12 the starship damrey - exploring the vents and finding danny and ar-4

Dear Readers,

The inside of the vent was narrow and green from the light I was using in there. There was a noisy fan going in here and it made a cluttering sound every now and again, just like below.

I crawled through, turned the corner and took the left path. There was a space leech here to exterminate and still made a noise despite the fans going.

I continued on this path until it split in two. I turned right and found another dead crewmate in a spacesuit! I identified the body as 2nd Lt. Danny Ngoc Son, the First Mate. Why was he in the vent? That was another mystery. I found an ID Card in his pocket, but it was damaged and I couldn't scan it!

Just beyond Danny was a small shining object on the ground but I couldn't get past him. I took the other route and it led to another space leech to exterminate and a vent switch that exited to the control room. I retraced my steps back along to explore the other remaining passage, which had another space leech to exterminate and a vent switch that lead to the other part of 1F's corridor.

I decided to go into the control room, suddenly quiet again. I scanned something red with big warning sign on it. The computer told me it housed dangerous objects and needed a specific crew member to open it, but didn't say who. There was a control panel in here that only responded to human input.

AR-4 was in here. Locomotion and camera were nonoperational. The arm was still functional and the battery had 50% power left. I was able to take it.

I took the battery all the way back to the AR Dock Bay, but I wasn't able to do anything with it. I then continued to the Warpdrive Room on this floor, which I could now access.

11 the starship damrey - finding ar-5 and upgrading the light

Dear Readers,

I came back to the game after quitting and found myself in the Sample Storage Room again. It didn't save when I went back to the corridor.

However, I spotted something in the darkness. It was Large's ID card! I scanned it and now had access to the warpdrive room.

Not sure how I missed it before, but I also thought that the room went around in a loop. It didn't. I think it must've been a different time of day with different lighting conditions. Also, this game has clunky tank movement in the dark! It's alright though, as it doesn't require arcade precision action at all.

After I found Large's ID I continued through the corridors until I got to the room with Generator R. Inside I exterminated a space leech that was lurking next to the control panel. I figure I couldn't hear it making noise with the noise of the generators in here.

I also found AR-5 in here. Everything about it was non-operational and depleted. It had a Low Light Option enabled though. I was able to upgrade my light unit by exchanging with it.

I went back out to the corridor and found another one of those vent switches. I was able to use it now. The corridor continued to where I found that robot that was blocking the way. I pushed the vent switch and these two bars went into the robot's head and pulled it up into the vent.

10 the starship damrey - finding ar-6 and large

Dear Readers,

That chem-tank explosion cleared the debris so much that there wasn't a trace of it left! The path was now open and lead to Elevator R. I took it to 1F and accessed some new corridors.

I looked around and saw the ghost girl again! She was just standing there.

I decided to go back and look at Dr. Mei Ling's profile. It stated she was the smartest person on board and she may have had feelings for another crew member named Nick. The person writing it said it was inevitable for love to bloom on such long missions and they turned a blind eye to it as long as it was kept private and in moderation. It was probably the captain writing this.

Anyway, back to the ghost girl. She stood on the corner of the only way forward in the corridor. I approached and she walked away. When I reached the corner, she was nowhere to be seen. Then I heard her chortle, which made my blood run cold. Then it was silence again. Brr...

This corridor had the door to the Sample Storage room. Other than that, it lead to another corridor. I unlocked the sample storage and went inside.

The first thing I came across was the space leech to exterminate. Even though I've exterminated so many of them, their creaky sound still makes me feel uneasy, especially now after meeting that ghost girl again.

I found AR-6 here. I was able to push it but not pull it. Its battery was depleted but it seemed to have a functional arm.

Pushing AR-6 made a new path. I took it and around the crates I found another dead crewmate in a space suit. I scanned their head and identified them as Large, a technician and the Warp Navigator. I found claw marks on their suit, indicating a fight. I checked Large's pockets expecting to find his I.D. but it wasn't in them! How did he enter the room without it?

I went back out into the corridor and continued into the next, making the path almost a full circle on the 1F map.

I looked up Large's profile, now unlocked in the archive, even though I didn't have his I.D. It said he lacked basic interpersonal skills, which wasn't on purpose but Abdul actually punched him once. Not a good thing. It's strange how his I.D. card is here in the archive with his number and everything but I couldn't find it in the game?

