Bastion
22 Achievements
1,000
15-20h
Hard Bargain
Earn a total of 1,000,000 points In Score Attack Mode.
100
1.61%
How to unlock the Hard Bargain achievement in Bastion - Definitive Guide
Once you have full upgrades for your favorite weapon loadout switch on all of the gods at the shrine and play through each level until your total score hits that sweet 1 million.
You can check your progress by hitting start and checking the leaderboards for score attack mode.
Have fun!
Kid's Dream (Pipe): 103,218
Singer's Dream (Stockpot): 92,220 (I think I would've done better with the Calamity Cannon)
Survivor's Dream (Bedroll): 226,179
Strangers Dream (History Books): 597,649 (See link to clip at end of solution)
Totalling 1,019,266 points from just those levels. This was the setup I used for them (the exception being Kid's Dream where I replaced the Mortar with the Calamity Cannon with homing as I found that worked better):
Idols
Turn on:
- Acobi (Foes shall have vengence in the throes of defeat)
- Lemaign (Foes shall induces sloth with each strike)
- Roathus (Foes shall never yield Health Tonics or Black Tonics)
- Micia (Foes shall regenerate from any injury)
Leave off:
- Olak (Foes shall sometimes turn to air unable to be hit)
- Garmuth (Foes shall deflect attacks on a whim)
- Jevel (Foes shall gain resilience to physical harm)
The others (Pyth, Hense, and Yudrig) are more personal preference -- they make things harder, so you might find that you end up having to "turtle" more which tends to break your combo streak.
Spirits
As for spirits, the only one that's vital is Leechade. This is an absolute must, especially if you have the Roathus idol on. Bastion Bourbon is also important if you have that idol on as you'll want to have as many health going in as you can. The others I had on were:
- Graver Gimlet
- Lifewine
- Bull Brandy
- Whale Ale
- Black Rye
- Werewhiskey
- Hearty Punch
- Squirt Cider
Weapons
I did the Galleon Mortar and the Brusher's Pike, with Bomb Barrage as my skill. For the Mortar upgrades I did: Burstone Bombs, Target System, Shrapnel Charges, Dampened Tubing, Stonewall Propellant (this last one's important). For th Pike upgrades I did all the left side upgrades: Reinforced Shaft, Hunting Grip, Brusher Bindings, Heavy Counterweight, Barbed Spearhead.
This clip is when I did Stranger's Dream. It's not complete as I only got the last 5 minutes recorded, but gives an idea:
Now, this may seem like a lot. Unfortunately, you must play through the entire game again until you get to a point that you feel confident enough to go back and redo the levels. Also, idols do increase your score, so be sure to play with as many on as you feel comfortable with.
Also, do not forget about the trips to Who Knows Where. These can help you get a lot of points for your total, especially if you know how to work the combos. I only played three of the four and almost got a million points just from them, with about 100,000 for both the Kid's Dream and the Singer's Dream, and about 750,000 for the Survivor's Dream. Also, these were done with 3, 6, and 7 idols, respectively, so 10 idols aren't required for high scores.
How I went about getting such high scores utilized the weapon load out from the guides for their respective achievements, the flame bellows and the mortar, both fully upgraded. The key is to keep your multiplier going from round to round, which can be tricky depending on which enemies spawn each round. The larger the enemy, the more it replenished the combo bar. What I would do is roll up to every enemy that could be killed easily, burn them and then blow them up with mortar. During the Survivor's Dream, this would almost always replenish the bar for this, but the other two dreams were less reliable. Overall, this helped to boost the multiplier a lot, so the points started to pile up. I have yet to try the Stranger's Dream, so I don't know how well you can get points in it, but I'm sure it could help you get quite a few as well.
Also, a tip that works for any level, sometimes when the bar fully depletes, if you kill an enemy immediately after it empties, it will refill the bar completely and keep the combo going. It does not work every time, and the timeframe for it is inconsistent, but every time it works it helps to get you even more points. Just because the bar empties does not necessarily mean the combo is over.
I played the melting pot 7-8 times to level up with 10 Idols and got around 300k per replay and the trophy didn't pop. It popped first after I had completed 2 out of the 4 dreams with 10 Idols. And by then I had already played the entire game bar the final level with 5 idols.
I'm very positive you can totally ignore any idols in the story missions, since the dreams for the 10 idol challenge should easily give you 1 million total.
Score Attack Mode is unlocked once you've completed the game for the first time on Normal Mode. Score Attack is similar to a New Game or New Game Plus in the sense that you'll essentially be replaying Bastion throughout its entirety from start to finish. However, all Structures, Spirits, and Idols are unlocked and all readily available to you from the start (you'll need to upgrade all your weapons again). In addition, all levels in the game are now repeatable with a scoring system.
For the purpose of this trophy, you'll need to earn an accumulative total of 1,000,000 points across the entire playthrough. What this means however, is that only the highest score you've recorded in a level will count towards this total. Replaying the same level over and over again will not count. Fortunately, this also includes the four Who Knows Where arena levels as well, which is where you'll probably earn most of the points required anyway. As such, don't be put off by the high amount of points required. It's not as daunting as it seems! Personally, I was able to earn over the one million points required just by going through the four dream sequences.
However, if that's not the case for you, consider the following:
- Every time you defeat an enemy, your score and multiplier increases
- This triggers a combo - continue defeating enemies, and the combo and multiplier will continue to increase. Lose your momentum and kill streak or take damage and the combo meter will fall. Taking fall damage (i.e. falling off a cliff) however, will not affect the meter.
- Having Idols invoked will increase the amount of points you earn. Since having Idols activated also increases the amount of experience you earn, you may want to have a few Idols activated when you're replaying through the game to save the amount of time you may have to grind come end-game.
See this video for a method you can use to get this trophy (credit to MsDamian1988):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbGghcV76oM
Score Attack Mode is unlocked after beating the game once. You will be able to do this in New Game Plus and thus can combine this achievement with "Calamity Kid" and your second ending.
This mode is exactly what it sounds like. You'll be playing through the entire game with a scoring system, and your best score from each level will add toward your one million goal. Once you have completed all the story levels again (but before actually completing the story), use the four Who Knows Where locations to get the rest of your points. Since you need to do all four of these with all ten idols active, this will easily get you the rest of the points needed (I got 800k on the final one alone).
You earn a score multiplier enemies you kill in succession, and this number will reset if you haven't killed anyone in a while. Obviously use all your combat skills (roll!) to avoid damage as best as you can to keep your score multiplier high. Idols will also increase the score you get, as well as the experience you earn, so I'd suggest having a few of these active as you play. But like I mentioned, you can get close a million points from just the last Who Knows Where location on its own, so you'll easily get this achievement if you do all the other achievements, too.
The number of points scored can be viewed on the Leaderboards - Score Attack Mode start screen.
For example: you reached 900,000, went through dreams a couple of times (obviously earning more than 100,000 points), but no points were added. Later we came in and got an achievement.