Welcome back - assuming you're coming here from the first game of this trilogy, Blue Fear. If you're not, I highly recommend you start with that game. At the very least, I would recommend reviewing the general strategy sections of my guide for the first game.

The second game in this series has small yet significant improvements, ranging from minor presentation tweaks (character potraits in cutscenes) to significantly helpful gameplay changes (sword combos woooo). You also will have access to the namesake Blue Destiny mobile suit for most of the game, which has a much stronger and overall more fun loadout than your previous GM.

This game is as linear as the first, but here's an outline of how to progress.

Once again, you can't save mid-story and will need to beat story mode in one go. The game is 5 missions just like the last game, with none being extra long. I would highly recommend starting on hard from the get-go again to potentially save some time and mission replays, but you can beat the story on easy or normal to unlock stage select with minimal fuss.

Once again (again...), you'll need to replay missions in Stage Select mode for hard and/or A rank clear achievements. Hard mode is a virtual requirement for A ranks again. Happy hunting!

I once again implore you to read my guide on the first game if you haven't yet. All of the basic strategy is the same aside from minor changes noted below. Please refer to that guide for the nuts and bolts general strategy.

New game, new suit! Starting with Mission 2, you'll be piloting the titular Blue Destiny. Let's go over the suit upgrades quick.

Note that technically you pilot your GM one last time in Mission 1, but the loadout is identical to Blue except for still having grenades instead of missiles and some possible minor stat tweaks (Blue may have better armor, thrusters and speed in-game, but it's hard to confirm).

• Beam Rifle: Just like the old rifle but better and with cooler-looking shots. You'll want to use this just as heavily if not moreso this time around. -Beam Saber: One of the biggest improvements in game 2 and 3 is the ability to combo sword slashes! Once you start your sword slash, keep tapping forward to dash and add in two more hits, with the third knocking enemies down. This makes melee combat more rewarding and lets you waste enemies quicker if you can attack in close quarters. Do note that sometimes you'll only be able to get in a single slash before knocking an enemy down for reasons I'm not 100% sure. My best guess is they previously took damage that filled an invisible "knockdown" value to some degree. This also means your cadence for the dash-melee-brake combo is a slightly altered - this is a positive, but get ready to make an adjustment.
• Vulcans: Like the vulcans last suit, but better. Perhaps it's because the beam rifle and sword are better, but I found these of even less value than in 1. You could still potentially do some "circle and never stop firing" strategies this time around, it just doesn't feel nearly as effective as the old rifle and sword.
• Grenades: You only have these for Mission 1 and my opinion on them is largely unchanged. Can be modestly useful, but overall nothing terribly crazy or more effective than your "standard" weapons.
• Missiles: These on the other hand, are quite nice. Replacing your grenades from Mission 2 on, missiles fire quicker, deal solid damage and are great at blasting multiple suits in one shot. Some missions in this game require you to either 1) very quickly eliminate targets and otherwise do damage or 2) deal with being ganged up in 2v1 or 3v1 dogfights. Missiles can help even the odds in both cases. The limited ammo is a bummer, but you should be using your full salvo every mission to make life easier on yourself.

This game is about as linear as it can be, but I'll provide an outline for clarity's sake.

This walkthrough is primarily covering getting A ranks rather than just completing the missions. The hints below can used for any difficulty, but just beating the missions is pretty simple and there's no real need to dive into those achievements versus what to do fo A ranks.

Remember: You Must Play On Hard to realistically get an A rank.

Blue Destiny (5)
Clear Mission 1

Desert Efreet (5)
Clear Mission 1 in hard mode

Ace Rival (5)
Clear Mission 1 with an A Rank

• A Rank Difficulty: Easy
• Special Conditions: N/A

Tank

Oh hey, these guys again. Nothing terribly scary or different from last time. Just plink them once to knock them out.

Supply Truck

Oh hey, these guys again. Harmless and only worthwhile for the handful of points you get for destroying them.

