Dark Cloud 2 Medal Time Trials

Medals in Dark Cloud 2 are a special objective you can complete in dungeons usually by finishing a specific task on that floor. If you're reading this guide I am going to assume you already know this stuff and want information about how to acquire specific ones. So let's get started!

This page will cover extra tips and tricks for the Time Trials on dungeon floors in Dark Cloud 2. Mostly stuff that would have been too comprehensive to keep repeating on the main page, it's easier to link to this extra information than it is to keep re mentioning it there. First and foremost let's go over the obvious things that can screw you over with killing all the enemies on your floor before the time runs out.

Some floors in dungeons have more mimics than usual. This is particularly frustrating in the Underground Channel Dungeon's final two floors. The mimics there make getting those medals almost entirely luck. Another way you can speed up your floor clears is leaving behind all the ABS that drop. Or at least most of them. After defeating a monster it takes 1 - 3 seconds depending on how long the death animation is for it to die, vanish and the ABS to pop out. As you could imagine, leaving behind the goodies speeds up your time.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is just keep running the floor until you get lucky enough to get the medal. There is one other way though that isn't initially obvious to most people and that's using the Ridepod! In particular there's a unique line of upgrades the Ridepod can get - roller skates! I combine this and the water barrel gun and I can clear the floors much faster than with Max or Monica.

You can buy both of these upgrades a little bit into the game (I think mid way through Chapter 2) so you'll actually learn about them pretty early. They're both a huge help when it comes to clearing the dungeon floor in the allotted amount of time you have! Later in the game you can build a Buggy for Steve which is harder to control and better ranged weapons than the Barrel Cannon.

There's one more huge thing that will speed things up for you and that's recruiting Donny to your party as your third character. He will unlock all chests and even better all closed off doors/sections in a dungeon. Yes, you read that right - you won't have to dig through chests to get the 'key' item that lets you into that pesky room with a single mob in it. Anything that's normally locked, Donny will help unlock it! He's probably the best third character you can ask for.

The final tip that I have is... save states! As always I can't stress enough how useful these can be! If you have a good memory you can memorize where all the mimics are - or you can memorize where the Magic Crystal is to show you where all the enemies are on the mini map. This will definitely make it easier for you to find every enemy before the timer runs out! It also helps see enemies at a distance since the actor clip plane is so low in the game. What I mean is, enemies normally don't appear until they're almost in attacking range. Sometimes you have to run quite far down a path for them to pop into sight.