First things first, every level is a story mission (no side missions as of yet...) and you have to be playing in 'Classic' mode to earn medals, you can change the mode any time you like.
From the looks of things, you cant earn Medals in Multiplayer.You do not need to earn all 3 medals at once, its generally much easier to just do the mission 3 times and focus on a separate medal each time.
You'll also earn these at some point while going for the Medals:
The Act of Honor achievement in Crimson Dragon worth 126 pointsComplete all missions for Coral Lake East, Coral Lake West and Underground Lake on any difficulty The Act of Valor achievement in Crimson Dragon worth 134 pointsComplete all missions for Forest, Ancient Ruins, and Lava Lake on any difficulty "Take no Damage" The best advice I can offer is to level up the Silvertail Radiance (Light) as much as you can (we're talking 3rd Evolution max level ideally), Equip their secondary move as Roar Breeze/Gale/Tempest (gives you high power/fast projectile Light/Air coverage) and to rent yourself a high level Silvertail wingman.
Keep Moving. All the the time (except for the two Underground Lake missions
[An Experiment/Stemming the Tide] as you can hit the walls, so be more careful)
Save your Wingman skill for sticky spots, like areas where there are a lot of enemies or a lot of projectiles coming your way, you are invulnerable while it is active.
You'll find the early ones of these quite simple, you just blast everything on screen into dust before it even has a chance to let off a shot.
It gets much harder as you go on as you lose the ability to eviscerate the enemy as easily, this is where your flying skill comes into it (and the use of the 'Anima Deflector' secondary skill if it fits your style). Remember, you are a leaf on the wind.
The level
'Orobouros' isn't as bad as it might first seem, the best Dragon is the max level Silvertail, equip his max level attack (Flash Ray), you can destroy every single projectile in this mission. (Correction, everything but the Horizontal energy blasts, but you can easily strafe up/down past them or even Barrel roll through them).
Hang back on the Free-flight, circle the edge of the area and bomb him from range, using the Barrel Roll to dodge (Towards the White Phantom) the Cube Wall/box. (Thanks to
Caayn Dragon for the info)
The level
'The Odd Job' can frankly go to hell, its full of little enemies who shoot tracking missiles at you and an annoying stretch in a trench where you have to avoid everything, ever. I used the Same dragon set up as above, but had to equip a ATT+++ Ampoule to ensure i killed everything fast enough, I kept making squares around the screen, constantly moving to avoid the projectiles.
When you get to the trench you need to focus fire on the little buggers up high to stop them dropping the green projectiles on your head (if they let off a volley you need to wait before you move, as they try to predict your movement you;ll end up plowing right into them. Start to move one way, then Barrel Roll the other as they close in.) and make sure you dodge the Rollers. Everything should drop fast with the Vision attack. Make sure you make ample use of the Barrel roll! If all else fails, nuke the buggers (I used all 3 of my Wingman skills in the trench).
Once you make it to the Boss at the end, I held A to speed up, circled the arena and kept dropping the Flash Ray on them, i dropped them in about 10 seconds. If you managed to save a Wingman nuke, then that should be all you need to drop them right away.
ALTERNATE STRATAGY - By
De4thM4chin3Best thing you can do for the first part of Odd Job is to not fire at all and keep your wingman behind you so he doesn't shoot anything either. If you do this, then all you need to do is remember where all the green projectiles come from, pick a corner of the screen, and barrel roll out of the way at the last second. The trench isn't bad either until you get to the part with the rolling enemies. Keep your wingman in front of you throughout the trench and remember that it's impossible to hit either side so barrel roll away. Once you get to the rolling enemies, use a nuke or 2 depending on how shit goes down but definitely try to make it to the boss part with 1 in reserve. Nuke those fucks and you're golden!
Good Luck seekers, you'll need it for this one.
The recovery skills do not work with this. If your hit
at all you fail the objective. (Thanks to
Chucklestyle for that info and tips for
'Odd Job'.)
"Collect the ______ Seed" These can be a bit irritating. You acquire seeds by destroying all the enemies in a group of 'Rare' enemies (Your HUD will alert you, and they display as Gold Stars on your Radar).
However, they appear randomly and some of these levels have multiple Groups of Rare enemies all you need to do is keep replaying the level making sure you kill all the Rare enemies as they pop up, you'll get the correct seed eventually.
"Score an _ Rank or Greater on this mission" This varies in difficulty. In my opinion, the levels that have Beacons to collect as their only Objectives are the worst, as missing one beacon in a set is all it takes to drop you from an S to an A. You can, however miss about 10% of a set and still get an A.
The A's are easier to get as you can afford a B in one of the Objectives if you can Manage an S in another (So lets say you score B-A-A-S, overall you'll earn an A)
The S ranks aren't as hard as they could have been, as a Predominant S score will ignore an A. (For instance, you score S-A-S-S, you'll earn an S)
"Collect all the Beacons" This is a pain later on, you cant afford to miss a single one and in all but 1 case this one pops up on the all beacon objective levels.
Chose high Agility Dragon (Ampoule's can help here too) and just get used to the course, it may take a few fly-throughs to learn all the tricky turns and where is best to barrel roll and where is best to strafe.
"Score _______ or higher/Kill Every ______/Earn a kill rate of __% or better" These three are all accomplished the same way.
Kill. Everything.
A pair of dragons with high velocity attacks are your best bet here, save your Wingman skill for groups or ones who just make it past you.
The mission
"Corrupted Skies" in the "Forest" can be tricky at first. That is until you Evolve a Bloodskin dragon to its final Evolution and get the skill 'Hadron Smoulder', You can then manically laugh as it slaughters the Orkinuss in seconds.
"Complete the mission without a Wingman" This is (Hopefully) already clear.
For the later missions, skip them and come back after some grinding you'll find you don't need the wingman (even for
'Oroborous', i used a lvl 6 Bloodskin Magma and did it with an A rank only using the Primary skill).