S Rank Calculations

[ExoSin]

How exactly are S ranks calculated? My co-op partner and I have struggled through everything but the final three levels obtaining S ranks on everything so far, and we still can't figure it out.

We've had some truly phenomenal runs on levels we were struggling with only to receive an A or B, and then a terrible run afterward that granted us an S. We've tried 0 damage, 100% accuracy runs. We've done extremely high combo runs. Our most soul-crushing A was 5-1 where one of us has a 200 hit combo, the two of us each were each like 50-65 damage, and it was our fastest clear time. A rank. Did we not grab enough carrots? I don't understand.

I'm all for the challenge. The difficulty of the S rank is not what I have fault with. In fact, even the difficulty of the base game was tough but rewarding (Maybe not for singleplayer, we played exclusively co-op). But getting A after A rank, changing up your build wildly, getting incredibly varying stats between runs, and just meeting the same rank doesn't tell us where we need to improve. On one level, we were focusing on doing less damage, only to wind up getting nearly double the damage we had been taking but apparently excelling in a more important stat, and receiving an S.

To make matters worse I did 5-1 solo and had a much, much worse run in nearly every regard than when we both did co-op, and earned an S. I understand the ranks are most likely balanced differently for solo and co-op, but my lord, it almost feels like an RNG loot drop at the end of the mission.

Would it be possible to get some insight on the criteria for S ranks? I presume the stats are different for every level, but having goals to hit would be a lot more fun than just throwing yourself at a level hoping to discern what the game wants you to do to improve.

[Pieuler]

Oh this is an old post and still unanswered, so I won't keep my hope high hehe. Anyway I would love to know what is taken into account when calculating the rank too. I've started playing with a friend and we were able to get S on everything until now but we had to replay some stages where we got A instead and we don't know exactly why.

[Bread Panda]

From what I was able to gather, in the rankings at the end of the level, if you get over 100 damage taken, that is a guarantee that you will not get an S rank. I hope this helps!