I recently have been going through the game trying to rely on my fists alone. Of course, there are a few parts where this isn't possible, most notably with dogs and the heavyset gents, but for the most part, I get through quite well.

I've noticed that the amount of punches required to take out a mounted guy on the ground sometimes varies between as little as two and as much as six. I think I have actually found that if you click the left mouse button in a quick enough 2-click pattern, two punches is all that is needed.

I'm curious if anyone else has noticed this? Or perhaps the game is getting to me more than I thought?

Actually, I found in my game that wearing the Tony mask results in yours truly turning into a bare knuckle boxing champ, since people die immediately once kinghit. I found this kinda spoiled the challenge... so I only ended up using the mask once. Never noticed the difference in execution speed since people always were killed once knocked down. Maybe I should try that again as well...

The Tony mask also allows you to punch dogs, I believe. But I do know that using Carl and the drill on fallen enemies as much as possible gives you insanely high scores and you can easily get A+ in many missions that way.

Can 100% confirm that the Tony mask allows one to punch dogs to death, both pre and post patch. Perhaps it is just me, but I can't help but sometimes feel as though the mask is not functioning as intended. Sure, the executions are swift, but if you kill in one punch, doesn't that sort of mute the point? Save for the finishing off those knocked down by doors or throws, of course, but it still sort of makes some stages feel like speedruns, and maybe even ridiculously easy.

Of course, one could simply dismiss this by coming to the conclusion that the mask, which is a tiger, gives you "claws", and could therefore have the player functioning like a tiger.

It's a persistent 5600 points pre-patch with the drill. I'm pretty sure it never degrades. Not sure if they fixed that.

Edit: Just tried it out, drill still gives 5600 consistently. At the moment that makes the mask a no brainer if you are going for A+

Exactly desnocross, I felt that the mask was overpowered compared to what the powerup description was.

Anyway, I dl'ed the post-patch installer, and did repeated runs for a few levels. I conclude that my above theory about guaranteeing a 2-hit execution using clicking patterns is incorrect; the number of hits required seems largely randomised. This is a bit annoying, but I guess as for a melee challenge, it's always better to use a weapon when executing since it is generally faster, and provides more points anyway.

And yeah, using Carl is crazy, since on top of gaining a load of extra points from executions, wielding the drill functions the same as fists, so again, more points are awarded.

I agree wholeheartedly that Carl is quite an amazing mask, finding out a way to use it to A+ Clean Hit was one of my most satisfying experiences in Hotline Miami.