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!

40 bugs vs. tanks! - giving up on extremely tough mantis variant boss

Dear Readers,

Now for CO-OP mission 1-5, involving the praying mantis this time!

Lieutenant Kremmel said this practice mission was interrupted by a praying mantis and told us to fight it anyway as this mission.

We didn't change from the speedy chassis and got decimated within ten seconds! Then we changed to the chassis with the highest defence and got destroyed within slightly longer than 10 seconds. We made several attempts but to no avail. This one may very well be impossible without other players.

If I could beat this mantis I'd be able to identify it as a new bug since it's a different colour. It's extremely aggressive.

It's tiresome to load the mission again after a game over because of all the menus you have to go through. Fortunately, there's another mission unlocked after this so I'll leave this one for now.

Also I had a look at the paints and they're cool! Do they have any function? If so I'd take every little help possible in my situation.

39 bugs vs. tanks! - chased by grey ant and queens!

Dear Readers,

Now for the 4th CO-OP mission, 1-4. This time there was an abandoned tank to find as well.

Lieutenant Kremmel was now scoring us on how many flag combos we could get by passing it to other tanks without getting hit. Again, can't really do that when playing solo.

When the mission started we were immediately pummelled with ant attacks! There were other queens around too! We got many very quick failures, which made jumping back into the level kind of cumbersome with all the menus you have to go through. We switched the chassis to the Cromwell just to get some speed going. It didn't work before but this time it did! We had to change our strategy to being chased all over the arena by the grey ant and all the queens. We continued to fail but it was just a matter of practice and outrunning the creatures with the turret pointed backwards. We finally did it with a cheer! We earned 369 points and a C rank. We obtained the abandoned tank on completion! Turns out we didn't have to scout for it!

New tank:

British Churchill A22 - Lots of armour on this tank, the most I've seen so far on the British ones, giving it a decent amount of defence.