#hitting my enemies with beeg numbers

[plushchimera]

huh I sure do plan to play a lot of casters for someone who is using a fraction of available spells ^_^; 

[greatwyrmgold]

If you’re a Hololive fan, odds are you’re already familiar with HoloCure, a fangame inspired by Vampire Survivor and some other games which aren’t as well-known. I’ve been playing it entirely too much these past few days, and I want to give my strategic tips on it.

General Advice

Strafe! Some weapons (including almost all starting weapons) fire in whatever direction you’re facing. If you hold down the Z button, you lock your facing as you move in any direction. This is almost an essential skill; it lets you attack while retreating or running around the enemy in a circle. I know this sounds small, but it’s a big deal. (And I am bad at it.)

You generally want to move around big groups of enemies. Since you’re faster than most of them, this causes them to clump up into one big mob that can be wiped out with a nice AoE or special attack, or at the very least which is not surrounding you. It also means that the XP, food, Holocoins, etc that drop will all be in one area, not scattered to the four winds.

I mentioned special attacks a couple sentences ago. Each character has a different one, ranging from a damage buff to a healing tree to just getting beeg and smooshing enemies. However, they are not unlocked at the start of the game! You need to play through the first game or two to earn “HoloCoins” to buy special attacks as an upgrade. I recommend taking the special attacks as your first upgrade—they’re a core mechanic, and pretty much your only available tool for keeping big mobs in check.

You usually want a decent mix of attacks. An aimable attack or two to focus on big bosses, some long-ranged homing weapons to reduce the number of enemies that reach your screen alive, some short-ranged AoE for crowd control, etc.

Most weapons are backloaded—their high-level upgrades provide more than their low-level ones. By contrast, most items are a bit frontloaded.

If you can barely see the enemies because your attacks are in the way, you’re on the right track. If you can barely see your attacks because the enemies are in the way, you’re in trouble.

Specific/Spoiler Advice

In this game, predictable enemy patterns spawn at predictable times. Knowing what to expect can help you to prepare. If you’re one of those people who hates being spoiled, stop reading here. (Or, you know, at the phrase “Spoiler Advice”…

In general: Enemy spawns can be put into four or five categories.

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The first three minutes of the game only have weak enemies—basic shrimps, deadbeats, and a shrimp miniboss. Traps at this stage are pretty loose and easy to evade. It’s a chance to get familiar with your basic weapon and collect the first, most basic parts of your build.

The rest of the first half is pretty consistent. A new miniboss every couple of minutes, a mob of enemies slowly increasing in number and variety. Two notes: Watch out for IRyStocrats (the fairy-looking things) and Thicc Bubbas (nightmares with hats), who are pretty fast for wanderers. Also, if you have two minibosses on screen at once, you’re probably falling behind the power curve.

The first true boss, Fubuzilla, is a bit of a wake-up call—especially if you’ve been relying on horizontal weapons.

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Shortly after (or possibly during) the Fubuzilla fight, the only enemies that will spawn are Baerats. The good news: They’re small, weak, and fragile. The bad news: They’re numerous, and since they’re small, they can be hard to hit. The best survival strategy is to make your immediate surroundings inhospitable to all forms of complex non-VTuber life, for instance with BL books or Haachama’s cooking. Having a lot of ordinary attacks and decent healing should work, too. Don’t bother aiming.

Then, Kronies start showing up (alongside more Baerats). The Kronies have more of those dense trap patterns—nothing you’ve seen before, just more difficult variations of familiar patterns. Also, the first of the really big minibosses, King Clock. Other than that, it’s basically like the first half.

The Q Segment is pretty distinctive. Shrimps to the left of me, deadbeats to the right, here you are—stuck in the middle with me. This segment goes on for about two minutes, with the bosses showing up halfway through, so if your Special Attack isn’t charged when it starts, don’t fire it off until the bosses show up. Keep an eye out for each side’s riot police, who forms dangerous trap patterns.

When the owls and apples start showing up, Q is over. Things go back to normal for a bit.

18 minutes in, miniboss-sized worms with Sana’s hair start showing up, followed by slightly smaller versions of the clock and apple sapling minibosses. They start spawning in such huge numbers that they’ll form a giant mob, stretching across the entire screen, save one bit in the middle where you’ve cleared them away. This, in my opinion, is the real final boss.

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At 20 minutes, that dense mob vanishes, replaced by a giant Smol Ame and a horde of Cursed Bubbas. But it’s a very thin horde, compared to the mosh pit you just faced.

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In Stage Mode, defeating Smol Ame ends the game. In Endless Mode, you run around hunting Cursed Bubbas just long enough to make me wonder if the rest of the game was just this. It was not.

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I’ll post a character guide later—writing a couple paragraphs per character gets pretty long.