One final spoiler warning for the people in the back. Alright, let's begin...

With Noire, The Goddess' Weapon. She's as standard as it gets, no particular gimmick and Nightshade as her starting item which is pretty nice.

Noire is notable for being tied for most starting health and having a really cool name.She's for folks who either don't have anyone else unlocked or don't want to play with any added gimmicks. There's also some dialog that only Noire and one other character have access to, but as far as I'm aware it doesn't hold any notable secrets.

Now things get a bit more interesting, with Root. Root has a sort of level up gimmick, tied to her starting gun. Small Note: All characters have their gimmicks tied to one of their starting weapons, if you swap to another weapon at a frog shop you lose the gimmick for the rest of the run.

Root starts with 2 less health than Noire and swaps the Nightshade for an Ammo, which she'll need because she wants to rely on her gun for kills.







Said gun trades 10 precision and 1 max ammo for the ability to 'mutate', what does that mean?

It means that when you kill an enemy by dropping them exactly to 0, this screen pops up and lets you pick an upgrade, they are, in order:
Heart: +1 max HP. Note: this gives you an empty heart, not a filled one, you will need to heal to use the extra HP.
Boot: -1 max HP, +15 accuracy. Note: This CAN go above 100%, creating a sort of buffer against accuracy reducing effects.
Knife: -3 max HP, -10 accuracy, +1 damage. Note: this option will not appear if your max HP is below 4.
Hourglass: +1 ammo cap, reload by 1

When playing Root you need to find a balance between the four options, drain too much max HP and you'll just get killed, drain too much accuracy and you wont be able to hit anything, and once your gun is good you're naturally going to want to fire it more so the 4th option will always tempt you.

Note: These upgrades are for your ranged weapon as a concept, not specifically Root's Gun. Obtaining mutations and then switching to Gun and Torch or Pirate Gun will maintain them.

Next on the list, my personal favorite, Albiria. The Crimson Queen has a level up gimmick similar to Root, but tied to her melee weapon instead of ranged, as well as a unique starting item that can't normally be obtained.

Albiria's ranged weapon is nothing to write home about, in fact it's quite bad. 90% accuracy is nice, but base damage 1 and base ammo of 4 make it less than ideal. The real star of the show is the Goddess Sword, killing an enemy with it, even if it isn't an exact kill like Root wants, will cause Albiria to 'level up'



Every time you level up this screen will pop up, presenting you with 3 options from a small pool. Each option has its own art and they're all quite nice. The options are as follows:

Wartime Supplies: +1 ammo cap, full reload
Poison In The Eyes: Gain 1 Nightshade
Blade Fragment: Halve max HP, suffer 1 poison, +1 damage
Moon Shield: Gain 3 temp HP
Heartbeat: +1 max HP. Note: this gives you an empty heart, not a full one. You'll need to heal to use the new HP
Broken Mirror: +17 Crimson Fragments.
Open Wound: +1 damage to first attack each battle, -'a small amount' of accuracy.

Note: these upgrades are tied to your melee weapon as a concept, not the Goddess Sword itself. Thus, changing to Reaper's Scythe, Hunter's Knife or Dagger 48 you can keep the upgrades.

However, be careful not to level too greedily, at levels 2 and 5 Albiria will comment on the Crimson Moon Night approaching. As soon as you hit level 9 they will arrive and likely kill you, so level responsibly.

Swapping to another melee weapon will remove the ability to level, but even without that Albiria's unique Humble Ring can help her avoid overleveling. Using the Humble Ring will deal instant damage equal to the damage of your melee weapon at 100% accuracy, then, the ring comes back to you like a boomerang. Note: losing the ring any way other than using it will cause it to be gone forever.

Overall, Albiria wants to score 7 sword kills asap, and then either change melees or start killing with the ring instead. It's dangerous but extremely rewarding to stack several Blade Fragments, but if you want to go that route remember to toss in the occasional Moon Shield and just play very carefully. The sooner you can hit level 8 the less max HP you'll have gained naturally, and thus the less you'll be losing so keep that in mind.

Ah, Luna, the secret finder's best friend. At first glance, her high damage low accuracy melee and extremely low max HP make her appear to be a high risk high reward character, and the world's best user of Emergency Dagger, but in practice she can completely change the flow of the game, and access a lot of unique content, as well as sharing Noire's occasional special dialogs.

Luna's Axe is, of course, the star of the show here. 3 is the highest base damage in the game, tied with the Pirate Gun, and 55 is the worst base accuracy in the game.






Without Emergency Dagger or some accuracy ups, the axe will prove to be servicable at best, but you need to keep it so you can do this:
Luna's Axe gives her unique access to the Inverted World, all of the enemies encountered here are unique and after fighting one you will be reset to 0% and obtain a special item called Stardust. Stardust lets you kill any one normally unkillable enemy.

Killing the No Skin Man just has him let you go, but the other options are... interesting.

