The mini-games really are unfair except for one, but even if you lose, you still get a stat buff, depending on which one you played. That can be helpful for bosses, including the boss rush outside of expert difficulty.

I never beat the volleyball one, no matter what I tried, Lily would just always dash when on her side then do her upward attack, no matter how hard I try to attack her to prevent her to move.

The maze one, I almost beat it. You have to use the doors to stun/push the others so that you can navigate around.

The race one, I managed to beat it once. You basically want to trigger the traps and lightning bolts while Lily is close by, so that she gets hit by it. The race is really all about the final sprint where you just mash the dash.

The only one that I can beat consistently to get the full buff from is the Tetris one. Clear a line with a bomb while making sure Lily is close by while you are away. Don't bother fighting her heads on.

Tl;dr, don't bother too much about winning the mini-games, you can still have a buff for bosses that you struggle against.

Originally posted by Lulzaur:

The mini-games really are unfair except for one, but even if you lose, you still get a stat buff, depending on which one you played. That can be helpful for bosses, including the boss rush outside of expert difficulty.

I never beat the volleyball one, no matter what I tried, Lily would just always dash when on her side then do her upward attack, no matter how hard I try to attack her to prevent her to move.

The maze one, I almost beat it. You have to use the doors to stun/push the others so that you can navigate around.

The race one, I managed to beat it once. You basically want to trigger the traps and lightning bolts while Lily is close by, so that she gets hit by it. The race is really all about the final sprint where you just mash the dash.

The only one that I can beat consistently to get the full buff from is the Tetris one. Clear a line with a bomb while making sure Lily is close by while you are away. Don't bother fighting her heads on.

Tl;dr, don't bother too much about winning the mini-games, you can still have a buff for bosses that you struggle against.

The race I just managed, and yeah stay close till tornados, in which you want to bu as high up as you can. Then at the last one, use ultimate to slow time and just mad dash, the lunge ult may be faster.
That said so all it is, is buying a buff for the next 600, which is pretty much just for boss rushes? In other words if you don't save the coins your at a disadvantage in boss rushes? And means that you shouldn't save after boss rushes?

It's not really required for boss rushes, but it does help on the earlier bosses. It can be used during the playthrough as well.

The thing to keep in mind for the boss rush when going for the 50* is that the buffs seem to count as item use, so you don't get the extra star for no item in a fight on Expert.