9 the starship damrey - encountering the keplarian and the doctor's research

Dear Readers,

I decided to explore the doctor's areas later and go into the new corridor instead. One of the paths was blocked by a makeshift barricade. made out of various things like the plants from the common room and other stuff. Why was this built? Was it because of the danger Abdul described?

There was also a Chem-Tank here. I couldn't obtain it because it was buried underneath all the debris.

I continued through the corridor into another corridor that connected the one from earlier that had access blocked because I didn't have the doctor's ID. Full circle now!

The first door to check was the Medical Bay. I was able to unlock and go inside. There was a space leech to exterminate next to the door to the doctor's quarters. The other door led to the laboratory.

I decided to check the laboratory first. A cutscene kicked off where AR-7 went into the lab and the door locked behind it. Then a really creepy creature emerged and walked towards it, letting out a scream before collapsing on the floor. It was the Keplarian!

I examined it and it seemed to be dead. There was nothing to find on it. The door was now green again too so I was able to leave. I explored the room a bit more though and exterminated a leech in the corner. Then I examined a lab device, which was used to adjust pressure, temperature and injections into the tank.

There was an open cabinet here and it contained the following:

Modigan Crystal

Modion Crystals

Oxidized Copper

Bodnium Chloride

Storium Chloride

The computer didn't have data on any of them except for the copper, which said it reacted when exposed to oxygen and that this was powdered for better reactivity. I didn't take any of them for now.

I saw that the tank was open and found a report in the middle of the room, which was about the progress of the Keplarian. It said a state of hibernation was induced by lowering its blood volume. Then it said there was a program to restore its blood, noting oxygen as a factor. Hmm...

I left the lab to explore the doctor's quarters, which was larger than the regular crew quarters. It did have the same light flicker problem that Bobby's room had.

The report on the doctor's desk was about the Keplarian. It said they can enter a state of forced hibernation when threatened by changing their blood volume as necessary. Hmm... I wonder if that thing is really dead...

There were three files in the doctor's locker.

The red file had medical files and reports.

The blue file was about pharmaceuticals. There was a bookmarked page that said Modonium was a highly volatile gas and was created when Bodnium Chloride reacts with Modion Crystals & oxidized copper. It's not toxic but can burn skin and cause metallic chem-tanks to explode. Sounds like useful noteworthy information!

The yellow file had medical manuals in it.

I took the blue file data as instructions! I raided the laboratory's cabinet for the three chemicals and brought them to the chem-tank, one by one. When I had the last one inserted, a cutscene played out where the tank started wobbling, then the robot got out of the way in time for it to make a big explosion, clearing all the debris in the barricade! Yay!

8 the starship damrey - getting past ar-8 and discovering the doctor

Dear Readers,

I took the cookie can downstairs to see what I could do with it. I figured it out that I could take it back to the generator room and fill it with oil.

I wasn't sure what to do next, so I went back to the title screen and looked at Abdul's profile. According to it he seems to have been very serious and solitary. It also said he had a grudge against Bobby and he needed to be more personable and cooperative.

I got back into the game and wandered around more with the can of oil. The only thing I could do really was use the heat plate in the common room. I wasn't sure what I was doing, but I just decided to heat the oil anyway. It heated up to a temperature too dangerous for robots and the computer made it switch off. I took the hot oil and took it into the storage room to throw it all over AR-8! When I doused it with hot oil it malfunctioned and crumpled in a heap. I was now able to proceed! Hooray!

I exterminated the space leech in this room and in the next room. At the other end of the room was a door and in the corner laid another body of a dead crewmate in a space suit! It didn't do that jump scare thing though with the sudden camera pan and noise.

This was Dr. Mei Ling. I couldn't determine her cause of death either but I could scan her ID card, which gave me access to the Doctor's Quarters and the Lab. Poor lady.

I decided to go through the new door into the new corridor, which triggered a cut scene! It was a room with some green liquid containers, one of which started draining. A sired started flashing and it showed a container, which I presume is a Cold Sleep coffin thingy? I'm not sure what's going on. May not be good news though.

