The 10.2 star run has been posted and the let's play is formally finished. I've posted some route notes below so that you can get an idea of what my mindset was for how I approached this. Thank you so much to everyone who watched, I had a blast making this. I was super worried I'd burn out on this game in the process of getting it ready, but I honestly gained a new appreciation for it and had a ton of fun optimizing my route for a faster clear and getting a 10.2 star rank. It's a bit sad to be completely done with the Team Silent games, but there are plenty more games out there for me to fully explore with the incentive of recording for them. Hope to see you in what I do next!
10.2 Star route notes:
To start things off, for this 10.2 star run I played on One-Weapon Mode for the purposes of unlocking All Weapons Mode. How does this affect the run? Well for the most part it actually doesn't, and more than likely costs quite a bit of time. For starters, you can't use the very fast Pick Axe of Despair kill on Walter, which easily eliminates any potential time save starting with the Axe gives you. Not that I would have used it, but One Weapon also disables the spawn of the Sub Machine gun, removing a very useful way Eileen can contribute. And finally, the simple fact is that most of the first half of the game has you avoiding combat at all costs and any kills I snagged prior to when you normally get the Axe were purely for safety in avoiding deaths and having to restart. The only area I estimate this legitimately saved me time was Building World 1, where I opt to kill the Sniffer Dogs in the pet store to avoid any complications in collecting the key to Albert's. Contrary to what some may say, I don't find this mode to make the game any easier if you pick the axe, at least in the context of a ranking run, and it probably makes it harder overall. With that established, let's breakdown the run as follows,
Starting Out and Subway World: This part of the game is fairly automatic, simply a matter of checking all the key triggers to spawn the bathroom hole. Once you pick up the pistol and return to Subway world, this is where routing starts to become a factor. I opt to pick up all pistol bullets save for the pack on the opposite end of the first floor where you later find the silver bullets, since you can simply grab them once you return to Subway World the second time. We need 56 bullets altogether for The One Truth, and I plan to use a bunch on the escalator for safety against the Wall Men, so rather than aggressively route my pick ups I just opt to grab as many as possible along the way I normally go. After grabbing Cynthia and heading to the portal room on the opposite platform, it's important to take the B3 ladder back up to the other side and unlock the door there to save time on Subway World second visit. On B3, we see one of the few times I make use of the Axe in the early game to dispatch the Sniffer dog on the B3 platform. I like to kill this dog to avoid any potential damage before getting on the escalator, and while I normally use bullets the axe is much simpler and cheaper. I avoid the nutrition drink in case I need it later, and then there's a fairly sloppy escalator section. This part is easily one of the toughest to optimize in the early game, but as long as I get through it relatively quickly and finish greater than being on death's door, I'm fine. Since we have forced usage of the chest when we pick up the Rusty Bloody Key in Forest World, I hang onto all items I have until that point.
Forest World First Time: This is another pretty automatic area. I stop to pick up the pistol bullets on the first Hummer screen, and it eats a bit of time to kill all the Hummers, but it's also pretty slow and much more dangerous to let them nip at you while grabbing the bullets, so I consider it an acceptable time loss. Afterwards, the only thing I have to be mindful of is grabbing the memo from Jasper's car, since we only get two opportunities to grab it. The only scary section here is the path to the rusty key, which has an absolute party of sniffer dogs along the way which can very easily sprawl out into a death with a bad approach and low health. Thankfully this goes about as good as it can go short of avoiding damage entirely, and we're past the last potentially difficult part of the first half of the game.
Water Prison World First Time: The first area where I had notable time loss due to my famous faulty memory kicking in. I forgot to grab the Saints Medallion on the trip to the basement and had to waste time grabbing it after spinning the wheels, and I also entered the third floor prematurely before opening the sluice gates on the roof. As usual, I get kind of lost in the third floor, but you do really want to be thorough here as there are several memos within this level and forgetting any of them will nullify the 10.2 star run. Otherwise, this area is practically a glorified cutscene, all combat is perfectly avoidable, especially if you ignore the pistol bullets in the Wall Men cell. I could have easily cleared this about 45 seconds faster without the routing flubs, but this is far from the worst time loss we'll see in this area (Unfortunately).
Building World First Time: Before entering, it's critical you check the peep hole at the front door to get the bloody memo from Frank. This memo is permanently missable, and not just in the sense that it takes too much time to backtrack for it. Otherwise, Building World is almost a complete straight shot. We see the second major use of the Axe here, taking out the Sniffer Dogs in the pet store much more efficiently than if we used the Aluminum Bat. We get the axe at the end of this level normally, so this is where One-Weapon with the Axe merges with a normal run, and begins to bleed time due to missing stuff like the Pick Axe. I opt to grab the second sword of Obedience since I wanted to pin all the new victims in this run, but you can easily shave 30 seconds off the time I got here if you ignore it. Jasper and Richard are almost completely ignorable (Jasper especially) so it's not a huge deal if you don't have Swords or anti-spirit supplies to deal with them.
