Awaken, o angel of the light, for the great underworld summoner Als beckons you forth.
… Wait, this was a mistake. An angel in the underworld? Definitely a mistake. But it seems that Als the Summoner, upon discovering a mysterious staff, had called you here. For what purpose? To escape the depths of the abyss, of course. For a demon, he doesn’t seem quite as hostile and ferocious as his greater peers — he seems harmless at most. You are Myel, an angel called from the highest heavens to help Als on his quest for freedom. This is your saga, this is Angel Saga.
Alchemist Games’ take on the Archero-esque RPG bullet hell genre, Angel Saga, is packed with all sorts of fiends and foes for you to smite. As the chosen angel Myel, blast your way through waves of enemies and bosses in randomly-generated rooms using heat, cold, electricity, wind, or darkness as you brandish your staff. Given that the game is quite similar to titles like Dungeon of Gods, Hunt Royale, WinWing to an extent, and many others, Angel Saga never shies away from giving sufficient challenges to the player every step of the way.
It’s these challenges that the mighty Als is afraid of and this is why he needs you. In a way, you both need each other — Als is the one to guide you through the depths of the underworld while you do the fighting for him. Succeed and you’ll both be free. The problem here is that legions upon legions of demons await you and they’re restless to have you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner… forever. Can you escape the depths and find the freedom you so crave? If this is your first time picking up Angel Saga or if you’re somewhat in the middle of it and don’t know where to go, read our guide below and hopefully you’ll find the way out!
The Basics of Battle
This section of the guide shall discuss the very basic aspects of the game. Without understanding these beforehand, Myel and Als might not be able to make their escape. So always keep these in mind.
In almost any dungeon crawler out there, you are bound to have complete control over your character. Angel Saga’s controls are simple and intuitive, and learning how they work will put you ahead of most situations. After all, you have to crawl before you can walk! Please toss us your tomatoes for the pun.
Akin to many games available on the PlayStore and App Store today, you control your player character using a movement stick. Myel can be directed in any direction you will using the left movement stick. Contrary to most of these games, Myel doesn’t have an attack button. She, instead, attacks only if she is standing still. To initiate an attack, simply let go of the left thumbstick. The right side of the screen has some very special buttons that you will rely on as you play. We’ll discuss these buttons later in the guide.
As you battle all manner of devils and demons, you will encounter at least three terms: Main Skill, Special Skill, and Sub Skill. The Main Skill refers to whatever projectile Myel shoots from her staff. This can vary depending on what she’s currently wielding: an ice staff will shoot icicles, a wind staff will hurl wind pockets at the enemy, and then some.
Special Skills are powerful spells that Myel casts at specific intervals. You gain Special Skills at every other level. Examples of Special Skills are Bolt Rail, Sonic Boom, and Fire Breath. Lastly, Sub Skills are passive stat increases that you get at levels other than the ones that reward you with Special Skills. Sub Skills are deceptively powerful.
While picking Special Skills at random might help you clear rooms more quickly, choosing the right ones will make or break Myel’s ability to survive. You can give her all the attack that may make the underworld quiver but if her skin is made of paper and her bones are made of glass, a sneeze will end your run. Pick these wisely.
The word “level” that we refer to doesn’t refer to the different levels of the dungeon. At the bottom of the screen is a green bar that slowly fills every time Myel slays an enemy. When the bar gets filled, Myel levels up and rewards in the form of either Special Skills or Sub Skills are given for you to choose. Do note that Special Skills and Sub Skills are never together — it’s either one group or the other.
The dungeons that you fight through are all structured consistently. Each dungeon has a set of 15 floors with 4-5 rooms that you have to clear. Every three floors, you encounter a Major Floor, which is bound to level Myel up. The 15th floor is always the final boss of the dungeon. Keeping this in mind will give you an idea of how far you are from the and or where you’ve fallen should you fail.
When you’re at the lobby of the game, you can get rewarded with gems from beating every Major Floor and, of course, the final boss of the dungeon. Each Major Floor awards you with 50 gems, and every final boss defeated awards you with 100. These gems will be quite important later on.
With these basic principles all ironed out for you to see, we now proceed with what you need to know for Myel and Als to embrace their destinies.
