This achievement is Trials – Chapter IV, awarded for completing all the trials in Chapter IV. Like Chapter III, there are only two levels, so it isn’t too bad, but I found these trials to be a bit more difficult than the ones in Chapter III. Fortunately, there are some tricks to make it easier.
As a general rule when approaching trials, I recommend changing the difficulty to ‘Squire’ in the main menu (Configuration - Difficulty). This will allow you to charge up Combat Focus very quickly, as well as making combat a little easier in general, so that’s a good place to start. If you're having trouble with a particular trial, just keep at it - extra practice and better knowledge of the stages are typically enough to get you through any trial.
Some specific tips for these trials:
In Chapter 4-1 (Mountain Fortress), you need to complete the level without taking damage from the Ogre, including both the fight and the portion where he sticks his arm through the wall.
When dealing with the Ogre’s hand, just stay as far away as possible. When he slams his fist down, his next move will be to wrap his arm around the corner, so you’ll want to dodge back towards the ledge behind you.
The real trouble with this trial, though, is the actual fight with the Ogre. Naturally, you’ll want to wail on him as much as possible, because the longer you’re in the fight, the more likely it is that you’ll screw up and get hit. It’s not a bad idea to start this fight by using a Dark Crystal, because that’ll drop him down to half health immediately, although you might also wait until after you’ve taken out one of his eyes, too.
To avoid his attacks, try dodging away from the arm that’s attacking. If you can get that down, you’ll really only need to worry about his attacks that generate shockwaves (the fist when his health bar turns white and the attack with the rock in his left hand), as you’ll need to jump over those.
The best thing for this trial is definitely practice, as you’ll need to get the rhythm of his attacks down in order to avoid them. However, there is one extremely useful tool at your disposal – if you happen to get hit by the Ogre at any time during the stage (you’ll know because it’ll say you failed the trial), just reload the last checkpoint. There are a couple checkpoints during the fight, so if you’re having trouble, just be patient and keep trying and you’ll eventually get there.
In Chapter 4-2 (The Crow Witch), you must defeat the boss while only killing at most 2 of her minions.
This one can be pretty tricky because every egg that she spits at you will become a son if you don’t throw it back at her, and you’re forced to kill these sons before she’ll spit more eggs at you. The game rather annoying zooms in on the boss when you return the first egg, making it very hard to avoid spawning two sons (and sometimes three, completely screwing you) during the first barrage.
The key is that it is still possible to return eggs while it’s zoomed in on her. If you keep pressing RT and rotating the left stick, you’ll be able to keep blasting her. I was never able to avoid spawning minions during the initial wave, but I did manage to prevent her from spawning more than one a few times.
It’s more important, however, to bring her down to half health (return three eggs) during the first attack. The reason is that you’ll have to kill any sons she spawns until the second time you force her to the ground. If you don’t force her down immediately (which requires her to be at half health), you might have some trouble avoiding three necessary minions. At any rate, you cannot allow her to spawn two sons initially without also bringing her to half health, otherwise you’re done. If, on the other hand, you manage to get her to half health and only let her get one son out during the first barrage, you’re golden.
After you force her to the ground the second time, forget about the sons altogether and focus on her. Once you kill her, it doesn’t matter how many minions were on the field – only the ones you killed leading up to it count against you.
It’s a bit tricky and took me somewhere around 10-15 minutes of retrying to get it down, but it’s definitely doable. Just don’t kill her unless you have the minion count right, otherwise you’ll have to go back through the entire level.
Quick summary:
- Set the difficulty to Squire for overall ease
- Abuse the ability to reload checkpoints as often as needed
- Dark Crystals work wonders against the Ogre
- Try to get the timing down to return the Crow Witch’s eggs whiled zoomed in on her
Good luck!