Okay, you guys are making me look awful. haha
I'm really appreciative of the fact that you did this though. Thank you for taking the time, both of you. I mean it. This gives me some strats to play with later.
I'm not quite as quick, I think, but this boss seems beatable now, if still murderously hard.

lol, that's why I decided not to cut that part.
Plus it's a bug. I released the hook that was saving my life and jumped into the death by accidentally switching the weapon mode. The game triggered the switching and releasing at the same time, what the hell!

Actually, your stats weren't too much higher than mine were during my writing playthrough. I did have more stamina though.
As far as items went you were pretty well off, actually. Only thing I would've done was make some more arrows and grabbed the enhanced acrobat pistol.

I suppose it's technically possible to screw yourself over. I mean, if you went into 24.4 and beat that boss without adequate stuff to tackle the next few levels, you might have to restart. This is something I both like and dislike. I'm glad you don't think I'm terribly lacking, anyway, but I'd be annoyed if I had to restart from level 1. I suppose this is what backup slots and the whole warning is for in the first place though.

Thanks for your feedback, folks. I have a psychology paper to write, and then I may give this another whirl. Or I may grind 25.2 for a couple of levels to at least get a little more atk/def. I actually figured my stats were going to be decent enough, since my HP seems considerably higher than, say, ChrisWright or Liam or even Sarah Alawami have, but yeah, I dunno. Would I be correct to assume that the electricity/bombs/other stuff like that will always do fixed damage though? That's kind of why I didn't pump it way higher with fruits.

oh that first time I played that lat level.. I think my stats were not as high. I abused defense drinks I must admit. It was a slow fight but it did needed lots of patience. Very nice audio plays!

The way magic armour is described makes it sound like it can block both forward and behind, and that electricity stuff sounds like it's coming from above you, but thank you for the tip.

good news though: I beat the game! That BCS fight was actually loads harder than the final quintet. I actually had the most trouble with the battery, until I realized I could stand a few squares above or below it and wail on it with the hammer whenever it floated too close. I actually beat it twice, but the first time I got silly and tried to run away at the very end instead of just shooting the bio-energy self-destruct thing. I confess I shouted a rather loud curse word at that point, but I realized that that fight, with a little luck and a ton of patience, was doable. A few things I noticed is that Life Burner will actually kill itself slowly. Is this intentional? Also, it appears the battery has a pretty mean melee attack (and no, I don't mean that bomb either, which has a tremendous explosion sound). I feel like the Massacred Souls was pretty underwhelming, and whenever the energy showed up to heal something, which I did deliberately, I just wailed on it. Easy stuff.
I still don't know quite how I did the BCS thing, it definitely took a couple of deaths and I somehow missed the ring it dropped, so I did the whole thing without one. Are those quest items, btw, and will I lose them if I start on a higher difficulty?

Also, quick question: do I need the UFO to get the jukebox key? All I know is that falling off the platform is virtually instant death because of those black fireballs.

Never mind, got the key.

Now I have two more questions, and I'll shut up.

First off, with my stats the way they are, should I jump straight to hard instead of exciting, or even higher? Or should I just go up one difficulty at a time? I see what each does now, which is great and all. I'm just wondering how much difference 50 levels will make with all the weapons and other snazzy stuff I have. (Managed to get needle launcher 4, chain sword, SuperUFO and Saw Cruiser, among other things. Spirit Sword too, though it still sucks, and I'm wondering at around what level it becomes relevant.

My next question involves the Extra section. Do you lose it once you reset the difficulty? I'm hoping you don't, since there's really nothing there except that fruit juice thing which could conceivably help much, especially given that I still need like 1380 levels in order to get the gold bonus room, or whatever it is. I'd like to have it open, but if I lose it, oh well. If I do though, maybe I'll grind the spirit sword a bit in the bread-squashing minigame first. OIt's currently at level 5 or so.

I'm still kind of in shock of the fact that I did it at all. Seriously. I guess now the title of the thread is a lie. I'm not a pro, but I don't suck. Haha. Incidentally, I wonder if anyone's actually beaten this game on the highest difficulty yet, and gotten to use whatever that item is which requires a Legend of Aon medal to craft. Kicker shoes, is it?

A few specific questions because I'm here. I have since begun an Exciting playthrough. Figured I'd play it safe, and so far so good. The UFO let me cheat some areas that gave me fits, but I actually did the security cameras in 21 the legit way. Still cheesed the security carts though with the super sniper rifle, and also got that upgraded machine gun. So here are my questions:
1. The main item I'm missing for the Cat Spear is something like a "matatabi", and I have no idea what that is, who drops it, whether it's trash or a UFO catcher thing. Care to enlighten me?
2. I take it that I'm nowhere anywhere close to killing the magic ball? Yes, I did a little research first, and I'd love that shadow mode (basically makes you invincible, doesn't it?), but I don't think I have anywhere near the firepower or survivability.
3. Is there a way to check what an item does or how good it is before you craft it? There are a lot of items I'm just not sure about (water pot, mysterious chip, curved wood shelf, hell scope, plus I'd love to know how good something is before I craft it even if I know -what it is).
4. Roughly how many levels before Spirit Sword becomes workable? are we talking dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands?
5. How can I refill ammo for the upgraded machine gun on the Skyracer? Will I just have to kill the chopper again to get a new one?
6. Last but not least: if I farm paper dolls and go after the fortune of Light or whatever it's called, will I even be able to handle the revamped 5.2?

In general order, lol
Matatabi is a UFO catcher item
Nope, you are definitely not. I mean in theory there is a way you could, but you'd be getting literally no experience, if you made one single mistake you'd die horribly, and a single hit from anything would kill you, but there's a way you could cheese it.
No, there is no way to check item stats.
I think about 20-30 levels? Can't remember when it starts penetrating though.
Yes.
If nothing else, you could just fly through the entire level with the UFO and just dodge everything entirely. Afterward, store the paper dolls in the item warehouse.

Hi.

I killed the magical ball around level 1900 or so, and it was still quite difficult. If you do kill it though, it gives you a ton of levels. I was around level 3200 after killing it once or twice. No matter what difficulty you are playing on, the ball is still level 5000.

Shadow mode is awesome, but I didn't use it much during the course of normal gameplay. IMO, it just makes everything way too easy.

Lots of spoilers incoming:
The mysterious chips are used with the clone generator, which allows you to copy any monster in the game besides life burners.
A word of caution though, I wouldn't clone the magical ball. As I learned the hard way, there seems to be a bug that completely screws over your experience if you clone and kill the magical ball too many times. If you decide to do it eventually, you might want to have a backup handy. It may have been fixed in the latest updates, but I don't know. In short, your milage may vary.

The gun scope multiplies the damage of your bullets by 1.5. Hell scope multiplies by 2.5. They stack.

The spirit sword is probably the best weapon in the game if you have the patience to grind it up. Mine's sitting at level 1453 and does around 37 million damage per hit. I know it has a horizontal range of at least 300 squares and a vertical range of 3. You will be grinding that thing for days though unless you help it along some. I know I had to toward the end.

As for 5-3 with the paper dolls, the monsters were about 6-8 times their normal level, but really weren't a problem as I recall. I was only a few difficulties in when I got the required number of dolls.

HTH

The new water pot allows you to collect as much water as you want from rivers, instead of you having to press enter a whole bunch to take 10 at a time. Quite the lifesaver if you need it.