SS Maria:

I spent another $75 to get another handful of SS Memoria recruits.  This time my luck wasn't so good.  I wouldn't say it was horrible, but not the lucky streak I'd been getting recently.  I got the first limit break for fallen angel Chie, Santa Misato, Tuxedo Tama, thunder Byakko, the second limit break for swimsuit Mari, and an all new SS Memoria, paladin Maria.

Until now I've never gotten an SS version of Maria.  I don't much like the Italian nun, so it wasn't a big deal that I never got her, but I'm so close to having a full SS Memoria collection of all the girls that now I actually do want seraphim like her.  I'm down to not having only Kanata and Satomi at this point, so 48/50 possible SS girls.  What a beautiful trophy case a full collection would make.  And paladin Maria is actually quite pretty, unlike her base form.

Santa Misato is in my ice squad, datenshi Chie is in my dark squad, and swimsuit Mari is in my anachrony backup squad, so getting limit breaks for them is genuinely useful.  All of my squads are now over 20k rating, which you'd think would be strong enough, but I still doubt I could beat Apophis.  After all, I couldn't even beat the secret event boss this time.  Someday I'll come back and hunt it down, when I'm stronger, but it's certainly frustrating how I've spent this much money and the game still tells me I'm too weak.  What more do they want from me? >.<.

One of the reasons I'm too weak is simple -- I haven't gained all the experience necessary to take advantage of the level cap rising by 10 for all my characters at the start of Chapter 5.  I think things will be a lot easier once I'm the level the game assumes I should be.  Also, I've been recruiting new SS Memoria at such a rapid pace, a large number of them haven't gained their Memoria levels.  So that's 20 extra levels I'm leaving on the table.  Obviously I can't beat special bosses like that.