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This trophy sounds straightforward. Collect medals to fill up the rank bar and advance to the next rank. In reality, it's way harder! You'll have to Get Good and be at the mercy of RNG. See below.

I found this to be the hardest trophy in the game. Some guides say the difficulty is a 4/10 but I had to try many hours over 2 days just to reach the Colonel rank the first time I played this game. I came close a few times, just needed one more medal of the right color during loop 2. The problem with loop 2 is that enemy bullets are faster, enemies drop revenge bullets when killed, and so makes surviving long enough very challenging. To me, I rate it a 6/10.

The randomness of the enemy type spawns, boss attack patterns (MK1, MK2 or MK3) weapon drops and after boss perks make the run unpredictable and even more challenging. Not to mention the bullet hell gameplay you need to be good at dodging.

If you haven't gone through the in-game tutorial, here's some basic info.
- The Square button fires bullets (yellow)
- The Cross button fires energy (blue bullets)
- The Circle button fires rockets/missiles
- The Triangle button unleashes the ships special ability (which recharges over time)

Each of the above weapons deal different amounts of damage to enemy shields and armor. Generally, bullet is the preferred all round weapon of choice since it's hard to tell which enemies have shields or armor.

While there are 3 ships, only the Nakamura Defender ship, the one piloted by Thoraxx is most useful since its special ability fires a barrage or rockets. Each loop consists of 6 levels and bosses, then you repeat the loop but with more enemies, faster enemy bullets and revenge bullets.

Sometimes during a level, a transport ship type will carry a crate and if you shoot it, will drop a random weapon. There are some weapons I find useful. These are the ones I gravitate to:
- For bullets, I choose either Metal Storm, Minigun or Boomer. Metal Storm is preferred since it automatically fires to the nearest enemy and no aiming is required. Boomer does more damage per shot but needs to be fired head on. If you don't get the above, Flakk, Sprayer or Bouncer is decent too.
- For energy weapons, I stick to the starting default or either use Randomizer or Needle.
- For rockets, I have no preference. The Bull hammer is quite good as it fires a shot which explodes into shrapnels nearby which then explodes again (Good for bosses when they are not moving). I would choose Waves next. It makes like a barrage sinusoidal missile pattern. Bloodhound homes in on enemies. Hornet's Nest does a lot of damage too but fires slowly. I don't really like Nuke Hammer since the projectile is too slow and takes too long to fire.

Some weapons should be avoided since their firing pattern makes them hard to use (like Sidewave, Omnigun).

After the boss fight, you get to choose a perk, like Bullet Maniac (10% extra damage for bullets). These perks are also randomized and different for each playthrough (see the trend here?!). I generally go for the following perks:
- Bullet Maniac or Bullseye (or energy or rocket equivalent)
- Cursed Warp Drive - this gives you an extra bossless level to try and get medals. Super useful
- Support drones (bullet, energy or rockets)
- Extra missiles during barrage
- Anger management which occasionally fires bullets around you
- Ship Freak: Faster ship movement
- Increase grazing radius

The kicker for this trophy is you need to collect the correct colored medals to fill up the bar at the bottom middle of your screen - blue, green, orange, purple, red and grey/silver. The problem is that enemies will drop random colored medals or not at all! Moreover, at the end of the boss fight when the boss explodes, a flurry of medals quickly spreads out from the center. Before that you should take note of the colors you're missing and try to make a dash for the ones you need. Easier said then done since your ship will not move fast enough to catch all of them. I think the most is 3 and hopefully you're lucky enough to have the ones you need.

If you already have a colored medal in the bar, it is no use collecting the same one again until the bar is reset when all colors are filled. Once a bar is filled, you will advance to the next rank and the bar will be emptied. Although you won't get notified of your rank until after the level, for the purpose of the trophy, it will count. You can see the Colonel Trophy pop right after the bar is filled.

It is possible to get the Colonel rank in loop 1, but you will undoubtedly need Cursed Warp Drive as your first perk and some luck in getting the correct colored medals (I managed this on my PS5 version). The Colonel rank is the 7th rank needed, after Major, Captain, Lieutenant, Sergeant, Corporal, Private and Recruit.

I've done this multiple times now on the NA/EU PS4/PS5 versions. As I got better, especially against the boss fights, I was able to survive longer in loop 2 and beyond.

Good luck! 😄