The blades basically shoot up and down between height 4 and height 0 as I understand it, or something like that. You can be standing right next to one and it shouldn't hit you. 25.1 is not terrible, but it's tricky. Just dash under the blade the instant you hear it whoosh. That way it's going up as you're going underneath it. They shouldn't one-shot you though. If nothing else, if you get nailed, get to a safe square and heal up. I've taken a few inopportune blade whacks from time to time.

Also, my previous post where I gave advice? That's for 21.1. I apologize. I got the levels confused. Am now back to 23.1 and so far Difficult mode is still a joke.

Crap, I can't get the damn devil guardian! I seem to get blown up no matter what I do.

thanks

Is there a way to avoid the dark projectile thrown by magical ball and which weapon will damage it? I can dodge all attack but the dark projectile i can't dodge for some reason

@204: Also you may have noticed that the Devil Guardian makes a distinct sound when it is glowing red. If you know what that sound is, you can stay close to it and change your altitude when it is about to attack. The only weapon it has that you may not be able to avoid completely is it's machine gun, which is not that threatening, especially if your sky racer is upgraded.
Then, when it's no longer glowing red, go to an extremity of the map, turn back the other way, and shoot as many missiles as you can before one of them touches it. One of them may miss, but if done correctly, severals missiles will touch it simultaneously and it will take more damage. You should probably move at max speed for this trick to work. Note that it can be dangerous and you should upgrade the SkyRacer a bit if you try that.
Also, if I remember correctly, the Devil Guardian can't enable it's shield while using one of it's weapons. Exploiting that weekness can be a bit trickier though.

So, I have a new least favourite level. It's 12.2

I'm playing on hard. I have about 7.7k HP, about 930 attack and defense. I can kick the living snot out of any enemy I find. But Carla is dead in virtually four hits of anything. Desk stomps take her down by over half her health, it seems. She's too stupid to jump fire. If I stay close to her, I risk spraying her to death with the yo-yo, water plane launcher or some other weapon because she has a nasty habit of getting in front of me...oh and also, she takes damage every time I jump fireballs. If I stay far away, she'll hold her own for awhile, then I'll take twenty seconds to clear an area and the next thing I know she's at 5% health, and I get back in time to hear her die.

Given that this level is random (i.e., the same enemies don't appear in the same place at the same time), I feel like pulling my hair out. is there any way at all for me to make Carla stronger? Is there any way to get her to avoid stuff more? Cats don't work either, I've tried.

I mean, okay, I have always hated this level, even from my first playthrough, but it's getting rapidly too hard to handle. And all the HP, atk and def in the world won't help me much when it's Carla who's dying so fast.

If you folks have any foolproof strats to do this level well, please do let me know, because I'm getting pretty sick and tired of doing it over and over again.

Incidentally, even slimes now do enormous damage to me. I thought 920 atk/def would be enough, but apparently I can be splatted for over 2k damage now. Scary stuff. Looks like maybe I will have to go back and grind on "difficult", maybe. If so, though, that's going to be very, very disappointing.

That...kinda sorta really doesn't work, I'm afraid. Just tried seventeen times. Same thing happened every time.

It goes great for awhile. I can guard one side of Carla really well. But since fire stones often drop between Carla and myself, and often go toward her, I have no reliable way of taking them out without wasting her. If she tries, she blows them up on top of herself. And then she's dead before I can heal her.

So until or unless this level is adjusted somehow, and that bug is fixed, or friendly fire stops killing Carla, this is where I'm going to ask people how it is they use that cheat engine thing in order to fix values. If I can fix her health at something crazy or make it so it won't go down no matter how often it's hit, then yeah, maybe. Until or unless that can happen...no, I really don't feel like doing this level over and over. I'm still not sure why precisely it's so hard on hard as opposed to other difficulties. I mean okay, it was never a walk in the park, but this is just nuts.

Pity the level wouldn't end when you (not Carla, but you) reached a certain point, since after all 12.3 has you and Carla separated anyway. If that was a thing that were possible, I would speed-dash and pray for the best.

If you want to get cheat engine, you should get the portable version which wont have anything additional. Still though, it sort of ruins the experience.

Well at this point, I'm kinda more concerned with getting rid of these programs I didn't want, and not happy that the uninstall process doesn't appear to be accessible.

I don't know the issue either, honestly. Am tempted to upload my save to dropbox to show you the situation I'm in.

I haven't looked at your save yet, but quickly:
From the next version, I'll make it so that you can change modes without resetting stages if you have a clear medal for the destination mode. So, please keep at least 1 clear medal in your inventory.
Oh, about the uninstallation thing, how about using the system restore feature on Windows? I don't know how the program is called in English, but it should be in the accessories menu.

Alright, so.
Here's your save, level complete.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/45pkr4d9sc2sl … 1.dat?dl=1
And here's a recording of the level, this was actually a rerun, I didn't think to record it the first time through.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4mnsi0fbot562 … 2.mp3?dl=1

Although I deliberately designed it, the friendly fire thing is actually inconsistent as you know; carla's bullets cannot hit you, but your projectiles can. The thing I first concerned was that you perhaps could spray needles or guns and solo-play the entire level. That's what I didn't wanted players to do at that particular part.
That being said, the inconsistency doesn't make sense at all. On the other hand, I want you to protect Carla rather than taking care of everything by yourself.