Zaku II

Oh hey, these- ok, that's gotten old. I believe they are technically modified from a base Zaku II, but they're no different from the last game.

Efreet

Oh hey, this- wait, this guy is actually brand new. Meet your rival for the rest of this series. This time, he's invincible and you have to get toasted by him to complete the mission, so I won't bother to give a rundown on him. We'll see him again, don't worry...

Let's start off with a fairly easy mission. Your Mobile Suit has a slightly improved loadout and the opposition is just tanks and Zakus. Your biggest obstacle for an A rank is your teammates. Make sure to get final hit on mobile suits at all costs. Check your map frequently and head off to enemies your allies are approaching.

Once you wipe out the initial enemy forces, the Efreet comes to pack you up. You can dogfight with him for a little bit and to pick up some points, but don't expect to gain more than a thousand or so unless you are very skilled.

Damage is meaningless for you rank in this mission, as the mission can't end until the Efreet fight takes you down to the very edge of your armor. You still shouldn't take too many hits since the enemy is fairly weak here. If the fight with the Efreet ends with you having about 18-19k points, you'll secure a very simple A rank.

Random fun fact: this mission has you pilot your modified GM suit for the last time this series. This means you still have grenades rather than missiles as your secondary weapon, but your rifle is upgraded to a beam rifle and your sword can combo slashes.

• 50k Tactical Score
• 96% Hit Rate
• 61k Overall Score

Note: This is formatted as it is shown in the end of mission summary screen or the stage select listing. I also rounded points and score down, so you can assume most have a couple hundred extra points. These are all obviously A ranks and I believe at least most cleared A rank criteria with a fairly comfortable cushion. For most missions, you can probably do a little worse and still make the cut for A rank. Nonetheless, these can help benchmark how your runs are going if you keep missing A ranks on multiple attempts.

Taking the EXAM (5)
Clear Mission 2

Second Nature (5)
Clear Mission 2 in Hard Mode and survive

Ace Student (10)
Clear Mission 2 with an A Rank

• A Rank Difficulty: Easy/Medium
• Special Conditions: Take out the anti-air cannons and protect the helicopters!

Hygoggs

Very similar to Z'Gokks we fought in the final mission of the first game. They have a nasty missile barrage at long range, a much less scary machine gun in short range, and their claws for melee. Either fight them very close so they won't launch their missiles or pepper them very far away (as in, outside the draw distance of the game distance) with your rifle.

Gun Emplacements

Nothing special., they go down quick and are easy to evade by side dashing. Just be careful you don't run into their range of fire while fighting mobile suits, as the damage (especially the missile launcher variants) can put the hurt on you.

The A rank here will drive you crazy unless you know what to do (probably the biggest instance of a language barrier in this game if you can't understand the Japanese mission briefing). You'll notice on your map there are multiple red squares (labelled as "targets") throughout the map. This signifies some old-school looking artillery pieces. They are harmless to you, go down in a single rifle shot, and give some points. More importantly, they will fire on and destroy two packs of allied helicoptors that cross through the bases a few minutes into the mission. For an A rank, you need to save these helicoptors by destroying the artillery before the helicoptors pass by them. Doing so gives a huge score bonus at the end of mission screen. Without it, an A rank is impossible.

Pull up your map if needed to see where to go. The first pair of cannons are right in front of you - take them out quickly. From there, you can either go to the left side or right side to take the next set of cannon parralel with the first set, then dash up in a line taking out the next sets. You'll basically follow a box pattern, going either clockwise or counter-clockwise to get every target. Ignore every mobile suit or non-cannon enemy you encounter for now (except gun implacements - if you want, you can tag them with 1-2 shots and move on). Only the cannons matter right now. The helicoptors appear on your radar as two separate packs of light blue squares. As long as they don't get too close to any intact cannons, they will pass through safely and you'll claim your bonus.

