iDOL GRAND PRIX - Basics
Introduction
iDOL GRAND PRIX (Aigura) is a new game mode in Mirishita that was released in mid-2026. Some unlocks and currencies carry over between the ‘main’ game of Mirishita and Aigura (and vice-versa), however Aigura is otherwise completely separate from the rest of Mirishita. While playing through Aigura you will get to see exclusive commus that tell the story of your chosen Idol working with their producer (you) to win the ‘Idol Grand Prix’ Tournament and claim their place as a top idol.
Gameplay
Similar to how playing the main game uses stamina as a resource, playing Aigura requires ‘GP medals’. GP medals have been distributed for free as part of limited time campaigns, and can be purchased with both free and paid jewels. A fixed quantity of GP medals are also available for purchase in the main game’s Money Shop each month. One ‘play’ worth of GP medals will grant you 5 AP, which can be used on three different activities: Work, Lessons and Tournaments, which are described in more detail below. Up to 1 AP will carry over to the next play if left unspent.
Work (お仕事)
Work costs 2 AP and much like the equivalent in the main game, consists of a short commu with a timed selection between two choices. Selecting the ‘correct’ choice (the ‘correct’ choice appears to be random) will increase your idol’s mood and increases the chance of the Work being a great success. Completing Work grants cards, spheres, fans and affection, each of which is increased if the Work is a great success.
GP Medals can be spent to further increase the chance of a great success, and Premium GP Medals purchased with paid jewels can be spent to guarantee a great success.
Lessons (レッソン)
Lessons cost 2 AP each and consist of different minigames. Lessons reward spheres, affection, and experience towards levelling up your cards, with the amount increasing based on your performance in the minigame. Six different Lesson types are available initially, and a seventh is unlocked once you’ve completed a full playthrough of the mode. Each Lesson type is described in detail later in this guide.
Auto Lesson tickets can be spent to automatically progress through a single Lesson. Auto Lesson tickets are earned in small quantities as rewards while playing Aigura, or can be purchased with jewels. A fixed quantity is also available for purchase in the main game’s Money Shop each month.
Tournaments (大会)
Tournaments cost 5 AP each and consist of a poker style minigame played over an MV of your selected song. During a Tournament you’ll use the cards and spheres that you’ve collected to try and assemble a high-scoring hand and ideally reach the S Score rank to earn a gold trophy. There’s quite a lot of stuff going on in Tournaments, which I’ll explain in more detail later in the guide. Tournaments reward high rarity cards, affection, and large amounts of fans. You’re required to clear Tournaments to progress through the mode.
Auto Tournament tickets can be spent to automatically play through a Tournament. Auto Tournament tickets are earned in small quantities as rewards while playing Aigura, or can be purchased with jewels. A fixed quantity is also available for purchase in the main game’s Money Shop each month.
Progression
Progression through the Aigura game mode is split into 5 stages: GP3 -> GP2 (First Half) -> GP2 (Second Half) -> GP1 -> iGP. In each stage you’re required to gain a minimum number of fans and clear a minimum number of Tournaments to unlock a final Tournament*. Clearing the final Tournament will immediately progress you to the next stage. There is only a fixed number of plays (described as ‘weeks’ in-game) available during each stage. If you fail to clear the final Tournament before running out of allowed plays in a stage you will reach ‘Game Over’ and be forced to restart from the beginning of GP3, or a checkpoint.
Progressing through each stage unlocks card upgrades, difficulty toggles for Lessons, and new story commus. Clearing the final Tournament in the iGP stage ends the run and unlocks one of five possible endings. You’ll always receive one of the four ‘basic’ endings, however there is also a ‘True’ ending that is unlocked if you meet certain requirements throughout the run. There is a section that discusses how to reach True endings later in this guide.
Each playthrough of Aigura is almost completely separate from previous runs. The only things that carry over between runs are an idol’s affection level, and the various items that can be purchased with jewels.
* GP2 (First Half) has no final Tournament and you automatically progress to GP2 (Second Half) once the minimum Tournament clear requirement is achieved. iGP consists of only a final Tournament with no interim requirements.
