This was a fun challenge, I can't believe how close it was. There are not many items left you can research at this stage of the game. It came down to farming for rare banners or spelunking for an hour to get a single new painting or statue.
What I did:
- Large world, no secret seeds.
- Single world and character only
- Crimson world (no way to get alternate evil before Dryad afaik)
- I didn't use Xmas/Halloween grab bags. I thought of them too late into the challenge and they would've taken me over the finish line in an anti-climactic way, so I just didn't use them lol
- I used godmode to loot the Dungeon and Lihzahrd temple (Dungeon enemies don't spawn before skeletron – no way to get bones before skeletron afaik)
This took 37 hours of pure grinding – didn't spend any time building.
I'd be interested to know what the true limit is for the amount of items you can research before defeating any boss is in the game! If anyone has done the research on that I'd be interested to find out.
by GOONFAPPA