Okay, first thing you want to know before you even start the game: this is not just a Metroidvania, it is a Metroidvania with RPG mechanics. You will have to keep track of your character level (a general indicator or your power), which skills you have equipped in your available slots and each of said skill's tier and level (the tier pretty much indicates a skill's base power and also sets the minimum character level needed to equip it; a skill's level is an amount of extra power it receives above the base), and your popularity level (used to access things like side quests and much more, but does not directly affect your combat prowess).

You increase these things with XP (experience points, earned mostly by defeating enemies), SXP (skill xp which you pump into various skills to level them up (note that a skill's tier does not change, only its level) which is earned both on a one to one basis whenever you earn XP as well as by trading in Textbooks, a resource I will cover in a bit), and PP (popularity points earned through completing side quests).

In addition to all the points above you also have resources to manage, including money, Textbooks, equipment, and loot. Money is for buying stuff (duh), Textbooks are used to buy new skills or to trade for extra SXP (the amount of which depends on your character level, so it is probably best to wait until you reach maximum level for maximum gain), equipment can be found, bought, dropped by enemies, or earned as rewards for completing quests (and as one might expect equipping up-to-date equipment to boost your attributes is important to doing well in the game), and loot is dropped by enemies and can be sold or turned in to complete quests. In fact much of the gameplay loop involves running around defeating certain enemies for certain dropped loot in order to accumulate enough to turn in to complete quests.

If you plan to do everything and get all the achievements you will need to earn almost eight million XP, even more SXP (which you continue to earn after reaching max level), over a hundred Textbooks (used to buy most of the skills in the game and then extras go toward more SXP), and grind for all the many whatsits, trinkets, and doodads you would expect from a game like this. It is by no means a super long game, but if you plan to complete it you will have to put in some hours.

One more thing before you hit Start: there are three missable achievements which I will point out when they pop up. There is no New Game+ so you will probably want to make sure you grab these the first time round.

(Please note I am not cool enough to have friends, so everything is based on the Single Player experience. Also I follow the designer's advice and use a controller in case that is relevant.)

PROLOGUE

After a bit of dialogue to set the scene we start the prologue with a high level Daryl complete with a suite of skills. Go ahead and test them out if you like. Note how each skill is mapped to a specific button and has its own cooldown. They vary in speed, power, element, and all the other bells and whistles you might expect from a pseudo-RPG. You cannot swap these out yet so get used these for now and continue right. There are a couple easy enemies on whom you may practice at the end of the first screen, and a couple more that appear once the first batch are defeated. Note that nothing you gain during this sequence carries over so there is no real point to defeating any enemies here if you do not feel like it. Continue right in the next screen until you reach a dead end, then backtrack a bit to get some more story. After this you will have to defeat a large group of minions while dodging exploding Textbooks. Note that you are so high level(one shy of maximum!), and have so much health that you are in pretty much no danger. Combine that with the fact that every defeated enemy drops healing and you will probably end this battle at max health even if you are still rusty with the controls.

On the next screen you will find your first of many lockers. Just smack it out of the sky with any attack and open it up to see that this is where you can swap out skills or spend SXP to rank them up. There will be a few other skills here that you can swap in and there is no cost to switch them around as much as you like, so feel free to experiment as you please. Note that it will likely be quite some time before you earn all these skills back after the prologue, but if you find that you particularly like one or two of them you can aim to grab them ASAP once the main game opens up. Anyway, like you were shown when you arrived the bad guy is at the top of the platforms above you. As you probably know if you have ever played a Metroidvania before you can drop down through most platforms by holding down and pressing jump. There are more easy enemies here that you can kill but, as before, there is no real point. You do you though. If you go all the way right on the bottom level you will encounter a lock. I trust I do not need to tell you that proceeding past this obstacle requires a key. So jump up those platforms on the right-hand side until you reach your foe at the top. More enemies will spawn, and these you do have to defeat, or at least the one with the key. Easiest just to waste them all, though. Grab the Warehouse Key and proceed to the Lock at the bottom right.

You die. But you get better. And then you level up (all your equipped skills level up too; note that that is NOT what usually happens) and you get to fight the "boss" and more mooks. Like the rest of the prologue this fight is pretty much unlosable. Don't worry about the timer either, it doesn't matter. After this fight you get to hear the background story of this weird, whacky game.

WEDNESDAY - TECHNICALLY STILL PROLOGUE

You receive your first story quest Daryl's New Friends, which requires you to retrieve 1 Piece of Paper and 3 Dandelions. Sounds easy, right? The orange locker is yours, but you cannot access it yet. You also cannot jump and have no skills. Quite the contrast from the beginning! This is the North Hall where there are several students you can speak with for optional dialogue if you like. Near the left end there is a Lock leading into the Science Room, and Tim's Locker for which you do not have the combination. To the right is a doorway that leads to the restroom where you can, uh, save your game. Just past that is a cute little rat with a bow that... well, it is too bad you cannot jump right now. Continue to the far right to exit.

This is the East Hall. Here you will see another Lock and an exit to the Main Lobby. Nothing to see here, move along...

The Main Lobby has a couple more students to meet (I love Mark!) and the exit to the Quad. It's almost like the game is railroading us or something...

In the Quad there are obvious dandelions in the background that you cannot pick up for some stupid reason. Oh, and a big raptor grabs the Piece of Paper you need and flies off. You can check the monument if you like, then, even though Paul told you not to, you have to venture to the Far Side to complete your mission.

The Far Side is the first place in the game after the intro where reality seems to be a bit thin. In addition to other things that means you can do all your cool acrobatic jumps again, and if you had any skills equipped you could use them here. You can say hi to the kid in the stupendous hat if you like, then proceed right to get some tutorial dialogue from a Dandelion. But wait, you already knew that! I think you know what to do with that patronizing little blossom. Go right jumping from rock to rock. Get used to this as the game has a lot of platforming. Once the path turns back left another Dandelion will give us a bit of advice that may actually be useful (hold sprint to increase jump distance), but... well, we need three of these guys, so useful advice or not his days are numbered. Proceed left, up, and back right, remembering to run and jump for any gaps that are wider than usual. At the top you can find your third Dandelion to the left and Tim's Locker Combo (aka the Piece of Paper) to your right. There is also Squirrel Boy. If you want. You can run and jump left a couple of times to reach another platform that dead ends, but if you drop down under said platform you will be back at the entrance (soon to be exit) of the area.

Note that now that you have unlocked the ability by visiting the Far Side you can run and jump in the other areas of the school. Go back to the Quad, the Main Lobby, the East Hall, and finally the North Hall. Congratulations, you have completed your first quest in the game. Your rewards are 1 PP (enough to get you to the first rank of Popularity, Flower Boy), and your Notebook, aka the main menu of the game. Ignore your new Story Quest, Flower Delivery, for now and check out your Notebook. There is a great Equipment page where you can see your stats for the first time. Level 1, 100 Health (or HP), 15 Defence, 18 Attack, and no equipment. Also note the lower left page indicating your absolute dearth of keys, photographs, Textbooks, and money. The next tab lists your locker combos (only Tim's for now, but you get an achievement for finding them all), tab three has a story synopsis, tab the fourth has your equipped skills, fifth has a list of friends and foes (bestiary), Number 6 has a handy map showing exits and icons, and the final tab lists all of your quests, past and present. Now you could simply continue straight away with the story quests, but that would make you a pretty poor RPG protagonist. Time for some Side Quests!

Enter the restroom and speak to the guy in the wheelchair, aka the Saving Instructor. He gives you a Side Quest to, well, save your game. Pretty easy and worth another shiny PP! (No. Even though you are in a restroom, no. Don't make that joke.) You don't even have to actually save to complete the quest: just accept it and speak to him again for your reward. No reason not to save though... Exit the restroom and go left to find another classmate with a big purple quest marker. This is the Keeper of the Quests. His quest is almost as simple as the first one: open your Notebook, go to the last tab, select Current Quests and just look at them briefly. Once done exit the menu and speak to the quest giver for more PP. Okay, literally nothing left to do except continue with the story, so click on Tim's Locker, enter the combo you found, and grab $5. You automatically plant the Dandelions, so return to Alan and Paul to... wait a minute! A new quest NPC has appeared just past them! Unfortunately while you can start her quest now you cannot complete it until you get your reward from the story quest, so go ahead and turn that in.

You have obtained your very first skill, Discuss Differences! It's Trash Tier, but what do you expect for level 1? It is really just a punch that can combo if you rank it up (see the Melee and Combo tags at the bottom when you equip it at your locker; by the way, you can and SHOULD equip it at your locker which you can now access). Note that you can also access the Skill Shop now, but you have no Textbooks yet so it does you no good at the moment. There is only one skill for sale right now anyway, and we will definitely buy it later. Anyway, skill equipped to whichever button strikes your fancy, speak to the quest giver to meet the Skill Sorceress, who summons a Fez. Whack the ugly little guy a few times with your new skill to kill it, then speak to the Sorceress again. She suggests levelling up your skill at your locker so... do that. Just access your locker and use your single, solitary SXP to increase Discuss Differences to Rank 2. Smack around another Fez (ooh, two-punch combo!), earning yourself another SXP... which you must immediately use to get your skill up to Rank 3. In case you could not guess, most skills will take a bit more than one SXP per rank. Note the stars on the skill description: when you reach certain ranks those fill in indicating that the skill has evolved in some way. For Discuss Differences the stars filled in at ranks 2 and 3, each one adding another hit to its combo. Since there are no more stars to fill that tells you that further ranking up of this skill will only increase base stats like damage, speed, and/or cooldown.

With your nifty new Rank 3 skill speak to the Skill Sorceress one last time to complete your Side Quest. You receive yet another PP and a Fez, your first piece of equipment! Open your Notebook and go to the Hats tab (the inventory tab, not the main tabs at the top of the screen) to find your shiny new topper. It looks like it provides 10 HP, 2 Defence, and no passive ability. Not great, but again, what do you expect for your first piece of gear? Equip that bad boy and note how cool it is that your avatar changes too! That was cool, but I bet you want more! Plus Paul and Alan aren't ready to let you progress the Main Story yet even if you wanted to do so. So instead leave this place and make your way back to the Main Lobby.

There is a new face here, the Popularity Shaman. Accept their quest and speak to them again to earn not one, not two, but THREE PP! That almost doubles your current popularity! Yay! Bask in your newfound glory if you like, then head out to the Quad.

Here the Weapons Master gives us a mighty weapon to equip as part of a Side Quest. That weapon happens to be a Dried Out Marker that boosts attack by 1 and that's it. Oh well, could be worse. Equip it and speak to him again for yet another PP. This game is easy! (Note the equipping weapons does not actually change your attacks; skills determine that. Weapons increase stats and sometimes have bonus passive abilities. Also note that every piece of gear has a minimum character level to equip it. It probably goes without saying, but the higher the gear's level, the more powerful it generally is!) That is all for side questing (for now) so return henceforth to the North Hall where your dear friends wait to continue the story!

Save if you want (doing so also heals you completely, topping up those extra 10 HP you got from your Fez...) and speak to Paul to receive the Key to the Janitor's Closet. Apparently that is in the East Hall, so let's go there.

As usual when we see a new Side Quest we should immediately drop everything else we are doing and help out this poor soul instead. Note the sombre music. Speak to The Gardener to learn of the passing of her best friend, Riley. Poor thing was crushed by an uncaring foot and all that was left was a bow. Who could have done such a thing? Anyway, the quest, Flowers for Riley, involves burying the rat in her favourite flower patch on the Far Side. Onward!

Run and jump across the platforms all the way to the top, then left to the dead end. Deader than usual, in fact, because here you will meet Death. Hand Riley over, then return to The Gardener to finish the quest. This earns you two PP and your first accessory, Riley's Bow. Equip it for 4HP, 1 Defence, and 1 Attack. Now let's open that Lock! Within the Janitor's Closet we open our first Chest which gives us the Key (get it?) Item: Key Ring. Grab it and exit because we have more important places to be (plus the poor man is napping).

Maybe save one more time because we are about to go to our first combat zone, the Science Room. Open the Lock on the left side of the North Hall and proceed inside. This place looks normal for all of about two seconds. Go through the portal to the new zone, Science 101 (and pretty neat music).

First off you can break barrels and the like throughout the game for pickups like loose change. Nice. Ride the bog-standard moving platform, note the door above you that is currently out of reach, and take the lower door to Science 102.

Don't worry about the seeming lack of floor, you can walk on it. Go right and platform up and right when you can, breaking shi... stuff as you go. You will reach a flask that suddenly grows to huge proportions, trapping you inside along with a new enemy: Lv. 1 Erl the Flask. Yeah... not exactly intimidating, nor dangerous. Destroying it should bump you up to level 2 though! He also sometimes (always?) drops our very first piece of quest/vendor loot, Broken Glass. If you did not get one don't worry: there will be many more chances to pick some up later. Shortly after you encounter an entrance to a restroom (I call them restrooms, game says Bathroom. I would not want to take a bath in there, but you do you.) Save if you want to, then continue to Science 103.

What's this? A quest from a SIGN? Yeah, there will be plenty of these. This one says you have to slay six flasks to proceed. No flasks in sight yet though, so we will have to come back later. Platform up the leaves to the right and at the top find yet another flower offering tutorial advice. This one looks a little too big to pick though. Drop down and press the button below it to clear the way, then drop down again and once again platform up the leaves. At the top and to the right you will encounter more Erl the Flasks. Six of them, to be precise. Smack them all around (they don't fight back, unlike later enemies) until you smash them all. This causes a platform to begin moving up and down. You can return to the sign if you like, but all it says is that the map quest is complete. So hop on that newly mobile brick to head upward and onward! You will find a Chest containing a Lab Coat (armour that provides 8 Defence) and a door leading to our next area. Can you guess the name?

If you guessed Science 104 you were correct. The music keeps getting more and more cool! Just like Science! To the east is your first enemy that fights back, Benny the Beaker. Not too tough though. Rampage through them (avoiding the periodic columns of fire), and probably reach level 3 once they're all gone. There is another restroom door at the end and shiny THING. Ooh, a tutorial message from something other than a flower! Grab the shiny like the nice dinosaur tells you to gain the accessory Lab Goggles (3HP, 1 Attack, and Science Vision!), and then you have a choice: upper door, or lower portal? It's the door. You're reading a walkthrough, this is exactly what this thing is for. Jump up and go through the door.

RIP cool music. Welcome to Science 105. Go right and purchase a Textbook with that $5 that has been burning a hole in your pocket. That's all there is to do here, so exit back out the way you came.

Now it is time to take the lower portal. This brings you back to Science 101, to the door that was out of reach before. Step on the frozen fish to turn it into a mobile platform that will allow you to easily return later should you wish to do so. Which normally I would say do right now since you almost certainly need more loot drops from these enemies, but they don't respawn until we continue the story a bit (not usually a problem, but I guess the devs don't want us power-levelling on the easiest enemies in the game before the first boss), so go left and exit back to Intro to Science, then exit from there to the North Hall.

Go ahead and speak to Paul. Save, then let's do a little checkpoint. There should be practically no variation this early in the game, but just in case: I was level 3 with rank 3 Discuss Differences equipped. I have the Fez, Dried Out Marker, Riley's Bow, and Lab Goggles equipped as well, so my end stats are 135HP, 30 Defence, and 27 Attack. We are about to get a second skill as well, one that is required to beat the boss. Open your locker, then the Skill Shop, and buy Blinding Logic. Make sure to equip it to a button of your choice. We do not have enough SXP to rank anything up right now, so exit out and get ready for our first boss fight of the game.

GORILLA TIM

Duck if he does a roundhouse and run away if he does a double-fisted ground pound. Your Discuss Differences punches do 0 damage to this angry ape, so first hit him with Blinding Logic. He will be stunned and momentarily vulnerable to your physical attacks, so let him have it. He's smart enough to cover his weakness after that though, by donning a pair of shades. Time to get sneaky. Jump up onto the platforms above him and Tim will become confused, not sure where you went. Jump down next to him and use Blinding Flash when he is surprised to once again stun him and whack away! This makes him even more angry and he destroys the platform. Play keepaway for a while until the platform reappears, then repeat the last sequence to trounce him. That will teach him to get upset when someone almost kills him!

END PROLOGUE

THURSDAY

We start the first full day of the game in the Gym Lobby. Here you can meet another student, use the restroom, or exit to either the North Hall on the right or the new to us South Hall on the left. Let's start with the former.

In addition to everything (but not everyone) that was here yesterday there are now stairs we can take on either end of the hall, the door to the History classroom, and Chelsea's Locker (which, say it with me, we can't open until we find the combination). Of greatest immediate interest is that the Skill Sorceress has a new Side Quest for us. She gives you a Textbook and instructs you to trade it for SXP. Now normally I would say those books are better used to buy skills first before trading in for SXP, but right now there are no skills available to purchase, one Textbook won't make much of a difference, more or less, and you have to complete this quest to continue the story anyway. So go ahead and do what she says: access your Locker and choose to convert the Textbook to SXP (at level 3 you get 474 SXP, which still is not enough to rank up anything right now, but you are a lot closer than you were). Your reward for this easy quest is another Textbook and a new quest to buy a new skill. Convenient!

Okay, we now finally see a good inventory in the Skill Store. The skills that cost a single Textbook are all Trash Tier, with a minimum level from 1-3. The ones that cost 2 are Ok Tier and can be equipped only once you hit level 10. The 4 Textbook skills are Good Tier and require level 16. Finally the last skill is a joke skill costing 7 Textbooks and is only useful for a couple achievements. Don't bother with that one until you have bought pretty much every other skill in the game. As for what to buy now, that is a matter of personal preference. You'll eventually get them all, so it is not a big deal which you pick now. I went for Crushing Realization while writing this guide. Don't forget to equip your new skill!

Afterward you receive your new Story Quest to obtain Book Spray and you get access to the Employee Tasklist which is just another source of Side Quests (though note there is an achievement for completing all the Side Quests from the Tasklist specifically). Pick up the first one which instructs you to sell Guano to a Trenchcoat Kid. Easy enough. Note that you can also access the Tasklist in any restroom. Once ready let's head upstairs using either stairway.

The aptly named Upstairs contains a few students we can chat up, six lockers in need of combos, a Trenchcoat Kid merchant to whom we can sell things, a restroom, the entrance to the Paranormal Club, and a Lock. Check with Drew to pick up another Side Quest that I already mentioned earlier, Collecting Broken Glass. Unless your luck was absolutely insane during the prologue you will not have the requisite 10 Broken Glass, so we will be heading back to the Science Room in a bit to grind those out. Unfortunately the Paranormal Club is currently empty, so let's go elsewhere. Specifically go back downstairs to the North Hall, then to the right and enter the East Hall.

On this screen there is a new exit in the middle foreground which takes us to the Kitchen. Speak to Chef Flex to pick up yet another Side Quest called Sous Chef: First Course. This quest requires us to collect 5 Spinach, 10 Half-Eaten Cheese, and 7 Fuzzy Meat Chunks. We know the Beakers in the Science room drop the Spinach, but the other items will have to wait a bit. The reward for this quest (and the upgraded versions you get access to later) is one of the best ways to grind out money in this game by the way.

Now you can absolutely leave this until later if you wish, but I am going to use this opportunity to return to Science 104 to grind out that loot real quick. For a reminder go to North Hall-Intro to Science-Science 101-Science 104. It should not take long to accumulate 10 Broken Glass and 5 Spinach. While some might be tempted to grind for more XP and SXP here there is not much point as the enemies here do not provide much and your current power level is more than sufficient for the next area. I happened to get lucky and had a Beaker drop a Bottle Cap when I did this, which is a Lv. 4 Accessory that provides 12HP, 3 Defence, and 2 Attack. I was still only level 3 so cannot equip it yet, but it will be an upgrade I can use immediately once I hit 4. If you do not get this drop do not worry as it is not a big deal and there is no achievement for collecting all equippable gear.

When finished run upstairs and hand over the Broken Glass to Drew to finish his quest. You receive a Textbook, 50 XP/SXP, and 2 PP. If you have extra stuff you can sell it to the Trenchcoat Kid for a pittance. Just make sure you save 5 Spinach. After selling my extra Broken Glass and Spinach I had just enough money to buy a piece of Super Weenie equipment, but it also requires level 4 and I did not feel I really needed it so I passed. There are much better ways to spend your money than on equipment that will be obsolete very quickly.

With that Side Quest out of the way you can buy another skill with your Textbook if you want to fill your remaining slot (I picked up Fowl Mouth for a ranged option), then go through the East Hall to the Main Lobby. Here we have four NPCs (one of whom has a Side Quest we will address in a moment), the exit to the Quad, and a new exit. Say hi to the NPCs if you like, but make sure you grab the Quest from the Magister of Maps. For Learning About Maps you must both navigate to the Maps tab in your Notebook and use the button/key the Magister mentions to view your Quick Map. A few seconds later you are finished so talk to them again for an easy 3 PP. Completing this Side Quest also opens the way to the next action area via Upstairs, but we have a few more things to do first. Oh, if you have been following along you should reach Popularity Level 2: Pants Wetter now, unlocking the first of many useful passives: Magic Magnet. You collect things from slightly further away. Okay, not the greatest yet, but it's only the first one! When satisfied take the new door to a new screen.

Welcome to the South Hall. Here we have a (currently inaccessible) door to the library, a door to the Art & Music room, a door to the D&D Club Headquarters, and, at the very end, the exit to the Gym Lobby. There are currently four NPCs, four lockers, and one who is both an NPC and a locker (well, an NPC IN a locker)! That last one has a Side Quest, so I am sure you know what to do. In case you could not tell from the really juicy reward being offered it will be a little while until we find the right combination to complete Locker Loser and help Gabe. Oh well. Let's enter the Dwarves & Druids Club now.

There is not all the much to do here at the moment except check out the new vendor. Here you can sell extra gear and loot like with the other vendors, but of note is that this is the only place in the game to get the very expensive Map upgrades that will show you where certain collectibles are located. In theory you won't need any of those because you are following this guide, but I wanted you to know they are here in case you want them later. I will probably forget about them and not mention them again.

That is it for completable side content, so time to continue to the next part of the story. We want to go Upstairs and take the new exit. If you forgot the way now might be a good time to use the handy Map!

Welcome to Upper Vents I. The new obstacle here are constant steams of steam that block your way until turned off with big glowing buttons. The trick, of course, is reaching said buttons. In this first area there are two reachable exits in the upper corners, another exit blocked by steam in the lower right, and a Ghost Lock we won't be able to open for quite some time. I went to the upper left first to reach Side Vents I.

Here you are locked in with a couple Vent Bats and a few Fluffles the Rats. They are the toughest non-boss enemies yet, but nothing special. Use your skills strategically to take them all out and the exits will open on either side. (I like leading with a Discuss Differences combo, stun them with Blinding Logic, then use the time they are stunned to prepare the long wind-up for Crushing Realization. This tends to take out any mooks at this level. Fowl Play can be used to finish off stragglers while the other skills are on cooldown.) Note that the bats drop the Guano we need for one of our Side Quests and the rats drop the Half-Eaten Cheese we need for another (1 of the former, 10 of the latter). We will be fighting plenty of these weirdos before we are done with the vents area so you will likely not have to grind much. Anyway, exit to the left when finished here.

Here in Side Vents II I levelled up to 4 and immediately swapped out my Lab Goggles for the Bottle Cap I found earlier. Ignore the button at first and clear out all the enemies (a couple rats followed by three bats at the top of some platforms). Now return to the button. This is a timed bit so make sure you run as you do the following: hit the button, go left, stop running for a second so that you jump high while you platform, run left and long jump over the pit. If you were too slow a steam vent will block you and knock you into the pit, but if you were fast enough you get past it where there is a hidden Textbook and some barrels you can break. Hit the button here to turn the vent off again then jump back across and exit all the way back to Upper Vents I.

If you are particularly hurt you can leave this area to go use the restroom. If not, or afterward, take the upper right exit.

Upper Vents II, as one might guess. Here a bat dropped another accessory for me, a Garlic Necklace (L.3, 5HP, 3D, 3A). This was better than Riley's Bow, so I equipped it. Take out the enemies along the top row and you will find a Lock in the upper right. No key at the moment, so ignore it. Instead go to the obvious platform in the middle of the screen and drop down through it (remember, hold down and press jump). We land next to our very first H.A.M. M.E.L.T.! These robots require Daryl to have a skill equipped that meets certain requirements of Rank, Tier, and Tag. This one requires Tier: Trash+ (that is Trash, the lowest Tier, or better, aka any Tier), Level: 3+ (This is skill rank not character level), and Tag: Melee. Well hey, earlier the game forced us to level up Discuss Differences to rank 3 and it happens to be of Trash Tier and possess the Melee tag. Convenient! Unless you happened to have unequipped that skill for some reason... anyway, assuming you have not, you can use Discuss Differences (or, in theory, any other skill that meets the requirements, though good luck having another rank 3 skill at this point) to smash down the fence to the right allowing you access to a Map Quest and an exit. The Quest first, as always! It just wants us to clear the map of enemies in exchange for some XP, PP, and money. Get to it! If you already took out all the enemies on the top row there are only a couple rats to deal with on the level above you, so do that and return to the sign for your reward. Easy! We are not quite done here however. Platform up to the level just shy of the top on the left. See that big fan? You can walk into it to retrieve Drew's Locker Combo! Once you have that in your grubby, greasy paws exit the area in the lower right.

