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April 2025 Archipelago (In progress)

Explorer of Time said:
@Devalue Island Resort in your Stardew Valley unlocks all of Nyakuza Metro, which contains nearly a fifth of my A Hat in Time checks (and over a third of remaining checks), including a hinted Surf HM for ArcLG and Artifact of Chozo for Metroid Prime.
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Needs Island Farmhouse to be able to talk to the parrot. Hinted for it. Appears at All In: Third Kerrigan Attack in Starcraft 2.
 
Starcraft 2
Mission #9 (The Gates of Hell)

We received a distress call from the planet Char, where many Terran starships had crash-landed following a lost battle against the Zerg world. We built an army of mercenaries to rescue them, and were rewarded with the Thief Crystal for FFV, a useless Set of Scented Candles, and 16 REP for the Bomb Rush Crew. We also destroyed several Spore Cannons, one of which had a Red Crayon in it, and we used their gene sequences to improve the movement speed of Zerg Locusts, though this is largely useless until we get Swarm Hosts.

Starcraft 2
Mission #10 (The Growing Shadow)

Another distress call we found was on Aiur, our former homeworld, where a scouting party of Stalkers reported that all Protoss left on the surface had been possessed by Amon. We sent a squad of Dragoons alongside the first squad of Stalkers, and rescued the rest from the Void Pylons nearby. We found a Dressed Spinner along the way, and Zeratul himself took the field to retrieve a Garnet Ring for KH2.

Starcraft 2
Mission #11 (Liberation Day)

We sent Raynor and a single squad of 14 Marines to raid a small Dominion base on Mar Sara. The mission was a success, but the only non-junk items we retrieved were a Carved Brazier Recipe for Stardew Valley, and a pair of Peachy Jeans for Luigi.

Starcraft 2
Mission #12 (Lab Rat)

Our Zerg were sent to Umoja, which we conquered with Roaches alongside rescued Zerglings and a couple Ultralisks. We found the Beanstone 1 and Bean Fruit 2 for Mario and Luigi, and the Hunter Crystal for FFV.

@Arcaneum, could you catch a Taillow in LeafGreen when it becomes accessible? You can catch one in Route 22 with the Good Rod, in the Water Labyrinth with the Good Rod or Super Rod, or trade for it at the Pokemon Lab Experiment Room. This isn't a critical item, since SC2 is already in Go Mode, but it does help speed up my Protoss economy and by extension makes every Protoss mission easier.

Devalue said:
Needs Island Farmhouse to be able to talk to the parrot. Hinted for it. Appears at All In: Third Kerrigan Attack in Starcraft 2.
Click to expand...

This is pretty close to the Sword of the Ancestor I'm already going towards, so I'll get it soon after that.
 
Explorer of Time said:
Starcraft 2
Mission #9 (The Gates of Hell)

We received a distress call from the planet Char, where many Terran starships had crash-landed following a lost battle against the Zerg world. We built an army of mercenaries to rescue them, and were rewarded with the Thief Crystal for FFV, a useless Set of Scented Candles, and 16 REP for the Bomb Rush Crew. We also destroyed several Spore Cannons, one of which had a Red Crayon in it, and we used their gene sequences to improve the movement speed of Zerg Locusts, though this is largely useless until we get Swarm Hosts.

Starcraft 2
Mission #10 (The Growing Shadow)

Another distress call we found was on Aiur, our former homeworld, where a scouting party of Stalkers reported that all Protoss left on the surface had been possessed by Amon. We sent a squad of Dragoons alongside the first squad of Stalkers, and rescued the rest from the Void Pylons nearby. We found a Dressed Spinner along the way, and Zeratul himself took the field to retrieve a Garnet Ring for KH2.

Starcraft 2
Mission #11 (Liberation Day)

We sent Raynor and a single squad of 14 Marines to raid a small Dominion base on Mar Sara. The mission was a success, but the only non-junk items we retrieved were a Carved Brazier Recipe for Stardew Valley, and a pair of Peachy Jeans for Luigi.

