Servants of Harvest Wish info

Harvest system:

Harvest items spawn primarily from grazing (a few also spawn from hitting enemies with the shot), similar to HSiFS season items. Collecting them charges a border, or gives PIV if a border is already active. This is the main source of PIV. Effectively, this is a graze-for-PIV scoring system with some border routing elements.

Borders auto-collect point items for maximum value, and star items (+40 PIV each on Normal), but *don't* auto-collect harvest items.

Timing out a border gives brief invincibility, and rewards that depend whether the gauge was filled to 100/200/300% with harvest items:
- 1/2/3 bomb parts
- 2000/3000/4000 PIV
- 10/15/20 point items' worth of score

Pressing the bomb button breaks the border (without consuming a bomb). Unlike PCB, it's possible to die during borders, though this game's deathbomb window is fairly lenient, whether or not a border is active.

"Lastword" spells (same as IN's Last Spells) spawn if you collect enough harvest items in a stage. These thresholds are extremely lenient; the anomaly spells are the real secret spells.
(Despite the "222" displayed, stage 6 does not have a Last Spell. It does have a TLB, which only appears in 1cc conditions, and has special mechanics: the nonspell advances by collecting harvest items, and the spell has a permanent border active.)


Anomaly spells:

All bosses and some midbosses have a secret "anomaly" spell, which replaces one of their normal spells, if certain conditions are met before the boss battle begins. Unlocking an anomaly spell is indicated by a glitchy visual+sound effect; the same effect plays when an anomaly spell is activated.

Stage 1 midboss [Hard/Lunatic/Ura only], "Fall Ephemeral": Defeat a certain orb enemy in the top-left corner
Stage 1 boss, "Nimbus Nephilim": Collect enough harvest items for the Lastword, before the boss
Stage 2 boss, "Vespertine Sun Dance": No-vertical during the midboss spell
Stage 3 boss, "World Egg Honeycomb": Time out the first midboss, then NMNB up to the start of the second midboss
Stage 4 midboss, "Hyperborean Blackmailer": Touch all 7 stars in the background [can be during the pre-midboss dialogue]
Stage 4 boss, "Mammon in Orbit": Deal no damage to the death fairy before the boss [bombs count against this!]
Stage 5 midboss, "Vesuvio the Inferno" (A-type shots)/"Mariana the Abyss" (B-type shots): In the rows of red+blue orbs, allow 8 blue orbs to escape
Stage 5 boss, "Clockwork Ebb and Flow": Defeat the midboss nonspell with 3.xx time remaining [this is the most precise anomaly condition. Unhelpfully, its glitch effect overlaps with the midboss anomaly spell activation, so it can be hard to tell if it was successful]
Stage 6 boss, "Wish Upon Anser": Unlock all 7(E/N)/8(H/L/U) anomaly spells in previous stages in a single run. Continues are allowed.

Note: While anomaly spells have higher base spell bonuses, I'm pretty sure full anomaly runs are *not* optimal for score. In particular, stalling the stage 5 midboss loses a large number of post-midboss point items, compared to speedkilling the midboss.


Other:

Spell bonuses increase rapidly with graze. All spells can be captured when timed out, so any decently grazeable spell is probably optimal to time out, especially after accounting for border bonuses.

RyoukoB's bomb is basically DDC MarisaB's bomb: it only gives invincibility near the start of the bomb. However (unlike DDC) it's possible to bomb again while the bomb is still active, and it's possible to spawn-graze bullets that are being canceled by the bomb.

Items auto-collected after defeating a boss aren't worth maximum value, so it's important to dash up to the top if a border isn't active.