Rez Achievement Guide

Rez
Rez Achievement Guide

Overview:
-Estimated achievement difficulty: 5/10
-Offline: 12 (200)
-Online: None
-Approximate amount of time to 200: 10-15 hours
-Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 8-9
-Number of missable achievements: None!
-Glitched achievements: None!
-Do cheat codes disable achievements?: No Cheats

Introduction
Getting every achievement in Rez HD will require some time and effort, but you won't have too much trouble. For starters, play the Xbox Live Arcade trial demo to get into the beat of the game. Once you get used to the controls, Rez HD is a fun game that is worth the money.

Step #1: Playing through the game
When you begin Rez HD, just play through each level normally to get the feel for the game. By simply beating the game, you'll get 5 achievements and unlock Beyond Mode which will allow you to complete score attacks for each stage.

Step #2: The Lost Area and Score Attack
After completing the game, go to Beyond Mode and play the newly unlocked 'Lost Area' level. Get a local ranking of 1st in the 'Lost Area' (150,000 points) to get the "The Forgotten" achievement. This is also a good time to get the "Ultimate Cracker" achievement in Score Attack by getting a local ranking of 1st on each stage. If you're having trouble getting a local ranking of 1st in these levels, see this thread.

Step #3: Laser Assassin and Firewall Buster
Even though the direct assault mode is unlocked, don't start playing it yet. First, follow the link that I just listed above, practice, and try getting at least 95% of the enemies shot down in each level for the "Laser Assassin" achievement. If you keep trying, you'll eventually get it. After getting the "Laser Assassin" achievement, you'll unlock Boss Rush. Get a local ranking of 1st in Boss Rush to unlock the "Firewall Buster" achievement. This unlocks infinite overdrives in Beyond Mode. Now comes the fun part.....

Step #4: Trance Hacker, Power Breaker, and The Rezident
To get "Trance Hacker", go to Beyond Mode, turn on 'infinite overdrives', and choose the highest form that you have unlocked. Now, play direct assault mode and start bashing the button. You'll be able to destroy everything in the game without even blinking. Direct assault is a non-stop playthrough of the game. It takes around 45-60 minutes to beat direct assault using this method. You need to beat direct assault, unlock the next variation of direct assault, beat that variation, and unlock more variations to reach the final direct assault variation. The final variation is trance. Beat this to get the "Trance Hacker" achievement.

Next, go to Score Attack and keep on beating the first stage until you get the "Power Breaker" achievement (Clear Score Attack 30 times). I estimated that it takes 5-8 minutes to clear the first stage. It is very boring to complete this stage 30 times. However, by the time you unlock "Power Breaker", you should have unlocked "The Rezident" for playing the game for at least 10 hours. If the achievement is not unlocked by then, go to the trance mission (Not direct assault trance) and leave the game on while you do something else.

[x360a would like to thank Axe Argonian for this Road Map]

The EARTH

20
Clear play mode area1
For this you just need to play the first level and beat the boss in play mode. I doubt that anyone would have problems with this once they understood the basic principle of the game. If you should have problems, try doing the in-game tutorial - it's really wel made. If you get hit a lot, keep in mind that you can also just tap your fire button to hit the enemies instead of holding it. If you have trouble with the boss, see the boss section here.
The MARS

20
Clear play mode area2
This is pretty much the same as for the first area. Try taking out enemies as soon as they're on your screen so they don't even get to fire their rockets, and take the enemies that need more than one hit out one by one. You will also have to start looking for weak spots on the enemies here - this particularly goes for the long, big ships that will fly through below you starting at level 01. There's no sense shooting everywhere on them - you're better off just firing charged shots at the big, yellow "eye" they have and they'll be gone within seconds.
On level 08, you will encounter enemies that have six guns connected in a wide circle around them. Don't bother about the guns; if you manage to take out the middle part which is the actual enemy, you will not only immobilize the gun, but also any shots they might have fired at you already, which will disappear into thin air. If you have trouble with the boss, see the boss section here.
The VENUS

