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So Many Stars to Get!
The earthworm challenges are a special mission in Best Fiends. In this guide, I am going to explain what these challenges are and why you would want to do them.
What Are Earthworm Challenges in Best Fiends?
Earthworm challenges are a special type of level that you can play in addition to the world map levels.
On these levels, the fiends you play as are always the same. You play as a team of five earthworms. You are not allowed to change your team during these levels. In each mission, the earthworms have different abilities and sometimes slightly different damage.
There are three types of missions you can play.
- Captain Slug levels
- General Slug levels
- Granny Slug levels
For each mission, there are 20 level packs. There is 60 level packs total. Each level pack has a name and a slightly different theme to the levels in them.
The level packs in each mission have different amounts of levels you need to beat to finish them.
- Captain Slug: 10 levels
- General Slug: 7 levels
- Granny Slug: 5 levels
In each of these level packs, you can earn up to five stars based on difficulty. There are 300 stars you can earn if you beat all levels at five stars.
- Star: Very Easy
- Stars: Easy
- Stars: Normal
- Stars: Hard
- Stars: Expert
You can only play the level packs on expert by beating it once on a previous difficulty. So you can’t beat the level packs for the first time and get five stars.
There is something else to note about the expert difficulty as well. If you lose a level on the expert difficulty, you have to replay the previous level again. Keep losing, and you get kicked and stuck on the first level.
This penalty is extremely annoying and the reason why I don’t bother trying to get five stars on level packs.
But I Thought Earthworm Challenges Were Special Events?
Thousands of years ago! Earthworm challenges used to be special events. The events had the same levels, but they were considerably harder. Each day had a different level pack for you to play, and you could not change it. You had to pick what mission you wanted to complete.
Remember the expert difficulty penalty I brought up earlier. There used to be even worse penalties for losing levels in the past! These penalties made these levels very hard, and I avoided them after a few feeble attempts.
I have no idea who thought this plan was a good idea. Being punished like this is no fun at all.
- Captain Slug: Losing a level moved you back to the previous level. Sounds familiar.
- General Slug: If you lost levels three times you got kicked back to level one.
- Granny Slug: Losing a level once meant you had to restart at level one.
I beat a General Slug mission once. That was after spending gold bars to continue in a level after running out of moves to beat it.
The rewards you used to get, if I remember, are about the same as what you get for beating the levels on expert now. Except you did not get golden levels as a reward because they did not exist yet.
The change to the current system was one of the best things Seriously ever changed about Best Fiends. The new versions are about the same. But by removing the painful penalties, you can beat them.
What Kinds of Rewards Do You Get from Earthworm Events?
Unlock New Fiends
The main reason to complete earthworm level packs is to get stars and unlock new fiends. Right now, the only unique fiends you can get are the earthworms.
As you earn stars, you will unlock the fiends. Then you unlock their pirate and soldier styles. These are the same styles the earthworms wear during the earthworm challenges.
Once unlocked, you can use the earthworms on world map levels. They all have the same ability. When activated, their skill damages slugs by a certain percentage.
At level 20, they do 40% damage to slugs and 20% damage to boss slugs. Boss slugs are one big slug and they have many health points.
You Earn Rewards for Getting Stars
As you beat each challenge, you get rewards for unlocking the stars. For each new star, you unlock you also get the rewards for the previous star. So if you beat a level pack with four stars, you get everything except for the five star reward.
You can’t replay earthworm levels at a lower difficulty if you already got the stars. Remember you can’t play a level pack on expert unless you beat it once at a lower difficulty.
- Star: Yellow Meteormites
- Stars: Yellow and blue Meteormites
- Stars: The Meteormites and some crate keys
- Stars: All the previous rewards and one golden level
- Stars: 10 gold bars
So when you get a golden level, the next world map level you play will drop gold bars in then. You won’t get gold if you play an older level, though.
Even More Earthworm Challenge Rewards!
There are still even more reasons to play earthworm challenges. Unlocking the earthworm styles helps you get points towards the fiend styles achievement. When you unlock achievements, you get rewards. Unlock enough achievements, and you get a special fiend style as well.
How Useful Are the Earthworms?
They are very useful! But only during certain levels. The earthworms are best used in levels that require you to defeat slugs or boss levels. Specifically levels that only require you to beat slugs with no other objectives.
In these levels, the earthworms will destroy slugs, and it feels like cheating, honestly. That is how good I think the earthworms are.
But they are not too helpful on other levels. In other types of levels, you will need to collect things to blow up boxes. The earthworms can’t use bombs.
My Earthworm Challenges Plan
This plan is designed around the fact that I don’t spend money often on the game, and I plan on beating levels without using gold bars often. I might use the occasional mega boost when stuck.
First, I know that getting all the stars is very hard. Getting five stars without spending gold or using mega boosts is almost impossible. So I don’t plan on ever getting five stars without using one of those.
Since I am a completion type of guy, I go for the four stars. So I can earn the most amount of stars I can without beating 5 star levels. While four star levels are quite harder, you get to try as many times as you want. So with enough time and stubbornness, even the hardest level can be beaten.
Three stars can be a good choice, though. Depending on how many earthworms you want to unlock. It could be argued if getting the extra golden level reward is worth the time.
I am going for three earthworms unlocked with all their styles. I feel having three earthworms is enough. I doubt the time and effort to unlock the last two earthworms is worth it.
By having three earthworms, I have enough options. Every level will at least have three types of puzzle pieces. So having three colors always lets you bring one earthworm to a level if you want to.
I highly doubt you would every need five earthworms to beat a level. That would be overkill.