Upper Vents III has both platforming and combat. In case you have not fallen down a pit yet in this game let me reassure you that it is not instant death. Rather you take a little damage and reappear at the start of the area. Remember to gauge the jumps and decide if you need to jump high (not running) or long (running). Kill the rats along the way and soon you will come to a platform with a huge chunk of coal on top of it. This platform drops when you jump on it, but only a little way, so don't worry. After it drops walk into the wall on your left to grab a hidden Textbook, then go right for a restroom. Hey look, the Trenchcoat Kids have set up a store in the restroom! I sold all my Guano which finished the task Side Quest. Conveniently there is a Tasklist right here so check it to complete said quest earning you XP, 1 PP, and a new skill (though you need to go to your locker to equip it). Save if you like then exit. You cannot get to the level above you with all that stuff right now, so exit to your right instead.

Upper Vents IV starts with another gauntlet where you have to kill all the bats and rats to reopen the doors. Once finished jump up and open the chest for a Textbook. Next to that is a flying Locker. Remember that from the Prologue? Hit it with any skill and it will drop down to let you access the Skill Shop and Locker menu. The skill you picked up from the Map Quest a couple screens ago might look familiar from the game's intro, but it requires level 10 to equip so just make note of it for now. As usual you can buy, equip, and upgrade skills if you like. If you already have a full complement of four you might want to hold off, however. Sure, for achievements we eventually need every skill in the game, but I like to save up so that once I hit level 10 I can immediately swap out all my Trash Tier skills for Ok Tier (and so on). I usually ignore the other skills of the Tier I already have unless they are convenient for a H.A.M. M.E.L.T. until I have a bunch of extra Textbooks. Speaking of Ham Melts you might have seen one on the previous screen that we could not reach yet and be wondering if you should equip a specific skill in preparation for encountering that. Good thinking! In fact we are going to encounter it in just a moment. It requires a Trash+/1+/Stun skill. Blinding Logic meets that even if you have not upgraded it (as does Shocking Statements if you bought that), so equip one of those and exit left to the upper level of Upper Vents III.

Use the skill we just mentioned on the Ham Melt to destroy the forcefield around the Chest, which you should then open to get the Vent Key Key Item. While it would be funny, this key does not open the Lock directly next to it, so just note that for later. You can bash the big hunk of coal to get a couple pieces of Coal if you like, but we will be back here before that resource is needed, so either way is fine. For now platform all the way back left to the exit.

Make your way back up to the top and open the Lock in the upper right corner. Ignore the enemies or kill them. I am the sort to fight every enemy I come across unless they are seriously below my level, especially since I did not yet have enough Cheese. If you are the type to avoid extra fighting you might end up at a lower level than I at later parts of the game. Which is not a huge deal, the game isn't super hard, just keep it in mind. Exit through the newly unlocked passage, in case that was not obvious.

Speaking of which the enemies on this screen got me to level 5. Anyway, Upper Vents V. Kill the rats, push the button (another timed one), run right, platform up, avoid/kill bats. You probably won't have time to fight bats and get to the top before the steam turns back on, so I suggest either aggro them, fight them at the bottom, and push the button again, or just be fancy and dodge them all on your way to the top. Note that due to Daryl's air time the timing can be a bit tricky for the final jump/vent. If you had not noticed yet if you are still holding the jump button when you land you will immediately jump again, which can help get past that final stream to the top. Up here press the button to turn off all the steam vents in the area. You can now drop back down and jump up to reach the two Trenchcoat Kids you saw earlier. The left one is blocking a passage for later in the game while the right one runs a store. Here you can buy a lump of Coal, a Garlic Necklace, and, most importantly, a Silver Key. Anyone who has played many video games in their life knows that keys are important, so I suggest you go ahead and buy this one for $4 (there is only one available). Now return to the top where you pressed the button and exit right.

Steam Vents VI has a lot going on. First off note that the Ham Melt in the lower left corner requires a Good+ Tier skill, so we won't be able to crack that for a while. Other than that there are a lot of steam vents and a lot of buttons, so time to start experimenting to find the right combination that will allow us to get where we need to go! There are three levels on each side and three buttons in the middle of the room. The middle left is where we came from, nothing there. The lower left has the Ham Melt and a button. Upper left has a button but is currently blocked by steam. All three levels on the right are blocked by steam also. By default all of the buttons are off except the left-most one of the three in the middle of the room (and if you turn that off it creates a vent that blocks the lower left section). The middle button turns off the vent in the upper left and the right button turns off the vent in the middle-right. Do that to access an NPC, Count Roger, who gives us a Side Quest! He wants us to slaughter 10 Vent Bats, and no, any we have already killed up to this point do not count. I like to get this out of the way right away, so after grabbing the quest I backtrack to kill bats until I have reached the quota. The bats in Upper Vents V don't seem to respawn, but there are four of them in Upper Vents IV that do. I just went back and forth between the two until I had killed the 10 bats, sold my extra loot to the Trenchcoat Kid on the way back, and made my way back to the count. (During this time I gained more than enough Cheese, lots of Guano, two(!) more Garlic Necklaces, and a pair of Footie Pajamas (almost four times the amount of Defence as the Lab Coat, not that the combat was all that hard either way). Selling off what I did not need meant that I now had a decent amount of cash.

Count Roger rewards us with some cash, 1 PP, and the Cape of Count Roger (which immediately replaced the Footie Pajamas; easy come, easy go!). This outfit provides 6HP, 30D, and our first equipment passive, Curse of Count Roger. This passive increases your defence by a further 5%. Not too shabby! Okay, now we see that there is an exit in the upper right and a passage to the lower right, both blocked by two vents each. Press the button next to the Ham Melt in the lower left to turn off one of the lower right vents (and turn on a middle right one, now blocking Count Roger, but we are done with him anyway). The button in the upper left similarly disengages one of the upper right vents. But we are still blocked! What to do? The secret lies with the buttons in the middle of the room. Turn off the left and middle ones to allow access to both the top and bottom right levels (though they block off the top and bottom left for now). Take the bottom right to another exit leading to the Furnace Room.

The Furnace Man here has a Side Quest for us! He wants 20 Coal. I am sure you noticed the giant chunks of Coal lying around the area; we will be smashing these to gain this item rather than smashing enemies. There are three big chunks right outside the Furnace Room. I am honestly not sure if the amount you gain is fixed or random and am too lazy to load a bunch of saves to check, but I was getting 2-3 pieces of Coal per big chunk. That left me with 8 right away, already almost halfway there. You are going to want to travel all the way back to Upper Vents III now, the one with all the horizontal platforming. Make your way to the right side of that room, hop across, collect this coal if you did not do so earlier, and use the key you purchased from the Trenchcoat Kid (you did buy that Silver Key, didn't you?) to open the Lock. This opens the way to the Coal Shaft.

This room has a bunch of coal and infinitely respawning rats, not to mention a Map Quest sign telling us to kill 8 rats. Do so and check the sign to earn a Textbook along with some XP and 2 PP. Feel free to collect as much Coal as you can and kill as many rats as you care to, then make your way ALL the way back to the Furnace Man to turn in his quest. (Yes, I guess you technically could have skipped buying the key and not gone to this room and instead spent more than twice as much money buying the needed Coal from the Trenchcoat Kid, but... why?) Killing enemies on the way back earned me another Garlic Necklace, another Bottlecap, and a Plastic Fork (9A). And for completing Man in the Furnace I earned some XP, 2 PP, and a Coal Shovel (5HP, 3D, 10A). Since all my current weapons are one-handed I began dual-wielding the Shovel and the Fork, but if you didn't get as lucky as I did the Shovel and Marker combo is fine too. We are all but done with the Vents now, so if you somehow don't have enough Cheese yet go kill rats until you have 10. After that we finally want to take the upper right exit in Upper Vents VI.

Meet The Princess! As soon as she stops talking you can get an achievement for jumping on her bed ten times. The bed you are already standing on. Just jump ten times and voilà! There is nothing else to do here at the moment so exit to Upper Vents I, use the button to turn off the steam, and leave back to Upstairs.

You might recall we found Drew's Locker Combo, so look at the lockers here until you find his and open it for an Average Weenie Shirt, Average Weenie Protractor, a Yin-Yang Necklace, and $1.50. I am sure after chowing down on all that glass he won't mind if we take these! The Average Weenie equipment requires level 8 so I just carry it for now. The Yin-Yang Necklace is only level 4 though so feel free to equip it (5HP, 5D, 5A). I replaced my Garlic Necklace.

Back in the North Hall Paul has a new quest for you. And he even gets your name right for once! He gives you the Story Quest Hair of Gold. Hmm, have we recently met anyone with golden hair? Hie on back to the Upper Vents I and from there to the Princess' Room. She has nothing new to say, but you might notice a hairbrush to the right sparkling and full of golden hairs... grab it and return to Paul. This seems... awkward. But you gain the Quick Retort skill which you might remember from the intro is a movement skill rather than an attack skill. It is automatically equipped and provides Daryl with a charge. I had a lot of SXP at this point so I upgraded Blinding Logic to rank 3 (reducing its long cooldown!), but as usual feel free to spend them as you like. We eventually need to fully upgrade everything anyway. Well, Alan told us to return the hairbrush, so I guess back to the Princess' Room AGAIN.

Her Highness gives you a new Story Quest, The Urge to Make Music. She wants a musical instrument, which is pretty much just an excuse for the game to send us to our next 'dungeon' area, the Art & Music Room. You might recall that is off the South Hall (and if you didn't I just told you). Save, sell extra loot (but make sure you keep 5 Spinach and 10 Half-Eaten Cheese!), and mosey on over to that clearly marked door. (Oh yeah, the Employee Tasklist has a new Side Quest you can grab on the way, Paul and the Beanstalk. We need 10 Mexican Jumping Beans to complete it).

Okay, brand-new area. To your left is an interesting NPC, and if you keep going left you will find an exit to the Bridge of Armanhand which is... yeah. An NPC here named the Portal Repair Specialist has a Side Quest for you. He wants you to kill a bunch of enemies from this area and the Science Room within a minute and a half. Despite just arriving here the new enemies aren't too tough and this quest should be doable. I managed it anyhow, and I actually suck at action games. Oh, and I reached level 6 while doing it. Your reward is the Key of Armanhand Key Item. It opens the Lock on the left side of the area which leads to the Grand Canal, but I actually prefer to go another route for now. Return to the Intro to Art & Music and enter the big mirror to find yourself in the Theater Entrance.

I am not as big of a fan of the music here, but it is interesting at least. A Trenchcoat Kid here sells the same stuff as before. If you got any loot from the enemies in the weird void don't sell them yet. As you may have noticed pretty much every drop is required for a quest at some point and so you should avoid selling them until I tell you that you are done with them. (To review you can sell any Broken Glass, all but 5 Spinach, all Guano, all but 10 Half-Eaten Cheese, all Coal, and any extra gear. Keep everything else.) If you need to use a locker or restroom head through the right exit, but otherwise head up the stairs to the Second Floor.

The Tuba Ghosts here can hit fairly hard for this point in the game, so be aware of that. They're not all that tough, however. They drop Ectoplasm, of which you will eventually need 10. They also infinitely respawn, but you will have to fight a bunch of them in just a bit so there is little point to farming them yet. Also say hi to Andy Warhol and grab a Side Quest to bring him 5 Mortar. So many tasks piling up! Head right to The Stage and you will be up among the rafters. Run and jump over the gap to reach a Chest with a Silver Key, then return the way you came and enter the door by Andy. (If you fail the jump and fall you will be on the main part of the Stage. You can't talk to Beethoven yet so just exit west and continue.)

This is the Tenant Hallway West. Besides the door we just came through there are five more. The first leads to Tchaikovsky's Room, the second has a Lock, the third is a Locker Room (nothing but a flying Locker), the fourth is surrounded by odd characters and locked with a Ghost Lock, and the fifth leads to Tenant Hallway East. If you speak to the NPCs around the Ghost Lock you will be thrown into a fight with a bunch of Tuba Ghosts and have to defend the... ghost sucker or whatever it is called. So many Tuba Ghosts at once can inflict a lot of damage quickly; my health dropped into the single digits before I managed to beat them. This allows the Transparanormal Investigation Team Squad (heh, TITS) to finish sucking up the Ghost Lock, opening the door and granting you a Textbook. Enter the newly opened Beethoven's Room and grab the Ear Trumpet just lying there. Back in the Hallway you can say hi to Tchaikovsky if you want, though he has no quest for you. If you are particularly hurt after that Tuba Ghost fight you might want to run back downstairs to use a restroom. Our next destination is Tenant Hallway East.

The Map Quest sign at the end of the hall says we need to kill 15 Tuba Ghosts. If only it was paying attention in the last area where we just finished killing a bunch of them! Before you get to killing though pop into the second door from the left and grab the Side Quest there because it also requires you to kill these ghosts. Do the damn job and check the sign to earn some XP, 2 PP, and a Band Hat. Oh yeah, while fighting them I realized what makes them seem harder than other enemies is not that they hit all that much harder, but rather that they cannot be easily stun-locked as previous foes so you just get hit a lot more. Anyway, one of them dropped a Theater Mask while I fought them. I have a habit of getting a random drop of an equipment type just before receiving the same type as a quest reward! In this case it worked out though because the Band Hat is level 7, which I cannot yet equip, while the Theater Mask is level 6, which I can. At (30HP, 10D, 2A) it was a heck of a lot better than the Fez. Also completing this quest got me to Popularity Level 3: Lousy Employee, unlocking a new passive bonus: Enhanced Vitamins, which increases max Health by 5%. Not too bad. Make sure you have 10 Ectoplasm and 5 Music Sheets and if you don't, well, bust some more ghosts. Now that that is dealt with we can see to the doors.

Like the western version there are five doors in this hallway, not counting the one through which we initially arrived. From left to right we have the Xylophone Player's Room (grab the Key Item: Famed Xylophone Mallets), Mozart's Room (Mozart has a Side Quest, wants 5 Music Sheets, should have already taken care of this and now receive your reward: XP, 2 PP, and a Conductor's Wand), Tenant Room 4 (Ghost Lock and Trenchcoat Kid who sells Conductor's Wand, Band Hat, and Band Uniform, two of which you should already have), an Agitated Composer who speaks to you through the door, and a Silver Lock. We happen to have a Silver Key so open that last one up to find the Vienna Storage Room which contains a Textbook and a Chest we can open for a Glockenspiel Talisman (this will be used later). We should be all done here for now so head all the way out, down the stairs, and right to The Stage.

There is a Locker, a restroom, a Lock, and Beethoven himself. Save if you like (and to heal yourself), and speak with the great composer. He gives you a new Story Quest, Dealing with Management, and hands over the Backstage Key. This opens the Lock on the right side of the room which leads to Backstage.

Just break the stuff for loose change and proceed right to the ex... nevermind. You end up in the Vienna Waiting Room.

This guy's main attack is to rush back and forth while spinning like a top and randomly throwing out missiles. He is not invincible while doing so, but attacking leaves you vulnerable, so the best thing to do is just dodge and jump over him as best you can until he stops. He will then stand there, dizzy, for a few moments, giving you a chance to get in some good hits. I used the same combo I have been using on mooks: rush in with a three-hit Discuss Differences combo, flash with Blinding Logic to stun, then use Crushing Realization for big damage. He will take off again, rinse and repeat. Once down to about 15% health he started behaving differently. Some of my attacks started doing 0 damage and instead of rushing back and forth he started hovering in the top centre of the arena and just shooting lots of missiles all over, then dropping down so I could attack a bit, then back up. This phase did not last long since he was so hurt. Oh yeah, save the music notes until you are hurt so you can bust them to drop health pickups.

For your efforts you get a Textbook (you have to actually jump up and grab it though), then enter the Manager's Office. Sadly the horrible dub-step continues. Speak with Beethoven to start your next Story Quest right away, Fund Raising. Exit all the way back out to the Intro to Art & Music. Now let's go back to where we closed that portal and exit west (using the Key of Armanhand if you did not do so earlier) to The Grand Canal.

I think I forgot to mention this earlier, but when you enter an area that has a Map Quest, like this one, a little sign icon appears in the upper right with your other quest icons. If you highlight it this one tells you that you must kill 15 Slay Doughs. These enemies are kind of a pain, but not too hard. They drop Clay Dough, of which you want 19 total. Kill all the ones on the ground and when you reach the right side of the area start platforming up. There is a glowing green thing you can grab, a Glockenspiel Key. This will only be here if you have already defeated Lord Glockenspiel. It is one of a handful that can be combined later on to fight an upgraded version of that boss to gain late-game gear. For now keep climbing and killing Slay Doughs to reach 15 (and hopefully earn a bunch of Clay Dough). I found that once I killed all of them up on the roof the ones on the ground respawned and vice versa. After a few loops I had a) killed well over 15 of them, b) reached level 8, c) obtained 20 Clay Dough, and d) found a Toy Shield which was level 9 so I just kept it for now. Checking the sign to complete the quest yields XP, money, and a Textbook. Now that all that is done go say hi to Leonardo on the central roof. He gives you an Old Painting Key Item. Before we leave there is a Ham Melt in the next area that requires Trash+/3+/Burn. Since there is a Locker here we can use that to equip such a skill. I did not actually have a skill with the Burn tag yet so I bought Combustible Confutation, levelled it up to rank 3, and equipped it instead of Fowl Mouth, which I hardly ever used. Now drop down to the bottom and exit in the lower right.

Okay, Cubist Castle. Go the only way you can. There are more Slay Doughs here you can kill if you want. You will reach a Ghost Lock, and on the platform above Jarod Khan (remember him, it will come up later). Above that you will see that Ham Melt I mentioned. Blast it with your Burn skill to unlock the two Chests and open them for $18.50, a Football Helmet, and Shoulder Pads. Both of those gear pieces are level 9 so I could not equip them yet. Continue on for your first encounter with an Eatball. Fairly tough and they drop the Fuzzy Meat Chunks we need to finally complete the Sous Chef quest. You only need 7 of them, so make sure you obtain at least that many as you proceed forward. At the end exit to the Art Gallery.

Two people here offer to buy the Old Painting: the Trenchcoat Employee offers you $10 while Percy von Lugsworth offers 250 ducats (and throws in the accessory Venus of Willendorf (15HP, 10D, 10A)). If you sell to Percy the Trenchcoat starts selling several joke items for $10K each. This guy disappears before the end game so grinding up that much money would have to happy now when it would take frickin' forever. Maybe someone can let me know if they managed to buy any with an infinite money cheat or something and whether or not they are even useable if you can buy them. I guess if you are going to cheat anyway you might as well have access to what amounts to instant win items. Oh yeah, and even though the Trenchcoat says if you sell the painting to him he will give you a discount, if you do so he does not even offer these items. So yeah, I went ahead and sold to Percy mostly for the decent accessory. Either way return to Beethoven at The Stage and turn in the quest to receive a Harpsichord.

Right next to Beethoven you can meet Dr. Watson. Yes, that Dr. Watson. Things are getting curiouser and curiouser. He gives you a Side Quest to Investigate the Theater Manager. Also head into the restroom and check the Tasklist for another Side Quest, Dorks and Droolers. Accept it for now, we will check up on the D&D club later. Okay, Dr. Watson wanted us to speak to someone upstairs who would not let him in. Sound familiar? Head upstairs and make your way to the Tenant Hallway East then the fourth door labelled Agitated Composer. He wants us to kill 20 MORE Tuba Ghosts. WHY did the game devs make us keep killing this one enemy so many times? Whatever. At least they die much quicker now. Waste 20 of them and speak to the Composer again. He mentions a guy with a blue glowing hat.

Head back to the Second Floor and walk past Andy to the right to reach the upper part of the Stage. You will see a green glowing object below you; drop down through the platform to grab the Glockenspiel Key. After drop down to the main part of the Stage where you will find blue glowing footprints leading right. Backstage you can meet Bob the Construction Guy and see that there is now a less one-way route downstairs with more of those footprints headed that way. Take the doors to the Vienna Waiting Room.

Weird blue footprints lead to the right where you can find the Music Teacher in a sorry state. Giving me Psychonauts vibes. He mentions a key. This causes a bunch of busts of 'Johnny' to appear around the whole zone that you can destroy. Most will have a useless items called a Fake Key, but one will randomly contain the Manager's Key. Take this to the Tenant Hallway West and open the Lock there to access the Manager's Room. Grab the Manager's Locker Combo and hit the big button. Now return all the way to the Manager's Office and open the Manager's Locker for $10 and a WFHS Honors Sash (Lv.9 45HP, 20D, 20A). Definitely worth equipping. Report back to Dr. Watson for $8, XP, 2 PP, and a Duffle Bag. One last bit of stuff before we can move on from the theater, so head back down to the Vienna Waiting Room.

Meemaw doesn't seem to know (or care?) that her husband is dead, so just walk on past and re-enter the Trials.

Nothing in Musical Trial One, but in Musical Trial Two there is a Glockenspiel Key just to the left of the giant Cymbals at the top. Proceed through the door that used to lead to Musical Trial 666 to find yourself in 663 Trials Later... Ha. Funny. There is a Chest here with Count Roger's Locker Combo (he's a STUDENT?!) and if you go left you can reach Musical Trial 666. There is nothing new there, so you can also just backtrack. If you do go through 666 you face the same enemies as before, but now they respawn infinitely (I reached level 9 and equipped the Football Helmet and Shoulder Pads. Decided the Toy Shield and Duffle Bag sacrificed too much offence.) Eventually it spits you back out in the Manager's Office. Take a quick detour over to where you fought Lord Glockenspiel to find another Glockenspiel Key on the left side. Now let's get out of this hellhole (and this is coming from a theatre kid; I really hate dubstep).

I sold off my extra stuff (I had 8 Theater Masks from all those Tuba Ghosts!). The Fake Keys have no use and only sell for a single cent. Next let's finally head right through the other mirror in the Intro to Art & Music to reach the Vienna Streets. There is also a Ham Melt in the next area that requires Trash+/4+/Range. Unless you are level 10 already the only skills with the Range tag available to you are Fowl Mouth and Shocking Statements. Getting either to rank 4 might be a bit expensive at this juncture unless you saved your points. I was just barely able to afford to level Fowl Mouth up high enough with just over 100 SXP left over.

Fluffles has had an upgrade and is now Fluffles the Bandit. These rat Bandits drop Stolen Paintings, and like with most loot you will need 10. Head all the way right, through the tunnel, and jump up into the building to meet the Town Claysmith. He gives you a Side Quest to kill 10 Bandits. Head all the way back left and jump up to find that Ham Melt I mentioned. Whack it with your Range skill if you have it at a high enough rank and collect a Textbook. Platform across to the right, killing Bandits on the way, using the giant trumpet as a stepping stone to reach more buildings further right. You can jump into a window here to enter a home full of clay pots. I am sure no one will mind if you... I mean, if Bandits break them all, right? Okay, go back left and this time look for ways to climb up until you reach the top of the area, then go left some more. There will be a thin bridge piece you can cross to the left border, then drop down off the edge to find the fifth and final (if you have been following along) Glockenspiel Key. Keep killing Bandits until you have collected 10 Stolen Paintings, then run back right and check in with the Claysmith. You get $4.50, some XP, and the Smock of Desperation. The stats aren't great (25HP, 5D), but it does come with the Shield of Desperation passive which... also is not that great. It makes it so that when your health drops below 15% your defence increases by 300. I keep my Shoulder Pads and move on. And by move on I mean speak with the Claysmith again for yet another Side Quest. Darn those Bandits! You should already have the 12 Clay Dough needed, so turn it right in for XP, 3 PP, a Textbook, and an Artist's Palette (3/3/3) and a passive bonus that gives +5XP for every kill. At this point in the game that is nothing to sneeze at so I equip it instead of the Venus.

Before we exit this zone make one last stop at the Canals and visit Leonardo again. He wants 10 Stolen Paintings, which, as luck would have it, we have. Immediately turn it in XP, 2 PP, and a Paintbrush of Destruction. Another piece of equipment with craptastic stats (0/0/5) and the equally crappy counterpart to the smock's passive, Sword of Desperation, which increases attack by 175 when your health is below 15%. Pass! Okay, we are finally done with the Art & Music classroom (barring a few things later on like when we finally find what Andy Warhol wanted), so it is time to leave. Head all the way back to the South Hall.