7 the starship damrey - fetching water for abdul

Dear Readers,

I went into the only room of the crew quarters that wasn't locked. It was really neat and tidy inside and unlike Bobby's room, there weren't any space leeches or bottles of alcohol.

I checked the locker and got another jumpscare when someone collapsed out out it and onto the floor, groaning desperately for water! Wow, someone else on board that was alive! They were identified as the Information Officer, Abdul and this was his room. He was in his space suit for some reason.

Abdul was in pain, so I decided to take his Water Case. His suit had the ability to give him water to drink through this case. I took it from him and left the room.

I checked the two remaining doors and they were locked. I left the quarters and examined the next door, which only the doctor could access. After this, I made my way back to the common room.

I filled up the container at the water server, then returned to Abdul. Nothing scary happened along the way, even though I was fully expecting something to happen. I attached his case and he took some gulps of water. Then he warned me about the "Keplarian" that went crazy and to be careful as they might still be around. Then he died.

I examined him a few times but there were no signs of life or clues as to how he died, but he was in pain so presumably he was injured. I was also able to scan his ID card, which gave me access to the Sample Storage Room.

On the ground next to him was an empty can of cookies so I took it. I went back to the storage room, but this was a different one for storing planetary exploration vehicles and also AR-8 was still blocking my way. I then went straight for the elevator and went back to 1F.

6 the starship damrey - bobby's room

Dear Readers,

After getting spooked from my first encounters with the ghost girl and AR-8, I continued into the next corridor, which had the Captain's Quarters. Only the captain could grant access though.

Once again I felt uneasy going through the corridors. The robot's light only reached so far and I was now fully expecting something to jump out at me.

I continued into the next corridor. The Cockpit was only for essential personnel at the moment.

Opposite the Cockpit door was the door to the crew quarters. I went through and into another corridor with 6 doors, 5 of them locked.

The first on the left I was locked but I was able to unlock it. I went inside. The lights were on but they were faulty and flickering. There was a noisy space leech on the leg of the chair I exterminated and there. I found a bottle of whisky under the desk, so it sounds like this was Bobby's room alright. The computer said it was a violation on board and stuff like that. Other than that, there was a bed and a locker. The computer responded with voiced dialogue that I didn't have the authority to search it.

I left the room and headed for the next set of doors in the crew quarters.

5 the starship damrey - the ghost girl and a robot jumpscare the life out of me!

Dear Readers,

It was a relief to be out of the noisy generator room. I continued through the corridor and came across a vent switch. I learned that robots can be sent through ceiling vents with this button. I had to upgrade the robots with low light units first though because the vents were dark.

I continued into the next corridor where I found robot AR-3 crumpled in a heap, blocking the corridor.

The only door here I could examine was the Warpdrive Room door. It seems only the Warp Navigator could use it.

I checked AR-3 a couple of times and it was really stuck. It seemed to have sustained heat damage from an environment over 200 degrees Celsius. It was recommended to move it in person since I couldn't do it with the robot.

Having nowhere else to go, I returned to the elevator, where I could now use it to go to the upper deck.

When I got to 2F I went around the corner and saw the girl with the hat! She smiled at me and walked through one of the doors. Creepy!

I was able to access both rooms. I tried the Storage Room first. Inside was robot AR-8, just standing right there. The moment I tried moving towards it, it suddenly attacked and made me jump out of my freaking skin. I got an awful fright!

No matter what I tried, AR-8 attacked me. I couldn't do anything else in the storage room because of it, so I went into the Common Room. I think this was where the girl went, but I couldn't see her. Both of these doors were locked too and she just walked through one of them like a ghost.

In the Common Room were a table, chairs and plants. The plants had a self-watering system, which was handy. There was a heat plate for heating food and a water server, for filling a container with water. Hmm...

There was another space leech in this room in the corner, so I exterminated it.

When I left the room, the ghost girl was right there in the doorway during the room transition! Another jumpscare! I rushed back into the room and there was no sign of her, so I left again. Yeesh!

I got used to the initial creepiness of the setting only to get two pretty nasty jumpscares.

4 the starship damrey - the noisy generator room

Dear Readers,

I started navigating the corridors with AR-7. I came across a door that lead to the Cold Sleep chamber. I wanted to check it out as that was where I was controlling the robot from.