Apartment World First Time: Once again, this is more like a cutscene than a level. To complete this, we only have to hit 4 rooms: Room 301, Room 105, Room 102 and Room 203. All these rooms have the memos we need for a max rank, as well as room 102 having the one we need to advance the game. None of the other rooms are really worth the time to grab anything from, though there is plenty of spare time to grab the portable med kit from Room 106 if you desire to have the extra healing. At this point, we of course meet up with Eileen and the game begins to get a lot more difficult.
Hospital World: Starting this out, I opt to kill the Hummers but honestly it's better to ignore them because they despawn once you grab Eileen. We need to get the Nurses memo, and I grab the med kit and ampoule for future use. Once we get to the Hallway, there were only two items I considered necessary to grab: the Saint Medallion for battling Cynthia and a Holy Candle for dealing with hauntings since we want to get the Escape ending. Unfortunately I had terrible RNG for the doors and ended up having to search everything anyway. Obviously I ignored the Revolver bullets and I passed on the pistol bullets in the squishy room since it's too much of a time loss to take them but otherwise I grabbed everything else. Once meeting up with Eileen, we return to Room 302 and do some light inventory management. Since we have to return here shortly after starting Subway World anyway, it's not super critical you grab every item you need but it is wise to clear space at least since you'll likely be full up if you grabbed every item in the hallway sequence. I also grab the pistol to quickly dispatch the Gum Head that blocks the hallway when you first re-enter Subway World. We have all the ammo we need at this point to defeat The One Truth, so I won't be going out of my way to pick up extra, but I'll definitely be grabbing anything else that is in the way. Returning to Eileen with the key to the gate out of the hospital, I play it safe with the stairway patients and knock them onto the center step to dispatch them. It is faster to just run past them and let Eileen catch up, but I want to do my best to protect Eileen and extend her health as much as possible since we need to use the slower Rusty Axe method to defeat Walter in this run.
Subway World Second Time: Picking up the Holy candle along the way, I dispatch the Gum Head in the hallway with the pistol and rush to the bathroom with Eileen in tow. Unfortunately we need to return to the apartment again as soon as we enter Subway World to get the Toy Key, and this puts us into contact with our first Haunting. Holy candles are the way to go for dispatching these, Saints medallions not only take longer to dispel the hauntings and require you to stand still and let them run until the haunting is gone, they also only have enough durability at max to get rid of two hauntings. Very inefficient and since we end returning to the apartment at least 6 times this run, I do need to collect as many holy candles as that for safety's sake. I make sure I have everything I need, and return to Subway World. Entering the central terminal, we engage Cynthia in combat. Quick uncharged strikes with the axe and saint medallion equipped end this fight in record time. I also place a holy candle but I have been informed this doesn't actually stack with the saint's medallion damage, so ultimately it was a waste to do so. Even if you're not going to pin all the new victims, it's advisable to do so for Cynthia as she is by far one of the most aggressive and potentially dangerous if left unpinned. Heading down to the B2 Platform, we grab the filthy coin and take advantage of the door we unlocked earlier to quickly get to the opposite platform and leave Eileen in a much better spot to collect later. Returning to the apartment to wash the filthy coin and dump the Lynch Street Line Coin, I don't actually go out onto the portal side platform because the items there just aren't worth the effort to get. Grabbing the murder scene key, I make my way towards the escalators on B3 and return to 1F to grab the Commuter's Ticket and the Train handle. At this point, I travel into the Greedy Worm hall to pick up the Silver Bullet and Pistol Bullets I passed on earlier. This area has several Gum Heads in it that are too much of a hassle to kill, so I like to come here on returning for Eileen so I don't have to worry about her getting surrounded, though this isn't strictly necessary. Picking up Eileen and back tracking to B3 with the Commuter's Ticket, we stick the train handle and grab our third sword of obedience. It's important to finish this area with 2 open item slots so we can grab the Torch and the first doll piece without having to do an inventory dump at the apartment.
Forest World Second Time: Picking up and lighting the torch as we enter, we grab the first doll piece and make a rush for the orphanage. This area can be a little scary with Walter and Sniffer Dogs chasing you down, but fortunately we're in good standing for health and Eileen generally keeps up. When entering the burned out orphanage, it's important to check the wheelchair Doll for its memo, as this will be permanently lost once you return the pieces. We slot in the piece we grabbed, pick up the Holy Candle, and return to Room 302 to dump items, clear hauntings and soak the torch in oil. With really good item routing, it's not necessary to return and there's enough holy flames that it really isn't necessary to soak the torch, but may as well since we're here anyway. Returning to Forest World, I pick up the chain for Eileen since she can help out in a couple places and set about taking out the most dangerous areas first. Now to be honest, for speed purposes it's best to ditch Eileen here since it wastes close to a minute having to wait for her as we travel along the various paths, but she takes a lot of damage from doing this and won't be healing it off at all for the rest of the game more than likely. For the best chances of getting Escape, we want to have Eileen stay with us the whole time. We head towards the cliff area first to grab the talisman, and I utilize the pistol and Chain Eileen to deal with the twin victims along the way. Were we playing a standard mode run, we'd want space in our inventory for the Pick Axe of Despair, but that's a non-issue in One Weapon. We grab the talisman, relight our torch and grab the doll piece along the way, and prepare ourselves for Jasper next. Jasper is really tanky and has a tendency to kite away after taking enough damage, so he can take awhile even with Eileen helping out. If there's one new victim to skip, he's the one because he only really hassles you on his path in Forest World and one area in Building World, and he's completely walled out by a Saint's Medallion. We pin him for bragging rights and continue about our quest, swapping our destroyed Saint's Medallion for the fresh one in Jasper's room in the process. When reaching the well in the back of this path, Gum Heads will spawn in the previous room when returning through it, but you should be able to just run past without them even sparing a thought to you or Eileen. We grab the other doll piece on the return trip and make our way to Rusty Key path to get the final piece there as well as the second silver bullet. The doll has been assembled and the level is complete.
