Escape from Tethys Trophy Guide

 Escape from Tethys
Good job! Completed all tasks!

Congrats on escaping Tethys! Enjoy your shiny new platinum trophy! 

 Rogue Scientist
Put the rogue scientist to rest.

This trophy is unlocked after defeating the third boss in the game.

The Rogue Scientist is by far the easiest of all the bosses (outside of the first) due to how little health he has. He doesn’t have a crazy amount to worry about besides his punch, which he will use shortly after teleporting. If you can avoid this you should be fine.

After defeating the rogue scientist you will unlock the personal security droid which will allow you to see in the dark and give a little extra fire power.

(Note – After this boss, you will need to obtain the sinking module in order to continue. This is technically not after a boss, making it the only required item not associated with a boss.)

 Hostile Waters
Destroy the reef guardians.

This trophy is unlocked after defeating the fourth boss in the game. 

Technically this is two bosses, but they are both in the same room. The Queen (smaller) reef guardian doesn’t have any attacks but instead moves back and forth and summons two minions that will go straight at you. They take three shots each to kill. Due to her not having any attacks, it is best to leave her for last. The King (larger with an anchor as a weapon) has two, a basic swing attack that is repeated about 5 times and a hammer drop that creates a small shockwave in the center of the ground.

This is likely the second hardest boss in the game as they both have a large amount of health and the minions will constantly be after you. It is best to use a large amount of your ammo on whichever one causes you more pain to bring the fight down to a fair 1v1. If you are struggling with the fight, try to line up your Railgun (or Grenade Launcher) shots so it hits both of them at once, this will make an easier second half of the fight.

After defeating the reef guardians you will unlock double jump ability.

 Final Encounter
Defeat the IRI Assassin for the last time.

 This trophy is unlocked after defeating the seventh and final boss in the game.

This fight is split into two parts, with a small cutscene in between. The first fight is against several pieces of robotic equipment. You can use one of two strategies to defeat these:

Play it cool and avoid any incoming fire and slowly destroy the pieces one by one. You will still likely need to use a few rounds of ammo on the laser beam on the top, but conserve as much ammo as possible.
Spam Firestorm until all the pieces are defeated, this will likely take about 15 ammo. They should all blow up at the same time.

The main difference will be how much ammo you have to take care of the IRI Assassin in the second fight. The fight is the same as the second half, but if you choose option one you will likely be at lower health. If you choose option two, you will have to fire a lot of bullets at close range into him.

Overall, it is best to use strategy one as the robot equipment is fairly simple to dodge and doesn’t do much damage. But if you are struggling, try the other strategy.

The game will end as soon as you defeat the IRI Assassin for the last time.

 Escape from Tethys
Finish the game on Normal Mode.

If you are following the walkthrough you will obtain this after your first playthrough.

See the “A Hasty Escape” trophy for more details on beating the game.

 A Hasty Escape
Finish the game in under 90 minutes.

This is best done on your second playthrough and on Easy difficulty as you will know the map significantly better, each boss fight, and you will start with 30 health vs 10.

There is no perfect strategy to complete this, but your run does not need to be a perfect run by any stretch of the imagination. If you die a few times, take the wrong path, or miss a few jumps, do not feel like you need to start over.

You will want to think of each boss as sections in 10 minute windows. So you should be finished with the second boss by 20 minutes, third by 30, and so on. This gives you about 20 minutes of chances for mistakes and backtracking. As mentioned in the walkthrough there are 7 total bosses, however, the first and last boss should not take you more than five minutes each to get to and finish. With this in mind, you should more than enough time to complete the speedrun:

Here are a few hints to keep in mind –

1. Avoid almost all regular upgrades. The three exceptions are the Iron Pressure Suit, Grenade Launcher, and Firestorm. See the walkthrough for more info on what these do.
   
2. Do not be afraid to run straight through a room and take damage along the way. There are a large amount of save points in the game and a save point before every boss.
   
