v1.2 Boss Rush EX [Discussion of 1.2 Spoilers]

[nbmudkip]

quick question: has anyone actually managed to get through Boss Rush EX on v1.2 (Holo Team Snakemouth included)? if so, how?

i've owned this game for a while now but finally got around to playing it within the last couple of weeks and completely fell in love. i'm a bit of a completionist, so naturally i've been scampering around in postgame doing everything i can possibly do and honestly having a lot of fun with it overall. then it came to pretty much the last thing i had left to take care of (outside of replaying the whole game with menu codes): the B.O.S.S. program's Boss Rush and Boss Rush EX.

it took me a couple tries to squeak my way through the normal Boss Rush with Holo Snakemouth at the end; that fight really is a superboss, so i had to figure out a strategy where i used minimal items in all the fights leading up to it and had almost my entire inventory left for them at the end. i remember thinking it felt a bit unbalanced to have such a powerful superboss sitting at the end of an endurance-based boss rush like this with a reward locked behind it, especially since for 5 years prior the absence of the Holo Snakemouth fight made said reward considerably easier to earn. (it was especially frustrating to crawl my way through that entire Boss Rush, check for the trophy, realize it hadn't appeared, and then do it all a second time before realizing the trophy flag was bugged as of v1.2 and i literally can't get it until the devs release a patch, but i digress.)

anyway, at the end of all this, i realized Boss Rush EX still remained. luckily there's no special reward locked behind getting this done, it's purely a test of might, but that completionist instinct has been tempting me to go after it anyway. i've thrown myself at it a couple times now and made decent progress, but found myself getting discouraged pretty quickly as i realized that Holo Snakemouth is still going to be waiting at the end, probably with even beefier stats. i don't think i'm going to be able to get all the way through every EX boss without using items with any of the strategies i've tried out thus far, and even if i did i'm STILL not sure if i'd survive EX Holo Snakemouth; even the regular version of their fight at full health and with a decent inventory gives me a run for my money on its own. i kind of wish Holo Snakemouth wasn't included in the boss rushes at all and was just a for-fun separate superboss like Team Slacker; the difficulty spike they add between older versions' Boss Rushes and v1.2 Boss Rushes is a bit obscene.

i did some cursory searching for strategy tips and while i admit i wasn't extremely thorough, i realized i literally cannot find anyone mentioning having beaten Boss Rush EX on v1.2. i'm sure it's possible, but i can't find anyone talking about having done it at all, and i am simply not good enough at strategy to figure it out on my own. so my question is: has anyone managed to pull this off? if you have, do you have any tips or a medal/inventory layout to share?

[Manocheese]

Yes, I beat Boss Rush EX on Hardest mode in v1.2. I used a setup similar to the one I posted here:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/265304-/79985270

In addition to what I described in that topic (which was posted before v1.2 was released), equipping the new Last Wind medal on Vi will increase damage output dramatically. Bring lots of Miracle Shakes, Queen's Dinners, and Berry Smoothies. Try to conserve both your items and your inter-battle heals.

[Songbird]

You can do something similar to the above except with just making Bubble Shield Lite + Kabbu Taunt sustainable, which has several advantages (lower cost to sustain, can debuff 1 enemy defense, doesn't use Vi's action every other turn). However, you will need to run Miracle Matter medals to cover AoE attacks, and have Kabbu be capable of surviving until Leif is revived should he die.

Note that all infinite shielding strategies can be foiled by enemy Kabbu taunting your party, and you need to have some plan to survive those turns (often will require a Miracle Shake.)