A Hat in Time

A Hat in Time

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Midouri's Guide to Death Wish: Subcon Forest
By Miri Ryllis ミリス
A comprehensive guide to every Death Wish in the game, including the secret ones.

Subcon Forest Edition
   
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Introductions
Welcome to my guide, thank you for checking it out. It's my first one, so please do not hesitate to comment suggestions or the like below.

I know there's several out there already, but I feel like I could be able to give my own little spin on things (plus I could always use an excuse to ramble about Death Wish). This series of guides will house all 38 + 2 secret Death Wishes.

Each Death Wish will be grouped by chapters (so Mafia Town, Dead Bird Studios, etc) and will feature information of:
  • Alterations from the vanilla game mission
  • The 3 objectives that must be completed
  • General advice of what to keep in mind before you start, and recommended loadout... If a boss mission, then the boss attack patterns, tells, and HP
  • The nitty gritty explanations of how to win each objective
  • A video from my YouTube channel that showcases the mission for the visual learner

Looking for another chapter of Death Wishes?
Note that this guide assumes you are NOT using Peace and Tranquility mode. You are free to if you wish, as it will make the death wish easier.

Without further adieu, let us sign the contract of updooting the guide and BEGIN!
Death Wish #19 - Snatcher Coins
Alterations from Vanilla:
NONE

Objectives:
Aquire 3 Snatcher Coins

General Advice:
The Compass Badge sold by the Mafia Boss inside Chapter 2's shiproom will tell you where the coins are with a purple arrow. This mission can be done in most acts.

Coin Locations:
  • Snatcher Coin 1 of 3: Located in the swamp where the Subcon Well is, do you recall a giant ice block? Find it, then jump onto the top of the twilight bell and double jump to the top of the ice block. Be as high as possible up it then jump ontop of the skull near it, then onto the leaves right behind the skull. Face right and jump as high as you can, using the hookshot the second you are prompted then rotate around until you see another hookshot. Swing to it and then the coin is on the platform in front of it.

  • Snatcher Coin 2 of 3: Located at the very top of Vanessa's Manor (not going inside). You can use the ice pillars to wall climb onto the roof from various locations, though after that you must find a spot you can wall jump to the next set of roofs, and the coin is resting on a chimney

  • Snatcher Coin 3 of 3: Located where the purple rift was, with the shattered ice geiser, but at the very top, so you'll have to perform some platforming.

Video:
Death Wish #20 - Speedrun Well
Alterations from Vanilla:
You are now timed

Objectives:
Clear the mission in 2:00, 1:40, and 1:25 or less.

General Advice:
Make sure that "Auto-Skippable Cutscenes" is enabled, it will save you time. Sprint Hat and No Bonk will save you. Immediately sprint to the well and hit the Twilight Bell to jump up the green platforms into the well

Optional Advanced Tech Strat: with No Bonk, slide between the tree trunk and well on the right side of the well (without jumping, facing slightly toward the well) to be launched quickly to the top of the well and once you're at the apex, cancel the dash while aiming your stick toward the well. It isnt required, but if you wanna be super speedy

The second you fall, head to and unplug the water. Use the current to rush to the ladder above and then turn around to grapple the hookshot. Release from the hookshot at the apex of the swing and jump to the pipe above.

Continue up the pipes to trigger the air pipe event and use it to get launched into the air. Immediately turn 90 degrees right and grapple onto a hookshot and then swiing another 90 degrees right onto the final set of platforms.

With the bomb fruit, throw it the second it absorbs the spirit to be whisked out, then air dash to the time piece.

Video:
Death Wish #21 - Rift Collapse: Sleepy Subcon
Alterations from Vanilla:
  • The rift is mirrored
  • You are preciously timed
  • You have 3 lives. If you lose them all, you are locked out for 5 minutes.

Objectives:
  • Escape with 30 seconds remaining
  • Collect all Rift Pons

General Advice:
Due to a nerf from Nyakuza DLC, the Rift Collapse Stopwatch timer is slowed. Now, it takes 1.33 real-time seconds to reduce the stopwatch by 1.00 second, giving much more wiggle room to win.

