Ok, this is a quick and dirty FAQ, if anyone wants to make a cleaner one, be my guest, but I really love this game and hope other people enjoy it too. Menus: (Note, everything is touch-drive, the righthand buttons are worthless to this game). First screen: Start new game (top option) Continue (bottom Option) If new game, select character. If continue, pick which game you want to play, or hit the bottom left icon, which is "back" Once you've selected a game save, the top option is to continue story mode, the second is minigames, the third is boss attack mode, and the last one is "Score attack", which I have not unlocked. In story mode, you click on people's faces to have conversations with them. If they have a green flame above their head then they will give you somethign like a food item. If they have a blue flame they will just talk and advance that dialog string, if they have a red one then they will conclude this segment and move on to the action segment. If you click the green icon in the top right it will skip the story mode, if you click the bottom left it will exit story mode (asking you yes/no first). The icon on the top left (in either part of story mode) is inventory. In inventory you can see prizes from each boss you've beaten, and the food items you have in stock. the readout at the bottom shows how much hp each food item restores. click on the food item and then on the button at the bottom (in action mode) to eat it. Clicking the blue button on the top right gives your stats. Characters: Yoshimori: The starting character. He's simple to use, and the only one you'll have to use until you beat the game so get used to him. Read the manga or watch the anime. ;) Tokine: The female kekkaishi. You can play as her if you beat the game as Yoshimori. She has a shorter life bar and can generate larger kekkai faster (so fast it's hard to make small ones when you want to), but they do less damage, so you'll have to surround opponents repeatedly to kill them on later levels. Controls: Up = Jump Down = Duck (mostly pointless) Left/Right = run Tap screen = Ketsu (build small cube) Tap and hold = Larger Ketsu. The longer you hold, the bigger the box you make. You can only make a 2x2 square box at first, but eventually you can make up to an 8x8 box. Tap top right icon or blow into mic (you have to turn this option on) = Metsu/Kai (kills enemies inside boxes and cancels empty ones). When you start the game you only have two Kekkai (you can see them as little cubes in the top screen), meaning you can only build two 1x1 ones on screen at a time, or one 2x2 one. If you miss you'll need to cancel them and try again. When you get three you can do one 2x2 and one small, when you get four you can get one 4x4 one, two 2x2 ones, or four 1x1 ones, etc. You gain new ones by leveling up, which seems to be based on the number of enemies you kill, or on the story mode stage you reach. I ended up with 9 by the end of the game, which is enough to make one 16x16 and another 1x1, but it looks like there might be room for another 2 or so somehow. Multi-walled Barriers: You get this ability late in the game. It basically allows you to surround an enemy, then click them again to overlap that barrier, so that it does double damage when they are destroyed. Depending on the size of the original barrier you can do this two or three times. No more having to overlap them from outside! L Trigger: After a few levels you'll get a glowing green bar at the bottom of the screen. If you hit the L trigger Tokine will create small piercing kekkai on all enemies on the screen, holding them in place for about two seconds. This depletes the bar, which refills as you take damage or kill enemies. You cannot use this during boss battles. Kekkai Tips You can stand on kekkai. Use them to build platforms to reach high areas (the easiest way is to jump and then tap a kekkai right under you at the peak of the jump), or to just keep off the ground when enemies have low attacks. Kekkai can block many projectiles, put them between you and the enemy. They can also stop most enemies in their tracks, so if you miss, try to miss between you and them so that they at least run into your barrier making them easier targets. Kekkai can reflect some projectiles, usually destroying the field, but sending the attack back at the Ayakashi that fired it. If you click on yourself you'll build a kekkai around yourself to block, but this is generally useless since it freezes you in place. It is a good emergency defense though, and only takes one Kekkai (even though it looks like a 2x2). Any attack that breaks barriers will damage you if it hits this. Some enemies require 2x2 or even larger sized kekkai to enclose them, or take two or more "hits" to kill. If a kekkai fails to capture an enemy, try a bigger one. If an enemy takes two hits to capture at lower levels, try building two partially overlapping kekkai before metsuing them. I think the more enemies you kill in a single shot the more XP you get for it, but I'm not sure about that. If you see a glowing orb surrounded by enemies, destroy the orb. The enemies can be killed but provide no XP and instantly reappear.If enemies keep instantly reappearing and do not send blue "souls" up to your score when killed, look around for a glowing sphere off screen. Basic Enemies: I won't list the boring ones that just fly or hop around, those are generally pretty easy to deal with. just surround and destroy. A number of enemies have special conditions though. Grim Reapers: These cannot be surrounded. Instead, build a kekkai between you and them, their own shots will reflect back and damage them. Repeat three times to kill them (usually just making three small barriers between the two of you and sitting back for a few seconds will