Tips and tricks for Hardcore!

[ARH65512]

Now, I might make a trophy guide, but I think most people would agree that the hardest trophy is definitely the Hardcore difficulty. However, here's some tips and tricks on how to complete the game (or even 100%) on Hardcore. I just beat the game, so I can confirm that this works at least with the current patch I'm writing. 
 

GENERAL TIPS

1. Except for Port of Adia (level 1), you don't have to complete the mission objectives once you enter the level. You only have to collect the level keys in order to advance. Don't do anything else except maybe anything that's on the way to avoid backtracking. So try to do that. You can use the Adon portals to fast travel to other levels once you get the text that says "Stationary Found" or something. This was not present in the original. Remember, some enemies respawn when you leave an area. 
2. Whenever hear the "swoosh" sound, that means you're near a respawning ammo/health area. If you hear that, stay until you're maxed on ammo and health. If you're low on health (say less than 50), then backtrack, but again, beware of respawning enemies. I say the hot spot for that is Port of Adia - Village, since there's only one enemy that respawns and he's easy to take care of. You can also do in the beginning of area of Hive but you can only exit once you complete so I suggest Port of Adia - Village or you can use Adon to give ammo, but I highly recommend you save it near the end of them game (I only did it for the final boss). 
3. When you get better weapons (eg. Cerebral Bore, Charge Dart, Scorpion, etc.) use them because they're super powerful.

4. SAVE, SAVE, SAVE often. It's only one life, which means game over once you're dead This EXTREMELY useful on boss fights. 

5. If you're above 90 but not 100, then DON'T grab the 10 health and ESPECIALLY the full health unless it's by accident. But try to avoid it. 
6. Save your ultra health for boss fights. There's some ultra healths scattered but you can save them. The max health is 250, but full health only gives up to 100. 2 healths can also happen since it can give you more than 100. 

7. Do NOT use melee weapons like Talon or Warblade since even the smaller enemies like spiders or compies still do at least 2-3+ damage. Your best friend is probably the flamethrower. 

 

FALSE PORTALS

My suggestion is that you should do the False Portals when you at least have the Scorpion since, again, it's super powerful and almost one hit kills enemies. Luckily, there's respawning ammo/health. But I would suggest you start when you're at 100 because you can't leave those levels. 

 

TOTEM FIGHTS

In regards to #1 on the General Tips topic, again except for Port of Adia, you can actually use the Nuke (that is if you collect all the parts). It's beyond one hit kill. It kills MULTIPLE ENEMIES at once. 

 

LEVELS/STEPS

It's not deeply detailed, but maybe someone could help me out on it. But I'll do the best. 

 

The reason I bring up Port of Adia, is because once you enter the Hub, you have the Adon portal next to you and that's your best friend. The Hub doesn't get unlocked when you complete Port of Adia. Once you have the level keys, you can use that to exit the level as opposed to the Level Portal which, again, you can't exit until you get the level keys. The best order to is this:

