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Touhou Touhou series

Niektory

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We should actually move this discussion to its own thread in the weaboo forum, I think.
Good idea, we could use a Touhou thread anyway.

And now that we have one, why not list our favourites? Mine are, in no particular order:
- Perfect Cherry Blossom - easy to learn, hard to master; fun scoring system that rewards grazing; great bosses, music etc.
- Subterranean Animism - more difficult; very diverse playable characters; another grazing-focused scoring system; great bosses, music etc.
- Shoot the Bullet - innovative and fun gameplay; spellcard practice cranked up to eleven

I always thought the easymode character was SakuyA though.
She's good too, but I found Reimu's long deathbomb window very helpful when I was starting out.

I feel like that deathbomb window creates bad habits in new players. On the other hand, Sakuya gets 4 bombs, which encourages their liberal use - a very good habit, and not so easy to get into for some people (like myself). Also, a lot of the more difficult stuff in PCB becomes even more so when you add the requirement of actually staying under the boss in order to damage it. New players will have their hands full just dodging.
The way I see it, you can't learn the patterns if you're bombing them. And when you're new you don't know where the good places to bomb are yet. Deathbombs let you improvise better. And Reimu has a homing option too, although weaker.

Don't worry too much about point items, you only need 250-ish before Ran to reach the 500 threshold, I don't think 800 is reachable. Aim to reach the boss without losing a life, I didn't beat her until I could do that. I found Chen to be pretty fun, I guess you haven't figured out her last attack yet. :)

You can actually reach over 800 if you gather everything, but fuck me if I'm going to do that in the second part of that stage. All those asshole aimed-bullet fairies can go to hell. For Chen, it's her nonspell that's actually difficult for me, I have trouble moving through fast, small bullets for whatever reason. Her first spell is kind of misleading as well, spent some time dying stupidly before I got over just trying to stream it mindlessly.
Are you sure? I watched one of my replays and I had 721 at the end, and that's close to the max I think. I only let 2 point fairies escape and no more than 5 point items dropped off the screen. In some stages you get extra enemies if you defeat the midboss quickly enough, I'm not sure if that's the case here. I wasn't able to do so.
 

Cowboy Moment

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We should actually move this discussion to its own thread in the weaboo forum, I think.
Good idea, we could use a Touhou thread anyway.

And now that we have one, why not list our favourites? Mine are, in no particular order:
- Perfect Cherry Blossom - easy to learn, hard to master; fun scoring system that rewards grazing; great bosses, music etc.
- Subterranean Animism - more difficult; very diverse playable characters; another grazing-focused scoring system; great bosses, music etc.
- Shoot the Bullet - innovative and fun gameplay; spellcard practice cranked up to eleven

Honestly, I've only really gotten into shmups after buying Crimzon Clover shortly after Christmas (because Durante said it was the best game of 2014, incidentally), and found Touhou while trying to explore the genre after 1CCing novice mode in that game (Crimzon Clover 1CC on Arcade Mode is something on my todo list still). Since then I 1CCd PCB and IN on Normal, am pretty close in MoF (need to figure out some of Kanako's attacks), and cannot for the life of me make any real progress in EoSD. I watched a playthrough of SA, am vaguely aware that it and UFO are considered the most difficult. I am aware that some of the non-mainline games aren't typical shmups, that Phantasmagoria of Flower View is a vs game for example, but haven't tried any of them.

That said, from what I've played, PCB seems like the most well-rounded game, with a nice difficulty curve, good music, and cool bosses which are fun to fight. I actually really like EoSD as well, but I'm terrible at it, I die a million clip deaths every time I attempt a 1CC there - I think I'd even like it more than PCB if it weren't so annoying about certain things (like 2 lives in practice mode, no hitbox indicator, too much power item collection, etc).

I always thought the easymode character was SakuyA though.
She's good too, but I found Reimu's long deathbomb window very helpful when I was starting out.

I feel like that deathbomb window creates bad habits in new players. On the other hand, Sakuya gets 4 bombs, which encourages their liberal use - a very good habit, and not so easy to get into for some people (like myself). Also, a lot of the more difficult stuff in PCB becomes even more so when you add the requirement of actually staying under the boss in order to damage it. New players will have their hands full just dodging.
The way I see it, you can't learn the patterns if you're bombing them. And when you're new you don't know where the good places to bomb are yet. Deathbombs let you improvise better. And Reimu has a homing option too, although weaker.

