This guide helps you to watch all the 4 possible endings and get the according achievements.
Two of which are bad endings, one a more neutral ending, and the last one being the perfect true ending.

I will also provide valuable information on some game mechanics and special items that can be found for those interested. In the map section you can also find different 100% maps that might help you as well.



This guide was written and updated for the game version 1.3.7. It will receive future updates if it is necessary.

The endings are connected to two main conditions:

1. freeing the Mysterious Pirate from the clutches of Short Fuse Jones
2. collect all golden tooths from Flora's crew and obtain Sammy (the speaking skullhead)

Anything else is not important, like freeing the imprisoned pirates or missing out the optional bosses, like the Necromancer or the Lighthouse Keeper. This is because only the crew member bosses of Flora drop the golden tooths which are needed to get Sammy. As Flora Burn does drop one tooth herself you can get Sammy only after triggering the endgame.

Speaking of the endgame. A temporary endgame run will trigger as soon as you freed the Mysterious Pirate and successfully beat Flora Burn in her first encounter at the peak of Samhain Summit. The map won't be easily accessibly anymore because a lot of barriers are placed around the map, and the teleport portals cannot be used again for quite some time. So if you have unfinished business left to do, don't fight her yet.

Hints: With version 1.3.7 and above, you will be able to erase barriers with the serpent magic and Dolores can unlock the portals again in her secret chamber when you reached the ship and spoke to her. You can only access her by unlocking the true ending conditions and beat Flora on her second encounter though.

To erase barriers, just press up when you stand before them after gaining the power to do so. You will keep your savefile at the last savepoint if you finished the game, so you are able to roam back and collect missed achievements or collectibles afterwards. That way you can 100% the game anytime and unlock the true ending as well afterwards.

If you want a perfect savefile with which you can go for all 4 endings whenever you want to, don't untie the Mysterious Pirate after fighting Short Fuse Jones (or don't fight that boss at all yet) but collect any other golden tooths. Then save before the first Flora Burn encounter at Samhain Summit peak.

Make a backup of your savegame. For Steam Windows PC your savefile is located in the folder (just copy paste into file explorer)

%APPDATA%\..\LocalLow\Petoons Studio\Curse Of The Sea Rats\SaveData\

There you will find a subfolder with your Steam-ID. The files themselves are named SaveData0.game to SaveData2.game depending which saveslot you used (0 being the first slot).

With this save you can replace or duplicate your progression to another slot anytime. It is best to do this directly in the main menu, without the load game overview opened.

This map shows all crew member bosses needed for the golden tooths, the boss which keeps the Mysterious Pirate captive and should be avoid as long as you want to go for the bad endings, and where the endgame begins to trigger.



This map shows the blocked areas during endgames (red markers) and possible routes to the ship. And also where to find the special boss Mamma Ratelli with her Barrelosauros, or Dolores for unlocking the portals again after triggering the endgame (only accessible under true ending conditions).


Hints: the route top bottom is the fastest, but only accessible of you opened the secret pre-endgame. You will also miss the Barrelosauros if you choose the fastest route. In general, using the waterfall slide passage is always the best option to go for to reach the ship faster.

The first ending you can basically already trigger right after the game started. Just don't accept the deal with Admiral Blacksmith to free Timothy to get your freedom back in return.

To do so, just return to the ship and speak to the guard 3 or more times. He will get annoyed and says he only will let you through with the permission of the Admiral. Go speak to the Admiral to get it. He warns you about the consequences. Just don't care and board the ship anyway to go into jail and leave Timothy in the evil witches hand and an uncertain future.

You should unlock the achievement 'Running away like a coward" with it and the game ends without rescuing Timothy, loosing your chance for amnesty and awaiting your harsh trial in Britain.

You battle Flora Burn in the first encounter, but without the help of the Mysterious Pirate.

In this case Flora will act like she was defeated, but waits for the right moment to steal the amulet from you. Without it and any further help, you neither be able to free Timothy out of the crystal, nor you will receive the serpent ring, your only chance left to fight Flora again. You have lost to Flora's plan and her trap perfectly worked out. The game directly ends here giving you no chance to enter the endgame at all.

This will unlock the 'Crystallized forever' achievement.

You have to free the Mysterious Pirate by beating Short Fuse Jones and untie him. Then battle Flora Burn at the Samhain Summit. She will neithertheless steal your amulet, but the Mysterious Pirate will help you free Timothy out of the crystal and obtain the old serpent ring of Flora.

