Sakuna Of Rice and Ruin – Aphid Extermination and Farming Tips

Introduction

Midway through the game, you unlock the ability to exterminate Aphids. Upon completing 5 waves, you unlock a new version with 100 waves. Each wave lasts roughly 1 minute, you must defend a tree from the little bugs.

This guide focuses on farming this minigame for rewards, so won’t contain many general tips for beating it. Rising Carp, when leveled up, does wonders here.

Farming Tips and Takeaways

• Rewards are obtained upon reaching the numbered floors; you get the same reward upon dying on floor 35 as beating floor 35
• When you reach a (multiple of five) floor once, you can then start there any future time. So no need to fret upon dying your first time through
• You do not need this guide for your first time through
• If you find it difficult, leveling up your rice will not help. Level up your skills instead — Rising Carp at level 11+ is a must-have.
• Time does not pass during this minigame; your hunger never decreases — use the best food you can
• Strength, magic, damage are all entirely irrelevant. I think without exception, no damage-boosting effect will affect your damage to Aphids — it’s always 2 light hits per yellow, etc. So only equip weapons which help given this. Critical hits still occur, so luck is the most important attribute

Start on Floor 91, continue through Floor 100. Should take around 10-11 minutes. Repeat this 50-70 times if you really want everything. It’s extremely tedious.

• 1H: Demonic Pearl Ladle+ — boost your food
• 1H: (Alternative): Gold Iron+
• 2H: Holy Tree Spade+ — required. Heals SP when you get amber.
• Garment: Wave Hunter’s Garment+ — decreases SP costs of Rising Carp
• Garment: (Alternative): Rice Hunter’s Garment+ — gives luck if you don’t need SP
• Hat: Devotional Hat+
• Mask: Kamuhitsuki Mask, Lucky Mask+, or Kitsune Mask+
• Spirit Boughs: Tycoon
• Other good spirit boughs: Double Digestion, Luck Boost+, Skill Boost, Skill Boost Fragment, Gusto Boost, Mask Power Boost, 1H Power Boost, 2H Power Boost, Headgear Power Boost

• Pheasant Meat Soup x4 — Pheasant Meat x4, Soup Stock x4, Miso x4
• Skill Water — Skill Powder x2

This maximizes your SP.

Your goal is infinite SP.

With 177+40 Gusto = 217 Gusto, this meal and outfit combo got me +307 SP, for a total of 357 SP. Each shard of amber, which you’re continuously collected, healed me 10% of my max SP so +36sp per shard of amber. I never dropped below 75% of my max SP doing this, so this entire outfit is a bit overkill.

Set “Rising Carp” ideally level 15 to “X”. Stand in the middle of the bottom of the map. Press X over and over and over again. That’s it. You should kill enough enemies to have infinite SP, so you can spam this infinitely.

Roughly once every 700ms you can press X. I recommend setting up a macro, or using any Steam Input controller to do an interruptible toggle turbo so that you’re auto-pressing X every 700ms.

You’ll occasionally have to move back to the center, or to hit a far-out blue ranged Aphid. You might have to occasionally jump to take out aphids on the top branch. You’ll also need to press “A” to progress to the next wave.

Watch some TV shows while you do this. You’ll make it through a lot of TV.

Non-renewable Rewards by Floor

All of these rewards are one-time. Meaning if your quantity of the given item in your inventory is greater than zero, you will not obtain the reward. (You can’t get two copies of a Spirit Bough, but using Kamuhitsuki Mask to awaken Kamuhitsuki Mask+ means you will get another copy on floor 75)

50: 1H: Hanamori Nutcracker

75: Mask: Kamuhitsuku Mask

100: Dragon Bone — Only on First Clear

5-95: Spirit Bough: Mask Power Boost || Rarity: 5

5-95: Spirit Bough: Headgear Power Boost || Rarity: 5

5-100: Spirit Bough: Skill Boost Fragment || Rarity: 4 (3 at f100)

