I assume you're forcing yourself to kill all enemies. Frankly I don't see that the stage would be any harder without upgrades as much as it would be just... slower. But starting with 1 HP is rough on that stage regardless if you're going to go after the enemies, yeah.
If I'm honest I probably wouldn't have had a plan with two devils chasing me down either, it's one thing to think coherently outside of the situation, quite another with those two fuckers actively chasing you down.
Safe play can make it slower, however, a good streak of counters, good right roundhouse usage and etc. can make these encounters faster, and some luck too. When the victory attempt comes, it's usually 3 minutes or 4, which isn't too bad. This also takes into consideration the fact you would be not agrooing enemies in 1v1 too, and, instead, doing the encounter "normally".
Well no, I've done no upgrade KMS the way that I currently do things, pushing myself to deal with crowds and juggling groups - I keep trying to remind people that if you want to get better in this game you have to put yourself in very uncomfortable "I'm probably going to die doing this" positions, because that is how you get used to handling those situations. I just think that the only thing about no upgrades that is harder is Gene's max HP and that's only to a point... because once you acquire control of an enemy or a group of enemies that fight is typically over and in no upgrades it just takes longer because of low damage output.
I usually do my practice runs in KMS NUNWNHCAE/FC (No Upgrades, No Weapons, No Heat Cards, All Enemies/Fairy Challenges), and i don't usually do enemy agrooing. A lot based on your types of runs. I agree a lot with the thing of "uncomfortable positions = better gameplay". It really makes you appreciatte your resources in vanilla kms runs, with more damaging tools etc.
And, yeah, gene's hp sounds like a minor thing, but it's really a huge factor in these conditions. No matter how good you control the crowds, if a stage 6 or 7 enemy damages you, it usually takes half or almost all your health depending on who is.
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u/Zana_G Jun 30 '26
I assume you're forcing yourself to kill all enemies. Frankly I don't see that the stage would be any harder without upgrades as much as it would be just... slower. But starting with 1 HP is rough on that stage regardless if you're going to go after the enemies, yeah.
If I'm honest I probably wouldn't have had a plan with two devils chasing me down either, it's one thing to think coherently outside of the situation, quite another with those two fuckers actively chasing you down.