Tanuki Sunset Guide

This guide will help you beating the time trials and getting high scores.

Achievements

Some achievements in Tanuki Sunset requires you to get high scores and time trials. They are:

All Time Stickers
Finish all the story levels fast enough to acquire all the Time Stickers


All Score Trophy Stickers
Get a score high enough on all story levels to acquire all the Score Trophy Stickers


Levels Complete
Finish first on all trials, Acquire all stickers for every story level


Consequently, getting those 3 achievements will also net you these achievements:
Sunset Peaks Cleared
Reach the end of Sunset Peaks


Midnight City Cleared
Reach the end of Midnight City


Sunrise Beach Cleared
Reach the end of Sunrise Beach


Story Cleared
Reach the final ramp at the end of the Legendary Trail


Go Fast & High Five
High-five Steven the Seagull for the first time


All Seagull Stickers
High Five Steven in all the areas and acquire all the Seagull Stickers


All No-Death Stickers
Clear all the story levels without restarting to collect all the No-Death Stickers


And the currently broken All Trials Cleared once it's fixed.
All Trials Cleared
Clear all the trials at the Arcade

High Scores

Drift whenever possible. Learn to drift in a straight line. You can position yourself on the left side and drift to the right side, and do it on the other way around. This will ensure you to drift as much as possible.

In U-turns or any other turns, there are two types of drifting that you can do:
- Hold the drift button (A on controller), then hold the direction you want to drift to. This will ensure you to drift sharply.
- Hold the drift button (A on controller), then repeatedly tap the direction you want to drift to in a slower interval. This will ensure you to drift longer (perfect for those S turns and U turns that are a bit longer) so you can rack higher drift score. Note that this technique will increase your speed, so make sure to reduce your speed afterward.

Do not hold the up arrow. Hold the down arrow instead. You want to go as slow as possible if you are aiming for high scores.

When you are going on a ramp, do this: hold the drift button (A on controller) when you are about to enter the ramp, and hold the left/right button once you enter it. Do not let go of the left/right button until you touch the ground; let go of the drift button instead once you are up in the air. This will ensure you to get Flip and 180/360 bonuses (depends on how long you manage to go in the air). Practice it to ensure the 360 bonus. You can get that bonus even in low speed as long as you are in the right angle... except when you have crabs.

Crabs might be an obstacle, but it's a blessing in disguise if you have ramps. Get 2 crabs with you, then jump off the ramp with the technique I mentioned on the previous point. Flipping it will get a bonus worth of 1000 points. The ♥♥♥♥ is that you will mostly get 180 bonus instead of 360 if you do this, but IMO, having a guarantee 1000 points is better than risking for 360 bonus if you are not good enough.

Make sure to get as close as possible to any objects: cars, boulders, signs, etc. The closer you are, the higher the bonus you'll get.

You also can get an extra bonus by walking near the edge, but I find it to be harder to execute as it's easy to fall to death this way.

When presented with more than one options, choose the one with the highest bonus. A lot of the stages will pit you between the blue bits (worth 400) and cars (worth 200-400). You want to get the blue bits.

Make sure you are in the right position when you are taking blue bits. You can't change your direction for a while after you flip.

Crash into everything that can make you slower. This means barrels, cones, and trashes. No, don't crash into crabs unless you want to ramp. It will make it harder to get the near miss bonus.

Lastly, don't be in a rush. You don't have to take everything. If you think you won't make it if you grab that blue bit, skip it.

Time Trial

Hold the up button whenever possible. Only release it when you want to turn, and that's if you really have to let it go.

Check whether you need to drift or not to pass that turn. Some turns can be passed just by going to the outer side of the road before turning.

Whenever you are turning, position yourself on the outer side of the road. This will minimize your need to drift. Move to the inner side to turn once you can turn.

Image is taken from this site[drivingfast.net].

Do not use the ramps. Ramps slow your speed.

Pick up bits whenever possible. Bits give a slight speed boost. The blue bits and that jumping bits also give you speed boost.