Tips and Tricks
This part of our Angel Saga guide covers helpful hints that you can use to keep the forces of evil at bay as well as make Myel the most fearsome angel warrior the realms of hell has ever seen.
1. Dodge Into Bullets
Granted that Angel Saga is a shooter, it’s bound to have enemies that spew bullets almost everywhere.
As it is in several shooters of days long past, getting hit by said bullets means defeat. What usually happens is that you have a set number of lives, a plane or spaceship of some sort, and a bunch of enemies flying at you and/or shooting at you. One hit and it’s game over for you. But Angel Saga is a bullet hell — a subgenre of shooters that, as the name implies, involve countless bullets being on the screen all at once.
Bullet hells tend to be more forgiving than traditional shooters, believe it or not, as many of them possess ways you can weave through all the attacks of your enemies (and sometimes even get bonuses doing them). Angel Saga, however, grants you the ability to Dodge and unleash a powerful Howl.
Under the Basics of Battle in this guide, we’ve mentioned both buttons. But first, let’s talk about Dodging and why this is a skill you should explore. Apart from willing Myel away from the trajectories of the enemies’ bullets by making her run away, the Dodge button will cause her to zip into the direction she’s currently running. In other words, she’ll minutely rush forward. The Dodge button will then roll a cooldown counter but it may have a spare charge that you can use just in case the enemy gets too excited with their fire.
The best and most useful thing about Dodging, however, is the fact that this moment that Myel is in the dash, she is completely invulnerable. The moment she is out of the dodging motion, she can sustain damage once more. Let us illustrate how you can use these invincibility frames (or i-frames) to your advantage.
Imagine the boss firing a ton of projectiles at you, all of them bouncing from corner to corner with little room for you to move. If you Dodge into them, Myel will get past the bullets completely unscathed. This will be especially helpful if you’re face to face with certain bosses like the Golden Knight or Crevasse.
The Golden Knight has an attack where he spins rapidly that he starts firing bullets in all directions while the Crevasse has a similar attack but with bullets that rotate in a fan-like motion around the demon. Dodging into these bullet waves will instantly get you to safety and, in turn, give you the chance to counter attack.
There is the occasion, however, when you will find yourself with nowhere to go and there is nothing but a sea of bullets before you.
2. Use the Howl Only When There’s Nowhere to Go
To further give examples on how bullet hells can be more forgiving than traditional shooters, games like Touhou, Ikaruga, and Castle of Shikigami have their own ways of keeping the player character safe from the storm of projectiles.
Apart from having the tiny hurtbox that the player possesses, they may come with what is dubbed as a Smart Bomb. The Smart Bomb is a mechanic — a failsafe — to keep your run from ending abruptly. But these usually come with scoring penalties. What the Smart Bomb does is it completely erases all the bullets from the screen. Doing so will allow the player to regroup and figure out what they need to do next. Angel Saga, thankfully, has a similar mechanic implemented.
Scoring penalties aside, the goal of Angel Saga is to survive and exterminate waves of demons. Obviously, you won’t survive if you keep Myel blocking the projectiles with her face. Without her ability to Dodge, she’ll be faced with even more challenges. Thankfully, she can unleash a Howl that’ll clear her immediate vicinity of bullets — just as a Smart Bomb in a bullet hell would with some limitations that we’ll point out in a few. The Howl can be used by pressing the Howl button directly below the Dodge button.
While Dodging is mostly Myel’s bread and butter for survival, the Howl can be used for things other than destroying bullets:
- It stops enemies from attacking. Meaning, if they were blasted by the Howl mid-attack animation, they will have to wind up one more time and fire again.
- It stuns bosses while they’re firing. Doing this can help keep Myel alive, especially if she’s dodged one too many times.
The Howl’s power is not to be underestimated. If there’s nowhere left for Myel to go (e.g. if she’s backed into a corner or stuck in a narrow corridor), using this will definitely get her to escape. There are but a few limitations to the Howl, however: 1. It only comes with a number of charges per dungeon, and 2. Its range is quite short. Specifically addressing the second point here about its short range, this doesn’t make it a true Smart Bomb, but it’s a Smart Bomb nonetheless.
This condition applies to the boss getting caught in the blast as well — you may have to be near the boss to activate it and successfully stun them. Timing is everything when it comes to using this powerful spell, so make sure you have enough charges and use it only when you need to. We highly recommend you save this up for when you have to fight the final boss of the dungeon you’re currently in.