I definitely think relying on deathbombs is a bad habit to form, the window for it seems too small (Imperishable Night aside) to pull off consistently. It's true that with the amount of resources you get in PCB, you can attempt to simply bomb everything, but I doubt new players would get that idea. Intuitively, you try to get through patterns, and bomb when you feel overwhelmed - even if you get into a habit of bombing a particular one, you will eventually want to progress beyond it in order to 1CC the game. I still think it's better to bomb more rather than less. Especially in PCB, where bosses past Stage 3 don't really hand you any freebies.

Don't worry too much about point items, you only need 250-ish before Ran to reach the 500 threshold, I don't think 800 is reachable. Aim to reach the boss without losing a life, I didn't beat her until I could do that. I found Chen to be pretty fun, I guess you haven't figured out her last attack yet. :)

You can actually reach over 800 if you gather everything, but fuck me if I'm going to do that in the second part of that stage. All those asshole aimed-bullet fairies can go to hell. For Chen, it's her nonspell that's actually difficult for me, I have trouble moving through fast, small bullets for whatever reason. Her first spell is kind of misleading as well, spent some time dying stupidly before I got over just trying to stream it mindlessly.
Are you sure? I watched one of my replays and I had 721 at the end, and that's close to the max I think. I only let 2 point fairies escape and no more than 5 point items dropped off the screen. In some stages you get extra enemies if you defeat the midboss quickly enough, I'm not sure if that's the case here. I wasn't able to do so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7-SZ-3m1Sw - this guy has 817 at the end.
 
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Ilya

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I've played Perfect Cherry Blossom, Subterranean Asimism, UFO, Ten Desires and EotSD. Couldn't pass any of them :thumbsup:

I ended up becoming one of those fags who listen to the music but never play the games.
 

Niektory

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Honestly, I've only really gotten into shmups after buying Crimzon Clover shortly after Christmas (because Durante said it was the best game of 2014, incidentally), and found Touhou while trying to explore the genre after 1CCing novice mode in that game (Crimzon Clover 1CC on Arcade Mode is something on my todo list still). Since then I 1CCd PCB and IN on Normal, am pretty close in MoF (need to figure out some of Kanako's attacks), and cannot for the life of me make any real progress in EoSD. I watched a playthrough of SA, am vaguely aware that it and UFO are considered the most difficult. I am aware that some of the non-mainline games aren't typical shmups, that Phantasmagoria of Flower View is a vs game for example, but haven't tried any of them.

That said, from what I've played, PCB seems like the most well-rounded game, with a nice difficulty curve, good music, and cool bosses which are fun to fight. I actually really like EoSD as well, but I'm terrible at it, I die a million clip deaths every time I attempt a 1CC there - I think I'd even like it more than PCB if it weren't so annoying about certain things (like 2 lives in practice mode, no hitbox indicator, too much power item collection, etc).
I'm a huge fan of the series, as I'm sure you can tell. Other SHMUPs don't really do it for me. I think what I like in Touhou are super-elaborate patterns, relatively forgiving mechanics (I don't play many fast-paced action games), fantastic music and clean, not overly flashy visuals. Plus I'm a sucker for traditional Japanese themed stuff.

EoSD is the first Windows game in the series, and it's a little less polished and simpler (which doesn't mean easier) from the following games. Still very fun though. Beat it on easy first, if only to witness the game mocking you for it. And friendly advice: don't try the extra stage unless you're ready for a REAL challenge.

What's a clip death, BTW?

Oh, I see. They drop more point items when you're at full power. I was convinced they only dropped more cherry items. This also applies to the boss fight. Which means you need a near-perfect run to reach 800. If my math is correct at most 1, maybe 2 deaths. And if you can do that you obviously don't need the extra life (except for the score bonus).
 

Cowboy Moment

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"Clip death" is a piece of jargon I picked up on some shmup fora, it's basically when you barely get hit by something you thought you were clear of. The most rage-inducing kind of death, in essence, and you can't even bomb it in most cases, because you don't expect to get hit. This is how 90% of my deaths in EoSD go, I expect to be safe, and die. I've read that the game has different hitboxes for some types of bullets, which would explain some of it. Still, it boggles the mind a bit. I even have trouble with the 4th Stage boss in EoSD, whereas I can near perfect Marisa in IN and Aya in MoF, both of whom are way more difficult. I just don't get it.
 