You can find Count Roger's Locker just to the left of the Library, so open that bad boy up and take your well-earned trophy: a Bucket of Blood. I am sure that will come in handy! Now the D&D Club is right here, and we will get to it in a moment, but before I forget we found another locker combination so let's go see what loot that has in store for us. Run over to the North Hall, then Upstairs and find Ken's Locker. Inside we find 4 Ectoplasm (as if we don't already have enough of that), $3.50, a Textbook, a Cardboard Sword (Lv. 12!), and a Vacuum Motor Key Item. And you know what, it is probably time to finally turn in that Sous Chef quest, so head to the Kitchen and do so. We receive XP, 2 PP, a Textbook, and an Eighth of Luck Butter. Not only does this accessory have acceptable stats (18/12/12), but it has the first of a series of passive abilities that are the best moneymakers in the game. A Bit of Luck makes it so that ANY enemy, even the weakest ones, have a chance to drop a Topaz, which sell for $30 each. If you want to rake in some cash go to the Science room and just massacre level 1 Erl the Flasks until you have a ton of gems to sell. Each day you will get a Side Quest from Chef Flex that will earn you a better version of this accessory causing enemies to drop increasingly valuable gems, so keep in mind that while you can grind for money now you will be more efficient later. Okay, I think it is time to check in with the D&D Club.

The Skill Sorceress has a new Side Quest for us. In order to build the Beta Boss Reconstruction Engine we need 10 Ectoplasm, 7 Clay Dough, and a Vacuum Motor. And guess what? If you have been following along you have all of that stuff already. Turn it in directly for a chunk of XP, 5 PP, and a Textbook. Popularity Level went up again to That Weird Kid and the passive bonus this time is Radical Reader which increases the amount of SXP gained when trading in Textbooks by 15%. If you follow my advice you won't be making use of this until the endgame, so not too exciting right now. Of more import enter the new passage to reach the Realm of the Beta Boss.

The Skill Sorceress and Purveyor of Splendid Things have relocated here. Speak to the Sorceress for a new quest to reconstruct Lord Glockenspiel. We already have everything we need (5 Glockenspiel Keys and the Famed Xylophone Mallets), so turn them in for XP, a Textbook, and a Glockenspiel Talisman. Now that we have completed that quest we can purchase additional Glockenspiel Talisman from the Purveyor for $20 each. The Sorceress has yet another Side Quest on offer now. This one requires us to use the Beta Boss engine to summon and defeat a powered up version of Lord Glockenspiel. We can try as many times as we like, but every attempt requires a Glockenspiel Talisman so the cost can add up quick, especially if you lose. (It was definitely A Choice TM that the game devs made to have the closest restroom be a few rooms away). Feel free to try it out, but we are so close to level 10 it might be worth waiting so that we gain access to the next Tier of skills. As a matter of fact we have now done enough to complete the Dorks and Droolers Side Quest so run to the restroom and check the Tasklist to turn it in. This grants XP, 5 PP, and the Twisted Thinking skill. This happened to be enough XP to get me to level 10 so the first thing I did after was hit my Locker to buy some higher Tier skills.

Unfortunately none of the Ok Tier skills available to buy are Comboable, so there is no direct upgrade to Discuss Differences. We already have What Goes Around which is a Range boomerang attack I would use instead of Fowl Mouth. I went ahead and kept Discuss Differences for now as my basic attack, then equipped What Goes Around, Catching Lies, and Combustible Confutation Ch.3. for attack skills and Sliding By for my movement skill. The next Ham Melt we will encounter will be Ok+/4+/Dash, so Sliding By will be the skill to rank up for that, but I hold off spending my SXP for now. Equipped with my new skills I saved and then decided to try my luck challenging the beta Lord Glockenspiel.

The new Lord Glockenspiel has a new attack where he just stands there and shoots missiles. Sometimes it is long-range missiles at a slow rate in which case you probably want to focus on dodging by jumping and ducking, or a barrage of short-range missiles which you can simply avoid by standing out of reach and maybe get in some cheeky attacks with a Range skill. If you happen to be behind him though you can get in some free hits on his back. Otherwise he behaves the same as before albeit seemingly with higher stats and no handy notes to break for health. If you lose it is probably worth your while to exit to the menu and reload your save to save $20. If you can't beat him yet don't worry about it. This is actually a pretty tough fight (for me anyway) at this point in the game. When you beat him you receive a Glockenspiel Reward Key and are presented with four Chests. Yes, in order to get all the rewards you have to beat him four times, which is why I suggested reloading to preserve you Talisman even though you had two of them. This will be true of all of the Beta bosses. There is a sign over each chest letting you know what type of equipment is in each so pick your poison: weapon, hat, outfit, or accessory. They are all level 9 equipment and all fairly decent so each one can help earn the next. And if you equip all four at once you unlock a special passive ability (and an achievement for equipping a full set for the first time). I chose the weapon, the Glockenspiel Mallets, for the first reward. It is another two-handed weapon with more than double the attack power of the Nunchucks I was using (0/0/60). Once you exit speak to the Skill Sorceress for your other reward: some XP, 5 PP, and a Textbook. While you are completely healed when you leave the boss room I would still suggest you save before trying again unless you are really confident. Oh yeah, one more thing: I am pretty sure the boss gets a bit of a stat boost every time you beat it. Or maybe I just suck. I went ahead and ranked up What Goes Around to 2 because it was the most useful skill for me in this fight. If you care the order I picked the rewards were weapon (already discussed), outfit Glockenspiel Vest (0/120/0), hat Glockenspiel Cap (125/0/0), accessory Glockenspiel Tuning Fork (35/18/18). Equipping the full set gives you the passive ability Lord Glockendaryl which grants 'strange powers'. When you jump you send out a bunch of Glockenspiel missiles around you or a few forward facing ones on a running jump (though with a small cooldown).

Once you have either collected all the Glockenspiel rewards or decided to leave it for later it is time to deliver the Harpsichord to the fair Princess. Travel to the Princess' Room and she will sweetly ask you to get her a different instrument. Back to the Art & Music Room I guess.

Speak to Beethoven on the Stage to start a new Story Quest. He sends you back to the Vienna Streets. Walk right to the fountain where you will meet a couple new characters: a French Soldier and his commander, Napoleon. Speak to the latter and learn that to continue you must go to the History Room. That is off of the North Hall in case you forgot. There will be a cut scene when you exit the Art & Music building. Nothing ominous about that at all. When you reach North Hall there is a bit of a hullabaloo going on in front of the History Room. Chat with Paul to gain a Party Invitation. Chat up the others until the football team gets called away. Now that the coast is clear you can enter the Intro to History.

The door on the right leads to Napoleon's Camp. Head on in and go right. There is a restroom, a Locker, a tent you can enter, and an exit on the far end. There is currently nothing to do in Napoleon's Tent so save if you like then move on to the Battlefield. This place is full of Goblins which drop Goblin Gold and Goblin Rocks (you need 15 of the former, none of the latter (unless you want to forge all the equipment later in which case you need 44 rocks)). A bit further in you will find a Bomblin. They drop Insta-Bomb!s; you will eventually need 10 of them. And all the way at the left there is a single Goblin Mortar which can drop a Mortar. You might remember that you need 5 of these for Andy Warhol. Once you defeat the Mortar the area will be clear of enemies (don't worry if you did not collect enough Gold or Insta-Bomb!s as you will be facing plenty more Goblin troops in this section). Return to the Camp and speak to Napoleon in his Tent. There is no more to do here today so travel back to Beethoven now to report your success. He will reward you with a Recorder. I am sure you know where to bring that little prize.

When you enter Upper Vents I you will find your first Photograph collectible directly in front of you. Enter the Princess' Room. After she has said her piece jump up onto the chandelier then further up into the rafters. You will definitely want to save in the restroom you see here before going right. Take the exit to find yourself in the Janitor's Closet. It's boss time!

THE CLEANER

This fight is fought in rounds, fitting the boxing theming. Most the of time your attacks will deal no damage to the boss, but will instead knock them backwards. His attacks are telegraphed making them easy enough to dodge. Concentrate on fast multi-hit attacks to drive him back as quickly as possible. Once The Cleaner is driven to the far right side he stays in place and starts swinging wildly. After a handful of seconds swinging he will unleash a long punch by stretching his arm out across the ring. When he does this his fist is vulnerable so hit it with any attack. This will stun him and it is at this point that you can actually cause damage, so jump in and attack as much as possible. After a few seconds the screen will go dark and the next round will start over from the beginning. He gets slightly faster with shorter periods of vulnerability each round. Repeat the process and after downing him a third time the fight should end. Like Tim at the end of the Prologue this fight is more gimmicky than difficult. Your reward is the Book Spray for which you have been questing all day.

There will be a couple of scenes and then we start...

FRIDAY

You get a new Story Quest to go back to the History Classroom in search of your new friend Balto's phone. While you are here check the Tasklist for another Side Quest too, Local Advertising. That one starts by going to the Far Side. Head Upstairs and talk to Drew again cause he has another Side Quest for us too. He wants Sick-ass Antlers now. Sure, why not. Two more Side Quests to pick up before we carry on. The first one is from Chef Flex in the Kitchen, so head there now.

Sous Chef: Second Course requires the following ingredients: 12 Peyote (hoo boy), 15 Haunted Walnuts, and 1 Mummy Pie. Sounds like it's gonna be even more delicious than yesterday's stew. Now run over to the D&D Club and further into the Realm of the Beta Boss. The Sorceress will give us the Reconstruction: History Reptile Side Quest. It needs 1 Steel Fangs, 5 Stone Scales, and 15 Anubis Armor Shards. That won't happen for a while yet though. Head over to the Far Side now.

Climb to the top and speak to the Neanderthal. Pay him $20 to obtain 16 Textbook Emporium Posters. Time to tour the school putting them up. Note that none of the poster locations are in the classrooms.

As soon as you enter the Main Lobby the first poster spot is immediately to the right of the door. There is another on the left side of the room directly left of the door to the South Hall. Enter the South Hall and there will be two posters directly in front of you. Another one is located on the bank of lockers between Gabe and the Journal Enthusiast and two more are found after the D&D Club door. Enter the Gym Lobby and start going right. The first spot is just after the restroom and one is on the vending machine at the far right end. The North Hall is next. There is a spot left of the Science Room door and one just to the right of the Tasklist. Head Upstairs and slap one on the women's restroom door and another just past Abby. Turn around and go back to the North Hall then proceed to the East Hall. Poster spot right in front of you as you enter and another just to the right of the door to the Kitchen. Speaking of which enter the Kitchen and walk a little to the right to place the final poster.

Go back to the Gym Lobby and pop into the restroom to turn in the quest at the Tasklist. You receive a bunch of XP and 3 PP for your troubles. Immediately pick up Dorks and Droolers 2 to replace it. Save, then head back out and the Weapons Master. This unlocks Quests and Battle Training, both of which are a series of themed battles. There is one of each available on this day, but the Quest has a recommended level of 12 so you might want to wait a bit to take it on. Battle Training, though, sets your level, skills, and equipment for the fights so it does not matter when you do them. Complete one of the tests to finish the Side Quest.

Druid's First Battle Training
Cost: $20
First-Time Reward: Textbook
Possible Rewards: 1PP, 1200XP, $15, Cardboard Helmet, Cardboard Sword
Level: 5; Skills: Shocking Statements Ch.2 Rank 3, Discuss Differences Rank 4, Cutting Corners Rank 2, Sliding By Rank 3; Equipment: Dried Out Marker, Super Weenie Hat, Cape of Count Roger, Riley's Bow
Round 1: 4x Erl the Flask
Round 2: Add Skill: Fowl Mouth Rank 1; 8x Erl the Flask
Round 3: 45sec, 5x Benny Beaker, 6x Vent Bat
Round 4: 2x Fluffles the Bandit, 3x Maracas Hermanos, 2x Sergeant Cymbal, 2x Slay Dough
Round 5: 5x Eatball, 2x Fluffles the Bandit
Round 6: 60sec, 3x Benny Beaker, 1x Eatball, 3x Erl the Flask, 3x Fluffles the Bandit, 3x Maracas Hermanos, 3x Vent Bat, 3x Flame Vent Traps

Turn in the quest at the Tasklist to obtain XP, 3 PP, and Chelsea's Locker Combo. This took me to level 11. At North Hall open Chelsea's Locker to gain Disposable Cans (look at that sell price!), Tree Branch, a Dandelion Mask, a Textbook, and 50 more Party Invitations. The equipment is too high level for now, especially that Mask, but better to grab the stuff now while I am thinking about it. After that it is time to go visit Napoleon in his Tent.

He will give you a new Story Quest and Napoleon's Supplies. Check in at the Medical Tent to the left where Dr. Dominique Jean Larrey will give another Side Quest to collect 15 First Aid Kits. Back out in the Camp a French Soldier next to the restroom gives yet another Side Quest, this time for 10 Insta-Bombs. If you happen to already have them from your earlier fight with Goblins you can turn it in right away, but I did not. The Trenchcoat Kid had two Textbooks, one for $55 and one for $60 as well as a weapon and loot you can get elsewhere. Grab the Textbooks if you can afford them. Save and use the Locker if you need to then go back to the Battlefield.

You will face the same enemies as last time with the addition of Goblin Medics. These enemies heal the others in a radius around them and drop First Aid Kits. Continue all the way left and exit to the Enemy Medical Camp.

The only enemy that spawns here is a never-ending wave of Medics, so this is a good place to farm those First Aid Kits. When you have them all exit left.

Welcome to Mikrov's Hill. Speak to the eponymous Mikrov and he will give you a Side Quest called Mikrov's Toll in which he demands 15 Goblin Gold. If you farmed at all in the Battlefield you could very well have them already, so turn them in to gain XP, $23.50, a Textbook, and Mikrov's Eyepatch. He also gives you access to two Chests which you should open to obtain a Topaz and the Automatic First Aid Accessory. Mikrov's Eyepatch is funny (go ahead and put it on to see what it does) and probably not worth using even though its stats are better than the Glockenspiel Cap. The Automatic First Aid (which I realized I had already gotten one as a drop from one of the Medics) has okay stats (25/15/7) and the Automated Healing passive (Heal 5% of max health every 5 seconds). Honestly that sounds pretty good for boss fights, but for now I will stick with the Artist's Palette for extra XP and the Tuning Fork for the set bonus. When finished exit through the lower right to reach Trenchfoot Field.

This area has a surface level and an underground tunnel. The top is subject to mortar fire while the bottom is full of Goblins. Drop through a hole and go west all the way to find a partially hidden Textbook. If you have enough SXP to get Sliding By to rank 4 jump on the nearby box and up through the hole to return to the surface and go left to return to Napoleon's Camp as we want to use the Locker and might as well turn in the Side Quests. If you don't have enough (I was about 1500 short) you can either fight here for a while to earn it or just leave the local Ham Melt for later. Oh yeah, I guess third option is to spend Textbooks to get the points but you know I disapprove of doing that. I only needed about 30-40 kills to earn that much and I needed a few more Insta-Bomb!s anyway so I actually went to the Battlefield where the enemies are more densely packed. It only took a few minutes to earn enough and get more than enough items to finish the quests. Once finished I returned to Camp.

Use the Locker to buy rank 4 Sliding By, then move left a bit to turn in the French Soldier's quest. (At this point I realized I was silly and forgot you earn SXP from Side Quests too so I should have turned them in first. Oh well, extra XP never hurts.) Your reward is XP, $14, 4 PP, a Textbook, and a Chisel of Forgotten Love (55/0/0) two-handed, strictly inferior to the Mallets even without the set bonus. This was enough to level me to 12 AND reach the next Popularity threshold, level 5, Undesirable. The corresponding passive is pretty good: Gettin' Lucky provides a 5% chance for every attack to crit for 50% extra damage. Into the Medical Tent we go to turn in the other Side Quest for XP, $35, and a Nurse Hat (120/2/0). Still not worth breaking up the set bonus. She has another Side Quest after to administer morphine to 12 fallen soldiers. Before leaving the Camp I replaced Catching Lies with Twisted Thinking, sold extra loot to the Trenchcoat, and saved. Back to the Battlefield with you!

To administer morphine you must hold the action button for several seconds and if you get hit you are interrupted and must start over. Kill all the enemies around a fallen soldier and give them a shot. There are four on this screen and while three of them recovered one turned into a Goblin. Oh well, he was probably a jerk anyway. At the Enemy Medical Camp there are two more soldiers. One turned into a Goblin and the other turned into a... corpse. It was more annoying to administer in this area probably because it is smaller and the enemies spawn closer so I got interrupted a lot more. Markov's Hill has one and no enemies, which is nice. Maybe not nice for the soldier, since he died, but still. Go to Trenchfoot Field.

On the upper surface left side there is a fallen soldier (died), and in the tunnel left side another (Goblin). Then there is the Ham Melt which gives us Jessica's Locker Combo and a Chest with $20 and a Goblin Crown (75/0/0). The hat is a joke, but we love finding Combinations! At the far right is another Jarod Khan who, like the other, we will address later. Jump up to the surface and go left to 'help' another fallen soldier (this one actually lived) and take out the three Mortars. Go right now and exit. Here is No Man's Valley.

To the left is a pair of Mortars and a dead end. Go right after to find a fallen soldier (healed) then further still for a Ghost Lock and some soldiers led by Private Brian. Speak to him to get a Story Quest to destroy the enemy Mortars, then continue right to a fallen soldier (Goblin). Just past that are two more Mortars. Kill them then report back to Brian. The soldiers take off and leave you behind so follow them and exit at the right side.

Now at the Battlefield Outskirts, speak to Brian once more. Return all the way back to Napoleon to report your success. You get a chunk of XP and if you speak to him again (which you absolutely should) another Story Quest. He needs you to deliver a letter to Caesar to convince him to join the NFL! Report to the doctor as well to receive XP, 4 PP, and a Textbook. Honestly I think she looks better. Exit left to Intro to History then take the left door to the Mongolian Camp.

There are several soldiers who have funny but unimportant things to say, a restroom, and three exits (not counting the one you arrived through): one on the right, one in the middle, and one on the left. Take the middle one first.

This is The Yurt of Khan. It contains a Chest which in turn contains $12 and a Tree Trunk (which requires level 14 to equip). Now take the left exit to reach The Great Wall.

Speak to Genghis Khan who will argue with Julius Caesar who holds the Great Wall of China until Caesar summons a trio of Tree Ents (what a sentence!). These Ents aren't very tough to dodge, are worth a good chunk of XP, and every time you kill one another pops up, so it is not a bad idea to stick around and kill them for a bit. They drop Lumber. You only need 18 for quests, or a total of 37 if you want to forge all the available equipment offered in a bit. I fought them until I reached level 13 then retreated back to the Yurt.

Genghis has a master plan in the form of a Story Quest for you to gather 8 Lumber. If you fought a bunch of Ents you might already have that, but if not you better get your skinny butt back to the Wall. You get a big chunk of XP for turning in the Lumber. Exit the Yurt and speak to Genghis then tell him you are ready to continue. You end up Behind the Great Wall where Caesar is the latest in the line of seemingly everyone giving you orders. He wants you to travel through a portal to another world and also find flowers for Cleopatra. Use the Locker if you like then go through the portal on the left to reach the Forest of Ents.

To the right you will find a Ghost Lock, a restroom, a Map Quest (kill 30 Ents), and Brawley the Blacksmith. Brawley can create equipment for a fee if you have the correct components.

Forging: Earthy Staff ($40, 3x Goblin Rock, 2x Lumber, 2x Mortar, Tree Branch), Earthy Helm ($60, 10x Goblin Rock, 5x Lumber, 1x Tree Top), Earthy Cuirass ($60, 8x Goblin Rock, 10x Lumber, 1x Tree Trunk), Earthy Emblem ($45, 10x Goblin Rock)

Note that you will have to rely on luck for the Ents to drop not only the lumber necessary but also the base equipment components (Tree Branch, Tree Top, Tree Trunk). If you craft and wear a full set of six (2 weapons, hat, outfit, 2 accessories) not only are the stats better than that of the Glockenspiel set (though you lose out on the passive from a second accessory like extra XP, gem drops, etc) but you gain the Rock Suit passive bonus which gives you a 20% chance to take 30% less damage every time you are hit.

Once you kill enough Ents check the sign to gain $37.50 and some XP. These kills also seem to cause the nearby plant to grow so you can use its giant leaves as platforms. Climb to the top to find a Portal Repair Specialist. Just like the first one he wants you to enter the nearby portal and defeat all of the enemies inside within a time limit. You lack an ability required to get to later parts of the portal however so you will have to leave this Side Quest until later. Jump from the portal over to the right and grab the Textbook before talking to another Jarod Khan. He wants you to find all of his identical cousins with the same name who are scattered around the school. We will be finding them all over and will not be done with this quest for a while.

Drop down and enter the rock tunnel. There are some hidden platforms in here that can be a pain to find. I find it easiest to start around the centre, hold the jump button, and make small adjustments until you notice you are getting higher. Once it seems you are near the top hold right to grab the Photograph. Go further right now and you will come across Bilbo Joshins who will give you a new Side Quest: he wants you to bring him The Runner-Up Ring. Continue past him and exit on the right to reach the Tall Tale Terrace.

There is a piece of paper here that offers a large cash prize for helping Master Scrooge. Sounds good. Next is a door to which we will return shortly. A Trenchcoat Employee is offering two Textbooks for $65 each and a Silver Key for $150. I bought the key but could not afford the Textbooks yet. Keep going to meet Poseidon and a bit farther to meet Captain Cascioli. Neither of them is important to us yet. Now let's check out that ominous looking door!

Welcome to Ebenezer's Mansion. This place is annoying, so brace yourself. There is a Locker and a restroom here, as usual for a new area hub. There are currently two exits, one to the left and one near the entrance in the middle. Take the left exit first.

This is the Western Corridor. It's eerie, but there is nothing to do here yet so just run through to the exit on the left.

Ebenezer's Bedroom puts you in danger immediately and it will probably look like you are taking damage out of nowhere. Move over into the light and here the radiance will reveal your foes. That is the central annoying conceit of this area: all the enemies are invisible and invincible (but can still hurt you) unless they are within the radius of special lights. Also even with our new-forged wood and stone set they do a decent chunk of damage. You will be facing off with Eerie Elves, Haunted Nutcrackers, and Spooky Presents who drop Haunted Presents and Haunted Walnuts (you need 25 and 30). Once you defeat a handful of enemies everybody will disappear and leave you in the empty room by yourself. Return to the Corridor.

There are now lights on out here so you can start trashing Christmas critters. Like many enemies in the game they are not aggressive unless you hit them, but note that even hitting them when they are invincible will start a fight. Fight your way across (or just walk) to get back to the Ebenezer's Mansion hub.

Another exit has opened up on the far right, but ignore it for now and take the central exit first to visit the Living Area.

The light here is off so just walk left to another exit.

This is the Central Corridor and now we get another annoying, if predictable hiccup: the lights in this area blink on and off, making fighting here even more of a pain. Good job there aren't any enemies here... yet. Most of the way down the Corridor there is a painting of coins. Beat it up until it reveals a Silver Lock. If you bought the Silver Key outside the mansion you can open it up right here and now, but don't go in yet either way. Instead walk a few more steps left and you will see a regular Lock blocking another doorway, and what looks to be a key floating in mid-air. Approach it and the key floats away. When it enters one of the lights it is revealed that the key is inside a Spooky Present. I'll give you three guesses about what we have to do now and the first two don't count. Follow it all the way right and when you get near again it will disappear while new enemies pop up around you. If you look around none of these enemies seem to have the key, so head back to the hub.

Exit right and you will find the Grand Corridor. More of the same here. There are big double doors a bit to the right, and an enticing treasure way up at the top of the screen right after. Keep going and you will find another door near the end and a set of stairs that you can platform on to get higher in the room. Climb on up and move left. There is an invisible gap you will fall through, collecting the floating Textbook when you do. We need to do something upstairs though, so climb back up and this time hop over that gap and continue left. I reached level 14 here. Exit left at the top here.

The Eastern Corridor has three looming statues, an exit at both the middle and right end, and, you will probably notice, that blasted key. Beat on one of the statues until it breaks and reveals a light, allowing you to fight here. When you get that Present you can finally get that Bedroom Key. Take the centre exit into the Haunted Ballroom.

You will find yourself up on a balcony next to a big button and a Trenchcoat Employee. The latter sells a $40 Textbook, Haunted Walnuts for $7.99, Rattley Chains, Fake Ghost Suit, Jaw Handkerchief, and Ghastly Wig (all level 15 equipment) for $100 each, Lumber for $15 a pop, and finally a Key Item Sick-ass Antlers for a whopping $200. You might remember we need that last thing to complete a Side Quest for Drew. If you are like me and bought that Silver Key out front you probably don't have the cash (unless you were doing some grinding with that Luck Butter), but I would consider that the top thing to save for right now. My money priority would be Silver Key Antlers Textbooks and would not bother buying anything else. Anyway, hit the button to switch on the lights. You might notice there is a Map Quest here to kill all the enemies, which we will get to shortly. There is a tough bit of platforming you can attempt by running and jumping from chandelier to chandelier to reach a couple treasures in the upper left, but if you hesitate for even a moment the chandelier will drop toward the ground, making it impossible to hop across for now. Let's assume you didn't make it this time.