Starcraft 2
Mission #12 (Lab Rat)

Our Zerg were sent to Umoja, which we conquered with Roaches alongside rescued Zerglings and a couple Ultralisks. We found the Beanstone 1 and Bean Fruit 2 for Mario and Luigi, and the Hunter Crystal for FFV.

@Arcaneum, could you catch a Taillow in LeafGreen when it becomes accessible? You can catch one in Route 22 with the Good Rod, in the Water Labyrinth with the Good Rod or Super Rod, or trade for it at the Pokemon Lab Experiment Room. This isn't a critical item, since SC2 is already in Go Mode, but it does help speed up my Protoss economy and by extension makes every Protoss mission easier.



This is pretty close to the Sword of the Ancestor I'm already going towards, so I'll get it soon after that.
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I'll get it when I am able to yeah, if it's not something that's a priority because you're already in GO mode, I have a lot more checks to do right now so they'll be getting priority (and I don't have either Rod anyway yet or access to Surf to get any of those).
 
I got super f'''ed over in Prime locking me out of being able to finish M&L anytime soon. I'm honestly at the point where I just want the game released so I can go beat it last. I'll never be running a Metroid game under these circumstances again as I personally do not believe they lend themselves well to this format whatsoever. I haven't had this much of a bad time doing anything multiworld related until this very session with Prime and it's absolute shit placement of one of if not my most important item.

Edit: After cooling off and thinking about it... The only way I ever foresee myself running any of the Metroid games like this again is if I lock all major items to my own world, and just let expansions and artifacts out into the greater multiworld. I don't care if I finish a game like Super or Prime last, but I do very much care if they're also locking completion of another huge game behind just one item of theirs.
 
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Alex_Among_Foxes said:
I got super f'''ed over in Prime locking me out of being able to finish M&L anytime soon. I'm honestly at the point where I just want the game released so I can go beat it last. I'll never be running a Metroid game under these circumstances again as I personally do not believe they lend themselves well to this format whatsoever. I haven't had this much of a bad time doing anything multiworld related until this very session with Prime and it's absolute shit placement of one of if not my most important item.

Edit: After cooling off and thinking about it... The only way I ever foresee myself running any of the Metroid games like this again is if I lock all major items to my own world, and just let expansions and artifacts out into the greater multiworld. I don't care if I finish a game like Super or Prime last, but I do very much care if they're also locking completion of another huge game behind just one item of theirs.
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Just checking: Do you still want to release Metroid Prime after cooling off? (Edit: Could also just cheat it in.)

Glanced at the spoiler log out of curiosity. Lists it as Sphere 12, so not super early. Shows a pretty big deadzone for Metroid Prime in the intended progression too. Goes from Metroid Prime doing something in Sphere 4 to getting the Missile Launcher from Setsuna in Sphere 12 (followed by Prime doing nothing until Sphere 23). May have some checks in-between there, just not major ones.
 
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Short session, ran around with the Quantum Fluctuations Frequency to the two quantum shards I have access too, plus another quantum related set of checks.
Only progression item was a Combat Level for Devalue (I knew it was there because I used my free hint for it, but I was going to stop by it eventually anyway).

I've gotten a lot of progression items, I just can't use any of them until I get Launch Codes at the moment. Gonna be a lot of checks going out once I do though.
 
