Splatterhouse

Shadow of the Wickerman: S Rank strategy

Firstly, a lot of this was based on Carnage's tips on x360a, the guides on here and some trLOLphies threads but other things I found elsewhere and I came up with one tip myself. I thought this was looking fairly impossible until this all came together.

I'm assuming you've S-ranked the first four stages. One big bit of advice is don't try to do six until afterwards because once you've beaten Wickerman, it's really nice to sail through that stage in a couple of attempts.

General tips

There are twenty waves and you have 26 minutes to beat them all. In a shocking display of bellendness, the devs don't pause the clock during mid-wave loading. HOWEVER! You can pause the game. So pause the game once you see the loading icon in the bottom left. Let it spin five times and unpause. One more spin (unavoidable) and you'll be into the next wave saving you at least a minute across the entire stage.

Have every upgrade unlocked.

Use your weapons (apart from chainsaws and shotguns) right away to clear out anything small. It'll save you a ton of time and when the big guys show up, those weapons aren't much help. Use them from wave 3 onwards.

Save worm crates until the later levels. Necro energy is crucial on waves 18 and 20.

The only two splatter moves worth using are the splattersmashes (LT + Y and jumping LT + Y). Jumping smashes are worth two big hits if done close enough to an enemy. A standard smash is quicker and easier to pull off. Great for crowd control. More enemies mean more health will regenerate for you as well.

Do not underestimate the small enemies. Yeah, they don't do much damage but they can eat up time which is just as important.

If you've got a full Necro bar early on, use it. You can easily regain it.

Your best standard attacks are the grab/arm rip (B + B) and the jumping Y attack with a weapon. Hitting things with a severed arm is worth plenty of Necro so use that to build up.

Splatterkills (B on a red outlined, weakened enemy) use up valuable time but maybe be essential. If you have one enemy left on a stage, and no Necro left, splatterkill it. The next wave will always be harder.

Don't heal (LT + B). Splatter attacks will heal you just fine.

Don't use Beserk (LB). It's a little harder to control your Necrometer in this form and you can run out, leaving you pretty much screwed.

Never run (unless you have a squid to deal with and no Necro). It's imprecise and weak. You need to always be in control.

When near enemies, use RB to move about. You be invulnerable to most attacks and it dodges the big anus monkeys.

You need at least four minutes to finish the final wave. So aim for 1 stage per minute.

Enemies

Standard enemies: use B + B for safety, use jumping Y strikes for crowd control, use weapons to speed things up a bit. Arms aren't great weapons but are good for Necro boosts.

Those annoying pricks that jump away from you: back them up against a wall and use X punch combos or any weapon. These guys eat time and that's as important as health.

Quick, slashy enemies: Jens and those blue things. Bladed weapons work great. Jump with blunt weapons (or no weapon) and smash with Y. These guys can easily wreck an attempt. B + B works great if you are in a crowd with other small enemies and will kill these things but it is risky when you are one on one with them.

Red burning guys: these will hurt you if you get too close. Jumping Y strikes are your best option or any weapon attacks. Worth a splattersmash (LT + Y) if they are grouped. They are that dangerous.

Whip arm guys: Jump/LT/Y close up to hit them twice for an instant kill. Always group them together (USE RB to stay safe during this) for better Necro value. In a big crowd these guys are deadly so stay away until you are ready to deal with them.

Club arm guys: Jump/LT/Y also. These can take more damage though so this will just get them down to the red outline. Worth a splatterkill if they are the last one on the screen and you have no Necro to carry onto the next wave.

Aegis squids: your number on priority when you see them is to wipe them out. They make everyone else immune to damage (splatters still work though). LT + Y is your only option as the jumping version is too slow. If you have no Necro, you'll have to run at them (RT + Y) but this isn't too accurate so try to always carry some Necro into a new wave.

Anus monkeys: the biggest thing you'll face. You'll get these in numbers on 18 and 20. They heal if you don't finish them off. Jumping splattersmashes are effective on them (takes at least two close ones though). When they charge at you, they stun themselves when they hit a wall. Attacking the ass bit will do more damage (and earn Necro). They are horrible to deal with. However, as I'll explain in the wave 20 tips, these guys are also very useful at times to have around.

Weapons

Arms, clubs and bats: Useful against anything small but will require two hits on some enemies (the red guys mainly). Good as a jumping attack (jump, hold Y) and will earn good Necro. Useful during B + B attacks, as they are quicker than if the unarmed version.

