While knowing wave layouts is vital for a truly authoritative 1CC, I wouldn't call any of them unfair from basic survival perspective. I was going for sub-40min clears, a couple years back - just missed both, though I learned a lot. TNWA's the kind of game I'll be replaying until I fall off my chair, so I'll get 'em eventually. I suspect a real killer could get sub-35, but that would be mad murder machining on a whole other echelon.Sumez wrote:Credit fed through Hard mode, and this is gonna sound incredibly scrubby, and if I press on and improve, I'll probably have to eat my words... But TNWA really feels balanced around Normal mode. Like they'd experimented with different enemy constellations and taken out the ones they felt were too bullshitty, but then left those in for the Hard mode. Some enemy spawns are just completely unfair if you don't know exactly what is coming up.
The added difficulty is very frontloaded though, with stage 2-5 especially being notably harder, which in turns gives me the biggest trouble with the last two, as they are already challenging on Normal. Jubei is absurd on hard mode, just as I'd finally got him down reliably, I'm back to zero with this mode. Even if I could get there with full health, I'm not sure how to consistently survive.
Silverman however is very similar on Hard, but faces you with some slightly tougher crowds which makes the fight a little more entertaining, so that is cool.
Interestingly, stages 6 and 7 aren't very different on Hard. You'll face a bunch more enemies in the st6 hallway, but they didn't give me any additional trouble. The biggest difference IMO comes from the boss having a tad more health. Since you are fighting Phobos & Deimos on their own, that fight otherwise plays out identically to Normal (unlike Gecko, who feels more aggressive, though I might be wrong).
St7 felt almost identical to Normal, which was a big surprise! One you've survived the initial mortar attack, the rest of it was smooth sailing. A few enemy waves had a couple of added guys in the end (the pumas right before the boss caught me by surprise), but usually they won't pose any additional threat at all. Like the two pointless roombas showing up after you're done throwing golems around.
Even the boss fight seemed identical to me, with the same enemy constellations spawning next to Zelos.
Stage 8 actually felt easier to me on Hard, especially the first part. Made it to the hangar room almost without taking damage.
A massive difference comes up when you reach the healing item though, and you better pray that you haven't taken any notable damage up to this point. Because BIL's advice of leaving it on screen really comes in handy here, as that's where you suddenly run into an absurd enemy wave that seems to last forever. This is an absolutely insane addition that really makes this worthy of being the final stage. But holy hell, it's bordering on BS
Everything after that is completely identical to Normal mode, though. Except you get a full heal before the final boss, instead of just a large heal.
In fact, it seems like you occasionally get larger healing items on Hard than you do on Normal, to counteract some of the tougher encounters. Or maybe there's something else influencing which ones you get?
Anyway, the handful of spots where I'm on pre-emptive alert (5.2/Ninja Room comes to mind) were easy to muddle through (I did a lot of muddling, returning after half a decade or so), but fiendishly tricky to demolish without suffering backstabs, pincers and all sorts of other bad shit. C'est la TNWA. You can take the edge off its nastiest waves via memo, but the advantage will only go so far.
So I could see players going for their first clear finding Hard much more intimidating. Likewise, if Hangar's giving you such a rough time, even with the HP trick, I would assume you're simply still learning (it's an onslaught, to be sure). By way of illustration: my last recorded Ninja Hangar attempt. Early on, I absolutely eat shit versus Headless, losing half my lifebar. By the end, I'm completely dominating that same enemy, having taken only a couple hits in between. Why the sudden improvement?
Well, this was done after many hours in Once Again, where Hover Dive's range is nerfed. Happily, Boost/Ram's is buffed, giving you a comparably good way to bypass Headless's nasty grapple. Plus, you have EX Nunchaku to guard-crush them, and probably more things I'm forgetting. So once I'd gotten back into TNWA mode, all was good. Would probably have died otherwise.
TLDR: Keep on keepin' on.
As far as I know, HP restores scale to your own remaining lifebar. I remember st2's getting bigger or smaller depending on my current status.