5-100: Spirit Bough: Health Boost + || Rarity: 12 (11 after f30, 10 after f40, 8 after f80)

20-100: Spirit Bough: Unstoppable || Rarity: 6 (5 after f45)

30-100: Spirit Bough: Gusto Boost || Rarity: 13 (12 after f40, 11 after f60, 10 after f80, 9 after f95, 8 on f100)

40-100: Spirit Bough: Strength Boost + || Rarity: 12 (11 after f50, 10 after f60, 8 after f80, 7 on f100)

50-100: Spirit Bough: Vitality Boost + || Rarity: 12 (11 after f60, 10 after f70, 9 after f80, 8 after f95, 7 on f100)

60-100: Spirit Bough: Magic Boost + || Rarity: 12 (11 after f70, 9 after f80, 8 after f95, 7 on f100)

60-100: Spirit Bough: Divine Prudence || Rarity: 7 (6 after f70, 7 after f80??, 6 after f95, 4 on f100)

70-100: Spirit Bough: Chaotic Affliction || Rarity: 10 (8 after f80, 7 after f95, 4 on f100)

80-100: Spirit Bough: Luck Boost + || Rarity: 9 (8 after f95)

80-100: Spirit Bough: Demonic Procession || Rarity: 6 (4 on f100)

• Mask Power Boost: Mask effects +5%
• Headgear Power Boost: Headgear effects +20%
• Skill Boost Fragment: +7 SP
• Health Boost+: +210 HP
• Unstoppable: -75% dmg from Projectiles
• Gusto Boost: +15 Gusto
• Strength Boost+: +180 Strength
• Vitality Boost+: +180 Vitality
• Magic Boost+: +180 Magic
• Divine Prudence: -50% SP cost of Raiment Skills
• Chaotic Affliction: Each usage of Otherworldly affliction applies a different debuff (Atk down, def down, or speed down — never poison or soul steal)
• Luck Boost+: +180 Luck
• Demonic Procession: (greatly) raises all enemy levels. Does not increase rewards. Basically a difficulty buff for bored people.

Renewable Rewards by Floor

Rewards are given upon reaching floors that are multiples of 5. You will not know what reward you obtained until quitting the game, when it will pop up on the left side of your screen.

• 5-100: Wood x5, High Quality Oak x5 || Rarity: 1
• 5-100: Bamboo x3, Ironwood x1 || Rarity: 1
• 5-100: Hemp x5, Sedge x5, Hemp Palm x1 || Rarity: 1
• 5-100: Cork Tree Branch x3, Murasaki Root x3 || Rarity: 1
• 5-100: Madder x3, Indigo Scale x1 || Rarity: 2
• 5-100: Spring Water x5, Refined Sake x5 || Rarity: 2
• 5-100: Salt x5, Sesame x1, Sugar x1 || Rarity: 3
• 5-100: Spirit Thread x1, Washi Paper x1, Silk x1 || Rarity: 3
• 75-100: Thunderous Tasuki x1 || Rarity: 3
• 90-100: Leaf of Creation x1 || Rarity: 3
• 5-100: Medicinal Base x1 || Rarity: 5
• 5-100: Health Powder x1 || Rarity: 10
• 5-100: Luck Powder x1 || Rarity: 10
• 5-100: Magic Powder x1 || Rarity: 10
• 5-100: Fullness Powder x1 || Rarity: 10
• 5-100: Strength Powder x1 || Rarity: 10
• 5-100: Skill Powder x1 || Rarity: 10

Since the loot pool is technically most saturated after floor 90, you might think it’s not a good place to farm. Recall that the rarity of each spirit bough dramatically decreases by floor 100, and thus, will still be more likely gains on floors 95 and 100.

Outro

To check my work, unzip “dataWin/common.arc”, navigate to “Common/Param/Game/Hanasaka” and explore the files there with a hex editor.