Frog Zone is one of the rarest achievements in the game, but this can be a bit deceptive in terms of difficulty. In reality, Frog Zone can be unlocked before even getting the Hyper Crystal achievment. Some skill is needed here, but knowing the technical side of things is important as well.
Frog cannot be truly "unlocked", but can only be played as by starting a run with the Golden Frog Pistol (GFP), which unlocking is the goal of this guide. Because the GFP is a golden weapon, that means that a character who has it unlocked can overwrite it with another golden weapon unlock, which means that this entire process may have to be repeated.
With that in mind, here is the steps in order to unlock Frog:
- Start a run as any character you are good at - this will not be the run you unlock GFP on.
- Chicken is a good option here if you're not sure, as she can throw weapons inbetween levels.
- The first goal of this run is to reach L1 sewers with any golden weapon.
- One could just bring their starter golden weapon all the way through loop or just hope for a golden weapon drop in Loop Desert, but these are unreliable options.
- The best way is to start a run with a crown and reach the 3-2 vault where a special 'Proto Chest' will spawn that allows weapon storage. Leave the golden weapon here, then retrieve it from the 1-2 L1 vault. Do NOT visit the 5-2 vault in this run for reasons explained below.
- Once in loop sewers, defeat Mom while having a golden weapon on hand and running any crown in the game.
- Some guides recommend damaging Mom with the golden weapon at least once. While this is not required, it can still be done for ease of mind.
- Upon Mom's death a unique weapon called the "Frog Pistol" will drop. Swap your golden weapon out for this, and continue on to the 3-2 L1 vault.
- In 3-2 L1 a vault will spawn, but only if you visited less than 3 vaults during that run. Enter this vault with the newly found Frog Pistol on hand.
- Because a crown is being run the Proto Chest will once again spawn. Swap whatever weapon is in there with your Frog Pistol, then complete the vault level normally.
At this point the run can be ended as the first set of conditions have been met. From here, start a second run with a character you want to unlock the GFP on - pick a character who you don't mind having the golden weapon unlocked on. Chicken and Rogue are popular choices due to their starter weapons being unique. As a reminder picking up a new golden weapon will overwrite GFP, so consider picking a character who you don't play very much!
The only step left is to reach the 3-2 vault with a crown on(or take a crown there and reach the 5-2 vault). The proto chest will now upgrade the Frog Pistol to the Golden Frog Pistol! Complete the level in order to unlock the GFP, then end the run. From the character select screen the GFP can now be selected on the chosen character, and starting the run will unlock the achievment!
If you're worried about overwriting the GFP, you can put the GFP in the proto chest in which a second character can unlock it as well. It never hurts to have a backup!
That's it for the Frog Zone guide, while not extremely difficult one just has to have knowledge of how to actually unlock this as the conditions are pretty hard to find out on your own which is why Frog is a secret character. If interested in doing runs as Frog, the Frog character guide is a great resource for that!