Once they go down, this mission is a standard "destroy all suits" affair. Your main foes are Hygoggs, who have a fairly scary missle barrage attack. You're under zero pressure time-wise once the cannons are down, so stay far away and keep far away as you snipe with your rifle. Remember, you can still be locked on and hit enemies even if they are beyond the draw distance. Use your score HUD to track that you're making contact while safely out of reach.

If you saved every helicopter and have roughly half your armor and about 22k points at the mission's end, you'll take home another fairly easy A rank.

• 27k Tactical Score
• 47% Hit Rate
• 69k Overall Score

EXAM Countdown (5)
Clear Mission 3

Five Minutes to Midnight (10)
Clear Mission 3 in Hard Mode

Ace Berserker (10)
Clear Mission 3 with an A Rank

• A Rank Difficulty: Medium
• Special Conditions: Destroy as many suits/buildings as possible.

Zaku II

Identical to Mission 1 except for a new paint job. You'll encounter both bazooka and machine gun types as well, just like Mission 1. You should be able to tear right through these guys at this point.

Tanks

Same as mission 1.

Gouf

These look like blue Zakus at first glance, and honestly aren't a whole lot different in terms of loadout or how to fight them. They seem a bit sturdier than Zakus but shouldn't put up too much more of a fight.

You're on a time limit thanks to the EXAM system. The goal is to destroy all the towers/command centers, including the heavily armed and armored one all the way back. The moment you destroy the last tower, the mission ends. To get an A rank, you're going to need to take out a healthy chunk of mobile suits before, to the tune of having about 38-39k points before you finish off the last objective target.

Start off by heading slightly northwest from your inital location and jump firing a missile right between the four missiles/gun emplacements at the start. Try to move quickly on each mobile suit - they're pretty frail, so if you dash-melee-brake you should tear through them. The big command center is highly dangerous if you stop moving, but if you jump strafe slightly to the left or right while throwing out missiles constantly, it will quickly go down. The smaller objective towers take about six rifle shots to go down - count your hits so you can start moving to your next target (whether it be mobile suit or tower) after squeezing out the last shot.

When you get to the last tower, leave it with one or two hits to go if you're not at the score you need yet. Then you can hunt suits for a bit longer while being able to take the tower out ASAP when time starts to run low. If your score is high enough, your health can be disregarded. You would think you wouldn't need to destroy as many suits/buildings if you retain more of your health, but it doesn't seem as linear as one may assume. Personally I would focus on taking out suits and upping your score rather than playing too slow and cautiously to end with a better hit rate.

• 51k Tactical Score
• 87% Hit Rate
• 64k Overall Score

Base Wipeout (10)
Clear Mission 4

Preparing for a Duel (10)
Clear Mission 4 in Hard Mode

Ace Cleaner (25)
Clear Mission 4 with an A Rank

• A Rank Difficulty: Very Hard
• Special Conditions: End with high armor

Dom

Just like the final mission from the previous game, Doms are quick, love to circle you with their jets, and have highly damaging bazookas. These guys seem much more prone to fire their damaging bazooka rounds on you (for those with said weapon) and are tougher to follow up on when knocked down.

Once again, Mission 4 is the biggest challenge to A Rank. There aren't a whole lot of tricks to this mission. You need to get the final hit on every suit again (which isn't too hard) and knock off a good chunk of buildings for points as well. The biggest criteria is to avoid taking damage as best you can - ideally around 75-80% of your armor remaining. Beyond that, it's just a knock down, drag out brawl of you and three (slightly useful) GMs and about a half dozen Zeon Doms.

The machine gun ones aren't too threatening - individual bullets from the machine guns do little damage and it's easy to evade most of their fire. The bazooka enemies are much scarier - they can spam shells as faster or faster than the machinegun. A single shell can take off a whole brick of health, they're hard to avoid, and you're usually going to get hit multiple times if you get hit by one.