The shortest of all the rifts, but also tricky in its own right. Always have the Sprint Hat and Magnet Badge equipped!!! Learn the layout of the rift and pon positions!
It is tight to do both challenges at once, so unless you want the extra challenge I would recommend going for one at a time, preferably the "All Pons" one first so that you then know what you may be able to cut down on. There are 19 pons in the rift but only 15 are required. .

Pon locations
(the order I list them is the recommended grab order):
If you are to skip out on pons for the 30 seconds remaining objective, I recommend a full clear of Room 2 and 3 (Pons #1-12), and the 3 pons that you grab on the way to the portal to the next level in Room 4 (Pons #15-17).

  • Room 1 - No pons.

  • Room 2 - (6 pons, 5 total to progress)
    • 1. Right in front of you upon entering
    • 2+3. Turn back immediately then take a left, dashing as much as you safely can into the next set of pons
    • 4. Use the hookshot from Pon #3 to swing northeast and land on the platforms, making your way northwst to the next pon
    • 5. continue past Pon #4 to see this pon right behind the machine
    • 6. Suicide down to reset your position and you'll find this pon inside a house on your way to the portal to the next level

  • Room 3 - (6 pons, 4 total to progress)
    • 7. upon entering, quickly move forward a bit to trigger thee racoon to fall, then kill it for a pon
    • 8. Get the pon just in front of this one, it will require killing a spider
    • 9. Immediately go left and jump to the next platform, it is on a chair
    • 10. Immediately jump onto the spinning planks and wait for it to pass you over the pon
    • 11+12. Right next to the portal to the next level, you can kill the racoon and grab the behind pon

  • Room 4 - (5 pons, 5 total to progress)
    • 13. A pon is to your immediate left
    • 14. Dash to the rightward pon on a frozen leaf platform, preferrably falling afterwards
    • 15+16. Just make your way up to the portal tto the next levele
    • 17. Just behind the portal to the next level

  • Room 5 - (2 pons, 1 total to progress)
    • 18. upon entering, shoot right and you should see a glow sticking from the edge of the circle. Fall over to it and suicide down, collecting it via magnet
    • 19. Sitting next to the portal to the next level on top of a box of bones

    The Time Piece orb takes 4 hits to break.

    Video:
Death Wish #22 - Quality Time with Snatcher
Should have known I wasn't nice

Alterations from Vanilla:
  • There is now a timer clocking how long you're surviving the fight
  • There is no way to hit him
  • He does not spawn potions
Objectives:
Survive the Snatcher for 2, 4, and 6 minutes.

General Advice:
He only uses a handful of attacks during this mission. I recommend hugging the very edge of the arena as that gives you the most room to move. Getting hit is fine as long as you do not die, but note you have to die to finish the Death Wish now, so wait until you're at 6 minutes.

His Exploding Rings will detonate once the inner light-pink ring becomes a complete circle, which generally takes a second though this Death Wish will vary that speed depending on how long it's gone on for.

  • Minion Summons - He will summon 2 crowds of minions and swing them around. Jumping counterclockwise will seal the deal that you avoid damage.

  • 4-way explosion - He will summon 4 rings that rotate and eventually stand still and explode. Study them, pay attention to when they begin to slow down, and move accordingly. This move gets faster as the fight goes on. After the 3 minute mark they end up exploding almost the moment they come up. When that happens, you almost do not even want to move when they spawn.

  • Clockwise Explosion Barrage - He will summon sets of explosions that go off and summon another set shortly before the previous one explodes. They line up with your distance from Snatcher and will choose a random spot level to you to spawn. I recommend moving clockwise, adjusting for any that come near you. This attack will become longer and longer as the fight goes on. After the 3 minute mark, they end up exploding and spawning so fast that I honestly recommend just moving around in a tiny circle and dashing when one happens to be spawning in your little circle, as otherwise it's way too fast to properly avoid.

  • Whack-A-Mole - He will continously appear from the ground, causing shockwaves each time. Simply time your jumps to avoid being knocked around. This attack will become longer and longer, but also slower and slower as the fight goes on.

