Stage Difficulties

Legend Stages and the maps in which they appear are rated on a scale of difficulty ranging from 1★ (easiest) to 12★ (hardest). Map buttons have ★ icons on them that light up based on the difficulty of each stage, which can be viewed in the sub-chapter's/event's information. Maps with stages of differing difficulties will have multiple ★s lit up (e.g., Vacation Awakes! is rated as both ★7 and ★8).
==Star Difficulties==
*★1: Rated for the first stages of many monthly and seasonal events as well as trivial stages that are meant to give players rewards without a fight, such as Sender Unknown, CAT DAY and the Summer Break Cats, Enigma Stages and Stories of Legend stage Earthshaker only. Often tagged as "Easy"
*★2: Rated for most event stages that are tagged as "Normal" Stories of Legend stages from Return of Terror to Guardian of the Ranch.
*★3: Rated for most event stages that are tagged as "Hard" and Stories of Legend stages from Sleeping Lion to Sesamin Ruins.
*★4: Rated for most event stages that are tagged as "Veteran" and Stories of Legend stages from Isoflavone Cave to Cowboy Mountain.
*★5: Rated for most event stages that are tagged as "Expert" and Stories of Legend stages from Rodeo Night to Volcanic Defender.
*★6: Rated for Stories of Legend stages from Flame Caldera to Pitfall Zone.
*★7: Rated for most event stages that are tagged as "Insane", Stories of Legend stages from The Great Escaper to Imp's cold sweat, and the Crazed Cat Stages.
*★8: Rated for Stories of Legend stages from Safe and Not Sorry to Lord of the Abyss. Rated for event stages that are either tagged as "Insane" or "Deadly"
*★9: Rated for most event stages that are tagged as "Deadly", including Maniac Stages, and Stories of Legend from Galapa-Goth onward.
*★10: Rated for most event stages that are tagged as "Merciless", including Tier 2 Advent Stages, and Uncanny Legends from A New Legend through Ancient Forest Labyrinth.
*★11: Rated for Uncanny Legends from Castle of the Sentinels onward and Zero Legends.
*★12: Rated for Heavenly Tower, Legend Quest, Infernal Tyrant Climax, Ghost King Finale, Super Smash Families, and some of the Gauntlets.
==Difficulty Tags==
These difficulties were used in place of ★s before Version 10.7. Though obsolete, they still appear in parentheses next to the names of some stages such as No Plan A (Deadly) and Impact Site (Normal), and a 9th one was even added in Version 12.3.
*Easy (初級, Shokyū, Beginner): Rated for the first and second levels of many events, they are the same difficulty as some Empire of Cats Chapter 1 or 2 levels.
*Normal (中級, Chūkyū, Intermediate): A little bit harder, most of them require more than 100% Treasures collected from Empire of Cats to beat. Rated for Catburger's Awakening Stage, among others.
*Hard (上級, Jōkyū, Advanced): Moderately hard most of the time. Rated for Cat Ticket Chance!, every last level of the weekday stages (excluding Weekend Stage) and for the first levels of the Catfruit Stages.
*Veteran (Hard+) (超上級, Chō Jōkyū, Super-Advanced): Rated for the Daily Blitz Stages and some of the first Awakening Stages. These stages usually need Bahamut Cat or a similar Uber Rare.
*Expert (Hard++) (激ムズ, Geki Muzu, Intense or Fierce): Rated for the second levels of the Catfruit Stages, Siege of Hippoe!, some of the first Awakening Stages, and the first four Cyclone Stages. Not recommended for new players because they can be pretty hard, especially without True Forms.
*Insane (Hard+++) (超激ムズ, Chō Geki Muzu, Super-Intense or Super Fierce): Rated for the third levels of the Catfruit Stages, all Crazed Cat Stages, most of the second Awakening Stages, XP Megablitz!, and the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth Cyclone Stages. These are very difficult stages, beware when taking them on. They are balanced around the stage of progression that is from Into the Future Chapters 1 and 2 and around the sub-chapter Jail Break Tunnel, where Ururun Wolf is. After this point Insane stages can be treated as just the average farming stage and not much of a threat.
*Deadly (極ムズ, Goku Muzu, Extreme): Rated for a few levels that have a unique boss that appears only in that level, such as Advent Stages and Maniac Stages, to make few examples, as well as XP Colosseum, the ninth Cyclone Stage and all Stories of Legend stages from Stairway to Darkness onward. They are also not recommended for new players. They usually do not allow continues. Most Deadly stages can only be played after completing Into the Future Chapter 1. They are balanced around Into the Future Chapter 3 to Cats of the Cosmos Chapter 3, and the sub-chapter Silk Road.
*Merciless (超極ムズ, Chō Goku Muzu, Super-Extreme): Rated for Merciless XP!, Growing Strange, the tenth Cyclone Stage, the later Advent Stages and some collaboration-exclusive stages. Talents and Catseyes are often essential.
*Brutal (神ムズ, Kami Muzu, God, Godly or Godlike): The highest difficulty as of . Currently only rated for Reign of the Tyrant's, lnvasion of the Swamplord's final stages and Super Smash Families.
*Demon-grade (鬼級, Oni-kyū), God-grade (神級, Kami-kyū) and Dragon-grade (竜神級, Ryūjin-kyū): A set of difficulties exclusive to the Castle & Dragon Collaboration Event, they are roughly equivalent to Veteran, Expert and Insane, respectively.
==Notes==
The difficulty of stages may vary drastically if the player has certain units. Facing Danger is a good example of this. It is very difficult without any Critical Hit Cats, but when using units like Catornado and Waitress Cat, the stage becomes much easier.
==Trivia==
*The first stage of The Legend Begins, Earthshaker, is the only Stories of Legend stage to be rated as 1★, while Return of Terror through Guardian of the Ranch are the only 2★ Stories of Legend stages.
*Heavenly Tower and Legend Quest are the only maps to have all 12 ★ difficulties at once.
*Under the original difficulty system, Legend Quest and Heavenly Tower were the only Legend Stages to have no difficulty rating.
*Hard+, Hard++ and Hard+++ were renamed to Veteran, Expert and Insane, respectively, with the release of No Plan A, which would have been rated Hard++++ had the naming scheme not been changed.
*Due to the similarities between the japanese names for the Insane and Merciless difficulties (Chō Geki Muzu and Chō Goku Muzu respectively), the stages in NEO Wanwan's Glory and the Malevolent Stages all got mistranslated as Insane stages in BCEN despite being Merciless stages in BCJP.
Category:Game Features