Solo Song Unlocks
While playing through each Aigura route you can unlock a new solo song for the idol you’re playing. Once unlocked in Aigura, the song will also be permanently unlocked to play in the main game. The unlock does not carry over between playthroughs with the same idol, and you’ll need to re-unlock the song in each Aigura playthrough. The are multiple possible unlock conditions, typically linked to some combination of earning trophies in Tournaments and reaching a certain affection level. Below are one set of unlock conditions for unlocking the new solo in Shiho & Miya’s routes:
• Clear GP3 in 16 weeks or less with at least 3 gold trophies.
• Obtain at least 2 gold trophies in the first 14 weeks of GP2.
• Reach affection level 3.
iDOL GRAND PRIX - Detailed Breakdown
Cards
Cards are the core gameplay progression element of Aigura. Cards come in four different rarities: N, R, SR and SSR and three stats: Vocal (Vo), Dance (Da) and Visual (Vis). You begin each run with a small number of N rarity cards, and can obtain additional cards from either Work or Tournaments. Generally Tournaments will grant higher quality cards than Work, however as you progress through each stage the cards available as rewards will increase in rarity and in GP1 onwards SSRs can drop as rewards from Work.
Cards can be levelled up by completing Lessons, which increases their stats. R rarity cards onwards have an extra level cap that is unlocked as you progress through each stage – R+ unlocks upon reaching GP2 (First Half), SR+ at GP2 (Second Half) and SSR+ at GP1. Each card has a small arrow in the top right corner, which indicates how it will gain stats as it levels up.
• Cards with a blue arrow gain most of their stats at lower levels but have the lowest stat totals at the maximum level.
• Cards with a green arrow gain stats at an even pace as they level and have moderate stat totals at the maximum level.
• Cards with a red arrow gain most of their stats at higher levels and have the highest stat totals at the maximum level.
Note that for the above descriptions, the ‘maximum level’ is a card’s level cap after receiving the ‘+’ upgrade. For cards that have reached their level cap before the ‘+’ upgrade, the hierarchy of stat totals is reversed and blue arrow cards have the highest stat totals.
Lesson Details
This section will describe the 7 Lesson types. I’ve never actually played the 7th (‘Dress Up’) Lesson that unlocks after completing your first run, but have included a writeup provided by Jin on the MLTD discord server.
As you progress through each stage a new toggleable difficulty modifier will be unlocked for each Lesson. Enabling the difficulty toggles generally makes the Lesson’s minigame more difficult, but also increases the EXP rewarded. There are three score tiers in Lessons: Good, Great & Excellent. The increased EXP from difficulty modifiers is such that even if you’re only able to reach a score tier lower than you would without the modifier (eg Great rather than Excellent), you’re better off using the modifier. Each Lesson type grants roughly the same total EXP, with dual type Lessons splitting it evenly between each type.
Sometimes when starting a Lesson you may get the option to ‘Omakase’ (おまかせ), or leave it to the idol. Omakase Lessons skip the minigame and grant you a score tier based on your affection level – at levels 1-6 you’ll generally get a Good, but at level 7 you’re guaranteed a Great. Omakase Lessons also grant bonus sphere drops and increase your idol’s mood.
While being able to consistently reach Excellent in Lessons will make easier to progress through Tournaments, it is by no means a requirement and it’s still possible to clear iGP with mostly Good Lessons. In my opinion the three dual type Lessons are the easiest to score well in, however as you get some practice in your preferences may differ. An update released in October added the option to practice Lessons minigames in ‘Free Lesson’ mode, which provides no rewards but also does not consume AP/GP Medals. Free Lesson mode can be accessed via a button at the top of the ‘insert credits’ screen.
Vo/Da Lesson
The objective of this Lesson is to avoid the obstacles by switching lanes using the Left/Right arrow buttons and to reach the finish line within the 30s time limit. The three difficulty toggles are (in unlock order): add an extra lane, add items to the course, add an extra lane. Orange items on the course provide a positive bonus, while blue items provide debuffs.
