Tips for Hard Mode Best Ending (No Life Capsules)

Tips and tricks to help you complete the game on hard mode with the best ending.

Intro

I've finished the game on hard mode with the best ending and I'd like to detail some tips and tricks I used for each of the tough sections, primarily bosses. I'll be ignoring sections that I don't think are too hard.

I also won't detail much on how to get to the best ending, there are plenty of other guides for that, such as:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=118172375

Basics

Notes about Hard Mode:

* There aren't any life capsules. The only exception is the 5HP life capsule at the end of Plantation before the Last Cave (Hidden) given to you by the dog. If you collect this life capsule, it will invalidate your Unstoppable achievement.

* There are no missiles. You will have less damage on certain fights due to this.

Weapons and Items:

* Do take the Bubbline. It will be very useful for a few sections.

* I prefer the Spur out of the primary weapons, it will make fighting the first Core harder, but the Spur is incredibly useful against the final few sections.

* You will need the Blade over the Nemesis.

* Save the Life Pot for Ballos, it might save you there.

* The Whimsical Star will make a few sections in the Sanctuary a bit safer, but it's optional.

NUMBER ONE TIP: Complete the Best Ending on Another Difficulty First:

If you don't have experience on the later sections of the game, you won't be familiar with many of the boss patterns and many things will catch you off guard. Everything in this challenge is extremely fair and doable, but it simply takes practice and experience. Learning the game with only 3HP will deprive you of the ability to easily get that practice. You're going to be grinding 15 minute attempts to get a few seconds of practice in.

NUMBER TWO TIP: Play Slow and Safe:

In general, play safe rather than taking risky moves to finish off a boss. Once you memorize a boss pattern, if you play safe during a dangerous part, you'll get more chances to do damage safely during the other parts.

Early Game

Most of the early game is fairly trivial, just play safe and you should be fine. Don't forget to pick up an extra Jellyfish Juice so you can get the Bubbline.

The first real challenge is...

Monster X

This boss is usually the first one that gives people a lot of trouble on Hard Mode. Thankfully, there is a fairly consistent strategy that isn't too hard to pull off.

You will need:

• Lv 3 Blade
  
• Lv 3 Bubbline

There are three main parts to this:

1) Before the actual fight:

Clear out all the Gaudis in the room carefully. You can either use the Blade a bit closer up or the Bubbline to safely hit them from further away.

A little bit after the large "triangular bump" on the ground, Monster X will awaken and start to move. Ignore it and instead continue going right, killing all the Gaudis. Now, you want to deal with them as fast as possible before dealing with the actual boss, otherwise they will cause a lot of problems during the actual boss fight.

2) Boss Phase 1:

In this phase, you have kill the 4 green circles when Monster X opens it doors. Monster X will open its doors shortly after switching directions for the 3rd time in a row. You're going to want to establish a pattern like this:

• Let the boss catch up to you all the way on the right.
  
• Jump on top of the left tread and ride it all the way to the left.
  
• Just before you hit the laser gate, jump over the tread on the right onto the ground. Then, as Monster X changes direction back to the right, jump onto the right tread.

This will cause the doors to open and give you a lot of space to the right to be able to dodge. Once it opens, jump and hit the green circles with the Blade. You can do it twice if you time it well.

Then immediately run to the right while charging the Bubbline. Once you see any purple projectiles, turn left and shoot them with the charged shots.
Keep doing this until there are no more purple projectiles and Monster X chases you again.

Repeat this until all the green circles are gone.

3) Boss Phase 2:

In this phase, Monster X moves the same, except now it fires homing green fish missiles and you can actually damage its health bar. The green fish missiles are extremely dangerous and hard to dodge.

Use the same movement pattern as above to get Monster X to open its doors near the left gate. However this time, when it opens its doors, you want to be below it, between the treads.

Here, shoot the Blade upwards 3 times. During this, the green missiles will circle around, rather than going for you directly. This will give you the time to do damage safely.

Once Monster X closes its doors, jump to the right. This is the trickiest part, you're now going to have to focus on dodging and hitting the green missiles. The Blade works well here, as if you hit one, the AOE will also kill any nearby missiles. Repeat this until it's dead.

