Any tips for very hard?

[Uta]

Trying to be a real hotdogger, but getting my teeth kicked in repeatedly. On the first route of dive2, and with the weapons I have currently, I'm having a hell of a time managing the hordes of enemies. Any general weapons and/or tactics advice would be much appreciated.

[Tiasmoon]

Tip for very hard: dont play it unless you want to have a brutally hard time.

Its balanced around having all the abilities and plugins etc unlocked, for people that want a real challenge.

IIRC someone somewhere suggested playing the Dive1 on Hard and Dive2 on very hard, but I cant agree with that at all. In Dive2 we're experienced with the combat and got tons of stuff, but the game also throws way more enemies, and lots of annoying ones at you.


If you still want to play it: Bazooka's still one of the best abilities around at that point, as is Gattling Gun with high heat (tho you cant use that one against all enemies due to the high animation delay after use, making it best against bosses or enemies without charge/ranged interupts)

You'll also want to make a 6 or higher combo of melee abilities thats capable of knocking enemies up in the air (preferably with the first or second ability since that will prevent them from countering with a superarmor hit, since they cant do that in the air)

Aside from that, nothing you probably already dont know (assuming you didnt already know the above either!). Play the game like its a bullet hell with combos, emphasis on the bullet hell part.

Something I wasnt quite able to achieve myself, but could be possible for you: use the jump attacks in your combo as single abilities to jump into the air and boost away to safety if you are about to get surrounded.

GL beating any of the timed segments tho. Or the optional practises, all of which give a plugin if you beat it timed, dont lose too much hp or dont lose allies (depends on the fight).

Some of those were already brutal to beat on Hard, so I dont even want to know what they would be like on very hard.

GL!

[Shirakani]

Pretty much what the guy above me said. Very Hard is intended for absolute endgame players who have their abilities all at Level 3 and maxed HP, 2 Force Crash guages and 4 booster slots unlocked. The difficulty didn't even exist in the original game's release and was patched in much later as an extra challenge.

It was not ever considered or balanced for progression play. Doesn't mean you can't try, but, you're pretty much going to give yourself the most painful experience possible. It is designed to wreck your ♥♥♥♥ even if you ARE maxed out. Imagine playing it when you aren't maxed...

[persocom01]

I completed this game on the highest difficulty available at the time, but I don't remember if it was hard or very hard, since it was a long time ago. But from what I remember, getting good in this game relies on coming up with powerful aerial combos. However, powerful doesn't mean they need to be difficult to execute. The game allows you to test combos, so I made combos that can be executed by repeatedly spamming buttons with little in the way of timing whatsoever.

in general combos have to start with a connector, a fast move that lets you close the distance and touch the enemy for the first hit, a launcher, which launches the enemy into the air so they cannot retaliate and enemies on the ground will generally not be able to interrupt you, and the rest is about dealing as much damage as possible to the enemy in mid air before it touches the ground. Generally, you want to be able to finish this combo with one of the super moves just because it's stylish.

when fighting boss enemies the same size as you, the game turns into a sort of dogfight where you and the enemy run around trying to avoid being caught in each other's combos while trying desperately to land the first hit and connect our own. They are the most fun battles in the game imo.

[Tiasmoon]

Just thinking about the boss battles makes me want to play the game again...even tho I just finished the true end.

IE: The Dominion Miko fights were epic fights, even despite having the weird thingy where flying in the air makes her immune to most of your ranged attacks and melee attacks being better to use...lol.

That said, since I played through all 6 routes (+ Reminisce) in one go (well with sleep in between), I did get tired of the fights by the time the 6th route came around. At that point I only did the bosses on hard/very hard (last boss on very easy since saving Sora > my pride and the random monster fights on very easy.

Imo there's a bit too many thrash monster fights in Dive2, with too many annoying enemies. (honestly, screw most of the non-boss new enemies they introduced in Dive2. xD)

[Shirakani]

Originally posted by persocom01:

I completed this game on the highest difficulty available at the time, but I don't remember if it was hard or very hard, since it was a long time ago. But from what I remember, getting good in this game relies on coming up with powerful aerial combos. However, powerful doesn't mean they need to be difficult to execute. The game allows you to test combos, so I made combos that can be executed by repeatedly spamming buttons with little in the way of timing whatsoever.

in general combos have to start with a connector, a fast move that lets you close the distance and touch the enemy for the first hit, a launcher, which launches the enemy into the air so they cannot retaliate and enemies on the ground will generally not be able to interrupt you, and the rest is about dealing as much damage as possible to the enemy in mid air before it touches the ground. Generally, you want to be able to finish this combo with one of the super moves just because it's stylish.

when fighting boss enemies the same size as you, the game turns into a sort of dogfight where you and the enemy run around trying to avoid being caught in each other's combos while trying desperately to land the first hit and connect our own. They are the most fun battles in the game imo.

Yup, this basically sums it up. I said a similar thing in a thread on Reddit. There are a number of 'exhibition' combos out there that look really cool but use all 12 equip slots... Anyone who actually brings one of those builds into the game for real play on any difficulty that isn't V.Easy or Easy is a complete moron. Its equivalent to picking up a fighting game, youtubing exhibition combo vids and then practicing those and then expecting to win Ranked matches.