On the Ballroom's floor we see our newest annoyance: the light in this room moves swiftly back and forth, making your window to attack enemies quite short. Still, we want to kill them all so take your time and try to clear them all. When they are all re-dead check the sign to receive your reward: XP, a Textbook, and a Fake Ghost Suit. Note the Lock Ghost on the right side and the exit back to The Grand Corridor on the left. Next to said exit you will notice something sparkly: grab it to receive Aged Flowers. DO NOT FORGET TO GRAB THIS AS IT IS RELATED TO A MISSABLE ACHIEVEMENT. Go ahead and take the only exit you can reach.

Head back to the Central Corridor through Ebenezer's Mansion and the Living Area. If you bought the Silver Key then open that Silver Lock and duck into the Walk-In Safe. There are two Textbooks, an Ice Necklace (level 15), and a Jarod Khan in here. Grab everything/one and exit.

Open the Lock on the far left with your hard-won Bedroom Key and enter the Unused Bedroom.

Just like Ebenezer's Bedroom earlier we have to defeat all the enemies to continue. Unfortunately we have to deal with the super-annoying flickering lights this time. Once you beat them all Ebenezer and the ghosts disappear again, but this time someone else shows up in their place. Speak with Omar the Elf to receive a Side Quest, Elfy Problems. He wants 25 Haunted Presents. I had over 50 at this point so I just turned it in right away for a bunch of XP and 4 PP (This was enough to pump me up to level 15; one more until Good Tier skills!), and another Side Quest to kill 15 Eerie Elves (as usual it does not matter how many you have killed up to now; only ones killed after accepting the quest count). I figure there will be plenty more of them as we continue so no need to go out of my way to grind them just now. Head over to the Grand Corridor once more. A new friend is waiting on a platform in the upper right. Kerri R. Pigeon gives us another Side Quest to collect 15 Haunted Walnuts. I had been saving these up for Chef Flex, but I figure we can always collect more, so give the Walnuts over now to get XP, 4 PP, and an Old Battery.

Go ahead and take the door in the lower right next to the stairs.

Under the Mansion has our next bit of progression, but for the moment take a detour and exit on the right to reach the Abandoned Safe Room.

Santa tells us that, like Ernest long ago, we must save Christmas. We will need to keep our eyes out for the Christmas Cage Key. Exit back out to Under the Mansion. We see a place that looks like it needs a battery, and we happen to be carrying a battery. Plug it on in and exit left.

You might want to step out and save real quick, then return up the stairs of the Grand Corridor. Mind the gap and exit back into the East Corridor, then make your way all the way right to enter the Haunted Bedroom. (By the way, I had a ton of SXP so I ranked up a bit. Specifically Combustible Confutation Ch.3 was doing lots of work for me so I got it all the way up to rank 5).

The lights in here are nice, big, and steady (though they would not have been on at all if we had not plugged in that batter), so smashing up these misfit toys should be easy enough. I like this game's Death. If they only spoke in ALL CAPS I could believe they were the same as my favourite version of Death... Oh hey, unexpected mini-boss time!

LITERATURE GUARDIAN

As makes sense for this place this fight is kinda annoying. You don't have to worry about lights, but she teleports around super quickly while attacking making it difficult to get a good hit in. Just dodge and smack as best you can; occasionally you will stun her which is when you can really start dealing damage. At one point she will drop a ton of health pickups for a mid-fight top-up. Once her health is about halfway gone the fight ends.

For winning the fight you earn a new skill Jumping to Conclusions. Speak with Scrooge to receive the needed Key Item Ten Bucks.

I didn't have enough Elf kills yet and was still woefully short of the $200 for the Antlers so I did some extra fighting for a bit. Once you have destroyed 15 Eerie Elves Shiv will begin to haunt you. Start heading on back toward Omar to turn in your quest.

At the main hub you will encounter Poole, the butler. He, too, has a request: to light all of the mansion's fireplaces. You will need one piece of Lumber for each and there are five total. I will let you do the math. Enter the Living Area.

There is a fireplace here so click once to place the Lumber and once again to light it. Job done, so move on to the Unused Bedroom.

You get a bunch of XP, 5 PP, and $50. Not bad! There is also a new Side Quest to... 'free' 50 ghosts. 50. Whatever. Light the fireplace in here and leave.

Oh. Okay. Two things that make the 50 kills thing not so bad: all three enemy types count, not just elves, and, more importantly, Omar and Shiv help you kill them. Still need light though. Let's concentrate on the fireplaces and the killing will somewhat take care of itself. I went ahead and equipped the Luck Butter for now since I was not doing much of the fighting.

The light in the Living Area is finally on, and with it a Chest containing the Christmas Cage Key. Cool, we can deal with that in a bit. Move on to Scrooge's Bedroom to light the fireplace. Next on to the Ballroom!

Kill the things, light the fireplace, and exit. I finished the 50 here, which unfortunately meant that my elf buddies left. My reward was a pair of accessories: Omar's Friendship Bracelet (L.15 5/5/5) passive Spirit Omar which will occasionally summon Omar to help you, and Shiv's Friendship Bracelet (same except it summons Shiv). Let's go free Santa now.

He gifts you XP, 4 PP, a Textbook, and Santa's Hammer of Justice (2H, Lv.14 0/0/30) and the Santa's Revenge passive that grants you 20% extra attack. The stats are abysmal, but the passive could make it decent if you get to high enough level to have a really high base attack. Of course by then you will have access to even better weapons so... yeah, another dud. Run to the Haunted Bedroom to light the final fireplace, then back to report in to Poole.

He gives you XP, 3 PP, a Textbook, and a whopping $120! Time to buy those Antlers. Oh, and this brought me to Popularity Level 6: Mouth Breather. The associated passive is Profitable Vandalism which increases the amount of money dropped by both objects and enemies by 5%. Not bad. I also reached level 16 just a bit ago so now I took a look at the skills for sale. Debate Dissimilarities and Sharpen the Saw looked good to me so I bought them and equipped them in place of Discuss Differences and Twisted Thinking. I also levelled the former to rank 3 and the latter to rank 2.

At the Haunted Ballroom I sold off all my extra Presents, all but 15 Walnuts, and the one Topaz that had dropped, then bought the Antlers and the Textbook. Still can't reach those chests if you dropped the chandelier, so just make note of them for now. We are all finished in the Mansion, so exit back out to the Tell Tale Terrace.

Oh hey, we know these guys! They are a little late though. I was able to afford another one of the Textbooks from the Trenchcoat here, then began the long journey all the way back to speak with Caesar. (When passing through the tunnel in the Forest of Ents you automatically receive a Senate Meeting Invitation. Heh.)

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE OLD FLOWERS KEY ITEM BEFORE SPEAKING TO CAESAR. If you missed them they are in the Haunted Ballroom next to the left exit. If you speak to him with the Ten Dollars in hand but not the Old Flowers you will miss an achievement. Assuming you have both you get your achievement and receive A Horse. This optional Key Item does absolutely nothing by the way.

On to the Mongolian Camp where we once again find Dr. Watson with the second part of his Side Quest chain to offer us. Zip over to Napoleon's Camp next.

Speak to Napoleon in his tent. Exit the tent and speak to him again to update your Story Quest. You can check in at the Tasklist for a new Side Quest now too: 100 Dollars requires you to... pay $100. I did not have that much right now. I once again equipped the Luck Butter since I was about to fight a bunch of weak enemies and then battled my way across the Battlefield to the Enemy Medical Camp. Here there is now a Goblin you can kill to receive the Warlord's Message. Afterward return to Napoleon's Camp.

No Topaz dropped, unfortunately, but after selling off all the Goblin loot including another Automatic First-Aid I had about $80. Almost there. I decided to do another sweep to complete the quest ASAP. Enough time/distance had passed that the Goblin Mortars at Trenchfoot Field had finally respawned as well, so I killed them to bring my collection of Mortars back up to the point I had enough to finish Warhol's Side Quest again. (If you did not forge all the equipment in the Forest you probably already had enough). I also grabbed the Jarod Khan in the lower right corner. Still no Topaz drops (forgot how rare they are), but selling all the loot brought me up above $100 so I ran to the restroom and turned it in for a bit of XP and 5 PP. The Tasklist even offers another Side Quest right after. Local Advertising Again requires us to visit a salesman offering wood; we will do that later. Exit the restroom and speak to the French Spy right next you.

Back and forth yet again we return to the Mongolian Camp to speak to Dr. Watson. You will get T.K.'s Locker Combo. We want to go the the Dry Desert next, so finally take the exit to your right in the back.

The Sexy Saguaro here cannot move so feel free to stand back and attack from out of range to beat them. They will drop Peyote and/or Cactus Flowers. We need 12 Peyote and 9 Flowers (actually 6 since we will be getting 3 for free in a bit) and have to kill 10 Saguaro as part of the A Study in Blue: Part II Side Quest. Cross the area and exit on the right side to reach the Road to Egypt.

Here there is a Map Quest to kill 15 Sexy Saguaros, so it makes more sense to farm them here. Run back and forth until you have everything. Check the sign to get some XP, 3 PP, and Cactus Fists (2H Lv.16, 0/0/150).

We have a couple Side Quests to continue/turn in back at the school, so before heading on to Egypt pop back out to the North Hall. Head Upstairs and speak to Drew for 6 PP. Head right to find and open Jessica's Locker. I has a Plastic Knife, a Textbook, 3 Cactus Flowers, a Mummy Toe, $10.72, and a Bomb on a Stick. Never turn down money or Textbooks, but otherwise the only interesting bit here is the Mummy Toe, but it is level 17 so I could not equip it. That reminds me I am now high enough to look at that Ice Necklace from earlier. The stats are bad (0/25/0) and the Ice Shield passive just reduces damage taken by 5, which frankly is not all that much at this level. I did not bother to equip it. Run all the way to the Second Floor of the theatre in the Art & Music Room.

We can finally turn in A New Artistic Medium (probably could have a lot earlier but there was not a convenient time). You get a little bit of XP, 2 PP, and a Lucky Beret (Lv.7, 35/0/0) and the Good Fortune passive that increases money drops from enemies by 5%. Maybe worthwhile if you are specifically grinding for money, though for the most part selling loot is more profitable than the lunch money monsters drop passively. Still, nice to finally check it off.

Back at the Gym Lobby we are more than strong enough to take on the first (and probably the second) Quest battle.

The Evil Druid
Cost: $20
Recommended Level: 12
Possible Rewards: 1PP, 1500XP, $15, Tree Branch, Tree Top
Round 1: 6x Fluffles the Rat
Round 2: 6x Eatball, 4x Sergeant Cymbal
Round 3: 45sec, 10x Benny Beaker
Round 4: 4x Benny Beaker, 6x Fluffles the Bandit
Choose No
Round 5: Topaz (Chest)
Round 6: 70sec, 2x Benny Beaker, 2x Captain Sax, 3x Fluffles the Bandit, 2x Sergeant Cymbal
Round 7: 5x Tree Ent
Round 8: Erl the Druid, 8x Tree Ent

Ghost Convention
Cost: $30
Recommended Level: 15
Possible Rewards: 1PP, 2250XP, $15, $35, Fourth of Luck Butter, Ghastly Wig, Jaw Handkerchief
Round 1: 4x Bomblin, 5x Goblin
Round 2: 5x Eerie Elf, 4x Tuba Ghost
Round 3: 12x Eerie Elf, 3x Tuba Ghost
Round 4: Benny Bartender, 5x Eerie Elf, 4x Haunted Nutcracker, 4x Spooky Present
Round 5: 2x Captain Sax, 5x Maracas Hermanos, 3x Sergeant Cymbal
Round 6: 2x Eerie Elf, 1x Haunted Nutcracker, 5x Tuba Ghost

I didn't have the money to do both of these, but then I remembered I had never sold the Disposable Cans which has no other use as far as I know. I hit level 17 and did a bit of comparison of gear. Decided the set bonus was not worth holding onto, so I equipped the Cactus Fists, Fake Ghost Suit, Eighth of Luck Butter, and Mummy Toe. After beating the second Quest I received a Ghastly Wig and I equipped that too. And after selling off all the extra loot drops I had over $250. Neat! With that all behind us access your Locker and make sure you have at least one skill equipped with the Burn tag. THIS IS IMPORTANT AS IT IS NECESSARY TO OBTAIN ANOTHER MISSABLE ACHIEVEMENT.

Head through the South Hall and open T.K.'s Locker on your way. You will be rewarded with the Scribe's Key, two Textbooks, $20, 2 Essence of Anubis, 50 Half-Eaten Cheese, 15 Fuzzy Meat Chunks, and Cardboard. More stuff to sell later, I guess. Keep on to head out to the Quad and the Far Side.

For what feels like the umpteenth time platform up to the top to meet the Tree Ent-repreneur. Trade your Bucket of Blood for the needed Wood. Now if you leave this area this NPC will disappear for good so to MAKE SURE YOU DON'T MISS THE ACHIEVEMENT hit him with a Burn skill. Heh.

Back at the Quad, you see that big red X on the ground? We need to find 8 of these to complete our Side Quest. Hold the action button to build a stand here, then another at the far left end of the Main Lobby. There is one next to the Dwarves and Druids Club in the South Hall, one at the far left of the Gym Lobby, one in the North Hall next to the door to the History Room, one Upstairs next to the still-locked Literature Room, one on the left side of the East Hall, and one in the Kitchen. Once they are all built check the Tasklist for your reward: some XP and 3 PP. Unfortunately the last item for the Sous Chef quest is deep in the next dungeon, so we have to hold off on that one for now. We are finished with our side content for the moment, so make sure your skills and equipment are the way you want them, save your game, and head back to the Road to Egypt.

Let's explore this area a little more thoroughly than last time when we were just here for cactus loot. Platform up to the top where we can meet Amelia Earhart next to yet another portal with accompanying Portal Repair Specialist Jr. Just past them is a Lock Ghost and past that is a Ham Melt. Destroy that robot with a Ok+/2+/Strategic (I used What Goes Around) and open the chest for $10 and a Cactus Muscle Suit (Lv.16 0/40/100). This is an interesting one, sacrificing a bunch of defence for a big attack boost. Probably good for fighting enemies who don't hit you much like the Saguaros, but maybe dangerous in other situations. Equip it if it appeals to you; I did not. Hit up the Repair Specialist. Predictably he gives you a Side Quest to clear out the portal of enemies within a time limit (90 seconds this time). It is a pretty easy fight with a few Goblin troops, a couple Saguaro, a new enemy in the form of a few Pharaoh Bats, and, at the top of the platforms, a couple Goblin Mortars. Kill em all then exit and turn in the quest for XP, 4 PP, and a Textbook. This boosted me to Popularity Level 7: Sweaty Nerd. The passive for this milestone is Public Servant which causes all quests to give 10% extra XP. A pretty nice upgrade I say! Drop to the bottom now and exit through the arch.

Go forth and smite a couple of Anubis Warriors, new enemies that drop Weapon Shards, Armor Shards, AND Essense of Anubis (for quests you need 0/15/0, but there will be more gear forging coming up and for that you need 15/20/11 more, so a total of 15 Weapon Shards, 35 Armor Shards, and 11 Essence of which we already have 2; add another 15 Weapon Shards and 5 Anubis Essence if you want to dual-wield the weapons). Once they are dead, speak to the Pharaoh Guard tied up in front of you. If you ignore the exit here for the moment and continue left you can find a restroom and an Aztec guy who does not speak our language. Save if you like then use the exit near the guard.

This is the exterior of The Pyramid of Bavarius. Kill the Warriors and enter the Pyramid.

The Pyramid Entrance is fairly empty. There is a Chained Pharaoh Guard who gives us a Side Quest to kill 40 Anubis Warriors. Were probably going to do that anyway, so just accept and exit next to him.

The Outer Chamber is another one of those places where you get shut in with enemies until you kill them all. There are only a pair of Anubis Warriors though, so that won't take long. Take the centre exit to reach Side Chamber I.

Can't reach that shiny key up there yet, so just smash the pots and walk across to the other exit on the left.

Side Chamber II. If you do not know that you should avoid the spike traps then I doubt this walkthrough is enough to help you. Move left and go through to Side Chamber III.

Another pair of Anubis Warriors and a weird flower that we cannot use yet. Kill the Warriors and exit right. Wanna guess the name of the next room?

Side Chamber IV. Surprise surprise. There is a Chest holding a Topaz and $3.50. Also a Chained Pharaoh Guard warns you to watch the floor. Hmm, that floor does look odd. Jump and land on the odd bit to break through. You will land on the upper portion of Side Chamber I where you can now grab the Pyramid Key. Exit back out to the Outer Chamber.

Take the right-hand exit to reach the Audience Chamber. We have a handful of Anubis Warriors backed up by a Pharaoh Bat. These can drop Crucifix which are only good for selling. Platform on up to the next level. Ignore the weird flower for now and open the Lock to continue.

The Pharaoh's Keep has a few Anubis Warriors and a few exits. Take the leftmost one first.

The Gardening Chamber is a non-combat area. There are some pots to smash and a familiar looking NPC named The Pyramid Gardener. She gives you a familiar seeming story and a Side Quest. You should already have the 9 Cactus Flowers, so accept and immediately turn in. You get XP, 3 PP, and a Monkey's Paw. This accessory is (Lv.15 20/16/50) and the Avian Aggression passive which increases your damage to flying enemies by 25%. The stats are decent and the Pharaoh Bats are kind of annoying, so feel free to equip it if you like. Exit out on the left to be back outside the Bavarius Pyramid.

Move left onto the smaller platform which will permanently lower, giving you a shortcut back if you want it. Oh, forgot to mention the Gardener's Quest let me hit level 18. Anyway, back into the Gardening Chamber, through to the Pharaoh's Keep, kill the Warriors, and take the centre exit to the Inner Chamber.

Push the button like the obsessive adventurer you are then take the other exit.

The Chamber of Symmetry has a Stone Scale and not much else. Grab it and let's take moment to ponder. If this is the Chamber of Symmetry, shouldn't it be the same on both sides? And there is a visible pit on the other side of the wall. And we learned earlier in this Pyramid there are places where the floor is weak. Hmmm... Yep, just jump on the floor near the wall to drop through to the Central Hall I.

You will automatically grab a Textbook on the way down, your reward for dropping in through the right side. Kill the enemies, ignore the flower, and exit left to the Audience Chamber.

Press the button for another handy shortcut back, then go right back through the door through which you just came.

Now take the right exit to reach the Main Chamber.

On the bottom floor we have: exit, Dr. Watson, restroom, another exit. On the next floor up from right to left there is a Locker, a Lock, Brawley the Blacksmith, and a Lock Ghost. I had over 50K SXP at this point so I ranked up Debate Dissimilarities and Sharpen the Saw to 4. The new equipment Brawley can make looks pretty nice, but I did not have anywhere near enough Shards to make any of it. When ready exit through the lower right door.

This is Central Hall II. The Guard here has something interesting to say, but we cannot yet do anything about it so just waltz on over to the next exit to reach the not-at-all-ominously named Collapsing Room.

If you are a smart alec and jump across you can find an exit to the False Room. Or specifically a part of the False Room with nothing in it and nothing to do. Or so it seems at first: if you smack up the wall it will eventually break, giving you access to the rest of the room. Defeat the Warriors and take the first exit.

The Flower Sanctuary has an NPC named Henry Horus. He will give you a Side Quest called Fiery Flora. We finally know what those flowers are for, but first we need some water! Backtrack to the False Room and take the other exit.

This is the Cliff of Ile. Our old fan Bob is here as well as a very deep pit. Run and jump forward and hold right. You will drop into the Pyramid Chute.

Keep holding right to enter a side room with a Chest. Open it for a Ruby. We can see a shiny key on the other side of the wall, but unfortunately this wall is not destructible, so there is nothing to do except to continue falling.

Here in The Pit we land next to an oddly familiar form holding a nice, sparkly Key Item that we need, an Empty Bottle. Grab it and the Stone Scale to your left, then exit.

We can't reach the key above us from here so Underground Tunnel II is of little interest to us at the moment. Not even any enemies or pots to break. Just walk left and exit.

Underground Tunnel I has an enemy we probably all saw coming, but we can't reach it yet. Just walk left and exit.

The Basement Stairs reminds me that I really appreciate it when game devs make enemies vulnerable to traps. They aren't in this game, I just wish they were. Kill or avoid and exit left to find yourself once again in the Main Chamber.

Since we are so close why don't we visit Chef Flex? Turn in your loot to gain XP, 5 PP, a Textbook, and Fourth of Luck Butter (Lv.15 50/34/30) A Dash of Luck passive which causes enemies to drop 'slightly rare' jewels. Its stats are only slightly inferior to the Mummy Toe so I equipped it in place of that. We have a few things to do before continuing the story. First stop: back to the Pyramid! Just kidding. This time the boss-summoning item we need, the Steel Fangs, were picked up automatically when we beat the Asp so we don't have to go all the way back to its chamber. We can, however, now finally close the portal at the Forest of Ents, so go there.

Now that we have the ability to blow up bomb flowers we can clear this easily. In case you forgot the portal is at the top of the bit beanstalk to the right of the starting platform. Just mow through the Ents, turning off lasers as you go. Make the flower go boom to reveal another button and gank a few Anubis Warriors to finish up. Gain XP, 4 PP, and Textbook. This not only let me hit level 21, but also Popularity Level 8: Goth Lord. The passive here is Loyal Consumer which gives you a 10% discount from Trenchcoat stores. To celebrate I ran over to the Tell Tale Terrace and bought the other Textbook I had not been able to afford earlier.

I suggest you go save at the Gym Lobby restroom, then make your way to the Realm of the Beta Boss. Speak to the Skill Sorceress to gain big rewards: a TON of XP, 7 PP, a Textbook, and an Asp Talisman. You know the drill: the Purveyor now sells more of said Talisman (for $50 apiece or $45 if you have the passive ability I mentioned above) and you will need a minimum of four of them if you want to get all the optional loot. Which you do if you want the achievement. Accept the Side Quest from the Sorceress, start up that machine, and face off against an upgraded Asp.

The beta version of the Asp does not seem to have any new attacks, and indeed seems to be pretty much the same fight albeit with improved stats, spitting multiple orbs at once, and maybe a slightly reduced time between the telegraph and the actual attack. Also after beating it twice the bomb flowers (and the platforms they were on) are no longer present for all subsequent fights making it significantly harder to stun the thing. This may not seem like a huge change but I find the third fight significantly harder than the second. Most of the pieces of equipment you get for beating it aren't individually all that powerful (the weapon has the same attack as the Cactus Fists for example), so the order does not matter that much as there is little point to equipping them until you get all four. The hat is a bit better than your Helmet of Anapa though, so might as well get that first. I also suggest equipping the Automatic First-Aid during these fights, at least for the third and fourth. The stats on it might be trash but that extra regen helps and unfortunately lifesteal does not seem to work on bosses. The four pieces are: Snake Arms (Lv.19 0/0/150), Asp Headgear (Lv.19 475/0/0), Stone Skin (Lv. 19 0/300/0), and Heart of Stone (Lv. 19 150/70/45). None of them have a passive on their own but the set bonus provides a nice one: Immunity grants +7% to health, defence, AND strength as well as immunity to being poisoned or stunned. Pretty darn good and it even leaves you a free accessory slot.

I am going to indulge in a mini-rant here about this fight. If you don't care just skip to the next paragraph. So the original fight and the first two beta fights are fine. Not too tough, I had fun. The third and fourth beta fights drag on WAY too long though. The reasons for this are two-fold: first the fact that the buffer you have to break through to get to its weak point to actually do damage gets way too big. During earlier fights if you could get in a good string of attacks you could break through and do some damage every 1-2 times it paused its rush. By the third and fourth one it was taking 3-4 pauses to break through. Combined with its already higher health pool and defence and the thing's hp ends up magnified way out of proportion making the battle a huge slog. The second thing is removing the platforms on the side. Go ahead and lose the bomb flowers so we don't have the extra big hits available, sure, but without the platforms the only way to hit it when the boss comes out of one of the upper holes is with jump attacks which are much slower. The pattern is rush several times (while spitting venom and electric orbs) then pop out of either one of the top holes or one of the bottom holes. If it is a bottom hole you can get in several whacks to its weak spot, but if it randomly chooses one of the top holes you can only get in one or two hits before it restarts the process. Combine that with what I said earlier about the buffer being so much bigger and you might see how this ia a huge problem because it just makes the fight even longer. To be clear I am not saying the fight is too hard. I kinda suck but even I was able to beat it once I figured out the strategy. My complaint is that it is tedious due to how its defences are so inflated in the third and fourth beta fights to the point that they take too long and the fight becomes unfun. Okay, rant over.

Speak to the Sorceress for another ton of XP, 7 PP, and a Textbook. I levelled up again to 22. Okay, now let's go check in with the Princess.

She tells you to get a phone. That sounds vaguely familiar. Also might as well turn in the two Photographs we have while we are here. Time to continue with our history lessons, so head on over to the Battlefield Outskirts. (I had bumped my Debate Dissimilarities to rank 7 and now could kill Goblins in a single blow. It feels nice to feel powerful!) Speak to Napoleon twice and tell him you are ready to continue.