20
Clear play mode area3
Things are getting harder from here on; but still it's just the same old thing: finishing the area. You will encounter annoying small enemies that look like half yin-yang-sign that fell into a red paint bucket; you should really take those out with rapid fire as they're usually very close to you when they start shooting, plus their movement sometimes is rather chaotic. For the long snake enemies on level 07, try hitting their heads - that's their only sensitive part. Don't be afraid if they start shooting at you: if you rapidfire at them while they charge their shot, they won't be able to hit you and you'll get them in the end.
If you have trouble with the boss, see the boss section here.
The URANUS

20
Clear play mode area4
Here you will encounter violet enemies that will fire charged shots if you don't hurry to take them out, so make this your first priority if you see them. The bigger violet ships that unload lots and lots of enemies are best taken out by focussing your fire on their middle target point (which is their weak spot). Don't be afraid of the "gate" enemies that appear after half of the level; when they are still open, focus on the part that has three points rather than the one that has one, as the three points usually turn after the gate has connected making it harder to point on them, while the one point on the other half of the gate stays in the middle and doesn't move around much from the rotation. Overall from this area on it doesn't make much sense to use rapid fire anymore, as most enemies have at least 4 hitpoints so you're more effective with charged shots. If you have trouble with the boss, see the boss section here.
eden

20
Clear play mode area5
In order to unlock area5, you need to get 100% analysis on areas 1-4 in play mode. You can check this with the progress bars that display for each level when you are in the Play mode menu.
How to get more analysis? Pretty easy: throughout areas 1-4, there will be exactly ten small bots flying by that have something like a blue box attached to them. If you shoot the bot, the box is freed and if you then hit the box 8 times a network portal opens, increasing the "level" in the game with both the graphics and sound getting more and more complex over time. In order to get 100% analysis, you need to open all ten network portals in each level. They're really not hard to spot, but in case you missed one you can re-do that level in play mode (doing it in score attack won't count!) in order to unlock area 5.
Okay, first of all: area5 is the longest of all areas. If you should not make it the first time, it might feel a bit demotivating because of having to do it from the start - but I'll tell you, it's really worth it! And after having played it a few times, you'll find it a walk in the park. Seriously.

Most important here is that you always open the "gates" that are appearing. Otherwise you'll fly right against the wall. So take those out earlier rather than later; you'll notice that your shots *do* in fact take some time to reach their targets if you keep them as the last things to shoot (and eventually hit the wall). The good news is that you won't have to shoot any network portals here, because once you opened the gates up you'll automatically fly through them.
Don't hesitate to use your overdrives here, when lots (and I mean *lots*) of enemies are on the screen they can save your life. You should better spare one for the boss battle at the end of the level however; more on that - as usual - in the boss section in the second next post below.
Laser Assassin

15
Shot down over 95% in areas1-5
(1)
For areas 1-4, this should not be too hard. Once you played the game for a while, you should be able to kill as many enemies on the screen as possible; in the worst case you can always use rapid fire. For area 5 however, this can get pretty hard and takes quite some practice! Don't hesitate to use your overdrives here, there are plenty throughout the level and this will help you especially for the enemies that would otherwise just fly past you quickly. Always try hitting enemies already even if you don't see them because one of the "gates" is hiding it; in general, you should keep your fire button pressed at all times. For the snakes that come out of the ground and shoot rockets at you, do them as soon as they appear so that you won't have to waste time by shooting their rockets later. For the giant snake enemies that go through the whole area, it is vitally important that you focus on their head; not even overdrives will kill them if you missed the few seconds where their head is directly visible to you.
Firewall Buster

15
Get a local ranking of 1st in boss rush
Okay, for this you have to score at least 300.000 points in boss rush. Of course you need to have boss rush unlocked (this is done by getting the Laser Assassin achievement just above), also it helps a lot here if you don't need to care so much about getting hit so in beyond mode options, set yourself to the highest possible form (Final Form) so you can take some damage; because you won't get many chances to heal yourself. If you don't have the Final Form available yet, try the hints at The Rezident achievement; the Final Form will be unlocked for beyond mode in the process.