suffice). Bone Dog: These are SO annoying. They start as tiny dogs that can be surrounded by 2x2 barriers and move in ziggy-zaggy swoops. Not a big problem here, try to surround and destroy him (he'll take two hits). If you do not destroy him within a few seconds, he'll grow really big. In this form you need a 4x4 barrier to surround him, but the real problem is that he turns into a spinning disc. In this form he cannot be destroyed and will dash at you, often from off screen, so he's kind of hard to avoid and impossible to block. after making an attack run he goes back to big form, seal and destroy. Giant Head with feet: These guys aren't hard. They make little purple clouds which hurt you. You can freeze them with kekkai but can't seem to destroy them. You can surround and destroy the head with 4x4 barriers though. Not too hard to take out, just big and mean looking. Giant slug: Not too hard, just aim for the biggest part (his shoulder) and make a 4x4 kekkai. You'll have to metsu him about three times. Flying Chairs: I haven't found a way to kill or block these guys, so just dodge, they break after one try at hitting you anyways. "Venus Avacado": This one's not too tough in most cases, but he can take time. He has four gripper claws and one blade claw which, if you destroy them, grow back instantly. He seems invulnerable while they're out though, so destroy them all at once and then instantly build a 4x4 kekkai around him, repeat 3-4 times to finish him. As long as you start with a little distance on him you should be able to keep him well away from you, but it can be frustrating because you have to surround and destroy him before he can regenerate his claws. Triple Spinners: These are enemies that travel in packs of three. After a little while they group in a triangular formation and spin. They cannot be destroyed in this form, break barriers if you try to block them, and shoot energy balls (which you can deflect) After a bit they'll separate though. At this point surround and destroy them, but it might take a few tries. Fire pot barrier: Just make a kekkai somewhere in the stream and it'll shut off allowing you to pass through. Laser eye plant: You can't block it's shot but you can apparently kill it by destroying the roots. (thanks Heeroy) Boss battles: Claw Teacher: This one's tricky, since he can slice right through your shields. Try to jump up on a kekkai to avoid most of his attacks, but he can sometimes jump too so be ready to run. When he does his dashing slash in which he leaves his claw extended for several seconds, surround and metsu his claw. Repeat about five times or so. Frog: I didn't find this one at all hard, just avoid it's attacks and surround him with a 2x2 kekkai then metsu, repeat several times. Ice Fox: In the first part, jump up and create a small kekkai to stand on a few feet off the ground. If he does a spread shot, rapidly create kekkai between you and him, the ice will break through them but you can make new ones as fast as he can destroy them. If he makes a big ice crystal, put a kekkai in it's path to reflect it back, this is the only way to damage him. If you can get right above him about halfway up the screen he really can't hurt you. Then the battle moves to the pool. Get up on the platform, then make a kekkai that raises you a foot or two higher than that. If he sends the ice wave across the pool's surface it won't hurt you since you're too high, if he sends the spread shot then do what you did the last time, if he starts to build crystal towers then just start building kekkai at the top of the towers, and if he does his big shot reflect it again. He's not too hard once you get his patterns down. When I fought him as Tokine he used a diagonal large shot, which was harder to reflect, I'm not sure if I was just lucky when fighting him as Yoshimori or not. Black Dog Spirit: This one's tough because he does a lot of damage. If he goes up high, try to move towards one side. He'll drop three darts on your position, avoid these but don't move too much or they'll be spread out too thin. You want them clumped. He'll then drop down on wherever you are, so give yourself plenty of room to run without touching the spikes. When he lands you can enclose him. If he starts throwing crescent arcs, dodge them, you can't shield against them. The best way is getting in close and jumping or ducking them, depending if they're high or low. You can trap him while he does this, but it's risky, and if he slashes right as the barrier forms it'll break the barrier. If he shoots spikes, you can block these with a barrier, but they destroy each other so you'd need to make a lot of them. He might also jump across the screen, so just avoid that. With luck you can enclose him right off the bat, and on my best run I enclosed him a bunch of times without getting hurt, but it's tricky. I suggest trying to overlap enclosures once you have him, it does more damage to regular enemies, I don't see why not on him, although without a life bar it's hard to tell for sure. Once he gets low on life, he'll vanish off to the side and start charging back and forth at either ground or mid-screen height. This is hard to avoid, cannot be blocked with a kekkai, and does a lot of damage if it hits. What you want to do is time it out and start generating a large kekkai on his side of the screen a tiny bit before he comes out, so that it doesn't finish forming until he's just coming into the screen. Release as soon as he does and it'll freeze him. 2-3 of these will finish him off. Snake Teacher: This one's super easy, the only trick is to not get fancy, if you try to surround him completely he'll break the kekkai instantly, just keep trapping the front two snakes as fast as you can in a 2x2 kekkai and metsuing