The Stone Fort Gate has a Locker, a restroom, and a pretty cool soundtrack. Lots of folk are gathered here now, even Bob! Unfortunately the Goblins here take more than one hit. Oh well. Jump up and over to the upper right corner and press the button to lower the drawbridge. Onward!

You find yourself in Stone Fort: Central. Bash down any Goblin huts you see to release an enemy or two. Go right and smash the archway there too, then exit right to Stone Fort: Central.

Rinse and repeat here and once again exit right, this time to Stone Fort: West.

A new type of enemy shows up here, the Goblin Soldier. It is exactly like a regular Goblin, but wearing a soldier's helmet. Napoleon pipes up and tells you that an enemy commander has shown up so return to Stone Fort: East and face off with a Commander Goblin. Once again exactly like a regular Goblin but this time with a copy of Napoleon's hat. No challenge. Once it is down Napoleon reports another commander to the west, so go to Stone Fort: West next.

There is an Anubis Commander here. It is tougher than the Commander Goblin, but no tougher than the same enemy you fought back at the Pyramid. Once you have mopped the floor with it Napoleon orders you back to Stone Fort: Central to defend the horse. In case you had not noticed this place loops around on itself so you can get back to Central by exiting the right side of West.

Kill a handful of enemies near the horse and an escort mission will start. You have to guard the Freedom Horse across all three areas, slaughtering hordes of enemies along the way. It has a health bar and can take damage, but said bar is pretty big so it is not actually difficult. Once it reaches the right side of Stone Fort: West your mission is complete (though seeing as the place is a big loop why couldn't it have simply gone left from where it started and reached its destination almost right away?). You have to face off against a Troll, another one of those enemies that is tougher than normal but not mini-boss tough. Just keep running behind it to avoid its club and you will be right as rain. Once it is down leave the area in either direction (right is closer) then turn right back around and return to where you fought the Troll. Daryl has become Death and all that. Go through the new hole.

Stone Fort: Wasteland has a Locker and restroom combo, so do your thing and proceed right.

You find yourself at the Axis of Historical Reality. There is nothing to do so turn right around... and face a boss fight!

MR. ROBATTO

He is really quite easy to beat. Just unload with all your favourite attacks and he will go down quickly.

THE PARTY

You regain control at The Party. And that ****ing dubstep is playing again. -_- Talk to Alan for a Story Quest to find Chelsea. On the other side of the room speak to Julius Caesar for a Side Quest to get him a Beer. You can exit out the nearby door to get Behind The Party where you can speak to Bob for fun, but there is nothing else to do here. You want to take the other exit at the left end of The Party instead.

Outside The Party speak to Jesse for a Side Quest. He, too, wants a Beer. Exit right to visit Chelsea's Pool.

The Trenchcoat Employee here has a Solo Cup (probably the only place in the game to get this for any collectors out there) and a Textbook for sale. Buy the Textbook at least. Behind the bushes on the right you can pick up a Beer. You can also enter the Old Shed through the door, but there is nothing to do there except break a few barrels for change. If you instead jump on the table and then onto the roof and enter through the window there are both barrels AND a Textbook. Grab it, then return left.

I gave my first Beer to old Jules. In return you receive a pittance of XP, a Textbook, and his Toga (Lv.18 0/230/0). No way I am using this over my hard-won Asp gear. Outside The Party exit left.

For whatever reason this areas is called The Goats. Might be because there are goats here. Maybe. First off you can jump on the leaves/branches of the tree right in front of you to reach the Tree House at the top. Here you can grab another Beer and speak to Squirrel Boy again. Back outside speak to Pelt Kid. He wants Scissors. Before you continue run back and give Jesse a Beer. He gives the same rewards as Caesar except instead of a Toga you get a Party Hat (Lv.14 100/0/0). This thing is even worse and will immediately be forgotten. Back to The Goats and continue left.

This is Chelsea's Field. There is a restroom right in front of you, and since there has not been a chance to wee since before the Robatto fight I suggest you use it. Two of the NPCs here directly warn you to be prepared for danger and there is also a Locker, so it is probably a safe bet that we are going to be fighting quite soon. Exit to Spooky Field.

Just regular everyday murderous Scarecrows here. They drop Corn Stalks, which are not needed for anything. Seems like that has been happening a lot lately. Note that some of them are enemies, some are destructibles, and a handful of them do not do anything... until you reach the end of the area and kill the last enemy Scarecrow at which point they all come to life at once, turning into more enemies. Once they are all defeated exit right.

Another Spooky Field is another aptly named area. Ironically the Scarecrows are joined here by Crows. If you have difficulty with them for some reason remember that you can equip the Monkey's Paw for bonus damage vs flying enemies. They drop Feathers which, bet you can't guess, aren't used for anything. Platform to the top and open the Chest for a Textbook, then drop right onto the hay cart and exit right.

We start off the In between Field by finding Chelsea and another person with one of those neat glowing blue brain hats. DO NOT SPEAK TO CHELSEA YET. That will end the party, starting the next day. Walk past her and hit up the Trenchcoat Employee instead. They are selling a Textbook for $117.99 and the Scissors you need for a Side Quest for $65.99 (before discount). Buy both if you can afford them, but at least the Scissors. Backtrack with your new cutting implements to hand in to Pelt Kid for a reward of XP, 1 PP, and a Textbook. Not exciting, but the whole point of following this walkthrough is to catch them all! Now run back and speak to Chelsea to finish the weekend.

MONDAY

You start off in the Janitor's Closet where you receive the Key Item Walkie-Talkie from yet another new boss, the Janitor himself. How many people is that now that consider you their lackey/employee/servant/slave? I lost count. Exit the Closet.

Right away a new Story Quest starts to report in to the Princess. But it is a brand-new day and you probably want to check what is new around the school! Ooh, and apparently there are new skills for sale at the Locker, so that is something nice for us. Start off by hitting up the Kitchen.

Chef Flex wants a Casserole and 25 Rat Poison. I am sure that's fine. Swing by the North Hall next.

The new skills for sale are Great Tier, but they require level 24 to use. I was close, but not quite there yet at 22. Check the Tasklist for a new Side Quest: you need to tear down all 8 of the Emporium booths you set up yesterday. Easy enough. You might recall there is one in every school hall and lobby, one in the Quad, and one in the Kitchen. The Gardener is here with a new pet. Gee, I sure hope nothing untoward happens to poor Punkin!

Upstairs Drew has yet another request for you. This time he wants 5 Slug Eyes. Why 5 instead of, say, 2? Who knows. Maybe Drew does, but I kinda doubt it. Deconstruct the booth up here, then go back down to the North Hall and deconstruct the one down there if you haven't done so yet.

Gym Lobby, deconstruct, save, then let's check out the new battles available.

The Goblin Den
Cost: $70
Recommended Level: 18
Possible Rewards: 2 of: 3PP, 4500XP, $75, Goblin Gold, Mummy Toe, Ruby, Textbook, Water Jar
Round 1: 3x Goblin
Round 2: 8x Goblin
Round 3: 4x Field Goblin, 4x Goblin
Round 4: 8x Bomblin, 8x Field Goblin, 8x Goblin, 2x Nurse Goblin
Round 5: 7x Bomblin, 4x Goblin, 4x Goblin Soldier, 2x Nurse Goblin
Round 6: 3x Bomblin, 4x Goblin Soldier, 2x Nurse Goblin
Yes Round 7: 4x Bomblin, 1x Commander Goblin, 6x Goblin Soldier, 4x Nurse Goblin
No Round 7: Sapphire, Textbook (Chests)
Round 8: 3x Bomblin, 2x 1x Common Troll, Goblin Soldier, 3x Nurse Goblin

Undercover Nerd
Cost: $100
Recommended Level: 22
Possible Rewards: 3 of: 2PP, 8500XP, 10500XP, $50, Cactus Fists, Crowbar, Essence of Anubis, Ruby, Slug Hat, Textbook
Round 1: 1x Goblin
Round 2: 2x Bomblin, 3x Fluffles the Rat, 3x Goblin
Yes Round 3: ?x Crow, 3x Fluffles the Rat, 5x Scarecrow
No Round 3: 2x Bomblin, 3x Goblin Soldier
Yes Round 4: 7x Anubis Warrior
No Round 4: 4x Bomblin, 3x Goblin Soldier, 2x Nurse Goblin
Yes Round 5: 5x Anubis Warrior, 4x Locust, 4x Mummy
No Round 5: 5x Bomblin, 7x Goblin
Yes Round 6: 10x Mummy, 7x Vile Mummy OR Textbook (Chest)
No Round 6: 10x Common Troll END
Round 7: 4x Anubis Warrior, 1x Commander Anubis
Round 8: 5x Anubis Warrior, 5x Bomblin, 3x Goblin, 3x Goblin Soldier, 3x Nurse Goblin
Round 9: 7x Anubis Warrior, 3x Bomblin, ~7x Locust, 4x Mummy, 2x Nurse Goblin, 4x Vile Mummy
Round 10: 1x Commander Anubis, 1x Common Troll

Thou Shall Stay Away
Cost: $75
First-Time Reward: 3PP, 20000XP, Silver Key, 3x Textbook
Possible Rewards: 2 of: 2PP, 13250XP, $70, $100, Sapphire, Textbook
Level 18; Skills Healthy Sacrifices rank 7, Crushing Realization rank 3, Sharpen the Saw rank 4, Sliding By rank 5; Equipment: 2x Blood Sceptre, Automatic First-Aid
Round 1: 4x Future Frog, 4x Pogo the Mouse, 4x Virus
Round 2: 2x Anubis Warrior, 4x Mike Chip, 4x Virus
Round 3: 2x Death Rive, 3x Pharaoh Bat, 3x Pogo the Mouse
Round 4: 3x Death Drive
Round 5: 3x Castle Creep, 5x Virus

Completing these three challenges got me to level 23. Head now to the South Hall.

Deconstruct the booth. If you speak to Chelsea you can return to the Party. Somehow. Time travel maybe? Anyway, if you completed everything I outlined in that section there is no reason to do so. Main Lobby next.

Deconstruct as usual. Is it just me or are Abby and Becky (and maybe Chelsea) the only sane ones at this school? Pop out to the Quad to deconstruct, then on to the East Hall.

Deconstruct both here and in the Kitchen to finish up, then return to the North Hall and check the Tasklist to complete the loop and earn XP and 5 PP. Okay, now you can go say hi to the Princess.

The darling damsel requires a few small baubles: a Potassium Overdrive Refractor, a Super Fluid Conductor, and 3 Metric Tons of Hydrogen. I am sure she has a good use for them. Nothing else is going on so just head on over to the Science Room.

Head to Science 101 (hi Bob!), then through 102 to 103. (You will probably notice a Jarod Khan in Science 102 but we cannot reach him yet.) At Science 103 a new door has appeared beneath the giant flower, next to the button. Take it to reach Intermediate Science.

The Trenchcoat Employee has a couple Textbooks, a Space Helmet, Robot Hands, and an Asp Talisman. As usual the Textbooks are the only things worth buying (Unless you have not yet beaten the beta Asp four times, still plan to do so, and have not pre-purchased all the Talismans you need. In that case this one would be discounted). Charles Babbage will give you a Side Quest to collect 8 Hard Drives and 15 Microchips. Albert Einstein on the other hand wants you to take him to Egypt (note that he is now an item in your inventory and you can actually sell him for a decent amount; probably shouldn't do that though). There is a restroom and a Locker, then an exit, then a Ham Melt that requires Ok+/5*/Stun. The skills available to us right now that can fulfil this are Catching Lies, Shocking Statements Ch.2, and Shocking Statements Ch. 3. Despite the fact that Catching Lies fulfils the requirements it does not seem to work to activate this Ham Melt, so we will want to use one of the electric ones. And even if we do, activating it does not do anything for us just yet, so don't worry about it. On the other hand there is another Ham Melt coming up shortly that is Good+/4+/Range. I just ranked up Reaching Out, but Healthy Sacrifices would also work if you already have that and if you happen to be level 24 already you could buy Cast Your Doubts or Droppin' Bombs, though you are unlikely to have enough SXP to get a Great Tier skill up to rank 4. Anyway, try to equip such a skill before you leave. Past that there are only a few more NPCs and a Lock Ghost. When you have explored as much as you wish take the exit you passed.

Computer Science 101 has some new enemies: Virus and Mike Chip. They will drop Stolen Goods (0 needed) and Microchips (30 needed) respectively. Breaking the first two tubes release enemies while the last one contains a Textbook. Exit right.

Computer Science 102 has six buttons that all start in the off position. Turn on the first, second, and fourth buttons to open the way to Computer Science 103. Turning on any of the others summons enemies, though note you can no longer push any of the buttons once the door has opened.. Continue when ready.

Drop down where you will encounter a Death Drive. This tough enemy summons two Mike Chips when defeated and can drop Hard Drives (need 18). To the right is a button, a Lock, and the most important passive in almost every Metroidvania game: Double Jump! Grab it and press the button. On the right you will find a Silver Lock. Assuming you have a Silver Key open it on up and enter the Treasure Room.

Three Textbooks and 2 Chests await you. You will find a Shadow Hand and Lab Coat+ inside. Neither of them are really worth using. If you need regen use the Automated First-Aid. Exit.

Go left and double jump up to the Chest here. Open it for $26.43 and Biker's Gloves. (Lv.20 80/40/37). Nowhere as good as the Honors Gloves and definitely not worth breaking up the Asp set bonus. You next need to platform across the new disappearing/reappearing blocks near the top. This leads to the door to the Probability Simulation Lab. You can actually also double jump up from the platform from where you got Double Jump and hold the jump button as you come up through one of the higher platforms to shortcut through most of the area. Before I left I farmed some Death Drives to gather all the Hard Drives and Microchips I needed as well as hit level 24.

The Range Ham Melt I mentioned before is here. Bop it for a Silver Key. Next turn on the monitor in the centre of the room. It will start rotating between four words: Door, Virus, Mike Chip, Death Drive. You can probably guess that you have to press the button again and whatever is on the screen will be summoned. Door is the one you want, but rather than open the way forward it only removes one shutter and then the words get faster. Hit Door again and it will remove another shutter and get faster yet. A third time will get you closer and speed things up even faster yet. A fourth Door will finally open it to reveal a button. Push it, obviously. You want to go back to Intermediate Science now. The platforms in the previous room are solid now, so that's nice I guess.

Turn in the components to Babbage to receive XP, $150, and a (probably useless) Asp Talisman. A Death Drive also appears so take care of it. I took a look at the Great Tier skills. I like the idea of Cast Your Doubts, but at low rank it is slow and I don't like how it does not attack directly in front of Daryl, so I stuck with What Goes Around as my main ranged attack for now. I decided to try Lash Out as my fourth skill though (keeping Debate Dissimilarities and Combustible Confutation Ch.3 for main combo attack and the useful burn debuff) and even bumped it to rank 2. Might as well save, then speak to the big frowning computer man by the exit. After conversing with I-73 now you want to zap the Ham Melt nearby (or more specifically the big box next to the Ham Melt. After doing so it opens a passage to Biology 101.

Hurray for giant buzzsaws! We also face off against Future Frogs (we need 25 Frog Legs from them) and Pogo the Mouse (40 Rat Poison and 25 Various Pills). Both of them also drop Miscellaneous Organs. Wonder what those will be used for? Take the elevator platform near the far end to grab I-73's Locker Combo at the top, then run and jump left into the wall. Open the Silver Lock here and go inside.

This Treasure Room contains a Textbook, a Chest with $13.64 and a Ruby, and Abby's Locker Combo. Exit once you have grabbed everything.

There is another secret tunnel in the wall directly below you. Drop down and insert $150 into the Money Collect-O-Matic to reveal a Silver Key and a Chest with 3 Textbooks. Back on the floor check the Body Part Collect-O-Matic next to the door. Hold the activate button to feed it Organs. Once you have given it 20 of them the door to Biology 102 opens.

The Map Quest here requires you to clear the map of enemies. Drop down into the 'water' and go left into the wall to find a hidden Chest. It contains $67.22 and 10 Frog Legs. Make your way across the bottom and enter that wall as well. There is a Jarod Khan and a Chest here. The latter contains $22.98 and a Robot Suit (Lv.22 0/220/0). Once again, even not taking into account the set bonus, it seems like it will be some time before we find anything that even beats the Asp set's raw stats. You will have to jump up onto platforms above and then up to take out Future Frogs flying around above the liquid surface. Once all the enemies are dead leap to the island on the surface in the middle of the area to check the sign there and receive your reward: a bunch of XP, 3 Textbooks, and a Space Helmet (Lv.22 375/20/0). Like the other gear we have been finding it is not worth using unless you did not get the Asp gear. Platform to the upper right corner of the area to see our favourite Portal Repair Specialist. Like he says, you know the drill: hop in that portal and get a'killin'!

This one is actually quite tough. There are a ton of enemies, but that isn't the part that makes it tough. The hard part is that the screen is upside down! The key here is that this one actually is different: rather than killing everything (cause they endlessly respawn) your mission is to push several buttons. I will refer to the directions as we see them, so the 'top' of the screen is under the liquid's surface. Okay, the first thing you want to do is hop across the series of islands on the bottom and press the button partially hidden behind giant bananas. This is made harder by the horde of Frogs trying to knock you out of the air. Drop up into the 'water' now and start going right. Break bananas to find another button, and go through the wall on the far right to find a third. With three buttons pressed return left and jump down onto a platform, then to the lower right corner out of the water where you should press the fourth button. Finally drop back up and rush left as quick as you can to find the fifth and final button hidden behind yet more bananas. Once the five buttons are pressed the portal is cleared and the enemies stop respawning. You can kill them all if you care to do so or just ignore them and platform back to the lower left corner and the exit.

Your reward is $180, 8 PP, and a Skull hat (Lv.26 700/0/0). Still not worth losing the set bonus for but that is at least a nice big boost in raw stats over the Asp Headgear. It is level 26 though so I could not equip it yet anyway (I hit 25 in the portal). I also reached Popularity Level 9: Meh comes with the Passive Second Skin which will let you live with 1hp when you would have died once per 30 seconds. Now that is a pretty nice bonus even though the only enemy that had brought me to 0 so far in the playthrough was the beta Asp.

Back into the water with you. If you had not been bashing the bananas already start doing it now despite what the signs say. The ones in the middle drop the Potassium Overdrive Refractor and reveal the exit to the next area.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this. Enter Terry's Toys and loot a Flarby. Nightmare toy in hand return to Intermediate Science.

Speak to I-73 to make the Flarby his problem now. A new exit opens up, but before we pursue that Babe Ruth has a Side Quest for us. He asks us to investigate Biology 101. We were just there, but okay. Let's poke our head back in there to see what is going on.

You are ambushed by a horde of hostile enemies from both Biology and Computer Science. Kill 'em all until the Great Bambino returns and gives you XP, $175, and Bone Cream for your troubles. The Bone Cream is a level 26 accessory, so I ignored it for now. Back to Intermediate Science where you should save then take the new exit I-73 opened for you.

Fringe Science 101 starts with a lot of Vira running about. Killing them took me to level 26, so let's look at that Bone Cream. (Lv.26, 200/76/52) beats out the WFHS Honors Gloves, so I equip it in place of them. A white room with lots of buzzsaws and platforming? Oh no, White Palace flashbacks! The bigger islands contain groups of enemies from the last two zones. Kill them or avoid them as you wish. Go right as far as you can to find a Trenchcoat Employee and a Ham Melt (Good+/7+/Melee). The shop has a Textbook, Hard Drives, Rat Poison, and Microchips. The Ham Melt guards a Photograph and went down immediately to Debate Dissimilarities. Backtrack and go up when you can. Platform as high as you can then go right to the end where you will find a Chest containing a Space Fizz Guzzler (Lv.23 420/0/0) and the exit.

Fringe Science 102 looks nice and inviting, doesn't it? It's no big deal, you just have to fight the FRICKIN' SUN as a mini-boss.

THE SUN

It is not a tough fight. Smack apart whichever asteroid is not currently on fire, one at a time. After you destroy the first one it starts fighting back by summoning Death Drives (first one and later two at a time) and launching very occasional comets that are slow and highly inaccurate. The fight is over once you destroy the final asteroid and your reward is 3 Metric Tons of Hydrogen and the exit. Before taking it check to your left for a Jarod Khan and to the right for a Lock Ghost and a Textbook. Now exit to Center of the Darylverse.

Have a chat with Friendly Terminal who summons a paper for you to read. Read it then make your way once again back to Intermediate Science.

Save again and speak to I-73. It opens the door to Advanced Computer Science where it is time to fight our next boss.

ANTIVIRUS ULTIMATE

There is not too much to this fight, actually. Just keep attacking whichever screen is on while dodging Mike Chips, sawblades, and laser walls. It goes down fairly easy... this time.

Switch the button off. After I-73's final words look left for a Chest and I-73's Locker. Open the Chest for a Super Fluid Conductor and the Locker for $10 and a second Super Fluid Conductor. A new exit has opened in Intermediate Science all the way on the right. When you are ready go on through.

In the Science Break Room you will find a restroom and what is either one or three Portal Specialists. Exit right when you are ready to face the Axis of Science.

Another boss battle already? What is this, the end game? No, it's the game's contractually mandated unwinnable fight! Mr. Robatto is not much different than last time, but he is backed up by Karin who heals any damage you deal to him while blasting you with energy beams. No matter how strong you are you cannot win here, so just accept your fate and get whupped. Don't worry, some old friends show up to pull your bacon out of the fire.

You wake up in the Paranormal Club room. Talk to Ken Speercy to receive a Portable Ghost Sucker. We can finally open all those Ghost Locks! Speak to him again for a Side Quest to suck up all of them, like we weren't going to do that anyway.

Upstairs you can find Abby's Locker next to the restroom. I feel kinda bad stealing from Abby. She has always been cool to us. But a Daryl's gotta do what a Daryl's gotta do. Open it up and grab $50, a Textbook a Shadow Body, and a Shadow Head. The latter two are level 24 gear that are still not even as good as the Asp gear pieces before the set bonus. Pass. Now visit the Vents.

Your goal is real close. Just jump up above the entrance to the Princess' Room to find a ghostly door (not sure why the Lock is already gone). Head on through.

Welcome to the Lost Hallway which connects all of reality. Or all of the school, anyway. Every Lock Ghost you have encountered up to this point in the game marks a portal to and from this area allowing for quick and easy travel throughout. Handy! There are also a few lockers we cannot open yet, some NPCs with somewhat humorous dialogue, a standard Locker/restroom combo, and some suspiciously gem-shaped indentations in the wall by what looks like another skill behind glass. Pretty sure you can figure this out, but this is a walkthrough so I will tell you anyway: you must insert one of each type of gem into their respective slots to access the skill. I happened to have a Ruby on me so I popped it in, but keep this in mind for later. Obviously we can use the various Luck Butter accessories to farm those, but it will be some time before we have the ability to complete this little puzzle. Since we have this handy shortcut right after obtaining Double Jump (now that's good game design!) let's grab a few things we were unable to reach earlier. Start with the door to the Road to Egypt.

Drop down and exit. Einstein (assuming you didn't sell him) speaks up and says he wants to visit the Canals next. Return to the Hallway.

Go left a bit and exit to Cubist Castle. Go just a bit left and up to chat with Jarod Khan, then left to the Grand Canal. Einstein wants the Haunted Ballroom next. Return to the Hallway and find the Haunted Ballroom door in the Literature section.

We can now make it across those chandeliers! Double jump your way up to the upper left to grab a Photograph and two Chests. Loot these for $55, a Dandelion Leaf, and a Jaw Handkerchief. The gear is woefully out of date in case you managed to make it up here the first time we were here. back to the Hallway!

Einstein said he wanted to see the school's Kitchen next. The door to the Upper Vents I is on the far left side of the Hallway. I trust you know how to reach the Kitchen from there. Einstein wants to visit the Quad after which is nice and close. At the Quad I am starting to get real tired of Einstein's ♥♥♥♥ as he now wants to visit Mozart's Room. We have not been there for quite some time (or ever if you never bothered to enter it); the first step is, of course, returning to the Hallway via the Upper Vents.

Take the first door to your right to reach Tenant Room 4. Exit the room and hop one door left to visit Mozart. Our German friend now wishes to be taken to the Pyramid (the Torture Chamber, specifically). Le sigh. Return to the Hallway.

This time we want the Servant's Tunnel door. Hop down to the Prison Chamber and go left where I am reminded I never opened this Lock. (Note to self, try to find another Pyramid Key somewhere to fix this. Not necessary, but for completion). The door here leads us to our destination.

Enchanted Forest next. Backtrack to the Hallway. Again.

Just run left and hop up to the Forest of Ents door. Pop in and right back out again.

Einstein wants a furnace. We can give him a furnace. But first stop in at your Locker and equip a rank 3 or higher Faux Pow. Left to the Upper Vents again.