I checked the window and saw 8 Cold Sleep capsules. I then learned that Cold Sleep was an essential part of warp-based travel where crew members were divided into shifts that rotate in and out of Cold Sleep to preserve their bodies. Hmm...

I checked the door to the room which was locked. The computer voice told me it was locked because internal oxygen levels were currently below safe.

Opposite the door to the room was another door that lead to the airlock. The airlock door was locked and only the captain's ID could open it.

I took the robot back to the hall and took the next route to the Generator L door. I was able to unlock this at least. I went inside and it was pretty noisy. I exterminated a space leech that was inside and poked around.

I saw some oil tanks, generators and a switch board, where the switch for the elevator from earlier was powered off. It didn't say why it was powered off though. I powered it back on with a flip of the switch.

I then checked out the oil tank. There was this weird creaking sound. Another space leech? I couldn't see anything though except for a lever. It said to place a container here so I could pour oil into it. I couldn't use anything otherwise.

The space leech I then found around the corner and exterminated it. After this, I left the room where it was a relief to be away from the noisy generators!

3 the starship damrey - discovering a crewmate's body

Dear Readers,

I was now controlling robot AR-7. It's a very creepy feeling using this thing and going around in the dark. I poked around the room for a bit and discovered a collapsed crewmate, which startled me! As I type this, this random sound rattles every now and again. It's unnerving!

I was able to check the crewmate on various parts of their body. I couldn't check what was in their pocket without consent, so I checked the head. It was identified as Bobby the engineer and unfortunately, he was now dead. Well, at least I was able to check the pocket now. There was an ID card in it and I scanned it. I was now able to open the door.

I tried to push and pull AR-1, but it wasn't working at all. I left the room and followed the corridor for a bit. I found an elevator across the way but it wasn't powered on. I then heard some weird sound. It was the first space leech!

I learned that space leeches sometimes got on the ship when passing planets and they could survive in space and were very toxic, so I was given the go ahead to exterminate them. It wasn't difficult, I just had to find it with the camera and choose to exterminate it. They're little motionless things that make a noise, so I guess they'll be handy enough to deal with.

When I got back to the title screen, there was an archive option now. There is information about crewmates along with photos of them. So far I only have Bobby's profile. It says he had a bright, cheery personality but his demon was alcohol and may have smuggled some on board. Hmm interesting.

Also interesting is that girl in the sunhat on the archive menu. I've seen her in the trailer too. Who could she be? I'll have to do some more exploring.

2 the starship damrey - using the command line interface and controlling the robots

Dear Readers,

I found myself facing a command line interface and a touchscreen keyboard. It was time to take the stylus out and try a few things.

The screen said some files were damaged and needed repairing. There were a few commands and I tried them. I needed to edit the files to fix them so I chose that command. 

Then it said the arrow keys were damaged, so it told me to redefine them, starting with the letter U. I typed out UP, DOWN, LEFT and RIGHT to the corresponding arrows and the arrow pad was working again. I picked the first file and typed out START when I was prompted. I was prompted for more words, INCLUDE, FORMAT, REPAIR, and END.

That was the first file, now for the second one. I was asked to input more, and for some reason the characters disappeared when I was asked to type them in. After getting them in I got an arithmetic question for some reason. When that was done the files were repaired and I was prompted to reset so I did.

I got an OS booting screen and was then prompted to speak into the microphone. I said "Hello" instead of the onscreen text which said "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" and I was denied official crew status. It did say I could say anything I wanted though...

I was then asked to do some kind of IQ test, choosing different shape patterns to match the logic of what was going on. I passed them all.

The computer introduced itself to me, calling itself SAM, an AI concierge for support purposes. It told me what was going on, that I was in a Cold Sleep and had amnesia and asked me to remain calm. It said I was logged in as a guest due to voice print identification failure. This meant I couldn't use voice commands and was recommended to use the D-Pad or the ABXY buttons.

SAM told me not to panic and recommended I rest in the capsule until I was fully recovered. It then explained the ROBOT, COMMUNICATION and DATABASE options. I couldn't use communication so I checked out the database.

