Best attempt at this mode so far. About a 17 stage improvement from my last attempt. One of the main things that helped was focusing on powering up my blitz attack (flying kick) whenever possible and the biggest change was using the blood thirsty perk. This disables healing items but allows you to regenerate health when damaging enemies. It really works well for aggressive playing. I will experiment with more characters , set ups and continue trying to beat this score when I fuck around. I am also bouncing between this and the new MANIA + difficulty in the story mode.
I edited out a pause about 30 something minutes in. I paused the game for a few minutes. For some reason this run didnt post to the online leaderboard. I had the same issue when I completed God Hard difficulty in Vanquish for the Xbox One. The number 1 player currently made it to Stage 50. I think I can definately improve fairly easily.