At some point I completed Nightmare mode and was kinda sad that I haven't used PHANTOM BREAK outside of stage 0. It takes a ton of XP to upgrade, but you also would want to keep those strength-speed-defense upgrades. So, awesome snappy mind-blowing super-attack was not upgraded in favor of boss-defeating overdrive and some strength upgrades. Which is sad, really.
But you can upgrade it. If you have A LOT of XP.


First of all - I would like to ask you not to read any further if you haven't completed the game or have trouble completing it on hard. This guide WILL NOT help you level up so that you can become stronger and beat up bosses easier. In fact, you need to beat the game several times in order for this to work.
And then - farming may spoil your enjoyment of the game. Be careful, you have been warned.

You don't need Kurisu DLC to farm, though I noticed that reaching lvl50 is pretty easy without any special effort, reaching level 99 was the part where it became a little bit slow. That's why I decided to find out if there is a way to farm XP and become a badass level 99 so I could finally use those awesome finishing moves.

There are 2 parts for what we are trying to achieve - we need a good place and a good technique for easy farming. A little bit of a disappointment - you would still need to press buttons, and a lot, in fact. No need for crazy combos, but you will still fight.

As I mentioned earlier - you would need to complete the game several times so that Nightmare mode is available. Nightmare is the highest difficulty that still drops XP, and as it turns out - it heavily multiplies amount of XP gems dropped.
Stage 0: Akihabara would have been a perfect place for farm since you still own your powers (before M takes them from you), but it turns out that Akihabara plays the same in every difficulty setting.

While you were playing, you may have noticed that Stage 6: Demonsphere is extremely long and a little bit frustrating since it's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ maze (by the way, there are 2 great guides for Normal/Hard and Nightmare stage layouts. Be sure to check them out - they help a lot!). And this stage length is what makes it PERFECT for farming. It is long, you are free to complete it at your own pace, and it's filled with a lot of juicy high-level demons. Jackpot.

Now, the only thing left to do is...

Edit 31.05.2015: Mizuumi-san suggests a less mundane method of farming by just replaying stages 4 and 5 on Nightmare. This indeed should be more fun than just going through a maze that is stage 6, though it may take longer (Mizuumi-san says he got Kurisu to lvl70 in under 6 hours). This may also avoid you spoiling the gameplay with simple grinding.

Now that is probably the easiest part. It works ALMOST for everyone, but some characters have their exceptions.

Are you ready?
You are about to hear wisdom.










Yup, that's all it takes. It works without SP upgrades, and it deals damage as much as strong attack does. For most characters it's either some kind of long-range uppercut or straight forward attack, with only one exception being Itsuki.



Because of the variety of attacks, some characters may need different approach, but the idea is simple: stand in the corner of the screen on front lane, wait for enemies to approach, attack with this attack. That's all.
Now, you need to stand in the corner so that enemies approach you from only one side. Front lane won't let you get sucked in when you kill everybody. Nice, huh?

Well, there are exceptions. Quite a lot, actually. Let's look at the following list:

Fighters who can execute this technique perfectly:
• Infinity
  
• Nagi
  
• Kurisu
  Fighters who need modification to this technique:
  
• Mikoto
  
• Waka
  Fighters who may encounter trouble:
  
• Yuzuha
  
• M (there is an alternative, see Edit 13.02.2016)
  
• Cocoa
  Fighters who can't properly perform this:
  
• Itsuki

Now, everything is fine and dandy with Infinity, Nagi and Kurisu. Mikoto and Waka are also extremely effective, though their attack is different - they lunge forward, "picking" their target with their respective weapons, and then jump up, launching them in the air. If you instantly repeat this button sequence (or just hold down and bash SP, your choice) - you can re-pick your enemy and attack him again.

Now, here's the thing - Infinity, Nagi and Kurisu severely cripple the crowd of monsters (or even kill some) that is approaching, so that even if somebody reaches you - they would already be weak and easy to kill. Mikoto and Waka also rarely get hit - they just fly around the map with their prey. But Yusuha, M and Cocoa rush forward with their attacks - thus they get hit easily. That is indeed a problem which I encountered, but it's okay if you die. In fact, you may not want to beat the boss - the boss drops no XP.
Itsuki... Well, her attack also sends you forward, but it's also extremely slow between the hits it delivers, so I found this attack extremely ineffective at farming with her.

Edit 28.05.2015: As ajtpak pointed out in the comments, Kurisu can farm even faster if you max out her strength and upgrade at least 1 level of overdirve. After activating overdrive spamming Down+SP takes out the whole crowd.

Edit 28.05.2015: Hydroid states there is an easier method for farming with M - just press direction key towards the enemy and mash SP. This launches pretty far-reaching fireballs, also making an effective method of waveclear.

Well, here's the deal - death is not a bad thing. You will die, and that's okay. It doesn't subtract from your earned XP, and it can give you some time to spend your upgrades.

By the way, the main thing you wanna upgrade is Strength. I refrained from trying any upgrade-related moves so that even 0-level characters could be brought up with this method. After strength I usually take Defense to be alive a little bit longer.

Now, there are only 2 types of monsters that gave me a hard time - teleporting demons and witch girls.

While teleporting demons may just teleport behind you while you are camping near screen end, they can be easily taken care of by just quickly switching lanes. It may let the crowd come closer and land a few shots on you, but usually it's alright.

Witch girls are the ones I hate. Without any special abilities you are stuck with only your fists and an outrange attack, and you can barely get close enough through their barrage of lightning bolts, explosive balls, death clouds and ice pillars. Only Mikoto and Waka are better at dealing them since they rise in the air with their down-SP attack, but only slightly. The only way you may be able to kill them is to launch a fully-charged outrange attack and just rush to hit them while they are stunned.

Last thing - you may want to be greedy. Sure, there are a lot of XP that drops - but you would want to get as much as you want. And the problem is - sometimes with those attacks monsters die in the back, behind the crowd. And XP gems are fast to despawn. You would want to get them quickly.
You are in luck though. You can kind of cheat - launch a fully-charged outrange and as soon as you will be able to move - rush towards the crowd. You will push them while they are still getting hit by your attack. Collect XP gems, return back to your corner, repeat.

I think I'm done explaining everything. I hope you liked this guide. Feel free to ask anything in the comments or add, I'll be happy to update this little piece of information.





16.05.2015: Created this guide
28.05.2015: Fixed some grammar and added a suggestion from ajtpak
31.05.2015: Added a suggestion from Mizuumi-san
13.02.2016: Added an alternative combo for M as suggested by Hydroid