Go right to Upper Vents II, straight across to Upper Vents V, right then up to Upper Vents VI, turn on the left button of the three in the middle, go down and left and hit the Ham Melt with Faux Pow to earn 3 Textbooks (almost enough to refund the 4 needed to buy Faux Pow if you, like me, did not already have it), turn that button back off, and take the lower right route over to the Furnace Room. Finally Einstein wants to go back home, so travel all the way back to the Hallway and then Intermediate Science.

Go left and speak with ol' Albert for XP, $100, and 2 Textbooks. Worth all the trouble? Debatable, but at least we have checked off another Side Quest. Since we are here exit left to Science 103, then drop down to Science 102.

Head left and jump up to say hi to Jarod Khan, then return to the Hallway.

That's all for now so I guess we may as well visit the Janitor to continue the story. Head on over to his Closet. After a bit of exposition it is time to see our lady love, so head on over to the Princess' Room.

Speak to the Princess and you are gifted a nice big chunk of XP. Also it seems Daryl is a hot commodity around here! Hand over a couple Photographs, then better go see what Paul and Alan want.

That is a pretty nice upgrade: you now can carry two loadouts of skills! For the most part I will be sticking with the one I know for combat, but the second one can be useful for Ham Melt skills and the like. There are a couple new D&D Battle Training bouts available now if you feel like procrastinating some more.

Fire & Lightning
Cost: $50
First-Time Reward: 3PP, 8000XP, Silver Key, Textbook
Possible Rewards: 2 of: 1PP, 3250XP, Robot Body, Ruby, Topaz
Level 22; Skills: Combustible Confutation Ch.1, Ch.2, and Ch.3 all at rank 5, AND Shocking Statements Ch.1, Ch. 2, and Ch.3 all at rank 5, Sliding By rank 5; Equipment: Hellfire Staff, Crowbar, Fake Ghost Suit, Ice Necklace
Round 1: 3x Pogo the Mouse, 6x Virus
Round 2: 4x Anubis Warrior, 4x Future Frog, 4x Virus
Round 3: 2x Eerie Elf, 2x Haunted Nutcracker, 2x Spooky Present
Round 4: 4x Eerie Elf, 4x Haunted Nutcracker, 4x Spooky Present
Round 5: 6x Pharaoh Bat, 5x Sexy Saguaro
Round 6: 2x Eerie Elf, 1x Haunted Nutcracker, 3x Sexy Saguaro, 1x Spooky Present
Round 7: 4x Anubis Warrior, 2x Death Drive, 4x Pogo the Mouse
Round 8: 1x Commander Anubis, 1x Death Drive, 5x Sexy Saguaro

Thou Shall Stay Away
Cost: $75
First-Time Reward: 3PP, 20000XP, Silver Key, 3x Textbook
Possible Rewards: 2 of: 2PP, 13250XP, $70, $100, Sapphire, Textbook
Level 25; Skills: Droppin' Bombs rank 4, Cast Your Doubts rank 3, What Goes Around rank 5, Combustible Confutation Ch.2 rank 5, Sliding By rank 5; Equipment: 2x Wooden Stake, Slug Hat, Lab Coat+, Shadow Kidney
Round 1: 4x Future Frog, 4x Pogo the Mouse, 4x Virus
Round 2: 2x Anubis Warrior, 4x Mike Chip, 4x Virus
Round 3: 2x Death Rive, 3x Pharaoh Bat, 3x Pogo the Mouse
Round 4: 3x Death Drive
Round 5: 3x Castle Creep, 5x Virus
Round 6: x Castle Creep, x Death Drive

This is the first time these things actually get challenging. Also remember that while the Quest battles can be done later once you level up some more and get better equipment the Battle Training will always be the same difficulty no matter when you take them on (with the one exception of passives from Popularity Level which can help). If you really don't want to do these they aren't linked to any achievements or anything, but I really want those juicy Silver Keys if nothing else... Completing both got me to level 27.

In the North Hall Paul now has a new Side Quest for us. I am not entirely sure what triggered this. Time? Going enough areas away? Beating the Battle Training? Levelling up? Or the most likely, just leaving and coming back to the North Hall? I will have to see if I can figure it out next time I play. It's called Bookflix and they want 10 Hard Drives and $200. You very likely have this already, but if not get to grinding. Turn it in for XP, 5 PP, and Chad's Locker Combo. Remember Chad? Wonder whatever happened to that guy... Immediately after Alan offers another Side Quest. Finally time to discover the secrets of the Trenchcoat empire! But we have other things to do real quick though. Head on over to the Realm of the Beta Boss.

I bet you can guess what is going on here. Reconstructing the Antivirus boss only requires a Super Fluid Conductor and 15 Microchips, both of which you should already have. You receive XP 7 PP, a Textbook, and an Antivirus Talisman. As usual you get another quest right after to actually beat the thing. I am going to save first though and on the way open up Chad's Locker. You get a Football Helmet, Shoulder Pads, Crowbar, $10.72, and the real prize, a Silver Key.

Before tackling the beta boss that Battle Training reminded me that at higher ranks Cast Your Doubts is quite good, so I ran over to my Locker and ranked it up to 5 (Lash Out at 4) and replaced What Goes Around. I had 52 SXP left after.

ANTIVIRUS ULTIMATE Beta

Remember how the original version of this boss was a pushover who hardly fought back? I miss those days. The first beta fight is still really easy. The second one is challenging: there are noticeably a lot more sawblades at this point but the most annoying part is the permanent wall that blocks off the left monitor so roughly a third of the time you cannot damage the thing. So long as you pay attention to the sawblades and actively dodge them while considering attacking the boss and its Mike Chip adds secondary it is perfectly doable. The third one is slightly harder than the second with still more saws, the adds are upgraded from 2-3 Mike Chips to a Death Drive, and instead of a single permanent wall a wall will randomly phase in and out temporarily closing off a third of the battlefield. Also I think the boss changes monitors more frequently but that may have been my imagination. The fourth one, though? Hoo boy. Where the Asp beta fights got too long due to artificially padding its health but was ultimately not difficult if you know its patterns this thing, THIS ****ING THING is a huge pain. Saws everywhere and TWO Death Drives showing up, both shooting annoying energy balls and doing a ton of damage if they hit you with their fists make it so that trying to keep track of everything and not take constant damage is practically all I can manage. Trying to actually keep track of where the boss is and attack it seems a bit much. It took me five tries and even then I just barely won. I wish you better luck than I had. The rewards are, as usual, equipment that is darned good for this point in the game. So good in fact that once I had the weapon and outfit I put them on because the raw numbers were high enough to make up for the loss of the 7% boost from the Asp set. The gear is as follows: Outlet Hands (2H Lv. 25, 0/0/220), AV Cart (Lv.25, 0/350/0), TV Head (Lv.25, 800/0/15), and VCR (Lv.25, 230/80/62). The set bonus is Psychic Saws which summons saws to attack your enemies and, probably more importantly, gives +5% health, defence, and strength. A hard-won fight, but the rewards are nice.

The quest reward from the Sorceress is XP, 7 PP, and a Textbook.

I figure we should mosey on over to do some espionage now. Go to Upper Vents V and speak to the left Trenchcoat, then return to Paul and Alan in the North Hall.

Speak to our employers to receive the Textbook Emporium's Locker Combo. You might remember seeing this locker in the Lost Hallway, so go there now. (Even if you don't remember that go there. That's... that's just where it is, okay?)

Our target is right next to the entrance from the Vents, so open it on up and grab The Package. Now, since this game loves pointless backtracking, go back to the North Hall.

Alan will hand over an Emerald, a Trenchcoat Hood (Lv.20 380/0/0) with Small Discount (2% discount at Trenchcoat stores), and a Trenchcoat (Lv.20, 0/225/0) and the Large Discount passive that gives you a 5% discount at Trenchcoat stores. Not worth wearing for combat, obviously, but nice to get the discount if you remember/can be bothered to change your gear every time you want to buy something. In any event you need to wear them now, so put it on and talk to Alan again. You will be teleported to Upper Vents V.

You can finally enter the vent here thanks to your masterful disguise. Welcome to the Trenchcoat Meeting.

Halfway through the crowd one of the Trenchcoats tries to sell you a Football Helmet and a Party Invitation. We obviously need neither. Further along another one has a slice of Birthday Cake, a Textbook, and a Glockenspiel Talisman. I grabbed the Textbook, of course. I don't remember seeing Birthday Cake anywhere else so I guess you could grab it if you are a collector, but as far as I know it has no use in the game. A third Trenchcoat sells three Party Hats, which is three more than we need, and immediately after a fourth sells a Textbook, Rat Poison, Frog Legs, Hard Drives, and Lab Goggles. I bet you can guess what is the only thing worth buying. The Trenchcoat Employee at the end of the room sells a Textbook, Top Secret Business Plans, another Birthday Cake, and a Party Hat. Buy the first two. Or heck, buy it all since it's his birthday, if you care. Still don't need the cake or hat though. After obtaining the Top Secret Business Plans and waiting several seconds you will be teleported back out to Upper Vents V. Return to Paul and Alan.

You receive XP, 6 PP, and a new skill: Reckless Abandon. This Great Tier ability is a toggle: turn it on to increase both the damage you deal and the damage you receive. High risk, high reward is not my style, but you do you. Paul and Alan have yet another Side Quest for you when you are ready. They need 30 Steel Plates for Tony's Pension. By the way I reached Level 28 and Popularity Level 10: Average Daryl. The aptly named passive Experience Boost makes all enemies (but not quests) provide an extra 10% XP. Nice! Next stop: Upstairs and into the Literature Room.

Sigh, another Princess. Thankfully we don't have to work for this one. Just whack the hell out of the cork until it pops, then leave. You can go right back in if you want to witness the consequences of your actions, but where we actually need to go is the Tell Tale Terrace. Use the Hallway to reach the Haunted Ballroom and then make your way out of the Mansion to reach our destination.

Surprisingly Poseidon doesn't have much to say. Speak instead to Captain Cascioli who gives you a Side Quest to do exactly what you just did. Handy that. Just speak to him again for some XP, then again and say yes to set sail.

In the Quaint Village you will first run into the Magister of Maps who has a new quest for you. Pretty much just to teach you about the Lost Hallway and Lock Ghost doors if you had come straight here instead of checking them out earlier. No need for that since you have me, but it is worth some XP and 5 PP to do what we were going to do anyway. Continue to the far right and speak to the Disgruntled Citizens. They want 5 Lumber. If you have not been carrying some around since forever you can use the Hallway to zip over to the Forest of Ents to collect some. Honestly that was probably the devs' intent to show you first-hand how handy of a shortcut it is. However you get it hand it over and they will open the way to Frankenstein's Castle.

Music is fine, but for my money every monster castle should use the music from the castle levels of Zombies Ate My Neighbors. Note that the smashable objects here actually drop loot in the form of Wooden Rods. You only need 15 of them and even then only for forging. Go right and check out the Trenchcoat Employee's goods. They are selling Scabbard, Textbook, Weird Leather, Ruby, and Frog Legs. Buy the Textbook as always, and if you want to forge extra equipment later the Scabbard as well. Past him is a restroom and Locker (Equip Ride the Tide in one of your extra slots if you don't already have it. You don't need to rank it up, rank 1 is fine.). Up the stairs is our good friend Brawley the Blacksmith:

King Arthur's Helmet ($250, 1x Knight's Helmet, 8x Steel Plate, 1x Topaz, 5x Weird Leather), King Arthur's Breastplate ($250, 1x Royal Armor, 10x Steel Plate, 1x Topaz, 5x Weird Leather), King Arthur's Sword ($250, 1x Ruby, 15x Steel Plate, 3x Weird Leather), King Arthur's Jockstrap ($250, 1x Steel Plate, 10x Weird Leather, 15x Wooden Rod)

If we want this stuff (and you do want at least one for an achievement even if you don't want to use the gear) note that you need the base equipment, loot you will be gathering here, a bunch of money, and a few gems. If you don't have 2 Topaz and a Ruby you might want to equip the Luck Butter accessories for a bit until you gather them.

Okay, the upper centre and upper left exits are blocked by Locks whose keys we do not yet posses. Meanwhile both the upper and lower right continues on a little way before we encounter a new enemy, the Ceiling Defense System. These drop Steel Plates. We already know we need 30 for our Side Quest, and if you want all the King equipment you need another 34, for a total of 64 of these little bastards. Guess we are going to be destroying a lot of these Systems. The upper right has 2 Systems then a Lock and then an exit. The lower right has 2 Systems spread further apart, a Chest on the far right containing $0.99 and an Emerald, and then it goes down and back left. Following this path leads to a Lock and then a Ham Melt (Good+/1+/Water). We can't take care of it just yet though, so walk on by. Further on are a handful of Castle Creeps whom you might have seen in the Battle Training. Killing them will reward you with Weird Leather which is required for no quests but you will want up to 23 of them if you want to forge everything with Brawley. Once they are dead you find in order an exit, Igor, and yet another Lock. Speak to Igor. He gives you the Study Key. Before using it first enter the door on Igor's right.

Igor's Room is... not decorated the way I expected it to be. The Bride of Frankenstein wants us to put out 4 bonfires around the Castle. We have our water skill ready, so sounds like a plan. Open the Chest for the Garden Key, then exit.

Run back right and put out the first Bonfire with Ride the Tide. Also note that the Lock just a bit further right is actually a Silver Lock. If you have any Silver Keys on you (and you should) open it up and step into another Treasure Room.

There are 4 Textbooks here and 2 Chests. Inside the Chests are $0.64, another Eighth of Luck Butter, and Royal Armor. That last one is useful if you want to forge. Exit and go all the way left to open the Lock there and head on in.

The Doctor's Study is a huge area full of Castle Creeps (plus a few Systems up near the top) and per our quest we need to kill them all. Around the centre of the room is a Textbook and a button that turns on an elevator platform back to the entrance. The far upper right has a Chest with $72.22 and a Knight's Helmet. Once you have slaughtered all you survey leave this place and speak to Igor once more.

You are now the proud owner of the Castle Key. Now go the upper left part of the Castle and open the Lock there. Past this face off against the Ground Defense System which is just the Ceiling Systems again but this time they roll around. Same drops too. Past them go up the stairs first and open the Chest for an Antivirus Talisman. Go bottom left now to exit to the Gallery & Garden.

Platform across the top first to meet the Wicked Witch. She has a quest for you to 25 Frog Legs, 25 Various Pills (should already have both of those), and 15 Slug Eyes. You will probably notice we are being shot at from every angle, which is a good thing actually because there is a Map Quest to destroy 15 Ground Defense Systems and 8 Ceiling Defense Systems. Cause much mayhem as you explore this area. There is another bonfire next to the Witch to put out. Left of that is a Silver Lock. Those always lead somewhere good, but we are busy at the moment so leave it for now. At the lower left there is a Lock we can open with the Garden Key. Open it and go down the stairs. Grab the sparkling Carrot on a Stick from the Fountain, then speak to Lennie (uh oh). As expected he wants a Rabbit. Poor Gardener. Take note of the sword in the stone to your left; we'll be back for this later. Head right all the way through the room (I hit level 29) and once you are at the bottom check the sign (assuming you completed the Map Quest) for XP, 7 PP, and a Silver Key. There is a Lock just past it we cannot open just yet. Return to the Silver Key we passed earlier and head on through (hopefully you have at least one Silver Key).

Hmm. The Quarantined Hallway does not look like a Treasure Room. Let's check it out to make sure. There is a Chest. Treasure Room after all! Open it for $250, Just A Sword, and some not at all ominous shaking. You will be locked in with a pair of Lv.30 Trolls, one coming from each side. This is a surprisingly difficult fight. The trolls are slow as always, but they can absorb a TON of damage and are immune to both knockback and status effects. The Goblins they spit out are also Lv.30 and while you are busy keeping your distance from the Trolls their spit can rack up a surprising amount of damage. Keep your distance from the Trolls and just keep attacking and eventually they will go down. (By the way, I have had an Eighth of Luck Butter equipped this entire dungeon and still have yet to find a single Topaz. Quite annoying.) On the right is yet another Silver Lock and an exit. Let's try the Silver Lock first (assuming you have a Key, of course), since that looks like a Treasure Room door to me!

Dammit. Rather than delicious treasure we have another Lv.30 Troll, this time in close quarters. Kill it, of course (I might want to speak to the manager about how it can still hit me with its club even when I am behind it) and when it is dead you will be rewarded with 3 Chests. Inside are a Troll Club, Troll Suit, and Troll Mask. Hmm. This equipment is level 31, but it does look pretty powerful. Will have to remember to look at it later. Exit and take the other door to the Nondescript Room.

There is nothing here but some breakables and a Trenchcoat. He is selling a Silver Key, a Photograph, Steel Plates, Wooden Rods, and a Slug Hat. I bought the Key and the Photograph (after putting on the Trenchcoat gear for a discount cause that stuff is expensive!). We are done with this wing for now so head back to Frankenstein's Castle and this time head along the upper right passage. At the very end take the door to the Castle Interior.

Speak to Dr. Frankenstein if you like (I love that they went with the Gene Wilder version), then head right and hop over the pit (if you fall it will be a bit before you get back up here). The Ham Melt here is Good+/4+/Melee. I used Debate Dissimilarities to smash the wall next to it and walked carefully into the wall. Hop over this pit as well to reach the Chest which contains 10 Steel Plates. Now drop down the right pit and go right to another Chest, this one with a Pitchfork Crossbow. Hit the button now and head left. Kill your way left and when you come to the big open area kill all the Systems. You don't strictly HAVE to, but they are annoying and the XP and Steel Plates aren't useless. At the bottom of this area put out the bonfire, then go right through the wall to flip a button. In the lower left turn another button on. Now platform to the upper left and double jump up through the ceiling and go right for a third button. We can't reach the last button from here so go right and enter the door to the Nondescript Hallway.

Fight your way right. Go all the way to the end, open the Silver Lock, and enter for another Treasure Room. Break a bunch of antiques and open the Chest for a Topaz. Since one of the Castle Creeps had recently finally dropped a Topaz from Luck Butter I now had the two necessary for forging so I now switched over to the Fourth. Exit this room, go left, and enter the other door.

Another Nondescript Room. Whoa, new enemy, the Frankenbat. $10 says Count Roger gives us a quest to kill them. They drop Bat Jerky, Weird Leather, and Steel Plates. We want 25 Jerky and have already covered the other two. Enter the other door after.

Real creative with the naming here. Nondescript Room number three here, and we are locked in with enemies. After you slay them all take the other door.

Care to guess what this area is called? You got it! Nondescript Room! The contents are anything but nondescript though: a pair of Lv.28 Lord Glockenspiels! This fight can be tough, so fight smart! Dodge their attacks as best you can, try to get one temporarily alone on one side and unload as much damage as you can. Once one goes down the fight gets much easier and it is only a matter of time before you win. Another win, another door.

I am not even going to bother writing the name of this room. You might have thought that the last room would be the finale of this gauntlet, but nope. Break more baddies and take the next door.

Finally we arrive at Dr. Frankenstein's Prize. Speak to Jarod Khan, open the Chest for a Sapphire, and grab the skill You Reap What You Sow. Daryl's Prize now. Make your way back to the Castle Interior.

Make your way left back through the room o' Systems. Destroying them again brought me up to level 30. Enter the door on the left side.

This is the Experimental Wing. The Map Quest says we have to kill 15 Frankenbats and we always do what the quests tell us, don't we? Break the weird eyes at the bottom to collect Slug Eyes (I also got 3 Slug Hats), then climb up and start swatting bats (or wait just a bit because we can combine it with another quest). When you have met the requirements check the sign for XP, 7 PP, and a Miscellaneous Bone. Jump into the wall left and a little down from the sign for a hidden cubby with 3 Textbooks. Near the upper right is the final bonfire, so put it out. The door in the upper right leads back to the main Frankenstein's Castle area. I know you probably want to save, but ignore it for now.

Go left to the lab and follow the directions you are given. You will automatically pick up the Elevator Battery, a Brainwash-O-Matic, and once everything is gone grab the Castle Key. Drop down the left-hand side and press the button, then go right and into Roger's Sewer.

Of course. He wants us to kill 30 Frankenbats. Since I had yet to find a single piece of Bat Jerky I knew I was going to have to massacre a bunch of them anyway, this way we just get a paycheck. Exit the Sewer and take the elevator on the left back up. Go kill bats to your heart's content then return here for your prize. (After 30+ more kills and still not a single Bat Jerky I am beginning to suspect they can't drop those here.) Count Roger rewards us with XP, 7 PP, and Count Roger's Pants (Lv.25, 20/20/60) with the passive The Wrath of Count Roger which gives you a 5% chance to critical for 150% damage. Honestly the stats suck so much I don't think they are worth equipping. If you are really good at dodging and prefer offence over defence you might decide otherwise. Okay, all done with this area. Go through the door in the upper right.

Hit the button to make a nice shortcut for us, then go save, use your Locker, etc. If you can afford it grab Droppin' Bombs and rank it up to 4 for an upcoming Ham Melt. Reap What You Sow which we picked up a little bit ago looks like a Great Tier direct upgrade of Discuss Dissimilarities, so I equipped it happily and ranked it up as high as I could afford. I also now had everything I needed to smith the entire King Arthur set so I did that. We have King Arthur's Sword (2H Lv.28, 10/10/245), King Arthur's Helmet (Lv.28, 850/10/10), King Arthur's Breastplate (Lv.28, 0/380/0), and King Arthur's Jockstrap (Lv.28, 230/100/70). The passive for wearing the whole set is Daryl in Shining Armor which is another one that gives a 5% boost to our three attributes. Sad that the TV set didn't last very long, but this straight-up better. You lose the psychic saws, but they aren't all that great anyway. Weirdly it did not seem to use up my Scabbard when I forged the Jockstrap. Or maybe I picked up another one and did not notice, which means I didn't have to buy one earlier. Eh, whatever. Also look who's here! Dr. Watson! He, of course, has a Side Quest for you, A Study in Blue: Part III. While here I ran back down to Igor's Room and turned in the quest to the Bride for 10 PP. I reached Popularity Level 11: Cool Kid! The passive for this is Introvert's Preservation that just gives a straight 5% bonus to defence. Now return to the Experimental Wing using the shortcut we opened up and go left to where the lab was.

Activate the black thing on the wall for a perfectly normal and predictable result. Speak with the Science TA and read the paper on the left. Okay, back to the Gallery & Garden.

Turn in your quest with the Wicked Witch for XP, 5 PP, and a Textbook. If you have at least one piece of King Arthur's equipment run left back to the sword in the stone and click it to receive Excalibur (2H Lv.28, 15/15/270) and the passive Sword of Legend which... boosts your attributes by 5%. Which means even if you use this instead of King Arthur's Sword (which you should because it has better stats) and thus lose the set bonus you don't actually lose anything. Nifty! Of course this means I didn't need to craft that sword. Oh well. You also receive an achievement for grabbing this nice weapon, so win-win. Run on over to the lower right then back left past the sign. Open the Lock with your Castle Key and head on through.

This is the Chapel. Hi Dr. Frankenstein! Go left and pick up the Button Key which leads to you visiting the Castle Depths.

There is a restroom and a Locker, a Lock, and Igor. Chat with him and he will give you a preview of Fun. Instead of going that way let's go left instead. The door here leads to another Nondescript Hallway.

The first door in here leads to a Nondescript Room. This room contains the skill Steel Yourself, but when you grab it you will be locked in with a bunch of baddies. Kill them all and exit back into the Hallway. Travel right and enter another door for yet another Nondescript Room. Here there is a Ham Melt Great+/4+/Burn. Blast it open with Droppin' Bombs for a Chest containing $350. Back out to the Depths now.

Igor's obstacle course is not as bad as it looks. When passing under the walled portion with the spike traps jump up through the ceiling and chat up Jarod Khan. At the end pick up the Cellar Key and take the door to return to Igor and the Lock. Unlock the Lock with your shiny new Key and enter back into the Castle Interior. Head left through the wall and press the button, then right until you can press another. Drop down and go left again. Now that we have pressed all four buttons we can grab Igor's Locker Combo. Do so then run back right. Hook up the battery and press the button to activate the elevator. Ride that back up and go left. Just past the fireplace double jump up and left into the wall where we can find another Jarod Khan. Drop back down and left to return to Frankenstein's Castle.

Open the Lock in front of you and press the button. If you want you can run down to the Locker to check out your new skill: Steel Yourself. It gives you temporary invincibility but you cannot move during that time. Could be useful, but I know that I would either never remember to use it or accidentally hit it at the wrong time and screw myself. I also hit level 31 so I took a look at the Troll gear I picked up earlier. The Troll Club (1H Lv.31, 0/3/195) is obviously inferior to Excalibur by itself, though since it is one-handed it can be combined with another weapon, the best of which right now would be Miscellaneous Bone (1H Lv.26, 0/0/100) for a total of (0/3/295) compared to Excalibur's (15/15/270). So slightly higher base attack but lose the 5% bonus to everything. No way that is worth it. The Troll Mask (Lv.31, 1150/0/0) is a lot more of a contender. I generally value attack and defence more than health, but the Mask gives 300 more health and only 10 less of the other two attributes. I think that is worth it so I equip the Mask. Finally the Troll Suit (Lv.31, 0/470/0) is straight up better than the Breastplate with 90 more defence, so I slap that on too. Daryl is now a troll who wields Excalibur. Cool. Save and all that stuff (including equipping Lightning Wit, rank 1 is fine) then return to the upper right and use the door you can now access after pressing that button.