Setsuna said:
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is BK but with a healthy amount of progress! Made it out of Millennium Square, did practically all of Brink Terminal, and ended up back in Millennium Mall, which is about the halfway point of the game. I think I'm sitting somewhere around 400 REP and I believe I'm looking for something in the 500s to end this area. Felt really good to get so much progress done! I'm considering hinting for the bigger amounts of REP sometime down the line, because BRC is a game that doesn't really need any hints. You get really well stocked on graffiti very early and then just continue being REP gated the rest of the game. 124/247
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Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is unblocked currently, I'm just sort of burnt out and I'm not gonna be continuing it for a little bit. I've completely cleaned out Brink Terminal and Millennium Mall, so we're over the halfway point. I surprisingly have enough REP to at least start Pyramid Island, and that's gonna have a lot in it. I've got at least 700 REP right now, and while more is always helpful, I do feel good that I'm not blocked right now and can take some healthy time away from it, especially since Pyramid Island isn't my favourite location in the game. You can expect a decent chunk of unlocks next time I play. But for now, 143/247

Setsuna said:
Final Fantasy is finally BK and not just Soft BK! Being able to finally grab my own Adamantite from Leaf Green was awesome and it meant a good chunk of items were open to me. Between obtaining things like Excalibur, the Ninja and Samurai job crystals, and some actually solid Black and White magic (though they're only the high level expensive magic, draining my MP quickly), it meant taking care of most bosses I was up against was a breeze. Minotauros and Omniscient are still going to be a problem since I learned the former is not supposed to actually be able to cast Holy, and the randomizer just allows him to cast an extremely overpowered spell before you can do anything to counter it. Grinding is probably my best bet to get out of that alive, and I'd like more magic to have more options against Omniscient. But those aren't very important. What is important is gathering lots of Gil and obtaining my Anti-Barrier and Bracelet to unlock the rest of the game. My four tablets are also necessary to beat the game, but the rewards for obtaining them are essentially junk again. I'll hint for those later down the line if necessary. 177/360
Anti-Barrier is at ExplorerOfFuture's Zero Hour: Hold Just a Little Longer
Bracelet is at CherrimKH2's (PR) Boat Fight Bonus: Donald Slot 1
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Final Fantasy V remains basically unchanged, and remains in BK. I got the Barrier Tower unblocked today so I went and did that, cleaning out about 4 checks. Unfortunately Atomos was still the boss there, unchanged, but fortunately we got through with no issues. Anti-Barrier is still the thing that'll really crack things open, because I have most of the pages to enter other dungeons with a bunch of checks. The only page I'm missing is the Pyramid Page, which is going to be the most important, please let me know if anybody gets it! 185/360
Anti-Barrier is at ExplorerOfFuture's Zero Hour: Hold Just a Little Longer
2nd Tablet is at SetsunaLG's Route 23 - Hidden Item After Second Checkpoint
3rd Tablet is at CherrimKH2's (AG) Agrabah AP Boost

Setsuna said:
Kirby Super Star is BK with a little progress done. Most of the game has been cleaned out, the only things I'm missing are the Garden, the last area of Great Cave Offensive because I don't have enough gold to access it (which will just be obtained over time as I collect treasures) and the remaining planets for Milky Way Wishes. I'm also missing a decent chunk of treasures in the Old Tower since you're required to have Hammer or Stone for them. On second thought I think Stone is going to be the more helpful of the two, but one of the two will at least get me a good amount of stuff. I'm mostly done with the game, I think it just needs a little push, and I'm very excited. 99/131
Hammer is at DevalueStardew's Magic Ink
Skyhigh is at ArcLG's Rocket Warehouse - Maze Team Rocket Grunt Reward (Left)
Hotbeat is at ExplOfDarkness's Downtown (MAP13) - Yellow keycard
Stone is at AlexM&L's Beanstar Piece Hermie
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Kirby Super Star remains in BK but I think I've finally hinted for everything I want. I was able to brute force my way into every treasure in Old Tower, so you can ignore any hints I made for things like Hammer or Stone, I don't need them. I only need a bit of treasure left to enter the Garden, beat Great Cave Offensive, and that should be my goal? Treasures are too plentiful to really hint for them, but the alternative is to get all the remaining planets to clear Milky Way Wishes, and... Aqualiss is hidden behind Arc beating the champion, so...
After playing through Leaf Green for a while, I had to come back to Super Star to clean it out for my Cascade Badge, and managed to finally get into the Garden, but I realized I need even more gold to be able to actually clear the Cave after its final boss. Essentially I'm just gated by collecting every treasure, and the game is practically complete at this point. Any remaining checks are locked behind my hints for Aqualiss, Skyhigh, and Hotbeat.
120/131
Stone is at AlexM&L's Beanstar Piece Hermie
Hammer is at DevalueStardew's Magic Ink
Aqualiss is at ArcLG's Champion's Room - Champion Reward
Skyhigh is at ArcLG's Rocket Warehouse - Maze Team Rocket Grunt Reward (Left)
Hotbeat is at ExplOfDarkness's Downtown (MAP13) - Yellow keycard