  • Red Rings of Death - He will summon a barrage of red rings that explode almost instant, starting from one end and slowly making their way toward you. I suggest dodging this by moving in the opposite direction as they are spawning and dashing toward or away from Snatcher once they get close to you as while they seek your location, they don't do it quickly. This attack will become longer and longer as the fight goes on.
Video:
Death Wish #23 - Boss Rush
Alterations from Vanilla:
  • You must fight Mafia Boss, the Act 2 winner, Toilet of Doom, Snatcher, and Mustache Girl back-to-back!
  • They all have reduced health as if you died to them (and then some)
  • You can die 3 times, though the checkpoint keeps you at whatever HP you had when you began the fight

Objectives:
  • Don't miss any chances to hit
  • Win with One-Hit Hero

General Advice:
Obviously, you are going to want to learn the bosses inside and out for this. It seems easy, but the objectives really brutalize the Death Wish. Note that these are the story versions of them, and as such are quite slow and dont have any of the absurd moves or patterns they have in other Death Wishes.Thankfully, all of their health has been reduced by almost half, besides Snatcher who remains at 6, so it isnt as long as it may seem.

I'd advise doing the objectives one at a time so you can be more cautious during One Hit Hero and be up-in-their-face for thee "dont miss any hits," but if you know what you are doing you can easily do both. Time Stop Hat is perfect for either objective as it greatly widens your room for error, especially for openings.

The "dont miss a single hit" objective is INCREDIBLY strict. If a boss is able to repeat their attack when not punished, and they successfully even begin to repeat it, you fail the objective. Even if such a risk isnt there, assume it is. So, get on their tooshies ASAP.

Mafia Boss Vulnerabilities:
Recommended Hat: Brewing Hat
  • You can Homing Attack him while he's spinning
  • After his ultra/megacharges
  • After he falls to the ground during his attack where he goes to the background and throws his weapons
  • Mafia Ball sucks here. If he does a full pass (from right to left back to right) it will fail the objective. Thus I recommend Brewing Hat and getting at the right distance to home it into his face. This will take practice, but at least it is early on? Another tip will be once you notice he's about to form the ball, jump into him (not too soon or else he'll push you back) and keep spamming the jump button. You'll rise up with the ball and insta-hit Mafia Boss.

Act 2 Boss Vulnerabilities:
Recommended Hat: Time Stop
  • After he homes in on you from the ceiling, use homing attack (same applies to Bomb Phase version)
  • After he falls from a disco ball
  • After he throws knives at you
  • While he is running toward you with a barrage of knives
  • After he belly flops to your location
  • While he is throwing sawblades at you during the bomb phase (BEWARE: He can scream you away which can flub it up, so be ready for time stop hat)
  • While he is running away from you during the bomb phase

Toilet of Doom Vulnerabilities:
Recommended Hat: Sprint Hat
  • Whenever a bomb fruit appears, grab it asap and throw it at him before it explodes. This includes when a bomb fruit is rotating in the air in a bubble. For the latter, use the hookshot to ram into it and then quickly throw it at the boss. Do note if it explodes without damaging him, it fails the bonus.
  • Early on: When he ground pounds (twice initially, later three) he will jump back to the center of the arena. Use hookshot to ram into him while he is blue.
  • When he begins to summon 3 cages, quickly jump to the 2nd one and jump toward the boss the second the fruit lands and wham him
  • At this point his ground pounds change and he'll body slam you after 2 (later 3) pounds. He is vulnerable after this
  • At this same point, he will spawn on a random location and turn blue, throwing cages at you. Quickly rush to him with sprint or time stop and slam him

Snatcher Vulnerabilities:
Recommended Hat: Pffft hahaha
  • After the taunting shadows of yourself he throws flasks, find one and send it back immediately. Unlike in the story there is NO dialogue interruption after this flask so DONT STOP MOVING.
  • whenever the screen goes dark and he winks, the eye he winks with is the direction he is in, umbrella that direction to win. If you attack at a slight angle close to the center of the screen and mash the attack button, you could hit him 2-3 times at once for this move, shortening the fight.
  • whenever he springs from the ground, after 3 or so times he will spring near you, hit him

Mustache Girl Vulnerabilities:
Recommended Hat: Time Stop

Phase 1:
*Note: It's possible to hit her twice in one punish during this part of the fight, to shorten the first phase by a little and prevent a glitch that will make her auto-go into a wall and fail the objective of not missing hits. To prevent said glitch, do NOT homing attack her when she does her own homing attack. instead, use time stop to hit her with umbrella during this attack.

