Death Wish boss challenges : helping guide (In progress)

Overview

A guide for boss challenges for those who need a helping hand. Boss in P&T mode are covered and have more details and advice given.

Guide disclaimer

I am here to help
Unfairness is hard, playing what you love shouldn’t be stressful
People have different needs, but everyone should always be treated with humility
We ought to give fun and lend a hand for anyone
I made some death wish challenge analysis for you

Hi there, Hat in Time lover. I don’t know the reasons you want to fulfill those contracts. Maybe it’s for glory. Maybe it’s just to test your skills. Maybe it’s for those cute goodies. Maybe it’s for something else…

Who cares. You are here because nobody came to help you. Maybe because some prefer to only brag about how they beat contracts, on how it’s “not so hard”, without giving you any clues on how to do it. Maybe because you can take enough to be up for the challenge, but not enough to succeed it yet. Maybe because you are still struggling in “Peace and Tranquility” mode, which is an absolute name joke for people who didn’t even asked anything about this hell, for the game they used to love.

I decided to start a guide, record and edit some videos after reading several things in this forum, and most especially this :

Originally posted by Someone who is heartbroken:

I give up.

You managed to make me literally cry after the 101th death for the bonus in Encore! Encore!. I can’t beat it, no matter how hard I try. I have to lay this mode down, as it is too much for me to handle anymore.

No player, whatever the amount of skill, should ever feel any kind of disgust and despair for the game they love.
No player should be punished for flawed game design.
No player should be left alone. What’s the meaning of being a community then ?

I am a tryharder and I like spicy challenges. That doesn’t mean I’m skillful. That doesn’t mean I don’t know how people who aren’t ones feel. And that doesn’t mean we should accept artificially difficult challenges for the sake of being hard, either. I went through some hard, masochist-borderline, challenges in 20 years of gaming and I was happy that, sometimes, a few would come to help me to overcome those “sadistic designed intentions”.

This time, I want to be the one to help, among others who makes guides and are giving helping hands, even if it’s in a slighest way. Because I’m like you, I love this game, I struggle so hard on some unfair challenges that I don’t even want to bother doing them anymore and go directly in transcendence to “experience tranquility”. I want to enjoy too what the devs gave us, even if it’s not what I was hoping or asking for.

I’m not a PGM and I’m far from playing perfectly to do some serious insane stuff. But I’m damn persistent and boss fights are ones of the few challenges I really like to work on. I want people to be helped with their nightmare so they can get their part of fun too. I’ll try my best to help, explain how to manage some challenges I went for, and record videos to help people who need it.

Encore!Encore!

The following video is recorded on the hard mode, without any intent to do the bonus.

• Don’t miss your cue to attack : you will need to hit the boss each time when he’s vulnerable and not let the opportunity slip away. Your throwing projectiles will be helpful to get this one (Projectile badge or the using the Brewing Hat). Be careful when facing the mafia ball, there is some collisions issues that could make you miss your chance, as seen on the video above ;
• With One-Hit KO badge : don’t get ever touched by anything. This requires to know perfectly the patterns and phases, as long as watching constantly the dropped bags. Only attempt this once you have beaten the boss several times, to practice your reactivness and muscle memory.

• What makes this fight “unfair” is the random bag drops that will mess you up more that one time. While it’s true that it tests your adaptation skills, it remains incredibly frustrating to deal with. But you don’t have to move that much to avoid the whole of it though : the horizontal positioning is mainly punished by those bags, while vertical positioning is punished by the boss attacks (projectiles, knifes, tornado, etc.). The “best random configuration” you can get is the bag always dropping on you : you only need to move a bit to avoid it, saving you some seconds to think about the other attacks ;
• During the battle, the boss will drop HP pons. You can pause the game to equip the magnet badge if you need to attract them if they are in a bad spot, but I recommend to not equip it if you are full life : try to keep them on the scene for healing if you get hurt. They also serve as a “free hit” : you can let yourself get hurt by an avoidable attack on purpose, take the pon to recover immediately from hit and make use of the invincibility frames you got ;
• The projectile badge works amazingly well for this boss, since you are in a “2D plan”. Only use the level 1, the charged power does not have any effect and is too long to charge up. Make sure you’re facing the boss before using it, I could mess it up by facing towards the audience in one of my attempt. Important : the downside of using it is that it will collect HP pons left on the ground, but you can also use it to grab them if you need them and they are way out of reach!
• When facing “Super charge”, one of the best safe spot is always near the boss, where you can time your jump to the ground projectile without ever worring about the arched one, since it will always fly up at start ;
• When facing “Mega charge”, the pattern of the projectile is sped up in such a way that you can stay airborn and completly avoid it by staying in the air between the ground projectiles and the arched ones. The difficulty here will be those random bags drop. Either use the Time Stop Hat to ease the speed (but face the attack for a longer time) or skip half of the attack with the Ice-Hat. Be aware that their power are not long enough to bypass the entire attack ;
• If you’re using the Ice-Hat, keep in mind that your invincibility is temporary : the more damage you “tank”, the fastest you will lose its power, making you vulnerable. Be also careful when you disable it ;
• Keep really track of his tornado speed : it can catch you off guard at the worst of times ;
• When facing his knife attack, try to stay near him : you can react quickly that way if he goes blue. This will also avoid him to jump across the whole stage since he will always try to land on your old position for his next jump ;
• Don’t stay in the corners : you will face the worst bullet hell experience due to random bags cumulating in the area, and can be hurt by goons when the boss call them on stage ;
• If you notice a “dropping bags” pattern in which you don’t know what to do because of the incoming goons, use the Ice-Hat and wait for the goons to go past you. This is not shown in this video but I used it in every attempt whenever I felt I was in danger ;
• Use the hats you need and equip the CD reduction badge. This is not a hatless challenge. I advice however to not use the Time Stop Hat during normal moves, since its cooldown is long, even with the badge equipped, while other hats could be better in those situations.

