The Impossible Dream
Finish the game with a gold star in every category.


If you want this achivement, you probably don't need any advice, but if you're not super great at games (me), I focused on one star per run through. The money star and the secrets star are easier because you can go back and do them, but I did a speed run and a no death run where that was all I prioritized. And then I put it all together! And got killed by snails. They'll getcha.

Solid Sneak
Do not trigger the alarm in Vectron more than twice.


You can't avoid triggering the alarm in these places







So you have to make it through the middle bit unscathed. You can go under some of the bots, though make sure you don't mine the blocks out from under them, because if they fall they wake up.



You can also bait the sprites that aren't linked to a bot into exploding blocks to create paths for you.



And then when you get to the last bit, sprint jump over them all.
Also, I'm not 100% positive, but I think if you die in the middle bit (which respawns you to right before), you can keep trying until you get through, and you'll still get the achievement. But note you won't get the achivement until you leave Vectron.


To Hell and Back
Survive the Ultimate Trial.


You unlock access to the ultimate trial by collecting all 42 artifacts, which gets you this blueprint.


Now you could solve this lovely riddle, or you could just stumble upon it when you're flying around filling out the map...





But to get up to this platform, you have to have this jetpack upgrade (I think)


And then good luck!! If you thought the rest of the game was pretty easy, here's where all the difficulty was, apparently. If you're using mouse and keyboard because you don't have a gamepad (me), it is very very difficult. So either make sure to use a gamepad, or be really good at platformers. Which I'm not, hence why I haven't beaten it.


Sequence Breaker
Destroy all devices without entering Vectron.


This one isn't actually that much harder, it just takes longer. Also, I don't know if you can beat the game without the jetpack. I can't remember if I went back and got it, or if I just considered it done after getting the achivement and deleted the file. Anways, the long range hookshot is a must, since you are without a jetpack for this one.


To get into Yarrow-proper without the jetpack, use the grenade launcher to blast those mushrooms.



The grenade launcher is in the Chamber of Secrets.



Good call using the sword though, Harry. Less chance for colateral damage. ;)

To continue into the East Temple without the jetpack, definetly have the lava boots equipped, which will be almost required to get through the lava drippers and golems. The long range hookshot has a really impressive range, so even though the walls are covered in anti-hookshot material, the bottom of some the pillars are free, and you can hookshot across the first huge pit of lava.




And again, the Temple of Guidance just takes longer. But still very doable.

Honestly, going through all the trouble is worth it to hear Fen say this:


Oh Fen. You cutie.