Monstrous Bat

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Holy shit, we have a Touhou thread prefix on Codex? Seriously? :lol:

My favorite Touhou is actually Mountain of Faith. It had some really great danmaku designs (Kanako's waterfall spellcard is my favorite in the entire series) and I really liked Sanae's theme. Then again, MoF was my first Lunatic clear so it's only natural that it would have a special place in my heart. EoSD, StB and DS are probably better for improving your skills though.
 

Cowboy Moment

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Beat PCB Extra, uff. Kind of bumbled my way through it, still don't have a very good handle on the last four spellcards. The Chen one doesn't seem too bad, just a question of getting used to tracking Chen with my peripheral vision, I think. The one with returning bullets seems really hard, but I haven't even tried learning it, just bombed right through. The survival one seems formulaic, but it's hard to practice because it's so far into the fight, and apparently I'm really bad at moving through slow, predictable bullet streams. Last one doesn't seem like it needs any specific practice, just read and dodge.

For the time, being, I'll move to 1CCing MoF Normal, and then probably SA.
 

Cowboy Moment

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SA sucks. Maybe it's because I've been playing Cave or Cave-like arcade shmups recently, but it's way too annoying in a lot of small ways. ZUN completely decoupled scoring from getting resources, which means that there's literally no reason to even kill enemies most of the time, much less actually leave the bottom of the screen. Don't even need it to collect power items, just graze some bullets and voila, instant collection of everything. I spend like half of stage 5 not shooting, just occasionally sidestepping all the shit aimed at me. The Stage 2 boss is the most annoying thing in the world, it's basically like the goal was to make it as difficult to actually attack as possible. And the Stage 5 boss has like two spellcards which are similar. You know the design's shit when the preferable way of dealing with an attack is to time it out. And the stage design isn't that good overall either.

I'll stick with it out of completionism, but can't see myself bothering with higher difficulties in the future.
 

Niektory

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ZUN completely decoupled scoring from getting resources, which means that there's literally no reason to even kill enemies most of the time, much less actually leave the bottom of the screen. Don't even need it to collect power items, just graze some bullets and voila, instant collection of everything. I spend like half of stage 5 not shooting, just occasionally sidestepping all the shit aimed at me.
Well... You can play this way if you don't care about your score at all, but then no wonder you don't like it. You're avoiding a big part of the game. Have some balls, try to score as high as you can, you'll have a lot more fun.
The Stage 2 boss is the most annoying thing in the world, it's basically like the goal was to make it as difficult to actually attack as possible.
It's not as difficult as it seems at first. You just need to lead her attacks properly.
You know the design's shit when the preferable way of dealing with an attack is to time it out.
How so? Clearing attacks in time awards you life fragments (unless you die in the process). Definitely worth the effort even if you ignore scoring.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Ah man, I haven't played these in along time.

I think my favorite to play is EOSD. The controls are janky but it's the only I liked enough to 1CC on Hard with default lives without it feeling difficult; I enjoyed it so much. I find one of the easier ones on hard. I mean not Mountain of Faith easy but pretty easy. But I'm just good with the non-visible hit-box like that. I like the kind of difficult in EOSD. Non of it is bullshit, it's just genuinely kind of difficult. Just think about China's boss attacks on Lunatic/Hard, they're really something. I also like the inventive extra stage attacks.

I also like it because it's very... slow. It feels different to a Cave shooter or Crimzon Clover. More modern Touhous are faster but I don't like that as much.

Other than EOSD I like PCB, Mystic Square, Lotus Land and Mountain of Faith for the music. SA is pretty fun too. I also have a soft spot for IN's weird mechanics.

I never got too into them though, so I only beat most of them on hard, and none on Lunatic. I am not that good/patient.
 

Cowboy Moment

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ZUN completely decoupled scoring from getting resources, which means that there's literally no reason to even kill enemies most of the time, much less actually leave the bottom of the screen. Don't even need it to collect power items, just graze some bullets and voila, instant collection of everything. I spend like half of stage 5 not shooting, just occasionally sidestepping all the shit aimed at me.
Well... You can play this way if you don't care about your score at all, but then no wonder you don't like it. You're avoiding a big part of the game. Have some balls, try to score as high as you can, you'll have a lot more fun.