In my opinion the extra lane modifiers don’t increase the difficulty by very much, and adding items actually make it easier to reach an excellent score. Without items you need a perfect run with no obstacles hit to score an Excellent, however the orange items include an extra time item and items that let you blast through obstacles for a short time, compensating for mistakes or negating them altogether.
Da/Vis Lesson
The objective of this Lesson is to tap as many buttons corresponding to the step direction shown on the course as possible within the 30s time limit. Tapping the wrong button will result in a short lockout. The three difficulty toggles are (in unlock order): add hidden steps that reveal later, add shuffle steps that rotate as they come up, add ‘flick’ steps that require a flick in the right direction to clear. Special bonus steps can also appear in some plays: ‘Fever’ makes each step count twice towards your score, and ‘Encore’ turns all steps into the same direction for a short time*.
Generally it is better to pace yourself rather than rushing and making mistakes. Although you don’t need perfect runs to reach Excellent, the lockout penalty from making too many mistakes will add up. Don’t be afraid to button mash if you get a long run of a single direction though!
*Be careful as flick steps can still appear during Encore’s effect if they are enabled.
Vi/Vo Lesson
The objective of this Lesson is to tap the panels with the matching colour/word as the one shown at the bottom. Tapping the wrong panel will result in a short lockout. The three difficulty toggles are (in unlock order): add panel movement speed & time items, add extra taps required to clear panels, add panel size items. As in the Vo/Da Lesson, orange items provide a bonus when tapped and blue items a debuff. All the debuffs are pretty nasty, so take care not to hit any of the blue items. I recommend experimenting with using your thumbs or fingers on this Lesson to find out which style works the best for you.
Vo Lesson
The objective of this Lesson is to switch the displayed characters so that they match the lyric prompt shown at the bottom. This Lesson is quite difficult to score an Excellent in, and I’ve even seen native Japanese speakers complaining about the difficulty on twitter. I recommend avoiding this if possible and if necessary, consider using your auto Lesson tickets on it.
Da Lesson
The objective of this Lesson is to keep the marker in the indicated range by pressing and releasing the button. The three difficulty toggles are (in unlock order): resizing range, moving range, shrink range. This Lesson starts out fairly easy but quickly becomes quite hard with the difficulty toggles enabled, and there aren’t any bonus items that make things easier. An update released in October has apparently reduced the difficulty of this Lesson.
Vi Lesson
The objective of this Lesson is to memorise the tiles shown and correctly guess their positions once they’re hidden. The three difficulty toggles are (in unlock order): add tile variations, add tile types, add more total tiles to memorise. This Lesson starts out fairly easy but quickly becomes quite hard with the difficulty toggles enabled. Luckily it is very easy to ‘cheat’ in this Lesson by either taking a screenshot or using a second device to take a picture before the tiles are hidden, then referring to the picture to pick all the hidden tiles.
Vi Lesson 2 (Dress-up/Code Lesson)
The objective of this Lesson is to match the outfit on the leftmost mannequin. You are given between 2 to 3 mannequins to dress, and two moving lanes of apparel at the bottom. Tap the correct apparel when it moves into the mannequins’ target zone to dress it. This does not consume the apparel, so you can press it again when it moves to the next mannequin. You always dress the mannequin from the bottom up (The yellow bar highlights what part of the mannequin you are currently dressing). Only one lane is active at a time, and you can switch between them by pressing the pink ‘Switch Lanes’ button in the bottom right. The inactive lane moves in the reverse direction of the active lane, so switching lanes is a valid strategy for ‘rewinding’ your intended apparel if you miss it. You will need to dress 4 sets of mannequins to achieve Excellent. The three difficulty toggles are (in unlock order): lose time when picking a wrong panel, lanes can randomly change directions, lanes can randomly speed up. This Lesson is bonkers even without the difficulty toggles. Only choose this one if you’re looking for a challenge.
Thanks to Jin for providing this summary.
Tournament Details
In a Tournament you have up to seven turns to try and reach as high a score as possible. Each turn will have a particular stat focus that doubles the points gained from playing cards that match the focus. Each Tournament has an overall stat focus, which gives an indication of the turns that will appear. Cards you play provide a base score, which is then multiplied based on the combo of spheres you end the turn with. Sphere combos are reminiscent of poker hands, with basic but easy to achieve combos rewarding smaller score multipliers and hard to assemble combos like a straight rewarding large score multipliers.