  • After she does 5 or so "teleports" she will prepare to slap you, so either umbrella or homing attack her once she reappears
  • If she goes into the air and begins to spin, the best way to counter this is to time stop hat the moment she heads for you and wham with umbrella. Otherwise, double jump once she starts to come down and Homing Attack.
  • If she goes underground, run in a circle and the moment she springs up, use the time stop hat to wham her the moment she's on the ground.
  • If she teleports into the air, she'll likely use 3 hourglasses at your location. Avoid them via jumps and air dashes, and if you want, use time stop to secure the hit

Phase 2:
  • She always begins the fight with 10 teleports. Get her quickly with time stop if necessary
  • She may go into the air and throw 2 sets of dark time pieces down. Just rotate in a big circle to avoid. She will stay in the air for a second after this, so get under her quickly to attack.
  • She may spawn a giant purple laser beam, which you can jump to and homing attack her during. Sometimes she may fake out and teleport away, but keep pursuing her until you hit her
  • When the Mafia Ball phase comes, slam into it the moment you can. It always locks onto her, and stays in the place it hit her, so once you hit it, run to where Mustache Girl used to be so you can hit it right back
  • When the Bomb Fruit phase comes, you cannot allow a fruit to time out and explode on its own or else it fails the objective.
  • She gets a new groundpound move at this point. She is vulnerable during any time's she's touching the ground so i'd recommend time stop hat or brewing hat the moment she's about to land, or wait for her to use the attack 3 times.
  • Her underground attack from phase 1 returns with the same window of vulnerablity.

Crazy ENOUGH Phase:
  • At this point there is no danger of failing the "Don't Miss a Hit" bonus, so take your time here. All of her attacks are hyper aggressive but you can just heal it all, though if you're going for One Hit Hero, Time Stop will help you and be sure you do not get greedy or ballsy. Generally, you want to always be looking around Hat Kid's feet for any Time Pieces about to crash down, and do not stop moving around the border of the arena and make small adjustments when needed for hits and you should be okay. Time Stop will help you land all 5 hits you need to finish this phase. good luck.

    Video:
Death Wish #24 - Breaching the Contract
It's now your turn for your head to be lopped off

Alterations from Vanilla:
  • His exploding rings now send shockwaves, except for the red ones
  • He will throw potions whenever he does his whack-a-mole move as well as the 4-ring explosion move.
  • Generally, he is much faster.
Objectives:
  • Do not let your HP fall to 1
  • Do not use your umbrella to attack

General Advice:
Snatcher has eight (8) HP in here, so after 8 successful potion attacks he is defeated. Something to note though is that during his potion throws of the whack-a-mole phase, no potion will stick around for you to pick up. However, if you take too long to throw a potion after he spawns one for you, it will be destroyed the next time he is going to spawn one for you, so do not waste your opportunities. This time when he spawns Hat Kid Shadows they will chase you, so keep moving during that!

Do note that you can perform only a singular jump when you have a potion in hand, which gives enough height to dodge minions and shockwaves, so consider that if you end up getting caught in a sticky situation with one (though generally try to only pick one up and immediately throw it right when he finishes an attack). If you throw the potion while in the air you can use a 2nd jump right away.
  • Minion Summons EX - He will summon 2 crowds of minions and swing them around, with the exploding rings causing shockwaves. You can avoid this by either double jumping left-and-right constantly, being relatively in the same area, or you may double jump counterclockwise with some airdashes timed well will let you avoid the minions and give you airial control to avoid shockwaves.

  • 4-way explosion EX - He will summon a ring of potions around him to throw at you for the duration of the attack as well as 4 rings that rotate and eventually stand still and explode once Snatcher runs out of potions, causing shockwaves to ripple from the rings. Running clockwise will help you avoid getting hit by the potions, and adjust such as turning around or dashing once the rings begin to slow down and you can predict their positioning, with jumping the moment they go boom and falling where one used to be. A potion is left behind for you use pick up and throw, and will linger until you either hit him with it or he does the attack again.