1. Level 1 (Port of Adia)- Finish the objectives and collect the level keys. DO NOT DO the false portal yet. I can't imagine how hard the false portal would be with your current best weapon being the explosive Shotgun. Again, wait until you at least get better weapons. Once you finish the objectives and get all the level keys, stock up on ammo and health. In fact, there's a respawning health/ammo in the 2nd Level 3 area with the Endtrail guarding it. There's also a bunch of ammo near the exit portal as well as full health and 5 10-healths. Explosive shotgun is your best friend in this fight. 
2. Level 3 (Death Marshes)- Now, this is when it gets easier. Do NOT do level 2 yet. Do level 3 next. Now, just grab all the level keys and Breath of Life talisman as well as Shredder, Mag 60, GL, and Plasma. Leave at least one objective yet (I suggest maybe one of the 3 prisoners near the final area of the level). Enter the exit portal and make sure you DO NOT complete the level. If you don't complete the level and exit the portal, you spawn back to the beginning. Luckily, in the 2nd area of the level, there's an Adon portal barely missable. So use and spawn yourself back in the Hub. 
3. Level 5 (Hive of the Mantids)- Yes, we're not doing level 2 yet. I suggest you go to level 5 next because that's where you get best weapons. Do anything that's in the way, grab the talisman, and level keys. And make sure you get all the weapons you can. Once you get the last Adon portal, which is in the final area, use to exit the level. 
4. Level 2 (River of Souls)- By then, you should have your better weapons. The level becomes super easy when you get the better weapons like the Scorpion or the Bore. Once again, grab level keys and talisman. However, you do have to complete that one Sister objective and Soul Gate objective, so save your better weapons for those. Or you can find an Adon portal and warp to the Village for the respawning ammo/health then come back. But it can be frustrating level since this level barely has any respawning ammo/health areas. Once you get all the level keys and talisman, use the final Adon and warp to Hub. You can also do any of the false portals from this level and previous levels since you now have the best weapons. But I'll get to when it's the perfect time.
5. Level 4 (Lair of the Blind Ones)- Frustrating level, I suggest you do 2 of 3 verbal vents and the ONLY time to do the False Portal during this go since the Adon Portals are pretty far apart and it spawns those arrow dudes that do 30+ damage on you. But make sure you have grab full health then ultra in the lava to prepare for the False Portal since I find it to be at least the 2nd hardest. Yeah, I also suggest you get the fire talisman so that you can walk across the lava instead of going the harder way. For the vermal thents, I suggest you leave the first since it's the CLOSEST to the Adon Portal. It's only one area behind. And of course, grab level keys but they should come naturally I believe. I also suggest you don't get the Primagen Key when you make 2nd visit. 
6. False Portals- Use Adon to warp to nearest false portals. Now, it's the best time. Whenever order you do or rather you've done some of them is up to you. But I suggest you do before at least the level 6 false portals.
7. Level 6 (Primagen's Lightship)- Now, we're in the final level. My suggestion first is to unlock all the 4 areas and grab the ions. Do not do any objectives until the final False Portal. Once you complete the final False Portal, you get the nuke, which is super fucking powerful. Now, finish the objectives and grab the final Primagen Key. In the 4th area with the Ion machine, do not go to the left to exit the area. Instead go all the way back to where you came from. This prevents from enemies spawning. It's also worth noting that this is the ONLY level where enemies DO NOT respawn and you also have respawning ammo/health with the Primagen Key. Now how do exit the level then? Well, just use the beginning portal instead of the exit. It works. Trust me. 
8. Mother Boss- Oh boy. This could be hard as shit. My suggestion. Make sure you have at least 150-200 health. So grab an ultra health somewhere. I hope you saved it. For the first phase, I recommend explosive or regular Shredder. The 2nd phase, I suggest you jump and strafe AND stay under those pillars to avoid rocks from hurting. Here I suggest perhaps shredder (either), Scorpion, or GL. For the 3rd and final phase, again, either of those weapons. But remember to strafe and jump. If you're low on health. Just wait til keeps spawning. 
9. Back to the Levels for Objectives and Primagen Keys- As what it says. Now, remember the Nuke is your best friend. Instant kill. Though I did encounter a glitch in River of Souls where I got 4 of 3 Sisters. I don't know how the fuck that happen, maybe because I used Nuke on her. So I suggest Scorpion on them to avoid glitch. Anyway, for the 2 other boss battles:
     9A. Queen Boss (Level 5)- Again, make sure you have 150-200, and use Nuke against those Mites. For first phase, I suggest explosive shredder. The 2nd phase, I suggest flamethrower. Now, if you're low on health, just strafe and jump. If ammo spawned, but you're full on the weapon, just waste, that way health can spawn. Last phase, I suggest explosive shredder. When she's about to shoot, use it against the weak point.
     9B. Bline One/Goldeneye Boss (Level 4)- Easy boss. Just use flamethrower on the slugs, and either use flamethrower or explosive Shredder on the first phase, Scorpion and explosive on the last 2 phases. Not much to go. You could get easily damaged since there isn't a lot to strafe in the area. 
10. PRIMAGEN BOSS- Now, onto the final boss. For my suggestion, stock up on full 250 health and ammo. For those flying bastards, use fucking Nuke. Phase 1, I suggest GL and Firestorm when he goes "You dare!" to prevent him from regenerating. Phase 2 and 3, explosive Shredder. They seem effective. Avoid his bubble attack since it's like instant kill but it's very easy to strafe from it. 