3. Pausing does stop the clock. This will allow you to see the map and take a quick break if need be. Feel free to check the map as much as you need as it is better to check than wander down a path and have to backtrack.
   
4. Save as often as possible as you run past. This will heal you and regenerate ammo. Do not go out of your way unless you need to in order to survive.
   
5. Dying does not revert the timer. If you think you are about to die and the save point was several minutes back, it is best to quit out of the game and try again. This is of course dependent on how far you are into the game, and how much time you have left on the clock. It may be best to restart the run or take the death and continue on.
   
6. You will need at least a few upgrades to both ammo and health to survive. You will want around 50 health (5 health upgrades) and 18 ammo (5 ammo upgrades) but the more the better, so long as you are not going out of your way. The area in between the fifth and sixth boss (IRI round two and missile frigate) has several that are easy to grab if you are paying attention.

If you are absolutely still having trouble, play the game normally one more time through to get better at the game mechanics and map. then try the speedrun. Time permitting you can also go back and grab more health/ammo upgrades or the biomass (See Mysterious Planet trophy) to make life significantly easier.

 Locked and Loaded
Find all the ammo upgrades.

There are 10 Ammo upgrades available in the game. Each one will upgrade your ammo reserves by three.

It is best to use the map (See Tethys Explorer trophy) and scratch them off as you go.

Ammo upgrades look like what appears in this image below.

 Artificial Enhancement
Find all the health upgrades.

There are 10 Health upgrades available in the game. Each one will upgrade your max health by two (normal difficulty) or four (easy difficulty). 

It is best to use the map (see Tethys Explorer trophy) and scratch them off as you go.

Health upgrades look like what appears in this image below.

 Tech Expert
Find every upgrade.

In total, there are 27 total non-health/ammo upgrades. However, three of these are bio storage keys which although do not count towards the trophy, they do unlock the biomass which does and seven are story related and required to finish the main story.

This leaves 17 total upgrades. You can technically avoid 16 out of the 17 and still complete the game (the railgun is unmissable), however it is likely through naturally exploration you’ll find about 10 others.

Similar to the Health and Ammo upgrades, it is best to use the map and scratch off the ones you have obtained. You can also see which ones you have when you are picking whcih save file to load.

Here is a list of the optional upgrades and what they do

1. X-249 Railgun (unmissable) – Fires a straight line laser beam.
   
2. Energy Shield – Creates several energy balls that circle you. Can damage enemies and block shots.
   
3. Electrifier – Damages enemies when they touch you.
   
4. Downward Thrusters – Dashes downward, damages enemies if hit.
   
5. Magnetic Attachment – Sucks in health/ammo pods dropped by enemies.
   
6. Grenade Launcher – Shoots out a grenade that explodes after a few moments, also destroys some barrier walls.
   
7. Piercing Energy – Shots become piercing.
   
8. Shield Extenders – doubles the time after being hit that you are invulnerable.
   
9. Iron Pressure Suit – Decreases damage taken by 50%.
   
10. Suicide Thrusters – Dash damages enemies as you go through them.
    
11. Shield Emitter – Takes 1 damage, recharges after a short time and when an ammo pod is gathered from destroyed enemy.
    
12. Energy Charger – Charges up shots by holding down Square.
    
13. Stabilizers – No knockback on damage
    
14. Firestorm – Damages all enemies on screen.
    
15. Portable Teleporter – Allows you to teleport at any time to a teleporter. Press options button to use.
    
16. Biomass – Long range shot, also regenerates health/ammo overtime. Note – needs three bio storage keys to unlock.
    
17. Energy Splitter – Splits shot into three, also effects your Personal Security Droid.

They do not need to be obtained in this order. However, this is in the order in which they are obtainable through story upgrades.

 Tethys Explorer
Explore every area on Tethys.

This trophy is obtained by exploring ALL squares available on the map. You will explore about 40-50% naturally through the story, about 30% more through obtaining all upgrades, leaving you with 10-20% left to explore.

