Speed Run Trophies
Finishing the game in under 15 hours is easy. This will be almost a given, unless you're intentionally going extremely slow.
Finishing the game in under 5 hours is a little bit more difficult. Some important things to keep in mind...
- The game timer stops when you pause the game, so if you're feeling overwhelmed don't hesitate to pause and collect yourself.
- The game timer resets to where it was when you hit the last checkpoint any time you die, or reload from checkpoint. Therefore, if a specific challenge has gone extremely bad for you, just reload from checkpoint, and you'll get a 'do-over'.
- The game does not count time against you when you're not in control - such as the scene after the 2nd antenna room, where the boy is unconscious for a few minutes.
- You can and should skip the longer cutscenes in the game. Most of the time in a cutscene is likely not counted against you, however there may be small amounts of time that do count against your time. For instance, the first cutscene includes a couple of scenes with the boy waking up where you're prompted to use the L stick to get up. If you skip the cutscene, you'll skip right over this tutorial.
- Remember that combat is mostly Trico's job. He doesn't need your help, and you can often just leave and go about completing your next objective while Trico handles the fighting. This is specifically not the case in the fight on the outside of the tower at the end of the game. If you try to leave Trico here and run around the back of the tower to enter you'll be wasting time and will have to backtrack to help him with enemies carrying eyeball shields. But in most other cases you can simply leave Trico to the fighting while you keep on moving.
Most importantly, understand that because of the game's forgiving nature of not counting time against you when you're not in control, and resetting your time when you reload from a checkpoint, you will actually have more than 5 hours to complete this trophy. It's almost impossible to determine exactly how much time you will have, but I have completed this trophy twice - the first time in 5 hours 19 minutes, the second time in 5 hours 7 minutes.
The point is, don't give up just because you've gone a bit over your 5 hours. People have reported getting this trophy while taking more than 5 and a half hours. You may well have 6 hours or more to do this when you factor in all the free time that the game is not counting against you.
I tried to make a speedrun video to post here, but my video had a couple of problems that prevented me from uploading it to youtube. It's tough to do an unedited 5 hour video for technical reasons. Que sera sera. Maybe I'll give it another try some day.
Untouchable Emissary Trophy
The important thing to remember here is that Restart from Checkpoint doesn't count as dying. Any time you're in danger of dying,
just pause the game and restart from checkpoint. The hardest thing is a couple of the jumps from high places down to Trico, where
if you miss your jump it may be too late to restart from checkpoint by the time you realize that you've missed. If you want to make
extra sure you get this, just back up your save onto a flash drive every now and again, so you can re-load your old save if you
happen to die without being able to restart from checkpoint.
Intensive Care Trophy
This trophy is earned by pulling every spear from Trico as early as you can, all through the game. This is not for pulling an individual
spear out of him extremely quickly. To earn this trophy, check Trico carefully for spears after every fight before you do anything else.
Check hard to see places like his armpits, his belly, under his wings, and his butt underneath his tail. If you miss a spear and move on
to do something else before removing a spear at any time - you miss the trophy. Also, note that when you do a reload from checkpoint,
sometimes Trico will start with new spears in him - even if he was never hit by spears in the first place. These will be in fairly easy
to see places on his back, but you need to remember to check him over for spears any time you die or reload a checkpoint, or just stop
playing for a little while and turn off the game.
When you earn this trophy, it will be received during the ending credits.
The Call of Nature Trophy
You just have to luck into this one. It happens at random. This is for seeing Trico poop. He'll never poop while you're watching him.
You just have to turn the camera, or walk into the area at the right time while he happens to be relieving himself. Most people earn this
trophy on their first playthrough, but since it's completely based on luck, it's entirely possible that you could miss it. There's really
nothing you can do to improve your odds.