You’ll begin each Tournament with five randomly drawn cards and spheres. You can play up to three cards per turn, and choose to discard and redraw one sphere for each card played that matches the turn’s focus. Cards you don’t choose to play will remain in your hand for the next turn, and you’ll draw new cards until there are five cards in your hand. You’ll always start each turn with a new set of five spheres.
As you complete each turn you’ll gradually fill up the Burst Appeal gauge to the left of the screen. Once the gauge has been filled enough you can tap it to activate a Burst Appeal for the next turn. Burst appeals are quick time events where you need to tap the pink panels as they scroll past. Completing a burst appeal gives a score bonus, which is added to the score from the cards played that turn before any multipliers from spheres are applied. The score bonus from burst appeals scales based on your card deck’s stat total. Later stages also unlock second and third levels for the burst appeal meter, which take longer to reach but grant higher score bonuses when activated. Playing higher star ranked spheres provides increased progress to the burst appeal gauge.
There are three score tiers in each Tournament: B score, A score and S score, which correspond to Bronze, Silver & Gold trophies respectively. Each Tournament will have score thresholds that must be met to move into the next score tier. When moving into B and A tiers, any score in excess of what was needed to reach the tier will not be carried over to the next tear. For example, if you need 1000 points to reach B tier and score 9000 points on the next turn the extra 8000 points will not carry over towards reaching A tier. Overflowing points like this provides bonus progress towards the burst appeal meter but should generally be avoided if possible.
Pre-Tournament Options
Before actually starting a Tournament you’ll need to configure your deck of cards and spheres, and select a song and costume.
Card Deck
The cards in your deck are what you’ll be able to draw during a Tournament. Your deck must contain exactly 50 cards, and your deck’s total cost must not exceed the Tournament’s deck cost limit. Each card rarity has a specific cost, and the total cost of all cards in your deck is the deck’s total cost. Generally just pressing the automatic formation (おまかせ編成) button to automatically create your deck will give good results, however you may be able to make small optimisations to improve the automatic deck.
Sphere Deck
The spheres in your deck are what you’ll be able to draw during a Tournament. You can use the spheres that drop from Work & Lessons to upgrade the spheres in your deck to higher star ranks, which will make it easier to achieve combos with them during the Tournament. Most Spheres gain additional colours after being upgraded to level 3/4, and the A sphere becomes a ‘Joker’ sphere with a picture of the Idol on it at level 4 which lets it act as any card when forming combos.
Pressing the automatic upgrade(おまかせ強化) button will automatically upgrade your sphere deck. When automatically upgrading you’re given two options:
- The first option asks how you’d like to use your collected spheres. The left choice leaves some spheres, and the right choice uses as many as possible.
- The second option asks if you’d like to use master spheres* if you’re missing any normal spheres. The left choice doesn’t use them, and the right choice does.
In my experience if you’re only playing the minimum number of Tournaments required to progress you’ll end up with more spheres than you can spend, so there is little reason to not use them. If you’re playing extra Tournaments beyond the bare minimum you may run short on some spheres, and if you’re aiming to clear all Tournaments in a run you’ll almost certainly run short, so in those cases it may be worth holding off on using some spheres on easier Tournaments.
*Master Spheres can be used to upgrade any type of sphere and are earned in small quantities while playing Aigura. Master Spheres can also be purchased with jewels and a fixed quantity is available for purchase in the main game’s Money Shop each month.
Song Selection
The song you select provides a bonus during the Tournament. Most songs provide bonus stats to your cards when you’re in a Tournament with a particular stat focus, while also slightly decreasing your maximum deck cost. Brand New Theater provides an increase to your maximum deck cost but no stat bonus, and the song you unlock through Aigura (eg CAT CROSSING for Shiho) provides a stat bonus with no deck cost penalty. Aside from Brand New Theater, each song can only be used in a Tournament once*, however moving up to the next GP level (eg GP2 -> GP1) resets this. Additional songs also become available as you progress. While most songs allow seven turns to be played, some shorter songs only allow for six turns while providing additional bonuses to compensate.