Setsuna said:
Leaf Green is unblocked, I just don't have the time to play it right now. Obtaining the Blue Tea really cracked a lot open, as I could travel to Saffron City from Cerulean, cleaning out most of Silph Co., and then finally reach Lavender Town, without needing the PokeFlute! From there, things like Pokemon Tower and Rock Tunnel could get cleaned out, before heading to Celadon to completely raid their Department Store. I bought one of everything!~ Thanks to the Tri Pass, I could also head to the first three islands, and grab a little bit of loot there. I didn't realize how many items were in Berry Forest.
I managed to find my Soul Badge while playing other games today and my plan is to take Surf and crack open most of Kanto with it. I'll tie a few of the loose ends around the areas I've been, and then it's south from Lavender down the entire road to Fuschia, across the water to Cinnabar, eventually reaching Pallet Town, Viridian, Pewter, and all the way around back to Cerulean. I am extremely excited. 394/1054
Poke Flute is at SetsunaLG's Pewter Gym - Prize
HM01 Cut is at AlexPrime's Phazon Mines: Ventilation Shaft
Cascade Badge is at SetsunaKSS's Garden - Kong's Barrel
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Leaf Green is BK after a lot of hard work! I did everything I set out to do (though I did have to stop to go to Kirby Super Star and pick up my Cascade Badge) and I had some trouble at the Seafoam Islands. It just feels great to get a lot of work done. In a single session I managed to grab Cut and Fly, and finally been able to use Surf. I've been having good luck getting badges as well, so my only real roadblock in terms of HMs is not having Strength, but since I can just fly to the Pokemon League if need be, I hinted for my remaining badges and my Rainbow Pass instead, which will open up practically everything on the Sevii Islands including that Camping Permit. There's still a lot to do, but the way I see it either grab a few checks when they unlock so I can hint for my Rocket Hideout Key (which is where my Rainbow Pass is hidden) and then clean out the islands, or I manage to get my remaining badges before then and just finish my game outright. Fantastic progress! 716/1054
Boulder Badge is at ExplorerOfFuture's Supreme: Kraith
Volcano Badge is at DevalueStardew's Harvest Cranberries
Progressive Pass is at SetsunaLG's Rocket Hideout B1F - Southwest Room Item

Here's a list of all the progression stuff I took note of or remembered as I was playing, but I'm sure there was a small amount of other stuff not included here.
A Hat in Time: Time Piece x2
A Short Hike: Golden Feather x2, Seashell
BRC: 96REP (across multiple checks)
DOOM II: Barrels o' Fun (MAP23), Monster Condo (MAP27) - Blue skull key, Nirvana (MAP21) - Yellow skull key, The Focus (MAP04)
HoloCure: +1 Growth Upgrade
KH2: Dodge Roll, Form Boost, Ice Cream, Reflect Element
KSS: Falcon Helmet
LttP: Small Key (Ganon's Tower), Small Key (Turtle Rock)
ArcLG: Safari Pass
SetsunaLG: Card Key 5F, HM02 Fly, PokeFlute
M&L: Bean Fruit 5, Fake Beanstar
OW: Quantum Fluctuations Frequency
StarCraft 2: Blazefire Gunblade (Nova Weapon), Hellbat Aspect (Hellion), Progressive Orbital Command, Progressive Stimpack (Marine)
Stardew: Fishing Level, Foraging Level x2, Mr Qi's Plane Ride, Pumpkin Seeds, Rare Seed, Sandy <3
Z1: Sword
 
