Overview
-Estimated achievement difficulty: 4 for average joe, can be 6+ for those who want to rush.
-Offline: 15 (1000)
-Estimated time for 1000: 4 - 6 hours
-Minimum playthroughs: 1
-Missable achievements: Globe trotter
-Glitched achievements: None
-Cheats disable achievements: No cheats
Introduction
Micheal Phelps is one of those rare games, it can be either extremely easy, but quite time consuming, or it can be very short, but take a tremendous amount of skill. Most people will just choose to meet in the middle. See, when you play the game, you don't have to play every race, or even score first. You don't need to do the annual races either. If you skipped everything, you could potentially beat the game in two or three hours. This would take a god-like amount of skill, and I don't know if it is even possible. On the other hand, you could spend up to eight hours getting every skill up to 10. This would be overkill on an unimaginable scale though. To meet on middle ground, you will have get your skills up to a moderate level, just enough to beat the game without too much trouble, without spending too much time doing so.
This roadmap is more for listing the order of things to do things, and what you want to do to maximize your success. It will only explain the specific achievements in low detail. For better clarity, look at the achievement guide.
First Race.
Start off season one by watching or skipping the tutorial. On your first real race, you are going to see a message that says, "Hype up the crowd." want to flap your hands out to your sides as mentioned in the guide to get the Hyped Up achievement. After that, when it tells you to dive down, simply put your hands up before it tells you to "GO!", and you will jump in early and unlock Hair Trigger. Afterwords you need to go for Optimum Dive, when it says, "GO!" just lift your arms up straight ahead of you, and it will unlock. Use the tips in the technique section to do a good job. When you reach the end, it will tell you to, "Put your hands down" do so, and when it prompts, reach toward the screen. This will unlock the Optimum Finish achievement. The First Finish achievement should also unlock at the same time. Assuming you were first, the achievement for beating the front crawl race Front Crawl Winner should unlock. You should already be at 210 gamerscore... In under a couple minutes!
First half of season 1
You are going to want to go through the first half of season one after the first race. Try to get first place on everything, even replaying it as necessary. You get level upgrades, even with second and third... Why not get a higher level? Try to put them in speed and endurance. Keep going through the levels, making sure to get first place of every level. Once you reach the 50m race, stop and go to the next part of the roadmap.
Optional boosting.
This boosting is 100% optional, but I suggest doing it. Don't go all out, you don't need 10 in everything, and you don't even need a lot in everything, afterall, you still have plenty more races to go. In order to boost, go to the 50m race, all you have to do is swim as fast as possible. Make sure to get second or third place, as that is what makes this method work. When you get second or third place, you get your level upgrades, but you also get the chance to replay it, presumably so you can get first. If you do accidentally get first, DO NOT press continue, instead press restart, and do it over. I'd suggest getting 6 speed, 4 endurance, 2 turn, 2 dive, and 2 finish. This essentially guarantees you can't mess things up. Feel free to do a little more or less, if you feel confident.
Rest of season 1 and season 2.
After getting done with the boosting, the rest of the game is very similar. You swim race after race and try to get first. I'd suggest always replaying a race until you get first. Even if you get 2nd and 3rd multiple times. You get a lot of level up points from these, and they will be needed if you want to win. Once you get to the annual games, just play one game, lose or fail, doesn't matter. Immediately skip to the next season (This includes season 3, why bother when if you skip you get the final achievement?) The races are not good for exp, you get the same amount as a regular race, it is much harder, and you have to do it twice. There isn't much incentive to bother. You might want to try to win the first one though, no point in trying to fail.
Season 3.
This is the final season of the game, and it will stress your skills to the max. Hopefully you leveled up enough. If not... You are S.O.L. You might have to restart the game. It isn't just levels though, you have to have the skills. If you are practically a god, you could do this season with much lower skills. The funny thing about the seasons, it unlocks any race touching the one you win. Normally, you'd want to do them all for the skills, but in the third season, try to get to the right as quickly as possible. These challenges are very tough, and as soon as you beat the right-most one you have all the achievements. (After skipping the annual games).
Congratulations, you now have 1000G, and you are probably VERY, VERY sore...
[x360a would like to thank Coldgears for this Roadmap]