Once you kill the boss, any leftover green missiles will despawn and you will be safe.

That's it!

Don't forget to jump the gap and avoid the Booster v0.8, otherwise you won't be able to access the Best Ending.

After the next few sections, the next major challenge is the...

Core

• You can go back to the previous room and save right before going past the big blast doors which leads into the large main room with all the dead robots. This saves a lot of time for each attempt.
  
• Don't forget to get the Tow Rope, otherwise you'll miss out on the Best Ending. (You can apparently pick it up while drowning after the boss, but I've always picked it up before the fight).

You will need:

• Lv 3 on every weapon.

A lot of people consider this the hardest boss for this mode but I find it to be not too bad with this strategy.

Boss Pattern:

The boss alternates between two forms, one in which the large central core opens its eyes and is vulnerable, and one in which it is closed and invulnerable. Every time it alternates form, the smaller "cores" will open and begin firing projectiles. If the smaller "cores" take enough damage, they will close and stop firing projectiles.

The strategy:

At the start of the fight, immediately jump right onto the large platform on the right and stand on the left half of it (but not under the floating block, which will hamper your ability to dodge). From there, just spam mash the fire button while also mashing the weapon swap button. If done correctly and fast enough, you will fire out a constant stream of projectiles, including the AOE Lv 3 blade. This will both damage the boss and clear out any projectiles coming your way. The only risk is if one of the smaller core components is above you and shoots one of the white spinning projectiles downwards. If this happens, you will have to either jump over the projectiles or jump and shoot them.

Towards the end of the fight, it will blow you into the water then start shooting large white spheres are you. You must dodge these, climb to the left, then eventually climb onto the platform where you and Curly started the cutscene and fight. From there, just keep doing the same thing as the main Core moves left to catch up to you, and you'll eventually finish it off.

This strategy takes some luck to get a good pattern of projectiles, hoping that none hit you from a weird angle. Having a Turbo controller may also help you from getting a hand injury here.

I've found a video pulling off this strategy here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDqVSG8FkTo

Good luck!

Don't forget to save Curly in the Waterway afterwards, otherwise you'll lock yourself out of the Best Ending.

After reaching Mimiga Village, you'll be able to pick up the Booster v2.0, the Spur, as well as go back to the Labyrinth for the Whimsical Star.


Anyway, the next challenge is...

Red Ogre

This guy is actually not too hard, but there is an extremely easy way to cheese him which I thought I'd mention.

You will need:

• Lv 2 Blade

This guy throws three projectiles at you in a row. He will first do it while jumping, then while on the ground, continuously alternating between the two. When he jumps, he jumps towards you.

Strategy:

There is a little bump in the ground in his arena, which, if you're standing on the opposite side from him, his projectile will hit and do nothing. You on the other hand, can hit him over this bump using the Lv 2 Blade. Just make him jump right, then left, then right, etc. so that he's never able to hit you on the ground (and you can hit him for free). So all you really have to do is go under past him every time he jumps while dodging the three projectiles he throws then.

Here is a video showing this pattern:
https://youtu.be/Cvt_6smZlXk?si=xq4uQYp4kc3k5HIv

The next actual challenge is...

Misery / Doctor / Muscle Doctor / Undead Core

There are 4 boss fights in a row, with the last one having 2 sub-bosses included. Let's get into it.

You will need:

• Spur
  
• Lv 3 Blade (optionally)

Misery

This fight is not too hard but you'll want to be consistent to maximize your attempts at the later bosses.

Boss Pattern:

In this fight, Misery will teleport around randomly. If you're in the air, she may teleport on top of you, which is risky. She will drop a block instead of shooting projectiles every third attack.

The bats will not instantly kill you, so you can tank them if necessary.

Strategy:

Charge your Spur to Lv 3 before triggering the cutscene, then stop holding the button during the cutscene. This will cause your shot to fire immediately once the cutscene ends. After that, charge a Lv 2 Spur shot and shoot it into her vertically.

From then on, just continuously charge Lv 3 Spur shots, wait for her to appear, boost underneath her, and shoot the charged shot into her vertically. This works well even when she has the shielding circles, as it's easiest to time from below. Get ready to dodge immediately as she will attack and disappear.