There was a LOG, which seemed to track my progress; a ROBOT MANUAL, which had some guidelines for using the robot; and SPACE LEECH, which had a record of 00/20.

I picked ROBOT and had 2 options for robots out of 8, the other 6 being unavailable. The robots named AR-1, which had a defective camera and AR-7, which was obstructed from moving. I picked AR-1 again and got an option to use a surveillance camera so I took it.

The camera showed a room with two robots. I was able to move AR-1 by messing around with buttons. I used it to drive into the other robot, which was AR-7, and this loosened it up enough to enable it to move again! Yay!

This took a couple of goes, but I got AR-7 loose, at the cost of AR-1, which I couldn't use anymore. I was able to use AR-7 now, at least.

1 the starship damrey - introduction and finding my way in the dark

Dear Readers,

The Starhship Damrey is part of the Guild series by Level 5 and it is the one that was the most interesting to me. When this game was introduced they said that in this game you wake up on a spaceship and try to figure out what's going on with little or no instruction. You have to find out everything on your own. I thought that was a pretty cool way to advertise a game!

Like the other Guild games, there were big names behind this one. They were Kazuya Asano and Takemaru Abiko.

I've never really heard of these guys, so I looked them up. Kazuya Asano's life work includes Chunsoft, presumably visual novels or Japanese style adventure games and Takemaru Abiko is an author of several books. I don't know any of their other works so I'm hoping this will be a nice introduction to their works and see what their pedigree is like.

I checked out the trailer that advertised this game back in the day and they were both in the video talking about how they wanted to make a game that had an old school feel where you had to figure everything out and you could get stuck easily. They recommended using one's instincts and keeping a notebook! Well, I'm gonna blog so hopefully that'll do!

The instruction manual even says that there aren't any detailed explanations as figuring it out was part of the game experience. Nice little thing to check out.

The 3DS menu icon for this game is a robot and the upper screen title has an oval shaped image of a galaxy behind it. There's a voice that says "Welcome Mr. Guest" which I assume is the ship's computer.

The title screen itself is nice and minimal, with white text on black background. The introduction says "This game contains no tutorials or explanations. Part of the experience is to discover things yourself."

Hopefully I can make some bit of progress at least. It also says "The audio is an integral part of game progression. Please keep the volume on." so yes! Headphones on and no noise! I'll try to play in a quiet room. Maybe it'll be better to play at night? I'll see...

The game starts with some sirens, red flashing light, some computer error messages and a voice that says I may be suffering some amnesia due to the cold sleep. Then there's nothing except for a dim emergency light thing. I press some buttons and eventually just tap it and the light comes on, showing my lower body and I guess I'm in some kind of coffin-like chamber thing? There's a photograph of a lady with some sentimental music and some emergency instructions for a computer called Adam OS or something.

When I turn the lights back off a "Lucy My Love" message glows in the dark. I can't do anything else except tap the blue light and all of a sudden I get a command line interface and touch screen keyboard. Well, here we go!

58 bugs vs. tanks! - earning the gold cross and my final solo mission

Dear Readers,

New medal:

Gold Cross - for achieving the S rank in all the single-player missions!

I resumed from From mission 6 all the way to the very last missions where I needed an S rank. Most of these were rescue missions involving Kremmel. Some of them I had to do a few times because I either wasn't finishing them fast enough or my bug kill score was too low to add up for an S rank. Most of the other ones I tore through, earning S ranks easily.

The rest of the medals mostly involve CO-OP play, but I just find that huge mantis boss impossible to defeat on my own. I'm definitely not going to get a good rank on any of those missions solo, so I'm going to call it quits here with this game.

Maybe I'll meet someone else who has the game and we can play together. I'm not sure though, as this game wasn't really that popular. I couldn't find anyone doing videos or written guides for this game, so I'm going to assume many people skipped out on it. I'll keep the data on my 3DS for now, but it's time to move on. I'm going to start another game for the next post so thanks for reading!

57 bugs vs. tanks! - defeating 1000 bugs and earning all a-ranks

Dear Readers,

With all the boss medals earned, I set out to earn the 1000 bug medal and the A and S rank medals in the main missions.