Boss rush has the bosses appear right after each other, as the Giga version. To make a long story short: use the general scoring tips posted all on top, so try only shooting fully charged shots. Try leaving yourself time with the bosses: always shoot at side-targets, rockets they fire at you etc. - but try to hit the actual boss as few as possible to prolong the time that it exists and so that it spawns enemies that you can get points from. There is no time limit, in the worst case the boss will self-destruct somewhen, so don't worry about that. This is especially important for the area 4 boss, where instead of shooting at the small disc that is actually the boss, you should try taking down all those small cubes.

For the area 5 bosses this strategy only makes limited sense; rather try taking all but the real final boss out very quickly, and then take your time on the final boss by shooting the triangles that the turning circles in the middle shoot out. Also, leave yourself time once you destroyed one of the the circles: it's usually a got idea to fire 9 fully charged shots at the middle part then, but then wait till it shoots out all those tiny rockets so that you have more cannon fodder to boost your points.
The Forgotten

15
Get a local ranking of 1st in lost area
Let's make it short: follow the scoring tips here. If you managed to unlock lost area, it should be a piece of cake to get those 150,000 points. If you have trouble because of getting hit too much, do The Rezident achievement first (see below) to unlock the Final Form for beyond mode so that you can start already leveled up.
Ultimate Cracker

15
Get a local ranking of 1st in all 5 areas in score attack
All I can say here: look at the scoring tips all on top and then practice, practice, practice. This is rather easy for areas 1-4 and if you played through the game and know the levels, you should be able to get those 150,000 points on your second or third attempt. However, area 5 can get a little hard because the game wants 300,000 points of you here! Actually it helps to do a similar attempt just like for scoring 95% here, just that you should never use rapid fire of course. Take your time with the giant ship enemy that shoots lots of rockets, because those rockets can give you quite some points. Make sure to shoot down the snake enemies, use your overdrives at the right spot. You can finish the area 1-4 bosses in area 5 pretty fast, but for the real final boss you should take your time; it is possible to rack up far over 70,000 points just from that one boss. Further details on this can be found at the end of the description to the Firewall Buster achievement.
Power Breaker

10
Clear score attack over 30 times
Well, that says it already. You have to complete score attack 30 times. And yes, you have to finish it - if you die, it isn't counted. It doesn't matter which area you do it on, but I strongly suggest to go for area 1 because it's the shortest. Also I recommend that you only do this after you already got the Ultimate Cracker achievement, as you will already have a few score attacks counted then. Overall, this is rather annoying to do. Try to be sporty: try beating the online highscores! That might give you a bit more motivation to actually do this.
Trance Hacker

15
Clear direct assault (trance)
Important info: this is somewhat confusing maybe, but they don't mean that you have to complete the trance mission that unlocks when you get first place on lost area.
Instead, there are different direct assault modes. You start out with the normal mode, and once you played through it the next mode will unlock. There are six different assault modes (normal, ambient, punk, oldschool, psychedelic and trance) and it goes without saying that you have to play through the first five in order to unlock the sixth mode. So, this means you basically have to beat the game six times.
What helps a lot here is if you already got the Firewall Buster achievement. That will unlock unlimited overdrives for beyond mode, and luckily direct assault *is* a beyond mode. You will still have to take care of the boss battles because all of them (except the area 1 boss) require you to move the camera around at some points, but for the rest you can just lean back and tap. Parts of this guide were written while doing just that - tapping the overdrive button from time to time. Important however is that for the last run, when you actually do direct assault (trance), you can't use infinite overdrives. It can be used to get the different direct assault modes because those are just in-game unlockables, but it's not possible to obtain the actual achievement with it activated.
Also, if you have The Rezident achievement you should already have the Final Form unlocked for beyond mode. Selecting to start with this can also help you for direct assault mode.
The Rezident

15
Achieve 100% shot down and support item in areas1-5, or play for over 10 hours
Luckily you can just do the 10 hours of playing. You will automatically get this when going for the Trance Hacker achievement because of all your play time racking up, still there also is a cheap way to do it: just turn the game on in the evening, select the Trance mission from beyond mode and leave it running - it is an endless mission, and it will count to your play time. Next morning you just quit the mission and there, achievement unlocked. By the way: you unlock Trance mission by getting first place (150.000 points) in lost area (also in beyond mode).
For a bunch of tips on the game overall, click here.