Getting Every Trophy in Sayonara Wild Hearts
I spent about six hours grinding the platinum on this one. The game is short — roughly 45 minutes to an hour on a first run if you actually finish everything — but the completion requirements are picky enough that rushing through it gets you stuck. This Sayonara Wild Hearts Trophy Guide is what I wish I had before I started. The core challenge revolves around chapter completion grades, secret ending triggers, and one trophy most people miss because it's not obvious how to access it. Let me walk you through the actual trophy list and how each one works in practice.
Sayonara Wild Hearts Trophy Guide Overview
Here are the trophies broken down by category: Chapter Completion Trophies: You need to finish several of the game's nine chapters at a specific grade threshold. Each chapter uses a star-based grading system, and most trophies require you to earn at least two stars per chapter. That means you need a high score but not necessarily a perfect clear. Playing on "Challenger" difficulty helps here — it's the middle difficulty setting, and most players naturally score high enough to get two stars on their first few attempts. The Perfect Clear Trophy: This is the one people complain about. You need to clear at least one entire chapter without losing a single heart. On "Expert" difficulty this is doable but stressful. On "Normal" it's significantly more forgiving. My recommendation: start with the "Candy Caverns" chapter on Normal difficulty. The patterns are straightforward, the enemy spawn timing is predictable, and once you learn the layout you can coast through it. I failed this trophy three times on Challenger before switching to Normal and clearing it on attempt four.
The Secret Ending Trophy: This is the trickiest part of the game. You need to find and complete the secret chapter called "Wild Hearts." It does not appear in the normal level select. To unlock it, you must collect every hidden gem that appears throughout the main chapters. Each chapter has one gem hidden in a non-obvious location. These gems are small, glowing, and often tucked behind obstacles or in areas you don't normally visit because the rhythm gameplay pushes you forward. If you miss a gem during a run, you have to replay that chapter to get it. I spent an extra forty-five minutes in the second chapter alone because I hadn't noticed the gem was in the upper right corner of the stage, behind a pillar that only appears on the third beat drop. The workaround I used was replaying each chapter on low priority — focusing purely on exploration rather than score — which took me about ten minutes per chapter but guaranteed I found every location. The Platinum Trophy: This requires every other trophy, including the secret ending. Once you have the secret ending unlocked and completed, you're done. The game will auto-award the platinum immediately after the ending cinematics finish. No extra tasks after that point.
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Practical Tips That Actually Matter
Don't play through the game straight for trophies on your first attempt. You will miss gems, you will grade chapters too low, and you will waste hours restarting sections. Instead, do this: Finish one full playthrough on any difficulty just to learn the chapters. Take note of gem locations as you encounter them. Then go back and re-clear chapters you need higher grades on. The game's score system doesn't carry over between attempts in a way that matters — each run is independent. So replaying is the only option for grade improvement. For the heartless chapter clears, switch to Normal difficulty and treat it like a practice run rather than a challenge run. The enemy patterns are identical across difficulties; only the speed and damage changes. Normal gives you enough time to react without requiring perfection in a single try. I cleared the perfect run trophy on the "Neon Knights" chapter on my fifth attempt at Normal. The same chapter took me eight attempts on Challenger and I still didn't get it.
There's a common misconception that you need to max out the score in every chapter for the two-star grade. You don't. Two stars is roughly 60-70% of the maximum possible score depending on the chapter. Playing aggressively and keeping your combo alive gets you there without needing to chase every single note perfectly.
The Gem Hunting Strategy
This is where most people stall. The secret chapter can't be accessed without collecting all gems, and the gems are easy to overlook during normal gameplay because the game pushes you to focus on the rhythm mechanics. Here's the approach that worked for me: Go into each chapter and clear it normally first. After you finish, go back into that chapter and play purely for exploration. Move slowly. Check corners, behind barriers, in areas you wouldn't normally go because the song pushes you along a specific path. Each gem is visually distinct — it glows and pulses. But if you're playing fast, it's easy to miss. On my first run I only found five out of nine gems because I was focused on score. On the exploration run I found the other four within twenty minutes. One specific gem location that isn't obvious: in the "Forest of Echoes" chapter, there's a gem behind a rock formation that only becomes passable after you trigger a certain beat sequence. You can't get it on your first playthrough of that chapter unless you already know to look for it. Save a game after reaching that section and experiment with backtracking before proceeding.
Difficulty Selection Summary
Use this chart to plan your trophy grind: Normal: Best for perfect clear trophies. Patterns are clear, timing is generous. This is what I used for all my heartless chapter clears. Challenger: Fine for regular chapter completion. You'll get two stars on most chapters naturally if you play competently. I used this for grade grinding.
Expert: Not recommended for trophy purposes. The speed makes gem hunting nearly impossible and the perfect clear requirement becomes significantly harder without meaningful benefit. The entire trophy set can be completed in about 5-6 hours total if you're efficient. My time was closer to 8 hours because I didn't have a gem map beforehand and wasted time in two chapters searching for missing collectibles. If you follow the exploration-first approach I described, you should be able to cut that down considerably.