It is important to note that some areas are only reachable by flying or falling through them, there is no other way to get to them.

The final area with the boss does count, however by falling down and entering the final boss area you will be locked in. Therefore, it is best to explore all other squares before heading to this location. If for some reason the trophy doesn’t pop after jumping down to the final boss, quit out and reload your save and compare to the map below.

Big credit goes to Steam user Steelgolem for making this map. He did grant permission to use this map.

 Mysterious Planet
Unlock the high-security gate.

This trophy is obtained after finding the three bio storage keys.

The keys are in the following places.

Top left hand corner above the starting area – You will need all story related upgrades to obtain.
Above the save spot in the swamp area – You will need double jump upgrade to obtain.
Far left side of the water area – You will need the underwater sinking upgrade to obtain.

The only one that is a bit odd is storage key number three. You will need to enter and exit the area several times to make the key appear. It is random, so it could take you one try or several. Luckily, the exit/entrance is a walkway so it is very easy to do quickly.

A video guide is provided below.

 Deep Dweller
Defeat the rock creature in the caverns.

This trophy is unlocked after defeating the second boss in the game.

The second boss is still fairly simple, he technically has three attacks but you only need to watch out for two.

The first is his punch, this will do a decent amount of damage and put you on the opposite side of him. His second is spawning lava which can easily be avoided by jumping onto the platforms that rise right before. The lava will do a decent amount of damage and can hit you multiple times depending on how long you stay in it. It is important to note that he does his three attacks in a pattern (spikes, punch, lava) so once you have seen the pattern a few times you should be able to memorize it.

After defeating the rock monster, you will unlock the dash ability.

 We meet Again
Defeat the IRI Assassin for the second time.

This trophy is unlocked after defeating the fifth boss in the game.

The IRI Assassin is the first boss you fought, but this time in his full form. He has three main attacks but only one needs to be paid attention to. His punch does a decent amount of damage and will usually be followed up with by his laser gun. Due to the punch dragging him across the screen, you will then have to dodge the lasers to get back to him, possibly suffering even more damage. If you are able to dodge the punch, the damage you receive from the lasers will be negligible, allowing you to rush at him and damage him.

The optimal time to attack him is on his third attack which will see him launching off the ground and dropping bombs along the way. This is very easy to see coming and always drop in the same spots, so it is to dip and dodge to the other side of the map and attack him before he starts him next attack animation.

Depending on how many health and ammo upgrades you have found, you can also spam your railgun, making the fight significantly easier, although you cannot defeat him using railgun shots alone.

After defeating the IRI Assassin a second time you will unlock the slow fall ability

 Haywire
Destroy the missile frigate.

This trophy is unlocked after defeating the sixth boss in the game.

The missile frigate is by far the most challenging boss in the game and has the most complicated attacks to avoid. It also has a large amount of health and will require a lot of fire power to kill. This is of course if you don’t know how to cheese the fight.

During the start of the fight, the frigate will not move. Get as close as you can without touching (i.e. taking damage) and fire away. This will put you underneath the missiles he fires and out of the way of 90% of the grenades.

After this, it will move off the screen, you will want to run around avoiding the laser (moves clockwise fairly slowly) and dodge the missiles as best you can.

When he comes back on screen, spam your railgun and he should die a few seconds after. Otherwise rinse and repeat until he is down.

After defeating the missile frigate you will unlock the wall climb ability. This will allow you to move throughout the remainder of the inaccessible areas.

 An Easy Escape
Finish the game on Easy Mode.

This will be obtained by beating the game on either difficulty (i.e. difficulty trophies stack).

If for some reason you follow the walkthrough out of order, you’ll obtain this during your speedrun.

See A Hasty Escape for more details on beating the game

 Industrial Sabotage
Encounter the IRI Assassin.

This trophy is obtained after defeating the first boss in the game.

The first boss is a pancake, he dies very quickly and doesn’t have many tools in his arsenal. It is best to rush this boss and keep up the fire. He should die in no time.