In my experience just selecting a song with a stat bonus that matches the Tournament you’re in works fine, and the Aigura unlock song should be saved for each stage’s final Tournament. If possible it’s probably better to stick with songs that give seven turns.
*An item that resets this can be purchased with jewels. The only use case I can see for this is if you’re attempting a run with a gold trophy in every possible Tournament and you need to spam the Aigura unlock song.
Costume Selection
The costume you select provides a bonus during the Tournament. Costumes available for selection mirror the costumes that you’ve unlocked in the ‘main’ Mirishita. There are quite a wide range of bonuses available, but most notably:
- Non-SFY/FES/LNK SSR costumes give +20% to the bonus score from Burst Appeals.
- Base SFY costumes give +5% to all card stats and slightly reduce your maximum deck cost.
- MR4/MR5 SFY costumes give +15% to all card stats and significantly reduce your maximum deck cost.
- FES/LNK SSR costumes give +25% to the bonus score from Burst Appeals.
- Costumes purchased in bundles from the costume shop allow for additional sphere upgrades to be used in the Tournament.
Like songs, each costume can only be used in a Tournament once per GP level*. Costume selection is fairly low impact, especially if you have a decent collection of SSRs in the main game. Just make sure to save a FES/LNK costume for each stage’s final Tournament.
*An item that resets this can be purchased with jewels. There isn’t really any reason to use it.
Tournament Tips/Tricks
This is a collection of things I’ve picked up while playing myself and reading about others’ experiences on twitter and elsewhere. I’ve roughly tried to order them from basic to more advanced.
- Select cards to play based on the turns that are coming up to increase the chances that you’ll have enough cards that match the stat focus for each turn. For example, if you’re on a Vo/Da/Vi turn and the next two turns are Da/Vi then Da, use up any Vo cards in your hand on the first turn and try to avoid playing any Da cards on the next turn.
- Using burst appeals as they become available will yield better results on average than storing them up.
- If you end up in a scenario where you come up just short of a score threshold, only use the absolute minimum resources necessary to hit the threshold on the next turn and save any high stat cards until later.
- Similarly, try not to waste a burst appeal by using it on a turn where the points from the cards you’re playing (plus any sphere combos that you draw in the initial five) would get you to the next threshold without the burst appeal. However, if it’s not certain and you’re relying on redrawing spheres to get a combo it’s probably better to use the burst appeal to play it safe.
- Spheres may sometimes appear with a small blue arrow in their corner; these spheres grant bonus progress to the Burst Appeal gauge. It’s fine if you need to discard one of these to form a combo, but if you’re tossing up between discarding two spheres and one has the arrow you should discard the sphere without the arrow.
- If you’re looking at a draw of five spheres with no combo and aren’t sure which ones are best to discard for a redraw, start with the lowest level spheres and Work your way up. Higher level spheres are easier to form combos with and grant more progress towards the burst appeal gauge when you play them.
- If you’re really looking to optimise your sphere decisions, you can note down the exact composition of your deck before each Tournament then track which spheres are remaining as the Tournament progresses. You can then use this information to inform which spheres should be discarded to give the best odds of redrawing into a combo. This is absolutely not necessary to succeed and is probably not worth the effort it takes unless you’re already a well-practiced card counter.
Miscellaneous Game Systems
This section covers four miscellaneous systems that exist in the Aigura game mode.
Mood
The mood system is represented by the circular gauge that appears when your idol’s mood increases or decreases. Mood can be increased by selecting the ‘correct’ option during Work, ending a week with at least 1 AP unspent, or completing an Omakase Lesson. Completing a Tournament or Lesson decreases mood. Having the maximum mood level provides powerful bonuses during Tournaments.
I recommend using Work to quickly build up the mood gauge to nearly full at the beginning of a run, then maintaining it at that level by utilising Omakase Lessons as they appear and ending weeks with AP unspent. If you’re expecting to complete multiple Tournaments in a row starting off the streak on a week with 6 AP will let you keep earning the mood increase from having unspent AP, which more than offsets the innate reduction from completing a Tournament.
