Difficulty

Difficulty levels modify the traits of each enemies in a Stage, such as their health, damage and attack frequency. Each stages have 4 different Difficulties.

The Nightmare Difficulty banner of Stage 13

Overview

All Stages have 4 Difficulties: Normal, Hard, Insane and Nightmare. You can unlock the subsequential difficulties by collecting all medals of the previous one. Nightmare Difficulty is only unlocked after Stage 13 is completed.

The four Difficulties as skull symbols

Higher Difficulties modify aspects of the Stages, often making them harder to beat. This includes:

• Increase health of enemies and Bosses (noticeably on Nightmare).
• Increase damage of enemies and Bosses.
• Increase shooting frequency of turrets and Bosses.
• Gunships often appear in fleets of 4, as well as an increased numbers of Prop Planes and Heavy Fighters. (Nightmare only)
• Screen scrolling speed is increased, which increases the rate at which enemies both appear and retreat.

Some beneficial modifications are:

• Extra Stars rewards (example: Prop Planes drop 1, 2 and 3 stars each on Normal, Hard and Insane + Nightmare respectively).
• Boss Bonus: once a Boss battle starts, a 20000 points bonus will be displayed and slowly reduces over time. This encourages the player to speedrun the Bosses in exchange for greater points. Only available on Nightmare.
• Score multipliers (see below).
• Increased Cards and Aircraft Parts drop rates.
• Faster screen scrolling speed results in Stages being completed quicker, making grinding Stars more efficient.

Game play of Difficulties

Normal: The easiest difficulty of all Stages. Screen scrolling speed is slow, enemies attack quite infrequently, have very low health and are often destroyed as soon as they appear. Gives little stars.

Hard: The second difficulty. Enemies are slightly more armored and deals more damage. The screen scrolls slightly faster.

Insane: The third difficulty. The screen scrolls noticeably faster, enemies are slightly tougher with more damage. Enemies' fire rate is drastically increased, making the screen easily cramped with bullets. Bosses' armaments can now resist a few Power-ups without being destroyed. With a low-level Plane, the difficulty stays true to its name. This difficulty and Nightmare give the most stars.

Nightmare: The final and hardest. Screen scrolling is dramatically faster, causing enemies appearing back-to-back of each other. Enemies now have extreme armors and damage, which is quite a challenge when firepower is low. Prop Planes and Gunships may appear in greater numbers. Bosses have colossal health, making fights with them require endurance. Stars fly off the screen at record speeds, meaning "Perfect Scores" are highly unlikely on Nightmare due to the 100% Star requirement.

Score Multiplier

After completing a Stage, the player's Final Score is calculated using the Base Score and multiplied by an amount.

This amount is dependent on what Difficulty it is, as well as how many medals a player has unlocked on it. A fresh level will start with a x1 multiplier and gain 1 more for every medal. When progressing to a new Difficulty, the multiplier will gain 1 more point as well. This results in every Difficulty having x5 multiplier once all four medals are acquired, that is: Normal is x5, Hard is x10, Insane is x15 and Nightmare is x20.

Examples:

• Normal difficulty with 3 Medals has a x4 multiplier. If one more is collected, Hard will be unlocked with a x6 multiplier.
• Insane difficulty with 2 Medals will have a x13 multiplier.

Tournament

Tournament is a special event that has neither a Difficulty setting nor Score Multiplier. The Base Score is what every run ultimately ends up with. Additionally, Stars rewards dropped by enemies stay consistent throughout a playthrough.

However, Tournament does have a secret Difficulty acceleration to keep it challenging. Every Tournament Stages is a repeating segment and every time the beginning is encountered once more, the difficulty will increase with the same traits as said before. The difficulty at the start of the Stage bares many similarities to the default Normal and seems to change to Hard as well and so on. If the player survives long enough, the Difficulty will appear to increase beyond Nightmare, to the point when the screen scrolls strikingly fast and enemies' armors would take you too long to destroy.

Image Examples

Below are some comparisons/examples of the in-battle Difficulties.

A fleet of 4 Gunships found on Nightmare Difficulty. Note the amount of missiles being deployed.

Effect comparison of one maxed out Laser Power-up on Canned Dread's MLRS Launcher. Left is Insane and right is Nightmare. The Launcher is destroyed on Normal and Hard.

Fire rate comparison of AA Turrets on Normal and Nightmare. Left is Normal and right is Nightmare.

Boss Bonus of the Spinning Retaliation Boss. This media has been sped up by 5 times. Original time is 2m12s.

Damage comparison of a Radial Cannon's bullet (those seen at the start of Stage 5) dealt on a standard Plane, tested on all 4 difficulties. Health upgrade is at maximum.

Tips

• Pay attention to and dodge high-damaging projectiles when playing higher difficulties, such as Nightmare. One contact with a Railgun shell and laser beam of some types will be a guaranteed death, in addition missiles and Radial Cannons can still do some serious damage. Prop Planes' ramming damage should also not be underestimated.
• As the difficulty increases, save some power-ups for the end Boss fights to burn through their tough armaments quickly and clear the bullet hell they give. You can charge more power-ups at the start of the Stages if you are having a hard time beating them. However, do not hesitate to use an emergency Energy Shield or Mega Bomb, as it could save your life.
• Great firepower can come in handy in higher difficulty, as the strategy is to destroy defenses as soon as they appear to prevent them from retaliating. Making full use of the supercharging ability, upgrade firepower and using high-damaging planes such as The Classic with Laser Whip and Gladius is advisable. Limp Berserker also provide an early stage headstart in exchange for a one-hit kill.
• Playing higher difficulty levels help you beat high scores of yourself and friends, due to the effect of point multipliers.
• Take careful notes of survivors waiting to be rescued, especially on tough difficulties. The relentless pressure from enemies can draw your attention away from them, especially if they are on the sides of the screen. The fast screen scrolling speed can increase the risk of missing them.
• The use of stronger Technicians is recommended. Burton Panic can sometimes save you from being overwhelmed, Slow Mo Chan can help you dodge fast projectiles and Holo Granny can distract enemies' fire and giving you a window to move. Tase MeBro might have limited uses, but it can help you take care of Prop Planes while you focus on other defenses.

Trivia

• Stage 13 did not exist in the early versions of the game. Therefore, Insane used to be the highest difficulty at one period of time.

• Playing a difficulty for the first time will trigger unique dialogue. Each one has their own lines, even if they are of the same Stage. This give the player a sense that the storyline is progressing.
  • However, no dialogue is played on Nightmare difficulties. An exception is the AI's voice during the Omega boss fight, as they are plain voice lines.

• The fast screen scrolling speed on high difficulties will not only makes enemies appear sooner, but also makes some of them retreat faster. Often applies to mini-bosses.
• Completing each stage on Insane difficulties would reward the player with unique Google Play Games Achievements, and beating all stages on Nightmare rewards the player with a secret one.

  

  Araneae Lebes's trophy, showing whether you have beaten it on a difficulty or not, as well as the date you had done so.