Guns Girl Z

Not seeing much love out there for this incredibly well done anime brawler, so hoping to remedy that. It's free to play and available on iOS, Android, and PC (via Bluestack.)

Download Here: http://www.4inch.com/act1/

"Guns Girl Z" is a side-scrolling gun-based anime beat-em-up. You walk from left to right, shooting or slashing at the zombie girls and eventually killing the boss. You collect new equipment, money, and experience points, which you use to make yourself stronger. There's guilds, friends, crafting, and fully supported chat.

Pros:
- Crisp, colorful graphics
- Great run-and-gun gameplay
- Best on-screen-gamepad controls I've ever used
- Android/iOS/Bluestack support, as well as cross-device play
- Anime design, all girl cast
- JPN/CHN Voices and decent OST

Cons:
- Once you get far in the game, it's a huge grindfest
- Anime design, all girl cast
- F2P via a gashapon... you pay a lot of money and get a random item.
- Engrish everywhere. Really bad instructions, lots of unexplained features, and nonsense story dialogue.

All in all, it's a fun game, especially if you grew up playing arcade beat-em-ups. It's free and I think you can definitely get some enjoyment out of it, even if you only do a few levels before the grind-wall starts to bother you. I think it plays on a tablet best.

I'm including some tips, since the game does a poor job of setting you off in the right direction. Hope it's useful, please add any tips you can. And feel free to copy this text verbatim to other forums and stuff... you don't even need to give me credit. Just want to see more love for this game.

Also, if you enjoy the game, please 'Like' the facebook page. They'll hand out some free items if it gets enough likes. Thanks!

Official US Facebook Page for news: https://www.facebook.com/ggzUS

TIPS AND TRICKS

- Keep the starter fifle Flintlock. It's a really good weapon that can last you until end-game. If you get rid of it, it will be difficult to get another copy.
- Consider getting the rare FN2000R drop from Stage 1-3. It's an auto-rifle that levels up easily to 5*. It can last you until at least Stage 10.
- Consider getting the rare Supercond Sniper Rifle drop from Stage 2-5. It levels easily to 5* and is a great gun.
- 'Deathbreath, Ha' from 4-6 is a great farmable skill that increases Critical Hit damage. 'Deathbreath, Shun' is another great farmable skill that increases Critical Hit rate. These skills go very well with FN2000R.
- SupplyMultiply is a good farmable skill that increases the health and ammo you receive from drops. QuickEscape is another good farmable skill.
- The best stage drop costumes is the 5* Secret Service Uniform in stage 5-5
- Melee weapons seem nice in the beginning as they don't require ammo, but they quickly become ineffective because the enemies get too much life.
- Keep replaying Stage 4-9 to most efficiently grind up to Level 50
- Make sure to play treasure box events each week and go as far as you can. They're cheap, short, and you get a lot of EXP
- Use material/meow events to collect any materials you need for enhancing or refining
- The item drop rate doesn't increase in hard mode, so farming easy mode is fine. Hard mode waves are spawned by a set timer.
- Find friends with auto-healing or loot-range powers. Nice passive skills can be much more useful than a high level buddy.
- Summoning a buddy can be used sacrificially against the kamikaze zombies.
- Using the gacha is tempting, but increasing slots might be a better option if you're not intending to spend money. The more slots you have, the easier and quicker it is create lots of hamsters and enhance your equipment. I ended up getting a lot more enjoyment by increasing slots (maybe between 80-100) than hoping for good gacha drops. The stage drop gear will take you deep into the game
- Stage 11 is the easiest place to grind King Meows, but good luck getting there

ENHANCING, FORGING and REFINING

This is the part of the game that vastly needs more in-game explanation. The basic idea of upgrading is simple: push in items and level up your gear, then upgrade your gear by collecting a specific list of materials. So, basically, do a ton of grinding and inventory management. However, if you know the following, you can save yourself a lot of grinding:

1. The number of stars is the "rarity" of the item. You can only refine an item until all the stars are filled in. Higher rarity items can level up to better stats, but cost more points to equip. When you refine an item, it will go back down to level 1.
2. The higher level the equipment, the more gold it costs for any enhancement
3. Although you'll get less experience in the end, it's much cheaper to combine your low level items before enhancing your high level item with them.
4. If you use the same type of equipment (clothing/weapon/skill), you'll get more experience (1.5x) from an enhancement
4. For Meows: Silver are for Weapons, Gold are for Skills, and Diamond are for Clothing
5. Hamsters can be forged to give a ton of experience. Like the meows, different types are meant for different equipment
6. The easiest way of collecting forging items is to wait for an event day, but this requires a lot of free storage slots
7. In order to refine an item, you must have a free inventory slot and it MUST NOT be currently equipped in any of your set ups
8. If an item has a '+X' attribute and you use it to enhance another item of the same type, the entire '+X' will be inherited

Lastly, the hamster is a great way to gain experience, but isn't really explained in game.

