22 liberation maiden - cleared a stage without taking damage

Dear Readers,

I aimed to clear a stage without taking any damage in order to unlock entry 26 in the gallery. I managed this easily enough by picking the first level on easy mode in the stage attack.

It didn't take long at all. I skipped the tutorial and cut scenes and made sure to dance around enemy fire carefully. In easy mode it doesn't fly at me too fast so it was very manageable. 

I tore through the Lesser Spikes quickly and through the Greater Spike just as fast, while also being careful of course.

I made sure to take out the ships and other enemies that could shoot at me. I didn't bother purifying any other targets this time.

Aside from having to skip the tutorial, it's fun to do it on this stage because it has really good music, though if you're quick enough, you won't get to hear much of it!

21 liberation maiden - finally cleared the story on hard mode! 100% approval!

Dear Readers,

I finally beat the Guardian Spirit on hard! I unlocked everything for stage attack now and got the 100% public approval too!

I don't know exactly what I had to do to achieve 100% public approval but I did get 100% in all the other stages before I took on the Guardian Spirit. This unlocks the ending movie in the gallery.

So how did I beat the Guardian Spirit at last? Well, I took a few days away from playing the game and that certainly helped. I kept note of every lesson I learned from my numerous failures and took my time with it. I kept my attack setting on missiles. Whenever it launched the wave attack I would fly away really far so I could avoid it easier. I would let my nodes build up and tried to keep them at a high level so I wouldn't get hurt. I defeated the smaller enemies to help build them up too. When my energy was at a high enough level I would charge in towards the Guardian Spirit just before the wave attack ended and tried to get an aim on the Spikes before firing at them and retreating to avoid more waves. I broke the centre Spike as soon as possible and didn't have to deal with the awkwardness of the shield at all. Other than that I engaged in a slow but sure process of keeping a safe distance before getting strong enough to go in for attacks. Little by little, I took down Spike by Spike until there was none left and it was defeated. It took a long time and a lot of tries but I finally beat it!

All I have left to do now is to unlock the three remaining entries in the gallery by doing the following:

-Clear a stage without taking damage

-Play normal mode 10 times

-Play hard mode 10 times

I'm not sure what it means by 10 times. Does it mean 10 full runs of the story mode or can it mean playing the stage attack 10 times? I guess I'll find out by playing.

20 liberation maiden - still struggling against the guardian spirit on hard

Dear Readers,

I'm still stuck on the Guardian Spirit. It feels like it's getting harder and I can't make sense of it.

The cutscenes and dialogue boxes I have to put up with again and again are getting very old. I can only skip the introductory narrative. I can't skip Shoko and Kira talking to each other.

Sometimes I'm dying in the pursuit stage again and it even feels like that part is getting more difficult. I can't figure out why though. It's weird.

I'm thinking, should I aim for the spike on the Guardian Sprit's chest? That's the one that does the shielding. Maybe if I take out the wings I can stop it from doing the waves? Between the waves and shield it's really hard to fight against this thing.

I'm developing a more evasive strategy that'll help me last more than half a minute against the boss. It'll be annoying to deal with the waves but they won't fly at me as sudden as they spread.

19 liberation maiden - guardian spirit on hard is hard

Dear Readers,

I failed again and again against the Guardian Sprit. It's mainly that dang fast wave move that keeps messing me up.

I die against that wave move most of the time. Sometimes I die before I even reach the Guardian Spirit and I always have to go back to the beginning of the pursuit since it's the only credit I have left.

When I switch to the laser I lose concentration on the wave and then lose very quickly. The laser demands a lot more concentration than the missiles do.

I've also learned that some voice cues like when I say "Think you can win?" mean that I have enough ammo to begin aiming and shooting again.

The Guardian Spirit gets close sometimes, like right up to me and I don't know why. It's distracting.

I was surprised on one attempt where the waves didn't come out constantly. Maybe it was because I was going close or maybe it was because I was circling it. I'm not sure.

Then there are attempts where I think I have something sussed out and I fail on the pursuit part again!

Sometimes I can interrupt the Guardian putting its shield up if I can destroy one of the Spike targets on its body.

Still trying to come up with a good strategy to defeat this thing in hard mode.

18 liberation maiden - scouting out how difficult stage 5 is on hard

Dear Readers,

Stage 5 on hard was very hard. I died quite a bit even on the pursuit portion of the Guardian Spirit fight.

I found that I had to be within a certain range when the time ran out in order to progress to the next part of the fight. I had to get a balance while also avoiding the shots coming at me.

The Guardian Spirit was faster and more difficult. The blast wave went out very quickly towards me and it does not leave much room for error. I was able to avoid some but I felt lucky. I think with some practice I can master it somehow.

For now though, I lost and lost again against the huge bird. I'll get some more practice in later and see if I can do anything at all with the one credit I have remaining. Every time I lose I have to go back to the chasing part again.

Also I have only four remaining gallery entries to unlock with these conditions:

-Play Normal 10 times

-Play Hard 10 times

-Finish a stage without getting damage

-Get 100% approval

I'll try to get the no damage one on an easier mode stage later. I don't know what the 10 times thing means. Does it mean I have to enter and exit? Does it mean I have to do a stage that many times? Do I have to beat the whole game 10 times? I'm puzzled. Finally, I have no idea what 100% approval means. It's different to 100% purification. Hopefully I can figure these out.

17 liberation maiden - beating stage 4 on hard and unlocking the trains in the gallery

Dear Readers,

Now for another crack at stage 4 on hard. This time I beat it.

I didn't spend as much time taking out missiles, because I didn't go after the newly spawned trains that appear when the Greater Spike is unlocked. I just went straight for that boss.

This time I took out the boss handily. I just wanted to get it done and over with. I thought I could always go after the train gallery unlock later.

After beating stage 4 it was on to stage 5. I never beat this before without losing a life in any difficulty so I wasn't going to on my first try. No harm in scouting it out at least.

I died while I was chasing the Guarding Spirit so it was pretty quick!

I then found that I had the train entry in the gallery unlocked. Woo! Just four more entries to go!

16 liberation maiden - stage 4 on hard has too many missiles!

Dear Readers,

At this point I was pretty happy to even reach stage 4 since stage 3 gave me such a hard time.

During stage 4 my new sub mission for the hard mode was to take out 30 tanks. Thankfully, I was able to find the 30 I needed to destroy. I had to fly around in the snow for a while.

Then there were the trains and there were lots of them. Lots more than I needed to destroy, though I still have to destroy 50 to unlock that entry in the gallery. This time the trains had a crazy amount of missiles that just wouldn't stop coming. They were big and split into smaller ones too. It made the trains take a while to destroy.

I made it to the boss and this is where I failed. I was near enough to finishing it off but it kept coming at me with very fast attacks and large numbers of rocks and glass-like panel thingies.

I had to begin the stage again because I ran out of credits. I was very close though. At least now I can destroy more trains for that gallery goal.