Week Bonus
Each week/play there is a ‘trending’ stat, which may be either a single stat (Vo/Da/Vis) or a combination of two stats. Work, Lessons & Tournaments with a stat that matches the current trending stat receive a range of bonuses. Where possible you should try and align what you’re doing with the bonus, unless you really need to level up cards of a particular stat.
Fans
Along with clearing Tournaments, gaining new fans is the other requirement to progress through each stage of Aigura. Each stage will require you to reach a certain fan threshold before you’re able to challenge the final Tournament. You can gain a small amount of fans from completing Work, or a large amount from completing a Tournament. Fan gains from Tournaments scale based on the trophy you receive, and all fan gains increase as you progress through each stage. Fans are a progression mechanism only and do not provide any sort of bonus. From my experience the fans requirements for progression are fairly easy to meet, however if you’re struggling in Tournaments you may need to fit in some extra Work to get the last few fans needed.
Affection
Affection is another progression mechanic, however unlike with fans it is not strictly required to progress. Increasing affection levels will unlock new story commus and is a required element to reach the True ending. You gain affection from Work, Lessons and Tournaments, with Work being the best source. Like fans, affection does not provide any gameplay bonus other than increasing the chance of receiving a Great result when completing an Omakase Lesson. Unlike all other progression elements in Aigura, your affection level with an idol will carry over between runs.
Paid Elements
If you’ve been reading this guide closely so far you will have already picked them up, but there are various opportunities to spend jewels to help progression in Aigura: auto tickets, master spheres, using GP medals on Work, etc. In my experience playing the mode, you absolutely do not need to spend jewels on any of these to successfully progress. The only true ‘Pay to Win’ mechanic in the mode are costume unlocks, as there are relevant bonuses on costumes that can only be obtained with paid jewels. The only thing you will likely end up needing to spend jewels on is purchasing GP medals to actually play the mode – while there have been generous campaigns distributing free GP medals in the first few months of Aigura’s existence, I don’t expect these to continue forever.
True End Guide
Reaching the True end is the ultimate objective in each Aigura route, and in my opinion is well worth the effort involved. If you’re playing Aigura for the first time, I recommend not worrying about reaching a True end and just playing as you feel like to get used to the mode.
To reach the True end, your run must meet the following three requirements:
- Earn a gold trophy in the final Tournament of GP3, GP2, GP1 & iGP.
- Have at least 1,200,000 fans after completing iGP.
- Be at least affection level 6 after completing iGP.
These requirements may seem intimidating when you’re starting out, but they’re fairly achievable if you keep them in mind as you play. Once you’ve reached an Idol’s True end all other commus are unlocked, including any of the four other endings. I’ve based this guide off my own experience reaching Shiho & Miya’s True ends.
Gold Trophies
This requirement is undeniably the most difficult of the three to achieve. Counterintuitively though, the hardest part of it is actually getting GP3’s gold trophy. On my first attempt at Miya’s True end I ended up hitting a game over after failing to hit gold 2 weeks in a row. As long as you’re following the Tournament tips outlined earlier in this guide, the other primary element that’ll determine your ability to clear this condition is the cards that you choose to train. I don’t have any exact records, but this is the rough strategy I’ve used when choosing cards to level in my most recent True end run:
- GP3: Level up about five Ns of each type, ideally red arrows or green arrows as a fallback. Prioritise levelling blue arrow Rs, as these will have higher stats than red/green arrow Rs in GP3. If you end up with any blue arrow SRs you can try and level them up, but the low maximum deck costs in GP3 makes SRs difficult to use. My Lesson slots here are 0-1 SR, 3-5 R, 0-2 N.
- GP2 (First Half): Level up about 10 R+s of each type to the new level cap, now prioritising red then green arrows. Also start working on levelling up any SRs that you have, once again prioritising red then green. You can also start working on levelling up SSRs at this point, but again the maximum deck costs make them difficult to use. My Lesson slots here are 0-1 SSR, 1-2 SR, 3-4 R, 0 N.
