Overview:
Estimated Achievement Difficulty: 4/10
Offline: 10 (170)
Online: 2 (30)
Approximate Time: 10 - 15 hours (Somewhat luck dependent)
Minimum Number of Playthroughs Needed: 1
Missable Achievements: None
Does Difficulty Affect Achievements?: No
Unobtainable Achievements: 0
Extra Equipment Needed?: None
Cheats: No Cheats
Introduction:
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet clocks in at about 7 to 8 hours to finish 100% of the campaign, without a guide. Although, most gamers probably won't care for the "story" (yes, I put that in quotes) and could potentially rush through to the end game in about 4 hours of time... then focus on clean-up afterwards.
Beyond that, there is a multiplayer component tucked away within Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, called Lantern Run. The average gamer could probably clock-in around another 3 to 5 hours in this mode, which is about the time it takes to master the ropes, if all they care about is unlocking the game's final 2 Achievements. Lantern Run is a purely co-op affair, where each player starts off with their own lantern. All players (from 1 to 4) must cooperatively attempt to carry as many lanterns as they can, for as far as they can, down a forever continuing map that randomly builds itself based on preset corridors and arena rooms. It turns-out that Lantern Run is actually quite fun, and is even more-so with a good team of 3 or 4 people. Microphones are a must in this mode, and at times, so are split second decisions based on split second communication.
All-in-all, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet will take on average about 12 to 13 hours to unlock the full 200, but this is also somewhat based on how lucky you get. 2 of the Achievements are very luck dependent, I'd say, and it also depends on your team's skill (communication abilities) to be able to get out of unlucky situations. You may just never get bad luck with the layouts though and not need to worry too much about skill, if you’re lucky.
Campaign Playthrough:
Just play through the game normally and enjoy it; take-in the fact that everything in Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is presented smoothly and beautifully. The art style and animations are quite nice.
Basically, have fun and don’t worry about missing anything, or banging your head against a wall trying to figure-out how to get an Upgrade that you can see just out of reach, but can’t get yet. You can always come back and get an item later. Once you’ve finish the campaign, which can take from about 4 to 8 hours, you should have 7 out of 12 Achievements unlocked (110), without you having to do anything other than just playing through the campaign normally.
You will unlock the following 7 Achievements, through normal campaign progression, in this order:
- Complete Homeworld
- Complete Organic
- Complete Ocean
- Complete Ice
- Complete Mechanical
- Complete Electrical
- Complete Game
100% Map and Item Collection:
After you've finished the game, if you didn't happen to get Fully Loaded, Explorer, and/or Archaeologist, you can do so now. If you continue the campaign after finishing it, the game will just start you back at the check-point right before the final boss. Puzzles in the game will stay solved and all bosses will stay defeated, so it’s not like this is a second playthrough or anything.
Fully Loaded and Explorer should come quite easily, just by going around the map where you may have not visited yet, but Archaeologist could prove quite the frustration. Some areas of the map you will have uncovered 100%, but some of the Artifacts can be tricky to find even if your map says you've been there before. You will either need to scour the whole map again or watch the Artifact Guide by my buddy Fliptriq in the Achievement Guide! After getting these 3 Achievements you should now have 170.
Lantern Run / Multiplayer (Best with 2 to 4 Players over XBOX Live):
Both of these Achievements (Marathon Run and Millionaire) can technically be done on your own, as 1 single player, but this has never been done by anyone before, as of this writing. I personally could not do it by myself or even with 1 other person. I ended-up unlocking these on a 3 man team over XBOX Live.
The general strategy that we used was to let 1 person take all of the upgrades (for the normal gun and armor) and let the other player/s grab the other weapons. Do not let your main upgrading player die. For weapons, we only used Lightning, Shield, and Laser (switching when we felt comfortable and it was needed). Once the main fully upgrading player has all of his armor (spikes) and guns (4-way shot), and doesn't need to be healed, let another person have the upgrades but also use the armor drops for healing as well, from this point on. Hopefully, this strategy will help you and your team out! Good luck!
Conclusion:
After finishing your Lantern Run, as well as the rest above, you should now have unlocked all 200 in Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. Congratulations!
Thank you to my friend Fliptriq for his Video Guides as well as the good times on XBOX Live!
[x360a would like to thank Zeralith for this Roadmap]