HAAK Achievement Guide

100% achievement guide for HAAK. Contains spoilers.
Updated to include two achievements added in the 'Echo of Chains' DLC.

Introduction

HAAK is a 2D metroidvania that currently has 55 achievements to collect. Some of them are somewhat obscure or missable. You will need to do at least two playthroughs to get all: one 100% playthrough and a speedrun.

For 100% completion or simply progressing through the game I highly recommend the maps made by Demajen.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2350755570

Story

Most of the story-realted achievements cannot be missed.

Fully Charged
Obtain a Power Glove
Get your starter weapon. Unmissable.

He ran away!
Defeat Wang Ping in Sanho Ruins
Defeat your very first boss.

Welcome to Sanho
Enter World Map


The journey begins
Complete [Escape from Ruins]
Will pop up once you reach Neo Sanho.

Can I get a ride?
Complete [Road to the South]


Flee on Foot
Complete [Pass the Tunnel]


King of Towers
Destroy all 4 signal towers.
During Hunt the Man in Black mission, Tr8 will task you with finding four towers. Technically skippable, but required for the good ending.

GG
Become a puppet of GAEL.
The bad ending achievement, missable if you destroy all four towers. During Hunt the Man in Black, keep at least one tower intact and confront Gael in the East Emperor Tower, defeat him and get the bad ending; then reload your last save and get all four towers for the good ending.

Gotcha!
GAEL has kneeled.
Defeat Gael after destroying all four towers.

Brave Haak
Brings hope to Good-Hearted Fort.
The good ending achievement. Defeat Gael after destroying all four towers, complete Bunker 444 and return to Anthony Hill to get the ending cinematic.

Collection and Exploration

These achievements require you to find upgrades or collectibles or explore specific areas. The maps by Demajen I've linked above are very helpful for locating those; you can also purchase the map markers in the shop to get the collectibles you've missed in already explored areas displayed on the in-game map.

Hidden Corner
Found a hidden item
Practically unmissable. The earliest you can get it is right after collecting the glove: break the wall to the left and continue to the next screen to collect a disk there.

Muscular Guy
Fuse a HP slot
Collect (or purchase) three life shards to fuse them into one HP slot.

HP Tank
Fuse 5+ HP slots, resulting in 7+ HP slots in total
Collect three life shards to fuse them into one HP slot. Repeat five times.

Dash! Dash!
Fuse 1 Energy Slot
Collect (or purchase) three energy shards to fuse them into one slot.

Greed is Good
Obtain 4000+ Tongbao in total.
You will get it naturally if going for 100% completion.

Scavenger / Super Scavenger / Supreme Scavenger / Movie Lover
Found 1 / 10 / 30 / 50 Mystic Disks

Couch Potato
Watch TV for over 5 minutes.
First, collect the TV Power Cord (Neo Sanho), TV Motherboard (North Station), and TV Antenna (Sanho Ruins), then return to your safehouse in Neo Sanho and interact with the broken TV to fix it. Turn on the TV and idle on the screen for 5 minutes until the achievement pops.

Cheapo
Change the color of your cape once.
Collect one of five dye bottles and interact with the dresser in your safehouse to change the color of Haak's cape.

Dominate North Station
Thoroughly search North Station
Will pop up when you reach about 90% exploration in the North Station location.

Yes, Master
Bring the cat home.
You will see the black cat at three different locations in Sanho Ruins first, afterwards it moves to the balcony outside the safehouse in Neo Sanho until you feed it. Find the Canned Cat Food in People's Square neat Fatty's arena and bring it to the cat; interact with it and choose to feed it, and then reload the screen or rest to make it move. Find it again in lower part of Neo Sanho on the way to the Brewery entrance and feed it to make it move again. Find it in its last location above the safehouse (accessible through a narrow passage above the balcony) to finally make it move into your home. Interact with it when it's inside the safehouse to choose a name (it's Caat) and the achievement is yours.

Master Decipherer
Solved the maze in Momoyama.
Complete the maze in Momoyama to get the Momoyama Crisis collectible. You can solve the maze yourself by using the map symbols or follow the solution. Note you can only visit Momoyama twice in a playthrough; you will permanently miss the achievement unless you do it during one of those visits.