Absolutely not going to happen.

Combos NEED to be to-the-point, high damaging (use big moves, critical hit moves and moves that amplify following hit damage) and also fully aerial not only so they don't get interrupted, but mobs gain Heat in the air... If you launch them when they're almost overheated, you'll do far more damage, this basically is the key to doing 3000-4000+ damage on big sub boss or boss enemies as like you said, you're juking around for position basically the equivalent to playing footsies in a fighting game while avoiding each other's opening hit. The exact same philosophies and mentality applies.

[Lapu]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

I did get tired of the fights by the time the 6th route came around. At that point I only did the bosses on hard/very hard (last boss on very easy since saving Sora > my pride and the random monster fights on very easy.

Imo there's a bit too many thrash monster fights in Dive2, with too many annoying enemies. (honestly, screw most of the non-boss new enemies they introduced in Dive2. xD)

I totally understand where you're coming from. Just completed first route of Dive2 and the mobs just get absolutely ridiculous. I've played on hard until now and Dive1 route 3 was already perfect difficulty. They absolutely destroyed it. Seriously, why do the old trash mobs need to get new moves? Why? Current was never able to use this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lance but why now? And don't throw five of them in one corner. In the first and second route I feared Iron File with the bs saw. Third route didn't really introduce too much bad stuff but the 4th one, boy. Sure, stuff the room with Advent (big yellow boi with infinite hyperarmor and hp), Irony (the one with fan, keeping you from doing your combos) and Bull (doesn't need an explanation) and don't regenerate my HP at all, I didn't need half of my bar anyway. It also seems as if the AI gets progressively trickier every route. I already see basic enemies evading my combo starter and doing shenanigans that only bosses did until this point.
Nah, ♥♥♥♥ that. If it gets even more annoying from now on, I will do the same and just play on very easy for the mobs and hard for the bosses (Dominion Miko was pretty difficult but epic af).

[Gilgamesh, King of Heroes]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Tip for very hard: dont play it unless you want to have a brutally hard time.

Its balanced around having all the abilities and plugins etc unlocked, for people that want a real challenge.

Originally posted by Shirakani:

Pretty much what the guy above me said. Very Hard is intended for absolute endgame players who have their abilities all at Level 3 and maxed HP, 2 Force Crash guages and 4 booster slots unlocked. The difficulty didn't even exist in the original game's release and was patched in much later as an extra challenge.

It was not ever considered or balanced for progression play. Doesn't mean you can't try, but, you're pretty much going to give yourself the most painful experience possible. It is designed to wreck your ♥♥♥♥ even if you ARE maxed out. Imagine playing it when you aren't maxed...

Is this only true of Dive2, or does the game get a lot harder after the first route? I got the game recently, fired up a new file on Very Hard and have been having a blast. Just tore through ch10 of the first route without getting a single one of the punishment scenes, that one definitely tested my skills.

Feels like things would be too easy if I was all maxed. Very Hard throws a lot of force and exp at you anyway. On everything but ch10 I was usually bringing a suboptimal loadout to level weapons, too.

About the only time I've had a complaint about the difficulty is the third fight of the game - it throws a huge amount of enemies at you while you're still missing some critical tutorials to explain how the controls work, and to make matters worse, Rain will get stunlocked and die on the third wave with the bugs if you don't kill fast enough (with your crappy starter weapons), which gives you a game over. I managed it without turning the difficulty down, but still.

[Uta]

Just gonna jump in with an update, since the thread's been necro'd.

I went through all of Dive2 on hard, though I think I dropped it to normal on a fight or two. As you progress through the game, Dive2 starts introducing some obnoxiously annoying enemies at you, sometimes a whole ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at once.

I'd say it's totally doable on hard, as I'm 100% not that great at the game and I managed through with only a few rough patches. Bosses on hard (or very hard if you really wanna suffer / have fun) are a must imo, as some of them are a blast and burning through it quickly on a difficulty you don't find challenging enough dampens the impact of some of the more plot-relevant opponents.

But obviously if you aren't having fun or struggling too much, by all means drop the difficulty, I definitely tilted at certain points.

[Lapu]

Hard is relatively easy in dive 1 but in dive 2, it becomes a pain in the a** since there are so many annoying enemies. The enemies and AI itself get harder as you progress in routes. The most notable difficulty jumps are from route 2 to route 3, route 3 to route 4 and lastly from route 5 to route 6 (which is really difficult and there are at least double as much fights compared to the former 5 routes). Having played through all of it, I can say that hard is a must for bosses. Especially the final boss is so absolutely awesome. Have tried some bosses on very easy (to get remaining items and endings) and Dominion Miko for example is just too easy on this difficulty. You can literally just go up, poise through the attacks and down the boss with one (half of a) combo which is just boring. For the least amount of epicness, you have to play on hard for bosses.
Oh, but do yourself a favor and just play on very easy for Isao on Aki's route. Them Iron Wolfs are just cancer. Too fast, won't let you hit them, ignore your attacks by just tackling you and then proceed to chain you into a combo.