I wasn't really scoring in previous Touhou games either, but those actually gave me other reasons to kill enemies and play a bit more aggressively, including figuring out when it's safe to collect items up top, and so forth. This is because, (similar to arcade games) they awarded extends either directly for score, or for doing stuff you'd normally want to do while scoring, like collecting point items in PCB and IN.

For instance, if you just stay at the bottom in MoF, you probably won't even get the 80M extend, and you definitely won't get the 150M one without at least trying to keep your point item value up throughout the first few stages. As it happens, trying to do this also makes those stages more fun, as they're clearly designed with this in mind.

The one exception is EoSD, where you'll get all the score extends without even trying. But then again, EoSD has a lot of enemies who keep attacking while on screen, and also a lot of enemies whom you can stop from attacking by killing them fast enough. Both of which SA is in dire need of. I mean, take all those wisps in Stage 5, what in the world is the point of attacking them if you don't care about score? Result is the same if you don't do anything, or even better in some cases. To me, those are at most "get some free power items here if you need any".

I feel like a well designed "shooting game" should give you an intrinsic reason to, well, shoot things.

The Stage 2 boss is the most annoying thing in the world, it's basically like the goal was to make it as difficult to actually attack as possible.
It's not as difficult as it seems at first. You just need to lead her attacks properly.

It's not too difficult (although more difficult than any other stage 2 boss I've seen), just annoying. I honestly don't like attacks that force you to not attack the boss for extended periods of time, survival spellcards excepted.

You know the design's shit when the preferable way of dealing with an attack is to time it out.
How so? Clearing attacks in time awards you life fragments (unless you die in the process). Definitely worth the effort even if you ignore scoring.

I really don't like boss patterns that make it difficult to attack them. Maybe I'm now spoiled by arcade games which usually go out of their way to give bosses huge hitboxes, but I've never really found chasing the boss around with a straight shot type to be very fun in Touhou games. And in Orin's case, the spellcard is just not fun to play for me. It's not especially difficult in and out of itself, I can run circles around hereforever with little effort. It's only when I want to attack that I suddenly find myself in micrododging hell. It also seems like you'd want to lead the fairies somewhere, but they move so fucking slowly, you end up timing the card out unintentionally like half the time.

Ah man, I haven't played these in along time.

I think my favorite to play is EOSD. The controls are janky but it's the only I liked enough to 1CC on Hard with default lives without it feeling difficult; I enjoyed it so much. I find one of the easier ones on hard. I mean not Mountain of Faith easy but pretty easy. But I'm just good with the non-visible hit-box like that. I like the kind of difficult in EOSD. Non of it is bullshit, it's just genuinely kind of difficult. Just think about China's boss attacks on Lunatic/Hard, they're really something. I also like the inventive extra stage attacks.

I also like it because it's very... slow. It feels different to a Cave shooter or Crimzon Clover. More modern Touhous are faster but I don't like that as much.

Other than EOSD I like PCB, Mystic Square, Lotus Land and Mountain of Faith for the music. SA is pretty fun too. I also have a soft spot for IN's weird mechanics.

I never got too into them though, so I only beat most of them on hard, and none on Lunatic. I am not that good/patient.

I can't play EoSD. Well, I've cleared it on Normal, but I doubt I'm going to go much farther. For one, I have a lot of technical problems with it, framerate drops in windowed mode, crashed in fullscreen mode, you name it. But even when it works fine, the hitboxes in that game wreck me. Way too many moments when my intuition tells me I'm perfectly safe, and then I die.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
All I can say is that you get used to it.
And there's a patch that fixes the janky controls and makes the hitbox on your ship visible. I don't consider that the EOSD experience, I think it was designed with invisible hitbox in mind.
 

Niektory

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For instance, if you just stay at the bottom in MoF, you probably won't even get the 80M extend, and you definitely won't get the 150M one without at least trying to keep your point item value up throughout the first few stages. As it happens, trying to do this also makes those stages more fun, as they're clearly designed with this in mind.
Just tried it on normal out of curiosity. Stayed at the bottom the whole game. Missed a lot of items. Got 93M at the end of stage 5, 114M before Kanako.