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I'll do a separate post for anything I get from evolving my Pokemon (just so the other post doesn't take forever and people don't see what I've got)

Items got

Vermilion Key - Setsuna LG
Ice Rod - EoT ALttP

I have like 4 checks now, being Pupitar/Tyranitar/Dragonair/Dragonite, but I am not training those up right now seeming as I've done about 500 checks today! If you really need them, ping me and I will get to it
 
Setsuna said:
Boulder Badge is at ExplorerOfFuture's Supreme: Kraith
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This'll be a couple days, it's on the opposite corner of the grid from the Anti-Barrier I'm trying to get for you.

@Devalue I only need one more Seashell for A Short Hike, so I've hinted for two of them in your Stardew Valley. One is in your Rarecrow #1 (Turnip Head), and the other is in your Fair Stardrop. There are other Seashells out there, so it's possible I may get my fifteenth from someone else as well. Extra Seashells are completely worthless once I get fifteen, so don't try and get both.
 
Starcraft 2
Mission #13 (Haven's Fall)

A Terran world under our control, Haven, has been attacked by the Zerg. We easily beat the Zerg with permacloaked Wraiths, and found the White Lv. 5 ability for FFV in the colonists' mines. A Zerg Hive that we slew had an Old Amber for ArcLG, and we received, as a reward for saving the colony... an Aquatic Sanctuary for Stardew Valley, i.e. a big fishtank.

Mission #14 (Cutthroat)

We conquered the Terran world of Dead Man's Rock, inhabited by mercenaries and pirates, by sending a squad of four Vultures and two Diamondbacks to sweep through and steal all their poorly-defended minerals. Then, we simply hired half the mercenaries to destroy the other half, who surrendered when we nearly blew up their Planetary Fortress with long-range Siege Tanks. We got a Small Key for Swamp Palace, and 10000 Money for Stardew Valley, but nothing else worth mentioning.

Mission #15 (Zero Hour)

We landed Terran troops on Mar Sara and heavily fortified our base, while we excavated the Anti Barrier. While waiting, we trained armies of Marines backed up by all our available mercenaries, and razed all the Zerg bases to the ground. Apart from the Anti Barrier that we got for @Setsuna, there isn't anything else here aside from money and consumables, so we retreated from Mar Sara for now and let the Terran Dominion fight the remaining Zerg.
 
Devalue said:
Just checking: Do you still want to release Metroid Prime after cooling off? (Edit: Could also just cheat it in.)

Glanced at the spoiler log out of curiosity. Lists it as Sphere 12, so not super early. Shows a pretty big deadzone for Metroid Prime in the intended progression too. Goes from Metroid Prime doing something in Sphere 4 to getting the Missile Launcher from Setsuna in Sphere 12 (followed by Prime doing nothing until Sphere 23). May have some checks in-between there, just not major ones.
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As much as I want to say yes... >.> Nah, I'll fight through it this time. But I'm serious about either making a very big change to the way I run Metroids during these, or just not running another one unless it's in special case Archipelagos in the future. (part of me would love to do a 300~ or less checks per game session at some point just to see how it would go, as an example)

Edit: After reading Setsu's post, knowing both of the last major items I need for Prime are locked behind Pyramid Page, I second her strong desire to find it. So PLEASE @ the hell out of her and I if someone does! 😵
 
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Thanks to Setsu finding my Silver Arrow, all I need for GO in Z1 is my Bow from here:
@Explorer of Time's Shatter the Sky: Leviathan. The sooner I get that the sooner the game's released, but I wouldn't call it *the highest* priority if it's really out of the way.
 
