- Estimated trophy difficulty: 3-4/10 (Poll)
- Offline trophies: 18 (5, 2, 10, 1)
- Online trophies: 0
- Approximate amount of time to platinum: 6-10 Hours (Poll)
- Minimum number of playthroughs: Multiple Story Levels plus minimum 1 Arcade and 1 Survival Mode Run
- Number of missable trophies: None
- Glitched trophies: None Known
- Does difficulty affect trophies?: No Difficulty Options
- Do trophies stack?: Yes, there are Global PS4, Global Vita, Asia PS4, Asia Vita and Global PS5 stacks available.
- Do cheat codes disable trophies?: No Cheats
- Additional peripherals required?: Nope
Riddled Corpses EX is a retro twin stick shooter with some mild Bullet-Hell/Rogue-lite elements. At it's core, it's a pretty simple shooter, with only 6 Levels but lots of characters and upgrades to unlock. The trophy list is pretty straight forward, but will require a beefy amount of grinding. This may seem odd for a game with a 6-10 hour completion, but over half of that time will be spend replaying levels to earn gold.
In fact, you won't have any hope of completing this game until you've put in a decent amount of grinding. Even finishing the first level is going to be tough until you upgrade, so the secret to success is failure. As you level up your stats and start to unlock additional characters the game becomes much easier.
Overall a decent game, which can be picked up for $5-10, and features a cross buy with 2 separate lists, certainly this is worth a look for shooter fans looking for an easy-ish plat, or those wanting something to play on the Vita.
As a twin stick shooter, the best tip is constantly move. Enemies will shoot at you, and continually move towards you, so always stay alert and circle around the map. Sticking to the edge is typically a good strategy.
The game doesn't really give you much in the way of a tutorial, so a few other pointers I picked up:
- Success will come from failure - you will die a lot when you start. As long as you are earning Gold, you can continue to level up and ultimately can brute force your way through most of the game just by getting stronger
- Once a Stage has been completed, you can start subsequent playthroughs from the start of the next Stage, so you don't have to worry about lost progress
- Don't buy Lives/Dynamite/Stopwatches during regular play - save your Gold for upgrades. If you are struggling after getting all Characters/Upgrades and need help to clear the final Stages, feel free to spend extra Gold then. But not earlier
- The above does not apply to your Arcade Run. Buy those single use items up to the max of 9 and use them liberally during the tough waves, esp in Stages 4-6
- Remember than Dynamite not only one hit kills standard enemies, but also clears all bullets on screen - especially helpful for a few Bosses
- I never used Turrets, but the MK1000 is your best friend - buy early and upgrade
- Most enemies spawn in a coffin/sarcophagus - although only on screen for a couple of seconds, if you touch it with your character, it will disintegrate before the enemy spawns. You don't get Gold this way, but it can really help to prevent getting overwhelmed on certain stages. Best to combine with the Stopwatch....but do note that you CANNOT destroy those coffins/sarcophagi with bullets
Step 1 – Start Story Mode with Jon – Goal is 2000+ Gold to Unlock Chloe
This will be your first step, as when you begin the game the only available character is Jon. He is a balanced character, with average move and shot speed, and decent to high damage.
Your main goal here is to collect enough Gold to unlock the second character, Chloe. She will cost 2000 Gold. Gold is dropped randomly upon killing enemies, with each Gold item being between 1-10 in value. Basically you just want to shoot everything and collect whatever drops.
Now, when you start your character is very underpowered and you probably won't last long. Jon can be upgraded, to a maximum Level of 20, with each Level costing 50 Gold more than the last – so Level 1 is 50, Level 2 100, Level 3 150, etc.
It is worth spending some Gold to upgrade Jon to between Level 5-10. This should be enough to allow you to comfortably clear Story Stage 1, which should net you roughly 500 Gold per run.
Once you can complete Stage 1, don't bother with more upgrades for Jon. Instead, I would suggest grinding it until you have 2000 Gold accumulated, then unlock Chloe.
Trophies Earned in this Step – 2
First death
Story Stage 1
Step 2 – Story Mode with Chloe – Goal is 5000+ Gold to Unlock Liery
Chloe will be your second character. After purchasing her for 2000 Gold, you can select her as you character in Story Mode. She moves quicker than Jon and has a higher rate of fire, but deals less damage. More importantly though, any Gold dropped on screen by killing enemies is automatically collected. This means you don't have to put yourself at risk by running around to collect it.
This should increase your net Gold for each run by a fair margin.
Otherwise, you are basically doing the same as in Step 1 – grind Stage 1 to earn Gold. Again, upgrade Chloe as you see fit. Ultimately you have to get her to Level 20, so you may wish to invest a bit more in her at this stage. Her first upgrade is 50, second is 100, then it goes up by 100 thereafter (200-300-400 etc)
Depending on how you approach her upgrades, you may be able to clear Stage 2 with Chloe. However, if you prefer to start banking Gold once you are comfortably getting through Stage 1, then grind until you have 5000 and can unlock Liery
Trophies Earned in this Step - 0
Step 3 - Story Mode with Liery – Grind, Grind, Grind
This will be your longest Step. Liery as a character costs 5000 Gold, and features the weakest damage. But she has a very high rate of fire, and, most importantly, doubles all your Gold collected. This means that you will be getting 2-20 Gold for each pick up instead of 1-10. This significantly increases your Gold per Stage – far more than Chloe's automatic collection ability.