Do not focus on bits once your speed is maxed. Sometimes, bits are placed in places that isn't efficient for your run, and you don't need any speed increase if you are in the max speed.

Avoid crabs if possible. The key is to do sharp turns. They will position themselves in a set position while moving towards you once you are closer. Move to their predetermined position, then do a sharp turn to the other way. Repeat for the other crabs. Check my Crab Trial video below to see how it works.

Having 2 crabs is better than 1. If you happened to get one of them, grab another. It's harder to do S-turn with 1 crab. Take them out at once.

If you end up with 1 crab, you can use the turn button (X on controller) to switch the crab's position. It helps whenever you need to do a U turn. In S-turn, try to do position the crab in the direction of the second turn (meaning if the first turn is to the right, you position the crab on your left). Drift hard at the first turn and then just enjoy the free second turn. Good luck doing it if there are multiple S-turns, though.

Don't drift too much. Most turns can be passed just by pressing the drift button for a few millisecond (not holding the drift button for the whole turn). S-turns might be trickier if you have picked up some speed. In this case, feel free to drift longer at the first turn to reduce your speed.

Don't be in a rush. You don't have to take everything. If you think you won't make it if you grab that bit, skip it.

Rat Tail

Lastly, if you are stuck, there is a speedrun strat called rat tail. But I advise you to do it only if you are desperate - I couldn't play the game properly afterward. I did it in Taiko Time Trial. Basically, you need to have a controller equipped. Hold W and space, then wiggle your joystick (move it slightly left and right if you didn't get it). Release the space button, and see if the tanuki has its tail up. If it is, you are in rat tail state. You will have a sharper left and right turn, but it can be a bit hard to control.

This will ensure you to turn at the highest speed without drifting. Keep on maintaining your run in a straight line since moving left and right will decrease your speed. Pick up all bits that you can find, especially in turns and whenever there are a lot of them. To cancel the rat tail state, press the drift button. Here's a video for it (not by me):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t888ZiGIW0

Videos

Talk is cheap, so here is a video of me completing all time stickers and trial challenges. I don't record my attempt for score stickers since they are very easy to do. If you don't understand what to do, check my Taiko Score Trial video. You basically need to drift a lot like that.

- Main Levels

The main levels have a lot of room of errors to get the time stickers. Practice there before you do the trials.

Sunset Peaks 1-1

https://youtu.be/ZctWLgddcfc

Sunset Peaks 1-2

https://youtu.be/k1qjKKWT0FY

Sunset Peaks 1-3

https://youtu.be/XpBPRweRE1Q

Midnight City 2-1

https://youtu.be/dFzvs0SjlCg

Midnight City 2-2

https://youtu.be/NHs2X01AkUQ

Midnight City 2-3

https://youtu.be/wBhX5ikjLV8

Sunrise Beach 3-1

https://youtu.be/BlQpRE1_W9I

Sunrise Beach 3-2

https://youtu.be/dyQGGRnzROY

Sunrise Beach 3-3

https://youtu.be/0ztiTIJfxEk

- Trials

Revert Trial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM1o5akNRkU

Score Trial

https://youtu.be/Bh2mMeYuWN4

Trash Run

https://youtu.be/CsWn2KUkhXE

JumpMan Trial

https://youtu.be/B-48Hn0m31k

Poison Trial

https://youtu.be/h457GNKlGIc

Drift Trial

https://youtu.be/Mh2HmJrkztg

Crab Trial

https://youtu.be/MUcCaD4WFaE

Taiko Time Trial

https://youtu.be/3nZuNUAYOb0

Taiko Score Trial

https://youtu.be/Juv-xRGtn68

Didn't get Levels Complete achievement?

