Strategy: Nano Assault Neo(-X) (Wii U/PS4)

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Update 2014-11-24: This content should also apply to the PS4 version, Nano Assault Neo-X.

I’m by no means a savant, but here’s some general advice you might find useful in achieving higher scores in Nano Assault Neo:

Modes

  • Single Player (SP) – complete a set of 4 cells, including a boss.
  • Survivor – play random cells for as long as possible getting as large a score as possible using a single ship. Unlocked after completing Singple Player or Two Players.
  • Two Players (2P) – just like Single Player, but with 2 players and different leader boards.
  • Arcade – Play a single cell. Because you’re only playing a single cell, instead of visiting the shop between cells, you start off at the shop with $2500. Additionally, you won’t encounter the bonus stage at any point. Buy what you can for that specific cell in the shop, play the cell, that’s it.

General Tips

  1. [Survivor] Stay alive. This may be obvious, but it’s the most important advice. Not aware of any limit to the number of cells you can play, so you could potentially play forever, playing it safe.
  2. [SP & Survivor] Collect the credits (money) first. There are going to be fewer enemies and you want them to cluster, anyway. Use the map to find them.
  3. [Arcade] the green credits are yellow points, and affected by your multiplier, so collect them immediately after killing an enemy.
  4. Get the enemies to group and destroy the group as quickly as possible. Once you kill an enemy, your score multiplier fills up and quickly drops. The quicker you consecutively kill enemies, the more points you’ll get.
  5. Damage the larger enemies but don’t kill them right away. Larger enemies are worth more points so it’s worth setting up your multiplier to maximize their worth. Once a larger enemy is near-dead, quickly kill a smaller enemy to bring up your multiplier, then finish off the larger enemy. You may have to lure the smaller enemies over to the larger ones.
  6. Buy the Nanogauge 2.0 ($2000) the first chance you get. This changes your multiplier max from 5 to 9.
  7. [SP] If you’re at the shop right before a boss battle and don’t need any items, buy lives, they’re worth 10,000.
  8. When you’ve destroyed 90% of the enemies for a particular cell, the exit will open and give you 30 seconds to get there before the cell blows up. If you get to the exit before it blows up, you’ll receive bonuses for the time remaining (seconds x 500), lives (remaining x 10,000), and hit accuracy (%^2*50). If you don’t make it to the exit, then you don’t receive any of those bonuses. Killing 100% of the enemies also nets you a neat 100,000 bonus, regardless of making it to the exit or not. Ideally, do both. 🙂 Try to leave enemies that don’t take a long time to kill (or damage them all prior to 90%), and try to leave them close to the exit, so you can kill them and get in the exit to get both bonuses.
  9. [ALL] Accuracy: The bonus for accuracy is huge if you can get a reasonable percentage. It is your percentage squared, multiplied by 50. Even 50% accuracy will give you 50x50x50, which is 125,000. For quick reference, here’s a table:
    Accuracy % Bonus
    10 5000
    20 20000
    30 45000
    40 80000
    50 125000
    60 180000
    70 245000
    80 320000
    90 405000
    100 500000

    I found placing the satellites just off-center to the ship gave a strong concentrated stream that made it easier to get better accuracy scores. High accuracy is easy to get on the bosses, which is where most of your points will come from when killing them. Every single shot fired from your ship and satellites count towards your hit accuracy bonus – secondary weapons do not.

  10. Different modes require different play styles. In Survivor mode, play cautiously: survive as long as possible and those points will accumulate. In Arcade mode, play aggressively: it’s worth taking risks to go for those points as you’ve only got one cell to rack ’em up.
  11. Have fun! 🙂
  12. Use your special weapons, they don’t affect accuracy and can be very effective at killing multiple enemies quickly.
  13. Use shield + GaranQ for bosses, if you can. While the shield is active, fly right under the boss and use GaranQ. It only takes a couple seconds and you get 100% accuracy bonus.
  14. When you reach 85%, go around the cell and damage all the enemies that take a long time to kill, but don’t kill them. This will save you precious time killing them after you reach 90%.
  15. When you reach 90%, pause the game and look at the map. You have 30 seconds. See where the exit is, how many enemies are left, and what weapons you have. How do you think your accuracy has been, this stage? If you accuracy has been terrible and the remaining enemies are killable, go for them. If the remaining enemies doesn’t look doable, just go for the exit. If you’re lucky, both will be possible… but that’s often not the case.
  16. [SP, 2P] Bonus Round: If you collect the letters to spell BONUS, you will get to play the bonus round after surviving the current cell. Avoid obstacles and collect as many credits as possible before crashing. The longer you last, the higher the score you’ll receive. 5000 bonus points per second alive, up to 60 seconds. Attractor is useful for collecting more credits.

The Nano Shop (Store)

Extralife – $3000

Worth 10,000 bonus when you finish a cluster in Single Player or a cell in Arcade. Unavailable in Survivor, unaffordable in Arcade.

Nanogauge 2.0 – $2000

Increases the maximum Nanogauge multiplier from 5 to 9.

Credit Doubler – $1500

Doubles the value of credits you collect. In Arcade mode, credits are points.

Garan Q* – $1000

Secondary Weapon (Yellow). Area effect around your ship for a few seconds. Powerful. Great for bosses with Nano Shield equiped. Yields 10 uses.

Raydion – $750

Secondary Weapon (Green). Fires a single powerful shot which explodes with a large area effect after a distance. If you’re firing, it will fire in the same direction you’re firing. Otherwise, it will fire in the direction your ship is facing. Yields 4 uses.

Seka VR – $500

Secondary Weapon (Pink). Locks on to nearby enemies, fires multiple shots, and jumps from enemies until out of range or out of energy. Unaffected by small obstacles, making it very useful in cells with many obstacles (Zeta 1, Sigma 3). Yields 10 uses.

Satellite – $300

Enhance primary weapon with an additional satellite. Can be repositioned and angle adjusted in Single player modes.

Attractor – $250

Pulls collectibles toward you when you’re near them. This is great in bonus levels, but can make timing more difficult if you’re trying to kill an enemy to get your multiplier up right before collecting points.

Nano Shield – $200

10 seconds invulnerability starting when you enter the cell. Because it takes time for enemies to show up in a cell, this is only really useful for bosses or if you manage to collect it during play.

I’ll add to this list and link to other resources as I’m aware of them. Leave your own tips/comments/corrections in the comments.

8 thoughts on “Strategy: Nano Assault Neo(-X) (Wii U/PS4)

  1. Pingback: Review: Nano Assault Neo | Game Imps

      • Thanks for the quick reply. It’s so annoying when I get B-O-N-U, but the S never appears. I was hoping their was a way to make them appear. Oh well. Appreciate the site. It’s the only place I found online that has tips for this game.

        • I really enjoyed the game and played it a lot when it was released, but I’ve been playing other games recently.

          Glad the site’s been useful! If you have your own tips, leave ’em in the comments. 🙂

  2. Hi,

    Thanks for putting these tips online. Really impressed with the game, great fun, and looking forward to putting your advice to use.

    • Hi Andrea,

      Been so long since I played. But I thought you could still check your own scores when not online. I don’t think you could sync scores achieved offline with the online leaderboards, however.

      Out of curiosity, why are you playing offline?

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