It should be pretty simple to keep doing this. You can finish her off with a Lv 2 shot from far away easily if needed. If she teleports to somewhere far away, you may just want to focus on dodging until she appears in a better spot.

Doctor

The most annoying part of this set of bosses.

Boss Pattern:

He will shoot an expanding, oscillating wave of orbs at you, it's pretty simple to dodge these just by boosting straight up over them.

After doing this 4 times, he will teleport into the air, and launch a multi-directional burst. It's easiest to dodge this if you get far away from him, then dodge between the shots. He'll often follow this up quickly with the wave attack, so get ready to dodge both in a row.

There's always a chance he teleports on top of you which is the most annoying way to die here. Make sure to keep moving, and keep an eye on the Red Crystal, which will always move towards him, so you will get an idea of where he is teleporting.

Strategy:

Use the same pre-cutscene charge to get a free hit in at the beginning of the fight. Otherwise, you just have to learn his pattern to dodge his attacks and get in as many Lv 2 and Lv 3 Spur shots as possible. You have the most damage opportunity if you are able to dodge over his wave attack and shoot him in the back.

In the beginning of the fight, he will either teleport right or left. If he goes right, it's easy to keep dodging the wave and hitting him. If he goes left, it's a bit riskier as he goes out of your camera view. I find it easiest to move to the "step" (made of 4 smaller blocks) in the middle, dodge from there, then play reactively from there.

When he teleports, keep an eye on the Red Crystal, you can often shoot where it is going and hit him for free.

Muscle Doctor

Strategy:

This one is very simple, just shoot him with your Lv 2 charged Spur shots while avoiding him. Avoid getting cornered or he might teleport on top of you.

After the fight, you can talk to Chako twice for hearts to spawn, which will heal you. Useful if you got hit by any bats which didn't kill you.

Undead Core

Boss Pattern:

Out of the three, Misery is the biggest threat. Misery will spawn critters and bats, which usually aren't lethal, but are very annoying. If Sue is defeated, Misery will start shooting homing orange missiles similar to the Monster X missiles. These are extremely hard to dodge and will likely kill you.

Sue is also a threat as she will continuously chase you and try to tackle you.

For most of the battle, the Undead Core will do one of two things:

• If it opens up with a face, it will drop bombs on the ground that send shockwaves you must dodge.
  
• If it opens up with teeth, it will shoot projectiles that fly to the left. Being on the right side of the Core during this means you'll likely be safe.

Additionally, the "small" core pieces will act as platforms when brightened, otherwise you will fall through them. Be aware of this, as they may make you mess up your positioning.

Strategy:

Use the same pre-cutscene charge as before to get a free hit in on Misery at the beginning of the fight. The main strategy will be to kill Misery first, then Sue. Leave the Core entirely alone until they are dealt with, if they are dead then the Core itself is very easy.

As Sue will chase you, you will have to keep moving to dodge her the entire time. During this time, keep charging and unleashing Spur shots into Misery, double-hitting Sue with them if you can. Continuously clear out any critters, otherwise they will become a problem as you try to dodge Sue. The bats aren't too big of a deal as they don't one-shot kill you and can get health pickups from them. You can also Switch to the Lv 3 Blade here, which does a good job of hitting things AOE and continuously hitting Misery while you are running away.

After Misery is done, then just keep hitting Sue with charged Spur shots.

After Sue is done, then you can kill the Undead Core without too much trouble. Just focus on dodging, rather than hitting shots, and you should be fine. Once it gets low, it will instead open with a gaping mouth, and shoot large white spheres which you must dodge. It shouldn't be a problem if you play safe.

Last but not least, after the boss, you have to actually make it to the save point in the Prefab Building. It's pretty easy to die to one of the falling blocks on the way, so you're going to have to just rush for it and dodge reactively.

Good luck!

And finally...

Blood Stained Sanctuary

This is it. This is the hardest part of the challenge.

I'm going to describe this part as 5 different parts. The main difficulty of this final gauntlet is that it's long and that there are no checkpoints. You'll only get a fraction of your attempts onto the final boss last phase. Because of this, you'll want to maximize your win rate as much as possible on the other sections.