The trick is, you need to upgrade the hamster to MAX level and then refine it before it's worthwhile. It takes 2600exp to upgrade a hamster, which is roughly 2 tiny meows of any type. Then it takes 2 tiny meows of the hamster's type plus an upgrade item (from Thursday event) to forge the item. After that, you'll get a whopping 45000 exp from a hamster, which is great.

Getting hamsters, meows, and upgrade items are best done through Events. But if you rely on events, you'll probably need more storage because you can only collect one kind of thing in an event.

King Meows (75000 exp) can be dropped pretty reliably starting around Level 11.

EVENTS

Treasure: You have a time limit to beat waves of enemies, it resets every week. You'll be able to progress further as you get stronger. Great for quick experience and sometimes drops.

Emergency: At 12:30 and 6:30, a special stage opens for an hour where you can collect a certain kind of meow/hamster. Great for enhancing.

Weekday: Each day, you can play a few stages that will drop a certain material forging type. Great for forging.

Boss: Beat a boss character for special items. You'll need to be pretty high level for this. The boss rotates periodically.

Tower: Play in the tower without needing to spend stamina. Collect points until you lose. You get no experience and very little gold, the only point to this mode (besides for fun) is to get a few achievements.

DAILY LOGIN

Login every day for a login bonus item. You can get a lot of free crystals this way. The Login Bonus list changes every month, so you start from the first square every month.

CRYSTALS and MPASS

Crystals are the currency in this game. They're pretty expensive to buy with real money, but you can get a lot of free crystals. Do the daily logins. Check for codes on the facebook page. You also get crystals for achievements, for beating stages with crystal icons, and for finishing all stages in a level on HARD. This game is pretty generous with crystals.

There's a thing called an MPASS, which is a great deal if you want to spend real money. You get 300 crystals right off the bat, then you get an additional 60 crystals each day (via message) for the next 30 days. This is 2100 crystals total, including the original 300 crystals. If you buy multiple MPASSes, you'll get the 300 crystals immediately, but the extra days are added to the end of your period. So if you buy two MPASSes, then you'll get 600 crystals and 60 crystals a day for the next 60 days. You will not get 120 crystals a day.

GACHA

Lucky: 180 FP (friend points from people using your character) - You can only get items you could grind from stages. There are some 5* equipment and meows that are worthwhile.
Prime: 98 crystals - guaranteed 2* and higher.
Gold: 280 crystals - guaranteed 3* and higher.

Your 11th Gold Gacha pull is guaranteed to be 5*
Your 25th Gold Gacha pull is guaranteed to be 6*

Prime/Gold Gacha is the only way to obtain alternate characters. Alternate characters are basically skin/voice swaps... they have very, very minor benefits. Raiden gives you +100HP and Bronya gives you +5 weight limit.

GUILDS

Join a guild and contribute to the guild's level. A guild gains experience based on how much stamina was used by its members to successfully complete stages. You don't contribute points if you don't beat the stage. So if you want to contribute as much as possible, burn stamina on event stages, but make sure you beat the stage.

Once a day, guild members can collect the guild bonus. The guild bonus varies depending on the guild's level, but it's some amount of stamina.

FRIENDS

You can add buddies, which you can use during a stage. You gain any passive effects they have (skills equipped or passive costume skills) during that stage. You can also use their character for a short period of time, so it's useful to have really strong buddies. You have to wait about an hour before you can reuse a buddy. When someone uses your character, you get FP, which can be used in the Lucky Gacha.

INVITATION BONUS

You get 50 crystals for each of the first six people to use your invitation code. You get Hatsune's Leek (a melee weapon that can change non-elite zombies into an Alice that only drops gold) after six people. From then on, you get nothing. Honestly, the Hatsune's Leek is not a very good weapon, but the crystals are worthwhile.

RESOURCES

Official US Facebook Page for news: https://www.facebook.com/ggzUS
Official Forums: http://asia.4inch.com/bbs/forum.php?gid=45
List of all equipment: http://ggz.wikia.com/wiki/Equipdex_All
Character Growth: http://ggz.wikia.com/wiki/Character_Growth