If you didn't get the Levels Complete achievement like me when you complete everything, then your save file is bugged. Check which level you missed from your save file. It's located at:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\LocalLow\Rewind Games\Tanuki Sunset\SaveData\TS_SD_V1.sav

Open it with a notepad or other text editor and you'll see a bunch of random string. Now, head to any C# online compiler (or offline if you have it). I used this site: https://www.programiz.com/csharp-programming/online-compiler/

Copy and paste this code:

// Online C# Editor for free
// Write, Edit and Run your C# code using C# Online Compiler

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Text;

public class HelloWorld
{
    

  public static string Decrypt(string encryptedText, string password)
  {
    if (encryptedText == null)
      return (string) null;
    if (password == null)
      password = string.Empty;
    byte[] bytesToBeDecrypted = Convert.FromBase64String(encryptedText);
    byte[] bytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(password);
    byte[] hash = SHA256.Create().ComputeHash(bytes);
    return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(Deecrypt(bytesToBeDecrypted, hash));
  }
  

  private static byte[] Deecrypt(byte[] bytesToBeDecrypted, byte[] passwordBytes)
  {
    byte[] salt = new byte[14]
    {
      (byte) 4,
      (byte) 1,
      (byte) 3,
      (byte) 1,
      (byte) 9,
      (byte) 8,
      (byte) 9,
      (byte) 1,
      (byte) 3,
      (byte) 4,
      (byte) 2,
      (byte) 0,
      (byte) 6,
      (byte) 9
    };
    using (MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream())
    {
      using (RijndaelManaged rijndaelManaged = new RijndaelManaged())
      {
        Rfc2898DeriveBytes rfc2898DeriveBytes = new Rfc2898DeriveBytes(passwordBytes, salt, 1000);
        rijndaelManaged.KeySize = 256;
        rijndaelManaged.BlockSize = 128;
        rijndaelManaged.Key = rfc2898DeriveBytes.GetBytes(rijndaelManaged.KeySize / 8);
        rijndaelManaged.IV = rfc2898DeriveBytes.GetBytes(rijndaelManaged.BlockSize / 8);
        rijndaelManaged.Mode = CipherMode.CFB;
        using (CryptoStream cryptoStream = new CryptoStream((Stream) memoryStream, rijndaelManaged.CreateDecryptor(), CryptoStreamMode.Write))
        {
          cryptoStream.Write(bytesToBeDecrypted, 0, bytesToBeDecrypted.Length);
          cryptoStream.Close();
        }
        return memoryStream.ToArray();
      }
    }
  }
  
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Console.WriteLine (Decrypt("copy and paste everything from C:\Users\<username>\AppData\LocalLow\Rewind Games\Tanuki Sunset\SaveData\TS_SD_V1.sav", "MonkeysInTheNightYesterdayAndToday"));
    }
}

Replace "copy and paste everything from C:\Users\<username>\AppData\LocalLow\Rewind Games\Tanuki Sunset\SaveData\TS_SD_V1.sav" with everything inside that TS_SD_V1.sav file you opened before. Yes, keep the quotes. There will be a list of readable string in the output.

Look at "levelRecords" line. There will be a bunch of objects like this:

{
            "levelId": "mountains-0",
            "worldId": 0,
            "bestTime": 161.4376678466797,
            "bestScore": 12622,
            "levelRecordType": 0,
            "seagullMedal": true,
            "noDeathMedal": true,
            "timeMedal": true,
            "scoreMedal": true,
            "isClear": true,
            "isComplete": true
        },

See at the isComplete: section. If it's false, then you need to redo that level. You don't have to beat the level without dying to mark it as complete. If you noticed, the number starts from 0, so if it says false in mountains-0, you need to redo Sunset Peaks 1-1.

If it's not clear to you, here's the mapping of the level and what's written in the save file:

Name	Level
mountains-0	Sunset Peaks 1-1
mountains-1	Sunset Peaks 1-2
mountains-2	Sunset Peaks 1-3
city-0	Midnight City 2-1
city-1	Midnight City 2-2
city-2	Midnight City 2-3
seaside-0	Sunrise Beach 3-1
seaside-1	Sunrise Beach 3-2
seaside-2	Sunrise Beach 3-3

The trial names are straightforward so I don't list it, but they all need to have isComplete: true to get the achievement to grant.