It felt very satisfying to redo and speed through the early missions with advanced equipment! Earning S ranks all over the place too. We got the 1000 bug medal pretty quickly as well!

I had to repeat the mission where you run out of ammo, but it was a very minor setback. I zoomed through a little cylinder to escape from desert meanies.

I tore through the missions as far as mission 6. I'll continue more next time.

New medals:

Bug Legend - for exterminating 1000 bugs. I got this fairly quickly when I started sweeping through all the missions. Bug numbers kept going up and up!

Silver Cross - for clearing all the missions with rank A or better. This happened around missions 5 or 6. Nice to get some progress!

Just one more possible medal to collect solo!

56 bugs vs. tanks! - earning the hornet queen medal

Dear Readers,

For my next medal, I needed to defeat 10 hornet queens. I decided to do hornet queen missions where I could improve my rank as well.

I got S ranks where possible, one of them being the grand bug alliance mission (7-9, the final one) with 545 points. It took a few tries and I had to use an SOS to take out a spider and a hornet queen I was fighting at the same time. The SOS helped me finish the mission in a quick enough time to earn me the S rank.

New medal:

Hornet - Glad I got this one and the S rank in the final main mission too.

55 bugs vs. tanks! - satisfying hunt for the mantis medal

Dear Readers,

I tried again and again to take on the CO-OP Mantis but it just keeps destroying me. I tried outrunning it by going around the arena with the fastest tank but it keeps cutting corners and catching up with me. It's just too fast and strong. I will definitely need someone to help me defeat it.

I took on the regular green mantis boss instead and did that as many times as it took to earn the medal.

New medal:

Mantis - After getting my butt kicked so many times by the CO-OP Mantis, it felt satisfying to destroy the regular mantis boss over and over again. I just didn't get tired of it. I did stop when I earned the medal though.

54 bugs vs. tanks! - working on mantids

Dear Readers,

Now to aim for the defeating 10 mantids medal. I think this'll give me good practice.

There are like only two other mantis missions so I'll need to do these a lot. I've already got an S rank on the regular mantis mission so I'll try to improve the A rank I got on the marshy mantis mission.

Well, I failed on the first attempt, but on the second I went in speedily and defeated the regular mantis for 502 points and an S rank! Woo!

After this I just took on the regular mantis battle and fought aggressively. I earned 547 points and an S rank as well, though I didn't need to improve my rank here.

I felt slightly emboldened, so I took a look at the big mantis boss again and it still destroyed me within seconds. Comparing the two, this unbeatable one is much bigger and can spawn almost on top of you, swinging at you before the message to start disappears.

Currently I have at least 4 mantids defeated. I may have more but I'm not sure.

53 bugs vs. tanks! - earning the spider medal

Dear Readers,

To sum it up, the other medals could be categorised as follows:

• Involving StreetPass or other players
• Beating 10 of each boss or boss-like enemy
• Minimum ranks of S or A in the missions

The exception to these is the one for defeating 1000 bugs.

Every one of these involves a lot of repeat plays or something I can't really do without other people. There is no counter that tells me how many bugs I've defeated either. I do know I have over 500 bugs defeated since there's a medal for that.

I'm gonna hunt down garden spiders first.

I tried 3-4, but that was a rescue mission that didn't involve killing the spider. It didn't even have a health bar. I did defeat it though, but that didn't do anything special. I still had to rescue the other tanks.

580 points and an S rank I earned on the first spider boss confrontation mission, improving the score on that one.

The medal requirements involved garden spiders so I skipped the one with the Steppe Spider on its own. 

I went straight for the Spider Bros mission and earned 501 points and an improved S rank. Yay!

After this I just kept repeating the first garden spider boss mission. It got a little tedious, so I played it again and again with different equipment. High power and high defence is still the best strategy against this.

New medal:

Spider - Eventually I got the medal, though I was starting to wonder if I was doing things right. It just took beating the spider over and over until I got it.

52 bugs vs. tanks! - earning the pacifist medal

Dear Readers,

I decided to go hunting for medals. There was an interesting one that involved pacifism, so I chose that one first.

The idea was to complete a mission without killing a single bug, so I had to do one of the missions that didn't have killing bugs as its end goal.

