Azkend 2: The World Beneath

To unlock this achievement, you'll need to obtain a medal on all 62 of the story missions in Medal mode. Obtaining a medal requires you to complete the level objective to bring the medal onto the board, then bring the medal to the bottom of the board, all before the timer hits the halfway mark. For the bug levels, the bugs can't reach the darker tiles around halfway up the board. For the flower levels, half of the petals can't fall. For the fire levels, fire can't cover half of the board. I'll give some general gameplay tips and then specific tips for each type of level below.

General Tips

• Find the powerups that work best for you. Using the right powerups can make a level much more manageable. For each section below, I will give my recommendations on which ones to use since they worked well for me, but depending on your play style you might want to switch it up. If you're struggling with a level, try switching your powerups to see if it helps.
• While speed is naturally going to be the key element to earning medals, one particular tactic to boost your speed is very important: once you've spotted a match that you're going to make, as you're moving the arrow to the match to make it, your eyes should already be searching for your next match. This may seem tough to do at first, but it is essential to beating the later levels, especially the classic mode ones.
• Along the same lines as the previous tip, you want to avoid waiting after you make a match for the tiles to finish falling before moving on to make the next match. This is another tough habit to break since you're going to want to see where everything settles after a match. In some instances you won't have a choice, but when you do, make sure you're always on the lookout for your next move.
• Never break your lightning coil streak unless you have no other options. Maintaining this charge is critical, especially in later levels, as it gives you an extra 5 hits toward your objective each time it goes off.

Classic Mode Levels

Recommended powerups: Hammer and Mechanism (increased time)

Classic levels are pretty straightforward in that they're just a straight race against the clock to turn all tiles blue. I find the Hammer to be best as it can flip whole clusters of tiles when used in addition to flipping the tiles the match was made on. The general tips apply heavily here, so make sure you are constantly seeking your next move while making the current move, and never break your lightning coil charge unless you have no other option.

If you see you have long matches or good item matches but they are only on blue tiles, use them right after you release your lightning charge to avoid losing the charge. So if you see a match of hammers all on blue tiles, save them until you set off your lightning coils, make the hammer match, then go back to recharging your coils.

Work your way up from the bottom. Flipping tiles at the bottom are the toughest since there is no way to change the tiles down there unless your hammer hits them. For that reason, prioritize lower matches first, otherwise you'll be stuck waiting for a hammer match or lightning coils to flip the tiles at the bottom of the board.

Bug Levels

Recommended powerups: Camera and Mechanism

I much prefer the Camera for the bug levels over any other active items, such as dynamite and hammer which are the two other best ones, and here's why. Dynamite is useless if the tiles aren't near the bugs. They won't be close enough to do any damage, and making the match will break your lightning coil charge. Hammers will at least hit a bug if you match them away from the bugs, but they only hit once with a match of three tiles, and again it will break your coil charge. The Camera is good because if it's touching bugs, it will do damage like any other tile, give you a coil charge, and then charge one more coil for each camera in the match. The coil discharge automatically targets the highest bug on the board, and getting those extra 5 strikes per discharge is invaluable. Also, if the Cameras are not near the bugs, you can match them without breaking your coil charge. What this means is if you have 2 of 5 coils charged and you have no matches left near bugs, you can make a match of 3 Cameras and it will NOT reset your charge back to zero and then charge it up to 3. It will take you from 2 right to 5 and set off your 5 strikes. This comes in extremely handy when you run out of matches near bugs. Any camera matches, including ones made with a single camera and a compass piece, will keep your coil charge going. The main downside is that camera matches of more than 5 cameras don't do anything more than your 5 strikes, and if your coils are already at 4 of 5 charged, matching 3 cameras essentially wastes two coil charges. It requires some smarter playing but the extra strikes on bugs is a huge reward.

In terms of the level itself, naturally you'll be tempted to focus on the highest bug on the board but this can often leave you with one or two bugs left with high health, and since there aren't other bugs they will move quick. The better tactic is to balance your attack so all the bugs stay roughly in the same health range. If one bug gets dangerously high on the board, naturally kill it quickly, but in general focus on hitting all bugs evenly so they all die around the same time, avoiding a board with one or two fast moving bugs that you lose control over.

Flower Levels

Recommended powerups: Camera and Stone Face (less tile types, and less time)

Flower levels are pretty simple in that you just need to collect enough flowers to fill the meter on the left. These levels, however, come down to a ton of luck because you need enough flowers to spawn to fill the meter, and sometimes this game is very stingy with flowers. Because you're essentially only getting credit toward the objective when you match three or more flowers, you can assume you will practically never charge your lightning coils. And it's purposely set up that way, because overall you don't need that many flowers to fill the meter. It's for that reason that I used the powerups listed above. You won't have as much time with the Stone Face item, but these levels are more about getting a good starting board. If you don't have at least 2-3 sets of flowers matches right off the bat, restart until you do. Once you do, make those 2-3 matches, and with the Stone Face you should have a Camera match too. Once your coils discharge you should be at least halfway done with the meter. Purposely make normally matches across the bottom of the board to bring as many flower tiles and camera tiles onto the board as your can, then repeat matching flowers and cameras.

Once you get a good setup, you will plow through these levels. It's just a matter of being patient for a good set-up.

Fire Levels

Recommended powerups: Hammer and Stone Face

There are very few fire levels and they are the easiest of the bunch. The goal is to extinguish the fire completely before it spreads to more than half of the tiles. Focus on making matches that touch fire to build your coil charge. If you need to, you can always let the fire spread a little to touch a match if you don't have any matches touching fire and want to keep your coils charged.

You'll probably finish these levels on your first or second try, so not a whole lot of detail is required. Just keep moving and matching.

Level 62

This is the final level (a classic level) and one of the only ones I changed my strategy on. I couldn't even get the medal onto the board using the Hammer and Mechanism, but once I changed my powerups I nailed it. I recommend the last active powerup that turns tiles into compasses, along with the Mechanism. Using this active powerup I was able to blow through the level without losing my lightning coil charge ever and with no fear of it because of how many compasses are on the board. The problem with this level is that the two "horns" up top and "feet" on the bottom are very hard to make matches in, so you've got four sections that you'll end up relying on hammers and lightning for. With this active item, compasses will be all over the place, allowing you to make use of the entire board more readily. Also use the many many compasses all over the board to string together much longer matches, setting off lightning strikes to help take care of some difficult to reach spots. You'll have to move pretty fast without the hammer helping you flip tiles, but I found it way easier this way.