>>11805817
Yeah, I just got done replaying it for the first time in years and went through a similar problem during my playthrough. It's especially annoying because in hindsight, the final level really isn't all that difficult in most regards, the enemy spam is just really bad there to a point where you'd want all the upgrades to make it more bearable.

Still love the game to bits though. There's a certain charm to it that I feel most of the later games lack.