Son of the Skinless will drop a Crimson Shard, which deals 2 instant damage and, if it kills, buff your melee and ranged damage by 1 with no downsides.

Killing a trap (Knives, Legholds, Nooses) will give 1-3 copies of 'Heaven's Staircase', an item that acts as a multiplier to your skin finding process after each encounter. By obtaining them with good timing, you can skip bosses and even potentially limit break off of them.

Being able to go backwards also lets you bring the Talk and Trade abilities from zones 2 and 3 into earlier areas. All of the Zone 1 enemies have interesting things to say

Just be careful how far into the inverted world you send yourself, nothing good awaits you at -999.

Luna's gimmick is capped off by her starting item, the Razor Blade deals damage to you equal to your current HP for no benefit. This exists purely to intentionally activate Luna's gimmick. You also get another one every time you hit 0% after an inverted world fight.

Luna can be played as a high risk/high reward character, but her real purpose is to upend the entire flow of the game and access things you otherwise can't.

You'd think such a cool title (and as obtuse of an unlock as she has too) would amount to an interesting gimmick but alas, that's just not in the cards for Roma. She does pack A gimmick and a unique starting item though.

Roma is tied with Noire for highest base HP and armed with a gun that trades 2 ammo cap for double damage on the last shot. It's not bad but it isn't as gimmicky as one might hope, and gives me little to talk about.

Roma's unique starting item is Military Supplies, it has no effect on use but each time you unlock a new room you also get 1 ammo, for a total of 6 extra ammo over the course of a run for playing Roma.

She also has a unique interaction with the zone 3 frogs but that's outside the scope of these character overviews.

Overall, unless you encounter zone 3 frogs, Roma is a totally straightforward sidegrade to Noire, trading 2 bullets for more damage on the last and the Nightshade for 6 ammo throughout the run.

Now that you know what the characters do, the obvious next question is how you get them, so let's do a lightning round of sorts.

ROOT

Unlocking Root requires purchasing Weapon of Justice from the moon, she will then occasionally appear as the boss of zone 1.
Defeating Root as a boss unlocks her as a playable character.

Unlocking Albiria requires purchasing The Noble Peasant from the moon, she will then occasionally appear as the boss of zone 2.
As with Root, unlocking her is as simple as defeating her in battle.

Unlocking Luna requires purchasing A Mysterious Girl from the moon, which requires completing Ester's dream diary.
Ester's dream diary throws you into a special run with 9 stages leading up to a boss fight, the only advice I can give is to visit the eggs whenever you're feeling less than confident about your health. I played it by ear and got it second try, so, best of luck.





Once you purchase the upgrade from the moon, Luna will occasionally replace the boss of the third zone, just before the final boss rush.
As ever, defeat Luna to unlock her as a new PC

Roma's unlock is a bit funky, first you need to complete Luna's character ending, then enter the 'Patience' dream diary it unlocks. Inside, you'll eventually find Roma just standing around in a side room.
This fight is a little rough, given that it takes place outside of the game's main mode. I got through it by stockpiling claws and throwing 4 of them at her imediately, followed by a nightshaded knife swing.

Root's unique ending is entirely up to RNG and that kinda sucks, but it isn't as bad as it could be. In order to enter the ending path you simply need to talk to the Deer Headed Man as Root, he will challenge you to a duel and if you accept he will replace the zone 2 boss. Defeating him will send you into Root's ending. Completing it unlocks Root's dream diary.

Albiria's unique ending requires you to reach level 9, at which point the Crimson Moon Knight will approach you as an unkillable enemy. You can not run and must withstand a series of powerful attacks, a total of 12 damage 2 hits, with the ending rush containing 8 of them in a row. The only way I've found to survive this is with Gun and Torch from zone 1 frogs, as you also get cursed early into the fight. Once you withstand the onslaught, the Crimson Moon Knight will replace No Skin Man at 100%, sending you into Albiria's ending sequence. Completing it unlocks Albiria's dream diary.

Thanks to Remar for informing me that purchasing Organs from the Black Market and then spamming Sharpen is also a viable strategy.

Luna's unique ending requires you to step into the Inverted World repeatedly, ~6 times by my count. get used to this screen










Each time you enter the inverted world you will be met with an angel, each one telling you a snippet of the story of the false god. Once all the angels run out you'll encounter....

This is a troll boss through and through, all attacks have only a 1% chance of landing so I hope you stocked up on instant damage items. Thankfully only one hit needs to go through to win the battle and enter Luna's ending sequence, which unlocks the Patience dream diary you need for Roma.

Roma's ending is also RNG based, but not as badly as Root's. When you encounter zone 3 frogs as Roma you will enter a battle against them, winning this battle places you into Roma's ending path. Completing it will unlock the Debug Room game mode.

~Character Ending Screenshots
~Any other characters that could be hiding in there that I haven't found yet.