You will need:

• Spur
  
• Lv 3 Blade
  
• Lv 3 Bubbline
  
• Lv 1 Fireball (optional)
  
• Whimsical Star (optional)

1) B1 - First Room

This room is very easy but you want to be consistent at it.

In the beginning, switch to the Bubbline and use it on the first two Exp Capsules so that you get it to Lv 3.

Afterwards, switch to the Blade and hit the Exp Capsules while falling to get it to Lv 2. You want to shoot the Blade slightly early for this. You'll want the Blade to be Lv 3 by Ballos.

In the bottom of the room:

It's most consistent to jump left (hit your head on the ceiling), then hold right, then boost. This is easier than walking off the platform, then boosting right. Tapping rather than holding also gets you a bit further if needed.

2) B2 - Blocks Room

This is the most difficult room of the entire game and where most of your attempts will die. Hopefully, with a bit of practice you can get through this room around 50% of the time or more.

A few general tips about the blocks themselves:

• They fall randomly. However, with good movement and care, the patterns are usually dodgeable in some fashion.
  
• There are patterns which will cause unavoidable death if you start in a position where you are cornered, so avoid staying in tight spots for too long.
  
• You can freely dash through the upper half of the large blocks.
  
• If a block hits the ground, it will bounce for a moment before it continues falling through. This means if there is a platform or block above you, you can utilize this for an extra few moments of reaction time.

The other main threat here are the Butes:

• Butes do not spawn randomly, they spawn based on how far you've progressed in the screen. Thus, if you rush really fast, a lot of Butes will spawn at once. If you go slower, the same amount will spawn, but slower.
  
• These spawn points are fixed. For example, there are 4 Butes that spawn right before the first large ground block. There are a few points before this where they spawn, and a few points after too.
  
• Once you've played this room enough times (and slowly), you'll get a feel for where and when they spawn.
  
• Butes have 4HP, the Lv 3 Bubbline does 3 damage, so 2 shots will kill a Bute.
  
• Butes generally try to charge you directly, or they swerve around you attempting to do so.

The Strategy:

The primary strategy here is to be taking it slow. The Lv 3 Bubbline in particular works well in this section because it both protects and attacks at angles which the other weapons don't hit.

Once you enter the room, charge up the Bubbline and shoot the first two Butes. Then progress slowly while still try to continuously progress to the right. However, you'll have to dash back left regularly to dodge blocks. Make your way carefully to the first large ground block. As you walk, continuously charge up your Bubbline. However, if your Bubbline gets to low ammo, you'll want to stop progressing and let it charge back up before continuing on.

Along the way there will be around 2-3 spawning points where Butes appear, and then another group of 4 Butes right next to the large ground block. A number of the Butes will directly die to touching the floating bubbles around you. If there are any directly flying into you from the left you will need to shoot the Bubbline at them, otherwise they will likely touch you and kill you. Whenever there are Butes, kill them all before progressing. Make sure to keep letting the Bubbline charge up whenever possible.

Once you pass the first large ground block, there will be another small hill, then a number of suspended individual blocks. Underneath these, it's a good idea to kill all the Butes possible. The blocks will block off the Butes, and also give you some extra time to dodge falling blocks. Unfortunately, it's also easy to get cornered because of them and die to an unavoidable falling block pattern so you don't want to spend too long here.

The next part has an uneven ground pattern which makes it really easy to get cornered by falling blocks.

I would recommend once you've cleared out Butes near the suspended blocks, simply making a mad dash to the end instead of playing it slowly (while still focusing on dodging). You'll have to use the Bubbline to kill a few Butes at the end but you should be able to outrun the rest that are trying to catch up. Take any chance you get to dive into the hole and you'll be safe.

3) B3 - Long Room

This is a room you generally want to take slow. Since you might not make it past the previous room often, you don't want to die in this room which is generally easy.

Here, collect all the Exp that you can with your Blade to get it to Lv 3. Most of the room is easy if you take it slow and shoot long-range Spur shots at enemies. I'll mention a few points to be careful at and a few strategies for consistency.

When you step on the left side of the platform here, Butes spawn from above, so as soon as they do, run back to the middle of the platform, spam shots upwards until they're all gone.