Dodging and using the Howl aside, these two abilities are nothing without your skill. Adding to that is how you build Myel with the skills you receive after every other dungeon level.
3. Opt for a Build that Will Help You with the Boss
In almost any game that involves fighting, you’re bound to go face to face with the boss — a big, hulking beast of a creature that’s a force to be reckoned with.
Taking on such a task requires utmost strategy and planning. In Angel Saga, there are plenty of ways to defeat your enemies, especially with the library of skills the game throws at you. This library grows every time you clear a dungeon, increasing the randomness of every skill popup. This is where strategizing is going to come into account. Any player can pick up any random skill they can find and use it to their liking, but having a build that you can stick with up to the very end — a build you can use to destroy the dungeon’s final boss with — should be your true goal.
While we are aware that a player’s build should be their own, keep in mind that the advice we are going to bestow onto you here is merely a suggestion. If you happen to have a build that works well with your playstyle, by all means stick to it. This build is an idea for anyone who is unfamiliar with the game.
Pay close attention to the cooldown of the Special Skills when you receive them. The lower the number next to the clock, the lower the cooldown. Taking any of these with you will be quite helpful since you won’t have to worry too much about waiting for them to recharge and quick volleys like these will deliver an impressive amount of DPS (damage per second), especially against the boss.
Taking Special Skills like Air Strike, Thunderbolt, Magic Missile, and Fire Storm will help you barrage the boss with quick flurries. Pile this on with critical hit rate and critical damage and you’re golden. These aren’t just for the bosses, mind you, they also work well on regular enemies — they’re small and numerous, so this will make annihilating each and every one of them a breeze.
Taking high-damage Special Skills like Mega Ice Spear or Mega Fire will certainly add to the amounts of DPS you’ll be dumping onto the boss. While the short skills are on cooldown, these burst damage skills will make the boss wince in pain. Take these as a precaution, just in case the skills you need don’t pop up as frequently.
To complement such a build, go for Sub Skills like Double Shot, Consecutive Shots, Spread, Critical Hit Rate, Critical Hit Damage, etc. These practical Sub Skills should help take the boss (and its flunkies) down much faster. Conversely, avoid gimmicky skills like Dodge, Rage, or Counter Attack. Rage aside, Dodge and Counter Attack are counter-intuitive since pressing the Dodge button is already a viable tactic that you should master. Plus getting hit is mostly not a great idea, especially in higher difficulties (we will discuss that later). For ease and practicality, stay away from these risky Sub Skills.
As you play and discover all these skills, Special or Sub, you’ll definitely have favorites. You can level them up so you have a higher chance of winning.
4. Level Up Your Favorite Skills
In every RPG, each player is bound to have a favorite set of skills.
Oftentimes, the skills would be arranged in a manner that they can be executed in order, and sometimes they are all skills that complement each other. Players of any RPG out there are no alien to having favorites among the plethora of skills their game usually presents them with. Much like that, in Angel Saga, you’re bound to have your own set of favorite skills.
Perhaps you’ll favor burst damage skills over rapid fire or maybe even have a preference of defensive Sub Skills over offensive ones. There is no harm in having favorites. There is but one thing every player of Angel Saga will have to know prior to leveling up their skills and making them stronger.
Each boss in the game drops a currency called Soulstone. These bright green crystals contain the energies of fallen demons that can be used to make Myel an even more powerful angel than she was a few levels prior. Soul Stones are greatly needed if you want to level up any of your skills and thankfully you can grind different bosses of their Soul Stones.
This means visiting previous dungeons if your current dungeon is too hard and whooping the tar out of the weaker bosses. Farm these and you’ll be able to level up your favorite Special Skills. Unfortunately, the same cannot be done for Sub Skills.
As it is with sticking to a build as you venture out into different dungeons, Sub Skill leveling follows the same randomized skills rule. For example, if you’d like to use your Soul Stones, you are forced to pick from a pool of three skills that you’d like to choose from. Because this is the case, just pick the skills that you are most likely to use than others. Let’s pretend that you drew a trio of elemental Sub Skills: Enhance Fire Property, Enhance Lightning Property, and Enhance Wind Property.
