Overview
There are a lot of text bubbles in the game for Jake to not read. Finding them all can be really hard. So, here are some pictures and stuff to help. Warning: By necessity, this guide will contain story spoilers!
Introduction
Welcome to this guide. Well, it is less of a guide and more of a checklist. There are a few broad things you need to know in order to get all of the text boxes in the game:
- The game has a story branch starting from the first level. When Leader Red confronts you in the middle of Level One, he asks you to “Stand down, citizen.” If you don’t attack, after a short bit, he’ll say, “Okay!” and leave. This creates a branch in the story, and changes significant bits of the dialog. Note: Level select will assume you’ve beaten Leader Red in Level One! So, to get the other dialog boxes, you have to actually do a campaign playthrough.
- There are four different endings to the game:
- Defeat Leader Red and destroy the Moon Bike.
- Defeat Leader Red and don’t destroy the Moon Bike.
- Don’t defeat Leader Red and destroy the Moon Bike.
- Don’t defeat Leader Red and don’t destroy the Moon Bike.
Silva has different ending dialog for each of these scenarios!
I also recommend setting yourself up to be able to effectively go after all of the text boxes the moment they appear. Leader Yellow is an excellent early choice for this, as his secondary fire, when held down, has excellent range and damage potential. It also can’t be blocked by anything and allows for a lot of precision for certain more sensitive text boxes that I’ll talk about in their individual sections. Also, Leader Yellow flies, so you don’t have to worry about the road, which makes the task of hunting text boxes easier.
I converted the game’s listing of required dialog bubbles into images of said bubbles and have organized them by level with some special notes in the sections below.
Good luck! This one is a real beast to get.
Level One
Here’s an image of all of the required dialog bubbles in Level One. Note that these are not in any particular order. Leader Red’s OKAY could be easy to miss if you aren’t expecting it. Also, Silva skips some dialog if you use Phasing before she tells you about it, so that’s something else to watch out for.
Level Two
Most of these dialogs are pretty straight forward, but there are a few tricky spots:
- Leader Green and Yellow have a number of hard-to-catch dialog bubbles, including a different phrase that they say depending upon who you beat first.
- There is a section of the level where Bartandalous is riding on a white fighter jet, just after the road is destroyed. During this portion, he has 5 different one-liners he can use. (As a technical note, there are actually different physical dialog bubbles depending upon which side of the screen he is on, but either one of these counts for the purposes of this achievement.) These trigger at specific points in the level and may require a few playthroughs to get. These dialogs are:
- (HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!!!)
- Oh, YEAH!
- Clench those teeth!
- Can you handle it?!
- Snap into a minigun!
Again, the dialog bubbles in the image are not necessarily in any particular order.
Level Three
This level has a lot of dialog. I’ve often found Leader Orange’s “DIBS!” to be tricky to catch. There is also a line of dialog that Jake says very early in the level, so be prepared for that right away.
The main thing is that there is quite a bit of dialog difference between the Defeating Leader Red and Standing Down story lines in this level, including a different line of dialog from Leader Blue before the Blue & Orange fight. Of special note, that dialog sequence is cut short if Leader Blue sustains damage, which makes those dialog bubbles easily missable if spamming attacks. This is a spot where Leader Yellow’s Energy Saber can be quite useful, thanks to its rate of fire and precision.
Again, the dialog boxes are in no particular order in the image below.
Level Four
The dialog bubbles here destroy extremely quickly compared to other levels (this is due to a different designer making them; most dialog bubbles have a short invulnerability period before they can be destroyed, but these ones do not).
The most difficult thing about dialog bubbles in this level is that they can be hard to catch, as they are generally not part of dedicated dialog sequences, but rather function as things that the Leader Squad members shout when beginning or ending the fight. That said, there is a parting line that each squad member says; as I recall, this only spawns if you deal enough damage to them to chase them away. Overall, screen-filling attacks will do a good job of getting the dialog bubbles in this level.
One final note is that there is a line of Red’s dialog shortly before the Leader Purple fight of this level that Leader Purple destroys. You have to get to it first; it spawns at the top of the screen just before that fight begins.
Again, the images are in no particular order.
Level Five
There are a TON of dialog bubbles in this level, owing largely to it containing the four different endings.
Overall, most of the dialog is in dialog sequences. However, there are a couple of important things to note:
- Jake shouts CHICKEN while fighting the blue ship thing (I think we internally called it the “Moon Buggy”); this happens when you chase it off at one point, and this dialog bubble can be extremely hard to catch.
- In a random act of mercy, there is a line the Moon Man uses in the Moon Buggy that’s censored cussing (A sort of “#$@%” type thing) that we deemed too difficult to catch and is not actually required for this achievement.
Other than that, you’ll just have to do this level a lot to get all of the endings. Of special note, take care during phase three of the Moon Man fight to be intentional about destroying the bike (or not) before taking out the Moon Man himself. It can be tricky to destroy it or save it, depending upon how you do that fight.
Again, the bubbles are in no particular order, though usually they are grouped by conversations.
