You’re staring at the Blue Hole, your oxygen is at 10%, and you’re wondering if that final gold trophy is actually worth the salt-water headache. Look, Dave the Diver is a masterpiece of cozy "just one more dive" gameplay, but the platinum trophy? That’s a whole different beast. It’s not necessarily hard, but it’s definitely a test of your patience and your ability to remember to feed a pixelated cat.
If you’re hunting for the "The Best Diver" achievement, you've probably noticed the list looks deceptively simple. "Catch 300 fish?" Easy. "Upgrade a gun?" Piece of cake. But then you see the grinds. The GYAO! Master trophy alone has broken more spirits than a Giant Squid.
Basically, this isn't a race; it's a marathon where you occasionally have to stop and play Tamagotchi.
The One Thing You Can Actually Miss
Most of this game is incredibly forgiving. You can beat the final boss, roll the credits, and still go back to finish every single task. However, there is one missable trophy that will absolutely ruin your day if you blink at the wrong time: Ration Eater.
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During Chapter 6, you’ll be tasked with infiltrating the Sea Blue Base. It’s a stealth mission. Near the end of this sequence, on the third floor after you roll over a cardboard box, there is a literal tin of military rations sitting on the floor.
Pick it up and eat it. If you finish that mission without eating those specific rations, you’re locked out. You can’t go back. You’d have to restart the entire game from scratch just for that one silver trophy. Honestly, it’s a bit of a mean move by the devs, but now you know.
Why GYAO! Master is a Total Time Sink
Let's talk about the GYAO! minigame. You unlock this through a side quest for Sato, and it’s basically a virtual pet on Dave’s phone. To get the platinum, you have to raise five of these creatures to their adult form.
Here is the kicker: you can only really interact with them during the morning and afternoon. At night, they’re asleep. You have to feed them, clean up their "messes," and keep them from getting sick. It takes about 4 to 5 in-game days for one to reach maturity.
How to speed it up
- Once a GYAO! reaches its final form, it "counts" toward your five.
- You don't need five different types. Five of the same one works fine.
- Pro tip: You can use the "Rebirth" option or just let them die after they evolve to start the next one immediately.
- If you’re in the post-game, just spam the "skip time" button on your boat. Just keep an eye on your sushi restaurant's expenses so you don't go broke while Dave is napping the days away.
The Mjolnir Hunt (God of Lightning)
This is the trophy that makes people think their game is glitched. To get God of Lightning, you need to find Mjolnir and catch a fish with it. The problem? It’s a random spawn in the Glacial Area.
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You won't find it in a normal weapon chest. Instead, look for a large chunk of ice with a glowing hammer stuck inside. You have to mine the ice with your knife and then play a quick "pull the hammer" minigame.
Where to look
The spawn rate is somewhere around 10% to 20% per dive. Most people find it on the right side of the Glacial Area, often on the second or third "shelf" down from the top. It can also spawn inside the First or Third Glacial Caves. If you don't see it, don't waste your time. Just finish your dive and try again the next day. It’s pure RNG, so don't beat yourself up if it takes 15 tries.
Managing Your Sushi Empire for the Grind
Two of the biggest hurdles for the dave the diver platinum guide are Leadership (training an employee to level 20) and Cooksta Influencer (reaching Diamond rank). Both require an ungodly amount of gold.
To hit Level 20, a single employee needs nearly 300,000 gold for that final upgrade. That is a lot of sushi.
Don't spread yourself thin.
Focus on one or two high-value recipes. The Tropical Sushi Fish Set is a gold mine. It uses Titan Triggerfish, Harlequin Hind, and Coral Trout. If you max out your fish farm for these three specific species, you’ll be pulling in 20k to 40k a night without even trying.
For the Diamond rank on Cooksta, you need a dish with a "Taste" score of at least 375. The easiest way to get this is to pick a high-base-level shark dish and just keep "enhancing" it. The Greenland Shark Meat or any of the late-game Glacial fish are your best bets here.
The Secret Dev Killer Achievement
When the credits roll, don't put the controller down. You’ll enter a mini-game where you control Dave in space, and you have to destroy all the developers' names.
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It’s actually kinda tricky. The names move fast, and if you miss even one, you don't get the trophy. If you fail, don't panic. You can re-access the "Village Games" or the "Mini-game" app on your phone later to try again. The trick is to move in a wide, clockwise circle. Don't try to chase individual names; just let them fly into your path.
Quick Hits for the Remaining Trophies
- Catman: You need to feed the cat (Momo or Mochi) 20 times. You can only do this once per day. Start this early. If you wait until the post-game, you’ll be skipping through 20 days just to hand out cat food. You get cat food from the red pots scattered around the seabed.
- Weapon Collector: You need all blueprints. This usually happens naturally, but keep an eye out for the "small" chests. The Arctic area has some specific melee blueprints that people often overlook.
- Blacksmith Helper: Sell 200 items to Duwa in the Sea People Village. Don't sell your upgrade materials early on! Wait until you've maxed out your favorite guns, then dump all your excess silver ore and scrap metal at once.
Actionable Insights for Your Platinum Run
The real secret to the dave the diver platinum guide is efficiency. If you try to do everything at once, you’ll burn out.
- Start the GYAO! and Cat Feeding immediately. These are time-gated. If you do them during the story, they’re "free." If you wait until the end, they are a boring grind.
- Prioritize your Fish Farm. The moment you unlock a new area, send two of every fish to the farm. This provides the ingredients for high-taste dishes without you having to hunt them every single day.
- Upgrade the Net Gun. It’s the best weapon for the "Predator of the Blue Hole" (300 fish) because it keeps the meat at 3 stars, which means more materials and more gold.
- Check for Mjolnir every time you enter the Glacial Area. Don't make a special trip for it until it’s one of your last trophies left.
By the time you reach the hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the world, you should have most of the "grindy" stuff already half-finished. Just remember: eat those rations in the Sea Blue base. Everything else can wait, but that little tin of food is the only thing standing between you and a perfect 100% completion.
To wrap this up, focus your nightly menu on the Tropical Sushi Fish Set and keep those GYAO! pets alive. Once you've cleared the story and eaten the rations, it’s just a matter of luck with the Mjolnir spawn. You’ve got this. Happy diving.
Now that you have the roadmap, you should go check your "Cooksta" app to see how many followers you're still missing for that Diamond rank. It’s usually more than you think.