Alice Gear Aegis CS/Unlocking Guide

Overview

If you go straight to doing pvp matches on a brand new save file, you’re going to realize a few things:

- There’s a ton of ways to customize your Actress(es), and you’re going to have to play the game to earn the virtual cash needed to unlock what you want to use.

- The opponent you’ll be facing will most likely be using some combination of equipment and stat modifiers that’s locked on your new save file and will most likely smoke your team with it.

- You’ll feel a sense of dread over the fact that you might have to grind several hours just to feel like you’re not gated by equipment and stat modifiers.

And fortunately for you, unlocking the important stuff for your Actress isn't that time-consuming if all you care about is getting your team pvp ready as fast as possible.

Resources Used for Unlocking

There are two key resources used for unlocking stuff in this game:

Gold

Gold is the virtual currency needed to purchase a majority of the stuff found in the game’s shop. You’ll always get gold by playing matches, regardless of whether you win or lose them. It’ll also be handed out to you when you play story mode.

Actress Experience Points

An Actress gains experience points by winning matches either in story mode or in PvP (so if you lose a battle all you get is just gold). If you were playing a Team Battle, your Actress’ team mates also get experience points as well.

There are additional ways to obtain more experience points for your Actress in Story Mode that’s based on what actions you perform throughout your run, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Actress levels (or Ranks) unlock 3 things you cannot buy in the game’s shop:

- At Rank 3, your Actress gets an exclusive Head Accessory that’s meant to be the cosmetic compliment to her personal/exclusive gear.

- At Rank 5, your Actress acquires their exclusive costume that’s meant to also be the cosmetic compliment to her personal/exclusive gear.

- At Rank 7, your Actress acquires their Inherent Skill Module. Although it’s meant to hint at how you’re supposed to play this Actress, the Module is not exclusive to them. In other words, once it’s unlocked, any other Actress in the game can use this special module as well, and they’re usually more powerful than what you can buy at the shop with gold. And there’s no limit to how many of them your Actress can equip either.

Story Mode Unlocking

Story Mode Unlocking Strategy

Story Mode is the primary way the developers wanted you to unlock stuff in this game for brand new players as going on losing streaks in pvp doesn’t net you a single point of experience because you’re only awarded that resource if you win the battle.

If you simply want to use this mode to get your team pvp-ready as fast as possible, it can be summarized into a few steps:

1. Even if you’re confident in your skill in the game and can get experience points consistently through PvP matches, you need to finish Story Mode at least once as 3 Actresses won’t be playable until you do so, unless you REALLY don’t like those locked Actresses for some reason. You also won’t be able to unlock their Inherent Skill Modules either if you don’t do this either.

2. Prioritize your money on buying personal/exclusive gear of the Actress you picked for Story Mode first, as the developers assumed you selected her because she’s going to be one of the first picks for your team. If you do this correctly, your Actress should already be wearing her personal/exclusive gear before the end of her first Story Mode run, with enough spare cash left over to be able to afford one or two pieces of another Actress’ personal/exclusive gear at the end of it. And this should take you less than an hour to complete a story mode run on the default difficulty.

3. Do not consider spending any money on Skill Modules until you at least have a team of three Actresses equipped with their personal/exclusive gear you want to use for PvP matches. As a matter of fact, it’s totally fine to use a team of Actresses that have their personal/exclusive gear on but have no Skill Modules equipped for PvP matches.

4. If you have enough time, try to focus on getting each Actress’ Inherent Skill Module by achieving as many bonuses as you can for each Story Mode run, as those are generally more useful and powerful than what you can buy at the Shop. If you get a majority of the bonuses for each Story Mode run, the first Actress you pick for a specific team will get her Inherent Skill Module in three Story Mode runs, with her 2nd team mate able to get theirs in two Story Mode Runs, and if you’re really consistent in getting a lot of the story Mode bonuses for each run, her 3rd team mate should be able to get hers in a single Story Mode run.

Story Mode Map

If you’ve played any of the Darius shmup games before, Story Mode progression is similar: you start from the left side of the map and all you have to do is reach the final hexagon on the far right side.

You progress one hexagon to the right each turn, and like in the Darius games, most of the time you’re given two possible paths to select which tile you want to land on for the next column on the map.

Hexagon/Tile Types

Raised and Flattened Hexagons

Each Actress has a Story Mode map unique to them and when running their Story Mode for the first time, all of their map tiles will be raised. Tiles you’ve passed through will be flattened and will remain in that state on subsequent Story Mode runs for that Actress.