Setsuna said:
Volcano Badge is at DevalueStardew's Harvest Cranberries
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Got it. Lucked out on this one. Saw Cranberry Seeds on the Travelling Merchant (random items outside of logic, but in limited amounts).
Explorer of Time said:
@Devalue I only need one more Seashell for A Short Hike, so I've hinted for two of them in your Stardew Valley. One is in your Rarecrow #1 (Turnip Head), and the other is in your Fair Stardrop. There are other Seashells out there, so it's possible I may get my fifteenth from someone else as well. Extra Seashells are completely worthless once I get fifteen, so don't try and get both.
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Saw the hints in-game before seeing this post. Picked up both Seashells (literally from the same vendor) and even a third one blindly from crafting.

Writes an update post later.
 
Alex_Among_Foxes said:
@Explorer of Time's Shatter the Sky: Leviathan. The sooner I get that the sooner the game's released, but I wouldn't call it *the highest* priority if it's really out of the way.
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The hints are piling up in Starcraft, and my unit comps are already strong enough that not much is challenging anymore, so I'm going to abandon my original plan to get all the checks in favor of just blitzing the goal mission. Expect this, and everything else in my Starcraft, in two to three hours or so.
Devalue said:
Saw the hints in-game before seeing this post. Picked up both Seashells (literally from the same vendor) and even a third one blindly from crafting.
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Thank you. All it had was a Yellow Scarf for a LeafGreen and some Doom ammo, but it'll be necessary to goal later.
 
@Arcaneum, if you can get the South Hidden Item (Right) in your LeafGreen's Celadon Game Corner, that will make my last mission easier and faster. Very low priority though since I'm going to goal tonight regardless of whether you find it, but there's no point in not using my available hint.
 
I got bored, and then I remembered, thanks to the combination of items I currently have, that I can partially bypass launch codes. Vendily can have a bit of out-of-logic as a treat. It only really opens up one new planet for me. The other planet I don't have the requisite items for it, and the DLC area isn't made accessible via this alternative method.

I wasn't very optimal with it (I had a pit stop along the way, and I used up a lot of fuel to move faster), but thanks to that, I was able to get my own Brittle Hollow Translator.
Still not significantly closer to goaling, but it's fun to do a bit of stuff like this every once in a while.

I found a few progression items, but most of it was filler.

I cleaned up almost all the Brittle Hollow checks, and a small portion of the Timber Hearth checks. I might make another trip to Timber Hearth and its moon another session.
 
And Starcraft 2 is released! Here are all the Progression items I found.

AlexEM: Magma Emblem, Aurora Ticket, Room 2 Key

AlexPrime: 2 Missile Expansions, Artifact of Lifegiver, Progressive Wave Beam

AlexZ1: Bow, Sword, 1 Heart Container

CherrimKH2: Proof of Peace, Disney Castle Key, Thunder Element, Auto Valor

DevalueStardew: Skull Key, 3 Progressive Mine Elevators, Combat Level, Progressive Shed, Ancient Seeds, Alex Heart, Shane Heart, Abigail Heart, Island Farmhouse, Progressive Pan

ExplOfDarkness: Downtown: Yellow Keycard, The Spirit World: Yellow Skull Key, The Crusher (MAP06), The Inmost Dens (MAP14), Super Shotgun

ExplorerOfPast: Ether Medallion, Mushroom, Small Key (Hyrule Castle), Small Key (Misery Mire), Small Key (Thieves' Town), Small Key (Ganon's Tower)

ExplorerOfTime: 3 Time Pieces, Relic (Cow), Relic (Green Crayon)

SetsunaBRC: 136 REP

SetsunaFFV: Elder Branch

SetsunaKSS: Gold Coin, Turtle Shell, Warrior Shield

Setsuna LG: Hideout Key, Boulder Badge, HM06 Rock Smash, Bike Voucher, Helix Fossil

VendilyOW: Ghost Matter Wavelength, Feldspar's Signal, Hidden Gorge Painting Code, Deep Space Radio Frequency
 
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