This will trigger the endgame in which you follow Flora back to the ship through a maze because a lot of ways are blocked by barriers Flora left for you to slow your down. Teleport potals are now inaccessible as well because the serpent ring does not have such powers and the heroes don't accept selling their soul for dark magic. Find your way around and walk. There are multiple paths, the fasted one going over the Home of the Morrigan area and using the Spider Cave - waterfall slide to LaChusa's Pit. But if you do so, you will miss the special boss fight Mamma Ratelli (a Kickstarter stretchgoal boss). If you play the game first, go over the Chu Chulainn Road, you automatically stumble over this boss then. Take a look on the endgame map in the map section to find a suitable route for you. Some are only accessible if you opened secret passages before or you obtained the necessary key for the door.

When you reached the ship, just fight your way through to Flora Burn. You will be able to beat her, but she will once again trick you. She will obtain the amulet and the ring this time, making her almighty at last. She will set off laughing with the now cursed flying ship. You will remain being rodents.

This will unlock the 'Sailing the skies' achievement.

This time you will not only free the Mysterious Pirate after the boss fight with Short Fuse Jones, but also collect all 7 tooths before challenge Flora Burn personally. The Mysterious Pirate will return the favor and free Timothy out of the crystal and also helps you to get the much needed serpent ring. Now make your way to the cemetary to Dolores (above the temple entrance nearby) to recruit Sammy. This will then automatically lead you to the true ending.

With the last golden tooth from Flora Burn Dolores can revive her former lover Sammy to an undead flying skull being (a fun camo of Murray the talking skull from Monkey Island). You will also unlock the 'Golden Smile' achievement with it. Sammy will act as a companion that will randomly bite the enemies and has a big grudge on Flora for personal matters.

Hint: it may happen that Sammy disappears during your endgame run. You can just save and reload to get him back, or you just don't care about. The game will neithertheless take into account that he is with you and join you for the final fight against Flora at the end.

Fight your way to the ship to confront Flora again. This time, after you beat Flora, Sammy will prevent Flora from getting the amulet and the ring. Instead Short Fuse Jones will pick them up and will mutate to Long Fuse Jones in the process. But before you fight him in an extra 3 phased final boss battle, make sure to drop down and visit Dolores again if you want to unlock the portals again with her voodoo magic.

After beating Long Fuse Jones, Wu Yun, the ghost sensei, will recover your human forms and scatter the ring and amulet into different directions to prevent them from ever be claimed again. You will unlock the 'No more fur' achievement with it. Also the 'No one can beat me' (beat all bosses) if you faced Mamma Ratelli in the endgame run.

First off, you can change characters anytime on any savespot. Later on you will get the transmutation ring if you beat Morrigan (an optional boss) which grants you the power to switch characters on the fly. So don't bother, you are not nailed down to one character for the rest of the game. It is meant to use all characters to their full potential. Feel free to test them out by yourself and level them up depending on how urgently you need their special abilities.

The following judgement is my personal one based on my experiences, the ingame abilities and stats of the characters.

But still pick the character who pleases your overall gamestyle most or tactical switch to another if you plan to fight certain bosses or to cross a dangerous area (eg. using David's or Akane's dash in the Cliff of the Winds, or Buffalos ranged attack in the Moonlight Lough).

Hint:
• DPS is judged on damage and attack speed
  
• Defense and critical hits is a combined judgment of more than one stat

With version 1.3.7 Akane and especially Buffalo got nerfed a lot. Most ability durations and buffs got nerfed as well for all characters, and crit chance and crit damage got lowered in general. Only David and Bussa got a slight ability buff in their healing skills. Still Akane is able to keep up on the same overall level than David. Due to those changes, David, Akane and Bussa seem to be the best pick for your character choice to make things easy at the moment. But don't underestimate Buffalo. If you make use of her individual character strenght, she is still an effective characters.

Bussa is currently the perfect character to choose for difficult boss fights (or a later hardcore mode), as he can negate enemy attacks with his steady block easily a soon as you learned the boss attack pattern and will tank a lot of incoming damage anyway.

See the next sections to learn their specific strenghts and max stats. Some of them have to be unlocked by beating certain bosses or bought with spirit points later on to get the full potential of the character.

• Role:            All-Rounder, high DPS Mage, good beginners character
  
• Element:     Fire
  
• Dash:          straight floating forward dash
• Hitbox:        normal
  
• Attack rate: medium
  
• Defense:     parry

* the milk bottle will gain you +50 HP and the blacksmith (not the admiral) +10 to attack permanently


Pros:

David has an straight dash making him a good beginners character. he has a vampiric life leech ability on his base attack which will safe a lot of consumables. His fire magic is one of the top damage magic dealing attacks in the game due to the burning effect they have later on. Also, David has the funniest dialogues in the game.