You'll start the mission with three Doms spawned - two (one bazooka and one machine gun) will be engaging the allied GM closest to you, while a third bazooka will be dueling the other GM slightly further out. Start by trying to focus down the Bazooka Dom closest to you, then rush to the other GM to take down the second Bazooka. Let your allied suits to distract enemies as much as possible while you're hunting the bazookas. When you find them, the usual melee dashing is your friend. Be careful though - regardless of loadout, enemies can dash into you and slash your with their sword or just knock you on your rear (and do a fair bit of damage). They can also enter a "defensive" stance where they raised their shield arm and stop moving for a bit. If you try to melee them in this stance, they will tank your hit and instantly counter melee you, often knocking you down. They can do this at almost any time, but it's less likely to work from their sides and won't work at all from behind. Sometimes they pull out their sword and start dashing at your from a few (mobile suit-sized) steps away. If this happens, dash backwards and fire your rifle, then dash after your beam connects for some sword strikes. If you're lucky, you'll be able to bait the suit into doing this multiple times and rack up a lot of damage on them.

After taking out most of the first wave, the second will spawn from out of bounds and start heading toward you. You'll likely be down at least one GM, which means they can more easily swarm and circle you. If it's down to just you, don't be afraid to stay far away and keep your distance with your rifle, at least until you can even the odds a little.

Don't be afraid to use your missiles, especially when two or three suits are bunched up. This happens frequently in the second wave, so try to save your missles for then. Don't play it too conservative though - the quicker you take out the first wave, the more health your allies will have to distract wave two.

Again, this mission is ultimately a pure fight and comes down to execution. If your score is around 25k before dealing with the final Dom and you've only lost about 2-4 bars of armor, you should have an A rank.

• 56k Tactical Score
• 29% Hit Rate
• 69k Overall Score

EXAM vs EXAM (10)
Clear Mission 5

Losing Your Head (10)
Clear Mission 5 in Hard Mode

Ace's Blues (25)
Clear Mission 5 with an A Rank

• A Rank Difficulty: Easy/Medium
• Special Conditions: N/A

Efreet

Your self-proclaimed rival is back in his signature mobile suit. He's quite similar to you, except with the added fun of a huge missile salvo attack.

You're on an EXAM system time limit, but it's of almost zero concern (you're going to win or lose well before you come anywhere close to running out of time). This is just a one-on-one duel with the same ace from mission 1, except this time you can and must win. He loves dashing all over like crazy and sending a huge missile spam. The missiles are incredibly tough to dodge in the open, so strafe dash and try to put the stone-like structures dotting the battlefield between the two of you. Do it right (and get a little lucky) and they'll end up blocking most or all of his salvo. Try to circle behind him and go with our tried and true dash-melee-brake move. Be aware the Efreet will never get knocked down from any attack (direct hits, especially with your sword or missiles, will momentarily stun him for a half second, but he'll end up recovering from that quicker than you can attack again!). Missiles can be helpful if he's dodging. The splash damage can catch him early into a dash and stop him in his tracks for a brief moment. While not trivial, there's not much going on here. Take him out with about 1/4 health or more remaining and you should secure the A rank.

Fun tip: since the Efreet is the only target, you can use your score HUD to track his armor. At 3400 score you will have defeated the Efreet.

• 6k Tactical Score
• 78% Hit Rate
• 60k Overall Score

Congrats on taking down another Side Story game! Check back soon for my guide on the final game of the series: Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story 3: The Condemned. If you have any questions or if you found any strategies that you'd like to share, feel free to do so in the game's page comments or forum topic and I'll add them if I see them.

I keep going back and forth on this. I believe (based on time played) the first was the quickest to master, followed by the second, then the third. The third game certainly has tougher missions (Missions 2, 3 and the simulator especially) but I remember my frustration peaking in the first game. Perhaps it had to do more with learning the mechanics more?