Bladed weapons: Great on red and blue enemies but also great for crowd control. Watch out though. If you kill the last enemy of a wave with one, he might crawl about a bit (wasting precious seconds) so finish his corpse with a jumping attack.

(the above two weapon types break on larger enemies)

Chainsaws: these are good for crowd control but that would be a waste. Their best wave is 19. No anus things to worry about, just charge about with RT taking out small enemies and whip/club larger enemies. Save it for that wave to get lots of Necro for the final wave. I never used the X or Y attacks. These suck in wave 20 because you need to be able to roll from the anus things.

Shotguns: if you see one save it for level 20. If you see two, use the other for wave 18. Details below.

Wave 20

So you've got four minutes left (at least, hopefully) and hopefully some Necro. No Necro means you're going to die (unless you are good). Wave 19 had no anus things so splattersmashes aren't too essential. Use a splatter kill on the final enemy in wave 19, just to be sure. A chainsaw will definitely get you some Necro.

When wave 20 starts, start rolling with RB. The anus things will start charging you. Don't think about them, just avoid until the first squid shows up. Kill him with LT + Y. The jumping version is too slow.

By now some smaller enemies and medium ones (whip/club guys) will show up. You want these guys near you (not too near). Let an anus thing chase you. He'll knock them over for some damage. Move with RB so that you don't get knocked over too.

If there are no enemies near you, punch that anus thing with combos and Y attacks. You'll earn Necro and will hurt the creature. Watch out for other ones though although they can hurt the creature near you with their charging attack.

Let the big guys do the damage, and engage when possible but concentrate on safety first. Roll and attack until another squid shows up. LT + Y again. Don't wait for a grouping of enemies, it's nice if the attack hits more than just the squid but he's your priority.

More rolling, more bad guy friendly fire from the anus things. By now the anus things on the screen will be damaging each other hopefully. If you have lots of necro, jumping splattersmashes are worth a go. Standard ones (LT + Y) are worth it to finish off red outlines enemies. Anus things have a long splatterkill cutscene, so use them with caution.

Repeat again until the third squid. Kill that tentacled bastard and pick up the shotgun (this is risky as you can be rammed and cannot RB dodge). By now there will be a few anus things, bigger enemies and small things. Spam that shotgun, kill what you can. Finish off the biggest guys first if possible but don't chase them. It's not too easy to aim and don't waste time trying too hard.

Expect one more (the fourth) squid. Kill him, mop up the anus guys. You'll need to do a splatterkill possibly. If you have enough Necro, take out any medium enemies and try to guide the big guys into each other. Splatter attack if you can. Punch their arses off, if you can't.

Conclusion

My time was 25:38. Not amazing. Other people have better times and may use other strategies but this is what worked for me and until it came together, I wasn't anywhere near beating this.

Time required in each arena to S rank. (less)

West Mansion - 12:00
Slaughter House - 16:00
West Observation - 23:00
Death Coaster - 25:00
Shadow of the Wickerman - 26:00
West Manor - 20:00

I got S rank for all these levels with the below times
West mansion - 11:13
slaughterhouse - 10.48
West observation - 17:11
Death coaster - 23:58
shadow wickerman - 25.41
west manor - 18:13

Most of the levels are simple to get the S rank. The only level that gave me trouble was the 5 (wickerman) one. The best tips that I can give you is
1/ use your splatter smash as much as you can but use it wisely. Make sure they are bunch together.
2/ Rip off arms and use them as weapons to build up your mask meter, when its full, use your splatter smash or something else because you will constantly be fighting enemies. No need to waste it right and plus you are on a timer.
3/ Kill the squid things right away, they are a pain because they make everything invincible. The best way to kill them is a well aimed splatter smash. Most of the time, its instant kill. But dont get too close or they will dissappear. Hit them from a good distance.
4/ Try your best NOT to do splatter kills as some of them are long and your timer still keeps going.
5/ Kill those glowing blue enemies/clowns with the long nails as they can rip your arm off and cause a headache
6/ Use your Beserker mode wisely. There will be a few times in the game when the big enemies crowd together.
7/ Dont waste powerful weapons on small simple enemies. Leave them for the big guys.
8/ There is a type of enemy where if you touch them, you bounce back. Grab a sword or knife and take care of them fast. They can be a time waster and a pain.
9/ There are many chest with worms in them. Use them only when needed/emergency. If you don't need them.. Don't smash the chests. You mask meter is always being replenished as your fight on.