Go up one level and left through the wall to find (and bust) a Lock Ghost. Go up a few more and through the wall on the right for a Silver Key. And not up to the top and right through the wall and across the bridge. At the next tower drop down a handful of levels and through the left wall for a Photograph. At the bottom is a door leading to Dead End.

A very misleading name. Go all the way right and try to open the Chest. It will reveal itself to be the video gaming's least threatening Mimic. Kill it to pick up an Elevator Key and a Casserole. Going through the left door will allow us to push a button opening up another shortcut to Castle Interior. Do so then head back to the Towers.

Climb the tower and run right across another bridge to a third tower. On the top you can find another Portal Repair Specialist. Do your thing.

A nice, simple fight this time. There are random comets that fly across the screen like when you fought the Sun, but they are just as irrelevant here as they were then. There is a button at the top of the area that... I don't know what it does, frankly, but I pushed it anyway. The only 'difficult' part of this portal is another Lv.30 Troll, but this time we are a Lv.31 Troll so the fight is much easier. Even with its boatload of hp I managed to kill it well before the timer ran out. Exit and collect your prize: XP, 9 PP, a Textbook, and another Just A Sword.

At the bottom of this tower zap the Ham Melt (Great+/1/Dash) with Lightning Wit so you can grab the Textbook and the Chest with $184.65 and a Skeleton. We have a few Side Quests we can turn in back at the school and one here for which we need an item obtained there, so let's take a detour back through the Lost Hallway.

Turn in your quest with Drew for 8 PP (wow, he's looking sharp!), then head down to the North Hall. Activate Punkin's dish to place the Carrot on a Stick then grab Punkin the Rabbit (I feel bad). Head right to turn in the Steel Plates for XP, 6 PP, and Tony's Locker Combo. Next stop is the Kitchen where we receive XP, 2 Textbooks, and Half of Luck Butter (Lv.26, 200/55/55) and A Handful of Luck for dropping 'rare jewels'. Money isn't really an issue anymore, but if you want Sapphires the stats are almost as good as the VCR, so it's not a horrible idea.

Back Upstairs we can find Igor's Locker which has a Monster Leg, $3.50, 3 Super Vira, and a Poison Amulet (Lv.27, 100/100/100) and poison immunity. I like those stats and poison is annoying. After some deliberation I equip it in place of the VCR. Back to the Lost Hallway.

Tony's Locker is most of the way to the right. Open it on up for 3 Textbooks, 15 Fuzzy Meat Chunks, 5 Microchips, 1 Ass Feathers, 3 Jet Fuel, and a Curse of Count Roger. Tony is an, um, interesting guy. Might be for the best that he went to juvie. Exit to Intermediate Science.

Head right to speak to the moustachioed Portal Repair Specialist. Hoo boy. You need to kill 10 Death Drives, so run over to somewhere like Computer Science 103 and waste 'em. Return to the Specialist when done.

He wants you to kill 5 more Death Drives. This had better not be a pattern.

...psyche. Start to walk away, he'll call you back, chat with him, start to walk away again, and this time when he calls you back talk to him again to get an Antivirus Talisman. Back to the Lost Hallway then one door down to Fringe Science 102. Exit to the Center of the Darylverse and speak to the Friendly Terminal. Read the new printout next, then finish up with Watson. XP 10 PP, $250, and another damn Duffle Bag. I hit level 32 and Popularity Level 12: Jock for the passive Back to Basics which causes all skills of Good Tier or lower to deal more damage. Not too great for me since I was using almost all Great skills by this point. Might be useful for Battle Training though. Anyhoo, time to head back to Frankenstein's Castle via the Lost Hallway and The Towers.

If you have it equip Lash Out at rank 5+. Make a detour to the Gallery & Garden and run all the way left to turn in poor Punkin to Lenny. He gives you 6 PP and a Silver Key. Return to the main Castle area. Use the Elevator Key to open the Lock in the middle top of the map. Enter to find Frankenstein's Lab.

Hop up to the stairs above you and enter the door here to be back in The Towers. Open the Chest for 3 Textbooks and might as well hit the button for another unnecessary shortcut. Now back to the Lab.

Hop right to the Ham Melt (Great+/5+/Stun). Open the Chest for Neck Screws (Lv.26, 300/0/0) and the passive Spinal Shock which will heal you for 50% of your maximum health when you drop below 25% health once every 4 minutes. Hoo boy, that passive could be a useful butt-saver, but 4 minutes is a long time... Ultimately I decide against using it in place of something with better defence and attack stats. Hop down and say hello to... oh, you just grab the Wrench and open a new exit. Onward!

Axis of Literature, we knew this would be around here somewhere. Head right for the expected boss fight.

MR. ROBATTO ROUND 3

He is looking a little different this time around, but is about as easy as the first time you fought him since he doesn't have Karin backing him up this time. When you get him down to half health however...

LITERATURE GUARDIAN ROUND 2

She shows up and joins in. She fights just like she did the first time, so still kinda annoying, but not too dangerous. Finish Robatto ASAP then focus her down.

~THURSDAY???

Like the start of every day let's check the Kitchen for today's lunch-related Side Quest. Chef Flex needs $500, 25 Bat Jerky and a Change of Clothes. Hopefully those damn Frankenbats drop the Jerky now; we will check that in a bit. Our next stop is Upstairs.

The school's resident fashionista Drew needs a Duck Bill now. Sure Drew, we'll keep an eye out for it. Next you want to end up back at Frankenstein's Castle.

Talk to Igor in the upper left for another Side Quest. He needs us to destroy 10 of each of the Defense Systems, Ground and Ceiling. Didn't we bust enough of those last time we were here? Oh well, it is not like it will be tough, and there will be plenty on the way to our next objective: the Gallery & Garden, specifically the far left where Lenny was located.

Surprise, surprise, the Gardener is here now (Lenny himself can be found in the lower right part of this area and... he did a bad thing. Poor Punkin.). In a repeat of one of our earliest Side Quests she wants us to bury the poor bunny among the flowers on the Far Side. One wonders just how many fuzzy critters are buried there, and if that is why the flowers grow so well? Before we leave the Castle though we have some more killin' to do. Between the Gallery & Garden and the enemies right outside it getting the 10 kills of each type for Igor is super easy. He rewards you with XP, 3 PP, and 2 Textbooks. Unfortunately the Frankenbats here still don't drop Jerky, so we might as well go the the Far Side now as there is not likely to be a better time anytime soon.

In case you forgot the flowers in question are in the upper left part of the area where Death awaits us once more. Even they are sad about the passing of our poor bunny friend. Unfortunately we now have to run aaaaaallll the way back to the Gardener for our reward.

For our good deed we receive XP, 6 PP, and Punkin's Flower Patch, a hat that is not worth using. Oh well. Not much left to do but go to the Princess' Room to visit our lady love.

She looks like she is doing well, does she not? She gives you your next story goal. After that you can turn in any Photographs you might have on you. Okay, I officially feel sorry for her. To the Science The Break Room! A new rift in space and time has helpfully opened up, leading us to ecneicS ot ortnI.

There is a Locker here if you need it and a Portal Repair Specialist you can speak to in order to free him. Exit left to reach 101 ecneicS.

New zone, new enemy: the Corrupted H.A.M. M.E.L.T. They drop Power Cores (15 needed for quests, 21 more needed for smithing, 36 total though we will get 6 from someone's locker later so...). They also drop Ion Drives (None needed for quests, 33 needed for smithing, 8 available from locker). Map Quest here wants us to kill 10 of the things, but don't kill the one down here on the floor just yet. A little way left you will find another Portal Repair Specialist and this one requires you to trick the Corrupted HM to hit him in order to free him. If you already killed it don't worry: just hit one of the ones higher up and get it to follow you back down to smack this bozo. To reach those higher up enemies go to the far left and double jump up to the platform above you. There is another Specialist here who tells you that he will be freed when you finish the Map Quest (and talk to him after). Also one of the enemies flying around here is carrying yet another Specialist. Just kill it to free him. At the very top of the platforms you can find a fourth specialist who won't leave unless you pay him $200. It feels like extortion, but it is not like money is tight so go ahead. Once you have freed all four run and double jump up to the upper left platform to open a Chest with a Giant Science Gun (1H Lv.30, 0/0/140) which sounds cool but is hilariously inferior to Excalibur even if you dual-wielded them. The upper right has the last thing for us here: a Silver Lock leading to a Treasure Room.

In here is a Photograph and a Chest with Vines of the Flower God (Lv.30, 100/400/30). Equipping this over the Troll Suit would mean an extra 100 hp and 30 attack in exchange for 70 defence. Not a horrible trade, though I will stick with the Troll Suit myself. Exit here then take the exit in the lower left you passed by earlier.

201 ecneicS in case you had not guessed. The first Specialist floating along the ground floor can be saved by simply talking to him. There is one on the platform above that I think requires being attacked by an HM (it happened before I spoke to him so I cannot say for certain), and another being carried by an HM flying back and forth. On the upper left platform a fourth Specialist will appear and reappear and this one is freed by smacking him a few times (nice Clerks reference). There is a restroom and then the exit. Note that you will not be able to continue very far without at least 15 Power Cores, so you may want to gather those first. I reached level 33 here and collected enough Cores and Drives for all the smithing later.

301 ecneicS is next. The final Specialist needs 15 of those Power Cores we have been gathering and above the Flower God will tell you what you probably already guessed: you have to rescue all the geeks to continue. In theory this is done so the Flower God will give us a nice chunk of XP and open the way. A few angry Corrupted H.A.M. M.E.L.T.s will attack you right after and annoyingly will continue to respawn and attack in groups of three so long as you remain here. Go left, ride the rock up, and open the Chest for Eyes of the Flower God (all whilst being constantly attacked by those HMs), then exit left.

You end up in 401 ecneicS. Travel left past a bunch of non-hostile (unless you damage them) HMs and flame traps and you will come across a restroom followed by the Heartbroken Portal Specialist. He gives us a Side Quest to collect 15 Super Flowers and deliver them to his French lover back at Napoleon's Camp. Sure thing, buddy. Use the door in the upper left to exit to 501 ecneicS.

Go left and hit up the Trenchcoat to purchase Matches & Gasoline and Paul's Locker Combo. Helpfully there is now a portal leading directly from here to The Break Room so take that now.

Head to North Hall and open up Paul's Locker. Darn, that would have been really satisfying. Return now to the Trenchcoat Employee at 501 ecneicS.

You can now buy the needed Time Travel Orb. Exit to find that you have been locked in (the note explains). Nothing for it but to enter the new rift.

Oh, never mind, this isn't the way to forward, but it IS a Treasure Room, so I won't complain. Open the 2 Chests here for a Sapphire and Mad Scientist Hair (not worth equipping), then exit.

Might want to save first, then go the way that actually makes sense (since the note suggested we speak to Karin), to the Axis of Science.

KARIN

You can't hurt her so just dodge her attacks for a while until you beat her with Plot. Pick up the Break Room Key and exit back to The Break Room where you can now open the Lock and get back to Intermediate Science.

Look who it is: Dr. Watson! Chat him up to begin the final leg of A Study in Blue. Turn right back around and return to the Axis of Science.

Run around a bit and maybe smack the (ghost of the) machine in the background and a group of Corrupted HMs will attack. Beat them all until a portal solidifies through which we can exit.

We end up in Monica's Room. Read the Dwarves & Druids Official Handbook to learn the true number one rule, then leave. We want to make our way back to the North Hall. By the way, for anyone curious, my current loadout is Cast Your Doubts, Reaping What You Sow, Lash Out, and Combustible Confutation Ch.2 all at max rank (I prefer the bi-directional Ch.2 to the higher damage Ch.3) and Lightning Wit rank 2.

Alan has a new Side Quest for us. Time for those Trenchcoats to pay!

Run Upstairs and speak to the Trenchcoat Employee. Speak to him again for a laugh, then run back down for a quick turn-in. You get some XP, 8 PP, and another Side Quest that requires us to run right back Upstairs.

Speak to the Trenchcoat Employee twice and say yes to obtain Ten Bucks, then return to your employers.

You get XP, 7 PP, and Rob's Locker Combo. The locker for this Combo is located in the Lost Hallway. It contains a Fan Hat, a Space Helmet, a Biker's Helmet, a Bear Mask, a Space Fizz Guzzler, 2 Textbooks, and 8 Bat Jerky. I guess Rob really likes hats. The Fan Hat (Lv.33 1400/0/0) is straight up better than the Troll Mask so I upgraded. Opening this locker seems to have triggered Paul and Alan to think of yet another Side Quest for you, so return to them.

They want another $100. I had nearly $5K at this point so that was easy-peasy. Definitely worth the XP and 5 PP which brought me to level 34 and Popularity Level 13: Popular, earning the passive Mad Skills which unlocks some new skills at the Skill Shop. We will check those out in a moment, but first those greedy, er, I mean friendly guys have yet another Side Quest for us. Joy! In a bit of nostalgia they want you to collect 12 Super Flowers and put them in Tim's (New) Locker. They even give us Tim's (New) Locker Combo! MAKE SURE YOU OPEN SAID LOCKER (located here in the North Hall) AND REMOVE THE Emergency Allergy Shot BEFORE COMPLETING THIS QUEST OR YOU WILL MISS THE (last missable) ACHIEVEMENT! Might as well take the $5 too because Daryl is kind of a jerk like that. Okay, let's look at those new skills real quick. Wow, Excellent Tier! Honestly none of them particularly tickled my fancy, but at least pick up Startling Statements which we eventually want at rank 4 for a Ham Melt. Well, eventually we need all skills at max rank for an achievement, but you know, priorities. With all that out of the way let's finally head over to the D&D Room.

(Note that this is the time I went ahead and bought all the available skills. I think buying Self Destruct is what unlocks a new Battle Training. Using the Self Destruct skill at any point unlocks an achievement, but make sure you save first!)

Thou Shall Not Button Mash
Unlock: Buy Self Destruct Skill
Cost: $40
First-Time Reward: 3PP, 18000XP, Textbook
Level: 20; Skills: Sharp Comments rank 5, Mopping Up rank 5, Self Destruct rank 1, Combustible Confutation Ch.2 rank 5, Lightning Wit rank 2; Equipment: Cactus Fists, Dandelion Mask, Cactus Muscle Suit, Cardboard, Monkey's Paw
Possible Rewards: 2 of: 1PP, 3250XP, Fourth of Luck Butter, Shadow Kidney, Topaz
Round 1: 6x Eatball, 3x Slay Dough
Round 2: 5x Scorpadillo, 4x Slay Dough
Round 3: 15x Vent Bat
Round 4: 4x Nurse Goblin, 5x Scorpadillo
Round 5: 12x Eatball, 8x Pharaoh Bat, 4x Nurse Goblin, 4x Slay Dough

Once you are free to move once more enter the Realm of the Beta Boss and run to the far right. Read the journal in the shrine to receive the Replacement Key and the Dungeon Master's Tome (a very nice accessory, but it is level 40 so we will just pocket it for now). Okay, we have procrastinated as much as possible and all that is left to do is continue the story, so visit the Princess' Room.

Ah, sweet payoff! Give her your latest Photograph then head on over to the Janitor's Closet. Neat. For once the Lost Hallway is not the quickest route to our destination within the classrooms, so head on over to Napoleon's Camp via the North Hall.

Brawley is here with a new set of stuff to craft!

Forging: Mecha Daryl Head ($500, 5x Ass Feathers, 1x Diamond, 8x Ion Drive, 5x Jet Fuel), Mecha Daryl Torso ($500, 1x Emerald, 5x Ion Drive, 15x Jet Fuel, 15x Power Core), Mecha Power Fist ($500, 1x Blazin' Hot Cactus Fists, 8x Ion Drive, 5x Jet Fuel, 2x Sapphire), Heat Seeking Headband ($500, 12x Ion Drive, 10x Jet Fuel, 5x Power Core, 1x Ruby)

I noticed I was short both a Ruby and a Sapphire so I equipped some Luck Butter for now. Enter the Medical Tent. Dr. Larrey has a new Side Quest for us: Dr. Dominique's Death Cure. She wants 25 Super Vira and 5 Demon Skeletons. We will put it on the shopping list and head out to our next stop: Stone Fort: Central!

A new exit leads to Mostly a Battlefield, but leave it be for now. Instead keep going to the Axis of Historical Reality. (Gonna level with you, while writing this I misread my old notes and went all the way through the next section early. Mostly that means that I racked up a lot of extra XP before this part, not a huge deal.)

Once you reach the Axis enemies will pop up in the previously empty Stone Fort, but nothing you have not seen before. Do as the Janitor says and return to Napoleon. (Note that Trolls can now drop Ass Feathers. We need 5 of the them for quests, and 5 for smithing, but trust me when I say you will get PLENTY when farming for another kind of loot a bit later.

And by a bit I mean almost immediately as No Man's Valley introduces us to a powerful new foe. We meet a new enemy which is almost powerful enough to be considered a mini-boss, the Sky Patroll. These big boys drop Jet Fuel and Ass Feathers. We need 15 of the former for quests, 35 more for smithing, for a total of 50! Considering how strong these things are and that they don't even always drop this item (though sometimes they can drop double...) it can be a long and annoying process to farm this many. For instance even after accidentally going through the whole section through the portal I mentioned before that has a lot of them I only have 12 Jet Fuel at this point. Yikes. Wait a little bit before hunting them though because we will soon get a Side Quest to kill 10 of them and we might as well double up. (Nevertheless the best location I have found to farm them is right here at No Man's Valley by the door to the Lost Hallway. They spawn two at a time and if you get too hurt you can duck into the Hallway to use the restroom. I went ahead and farmed up to the 50 and reached level 38 doing so.)

Back at Napoleon's Camp speak to the Corsican himself to further the Story. I could have made a Heat Seaking Headband with Brawley, but since it was Lv.40 gear there was no point yet so I left it be. Let's head to the other side of history and visit the Yurt of Khan.

Genghis wants you to kill 5 Trolls and 10 Sky Patrolls. Not trivial, but not too difficult either. I suggest running back to No Man's Valley and the Stone Fort to finish that up right now, then return. (I reached level 39 when I did so.) The reward is XP, 5 PP, and a Fan Body (Lv.33 0/550/0) which was a direct upgrade to the Troll Suit... but not to the Time Knight Armor v1 (Lv.35 0/655/0) which I had not noticed had been dropped by an enemy (probably a Sky Patroll). He gives us another Side Quest immediately after, and this time he wants 2 Sapphire, 2 Emeralds, and a Diamond. This is going to be much more difficult since we do not currently have the ability to farm Emeralds or Diamonds (need that full stick of Butter!) and my current 2 Sapphires were earmarked for smithing (need one of each of those others for smithing too)! Oh well, I put the Half Stick of Luck Butter back on so I could start farming more Sapphires and figure I will just keep an eye out for the others. Head to The Great Wall.

This place looks a bit different. Speak to Caesar. You can take the portal at the top right to the Forest of Trenches, but we don't have much reason to go there yet. Instead let's take a trip to the Napoleon's Camp to give him the bad news.

He takes it about as well as you would expect and opens up a new route for you in Egypt. Let's go! To the Dry Desert!

There are two new enemies here: the Ferocious Ferocactus (more powerful Saguaro that can poison you and set you on fire and has the same drops with the notable addition of the Blazin' Hot Cactus Fists that we need for smithing), and the Burnie Buzzard (drops Grilled Buzzard Leg. We need 30 of those. Remember that being set on fire not only does damage over time it also increases all damage you receive while it is burning, so watch out! Proceed to the Road to Egypt.

Here I got one of those Blazin' Hot Cactus Fists I mentioned (2H Lv.37, 0/0/700) and that was such a huge jump in attack power I was persuaded to finally give up my precious Excalibur. There is a hologram of Time Knight on the left side of the area and Portal Repair Specialist on the right, but neither of them have anything important to say. The new exit is on the far right at ground level.

Welcome to the Distant Desert. Just go left to right and exit to the Tower of Hands.

The way right is locked by a Lock for which we possess no key, so instead go left all the way and exit.

Go left at the Crash Site and hit up Agent Brova for a Side Quest to... seize Mikrov's Hill for tax evasion. Sure, why not? You could run all the way back there now, but I would rather press on a bit to find another entrance to the Lost Hallway. Go left and grab the Spaceship then go through the exit it was blocking.

Pillars of Creation. There is a Map Quest here to kill 25 Ferocious Ferocactus and 10 Burnie Buzzards. It was here that I finally noticed that Trolls fart when they swing their clubs, answering the mystery of how they hit me when I was behind them. I also reached level 40! Time to take a gander at the Dungeon Master's Tome: (Lv.40, 350/225/225) and the Life in Death Plus passive that heals you by 5% of your max health every time you kill and enemy. Pretty darn good! I equip that along with the Half Stick of Luck Butter. Up the magic bean stalk is a Portal Repair Specialist whom you can skip, and the sign for the Map Quest (earn XP, 10 PP, and the Fire Pendant (Lv.34, 200/250/30) and Fire Be Gone; the current Buzzards notwithstanding being set on fire is not a super common debuf and the stats don't make it good enough to equip). Further left you can climb the platforms for a Locker and a restroom. And on the ground between them is a glowing exit to the Oasis.

The Great Barbecue in the Desert does exist! Hope these elves don't mind that I never once bothered to equip the friendship bracelets they gave me. Doc wants you to invite "a couple chefs", "a couple elves" (check?), and "anyone from the IRS". We know at least one chef who wants to relocate once we finish his quest and we just recently met an IRS agent, but something tells me it will be a bit before we finish this one. Check in with good ol' Rob Mancheezi to get a quest to bring him something you should already have: 10 Jet Fuel and 30 Grilled Buzzard Legs. Never mind the weirdness of barbecuing something that is already grilled. Definitely not the weirdest thing in this game, or even in the past ten minutes. Hand them over for XP, 6 PP, and 2 Textbooks. Wonder if these goats are the ones the Pelt Kid was eyeing up at the Party. Would be nice to think they escaped. Anyway, head on back out to the Pillars of Creation.

There is an exit at the far left on ground level, above that is a platform with a Trenchcoat (2 Textbooks, Pelt Kid's Locker Combo, and Grilled Buzzard Legs). To the right of that is a Silver Lock guarding a Treasure Room which contains 9(!) Textbooks. Loot 'em! Now take that exit in the lower left.

This is Road's End. Talk to the Specialist or not, it doesn't matter. Open the Chest to his right for the Tower Key we will need. And further right bust that Lock Ghost for admittance to the Lost Hallway.

No Man's Valley is the closest exit to Mikrov's. Head on through it then make your way to the friendly (sorta) troll's Hill.

Just serve him up the Notice and return to the Crash Site to report, I guess.

You get $250, 7 PP, and a Textbook. Guess what? We now need to go all the way back to Mikrov. Yep. Get used to this.

He wants 5 Ass Feathers and 25 Goblin Rubles. Pay the man. Er, troll. You get XP and 3 Textbooks for your trouble. Now all the way back to Agent Brova. Joy. I hit level 41 though.

He wants a Casserole and 15 Rat Poison. We should have the Rat Poison already (or can gather some really easily), but memory tells us that a Casserole is dropped only by the non-respawning Mimic. Guess we will have to look in new places for another one of those. Get thee now to the Tower of Hands!

Go right and open the Lock. Down inside the tower there is another Lock and a Ham Melt (Great+/7+/Strategic) for which I had either Reap What You Sow or Lash Out. It opens a Chest with $264.65 and 3 Textbooks. Back at the top go right and speak to the Portal Repair Specialist for one last rift battle quest thingy.

Except when you enter there are no enemies, and no timer. There are ominous tremors, however. Exit to the right.

Altar of Our Most Glorious Saviours. Just look at the same monument that is located in the Quad in the real world, then leave. Pretty darn simple.

You get XP, 9 PP, and 4 Textbooks for doing hardly anything. Nice! Now head on right where hostile Corrupted HMs will attack you. Make your way to the lower right for a normal Ham Melt (Excellent/1+/Range). I still had Startling Statements in my secondary loadout, which worked just fine. Collect Gabe's Locker combo, then start working your way left. Open the Chest onstage for a Tower Key and an ambush by various enemies. Kill 'em all or just leave since they don't lock you in or anything. Climb back up a bit and walk left onto the rafters above the stage, then further left to grab a Photograph. Now back out, up to the top, left, and down the tower to unlock the Lock. Make your way down and fight three Sky Patrolls at once. Once they are history click on the banner to redecorate. Drop down to the lower left and open the Chest here for... a Mimic! Kill it much more quickly than the first one to pick up a nice, juicy Casserole. Fight a couple Anubis Commanders to get to the lower right corner where an actual Chest contains a Silver Key. We are done here so head back to the Crash Site to talk to our Agent buddy.