View from the Mountaintop
Climbed to the top of Anthony Hill.
Requires the full direction dash and glider ability. Jump from the left topmost ledge on the screen leading to Gael's hideout, dash diagonally up twice and then thrust up into the next screen. You'll be able to glide almost all the way to the top, hit the block there with your hook to reveal a grapple point and grapple to it to reach the very top of the area.

Brutal Moment
Kill the ooze king.
The ooze king is in the lower area of Sanho Ruins accessible with the hack ability. You'll need to solve a switch puzzle to open two doors to drop the ooze king into the acid, wait until it dies to get the achievement.

Inherit Mantle
Baak's chess pawn is now inherited by Haak
Collect Baak's Knight in the lower portion on Bunker 444.

Love and Pain
Read all messages from the dungeon lovers
While exploring the lower part of Bunker 444 during Yaam's questline, find and interact with all six messages scribbled on the walls. Most of them are difficult to miss, some are in hidden passages or obscured by breakable blocks. The map coordinates of the messages are:

• -11, -22
  
• -13, -22
  
• -15, -28
  
• -7, -28
  
• -9, -24
  
• -9, -32

Durable Gamer
Achieve 100% exploration.
Awarded after completing the game (activating the good ending cinematic with Tr8) with 100% exploration progress.

Quest

These achievements are obtained during or for completing quests.

Sun is Rising
Complete [North Station]
Complete the optional task of turning on all seven generators in the North Station. The mission is called Shine through North Station in game.

Super Plumer
Cleaned up all the blocked vents.
Complete Clean up the Pipe optional mission (you can progress through Anthony Hill without completing it).

Good-Hearted Haak
Choose to do good in every moral choices.
Several quests will give you choices, choose to do good every time, you'd need it anyway for your 100% run.

• Help robots and refuse Juavi's offer during Epoch: Awakening
  
• Help Ms. Lee instead of telling Huang during Fleeing Singer
  
• Work together with Tr8 and offer to help 3Kyo after beating him in Momoyama to get Black Tech, then return after getting the hacking ability to wake 3Kyo up
  
• I also helped Bobo but I'm not sure it counts towards the achievement

Echoes of Iron Chains
Defeat the dungeon keeper Chuka
During Yaam's questline, open three doors and find and defeat the boss in the lowest part of Bunker 444.

Intellectual
Finish [Sanho Chronicle].
To start Sanho Chronicles, you need to find The Intellectual's Spring collectible in the North Station and bring in to Lensman Zhang in Huang's bar. He will give you the task of completing your codex entries; the completed entries have stars next to them. To complete the codex, you will have to complete all optional quests, all locations, and kill enough enemies to get their entries.

Characters (19):

1. Baak
   
2. Tr8
   
3. Barkeeper Huang
   
4. Cripple Wu (complete a series of his tasks, will unlock after you bring him the Hunter's Badge)
   
5. Lensman Zhang (return to him after collecting all other data)
   
6. Ms Lee (complete Fleeing Singer)
   
7. IronHead (complete Epoch: Awakening)
   
8. Three Fingers (report him to Juavi for kidnapping Bobo)
   
9. Bobo (save him during Imprisoned Bobo)
   
10. Fatty (Huang's terminal)
    
11. Zhu
    
12. Black Cat (adopt the cat)
    
13. Old Joel
    
14. Genie
    
15. Wang Ping (find him above the boss arena after revisiting Sanho Ruins)
    
16. Bai Mei (complete his trial)
    
17. Gael (only obtainable if going for good ending)
    
18. Juavi Captain
    
19. 3Kyo (complete Black Tech, return to Momoyama, and wake him up)

Monsters (27; you should get see each of them at least once if going for 100% completion):

1. Mud Bug
   
2. Floater
   
3. Floater Egg
   
4. Stompers
   
5. Wild Dog
   
6. Hugger
   
7. Chef Robot
   
8. Armless Robot
   
9. Robot Head
   
10. Toxic Sea Urchin
    
11. Grenade Robot
    
12. Lazer Robot
    
13. Big Oaf
    
14. Mech Crab
    
15. Spitter
    
16. Bombard Drone
    
17. Flame Drone
    
18. Mole Gang Thug
    
19. Laser Drone
    
20. Toxic Snail
    
21. Earth Worm
    
22. Hot Potter
    
23. Mole Gang Steelclawman
    
24. Flying Beetle
    
25. Lunatic
    
26. Mindless Soldier
    
27. Mole Shielder

Locations (15):