  • Clockwise Explosion Barrage EX - He will summon sets of explosions that go off and summon another set shortly before the previous one explodes, causing shockwaves that ripple from the explosion. The rings line up with your distance from Snatcher and will choose a random spot level to you to spawn. I recommend moving clockwise and constantly double jumping in a zigzag to match the explosions relatively well (aka, move diagonally slightly away from snatcher for the first jump then diagonally slightly toward him for the next jump), adjusting for any that come in front of you. Air dashing when one gets under you.

  • Whack-A-Mole EX - He will spawn a ring of potions around him and then disappear into the ground, continously throwing potions at your location while appearring from the ground, causing shockwaves each time. Constantly jump while dashing in either direction around the arena, and once he's down to 2 potions he will do his final bounce and be open for attack

  • Red Rings of Death EX - He will summon a barrage of red rings that explode almost instantly, starting from one end and slowly making their way toward you. I suggest dodging this by dashing in the same direction the rings are moving as they are spawning and dashing toward or away from Snatcher once they get close to you.

If you are ever in an instance where you have to throw a potion but he is whack-a-moling you, just leave the potion behind and make a rotation around the circle while he does the attack, and try to be close to the potion again whenn he's done, allowing you to umbrella him and then follow up with a potion throw for 2 damage right away! (Unless you go for the bonus that restricts umbrella..but still wait to throw the potion until he's back in his pool)

For the objectives, they ultimately just come down to knowing the fight. Remember that EVERY SINGLE EXPLODING RING besides the red ones will cause shockwaves!! So, hone your reactions, and remember to not use your umbrella, as hard as it may be to resist the urge to slap him with it after his whack-a-mole move (which thankfully, is the only instance on which he can be hit with it and 50% of the time you'll have a potion ready to throw at him during it)

If you feel you may still need help, check out Elzquiem's Guide specialized on bosses

Video:
Death Wish #25 - Community Rift: Twilight Travels
Alterations from Vanilla:
NONE

Objectives:
  • Collect all Pages
  • Collect all Rift Pons
General Advice:
This rift uses the Twilight Bell gimmick very well, and will require skills with timing the usage of the Dweller's Mask to make it to certain pages and pons. It's chill, so take your time!

Video:
Conclusions
That is all the main Subcon Forest death wishes, i hope this helped you. Please leave any feedback below for what I may do to clarify or improve and I will do my best to do better.

Below you can find links to the other guides:



Shoutout to CraftMasteeer707 for originally making the DW guides

As well as Elzquiem for his Boss-Specific DW Guids
Changelog
[Jul.31st 2019] - Improved/fact checked explanations for "Boss Rush"
6 Comments
Miri Ryllis ミリス  [author] 20 Sep, 2019 @ 11:31am 
That's a really interesting catch there. I suppose he just barely enters his next attack at that point, which the damage knocks him out of and he proceeds to his next. Always cool to see how the bosses can be broken hah
Amberstar 17 Sep, 2019 @ 2:29pm 
I've found out that (at least for me) when you fight the toilet, if you grab the first bomb and throw it at the very last minute (immediately after the toilet jumps up but before it hits the ground and the fruit blows up), it'll damage the toilet and it'll go straight into the center, meaning you can attack it (and thus ending the first phase) without having to deal with the shockwaves and cages. It might just be a glitch though.
Amberstar 19 Aug, 2019 @ 10:51am 
Is the sentence below the title for "Quality Time with Snatcher" a reference to Man on the Internet?
~A Camt in Time~ 1 Jul, 2019 @ 6:09pm 
No problem! Just thought I'd mention it cause I was caught out by that. I hit her 3 times expecting to win, only to get a face full of laser beam I wasn't prepared for haha.
Miri Ryllis ミリス  [author] 1 Jul, 2019 @ 5:50pm 
Yeah it seems to be eight. I'm not sure why I wrote 3 as that's clearly not the case. Thank you for catching that!
~A Camt in Time~ 1 Jul, 2019 @ 4:48pm 
Hey, your Boss Rush guide is not longer up to date. Mustache Girl takes more than FOUR hits in her final phase now. I don't know if it's five or six, but I've hit her four times and the phase still kept going.