Hyper Light Drifter

*This guide is for the Naked Loadout achievement, but the strategies remain the same for the same for the two other difficulties.*

Hey everyone, it's ParticleDuality and I've got an achievement guide for the three Boss Rush achievements in Hyper Light Drifter for you. I make many mistakes in this run and still manage a decent time, so hopefully this guide will help you get your three Boss Rush achievements.

You don't have the fight the bosses in any order, but I like to get all the South bosses out of the way.

This guide will be using a strategy that the community refers to as "plinking." To "plink" you'll need to use your sword swing immediately after firing your gun. This will cancel the animations and save you some time. It's almost like doing double damage.

*Whenever I say any form of attack, I'm talking about plinking. You should always be plinking. If you're doing the two easier difficulties then I recommend that you switch to your shotgun and plink with that in between two or three pistol shots.*




The first boss I fight is Archer. The strategy I use here is to dodge all of her arrows until she rushes you and fires her mines into the air. Use "plinking" to get as much damage in as you can before she moves. I like to pop some mines to keep some open space for myself. Rinse and repeat and you'll have her dead in no time.


The second boss I fight is the Samurai. This guy is probably the second easiest boss in the game. You'll want to "plink" him once when he rushes you and immediately dash out of the way. He'll then use a ranged attack and you can dash in and get two "plink" attacks off before you have to dodge again. Once again, you just repeat this strategy a couple times and he'll be dead before you know it.


The third boss is extremely easy. All you have to do is start attacking as soon as you can and never stop. He will summon mini robots that will fire at you, but you can destroy them before they get to do a thing. They almost don't make an appearance in my video. He will dodge around the room and then rush you after a certain amount of time. Just start attacking again once he gets close to you and you're done.


The fourth boss is also a very basic strategy. Start attacking as soon as possible and then back off once he summons his orbs. He will fire these orbs at you. I usually back off and wait for him to fire the first and then dash in one direction. With his orbs gone he will rush you down. Just dash once and start attacking again. Once he's below a certain threshold of health, he'll remove part of the floor and start summoning four orbs instead of two. It's the same strategy here, but you'll have to be more careful with the open floor and the four orbs.


I then make my way up to the East boss in the game, Frogger (not his official name). This is by far the easiest boss in the game, but I actually choke on multiple occasions here. With little practice, you should never get hit on this boss. As soon as the fight starts rush him and attack him twice. Then you should dash away once and walk back up to him and attack him two more times. He will be locked in a set of animations that make this fight extremely easy.


The next boss is the Warlord/Raccoon King. I messed up quite a bit on this fight too. This fight is interesting. He always seems to move in odd directions when attacking, but with enough practice you should have him down. His pattern is to rush you down and swing his sword, and then with a slight delay, he'll swing it again. He'll do this three times. When he's rushing you down you'll want to attack once and then immediately dodge. Repeat for the rest of the cycle and then he'll stand still to start his next attack. You can get in for a couple attacks here, but you'll want to dash away as soon as you see him slam the ground. Crystals will shoot out in seemingly random directions. You'll want to dodge these. He'll then shoot three orbs at you. You can sometimes rush in for an extra attack here, but you have to be ready to start this three part cycle all over again. He will sometimes go to summon one of his buddies trapped in the crystals, but you can get some free damage off while he's doing that. Once he drops below 50% health he'll start to attack with three sword swings three times instead of two sword swings three times. He'll also start to summon more crystals, but those are the only changes. Repeat that a few times and you'll have gotten the second hardest boss out of the way.


Next is the Hierophant or Priscilla the Parrot(once again, not the official name). I'm sure this boss was the bane of many NG+ playthroughs, but outside of NG+ it's usually something that's not too awful. It's still the hardest fight in the game, but you'll learn her patterns. She has three attacks. She summons squares on the floor that will follow you around, she'll summon squares on the floor in a pattern that will explode almost immediately, and she'll summon some birds. This fight is harder than a normal playthrough because you don't have access to chain dashing. When the fight starts, you'll want to rush her and attack as much as you can, but be ready to dash out of there at any second. Keep attacking until she moves to a corner. Once there, you'll likely not be able to attack as she'll have summoned some squares that will follow you. Just keep dodging and look for an opening to attack her there. Keep doing this until she moves to the middle again. You can get a lot of damage in here while she summons the birds. Kill the birds on their low swoop and get back to the same thing you were doing before. Once you get her below a certain amount of health, she'll only summon squares in a pattern. They will take up one column or row of the entire screen and skip one column or row. Dodge these and attack her in the corner until you've killed her.


The final boss. Surprisingly, this is one of the easiest bosses in the game with plinking. I fail a couple times, but I was playing pretty terribly. Rush him as soon as you summon him and start attacking. It's ideal to deal enough damage here that you skip to the phase where four diamonds show up around you, but that's not always possible. If you don't manage to get him to the diamond phase then he will dash really quickly towards you. You want to get to his dash location as soon as possible and start attacking. If you're still not at the diamond phase, then he will shoot a bunch of projectiles at you. Find the hole and rush towards him. Try to get behind him immediately. He'll then fire a huge laser from his face and sweep the room with it. Keep attacking and you should have him in the diamond phase by now. He will disappear and four diamonds will show up around you. You want to kill these diamonds so that you get more room for the next part. I recommend using three bullets to shoot the one that appears at the top of your screen and then dashing to the one on the right and using just your sword to kill that. He will then appear and the diamonds will explode. Rush him after that happens and attack. He will use the same attacks in the same order as last time, but he will dash twice. Repeat everything and get ready for the final phase. He will dash three times in the final phase and summon more projectiles during that part.

That's it, you've done it!
Congratulations on your new achievement!

I haven't made many guides, so please let me know if you have any questions or any comments on how to improve the guide.