Besides being cosmetic, they serve another purpose: if a raised tile requires you to battle in order to pass through it, you’ll be given a higher gold and experience point payout when you win.

Battle Hexagon

Solo battle with a specific Actress tied to that tile. The opponent you fight will gradually use higher quality gear and skill modules the further down the map you go.

Treasure Hexagon

Landing on this once gives your Actress a cosmetic accessory or costume specific to that hexagon. If your Actress already owns it, they get a small gold bonus instead. Subsequent passes through this same hexagon on future Story Mode runs gives you a 500 gold bonus.

If you’re using Story mode to get as much experience points in one playthrough as possible, it’s recommended to minimize the amount of times you’ll pass through these.

Warp Hexagon

Usually found on the top or bottom edges of the map and will redirect your Actress to another hexagon on the map that the Warp Tile is pointing to.

Elemental Battle Hexagon

Solo battle with an Actress whose gear has elemental attributes matching the icon displayed on the tile. All Actresses using equipment that have the properties of said element gain a 50% damage boost for this battle. These fights are typically more challenging against Actresses whose weapons already hit pretty hard or a pushover if your Actress is using said hard-hitting weapons.

Team Battle Hexagon

A tile where your Actress and her assigned team mates fight together in a Team Battle match. These tiles are always found in pairs and cannot be avoided. The second tile in the pair triggers a story mode sequence.

If your next tile is is one of these and have some cash to spare, make sure that your Actress’ team mates are properly geared up before starting the battle, otherwise you might end up in a situation where the Actress you’ve chosen for story mode will have to carry the whole fight for the team since she’s the only one with decent damage output.

Story Mode Bonuses

When you accomplish certain feats in Story Mode, you’ll get notifications on the right side of the map screen. If you accomplished them while in battle, the notifications will show up the moment you return back to the map:

These Story Mode bonuses are the same for every Actress and can be obtained again at the start of each new Story Mode run. If you want to know what all of the Bonuses are, the game will reveal them to you after the credits roll:

When you complete a Story Mode run, your Actress will also get an additional gold and experience point payout before you’re kicked back to the main menu. The more Story Mode bonuses that you unlock, the higher the gold and (more importantly) experience points payout will be; you should be able to get around 75% of the amount needed to move onto the next Rank. If you were speed running Story Mode and only obtained a few of them, the payout might be only around 30-40% of the XP amount needed to move on to the next rank, so sometimes it’s better to deliberately slow down the pace of the battle so you can do a specific action that’ll trigger the bonus you need to unlock.

Bonus-Specific Errata

Inflict 10000 damage with F-Gear: The game is actually keeping track of how much damage you’re doing with projectiles throughout the entire Story Mode run, so if you have a T-Skill, an L/B-Skill, or an SP Skill that’s a ranged attack, these count on top of how much F/S-Gear damage has been dealt so far.

10000 points of damage is the equivalent of taking down 10 Actresses using only this type of attack.

Inflict 10000 damage with C-Gear: The game is actually keeping track of how much damage you’re doing with melee attacks throughout the entire Story Mode run, so if you have a T-Skill, an L/B-Skill, or an SP Skill that deals non-projectile damage, these count on top of how much C-Gear damage has been dealt so far.

10000 points of damage is the equivalent of taking down 10 Actresses using only this type of attack.

Use 100 skill(s): The game is keeping track of how many times you activated an T-Skill (either quick or charged) or L/B-Skill throughout your entire Story Mode run. Once this total hits 100, you’ll achieve this bonus.

Use 8 SP Skill(s): The game’s keeping track of how many SP Skills you’ve done throughout your entire Story Mode run. For this specific bonus, the SP Skills don’t need to hit the opponent.

Use 5 SP Clash(es): The game’s keeping track of how many SP Cross/Clashes you’ve done throughout your entire Story Mode run. For this specific bonus, the SP Cross/Clash don’t need to hit the opponent.

Use 5 Assist(s): The game’s keeping track of how many SP Assists you’ve done throughout your entire Story Mode run. For this specific bonus, the SP Assists don’t need to hit the opponent.

Deal 500 damage with 1 attack: It should actually read, “Deal a combo that does a total of at least 500 damage” since most of the cast won’t be able to deal 500 damage with just one strike even with their best loadouts.

Finish with 3 SP attacks in a row: You must win 3 back-to-back battles where the KO damage that ended the match came from either an SP Assist, an SP Cross/Clash, or an SP Skill. You will not get this bonus if you accidentally end the match with a normal attack or time out in between one of these three battles.

Win 5 battles in a row: Go on a 5 game/battle tile winning streak. Rematches break the streak.