Cons:

David has the lowest weapon damage but still with a fair attack speed due to his 4 hit combo you can unlock.

General

• Role:            Ranged Combat, Stealth
  
• Element:      Storm (Thunder, Wind)
  
• Dash:          rolling forward dash
  
• Hitbox:        normal
  
• Attack rate: high
  
• Defense:     dodge + damage enemy

* the milk bottle will gain you +50 HP and the blacksmith (not the admiral) +10 to attack permanently


Pros:

Although Buffalo got extremely nerfed with patch 1.3.7, she has the fastest combo attack speed with still a fair DPS output. She is also great in ranged combat and stealth attacks to play things safe. She is a perfect supportive coop character with her electrocuting ranged attacks. Also her Dodge ablity is a better version of Parry as it directly damages enemies.

Cons:

Buffalo has a weak defense and only little HP, so you need to be really careful with her if you go for melee attacks. She has also no own healing ability, means she has to rely on consumables or you have to use the transmutation trick to switch to Bussa to heal. Be careful with the aerial knives attack, they will stop her momentum midair completely.

General
• Role:           Heavy tank
  
• Element:     Earth
  
• Dash:          rolling forward dash
  
• Hitbox:        normal
  
• Attack rate: slow
• Defense:     steady block (100% invincible, except against direct enemy contact)

* the milk bottle will gain you +50 HP and the blacksmith (not the admiral) +10 to attack permanently


Pros:

Bussa is an underestimated character. His best part is the unique block that ignores incoming damage and can be hold - no need to time anything like with the other characters. Also he has a lot HP and defense. This makes him an awesome boss killer as you can survive the nastiest attacks. He could be the gamechanger for the still missing harder game modes from the KS stretchgoals. His healing magic is also a good thing during map roaming, you will need much less items.

Cons:

He is mostly focused on defense, so he does not deal a lot damage. Unfortunetally the voice acting is sort of weird, the intended accent feels just off and not fitting. Breaks a lot of immersion.

General

• Role:           DPS, Mage, All-Rounder
  
• Element:     Water
  
• Dash:          straight floating forward dash
  
• Hitbox:        big (upwards and w/ multistab)
  
• Attack rate: medium
  
• Defense:     parry

* the milk bottle will gain you +50 HP and the blacksmith (not the admiral) +10 to attack permanently


Pros:

Akane is a pretty versatile character. She has a the biggest weapon hitbox with upward attacks and the multistabbing move. And she does inflict extra damage if you use aerial attacks. In fact after Buffalo got nerfed, she is the top DPS character at the moment. She also can unlock an basic ranged attack that comes in handy a lot of times (though it seems to not trigger always). She is also the only character that can perform a triple bounce arial attack from above if you keep holding the down and attack button - this will inflict a lot of damage. Since v1.3.7 she got also the best dash movement like David has, a floating dash perfect for platforming parts.

Akane has the ability to auto-refill her energy (1 orb every minute). This got nerfed a lot with patch 1.3.7. But this still gives her unlimited usage of magic attacks if she has the time to wait for it. This can be helpful with the boss Mamma Ratelli or Morrigan because the magic attack Tsunami will hit them even when you cannot by normal means.
Also don't bother to abuse her to recharge your energy when you have the Transmutation Ring.

Cons:

Akane, like Buffalo, has no healing and therefore has to rely on item healing. The low defense and little health does force you to plan your attacks careful with her.

Legend:

• beige - normal rooms
  
• golden - secret rooms (usually have to be force opened)
  
• red - boss room
  
• blue/cyan - portals (have to be activated in exchange of spirit points)
  
• green - savepoints (offers health and orbs, upgrades and character-switching as well)

I marked everything important I mention in the sections below.


If you want a more detailed one with nearly every information, this external map is one of the best I found so far. You will find the download link in the description of the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGRQ4IAbtpY

Defeating Morrigan in Home of the Morrigan will grant you the Transmutation Ring. A very awesome item. Like the Tasmanian Sword in the game 'Wonderboy Dragons Trap' you can change your character whenever you want. Use it directly in the inventory, or press the left analog stick on your controller. For keyboard players it is the TAB key. Careful, you will get stalled for a whole second.