Encore!Encore! P&T

• Try to always simple jump for the “Super charge” attack. Making double jump can put you at risk of taking damage from the arched projectile or the random bags ;
• Focus more on dodging than fighting : if you miss a chance to attack, it’s no big deal. It’s better to stay alive and wait for regeneration if you can’t keep the pace rather than putting yourself at risk of dying ;
• Really abuse the Ice Hat and Time Stop Hat powers if you are struggling :
  • The first one for invincibility, you can tank several damage before being forced to release its power ;
  • The other one for slowing down the speed of the battle. Keep in mind that if you do that, you will face the attack for a longer time too, so it’s best used at the start of an upcoming, or ending attack.

Boss rush (P&T version included)

This video regroups both normal and P&T mode advices and can also be used as a boss walkthrough. Do not hesitate to watch it if you don’t remember the boss fights.

• Don’t miss any chance to hit : be reactive for this one since the slightest missed opportunity can ruin your run. The hardest bosses in my opinion to not miss the opportunity are the Dead Bird Studio’s mastermind and Mustache Girl. Abuse your Sprint and Time Stop Hat powers!
• Win with the One-Hit Hero equipped : this one is straight forward. You need to do a perfect “hitless” run of the challenge. Only try this one once you master all of the boss fights and prefer to stay safe over taking risks. Again, do not hesitate to use your hats ;

• One advantage of this challenge is that you can train for it by redoing the bosses in their respective acts. However, doing so for the Dead Bird Studio’s mastermind and Mustache Girl can be tedious, since you are obliged to do their levels first. The fastest way, otherwise, is to die and retry on this challenge ;
• Consider you can be hit a few times for the 3 first bosses. After that, don’t count on recovering until you reach the last part of the Mustache Girl fight.

Breaching the contract

Recorded on the hard mode, without any intent to do the bonus.

• Don’t let your health drop to 1 HP : Pretty straight forward. You need to keep your HP above 2, and I suppose you can take hits you can recover as long as you are still above the limit. But due to the numerous attacks in the fight, it might be difficult. Don’t try to accomplish the second bonus if you really want this one : you want to finish this fight as soon as possible ;
• Don’t hit me with your umbrella. It’s rude! : Because murdering a kid in a time loop isn’t, of course! Okay, she signed for it, so it’s her fault. Anyway, for this one, you will need to hit the Snatcher only with potions, meaning that the more the time passes on, the harder the fight will be, since the attack will be numerous overtime. When you see a potion, make sure to only do it if you can hit the Snatcher at 100%, otherwise, you put yourself at risk of being hit by his next attacks. Potions also disappear overtime, so don’t think you can burst him with lots of them. Do not forget that throwing a potion will always cancel his current attacks. Skipping the simultaneous pillars has never been so interesting!

At 1:54 of the video, I say that “You cannot jump or bump into the center of the arena”. While you cannot indeed jump in it, you can bump on it if you didn’t equipped the No Bonk badge before the fight! Leading to the following advice…

• Equip the No Bonk badge before the fight! Even if you are hatless, this badge is still functional without it (at the date of 02 October 2018. Be wary that it could be patched after this date). It allows you to use the full extend of your dash on the walls if needed, which can be incredibly useful when facing several shockwaves ;
• You can indeed lie down to avoid earthquakes but they are always paired with thrown potions. Like I said, you will likely hit a shockwave with your dash cancel, or get hit by a potion if you are too slow or failed your dash. I will give more details in the P&T video.
• If you succeeded this challenge, retry Quality time with Snatcher if you want to go for bonuses. After struggling on it a lot when I went for the base objective back then, I did all the bonuses in one go in one try after all my fights I faced in Breaching the Contract (The fight will stop and delivers a Time Piece if you reach 6 minutes). Yup, that’s harsh training, but you will definitely feel the progression you made since then!