I mean, take all those wisps in Stage 5, what in the world is the point of attacking them if you don't care about score? Result is the same if you don't do anything, or even better in some cases. To me, those are at most "get some free power items here if you need any".

I feel like a well designed "shooting game" should give you an intrinsic reason to, well, shoot things.
How about challenge? Satisfaction? Fun? I find it bizarre that you absolutely need a carrot on a stick for everything in the game, and if it happens to be something you don't really need to beat it, it's suddenly shit and not worth doing.

I do see your point, I just don't agree it's something that makes the game significantly worse.

It's not as difficult as it seems at first. You just need to lead her attacks properly.

It's not too difficult (although more difficult than any other stage 2 boss I've seen), just annoying. I honestly don't like attacks that force you to not attack the boss for extended periods of time, survival spellcards excepted.
They don't. They trick you into running away but it's completely unnecessary. Check my replay to see what I mean, if you want.

BTW, fun fact: I only today found out you can speed up replays by holding Ctrl. Ugh.

I really don't like boss patterns that make it difficult to attack them. Maybe I'm now spoiled by arcade games which usually go out of their way to give bosses huge hitboxes, but I've never really found chasing the boss around with a straight shot type to be very fun in Touhou games.
That's really too bad. It is fun for me. I like when the game forces me to find a good position to attack and not just passively dodge, it adds another layer to gameplay.

And in Orin's case, the spellcard is just not fun to play for me. It's not especially difficult in and out of itself, I can run circles around hereforever with little effort. It's only when I want to attack that I suddenly find myself in micrododging hell. It also seems like you'd want to lead the fairies somewhere, but they move so fucking slowly, you end up timing the card out unintentionally like half the time.
Yeah, that one is nasty. I've managed to capture it a few times on normal, but can't do it reliably. Bomb it for the life fragment and move on.
 

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Cowboy Moment

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Thx for the replay, Niektory. I see that you follow my school of play, dying on both Yuugi and Satori's first spellcards. :smug:

That was basically what I was doing for Parsee's flower spellcard, but sometimes she just spawns an impenetrable wall and you need to go above. Your way of speedkilling her aggravating final spellcard is pretty cool though. Is it actually impossible to get hit there if you stay at the bottom of the screen?

And on the topic of needing incentives to kill stuff, I am really hesitant to do stuff that actually puts me at greater risk when just playing for survival. It even happened to you in your run, where you went out of your way to kill one of the fairies shooting out those unfolding amulet patterns in Stage 4, and then were forced to bomb; whereas just staying still lets you sidestep the whole pattern, which is aimed directly at you. Honestly, Stage 6 is the only one where you consistently need to kill enemies, and I find it quite fun.

Btw. I don't understand why people consider Orin the hardest Stage 5 boss in the series. Her only truly difficult attack is the ghost wheel one, everything else is either formulaic or annoying in taking forever to kill. Granted, Stage 5 bosses tend to be on the easier side from what I've seen thus far, but at this point I'd even consider Youmu more difficult. Meanwhile, Satori with the butterfly spellcard and Boundary of Wave and Particle is a fucking nightmare, continuing the tradition of unreasonably hard Stage 4 bosses.

For instance, if you just stay at the bottom in MoF, you probably won't even get the 80M extend, and you definitely won't get the 150M one without at least trying to keep your point item value up throughout the first few stages. As it happens, trying to do this also makes those stages more fun, as they're clearly designed with this in mind.
Just tried it on normal out of curiosity. Stayed at the bottom the whole game. Missed a lot of items. Got 93M at the end of stage 5, 114M before Kanako.

Really? That seems a lot higher than I would've expected. Did you capture a lot of spellcards along the way?
 

Monstrous Bat

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Btw. I don't understand why people consider Orin the hardest Stage 5 boss in the series. Her only truly difficult attack is the ghost wheel one, everything else is either formulaic or annoying in taking forever to kill. Granted, Stage 5 bosses tend to be on the easier side from what I've seen thus far, but at this point I'd even consider Youmu more difficult.
Just wait until you get to UFO :troll:

For instance, if you just stay at the bottom in MoF, you probably won't even get the 80M extend, and you definitely won't get the 150M one without at least trying to keep your point item value up throughout the first few stages. As it happens, trying to do this also makes those stages more fun, as they're clearly designed with this in mind.
Just tried it on normal out of curiosity. Stayed at the bottom the whole game. Missed a lot of items. Got 93M at the end of stage 5, 114M before Kanako.