1. Sanho Ruins
   
2. Neo Sanho
   
3. North Station
   
4. Subway Tunnel
   
5. People's Square
   
6. Whitestone
   
7. Brewery
   
8. Sillie Farm
   
9. Merlin Pit
   
10. Anthony Hill
    
11. Schantril Industry Zone
    
12. Subway Depot
    
13. Emperor Tower East
    
14. Emperor Tower West
    
15. Bunker 444

Action-Specific

Beware of the spikes
Dropped into the pit of Sanho Ruins
Die by falling into any spike pit. Despite the description mentioning Sanho Ruins, I think it's obtainable in any other spike pit; I got mine in Anthony Hill.

Feels like Hell
Dropped into the acid pool 10 times
You don't need to die, just touch the acid.

Treasure Hunter
Smashed 10 Big Chests
Practically unmissable, the chests are ubiqutous.

Physics Lesson
Squeezed to death
You can get squeezed by any moving crate or a timed door closing on you.

Destroyer
Destroy 100 bricks
Also unmissable.

Beware of Attack Dog
Bitten to death by dogs 3 times
The earliest you can get it is in Sanho Ruins during the chase sequence before you get your weapon.

You need electrotherapy
Electrocuted 10 times
Again, you don't need to die, just touching anything electric and getting damage is enough.

Eye For An Eye
Kill 18 Laser Drones
The earliest you can get it is in the Brewery. The laser drones are annoying to kill with hook or normal attacks but can be easily one shot by a charged attack or an upwards or a downwards thrust. There's enough drones in the Brewery for the achievement, but they're also found in other late game locations.

Directionally Challenged
Stay in North Station for more than 2 hours
I never got that achievement naturally while playing the game so I left the game idling in a safe spot in the North Station until I got the achievement.

Smells Interesting
Use a Bathroom Portal once.

Challenge or Sequence Breaking

Who's your daddy?
Defeat Wang Ping in Sanho Ruins within 3 minutes
It sounds like a challenge but it really is not, the boss is very easy with no special strategy requred.

Flash Haak
Spend less than 8 minutes to escape from Metro Tunnel
Or use the skip described below.

Leap of Perfection
Reached Sanho' Square without triggering the Metro Tunnel's self-destruct mechanism.
The self-destruct mechanism and the chase sequence is triggered by stepping on the wooden bridge in the Subway Tunnel. You can jump over the bridge without touching it to avoid the sequence entirely: jump right before the bridge, air dash, and do an upwards slash and another slash forward just before you land so you land right after the bridge. (You can make a save backup if you're worried about not making it. You can also return later to trigger the chase to explore the missing part of the map and get the boss codex entry.) The achievement will pop when you reach People's Square. You will also get Flash Haak achievement with this skip.

Cherish Life
No death until beating Fatty.
Pretty easy to obtain during your second run / speedrun.

Sequence Breaker
Pass through the heavily guarded pathway in the [Brewery] without shutting any of the 4 doors blocking the sight.
There's a passage guarded by four laser drones in the Brewery at -13, 11. You can find four switches to close the four doors there and pass safely, or walk through the passage without activating the door switches and get the achievement. You can oneshot the drones by jumping above them and hitting them with a diving thrust or simply pass the lasers with carefully timed dodges. There's also a secret narrow passage in the top right corner of the room where you get the Rampage skill, you can use that passage to bypass the drone passage entirely and still get the achievement that way. Look for the part of the right wall free from spikes.

Titanium Lungs
Defeat Clawman in [MerlinPit] before putting on the gas mask.
The Clawman fight is in the very bottom of Merlin Pit where the last vent is. Make sure not to pick up the gas mask in Sillie Farm! (You can return to grab it later after getting the achievement.) The main difficulty of this fight comes from the poison gas filling the area, but you can get rid of it completely by completing Clean up the Pipe mission first: clear all five vents in Anthony Hill and three topmost and easily accessible vents in Merlin Pit, then return to Anthony Hill and activate the ventilation system. Make your way to the bottom of Merlin Pit and fight the Clawman, the fight will be much easier without the poison gas present. The achievement will pop after you defeat the Clawman and complete the escape sequence afterwards.

