How did you beat Story Mode?

[White Rice]

I just beat it by turtling with Nene's heals no continues. Headphones, Kimono, and Okayu ring was my equips.

Probably not the cool way to finish the game off, but a clear is a clear. Having all the AI companions healed up before the next fight helped me out a lot cause I was getting kicked around quite a bit. Tried hard mode and couldn't get past stage 3 because the AI got ripped to shreds.

How did you beat Story Mode? Also any tips for Hard Mode?

[Annie T. Mood]

Stock up on healing items + skill. Also, learn to use items. Things like the Polka bombs, the Kiara sword thing, the buff items, those are all very important when it looks like normal attacks won't do an easy job.
Or synergize items and equipment. Last run I did I combined the Heal on Crit with Crit Up buffs and I ended up tanking through La+'s attacks because of a DoT skill which apparently crits.
I also figured out that there are RPG stats to rely on as well from the equipment you use. Beef up that DEF and HP I guess.
If you're using a ranged character, you just simply kite.

[내거친무빙과불안한에임과그걸지켜보는너]

HP and DEF stats are better

[Sy-nor]

beat the story with Botan right now , don't remember exactly what i've got on me beside the kimono who burns on hit.

[Okami Amaterasu]

First run I did with Botan was a lot of just spamming heals and running away doing chip damage. Her animations are super slow so trying to use abilities was a total nightmare.

[dudex]

u can do hard mode with nene the same way u did story mode. every normal fight is trivialized because you can bring a healthy crew.

couple things though is to carry the right items. make sure u got boss killers like BL book and ninja star and having cd reduction on beetle helps you spam it more.

also carry at least one of the healing items.

[kimiyoribaka]

Iron star while the enemies are still entering the screen sometimes defeats two waves. Polka doll point-blank is basically an instant grenade. Kiara's sword wipes out a full wave. Mace hits an entire wave and only needs a few hits. All bosses are weak against BL, as are all ranged minions. Pebbles come in big enough batches to beat entire waves. Last resort spam baseballs.

Still good to have healing for bosses, though for my run earlier I used Polka's ult to counter the ults from the bosses. I didn't have a meaningful build besides I guess a bit of healing from horns, the miko outfit, and blacksmith guantlet. I tried using Kaela's services and RNG decided to hate me (I seriously had to try 7 times to get even a lvl 1 to lvl 2). That said, the most annoying thing was being knocked into items I didn't want a few times and having to way literal minutes to get rid of them (made worse by gauntlet activations).

[MoonRabbit]

Botan + All def + crit + choco's horn that heals when you crit + that yellow ball that grants 33% more heal + that item that doesn't make you flinch when hit with a projectile. By the time I reached Laplus, I was tanking all of her shots just by the absurd amount of crit heal Botan was doing since she probably has the fastest attack speed in the game. The downside is mobs took a long time to kill without an atk stat upgrade but the survivability is pretty great. Oh and don't let Botan do the reload animation and just let her gun magically reload by itself.

[IKillGiants]

Botan, relied on Kronii's accessory in the early on and ended with aqua's headpiece, the chest piece that raises atk/spd when above 80%, and Korone's boxing glove all tier 3 levels 10-15. Laplus was easier once I had higher speed stats and learned the dodge window.

[rm -rf /*]

Since knockback are hella annoying, I suggest grabbing the chest armor. It gives you hyperarmor when you charge the special attacks which is super helpful when I use Polka to beat the story mode... Especially considering polka's second special is essentially a BL book, very good for clearing and knocking back a huge horde of enemies.

[Cereal]

Did it with Botan with full speed and damage. School Uniform, Boxing Glove, and HoloX Helmet. Stacked up on a lot of HP items to keep the Uniform buff up and pretty much Dark Souls'd the game by attacking during openings.

[ergosum2+2]

Random select gave me Lamy for my first run. Juggled around equips, desiring higher rarities, but finally settling with Bijou's crown, breastplate, boxing gloves, focusing on HP/DEF and knockback resistance. Generally went with a combination of picking up environmental objects to smash one group of enemies, attack items and abilities with melee combos to mop up the rest. Knockback resistance was very helpful for ability and objects, but I neglected charged melee due to Lamy's poor range. Only had to retry multiple times on Chloe (super-armor bug) and Lui. Spent too much time picking up everything. Run lasted 3 hours.

Second run using Botan was much smoother with largely similar tactics, albeit playing more aggressively. Equips were settled earlier, ignoring rarity and instead enhancing along the way: boxing glove, breastplate and nurse horns. Since Botan is ranged, I made more use of her charged normal attack compared with Lamy and being more liberal and deliberate with attack items made groups and mini-bosses more manageable. Benefiting from experience and not picking up every coin, this run lasted one hour.

[G-A-B-E-N]

first time playing story mode and finish it with Botan by using hit and run tactic, equip with maid band, happy (hepi?) armor, kroni clock.
strat: roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, charge shoot/POI (s1)/machine gun (s2)
boss strat: stock pile healing, tokino soda, some range weapon (preferable can stack a lot) for pest that appear during boss fight, the rest is hit and roll
clear time: 2 hour+

tips for hard mode: call for friend or git gud? I dunno... i still get my ass sliced by Iroha-dono...

[SonyuG]

Botan crit focus; nurse horn for crit heal, fauna apple for more heal and lastly any grade 3 dress work well.mine was idol dress which ulti bar passive fill.

[I Love Puppy]

Nene is still easy to beat hard mode, just need one SR equipment with atk def hp
and keep it upgrade to over lvl 20+

[FlyWhiteGuy]

Biboo helmet for super armor while playing Polka just smashing everything with anchor beats anything in the game. Spam it every time the ability is off cooldown and stack up anchors/ bring them with you. Just got to be careful that you don't super armor into a deadly boss attack, because I've lost 9/10s of my healtbar doing that before. Hp and defense matter more than damage on hard mode, because you aren't going for a fast clear, you're trying not to die. Get armor and ring that heals you on crit or over time, and you can just tank everything with super armor. Run completed in 1 hour and 43 minutes.