Difficulties (Variance)

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Removed difficulty mechanics

Since players start with no Shields in the standard difficulty, the hard mode's starting Shield count is unaffected.
Gun damage, player shape & collision, easy mode pixel HP, powerup strength, and medal times are not directly affected anymore.
New attacks in the hard mode do not operate on separate timers.
All difficulty levels have time bombs and curse attacks.

Players start with 6 Damage pickups and 1 Shield.
Enemy attacks are significantly easier to avoid, with large openings between individual bullets and between groups of attacks.
Containers with defensive active items (a la ones found in Monarch) appear in certain stages.
Some powerups come in larger numbers.
Some powerup drops have additional, basic powerups to form triplets of choices.
This is the only difficulty level in Variance where reminders to use the Focus control can appear.
Co-op respawn pods spawn five seconds earlier.

Bosses have dulled and/or pastel new color schemes, purely in the style of Shiny Pokémon.
Bosses are described as weaker and/or friendlier, and some speech is changed to keep them in-character.

Enemy pixels and parts have slightly more HP.
Enemy attacks are faster and more advanced, to increase both the mechanical and conceptual difficulty of avoiding them.
Shield containers do not spawn.
Cursed powerups do not appear. The respective curses are fired as if they were regular attacks.
Certain strong and/or basic powerups are replaced with advanced counterparts; simple decreases in numbers are rare.
Co-op respawn pods take ten more seconds to spawn.
As an unusual act of mercy, speedruns use triple the total medal times.

Player 1 is colored indigo, as a reference to the ship's appearance as a stylized logo.
Player 2 is colored pink, as a callback to beta versions of Redux's co-op.
To avoid confusion with Player 2's attacks, no harmful bullets are pink.
There is no enemy speech for when players collide with pixels or shoot protected cores.
Soundtracks appearing in Crusade or Invasion are replaced with their Nightmare versions.
Soundtracks with authorial aesthetics prior to Chippy's commercial release are given alternative pitches and tempos.
Bosses have vivid and/or intimidating new color schemes, purely in the style of Shiny Pokémon.
Bosses are described as stronger and/or unfriendlier, and some speech is changed to keep them in-character.