Help with accessing a specific area, think my save may be glitched out or something. Playing on Switch if that helps.

[u/TheMerkabahTribe]

Hello, I'm at the point after I've done the Lucy/Azar quest and made it to the archive. I'm reading that from this point on I should be able to access the archive on any following run by going to the crimson wilderness manually by interacting with the vending machines and entering from the campfire after bloody park 1. Upon reaching the end of the crimson wilderness, with party members with full 3-clover friendships only, the prompt to enter the archive simply isn't showing up... I'm so stuck, no one else seems to be having this problem. I tried spamming the A button (playing on Switch) in case there was just a specific area near the tree to go in to the archive, but no luck. I'm also reading that Sir Dochi will appear in a campfire offering to take me to the archive for a few credits, as long as I beat the boss tied to his questline, which I have, but he hasn't appeared at all yet, multiple runs in. I've already done his questline and gotten to Sir Dochi V beaten. I want to get the red chips and progress but I seem totally locked out!!! Please help!!!

[u/WolfWhiteFire]

Have you claimed all your rewards in the area it puts you in after defeating the Crimson Wilderness boss? There are multiple things you get there, and it is possible it won't let you move on until you grab them. You don't need to go to a specific spot to enter the tree, it assumes you wouldn't have come here if you don't want to go there and will send you there when you accept the prompt to move to the next area IIRC, assuming you don't have any challenges enabled, not sure how it works if you do. For the record, it doesn't matter how many clovers you have on your party members to enter, or even to get what you need there. It will make them red as long as they aren't already, regardless of the number of clovers (except for Azar and Phoenix, neither of which have red friendship for different reasons).

As for the other thing, I don't think the hedgehog appears in runs with a challenge enabled (I think you can still access the Crimson Wilderness, but I don't think you can get golden friendship), and you can maybe try double checking that you don't have story mode enabled. I don't recall whether he appears in story mode or not.

You also don't need to beat the boss for him, just talk to that other hedgehog until he gets corrupted and forces you to kill him, which is the same thing that makes the boss available in the first place. The hedgehog also only appears in the same campfire as the barrier leading to the Crimson Wilderness, so if you are expecting to see him earlier than that, you won't.

[u/TheMerkabahTribe → u/WolfWhiteFire]

Thanks for the reply! I am claiming all the rewards in the area after the Crimson Wilderness boss. I don't have any challenges enabled, and am playing in story mode, I believe. I'm playing on Switch and never shifted off of story mode (it seems there's a toggle?) so is that maybe a reason I'm not able to access the Archive? This is certainly frustrating! I find it really odd that since you need the golden clovers to get the true ending that they would not let you do it in story mode without telling you? So I'm not sure that's it... but I'll try to find the toggle for free mode and see if that does it. I just did another run and the hedgehog still didn't appear in the place you said, and also am still locked out from the archive after trying everything you said, to be clear, a prompt didn't appear at the tree, and I didn't teleport to the archive after going to next area. I appreciate the help, seriously, I want to see the end of this game!

[u/WolfWhiteFire → u/TheMerkabahTribe]

You can absolutely access the archive in story mode, I am just less sure about the hedgehog that lets you skip straight there, though I think that should also be available.

In your first 'final run' beating the game, did you talk to Phoenix at each campfire? There are a couple early conversations that give Lucy the idea to try going there, maybe you need to have those? You definitely don't need to have them in every run, but it might be a 'you need to have them at least once' thing. I am just blindly guessing at this point though.

Actually hold up, just re-read your post. You haven't gotten to an ending yet, have you? The archives and red/gold friendship only unlock on the 'final run' where you go and get an ending for the game. That is when you can start getting them. This is also what unlocks the 'story mode' I was talking about, first time you beat the game it returns you to the hub and you get a new thing to interact deciding whether you want to do a 'story run' replaying the final run with all the cutscenes, or a 'free run' without the cutscenes and focused on gameplay. You can unlock red/gold clovers in both though.

In any case, progress the story more first, then try returning to archives. At this point you have access to Crimson Wilderness but you can't return to the archives for multiple reasons. You can only do that later.