If you’re more likely to use the likes of Fire Storm or Air Strike, then Enhance Lightning Property will be out. It’s all up to you on which of those you’ll want. Going back to Special Skills, reaching certain levels in their enhancement will make them more formidable.
After upgrading any Special Skill a few times, you will be able to choose an Attribute that’ll make them much more powerful. The cost in Soul Stones will increase tremendously as you do this, so be prepared. As proof of this gain in power, let’s use Air Strike as an example. Air Strike spawns several bullets of air at Myel’s location that fly rapidly at the enemy akin to an automatic weapon.
One of the Attributes that we chose to level up is called Intersect. As the game states, it makes the bullets intersect toward the target and increases the damage of each projectile by 25%. To make this more powerful, this Attribute also allows each projectile to pierce through walls. What’s there not to like?
As it is with many RPGs where skills are powerful, gear also makes your character more powerful. Where do you get gear? From Lootboxes.
5. Spend Gems on Lootboxes
Some would say that Lootboxes are everything that’s wrong in modern gaming.
While they do encourage light (or heavy) gambling, it’s a sad reality that some of the stuff contained within them are essentials in the game they’re present in. On the other hand, some games managed to make earning duplicates of one thing a good omen by making the original item more powerful. In some cases, Lootboxes are purchased with premium currency, and this is exactly what you’ll be doing in Angel Saga.
The premium currency you’ll be using in this case are gems. Gems are obtained through quests and just by playing the game. If you save up enough, you’ll be able to open some Lootboxes for your precious gear. As we’ve mentioned in the other paragraph, Lootboxes may contain important items. The items in question are various kinds of gear that Myel will bring with her to battle. You cannot choose the gear you’ll be getting, so it’s better to do a 10 draw for better chances of getting good ones. Here are the possible kinds of gear pieces you can obtain from Lootboxes:
- Headgear – Helmets, hats, and everything else in between
- Armor – Dresses, robes, suits of armor that protect Myel’s body
- Weapon – Magical staves that our angel heroine wields to smite evil
- Wings – A new look for Myel’s extra limbs
- Necklace – Magical necklaces that grant mysterious powers
- Ring – Rings imbued with enchantments
Upon opening a few or several Lootboxes, don’t be discouraged by getting duplicates. The beauty of getting any duplicates at all is that you get to compare their stats with other similar items. Each item has a randomized set of stats, and much like how you choose different Special Skills and Sub Skills, you might want to observe which stats work for you. To further elaborate, imagine having a lot of Attack stats on each piece of your gear. You’ll verily make Myel hit like a truck whenever she shoots something!
If you happen to have a lot of duplicates of one thing in your inventory, you may save these up and combine them in the Laboratory through a process called Promotion. Here, you use up three identical gear pieces to raise their quality and make the item better overall. Do know that the Primary Material’s bonuses will be retained, so choose the primary gear piece carefully before promoting. Duplicates should be celebrated instead of shunned — they’ll eventually make great gear later on.
But gear pieces by themselves won’t stand. You will need better gear along the way. If you can’t seem to find that one Legendary gear piece for your current setup, it’s time to…
6. Upgrade Gear for Better Stats
In most cases in an RPG, your gear often gives your player character a significant boost in stats.
Most of the time, this gear can be improved by visiting a blacksmith or any equivalent NPC. Gear enhancement increases the stats of the gear piece overall and usually adds to the ton of bonuses your character might already have. Angel Saga follows this principle, so be sure to upgrade your gear regularly! But wait a minute, what kind of materials are used in upgrading your gear? There are these precious materials you find in treasure chests called Magic Stones.
Magic Stones are colorful stones with markings on them. The markings can vary from a sword, a helmet, wings, or a ring that enhance your weapon, your armor, your wings, and your accessories, respectively. This means that these designated Magic Stones only work for particular gear pieces depending on their marking.
The ones marked with swords will only enhance your weapon, the ones marked with helmets will only enhance your helmet and armor, the ones marked with wings will only enhance your wings, and the ones marked with a ring will only enhance your ring and your necklace. They cannot be interchanged. When upgrading a piece of gear, yoy have the choice to use up all your stones at once or upgrade it one level at a time. This option is purely your choice.