Use this to your advantage. With fully upgraded characters, you can always auto-refill your energy switching to Akane, go for range attack with Buffalo, or heal yourself with Bussa whenever you see fit.

Hint: you need 3 stones to open the door to the Home of the Morrigan. See the map I provided. For one stone you have to visit Dan Black first to get to know that Charlie (a fun camo of Harold from Day of the Tentacle) has the stone to be able to obtain it from him.

Fighting the boss Necromancer you will get the Resurrection Ring which will automatically heal you when you die. But it is a one use item. After this, it transforms into the Dull Resurrection Ring.

Hint: the Necromancer has 3 phases. The first one is easy, but the other two are working on platforms. if you fall off, you will die instantly. I suggest you stay on the big shield platforms because the small one will vanish - and if you are still going to use them, watch and position yourself always close to the bigger ones to have always a kind of a safety net. Clever movement is important to prevent a quick death. Just don't rush it. The boss doesn't deal a lot of damage. use long ranged attacks (Buffalo) or magic attacks (Akane) if you want to play it safe.

The Necromancer is the only boss that can be fought unlimited times as he is immortal. This mechanic seems to be added to give you the ability to recharge the Dull Resurrection Ring.

However, at the moment this mechanic seems to be broken. The Dull Resurrection Ring will just vanish out of your inventory but you won't get the normal Resurrection Ring back. Reviving also will not work out. So once used, that feature is gone for good in the current game version (this wasn't fixed with the new patch and is still pesistent).

In general power ups work on all characters at once.

Don't miss to drink the Milk Bottle from the farm house. It will grant you +50 max HP permanently.

Also get a Shilling (2 can be found, but you only need 1) and visit the lighthouse with it (the key to the lighthose is in LaChusa's Pit. If you use the left telescope on the top of the lighthouse, you will unlock the blacksmith (not Admiral Blacksmith). He will upgrade your weapon and raise your basic attack by +10 permanently if you talk to him.

Aside of the bosses (eg Barrelosauros) or a few minibosses (eg big spider in Spider's Nest), there are scattered some unique pirate type enemies around the world which are easily overseen but necessary to defeat for the 'The Fighter' achievement. The Immortals in the temple do not count for the achievement.

I will list the ones I found so far (see the specials map for exact locations):

1. Miner Pirate in Flying Rat Cave (left entrance shaft)
2. Whaler Pirate in the Cliff of the Winds (lower left area behind the locked door)
3. Chief Pirate in La Chusa's Pit (right below the boss room)

Also might help as it is missable: to kill the Skull Crab just parry/dodge its attack to make it vulnerable. Does not work with Bussa though due to his block skill.

With the next update an enemy logbook will be added which will make things easier to find and kill all enemies.

Safe your level-up elixiers you usually find in secrets for higher levels. Best is to use them around level 35-40 before the endgame in Samhain Summit. Still keep some to make boss fighs easier (see the next chapter). It is not mandatory to waste them, XP is easily farmed.
Also, for pure XP farming, it is not necessary to collect the money or spirits on the ground. XP is gained instantly the enemy dies.

Later in the game in Samhain Summit and the Home of the Morrigan are fiery ghosts named Will'o'the'Wisp (a word play on the second Ori game). Just attack and kill them constantly at their spawn point to farm some spirit to unlock all perks and abilities of all four characters. The Will'o'the'Wisp at Home of Morrigan are better as they are level 25 instead of 24. But the difference is not much.


Hint: Before patch 1.1.2 it was possible to farm gold and XP the same way, but it got nerfed. Also they do not give so much spirit anymore. If you want XP and gold as well I suggest to better go and farm normal enemies then.


Moonlight Lough is in general an awesome midgame farming point. If you use Buffalo Calf's long rang knive attacked to spread damage and detonate swarms of the lvl16 fireflies, you will level up quickly while roaming through it. You can also just leave and reenter the areas again to let the enemies respawn instantly to kill them even quicker.



Better, especially for pre-endgame gold and level farming, is the temple. Right above the Necromancer lair there is room with quite a bunch of lvl22 skeleton enemies that can be eradicated quickly or easily with a ranged-combat character like Buffalo. Alternatively you can use area-of-effect magic to wipe them off quickly. Most effeciently with David's Tornado. And his vampiric attack will heal you while you clean the room. Just leave and reenter this area and keep killing. I prefer to enter the room from below and release the Tornado magic, then clean the rest with standard attacks.

Bosses can be tough, especially when you are lower than LVL 30. While it is always an option to come back later when you are at higher levels, sometimes you just don't want to avoid them for gathering certain abilities or sidequest items.