- GP2 (Second Half): Mostly the same as the first half, continue working on SR+s (now with the level cap increase) and any SSRs that you have. Once you have about 10 of each R+ maxed you can stop levelling them, unless there’s nothing else to fill a Lesson slot. My Lesson slots here are 0-2 SSR, 2-5 SR, 0-2 R, 0 N.
- GP1/iGP: At this point you’re just maxing out SSR+s to the new level cap, and filling out your Lesson slots with SRs. Once you get to about 17 combined SSR+/SR+ of each type maxed out you’re essentially done with levelling cards.
As for other tips:
- For costume selection I used the costume shop costumes that allow extra level 2/3 spheres to be taken while in GP3, then the burst appeal boosting SSR costumes for everything else. The burst appeal boosting costumes are less valuable in GP3 as you get fewer burst appeals due to having only lower-level spheres to Work with, and the caps on sphere levels are low enough in GP3 that the extra spheres from the costume are quite meaningful. For the rare occasions where you end up with a higher maximum deck cost than you can actually spend, using a MR4/5 SFY costume for the +15% appeal bonus is worthwhile.
- You can reset a Tournament if you miss a gold trophy due to bad RNG by force closing the app. This resets all RNG elements aside from your opening draw of cards/spheres. Keep in mind that you can only do this three times per Tournament – on the fourth restart you’ll automatically fail the Tournament.
- Make sure to leave at least one buffer week when attempting the final Tournament of a stage so that you’re not immediately sent to a Game Over after failing a final.
- An option to spend GP medals to restart a Tournament when you miss a gold trophy is being added with an update in October. This will let you restart up to 5 times.
- In GP2 only the final Tournament at the end of the ‘Second Half’ portion counts towards the gold trophy requirement, so missing gold on the fourth Tournament you play in ‘First Half’ doesn’t brick your run.
- Clearing the first half of GP2 earlier gives you extra weeks with the increased Lesson exp gain available in the second half, so you should aim to clear the requirements of the first half as quickly as possible.
Fans
To reach 1.2mil fans you’ll need to play more than the bare minimum Tournaments required to progress, but thankfully it doesn’t take completing every possible Tournament. Fan gains are quite heavily weighted towards the end of a run, and the last two Tournaments along give 475k fans combined (175k from GP1 finals, 300k from iGP). I recommend playing a few extra Tournaments beyond the minimum in GP3/GP2, and the mapping the fan gains you need once you reach GP1. The minimum fans to aim for before you attempt iGP is 900k. Work gives quite a lot of fans late in the run and can be useful for making up the last ~50k fans needed.
For reference, in my True end runs I cleared the following Tournament counts (all with gold trophies):
- GP3 – 6
- GP2 – 11 (both halves combined)
- GP1 – 3
Affection
This requirement is either fairly difficult or literally effortless to meet, depending on whether you’re attempting to reach the True end on your first playthrough or any subsequent playthrough. To meet the affection requirement on your first playthrough with an Idol you’ll need to weight your activities fairly heavily towards Work, ideally combined with Premium GP medals to guarantee a great success for increased affection gains. However, since affection levels carry over between playthroughs you’ll easily max out affection on your second playthrough without going out of your way at all. The downside to this approach is that completing a full playthrough is fairly time consuming and it costs a lot of GP medals – especially if you’re buying all your GP medals with jewels, I haven’t done the math myself but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is actually cheaper to attempt a True end on your first lap using Premium GP medals on Work.
A possible middle ground between these two options is using a partial playthrough to gather affection initially, then retiring it to begin the True end playthrough. I (unintentionally) used this approach for my Shiho True end; I played Shiho’s route a little bit when the pre-release first began in May then stopped playing and came back in August when I retired the Shiho run to play Miya’s route. This meant I started off Shiho’s True end playthrough at affection level 2, which meant I was comfortably able to reach affection level 6 (and level 7 with the help of Premium GP medal fuelled Work). If you’re attempting this strategy, I think retiring your partial playthrough at around halfway between affection levels 2 and 3 is the sweet spot.