Master of Evasion
Defeated 3Kyo without getting damaged.


Bushido
Did not attack the weakened 3Kyo.

Both of these can be obtained in the fight with the Samurai in Momoyama during the first trip into 3Kyo's mind. I recommend making a save backup just before the bridge / boss arena and attempting these two achievements separately. I also recommend getting a full direction dash before attempting this boss since it makes the fight much easier, especially if you're going for the no damage achievement. (Note you can leave Momoyama through the portal to grab any upgrades you're missing and return by triggering the cutscene in Anthony Hill again.)

Master of Evasion is self-explanatory. The hardest part for me to dodge was the laser; you can make it easier by making the laser chase you around the arena by getting above the head with dash and upwards slash and waiting for it to go up, this gives you more time to attack the samurai while he's down. Use greenie coins to weaken the boss if you're having trouble here.

For Bushido you cannot damage the Samurai when he's on the ground with the head floating above him and shooting a burning laser at you; you can, however, attack that floating head. This is the hard mode for this boss since you lose a relatively safe window for damaging him and he gets an additional strike for one of his attack sequence after each downed phase. Again, remember you can use greenie coins to weaken the boss if you're having trouble.

Spotlight Figure
Editor-in-chief Ben Dover thought you're really good.
At the end of your playthrough you will be given a rank (S to D) based on your performance in each of the following categories:

• Hits Taken
  
• Deaths
  
• Greenie Coins Used
  
• Time Spent
  
• Exploration

I got the "very good" rating and the achievement for getting two S (for 100% exploration and no greenie coins) and three A ranks; more data is needed.

Kick
Leap from someplace high and you wake up.
A pretty obscure skip hinted at by the note on how to wake up from a dream and some symbols in Bunker 444.
To get the achievement, you need to get into one of Haak's flashback sequences, any of them will do. Once you can move in a flashback, instead of going left like you are supposed to to continue, go right and out on the balcony. Keep walking right as if you're trying to walk off the balcony and pressing the attack button, eventually you will fall through and Haak will come to his senses, granting you the achievement.

Speedrunner
Someone can actually beat the game in 5 hours, wow!
I found the time limit pretty generous: the game has so many possible skips it's not hard to make it in five hours; I've completed the game in a little under two hours. You can watch a video to see those skips, there's a few. General tips:

• Skip every possible conversation and ignore the side content and side missions, focusing only on main story.
  
• You can ignore most ability upgrades, but make sure to get dash, charged attack, deflect, sword waves, diving thrust, upwards thrust, and glide. (I also got two HP slots and several attack and crit chance upgrades.)
  
• Skip Haak's dream sequences by falling off the balcony.
  
• Skip the chase at the Subway Tunnel by jumping over the bridge (see Leap of Perfection).
  
• You can skip most of People's Square right after getting the diving trust with a carefully placed thrust and slide, I recommend watching a video for that.
  
• Skip the drone passage and switches at the Brewery by using the secret passage in the room where you get Rampage ability. Also, go to the Brewery right after People's Square to save time, you don't need to speak to Zhu first.
  
• Ignore the pipe cleaning mission, get the upwards thrust ability in Merlin Pit and go to Anthony Hill.
  
• After beating the Samurai, choose to work alone (or ignore the missions Tr8 gives you) and go for the bad ending.
  
• Defeating the final boss with only 4 HP slots was the thing I've found the most challenging in this run. Remember you can deflect his round yellow projectile three times in a row to make him fall down, it's the most reliable way to damage him.

[Saxon Wars]

@Bloodmors I think you need to go to Anthony Hill without going after Haak. AFAIK Both doors give the same secret ending.

[Bloodmors]

i can't get [Brave Haak] after white door of 444 bunker
did it need to black door?

[Darkratos]

Would you have some video of a route for the speedrun achievement without glitches?

[VALÆRA]

Thank you.

[cas]

@VALÆRA losing all your health. Respawning because you hit a trap doesn't seem to count.

[VALÆRA]

What is counted as death? Do I have to lose all my health or just falling on a laser counts?

[hadjimurad26]

thanks man

[峽谷掉分傳說と俯沖の惡鬼！鞍山棍一郎です！]

very useful,thank you!