Touhou Touhou series

[Cowboy Moment]

That's because I'm not sure what I think of that new mode myself. I'm not one of these pro players who can reach the highest scores ever, so having a goal like doing a 1cc of shmups is always a good motivation. But if you're not a top scorer, what can motivate you in said new mode? Having an infinite amount of try breaks the game for players who are good enough to get past those patterns after getting a better understanding, but not good enough to 1cc games on their first attempt. Anyway I'm not going to touch it until I 1cc Legacy on the final release of the game.

How does Zun even consider handling the unlocking of extra in that new game anyway? Never die, not even once, in the new game mode? set a fixed number of retry after which you'll lose the ability to unlock if you continue without restarting? or use the scoring system and require a certain amount of score?

As for Reisen's hitbox, it doesn't really matter when it's shielding you for goddamn 3 times which is all that is needed to get past some of the worse stuff. I think it's a much more useful bomb all around than the others.

Who knows, really? Keep in mind that you can't actually credit feed through the game or anything like that, you get a limited number of bombs to skip things, and other than those, you need to actually get through stuff without dying. Depends on the difficulty and stage/boss design, really. For example, if IN had a similar mode but with no bombs (so capture everything), I wouldn't be able to clear it because I can't capture Apollo 13. I kinda expect the game to be more deterministic because of this as well - if an attack is random, then you can just retry until you get lucky. It might very well be that Legacy mode ends up being the easier one, as you'll presumably be able to do use the typical Touhou strategy - route for max resources, bomb anything even remotely threatening.

...

how did the art get worse? It looks like MS Paint Oekaki!

Edit: fuck this is hard for "Hard" - which mode am I supposed to use, Legacy? What's the difference?

I think I just subconsciously ignore the art. Can't recall any of it without looking it up.

Anyway, Legacy mode is your typical shmup mode, aka how the series worked thus far. Pointdevice mode, you have no extends, game is divided into segments, when you die you restart at the start of the segment (each boss card/nonspell is its own segment btw) and lose a small amount of power (I think 0.02?). So basically, checkpoints, with a limited stock of bombs. Difficulty is pretty high, likely because of this.

 

[Nikaido]

I'm not a very consistent player, while on the other hand, given enough try, there isn't a single thing I can't capture. But that wasn't the point. The point is more about motivation. When you play the classic mode, the goal of doing a 1CC motivates you to concentrate. The new mode doesn't really have a carrot to dangle. If you don't concentrate while playing, fine, if you die, you'll get to do it again and concentrate ONLY on the part that has given you hell, as opposed to always being somewhat focused on the game. Playing something like the new mode would only make me go mentally focused when I die more than twice on the same thing. I don't like the new mode at all, unless Zun gives it something akin to 1ccing, unlocking extra by having to do something specific (score enough? not using too many retry? whatever it is, the new game mode absolutely needs it.)

 

[Jasede]

My God this is boring.

First stage: Hey, let's fight the same boss three times! Oh, and make every single attack be almost the same.
Second stage: Maybe he will get creative this tim-... zzzzz....

This game lost me. It's not as pretty or creative as IN, doesn't feel as varied as SA and doesn't have the UFO mechanic to keep things kind of interesting. Even the music is bleh!

 

[Cowboy Moment]

That was fast.

Jasede, now you can join me in trying to 1CC Dodonpachi. Or alternatively, if you already have, you can tell me how to do Stage 5 without bombing.

 

[Jasede]

Definitely!

You do have a good point. Cave games (which I discovered after Touhou) spoiled me to the point that this demo just seems sad now. I'll still replay the old Touhou games though; dat music! And they were pretty, too, in a distinct way.

 

[Niektory]

Good thing I wasn't spoiled then!

http://playism-games.com/game/215/double-dealing-character

Creator's Voice
This is Team Shanghai Alice's first downloadable game.
The story of the games are stand-alone, so you can enjoy the game without having played any of the prequels.
The game is made to challenge players, but in the hope that they will achieve a sense of satisfaction as they improve their skills; this is why the difficulty level is so high.
Give it a shot while your reflexes can still handle it.