As a result, you will want to do most of your grinding with Liery.
My recommendation would be to work towards fully upgrading her (leveling amounts are the same as Chloe) so you can progress deeper into Story Mode. Once you get into the Level 10-15 range, you should be able to clear Stage 2 and 3, and get into Stage 4. Fortunately, once you have cleared a Stage, you can start subsequent runs from any previously cleared Stage. You do not have to restart at Stage 1 each time.
Stage 4 definitely sees a difficulty spike, but also affords the opportunity to amass much more Gold – 3000-4000 Gold is definitely possible for a successful run.
Your ultimate goal here is going to be earning enough Gold to fully upgrade Liery and Chloe, earning enough to unlock Fael (9999 Gold), then fully upgrading her as well (you need Liery, Chloe and Fael all at Level 20 to unlock Erika, who is the best character).
I would recommend continuing to use Liery for all your grinding, as it is by far the quickest method. It would also be well worth investing in the HK1000 Machine (also 9999 Gold), as this adds 2 orbs around your character that each shoot bullets. This can also be upgraded (at a steep price of 2000 per Level, to a max of Level 5).
Trophies Earned in this Step - 4
Story Stage 2
Story Stage 3
Story Stage 4
MK 1000 ready
Step 4 – Complete Story Mode
There are several ways to approach this. If you did all your grinding in Step 3, then you should have Liery, Chloe and Fael at Level 20. This unlocks Erika as a playable character. She has all the abilities of Chloe, Liery and Fael – so double Gold, automatic Gold collection, and double lives (start with 6 instead of 3). Erika also has a more balanced attack than Liery and Chloe, so she definitely makes Story Mode easier – but you would need to upgrade her, and she is more costly than the others, with Level increments of 200 Gold (50-100-200-400-600 etc)
However, at Level 20, Liery and Chloe are both more than capable of clearing Story Mode, especially if you fully upgraded the HK1000.
So, use whichever character you feel most comfortable with. At this point, Gold should not be an issue, so you can also purchase extra lives, dynamite and stopwatches – you can bank 9 of each, and these can be replaced at the start of each Story Mode level.
So fully loaded, getting through Story Mode 5&6 should not be overly difficult. Once you clear these, you will unlock the final character, Nora (who is surprisingly disappointing, so you can ignore using her)
Trophies Earned in this Step - 4
Story Stage 5
Story completed!
Full cast
Step 5 – Survival
Only one trophy here, just complete 5 waves in Survival. You can use your fully upgraded characters from Story Mode, so this should be a breeze. If you have her fully levelled, use Erika, otherwise Chloe or Liery will work. The waves start off pretty easy, but do ramp up. Still, clearing 5 should not prove overly difficult once you have mastered Story Mode
Trophies Earned in this Step – 1
Survivor
Step 6 – Arcade Mode
Again, only one trophy, but this is arguably the hardest one in the game. In Arcade Mode, you will have to clear all 6 Stages in one go. You can die, but you cannot run out of lives. There are no continues. Losing all lives means you have to start over.
And, while you can choose any character, you will start at Level 1, no upgrades. Fortunately, as you progress through the Stages, enemies will randomly drop upgrade orbs. These work the same as purchasing upgrades, and fortunately come fairly frequently. It won't be long until you are powered up, and certainly by the time you reach the later Stages, you should be at, or close to, max level.
There are a total of 25 levels - 20 for your character and 5 for the MK 1000
Again, you can use any character you want, and don't forget to load up on lives, dynamite and stopwatches between Stages. Certainly for the last few, you want to go in with the max of 9 for each.
Trophies Earned in this Step – 1
Arcade winner
Step 7 – Clean up
There are a few miscellaneous trophies on the list. Realistically you probably have all or most of these naturally. Refer to the trophy guide for specifics.
The only one that will require a separate approach is Nothing special, which requires you to complete Stage 4 without using dynamite or stopwatches. The best strategy is to use a maxed out character and buy 9 lives to start the Stage. Don't use your specials, even if you are going to use a life. You will likely earn a few extra lives during the run, and 9 should be more than enough.
I also put the trophy for the turrets here ( Turrets ready). Like the MK1000, this is an optional upgrade. I didn't find them very helpful, so I would suggest leaving this until you have lots of extra Gold. If you just want the trophy, you can always back up your save to the cloud, buy the turrets for 9999, then close the game and restore your save. Trophy earned and Gold returned.
Trophies Earned in this Step – 1
I like them roasted
Can you feel the tension?
Collector
Turrets ready
All the way up
Nothing special
Hardcore Gamer