I tried redoing the first mission, but that didn't give me the medal, so I did the water finding mission and used the Cromwell chassis to get around fast. I also didn't shoot at anything. We got surrounded easily enough, but we were able to push through with the advanced equipment. We finished the mission and earned 629 points and an S rank.

New medal:

Pacifist - a 4 star medal. I only really need to be a pacifist once, but on the other hand, we got a nice pacifist point bonus for finishing the mission too. Might be good for chasing the S ranks.

51 bugs vs. tanks! - unlocking the golden tank

Dear Readers,

I don't think I'm going to defeat that mantis on my own. There is still some stuff to do, but there are no other new missions.

I bought Liberation Maiden and created some save data. This enabled me to unlock a new tank in this game:

German Panzer IV Ausf. H2 (K1) - a gold plated tank! However, its stats are kind of middling and I already tried it out on the mantis. I didn't stand a chance. There's also another tank to unlock after this.

So that's that. The Liberation Maiden save data will also unlock stuff in other games I have, Attack of the Friday Monsters and Starship Damrey.

I think I'll go medal hunting next.

50 bugs vs. tanks! - the grand wasp finale!

Dear Readers,

CO-OP mission 3-5 was titled Sky Queen: Finale.

Colonel Diekmann dramatically announced the beginning of the Wasp War. He wanted us to lure the queen out of the nest and engage her in battle while the main forces dealt with the nest itself. He gave an apology to our unit for what we'd gone though and encouraged us to go for the final push!

He's a pretty good leader and says such nice leader-y things!

It was another fight similar to the others in the Sky Queen saga. It may have been a little harder but it wasn't that noticeable. The wasp attacked, bees attacked, and we got rid of all of them eventually with just a little under half our HP intact. For completing it we earned 243 points and a C rank.

New tank:

Soviet T-26 - A tank licensed from the British and was one of the most successful designs of the 30s. It has a manned gun on the top and a good run stat.

There's just one more tank to collect. I can get that from defeating the really hard mantis CO-OP mission but I don't know if it's possible to do solo. I also heard that a tank unlocks if you link this to one of the other Guild series games. There's just one blank left in the list so I don't know what'll happen.

There's just one space left in the bug list as well, definitely for that stronger mantis.

That was the last CO-OP mission entirely. I wonder what I'll do now? Try to defeat the mantis again? Earn as many medals as I can? I'll see.

I definitely want to do the linking thing at some point. I want to play Starship Damrey and that unlockable might have something good.

I enjoyed this game and I found the CO-OP missions kinda weird how they started off really hard and got easier after the mantis, but they were fun!

49 bugs vs. tanks! - clearing the wasp way before the counterattack

Dear Readers,

Another wasp mission. This was CO-OP mission 3-4, Sky Queen: Counter.

Colonel Diekmann was ready to lunch a counterattack on the wasps, but there was one particularly powerful one in the way. He asked us to deal with it and praised us on our work on them so far.

This wasp did feel different to the others. It made a bit of a circular motion when we fired at it and it also did a few lunges at us. We also got in its wandering way a bit and our HP went down quite low. We had to deal with all the bees as well that attacked. We finished with 256 points and a C rank.

The wasp may be relatively docile but it is massively powerful.

48 bugs vs. tanks! - versus wasp and more bee cohorts

Dear Readers,

CO-OP mission 3-3 was titled Sky Queen: Invade.

Colonel Diekmann said the wasp nest was literally spitting. Lots of little minion enemies then with one big boss baddie. He asked us to take care of them before the rest of them would launch a counterattack. 

The buzzing was certainly louder this time but the bees were easy enough to defeat. As for the wasp itself, for some reason it did feel like it was making more of an effort to fight, but it still did the nodding thing when we shot at it and continued to be easy enough to deal with. We completed the mission with 255 points and a C rank.

We didn't need to shoot out a nest. In fact I made the silly mistake of pressing START to confirm the objective and forgot that it made CO-OP missions end instead! Oops!

47 bugs vs. tanks! - wasp and bee cohort

Dear Readers,

Now for the second wasp mission, CO-OP mission 3-2, SkyQueen: Descend.

Colonel Diekmann told us they found where that wasp we defeated came from. There was a nest and a queen had moved in. He said a wasp was making a beeline (haha) for our base and asked us to cut it off at the tree.