In this spot, you can use the Whimsical Star to kill the three nearby Butes on the left. You can influence the movement of the Whimsical Star by moving around.

You can kill the Bute in front of you by jumping and firing the Lv 1 Fireball at him.

The Whimsical Star can also kill the bottom Bute from here, and sometimes even the one above it.

Similarly, the Whimsical Star can kill the top one from here, as well as the below one. Often it will just die as you kill all the Butes from the spawner to the right.

There is a Bute spawner in the right pit. To safely clear it, jump onto the middle platform, stand on the left side (where the green box is in the screenshot), face left, and spam shots until they're gone. Be careful to not land in the spikes on the left.

Do this jump like this, with a big jump, then boost afterwards, making sure to wait until they aren't shooting arrows.

To do this part safely, land on the right side of this platform (in the green box), face right and spam shots. Once they're cleared, step on the left side then spam shots until the next spawner is cleared.

4) Heavy Press

This fight is not too hard but there's a lot going on at the same time so you'll have to get used to tracking it all at once.

Start off the fight with a Lv 3 charged shot. Then spam uncharged shots into it as much as you can for the fight. Keep an eye on the Rollings, they are your main threat, make sure not to jump into them. Usually the Butes will kill themselves on your shots but sometimes you'll have to dodge and shoot sideways at them. Also don't forget to dodge Heavy Press's lightning bolt.

5) Final Boss

And that brings us to...

Ballos

This fight has 4 phases, and only the last one is a real threat if you play it right.

Phase I

Charge a Lv 3 shot before the fight but hold it so you don't fire it immediately after the scene. Fire it once Ballos puts his hand up. Then, just keep firing Lv 2 shots into Ballos the whole time while dodging his pattern. To dodge, jump and boost up while he goes under you, then boost right, go down, and boost left under him. You should be able to get a Lv 2 shot into him in the air, and then one or two while he's on the ground to your right.

When he flies into the air, hit him with the last charge shot you were holding, then spam uncharged shots into him, which should finish the phase. You may have to dodge one or two lightning strikes. If he is able to do the whole row of lightning strikes, you didn't do enough damage during the first part.

Phase II

Focus on your positioning here, the most dangerous aspects are either getting hit by the shockwave, or by getting trapped by Ballos on one side of the arena. Don't bother trying to stand on him, you're going to risk bouncing off and getting hit by the shockwave if you do that. Just spam Lv 2 or 3 shots into Ballos whenever you have the safe opportunity. Try to end the phase with him on your left side so you have space to dodge the eyeballs easily.

Phase III

Probably the most trivial phase, simply spam charged Spur shots at the eyeballs. When Ballos is on the ceiling, skulls will rain down, make sure to dodge those, and then shoot Ballos when he comes back around.

Phase IV

This is it, the final phase. There's not a lot of opportunity to practice this phase so it's a bit tough.

At the beginning of this phase, you can shoot some charged Spur shots to help clear the Green Devils out of the way quickly. Regardless, switch to the Lv 3 Blade and land on a platform on the left side of Ballos. Keep repositioning yourself safely, and once Ballos opens up, spam the Lv 3 Blade at his body and the red eyeballs. The Blade's AOE here does a lot of damage.

Your biggest threat here are the Butes. There are two types:

• Archer Butes that circle the screen. Dodge their arrows.
  
• Charging Butes that spawn from Ballos. These are the most dangerous, as they will swerve around and then try to hit you. Dodge them or even hit them with the Lv 3 Blade if you can.

Try to stay on the left side if it's safe, or ride the platforms over Ballos if it's clear. Riding the platforms under Ballos can allow you to do a lot of damage, but it's also risky as you may get hit by the eyeballs which drop. Keep hitting Ballos with the Blade and focus on dodging and staying alive.

Once you kill him, that's it! Challenge (and achievement) complete!

Thanks

Thanks for reading if you've made it this far!

I'd like to thank the following people:
* Daisuke Amaya (Pixel), for making one of my favorites games.
* AchievementHuntersAnon, for the video of the Core strategy
* periwinkle, for the video of the Red Ogre strategy

[yumethegloomy]

thank you SO MUCH!!