it, after about 4-6 hits they'll die. Then repeat on the third snake in the back, which shouldn't attack while you keep the other two occupied. Offense is the key because his attacks can be tricky to dodge and are impossible to block. Giant Oni: This one's a toughie, and particularly frustrating since if you lose you'll lose about 300 points from the previous level. Try to stay off the ground, at least 3/4 of the screen up from the ground, much higher is even better, since his kick attack strikes low and hard. This involes the foot shooting straight out fast, and can hit you multiple time if you don't avoid it. He can also do a high kick, so be prepared to drop down. It will break barriers it hits. If he send out his little barbed tails, surround and destroy the tips. This does not seem to hurt his main HP but will cancel the attack. If his fist shoots across the top of the screen, run in towards him for a second, then back out. It will track you but stops right before he drops it, so you want to get out of the way in that lag space, because that fist dropping does a lot of damage. If he brings his claw out above you, get in the corner and duck, it arcs downward and will miss the absolute corner. If he comes out full body, try to be above him. He'll bring his leg out to the far edge of the sceen and then drag it back, which can really hurt. If you build a barrier around yourself (by tapping yourself) you should be immune to this attack. This is the only time in which you can damage him, which you do by surrounding his head (4x4+) and metsuing it. Repeat this sequence several times. After a bit, he'll jump inot the background and shrink. This form is much easier than the other. If he goes off the screen and starts hopping around like crazy, just build a few barriers in an arc around you, he'll destroy several of them but quit the attack after a few attempts. If he tries to charge you, build a barrier between the two of you and then immediately start building a barrier right next to it. He'll crash into the barrier and get stunned for a second, but you have to be quick which is why you'll want to pre-charge the barrier. Activate the big barrier and then metsu it to damage him, three tries should finish him off. Good luck getting all that right the first try. ;) Black Spider: This one is a cakewalk, you don't even need to know his attack patterns, just surround at least one or more of his back legs (his claws are immune to sealing), then double, triple, as many times as you can surround that barrier (using your new multi-barrier ability), and destroy. Single layer barries don't seem to do any damage, but since surrounding him this way is easy and completely stops his movement, if you pour on the offense he won't even get his own offense started (in the story the issue was that his armor was too hard to crack, which is why multi-layer barriers were necessary to break him down). Owl triplets: Step one isn't so bad, they swarm around and try to damage you and knock you off the platforms into the pit. If you fall, you reappear on the last platform you were on and take a little damage, but it adds up. They might also clump together and send out a swarm of feather darts, just put up a bunch of small kekkai as a barrier wall (they get slowly destroyed by the attacks though so keep building). To hurt them just surround one of them in a 2x2 kekkai, double and triple surround them if you can, and then metsu. Be quick because sisters outside the barrier can shatter it if they touch it. Repeat as many times as possible. Step two they form together into a giant owl. If it flies up, be prepared to move, it'll drop down from above. When it stops you can surround it with a 4x4 barrier, two if you can, and then metsu. Try to stay high so if you fall you might land on a lower platform rather than falling into the pit. The pit will likely do a lot more damage to you during the fight than the direct attacks will. If it stops moving it will either generate three tornados, two grays that spread outward and one red that will follow you for about five seconds (run far and high), or send out a swarm of feather darts (build a bunch of kekkai as a wall again). Surround and destroy about 4-6 times, maybe more, and it might try to send out tornados and a triangular pattern of feathers at the same time, just avoid this, surround, and destroy one more time at it should finish them off. Minigames: There are three minigames, select one, and then the top option for solo, bottom for wireless multiplay: Kekkai Shapes: pick whether you want to do 5, 10, or 20 shapes in a row. It will show you a sequence of shapes that you're meant to stack on top of the square in the middle of the screen. tap to make a kekkai, tap it again to destroy it. Shikigami Bughunt: move the little guy towards the bugs and rappidly stroke the screen to spin him. While spinning he destroys bugs, but if he spins too much and his bar fills he gets dizzy. He is also hard to control while spinning, and might fall off the table. Weight Lifting?: I haven't unlocked this one but that's what I think it says. Unknowns: There are little "up" icons that seem to do something, but I'm not sure what. Maybe make your metsus stronger or something. Tokine's story mode has a question mark icon that appears to ask you three questions. I have no idea what the answers to these are. She also has a third scroll in her inventory that Yoshimori does not that has three ????ed words in it, with the third filled in with a Japanese word. I believe this is the answer to the third question, and perhaps the answers to the other two can be found as items in the action gameworld as you progress as Tokine. I imagine this has something to do with unlocking the last minigame and Score Attack or something.