I had trouble on the Shadow Wickerman level, mainly the last few waves with those Aegis tentacle enemies making everyone invincible.
I know its recommended to ram the Aegis then splatterslash them, kills them, yes, but sometimes they just moved or couldn't reach them due to the amount of enemies on screen.
So I tried using the running splatter smash 9 out of 10 times killed them instantly, even when they appeared to teleport, added advantage of damaging others with the running smash too.
S Ranked this level on my first go after trying this move.
Hopefully it might help someone too.

These are the times I got S ranking for

west mansion- 10:48
slaughterhouse-12:20
West observation-17:21
Death coaster-24:11
shadow wickerman-25:15
west manor-17:22

The only good tip that I can give is when the things with the whip arm and the big "meaty" arm come out dont kill them first kill the lil annoying thing because there is more than likely the bigger ones are waiting to spawn. I had the ground smash upgraded to the strongest and it took 2 pounds to get the big "things" into red then I just finished them off quickly.Splatter kills do keep the time going so dont even bother doing them.The secret missions dont help in the ranking cause I only got 4/10.And I didnt go into the beast mode I used the LT+Y when I faced the things with the whip arm and the big arm. And listen to you music that you have on you xbox it makes it a lot more enjoyable and less like you are grinding through for achievements. Good hunting

The above solutions are all great! But I have an excellent tip that I didnt happen to see mentioned above. On the 5th survival level "shadow of the wickerman", you may feel pretty overwhelmed on the last wave. But not many people realize that while you are in bezerk mode, you can go nuts with your regular bezerk skills. I strongly advise that you trigger this and use RT + Y and destroy everything as quick as you please. The butthole creatures take about 4 hits and the octopie take 1 hit to die. And it has a great radius so you'll destroy most everything at once. This does not cause your meter to deplete any faster. By doing this, I was able to defeat the last wave in 1 minute and 37 seconds. Finishing with a total time of 20:13 from the allowable 26 minutes. I hope this helps :)

Okay, so I know that there are other guides for this achievement and it's been way over ten years, but I don't care. I had some trouble with this achievement and found what appears to be the optimal strat to pull it off, so I've decided to write my own guide in case someone else is going through Splatterhouse right now. So this is how I did it. I'll post each level below and their time limit, along with my personal record and strat for the level.

West Mansion - 12:00 (PAR: ~9min)
As soon as this level starts, grab a blunt weapon and approach the area between the stairs. Some monsters will spawn there. Hold RT+X and smash them away. You should insta-kill them. In fact, you should insta-kill them with RT+X even if you're unarmed, but I'd go for the weapon just in case. The next waves will begin and you should be able to dispatch the bigger zombies easily with RT+X. If everything goes according to plan, you should beat waves 1-3 within the first minute of gameplay. From now on, you should be able to beat around two waves per minute. When large groups of monsters start spawning, try to pool them together and use LT+X to cut them all down at once. After wave 5 or so, the game will start spawning the whip guys and the hammer guys. If there are too many of them, transform and take them out quickly, or line them up and make good use of LT+Y. Avoid splatterkills in general, because they're too time consuming to use every time, but don't be afraid of using it if you need to refill your necro, as it should give you at least one bar back once you do it, sometimes even more. Be careful with the timer on this level as well. In my experience, it didn't stop counting the time until the results screen appeared, which is some bullshit, as that alone took like 20 seconds to happen, between messages telling me I had completed the level and all, so you really better be careful with your timing.

Slaughter House - 16:00 (PAR: ~14min)
Same strat as last level. This one has butchers instead of zombies, which should give you plenty of bladed weapons. Save those for when you need to eat a chunk of health off of some big monster, as cutting butchers sometimes puts them in that stupid long death animation state, which can and will lengthen wave durations. This level will also spawn your first Aegis enemies, which you should instantly kill with LT+Y (try to line up other enemies as well once the Aegis goes between them for extra damage), as well as climbers, which are a pain in the ass to deal with.

West Observation - 23:00 (PAR: ~19min)
This level is pretty much like the last one as well. It should give you a chainsaw, which you can save for the final wave, or to deal with fire zombies, which are your new threat in this level. It'll also spawn a lot of climbers, which are a pain in the fucking ass to deal with. My strat is to hold RT to run towards them and press X right before Rick stops running. There's a sweet spot between dodges where you can hit them with almost 100% accuracy once you figure it out. It's after their first dodge but before the next, but you really gotta nail down the right timing with your strikes. Also have a blunt weapon when you do this, not only for the extra reach but also because it should kill them off in one hit. Be careful with the Aegis enemies in this level as well. Again: LT+Y on them as soon as they appear and you should be golden.