As we’ve mentioned earlier, Magic Stones can be gained from treasure chests in the dungeon. As you fight through every level, you will eventually come across a treasure chest that may contain either gold coins or the Magic Stones. Apart from the usual mode, they can also be gained from Adventure Modes like the Endless Dungeon or the Demon Tower. This is all at the price of fighting hordes of enemies, of course. You can also gain them through the passive means of the Laboratory.
The Laboratory is an idle feature of Angel Saga. Accessing this is as simple as tapping the Menu button in the lobby and then tapping the Lab button. What the Laboratory does is it accumulates a hefty amount of rewards over time. Aside from Magic Stones, you can also get gold, Soul Stones, and account EXP. To wait for the rewards to accumulate, you need to simply put the game down and login again in a few hours or so. This can also be upgraded under the Alchemy section while exploring the lab.
While getting gear and upgrading each piece is important, there is a quick way to get big bonuses fast.
7. Match Gear for Extra Effect
How does it feel when you put on a matching outfit?
Does it give you more comfort? Does it bring out your confidence and inner fashionista? Does it make you feel like you can do anything? If you said yes to all of these, then matching outfits in Angel Saga will be a good thing for you. They benefit anyone playing the game, so save the pieces you have on you. Let’s first talk about a brief history on why this works.
It’s unclear where armor sets have originated from, but it helps to know that older RPG titles have been doing it long before. Even some MMORPGs have followed the practice and it spiced up the gaming experiences of many a player. This is solely due to the bonuses an armor set grants them. One such older title with armor sets and effects is Monster Hunter.
When you create an armor set out of a single monster, you obtain special perks from that set. Every single piece of armor should match in order for the bonus to work but to a certain extent (especially in the later titles of the series). Modern RPGs that adapt the set system have become a little bit more forgiving, like Angel Saga.
In Angel Saga, each armor set requires at least two matching pieces for a set bonus to activate. To find out if these pieces belong to a certain set, look at the prefix of the piece. Here are a few examples of gear prefixes:
- Adventurer Baldo
- Fire Dragon
- Dark Bewitching
- Fairy King Rael
- Corrupted Despair
- Heavenly
- Doom Angel
If you happen to have at least two of these that match, equip them at once to receive a massive set bonus. The set bonus can range from increased HP, increased damage or crit rate, having increased attack relative to how much HP you’re missing, and more. The beauty of this is you don’t necessarily have to match all the pieces if you want a build that works. Simply matching two pieces from two different sets will already be plenty stat-wise. You might even turn Myel into a more versatile fighter if you use these as opposed to donning a full set.
There are many ways you can increase Myel’s power yet, but how about we address Passive Skills?
8. Try Leveling Up Passive Skills
What are Passive Skills and how do they work?
Passive Skills in any RPG out there are what empower your hero without having to use them directly. Merely having any of these passive skills will make your hero stronger in some way and having as many as you’d like will aid you in tougher battles. Such skills can be as simple as increases to your Attack stat, your Defense, your HP, etc.
Granted that Passive Skills are skills on their own, they are not to be confused with your Main Skill, Special Skill, and Sub Skill. Instead, these are leveled up separately in the lobby and cannot be improved during a dungeon run. Leveling up any of these are also permanent, so no matter what floor you’re currently at, the Passive Skills stay with you.
To improve any of your Passive Skills, you have to first be in the lobby. After which, hit the Menu button and go to the Lab. Once you are in the lab, take a look at the left and tap the Passive Skills button. There, you will see a plethora of various Passive Skills that you can level to your liking. Of course, you will have to start from the bottom — these skills branch out into others. Leveling up any of these skills will require gold, SP, and Skill Potions. The latter two can simply be earned by playing the game.
The Passive Skills are divided into three trees: Offense, Defense, and Utility. The Offense tree focuses greatly on making Myel hit harder. These skills are marked with the color red. The Defense tree focuses on Myel’s survival — basically making her a harder target to take down. These skills come in blue. The last tree, the Utility tree, focus on giving Myel a backup plan when things go down.
This means giving her buffs whenever she dodges, increased stats after reviving from a death, etc. They’re the green skills. There is no harm in mixing these up, but each last middle skill of all the three trees opens up the final row of skills at the very top. These powerful skills allow Myel to call powerful swords at her command among other things. How you build her up using Passive Skills is entirely up to you!
