It's been a while since I last did a fresh ng, but are you sure you're in the right places? Keep mashing the confirm button on the surrounding area, as there's not really any prompts/visual cues to where the buttons are until after you find them. Maybe double check on the ones you already pressed, just in case?

I think I've clicked on every pixel. No prompt for the back of the big house and the back of the zombie house.
Hmm, can you screw things up if you "skip" a tutorial?

Had Dark Friday in my last run, but never beat her before I decided to start a new game.

So the only requirements are complete the tutorial and click the 5 buttons right?

hmm, I pretty much always skip the cutscenes and such, so I think it's unlikely. You don't need to re-press the buttons on ng+, but since this is a fresh game, I don't know why they aren't appearing for you (or, at least, some of them, which is somewhat even weirder). Are you absolutely sure she hasn't spawned yet without you noticing somehow? She can be somewhat hidden beneath that big tree. Have you tried starting another ng just to test things out again?

and yes, you just need to find the 5 buttons (you can spawn her as early as you have control over Adell, but you can only challenge her after the tutorial missions). I just tried it and it went as expected on my end.

Ahh, so you can find the buttons before the tutorials, I'll try that.

Now I get zero buttons before and after the tutorials. I'll try a reinstall.

...Nope.

hmm, I'm as stumped as you are as for why that is happening, assuming you're doing everything right. I can provide a save file with her unlocked if you want

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JqhDRrzYQ6yI9KRNJMO2XeytbBA5mrzu/view?usp=sharing
Try overwriting your save with this one (I remember the game being a bit finnicky when trying to recognize save files that were copied over). The folder should be in <C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\250752327\495280\remote>, I think.

Thanks for your help neemoos!
I do have a save with her unlocked in my last 1st and 2nd cycle.
It's this new game in which I wanted to do a run without the dlc characters that is making me insane, lol.

Originally posted by neemoos:

It's been a while since I last did a fresh ng, but are you sure you're in the right places? Keep mashing the confirm button on the surrounding area, as there's not really any prompts/visual cues to where the buttons are until after you find them. Maybe double check on the ones you already pressed, just in case?

I can hear Hanako now, "Hey stupid head!". I should have paid more attention to your post. For some reason I thought I would get a prompt from just being in the right place, but you were right! Thanks again neemoos!

No problem, glad you were able to figure it out