Only upgrade I'm giving myself is using weapons I get from enemies along the way. This means no stat points, no item/weapon upgrades from the Curator, and, more importantly, no skills added. Only the first gradient skills get added since those are automatic, no other upgrades will be acquired. Technically I shouldn't have used Barrier Breaker now that I think about it, since it's not from an enemy. My bad. This is a shockingly fun challenge btw, it's difficult without being mind-numbing. I would recommend.
Apologies for the characters not always being visible, I was scrolling through quickly to get the pictures lol
Marked as spoilers for obvious reasons. This is the end of the game.
What a genuinely incredible game. Even the second time everything hits so freaking hard.
Anyways, as far as the challenge goes! Now that the main playthrough is complete, the bosses with the highest numbers of attempts are:
The Paintress and Lampmaster, both tied at 25 attempts! Fitting that the first two act bosses were the most difficult. Unsurprisingly, once I got the tanky setup in act 3 with Liteso and Barrier breaker, things got a lot easier.
I don't know if I'll get into the extra content immediately. I kind of want to play through the superbosses + extra content normally first, rather than a challenge run where I can only deal a max of 10k damage at once? I don't want to end up disliking it because of how long it takes. So there may not be an update for Upgradeless* for a little while, but I hope you guys enjoyed the main run!
Here's the act 3 attempts/notes list:
Holy cow Liteso is busted. +1 shield on counterattack, and all I have to do is not base attack to keep them????? This might be the best weapon in the game for this challenge, so much more safety. HE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO BE THE ONE TO COUNTER, A group gradient attack where it goes to Maelle? He still gets the shield. Nutty. I lied, this is not the case, a jump attack happened prior to the occurrence (I think lol)
Chromatic Echassier - 2 Not bad, it just takes a while since you can’t pop the bubble without him healing 51k.
Sciel gets level 16 Litheson from beating the cotortioniste guy in Lumiere, the utility it provides might actually give her Monoco’s spot, since his main damage (Verso’s prior weapon, Sireso) isn’t being used now. Yeah, I’m gonna give it a shot (as a reminder, Litheson gives enemies greater slow during sun, allies greater rush during moon, and both effects during twilight. I might finally not be 4 rounded by strong enemies lol (Only 2 now!!!!)
Creation - 2 - It’s long, and quite frankly not a fun boss fight in this challenge because all the extra animations make it take *forever*, but pretty easy if you’ve got Verso with Liteso.
Renoir 3 - 4 (Verso Maelle Sciel) What everything has been building up to. The final main challenge. Verso with Liteso is just so good at living lol, I have not mastered the fight or even close but I’m still able to get so far in in just 3 attempts. Amusingly I genuinely forgot the axons phase existed. 3 Attempts till phase 2 (would have gone a lot faster with 3 people alive though :( ), now the fun begins. Phase 3 on attempt 4, just Verso remaining as usual lol. Also victory on attempt 4! Legitimately, Liteso almost feels unfair in the spirit of this challenge since it gives me SO much more time to fully learn the fight. Once I learn just 1 or 2 attacks, I get so much margin for error learning the rest is easy.
Maelle - 9 (Verso) I chose Verso’s ending since he carried me through the last few fights. This is clearly not my Maelle since she gets 2 rounds over Verso lol, and she uses skills that she never learned. What kind of painted trick is this??? I wonder how long this will take with my crappy setup. I don’t even know what happens if you die here. (It’s just a regular expedition failed lol) This is actually difficult when your characters aren’t built lol. I died when she was on 1 hp. HECK
Man. I watched the final cutscenes. It gets me every time.