Just XP for this one, though it was enough to let me hit 42. Speak to him again cause he has another request. You get the great honour of taking the Poisoned Casserole all the way back to Miklov. I want a word with the game devs after this...

You get a tiny amount of XP a 1 PP. AND you now have to go the Friendly Terminal. I swear I am going to kill them all.

While we are passing through the Lost Hallway we might as well open a locker for which we have the Combo. Pelt Kid's Locker is on the left side and contains a Change of Clothes, a Bear Suit, Bear Slippers, a Textbook, 2 Ass Feathers, 6 Peyote, 12 Miscellaneous Organs, and 10 Weird Leather. Head on over to the Center of the Darylverse.

Interact with the Friendly Terminal then read the new printout at the far left. Okay, back to Mikrov. AGAIN.

And now back to Brova. AGAIN.

He is not in his usual spot. Go left instead. Huh. Did not see this resolution coming. You receive XP, 10 PP, and a Time Knight's Hourglass. Also noticed I am now Popularity Level 14: Homecoming King. How long I have been that level I could not tell you. It comes with the Blood Sucker passive that restores 2% max health whenever you kill an enemy. Combined with the Dungeon Master's Tome that's 7% with every kill! Can't invite Brova to the Barbecue right now though. Guess he's busy. Okay, NOW let's go through that portal at Stone Fort: Central.

Destroy the huts here for some Goblin Rubles of which we will need 50 total. Keep going left, chat with the Specialist and the Time Knight hologram if you like, then further left again. Reach the far left for an exit to Not a Battlefield.

Oh man, this is a huge area and the Map Quest wants us to defeat all the enemies. Down below your starting point is a restroom and a pair of Silver Locks. The one on the right leads to a Treasure Room with 2 Chests ($64.25, Time Knight's Spear v1, and Time Knight's Hourglass), and the right has a Ham Melt (Excellent/4+/Stun). Only Startling Statements can meet this requirement, so zap the thing to unblock 2 Chests which collectively contain $250, 3 Textbooks, and a Diamond. Ooh, that is the final gem I need for the Lost Hallway cache, so I ping-pong right back over there to unlock it. There are lots of enemies scattered throughout including Death Drives, Castle Creeps, Anubis Commanders (and summoned Locusts), Ceiling Defense Systems, and Corrupted HMs. In the middle layer ride the second elevator from the right and jump into the right wall to find a Jarod Khan. At the bottom of the level and all the way right there is a Chest with an Old Battery. In the upper left you can chat with the Goblin King (though he does not have much to say), and on the level right below him is a Lock Ghost and a new link to the Lost Hallway (note you might want to hop in and equip Lash Out at rank 5+ (or even better 7 if you can afford it) if you don't have it already); just to the right of that is a place you can hook up that Old Battery from the Chest. (Note that I honestly cannot tell/remember what inserting this Battery actually does. Also I cannot seem to find the sign to turn in the Map Quest. Hopefully that will pop up later.) For now it is time to drop down the pit with all the signage. Hold left against the wall as you do so.

The Nothing is mostly empty excepting a cubby on the left you can reach if you hold that direction as you fall. Inside is a Ham Melt (Great+/5+/Utility). Lash Out worked for me. I honestly am not sure if Steel Yourself or Reckless Abandon would work despite technically meeting the requirements since they are not offensive and I did not have them at high enough rank to check. Anyway if you have Lash Out at rank 5 or above break the thing for another Photograph then resume your fall.

History's Floor starts off chaotic as it immediately pits you against a Sky Patroll, Castle Creeps, and Haunted Nutcrackers AND those damn lights from Scrooge's Mansion, AND those lights move back and forth. Thankfully only the Nutcrackers are affected by the lights. If the Sky Patroll had periodically gone invincible I might have rioted. Once you have trounced them all check the Chest for an Elevator Key. Check the non-locked door first to return to a new section of Not a Battlefield.

There is that sign! Don't worry if you already defeated all the enemies on the map, you don't have to do it again. Just turn it in for XP, 10 PP, and a Silver Key.

Your reward for placing one of each gem is the skill Take A Breather and a journal full of a LOT of exposition. Take A Breather is an Excellent Tier skill that briefly stops all enemies in place with a really long cooldown. As usual I prefer more directly offensive skills. Time to return to History's Floor, unlock the Lock, and head on through.

You find yourself at the Shattered Stone Fortress. There is a Map Quest here to kill 8 Sky Patrolls. Easier said than done! There is a Trenchcoat just ahead who sells 3 Textbooks, Super Vira, Neck Screws, Goblin Rubles, and Jet Fuel (Honestly I would not blame you if you decide to just buy some Jet Fuel here as it is such a pain to farm it from the Sky Patrolls). The ledge above you has a Locker. Above that and a little to the left is a button that you cannot press. Go right instead some distance while killing a variety of enemies. Look out for a point where you can go back left and a little down to reach a Ham Melt (Great+/7+/Stun). I once again used a rank 7 Lash Out and collected Jesse's Locker Combo and Napoleon's Hat which I was not high enough level to use, but since that is because I was doing the area out of order I will list its stats here: (Lv.38, 1300/250/0) with the Napoleonic Taunts passive which hilariously makes all enemies hostile. The stats are great but hostile enemies can be really annoying as we learned with those HMs a little while ago. Feel free to wear it, but I decided against it. Go a little bit further right, then up and loop back left. As some point in here I noticed I had hit level 35 so I took a look at that Time Knight equipment: Time Knight Spear v1 (1H Lv.35, 0/3/285) and Time Knight's Hourglass (Lv.35, 375/180/150). The Hourglass was a clear winner and since I had finally gotten the Sapphire and Ruby drops I needed from the Luck Butter I went with it and the Poison Amulet for my accessory slots. For the weapon I was a bit torn, but ultimately decided to stick with Excalibur. The difference between it and the Spear with the Giant Space Gun was about 80 more attack but about 115 less defence and around 250 less hp. As much as I try to prioritize attack with weapon slots that was too lopsided a trade for me. The path will go up and loop back right again, so follow it that way until you jump up and face probably the hardest non-boss battle yet: three Sky Patrolls at once! If you have taken on each of these gassy behemoths as you came across them this should finish off the Map Quest which causes the screen to go white for a moment and the area to change a bit. Jump up on the small platforms to the left then go right to find another hologram of Time Knight standing next to his banner. Activate the banner to change it to a much cooler one.

Alright, back to the Lost Hallway. We have another Locker to open. Jesse's Locker is to the right and has 6 Holy Water, 3 Wooden Stakes, a Garlic Necklace, and 24 Crucifixes. Guess he has a hobby? Next stop is gonna be the Forest of Trenches via The Great Wall.

Nothing new here, enemy-wise, though it is annoying how they like to spawn right on top of you. Go left and climb up a bit then go right to the hole above the tunnel to grab the Runner-Up Ring (remember that quest?). And hey, even though the bestiary lists Frankenbats as the enemy that drops Bat Jerky these Pharaoh Bats drop it! Finally! I farmed up the 25 pieces I needed and hoofed it straight to the Kitchen to drop it all off because I wanted that upgraded Luck Butter ASAP! You receive XP, 8 PP, 4 Textbooks, and the awesome Stick of Luck Butter (Lv.30, 350/750/140) and Stick of Luck Butter which allows enemies to drop both rare and super rare jewels. Now if only the drop rate was higher... Since I was already here I decided to finish off another long-standing Side Quest by heading to the South Hall and finally opening up Gabe's Locker. There's nothing in except Gabe himself. He gives you XP, 10 PP, and a Silver Key. And again, SINCE WE'RE HERE, the last of the D&D Quests and Trainings are available, so I figured I might as well.

Bats!
Cost: $70
Recommended Level: 28
Possible Rewards: 2 of: 1PP, 3PP, 8250XP, 12250XP, $135, Count Roger's Pants, Crest of Count Roger, Sapphire, Stake
Round 1: 5x Vent Bat
Round 2: 5x Pharaoh Bat, 5x Vent Bat
Round 3: 10x Pharaoh Bat, 4x Vent Bat
Round 4: 5x Frankenbat
Round 5: 5x Frankenbat, 5x Pharaoh Bat, 5x Vent Bat
Round 6: 5x Frankenbat, 10x Pharaoh Bat, 5x Vent Bat

The Goblin Den II
Cost: $200
Recommended Level: 36
Possible Rewards: 3PP, 25000XP, 30000XP, $150, Jet Fuel, Sapphire, Textbook, Troll Club
Round 1: 4x Frankenbat, 4x Goblin Soldier, 4x Nurse Goblin
Round 2: 1x Common Troll, 4x Frankenbat, 4x Goblin Soldier
Round 3: 5x Burnie Buzzard, 4x Furious Ferocactus, 5x Goblin Soldier
Round 4: 4x Castle Creep, 4x Furious Ferocactus, 2x Ground Defense System
Round 5: 5x Castle Creep, 1x Common Troll, 4x Death Drive, 6x Ground Defense System
Yes Round 6: 2x Corrupted H.A.M. M.E.L.T., 2x Death Drive, 2x Ground Defense System, 1x Sky Patroll
No Round 6: Diamond, 3x Textbook (Chests)
Round 7: 11x Corrupted H.A.M. M.E.L.T., 4x Death Drive, 6x Furious Ferocactus, 2x Sky Patroll

Thou Shall Trap Thine Enemies
Cost: $225
First-Time Reward: 5PP, 55000XP, 3x Textbook, Time Knight Armor v1
Possible Rewards: 3PP, 23250XP, $165, Textbook
Level: 38; Skills: Lash Out rank 7, Catching Lies rank 5, What's Yours Is Mine rank 7, Copycat rank 7, Lightning Wit rank 7; Equipment: Blazin' Hot Cactus Fists, Virus Hat, Troll Suit, Bread Transmogrifier
Round 1: 2x Castle Creep, 2x Goblin Soldier, 2x Nurse Goblin
Round 2: 2x Castle Creep, 1x Death Drive, 5x Nega-Virus
Round 3: 3x Burnie Buzzard, 2x Death Drive, 5x Nega-Virus
Round 4: 2x Burnie Buzzard, 3x Castle Creep, 2x Corrupted H.A.M. M.E.L.T., 1x Death Drive
Round 5: 2x Castle Creep, 2x Corrupted H.A.M. M.E.L.T., 4x Goblin Soldier, 5x Nega-Virus

I hit level 43 during Bats! and got really lucky with the rewards earning two Sapphires. Hit level 44 during The Goblin Den II. Finally the same level as Daryl was in the very Intro of the game! After completing them I noticed that I had 3 Diamonds and 1 Emerald! I must have gotten quite lucky with gem drops during my Quests. Since I only needed 2 more Emeralds to be able to finish my Side Quests and forge all the equipment I decided to do the final Quest again hoping to grab them (and the extra XP didn't hurt). I got a Ruby and ANOTHER Diamond, but no Emeralds, sadly. I did, however, reach level 45! Max level, baby! One more time did it, however, earning me a Ruby, a Diamond, and the 2 Emeralds I was after. Finally done with this side adventure we travel back to Napoleon's Camp and Brawley.

I had enough extras to make TWO Mecha Power Fists (Lv. 40, 0/0/400), then a Mecha Daryl Head (Lv. 40, 1800/0/0), a Mecha Daryl Torso (Lv. 40, 0/850/0), and a Heat Seeking Headband (Lv. 40, 300/200/200). Together they give the passive Mecha Daryl which provides +20% strength, +15% Defense and Health, and -90% XP from enemies. That last part is not really a worry since we are just about to the point where we will be cashing in all of our Textbooks for a ton of SXP. Mwahahaha! Mecha-zoom on over the the Yurt of Khan.

The reward for all these gems is XP, 7 PP, and 4 Textbooks. This brought me to the final heights of popularity, Popularity Level 15: The Fonz. This unlocks the passive Nerd Rage which simply increases attack by 5% and EYYYYY which doesn't actually do anything, but who cares? You're The Fonz! Oh yeah, Uncle Genghis has one last Side Quest for you too: deliver the Royal Offering to the Goblin King. Go left to Behind the Great Wall and through the portal to the Forest of Ents. Run all the way right to give Bilbo Joshins his Ring. In exchange he gives you $300 and a Silver Key. Okay, back left and into the Lost Hallway, and from there to Not a Battlefield.

Climb up to the level above you and give the offering to the Goblin King in exchange for an Old TV and a Duck Bill. Yeah, Drew can wait, we have stuff to do. Back to the Genghis!

He gives you XP, 7 PP, and a Magic Height Ball (Lv. 36, 150/150/150) Concentrate and Attack Again passive that gives you a 10% chance to crit for 150%. Definitely keep the Heat Seeking Headband for the set bonus, but your other slot can be either this for the nice offensive boost or the Tome for the healing and better stats. I kept the Tome. Finally back to the Forest of Trenches!

To the left and then all the way up. There is a Lock to the right, so go left. This is the first time we encounter the Nega-Virus (outside Battle Training) which are just more powerful Virus that can drop Super Flowers and Super Vira. We need 27 Flowers and 35 Vira. Make your way left, then up, the right a little bit and up to a Silver Lock. Go on through.

Treasure Room with a Jarod Khan, 3 Textbooks, and a Chest with a Bread Transmogrifier. Exit.

Go left, and jump up to a door. Exit this one too.

The Isles That Time Forgot starts with a Locker and a Trenchcoat selling 2 Textbooks, a Fan Fist, a Fan Body, Super Flowers, and Power Cores. Use the Locker to rank up Chaotic Confutation to at least rank 4 and equip it. Continue right for Frankenbats who finally drop Bat Jerky (not that we need it any more), a restroom, and one of the final Lock Ghosts. Oh, forgot to mention there is a Map Quest here: kill 20 Pharaoh Bats and 20 Frankenbats. First enter the cave to the right though.

Inside Bat Island you will find, who else, Count Roger. He needs you to kill 20 of each Bat (Vent, Pharaoh, and Frankenbat). Head outside and let the slaughter begin. Return and kill the bats in here then pay your respects for XP, 10 PP, the Cowl of Count Roger, and the Twin Batons of Count Roger. This gear does not even hold a candle to the Mecha Daryl stuff (honestly nothing does for the rest of the game), so it's just fun to have.

Outside check the sign for XP, $300, and 4 Textbooks. Head right now. The door here leads to a blocked-off portion of the Forest of Trenches.

Open the Chest for a Glitched Key, then press the button. Drop down to your right and open the Lock. A little further in exit to the City of Ghosts.

Platform up to the top of the building then go right and through the window, up the stairs, and open the Chest for the Weasel Cage Key. Either go right through the wall and drop down the pit (further right is a Lock), or go back to ground level and walk right (a couple walls will pop up blocking the way until you kill a handful of enemies). Go right and exit.

Go right in the Lair of Cymbals and eventually you will run into Sire Cymbal (doesn't drop anything). Hop up onto the shelves, then onto the platforms and go right. Inside the giant cymbals open a Chest for a City Key. Jump on top of the right side of them and use Chaotic Confutation to bust open the Ham Melt (Excellent/4+/Burn). You get a Silver Key and 3 Textbooks. Exit back to the City.

Go left a bit and climb the platforms, then go right, open the Lock, and exit.

You have made it to the Edge of Existence. Carefully drop down to the bottom chandelier for a Jarod Khan, then climb all the way up, killing a few Sky Patrolls along the way, and change the banner you find at the top. Assuming that was the third one the floating monitors inform you that it is time to go to Egypt. But first pay a visit to Napoleon's Camp.

Chat with the French Soldier next to the restroom for XP, $275, and a Powergurt. Open the weasel's cage then get another quest from the Gardener: to bury turtles. That the weasel loved. Among the flowers of the Far Side. Not only is the old lady cursed, she may be a bit wacky as well. Then again very few people in this game aren't. Screw it, we have a few things to do at the school again, let's take care of them before we finish the History Room.

Upstairs give Drew his Duck Bill for 15 PP (worthless if you are already The Fonz like I am). Back down in the North Hall open Tim's (New) Locker to automatically place the flowers. Speak to Alan for XP, 7 PP, and the Toxic Behavior skill. You know the drill for the burial: go to the Far Side and speak to Death. Back at the North Hall Paul has another Side Quest for you. Go right back to the Quad and speak to Alan... then back to the North Hall to Paul. You get a Dried Out Marker and have to return to Alan now. You get the Storage Locker Combo. Go to the South Hall and open it for a Dart Gun, 2 Textbooks, 8 Ion Drives, and 6 Power Cores. Back to Paul (you'll also need 10 Super Vira which you hopefully already have). Get XP, 10 PP, and another Side Quest. This time they need 5 Ass Feathers and 25 Goblin Rubles. You probably (hopefully) have that. You get XP, 5 PP, and Becka's Locker Combo. And YET ANOTHER SIDE QUEST! Go to the Main Lobby and speak to the Trenchcoat Employee (Balto). Back to Paul and Alan for XP and 5 PP. And, oh look, one last FINAL SIDE QUEST (from these two). You get the Trenchcoat Kid's Locker Combo. You need 5 Jet Fuel. The locker is in the South Hall. Open it to find Balto's New Phone, 2 Balto's Gym Shorts, 6 Stolen Basketballs, and 3 Textbooks. Alan will give you XP, 8 PP, and the Penetrating Gaze skill. Whew, that was a lot of stuff! Go report to the Gardener at Napoleon's Camp.

XP, 6 PP, and a Weasel Fur Hat. Let's check in at the Barbecue before heading to the final History showdown. That's Lost Hallway to Road's End to Pillars of Creation to Oasis.

Oh yeah, I forgot he wanted a photographer too. Hi Gabe. Brova and Chef Flex are here too. Speak to Doc for $1000, 4 Textbooks, and 10 PP. Okay, now head to Egypt - The Temple of Cleopatra.

Head to the far left, chatting with anyone who catches your fancy, and exit left to the Endless Desert.

Just head left. There is a Locker if you need it. Exit at the end.

More Endless Desert. This time with enemies. Feel free to just run on past them. At the end exit.

Yet another Endless Desert, but this time with something interesting. Wail on the Time Knight's Chariot while mostly ignoring the summoned enemies (they will all die quick and provide you with healing). Now it's time for our boss fight!

TIME KNIGHT

Honestly if you are maxed out like I am this fight is a joke. Just attack him until he jumps away, then attack the machine until he comes back, rinse and repeat. He can barely touch you. In fact I even turned on Reckless Abandon to finish it quicker. Easier (if a bit longer) fight than Tim was.

That done there's nothing for it but to run all the way back to the Road to Egypt and hop in the Lost Hallway. Before running to the Princess we have one last visit to make to the Realm of the Beta Boss.

No stuff to collect this time. Just speak to the Sorceress and she gives you the quest to beat Time Knight Beta. Buy 1-4 Talismans from the Purveyor, save your game, and get to it!

TIME KNIGHT BETA

The first three fights are just as laughable as the original. In the fourth fight his damage output gets so high that the fact that his attacks are actually hard to dodge becomes an issue because he can outlast you. After a couple tries I replaced the Dungeon Master's Tome (since I wasn't getting any healing out of its passive since I wasn't killing anything) for the Neck Screws and even though I was doing over a thousand points of damage less per attack I managed to win that round fairly easily. The Time Knight v2 gear you get as a reward is significantly worse than the Mecha Daryl gear even though it is higher level (Lv.42). The only bonus is that instead of a set bonus passive each piece has its own passive: the weapon gives 5% attack, the hat 5% health, the outfit 5% defence, and the accessory 5% chance to crit. If you REALLY wanted to use a single piece from another set and still get most of the passives that would be an incentive. Other than that if you really wanted to farm enemies for XP for some reason this set would be better since the Mecha Daryl set reduces enemy XP gain. I am not even going to bother listing the stats here though because 99% of players who have been completionists (and why would you be reading this guide if you're not?) won't have any use for it.

The Sorceress rewards your success with Xp, 10 PP, and 4 Textbooks. Okay, save up and then visit the Princess.

Pick up the Extreme Heat Protector and hand over any Photographs you have. If you have collected them all she gives you the skill Love At First Sight. There's only one more skill in the game at this point. I went ahead and converted all of my Textbooks to SXP and ranked up every skill to max. Now head to Napoleon's Camp.

Unfortunately you cannot even brag to Napoleon about beating Time Knight, so just head on down the fiery hole.

Welcome to Limbo! Directly to your left is the final Jarod Khan. You COULD run all the way back to the Forest of Ents now to turn in that quest, but I will wait for a better opportunity. And hey, look, it's Grandpappy Sore! And left of him is good old Caesar, who seems to be having a fine time. Talk to him, then go right and pick up a Beer, then bring it right back to him. Head right and fall down the hole.

And this is Greed. You might notice a familiar salesman here, and a couple Trenchcoat Employees. The left one sells the Jarod and Photograph Map Upgrades (but we need neither, right?), and the right one sells a Silver Key, UNLIMITED TEXTBOOKS (not that we really need many if any more, but still), and all the gems in case you still need any! Head right, say hi to Death if you like, and drop down to Fraud.

There is a restroom right next to you and if you go left you can find Timrog'nadauth's Locker Combo along with 3 Demon Dandelions and a Demon Skelton. Moving right there are 4 more Demon Skeletons along the way. Ignore the totally unfamiliar demons for now and head back up to Greed.

Head left all the way and fall down the hole here. Press the button to create a way back up and suck up the final Lock Ghost. Time to turn in all but the final Side Quests!

Pop into the Forest of Ents and run right to Jarod Khan. He'll give you XP, 10 PP, a Textbook, and the final skill in the game, Copycat. You might remember it from the final Battle Training. I didn't bother to equip it, but if you max its rank and have done the same with all the other skills you earn an achievement in addition to the one you should have gotten for just collecting all the skills. Now briefly return to the school and head to the Paranormal Room to be rewarded for all your ghostbusting efforts.

You get XP, 10 PP, and 4 Textbooks. All utterly useless at this point, but oh well!

Finally return to the North Hall and pop into the Medical Tent at Napoleon's Camp. Turn in the stuff to Dr. Larrey for $400, 8 PP, a Textbook, and a Virus Grabber. Only one Side Quest to go! Back to hell with you!

In Limbo jump over the pit and open the Lock, then enter.

The Hall of the Replaced lives up to its name as it contains the characters whose identities were stolen by the Literature Guardian. And finally, after all this time and effort, Sherlock. Speak to him to finish the final Side Quest. You should get an achievement for that as well as one for finding the detective. You get XP, 12 PP, and another ****ing Duffle Bag. Is there a Sherlock Holmes related duffle bag joke of which I am unaware? Anyway, return to Fraud and speak to the demons on the right side of the area.

Speak to them twice for a bit of déjà vu, then head left and open up the locker next to the restroom. After some dialogue drop down into the Axis of Literature.

TWO WEEKS LATER

Not that this part even needs a walkthrough, but whatever, we're so close to finishing. Go visit Paul and Alan in their usual spot. And the Janitor in his. And the Princess in hers. Then go to the Main Lobby and enter the door on the far right. The game will tell you in so many words that this is the point of no return, so make sure you have done everything else you wish to do.

There is nothing to do but wait until an exit appears on the right wall.

Once again wait around until a portal opens. When it does hop on through.

Drop down to find a new restroom set up just before reaching the Quad. You might want to make sure you manually save in a different slot, just in case. There is also a Locker flapping around. When ready head left, then left again.

Wait a little bit and a boss fight will begin.

ROBATTO-TRON

This fight is almost the same as the other Robatto fights. His grapple attack does more damage and a few times during the fight he disappears off-screen and launches a bunch of ranged attacks which you can mostly dodge just by running back and forth. Other than that he is the same old vice principal and you should be able to beat him without much effort and earn yourself an achievement and a Library Card.

Head through the door on the left. You can take the portal on the left side of the Hall to the Princess' Room and jump up to use the restroom if you want (there are no fights before the next restroom though). Then it it time to finally enter the Library.

Exit right.

Use the restroom. Exit right.

Boss fight!

JP

Well, that didn't last long.

THE AXIS

Try to avoid the attacks, destroy the Corrupted HMs if they get too annoying, and wait for enough platforms to raise that you can reach the crown at the top. Just unload into it and the fight will be over quickly.

THE PRINCESS

Poor girl. She teleports around like the Literature Guardian, though not as fast. She is not very tough, just beat her up for a bit. When her health bar gets depleted she starts strangling Daryl. Just press the button shown to struggle until the fight ends.

Exit Right.

I mean. Obviously say no. Final boss time.

SUPER DELUXE

Just enjoy it. I am not sure it is even possible to lose. Well, unless you are lucky like me and the game frickin' crashes to desktop when you strike the final blow. Then you get to redo all the fights since the last time you saved. Goody.

Crashes aside, I hope you enjoyed this awesome game and that this walkthrough was useful for you. Now rock out to that ending theme music and hope that this team eventually release another game. Thank you for reading!