Really? That seems a lot higher than I would've expected. Did you capture a lot of spellcards along the way?
Just checked my old replay. I turtled like crazy and still scored 280M+ by the time I downed Kanako. I don't recall ever having problem getting extends in MoF and I wouldn't be surprised if you could literally get all of them without capturing a single spellcard. Maybe not on the lower difficulties though.
 
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Cowboy Moment

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Btw. I don't understand why people consider Orin the hardest Stage 5 boss in the series. Her only truly difficult attack is the ghost wheel one, everything else is either formulaic or annoying in taking forever to kill. Granted, Stage 5 bosses tend to be on the easier side from what I've seen thus far, but at this point I'd even consider Youmu more difficult.
Just wait until you get to UFO :troll:

I am looking forward to experiencing the glory of curvy lasers for myself. Come to think of it, the Stage 5 boss in EoSD is the hardest I've seen thus far. Those fucking nonspells at max rank are crazy.

For instance, if you just stay at the bottom in MoF, you probably won't even get the 80M extend, and you definitely won't get the 150M one without at least trying to keep your point item value up throughout the first few stages. As it happens, trying to do this also makes those stages more fun, as they're clearly designed with this in mind.
Just tried it on normal out of curiosity. Stayed at the bottom the whole game. Missed a lot of items. Got 93M at the end of stage 5, 114M before Kanako.

Really? That seems a lot higher than I would've expected. Did you capture a lot of spellcards along the way?
Just checked my old replay. I turtled like crazy and still scored 280M+ by the time I downed Kanako. I don't recall ever having problem getting extends in MoF and I wouldn't be surprised if you could literally get all of them without capturing a single spellcard. Maybe not on the lower difficulties though.

I'm 100% sure you can't get the 150M extend if you just naively collect stuff on normal. I had to pay some attention to my point item value through the first four stages, and ended up with around 250M at the end. The MoF scoring system snowballs pretty hard if you don't left your faith drop and don't die.
 

Niektory

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Thx for the replay, Niektory. I see that you follow my school of play, dying on both Yuugi and Satori's first spellcards. :smug:
Haha yeah, that Yuugi death was derp. But I often mess up that Satori card.

That was basically what I was doing for Parsee's flower spellcard, but sometimes she just spawns an impenetrable wall and you need to go above.
From my experience there are always gaps in individual walls. You just need to lead her in such a way that you never need to go through 2 walls at once.

Your way of speedkilling her aggravating final spellcard is pretty cool though. Is it actually impossible to get hit there if you stay at the bottom of the screen?
It's not 100% safe. On Normal you need to dodge some bullets from the sides, and on Hard it's safe at first but near the end the bullets from above catch up with you. But it's not difficult.

Meanwhile, Satori with the butterfly spellcard and Boundary of Wave and Particle is a fucking nightmare, continuing the tradition of unreasonably hard Stage 4 bosses.
I can only imagine ZUN's grin when he imported possibly the hardest spellcard of Shoot the Bullet into Stage 4. Magnificent trolling.

I am looking forward to experiencing the glory of curvy lasers for myself.
I prefer to call them needles to differentiate from beam lasers. Actually, I prefer to call them THOSE FUCKING NEEDLES.
AHWhwD8.png
uW7ZZRr.png
The proper way to deal with them:
KVrLQAu.png

Just tried it on normal out of curiosity. Stayed at the bottom the whole game. Missed a lot of items. Got 93M at the end of stage 5, 114M before Kanako.
Really? That seems a lot higher than I would've expected. Did you capture a lot of spellcards along the way?
Not that many. No more than 15M worth of points, I think.
 

Damned Registrations

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I suck at shooters in general (I can't seem to do fine movements, my hands are too jerky to tap a few pixels at a time reliably) but I always try and capture spellcards in Touhou games. Or just go bombless in shooters in general. I only ever bomb if I feel certain I'm going to get hit or if I am at a new boss and need to bomb to ensure I get to see the rest of it's patterns. Feels like it cheapens the experience to do otherwise.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Well, that's why you suck at shooters. They're designed with bombing in mind. Hell, Garegga is designed with you killing yourself on purpose or the game becomes unwinnably hard.