Water Prison Second Visit: Oh God, I was guaranteed to completely balls up one world in this run and this one came very close to killing this recording. I made several costly goofs here, which is frustrating because otherwise this is the shortest and easiest level in the second half. This level has a simple start, we return to floor 3, drop down to the kitchen through the previously lined up hole, grab the prisoner's shirt and the saint's medallion and return to room 302 on the first floor portal. I set myself up to clear this level and the next by grabbing the pistol, the two silver bullets, and our reserve Sword of Obedience. We quickly drop Andrew and pin him for the generator room key, and here's where things start to go sideways. I accidentally skip stopping at the second floor for the sword of obedience for Richard before grabbing Eileen, and have to wait for her to enter the floor with me so we can grab it together, costing about 30 seconds. Once we make it to the basement generator room, for the first time since I've started performing the trick, I completely botch Twin Victims skip, causing Eileen to get her shit slapped repeatedly while I nearly get killed, only being saved by having the foresight to grab the portable med kit in the previous room. Luckily I survive and Eileen has been protected well enough to this point that she doesn't take too much damage, but this does force a return to room 302 to use the ampoule to recover. Overall this screw up wasted about 2 minutes and potentially made getting the Escape ending a lot more dicey, but not by as much as you might expect.
Building World Second Visit: Much like the let's play proper, we cap Richard immediately and pin him to start things out before grabbing the Reminisces memo. Richard will flee the area if you attempt to beat him with a Saint's boosted axe, so he's a good recipient for the Silver Bullet to avoid having to bash his head in twice. We won't be doing the Building World skip in this run, so that forces about 8 minutes to be spent on the Reminisces puzzle. Fortunately, beyond grabbing the Volley Ball and depositing the cue ball, this level is pretty linear. We do the aforementioned tasks and regroup with Eileen, completing the rest of the puzzle and making our way to the bar. There are a couple scary areas here but if you run straight through them and have Eileen unequipped, you can just just blast right through and ignore every enemy with no issue. Upon reaching the bar, we send the Gum Head in it on the lightless walk and return to the apartment to stock up for The One Truth. We need a fully loaded handgun and 48 bullets to get a pistol kill here. I also bring the chain in case we engage it in a spot where Eileen can help out. We slowly wind down the staircase to the boss, taking out hummers along the way but honestly it might just be better to blitz through the area as these things are of minimal danger to Eileen. I end up need to use the portable med kit I brought along due to the chip damage we were taking, but it's okay because we get another at the stair base. The One Truth ends up being a pretty mediocre fight, with the Truth being towards the center of the room and the 5th one I end up checking. Thankfully, from the position we hit it, Eileen ends up being able to assist with the chain and we drop the thing in record time with plenty of ammo to spare. Took more damage than I would have liked here, but it's how it goes sometimes. We make our way to Room 302 of the past, collect all the memos, and make our way to the end of the game.
Apartment World Second Visit: After getting the Keys of Liberation, make sure to get the memo in the utility room. Would really suck to miss it and void a 10.2 star run at this point. Once again, Apartment World is basically a cutscene, being a linear path to the end and a glorified fetch quest. Luckily, we can ditch Eileen in the starting hallway since she'll get teleported to the ground floor once we start the quest to check the Walter apparitions. If there's one optional room that's worth checking here, once again it's room 106 which several healing items, including the final ampoule of the game. I skip it to save time, but it's something to keep in mind. Once we secure the umbilical cord and Eileen wanders off to the final boss fight, we're ready to return to room 302 and finish the game. I grab a couple healing items for safety, expel the last haunting of the game, and enter the final boss arena.
Walter and the Conjurer: There's a very easy way to tell if you'll succeed in saving Eileen here. If you can use the umbilical cord on the conjurer and grab the 4 spears on the western side of the chamber before Eileen makes her first step, you are clear to go for winning this fight with Eileen still alive. We finagle Walter into his spot in the second spear monolith and the east side of the chamber and stick the conjurer with the final 4 spears. Sadly, he did Shun Goku Satsu to get out of it, but that doesn't matter too much with a pure Rusty Axe strategy. Once he's vulnerable, we proceed to wail on him with fully charged strikes, backing him into the wall so he can't escape our onslaught. It takes 26-27 fully charged strikes with the Axe to deep six Walter, and I luck out and get the 26 hit kill with a few steps to spare on Eileen. Game is finished and the coveted 10.2 star rank is obtained!