Well this time there was a wasp and a bee. The little bee was aggressive, but the wasp mostly wandered around the place. it didn't have much of an attack and did more damage when it was wandering. We beat it with more than half our HP intact, earning 242 points and a C rank.

46 bugs vs. tanks! - first wasp mission

Dear Readers,

Time to move on from spiders to wasps with CO-OP mission 3-1, SkyQueen: Emerge.

Colonel Diekmann told us that a wasp was lurking high in the treetops and asked us to deal with it.

I thought this would be pretty tough but it was very easy! The wasp just kinda hung around and nodded when we faced it and then it started wandering until it attacked again. We beat it with more than half of our HP intact. We earned 248 points and a C rank.

New bug:

Wasp - Appearing very late in the game and it was chill enough and quite easy to face in battle. Just takes a small while to beat.

The difficulty is out of balance since it's a CO-OP mission but it's in our favour so I don't mind at all!

45 bugs vs. tanks! - the final wasp spider battle

Dear Readers,

Just when we thought it was safe to go back to the web, CO-OP mission 2-5, Lurking Predator: Finale was yet another wasp spider mission! Thankfully it really was its finale.

Colonel Diekmann placed a lot of emphasis on this particular spider's power and how the fight would take a long while.

Now it was aggressive alright, and it did make us fail the mission, but it only had a tiny sliver of health left, so we jumped back into the mission with determination! We beat it handily, though it did get a few bites on us too. We earned 295 points and a C rank.

New tank:

Soviet BT-7 - a tank with very high speed and run stats! It also has this strange handrail looking thing on top of the turret. Might come in handy!

44 bugs vs. tanks! - spider prime real estate

Dear Readers,

Now for CO-OP mission 2-4, Lurking Predator: At Peace

Colonel Diekmann reckoned the web must've been comfortable, because it attracted yet another wasp spider. He said it must be prime real estate for them!

We defeated it handily and it was aggressive enough this time too. With the right tactics it's still very manageable. We did get caught in between a hole and a trapped bug obstacle so it did get a few bites on us, but we beat it handily. We earned a C rank and 305 points.

43 bugs vs. tanks! - angry wasp spider invades

Dear Readers,

Now for CO-OP mission 2-3, Lurking Predator: Invade.

Colonel Diekmann gave us the bad news that an even stronger spider again has moved in to the web area. He asked us nicely to deal with it.

It was the wasp spider again and it was far more aggressive than it was before! Or maybe it was another one that was just more aggressive. We took more than half damage but we were able to use similar tactics to deal with it, whittle it down and defeat it with a hurrah! We earned 295 points and a C rank.

42 bugs vs. tanks! - return of the wasp spider

Dear Readers,

I'm glad to make slow but sure progress again. Next is CO-OP mission 2-2, Lurking Predator: Return.

Colonel Diekmann told us that scouts reported that the new wasp spider boss came back! This time he tasked us with making it leave, permanently. 

This fight was more or less the same as last time. We moved around carefully, getting hits in whenever we could. We got hit a few times as well but we managed to defeat the spider again handily. We got 313 points and a C rank.

At this point I'm getting tired of the main menu music. It's functional and it's fine but when typing out a post it's not that fun to listen to dramatic epic trumpets looping, so I turn the sound off.

41 bugs vs. tanks! - the new wasp spider boss

Dear Readers,

I can't beat the extra strong mantis from CO-OP mission 1-5, so I'm moving on to the only other new mission available right now, 2-1, titled Lurking Predator: Emerge.

Colonel Diekmann was now briefing us again. He said a new spider took up residence in the web and we had to go defeat it. He said his prayers went with us and wished us luck.

It was a brand new spider! Thankfully, this was a lot more achievable than the mantis one. The spider didn't bombard us constantly and we were able to be some bit evasive while getting some hits in. We defeated it with half our HP intact and let out a big cheer. We scored 310 points and a C rank.

New bug:

Wasp Spider - The new spider variant with grey, black and yellow stripes. This one was about as powerful as the garden spider but with much a much higher defence stat. It was very defeatable, which was nice.

We unlocked another mission, which meant the show could go on!