We’ve mentioned revives earlier. The probability of death, especially in the higher levels, is quite high. If you’re deep into the dungeon and Myel happens to perish, we recommend reviving but this comes at a price — a few seconds of your time!
9. Watch Ads for Magic Stones, Revives, and Bonus Loot, Not Gold
Advertisements — a way to broaden one’s decision-making, a means for a business to sell its product, or a nuisance to all?
Whether you like them or not, ads are here to stay. They’re everywhere and they’re nigh inescapable, but let us tell you why they’re actually a good thing. Especially in mobile games, most ads are tied in with bonuses and free stuff. Upon viewing any ad presented to you, you might be given a boost in production speed, extra tries, high-quality loot, and more. The ads found in Angel Saga are more than helpful and we highly encourage you to use them whenever they pop up.
As you fight through the dungeons, you will be earning gold. Whenever you find a treasure chest with gold in it, do NOT spend your ad watching on these — you are only given a number of them per day. Instead, spend your ad watching on the more scarce Magic Stones as they will help you get stronger more quickly through gear upgrades. There are a few of these, however, that don’t count how many times you watched ads.
One of these is the Laboratory bonus. The bonus loot you get from this can be gained from watching an ad. The caveat to this, however, is that the Laboratory is a time-based feature that will require real hours to pass first before you can get your rewards. Thus, watching ads consecutively is not ideal when it comes to this.
Lastly, there is watching an ad to revive. As we’ve stated in the previous item, it’s best to watch the ad if you’re several floors in. Let’s say, you’re at Floor 10 and you’ve simply died because you slipped up. Revive there. If you died in Floor 5 or lower, perhaps it’s much better for you to replay the dungeon altogether. All in all, there are ads all over the game, where you choose to watch your ads is entirely up to you.
Eventually, you will find your game getting less difficult. A new challenge awaits you, however, if you desire greater rewards but at higher difficulties.
10. Give Higher Difficulties a Try
Myel is now at the top of her game. The demon forces now crumble at her feet. Is there more to all this fighting? Is there a bigger challenge? There certainly is.
After defeating Dungeon 7, you will be given the option to play in Hard Mode. Hard Mode has more aggressive enemies, more bullets, more difficult bosses, and a new way to explore dungeons. This last bit in particular is the most interesting as you will have to pick what floors you’d like to explore yourself.
What makes this more dangerous, however, is that it tempts the player into underestimating the enemy. Our only advice for this is that you should expect to die on any floor and that you should first practice in Normal Mode before tackling Hard.
If you can beat Hard Mode’s floors purely with your skill, be warned that it will only get harder as you progress. Good luck!
Summary
Wrapping this all up, Angel Saga is a shooter with the element of unpredictability. With that plainly put, you might be able to mitigate dying on each floor by remembering what you’ve encountered in this guide:
- Dodging comes with invincibility frames or i-frames. Dodging into bullets will keep you out of harm’s way.
- While the Howl is limited to a few uses per level, its usage should not be done wantonly. Use it against bosses or if you might be drowning in a sea of bullets.
- Build Myel up to fight bosses more than enemies. This means more Special Skills with quick cooldowns coupled with a few Special Skills that deal burst damage. The Sub Skills should also lean toward being practical.
- Level up your favorite skills outside of battle.
- Spend your gems on opening Lootboxes and nothing else.
- Upgrade your gear for better stats and an increased chance for survival.
- Feeling a little fashion-conscious? Matching armor pieces will grant you better bonuses and will help you conquer dungeons more easily.
- Visit the Lab and level up your Passive Skills for permanent boosts.
- Magic Stones are more important than gold! If you encounter a chest with Magic Stones in them, watch ads to increase their yield. This also goes for the loot you receive from the Laboratory.
- Playing on Hard yields more rewards than Normal mode, but know that death lurks in almost every corner.
And that’s all for our beginner’s guide for Angel Saga! Wield these techniques true and you’ll help Myel and Als reach their destiny sooner than they’ll hope. Spread your wings and cleanse the darkness!
Are you a well-traveled warrior from the underworld? Do you have anything you’ve learned yourself that you’d like to share with any fledgling angel reading this Angel Saga guide? If so, share your strategies and tips with us in the comment section!