(Of course you can always beat the Touhou ones without bombing but that's not really what it's about. That's just some extra challenge you can save for later. Bombs are like potions in an RPG. Use them or play worse.)
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
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I know that, but it gives me all the wrong feels when I hit a bomb and see my score multipliers go away or whatever. Besides, the tension of almost dying in a hail of bullets is the part that is most fun for me in these games. The satisfaction of winning is secondary.

Edit: I do something similar in fighting games, refusing to chip an opponent to death and always going for the most extravagant finisher possible.
 

Cowboy Moment

Arcane
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Feb 8, 2011
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I kind of have that problem myself, to an extent. Rationally, I understand that I'm given bombs for a reason, and that the game's level of challenge is balanced around me using them to manage the risk of dying to stuff. And sometimes I can implement this reasonably well, like a few days ago I fired up Dodonpachi in an emulator during lunch and got to the Stage 5 boss on my one credit, having played the game once before. And I managed this because I basically bombed anything even remotely threatening (which was roughly every 10 seconds in stage 5 :popamole: ).

However, when I seriously attempt to clear a game, I don't really like using planned bombs on difficult sections. It feels dishonourable. I'm fine with having a difficult strategy that may require a bomb if I fuck up, but I dislike just giving up on stuff completely. It actually hurts me that I need a planned bomb for Satori's butterfly spellcard in SA. I routinely die in MoF by attempting to capture Kanako's opener. Way too stubborn for my own good.
 

Niektory

one of some
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That's why I love Touhou's deathbomb mechanic. It lets you delay bombing until you're really close to getting hit, allowing a more bold playstyle. Capturing spellcards is very satisfying so I think it's natural to not want to bomb unless you really need to.

And I don't care if it gives me bad habits. I play to enjoy myself, not to hone my leet skillz or whatever.

And Subterranean Animism's Marisa/Nitori team fully embraces this playstyle. They don't have typical bombs, instead you can put up a temporary shield that can save you from one hit. If it runs out without you being hit you're refunded half the activation cost. And, as long as you don't actually get hit, using it doesn't prevent you from capturing spellcards. Win/win!
 
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Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,980
Never knew that about SA. I never particularly cared for it, but that might just bump it up a few ranks.

It just occured to me that my obssession with collection spellcards is probably a big part of why IN is my favourite in the series. It has that whole time point mechanic thing for unlocking the final stage (and all those last spells along the way) and I really like the way it forces you to play to do that.

Though the Marisa/Reimu boss always beats the shit out of me.
 

Cowboy Moment

Arcane
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Got my clear of SA after finally having some free time today. All it took was getting to the final boss with 7 lives and bombing her second to last spellcard 5 times. :negative: Other highlights of that run included capturing Yuugi last nonspell, dying to Satori's first easy spellcard and then capturing both the butterflies and border of wave and particle, and timing out ghost wheels (honestly no clue what that's actually called) with 0.25 power.

I think I'm done with Touhou for some time. I didn't like this game very much, it reached a critical mass of small annoying things that collectively made it unenjoyable. A lot of the game feels like it was made to look cool or be weird or different, and not to actually be fun to play. Apparently UFO uses the same idiotic continue system as well, which boggles the mind. Still have no clue what was wrong with the older one.

I've been playing ESPGaluda in short bursts for some time now, and I think I can get a 1CC without much trouble. Maybe I'll also do the Extra Stage in MoF or IN as well... Niektory, which of them is more fun?
 

Monstrous Bat

Cipher
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Dec 30, 2011
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You scrubs like playing without bombs? Try Ketsui. No-bombing the first loop is generally considered the best way to enter Omote loop. See if you can pull it off :smug:
I think I'm done with Touhou for some time. I didn't like this game very much, it reached a critical mass of small annoying things that collectively made it unenjoyable. A lot of the game feels like it was made to look cool or be weird or different, and not to actually be fun to play. Apparently UFO uses the same idiotic continue system as well, which boggles the mind. Still have no clue what was wrong with the older one.
Yeah, I quit Touhou after TD because I felt the danmakus got a bit too gimmicky. Though TD was actually a smaller offender than UFO and SA.
 

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