Death Coaster - 25:00 (PAR: ~20min)
This is the first hard level, in my opinion. Here you'll have to deal with fire-breathing clowns, lots of Jens/blue guys, and less weapons than earlier waves. In this level, it pays to do the secret missions. Tear off arms and use them on grabs to kill a few monsters, step on boreworms and try to avoid getting hit to spawn extra weapons for you. Don't worry about completing this on your first try either. Repeat the first few waves a couple of times if you need it so you can nail down monster spawns and position yourself better in the arena. Then, keep an eye on the timer. You should be able to complete about one wave per minute, spamming RT+X on most enemies, LT+Y on bigger monsters and using B+B to produce weapons when you run out. The last wave will spawn a bunch of butt monkeys, hammers and whip guys, so be mindful of necro management. Transform, kill off butt monkeys and leave one of the whip guys dying so you can transform back, splatterkill them and transform again to continue on. This is also the first level where loading takes some more time than it should. The timer doesn't pause while the game is loading between waves, so press Start once you see the loading icon, let it revolve a few times then unpause to save a few seconds.

Shadow of the Wickerman - 26:00 (PAR: ~20min)
This is the famed hardest level. After reading about it here and in other sites, I was worried that I'd spend an entire day grinding out this level, but it turns out that Death Coaster actually managed to kill me more than this. In fact, I beat this level on my first try. Strategy is the same as last level: pause when the game is loading to save a few seconds, prioritize the Aegis, dodge blue guys and transform whenever the level gets populated by big monsters, being careful to leave at least one monster dying so you can splatterkill and refill your necro bars. Also, do secret missions to get weapons and if you're lucky and get a shotgun or a chainsaw, save it for the last wave. The last wave alone took me about two minutes of doing the aforementioned process of transforming, killing butt monkeys, splatterkilling a whip guy, transforming again, and so on. Be extra careful with blue guys and fire zombies on this level as well, and avoid running out of Necro between waves in case you need it for the Aegis, and you should be fine.

West Manor Chapel - 20:00 (PAR: ~18min)
Just like the final level of this game feels unfinished, so does this challenge. It's a tight arena, with badly optimized assets that will tank the performance of the game once enemies start spawning in. This level was my first S-rank, before I figured out all the strategies of the earlier levels, and it was also on my first try, so I believe this one is unbalanced towards being too easy. In fact, I'm pretty sure it can be beaten in under 15 minutes if you do all of the above and manage your time effectively. The best tip I can give you here is to try to stay on the corridor instead of the altar area, as the performance there is a little better and there is less space for the monsters to maneuver around you.

As you can see, the game gives you about five minutes of extra time for each level, so this achievement isn't as hard as it looks. The problem is that the game doesn't teach you to kill fast, then asks you to do it in these challenges, so you have to kind of relearn how to play it. It's all a matter of managing your blunt weapons, bladed weapons and the necro bar, avoiding unnecessary splatterkills, prioritizing certain monsters and having a little luck with the weapon spawns.

I might as well add my 2 cents since it took me forever to finally get through the Shadow of the Wickerman. Part of my problem was I was always trying to conserve weapons and necro. I finally got it by starting out with some arm rips, and charging a lot of enemies with the arm. Don't be afraid to waste a little necro splattering groups or annoying enemies. Grabbing regular weapons and charging the small enemies is usually quick too. Be mindful of your necro as each wave starts. If it's less than half, you want to grab an arm. If it's higher, use a regular weapon to wipe things out faster. Always use LT+Y and NOT LT+X (Jumping LT+Y for the big enemies). If you find yourself stuck with big guys and have no necro charge/smack them with an arm. Your necro will shoot right up enough to smash their ass. If you hit half health or less, charge the necro and use your berserk. Even if you shut it off quickly you still get full health for it. Another thing to note is that if you get an anus monster to turn red, you can grab him for the finisher but NOT hit the button and you still get enough necro to splatter smash him again. Abuse your berserk and any shotguns you have lying around for the final wave, and you should be ok. After finally completing this, I did West Manor Chapel in something like 15:36. :)