Breaching the contract, P&T

• As said, the health regeneration is cumulative and takes around 16 seconds for one HP. Let’s say you get hit (3 hp left) and 10 seconds later, you are hit again (2 hp left). You will regenerate the first hit 6 seconds later, and after this heal, the second one 10 seconds later ;
• When starting the fight, you may not have the P&T aura you usually have. Don’t worry, it’s a visual bug, the effect is still here ;
• Some of the tips exposed in this video may be considered as exploits or bugs by Gears for Breakfast, and can be patched later, so keep in mind the date parution of this video! (04 October 2018)

No More Bad Guys

Recorded on the hard mode, without any intent to do the bonus.

• Don’t use any of your stupid hat abilities! : Ooouuuuh, someone’s jealous here! Anyway, if you try this bonus, you will have a bad time : your hats are what makes you breath when things get out of control. You can afford to be hit during the first part, try to stay airborn as much as possible, and always use the dash cancel tech to gain speed to avoid thrown attacks. After entering the Hyper zone, things will get much more difficult when you get to the point where you get the regeneration, since there is a lot thrown on your screen. Try to temporize the fight when reaching that point : it’s better to stay alive for a longer fight than rushing it towards a certain death ;
• Don’t spend more than 3 minutes in the Hyper zone : Meh. Another speedruuuuuuuun… I don’t have any useful tips on this one, except the fact that you are probably not allowed to miss any opportunity to hit, including air-attacks to counter Mustache Girl when she tries to slap you. Becareful if you use the Time Stop Hat : it will slow the action, but will have no effect on the timer, making you lose some precious seconds!

• During the first part, try to not hug the walls. Since the camera will always follow Mustache Girl, you can have your vision blocked by the camera being behind the scene, like curtains ;
• Still during the first part, if you’re using the Sprint Hat, running is not enough to avoid being hit by thrown hourglasses. Use your jumps! You can also dash cancel to get out of it ;
• When entering the Hyper zone, you can stand still and only move when a target pops in your position ;
• As said in the video, you can avoid the tracking blasts by simply turning around, without any hats. You can increase the dodge efficiency by using the Sprint Hat, and even further if you equipped the Scooter badge!
• If an explosive fruit is available, but you cannot take it because you’re dodging, don’t worry! Their timers are long enough for you to wait for the end of an attack, and then grab’n throw them to break Mustache Girl’ shield ;
• Unlike the Mafia or Snatcher boss fight, you cannot stay still since the pace of the fight is rather high. Always keep moving.

More helping guides

I specialize in boss fights guidance, because as I said above, they are the challenges I like the most. However, that means that I sadly do not have any videos for other Deathwish challenges, even if I’ve completed them.

Maybe I’ll make some videos about the ones I liked the most outside the boss fights (or if it’s requested), but know that there is also other good guides here on Steam! It’s always good to see how people manage the challenges in their own way, or watch more gameplay sessions. Check them out!

He made lots of videos that cover the whole Death wish mode, and especially gameplay videos for challenges that I find… just not interesting enough, like the Collect-a-Thon, Rifts Collapse or the Great Hootenanny. or if you want to stay on Steam, check them here! They have good gameplay examples that can definitely help you!

He’s making guides for each Death wish chapter as he progresses, with lots of details and advices in each step! If despite all the Snatcher throws at you, you Refuse To Die, you should definitely check the list right below!

• No-Death Wish: A 100% Guide, Mafia Town
• No-Death Wish: A 100% Guide, Battle of the Birds
• No-Death Wish: A 100% Guide, Subcon Forest
• No-Death Wish: A 100% Guide, Alpine Skyline (in progress)
• No-Death Wish: A 100% Guide, Miscellaneous (to be completed)

Important note : I always ask to guide creators their permission to link their guides, before being indexed here.

Notes and updates

This guide is a work in progress. Whenever I have time, I’ll try to record any session on challenges I have fun in order to help the most I can. I’m still learning how to edit videos and for publishing them on Youtube.

Note : The guide completion’s on pause, due to several IRL factors, the main one is simply the lack of time to do what I consider good editing. But I definitely intend to finish it once I can work on it.

• 19/09/2018 : Uploaded DW Encore!Encore! video ;
• 20/09/2018 : Uploaded DW, P&T version, for the Encore!Encore! video ;
• 22/09/2018 : Uploaded DW, Boss rush video ;
• 01/10/2018 : Uploaded DW, Breaching the contract video ;
• 04/10/2018 : Uploaded DW, P&T version, for the Breaching the contract video ;
• 11/10/2018 : Uploaded DW, No More Bad Guys video ;

None at the moment. The next video will be the P&T version of No More Bad Guys.

There’s a ton of things I can cover in P&T mode to help people with : tips, fighting styles, bugs exploit, etc. So I’ll need a bit of time to make the video.

Note: No toilet of Doom fight. It does not exist. 🙁

If you have any questions, or suggestions to help me improve this guide, do not hesitate to tell me in the comments!