As long as you don't get robbed, money will never be an issue in this game. So shopping and using healing items during boss fights will make this game pretty easy.

While healing items can be collected, most of them are unique and should be avoided to waste them. But there are four healing items that can be bought unlimited times from the shop (some of them later in the game). Always fill up your inventory with them before boss fights and assign them to the quick use function:
1. Healing Nostrum
2. Healing Nostrum+
3. Healing Nostrum++
4. Apple

Use them aplenty in the boss fights to make them a breeze. Only Mamma Ratelli and the Necromancer can still be difficult due to their special mechanics.

And if you want to be real smug, keep your level-up elixiers (which can be found in secrets usually) for later, very difficult boss fights, or final bosses. Every level-up comes with a free fill-up of all HP and energy for all players still alive and can also be assigned to the shortcut function. This makes them the best healing items in the game. You will get more than 10 in the game. Just don't waste them, but use them wisely on boss fights you have most troubles with.

So actually just recklessly hack and slay the bosses to death and use your expendable consumables regularly to keep you alive. See bosses tremble facing this almighty power they can't do anything about.

Hint: The game aso supports a local hotdrop in/out coop mode for up to 4 players at once. And Petoons still didn't added a proper adaptive difficulty for coop mode. For every player joining the party things get more easy, especially because you can revive each other and have more overall DPS. Only downside is that you have to share your spirit points for purchasing abilities. But it will be still more beneficial to grab some friends to help you out and have more fun anyway.

Mamma Ratelli (a fun camo of Mama Fratelli from The Goonies movie) and her Barrelosaurus is a KS stretchgoal boss added to the game. That's why this boss is no regular bossfight. You can only find her during the endgame and is missable. The very same boss area where you fomerly had fought and beated Fatso and Fatsie in the Fodla's Bog swamp.

You can damage the Barrelosauros with the red explosive barrels by attacking them. This does also apply to multiple barrels at once (easier to perform with David or Akane due to their bigger weapon hitboxes) and even hitting and repel them midair.

Also you can damage the boss with the most powerful magic attack. This makes Akane a valuable character against Barrelosauros. Her auto-energy refill ability gives you regularly a free magic attack. Keep in mind it got nerfed drastically with patch 1.3.7 (refill need 5 times more time).

If you have the Transmutation Ring from Morrigan consider switching to David to do the Blazing Tornado fire magic attack - it is the strongest if you leveled him up. Then switch back to Akane. Be careful with the transmutation stall time. Don't get knocked off the screen by the flying barrels or you will die instantly.

If you play out your cards well the fight can be done in less than 60 secs.

With version v1.3.7 Petoons erased the insta-death ftom the game (except some boss fights) when falling off limits or pits. In fact, especially in the Lighthouse, Erius and Banba Forest you can fall off and land on lower levels. This can be used as a direct shotcuts anywhere you see fit. Basically you will always land in the section directly underneath or close by the room you fell off on the map.

But there is one particular horizontal special shortcut passage behind the waterfall between the areas LaChusa's Pit and the Spider Nest that should be pointed out. To use this passage you have to crouch.


This is super handsome to skip the Cliff of the Winds while travelling from west to east, and vice versa. During endgame it is always a good way to get back to the ship more easily. Especially the Home of the Morrigan route (if the secret was opened pre-endgame) it is in fact the fastest way which will also skip an optional boss fight.

Those shotcuts are perfect for any speedrunning purposes.

In the corner room to the far east Petoons added a Treasure Map in a chest that once was occupied by a Carrot Cake with the patch 1.1.2. This map does unreveal the locations of all buried treasures for the sideques marked with 'M' in the Banba Forest.

Other treasures than that won't be revealed on the world map.

Grand reopening, thanks to Dolores! ♥

One of the most criticized mechanics in the first released version was that once the endgame triggered, portals were closed for good and barriers were still spreaded around the world. This made backtravelling for collectibles very difficult and is against usual Metroidvania open-world principles.

Petoons had a heart for their player fanbase and added Dolore's portal service with v1.3.7. She will replace Wu Yun's portals with her voodoo magic. Though she will be only available (for story reasons) before the very final boss if you met the true ending conditions.

You will find her right after fighting Flora the second time and before the true boss battle by dropping down the floor. Access the left portal room and pay to activate her portal to set her voodoo service up and running. Enjoy having the portals back.

If you have any advises, additions or critics to this guide feel free to leave me a comment.