Any other tips?

 

Edited June 14, 2021 by ARH65512

[GoraxDeReus]

You don't need to beat any boss except the final one. 

When you have everything collected in the level you can return to the starting portal, which brings you back to the hub.

This can save you a lot of trouble.

[Elegy]

On 7/24/2021 at 10:37 AM, GoraxDeReus said:

You don't need to beat any boss except the final one. 

When you have everything collected in the level you can return to the starting portal, which brings you back to the hub.

This can save you a lot of trouble.

 

I noticed this as well.  If you do the platinum in 2 runs by saving hardcore for a 2nd run, you can just skip all the objectives and boss fights that aren't required to obtain a stage key or feather/talisman for primagen keys except for the first stage objectives.  You can just abuse the quick warp feature of the checkpoint portals to go back to the hub or other worlds so it is not necessary to do any objectives that are out of the way.  The reason you have to do the objectives in the first stage is because you can't unlock the hub warp point without visiting it once and to do that you have to complete the mission objectives in the first stage to actually exit to the hub.

 

You can save anywhere so hardcore is not overly difficult with save scumming and making liberal use of respawning ammo/health locations.  Mostly only stage 1 and stage 2 are difficult.  Stage 1 does not give any useful weapons and the enemy HP increase is absolutely insane on hardcore so if you do not get headshots the enemies are just enormous damage sponges (It took about 8 shots to the body with normal arrows to kill an enemy).  Always aim for the head on this difficulty unless you are using explosive weapons or ammo which don't have the headshot damage bonus.  Stage 2 is only difficult because the stage's pacing is bad.  The stage is extremely long, the distance between checkpoint 3 and 4 is basically 70% of the stage and there is just NO ammo on this stage.  I pretty much ran out and had nothing but pistol and shotgun prior to reaching the 4th checkpoint despite having all the weapons from stage 3 and 5 before I did it.

 

I mainly used explosive shredder, charge dart + headshot with either mag 60/standard shotgun, plasma rifle in sniper mode, cerebral bore, scorpion launcher and flamethrower for small spiders/mites etc for the majority of the run.  The big drones with the gun arms in Primagen's Lightship are really easy to dispatch with charge dart + cerebral bore combo, 2 rounds from the explosive shredder or a headshot with the plasma rifle in sniper mode.  You can fully refill health and ammo in the center room after clearing each wing so I personally found it the easiest stage to clear.  There is also no reason to bother building the nuke if you don't want to.  I assembled the nuke on my run but really only used it on the final boss's flying drones and even there it isn't that important.  Can easily dispatch the flying drones with the explosive shredder and just pick up more explosive shotgun ammo during the fight.  Doing the false portals with the oblivion enemies can be useful if you just want to grab the respawning health/ammo though.  All of them are easy just using explosive shredder/scorpion missile launcher and grabbing more ammo at a respawning ammo point within the portal.

 

Lair of the Blind Ones is not that bad either, just make sure to save often because the guys with the crossbow do like 36 damage per shot so its almost always an instant reload if one of them hits you.  However, most of the rooms are pretty wide open in this stage and you can easily snipe most enemies with plasma rifle or hit them with the charge dart before they can do much to you. The giant spiders are incredible damage sponges so I just used the scorpion rocket launcher on them since it takes 3 direct hits to kill them with that.  Turning the brightness up on this remaster also makes it a lot easier than I remember it being on the N64 version since you can actually see everything.  The stage also isn't near as long as people make it out to be.  Stage 2 and 5 are much longer stages and were pretty tedious to get through.

[Rebourne07]

Dude, write a trophy guide! You have the knowledge! I’ve written a few guides so if you need help hit me up on messages and I can walk you through it.