 

[Jasede]

Let's compare it to always taking really nice single charter engine flights and then, one day, discovering that you could have taken your trips on Airforce One instead. You'll never forget the great, idyllic memories of your charter engine flights but going back can still be hard unless you feel like something sedate and aren't in a hurry.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

To me, the games play differently enough that I can enjoy both styles. I don't like all the Touhous, and I don't like all of Cave's games (the ones I tried anyway), and they all have things that frustrate me to some extent. I complained at length about SA, and I have some pretty major complaints about Dodonpachi (though I'm not going to air them in the Touhou thread).

I feel like how much you like a Touhou game depends a lot on the aesthetics of it, while Cave typically gets by on having more consistently tight gameplay design, even when they do weird shit like in Guwange.

That said, IN Extra has become my goto "warmup" for more difficult stuff, and I find myself going back to something like PCB more often than EspGaluda, so I can't say I definitively prefer one style over the other.

 

[Niektory]

Well, I have to admit I'm a big musicfag. I wasn't even interested in shmups before I got into Touhou, and it only registered on my radar because of some music arrangements I heard and instantly fell in love with - first by Demetori in this video, and then by WAVE in this one. That the source material turned out to be some good games was a nice bonus.

I've tried the demo of Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom in the new mode on Hard. With unlimited retries it can't be too difficult, right?

833 retries in 3 stages... I'll stick to Normal after all.

 

[Mr. Pink]

There can only be one dominant franchise at comiket. Kancolle shitters need to die.

The demo has me pretty excited for the next game. I hope the music is anywhere as good as Ten Desires.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Why do I have to be such a completionist dumbass? I'm trying to finally clear UFO Normal, and what the fuck was ZUN thinking with the colour scheme in Stage 5? "So, I have red power items and blue point items, let's also make the background red, blue and purple, and have enemies fire bullets of the same colours! I am truly a genius of game design!". I also hate his newly-discovered love for the glowy bullets - half the difficulty of all the "random bullets everywhere" patterns is that the glowy bullets are impossible to read when on top of each other.

On the plus side, I'm actually mysteriously good at Shou's curvy lasers. And Byakuren seems like a really cool final boss.

 

[No Great Name]

Is this an actual Touhou game or a mod? I don't know much about the series, but this looks ridiculous.

It's fun to watch though.

 

[Tick Tock Crocodile]

Is this an actual Touhou game or a mod? I don't know much about the series, but this looks ridiculous.

It's a fan game that aims to be harder than the actual games, hence the name. Fan games like that are pretty common; I'm not sure how they're made, though.


I've only just gotten a computer that can actually play these after having of being stuck with a crappy laptop for a few years. I'm playing EoSD now and seeing how much skill I've lost since then is really sad. It's almost like playing it for the first time.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Is this an actual Touhou game or a mod? I don't know much about the series, but this looks ridiculous.

It's fun to watch though.

Fangame. Pretty funny asshole stage design. Disappointing bosses though, official games have much more trolololo ones.

 

[No Great Name]

Disappointing bosses though, official games have much more trolololo ones.

Like what?

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Disappointing bosses though, official games have much more trolololo ones.

Like what?

 

[Average Manatee]

Is this an actual Touhou game or a mod? I don't know much about the series, but this looks ridiculous.

It's fun to watch though.

I wanna be the Touhou.

Gotta agree though, bosses looked disappointing compared to the bullshit the rest of the stage was made of.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Got my UFO Normal clear. Wasn't very good, but I'm not going to complain. I think this is easily the most difficult game in the series, upwards from 6 anyway. It's also really frustrating, because it has so many good ideas, but managed to execute most of them in an infuriatingly flawed way. On the positive side, bosses in general are really well-designed, and Byakuren in particular is probably the best final boss in the series.

I want to go back to PCB now, I think it's still my favorite Touhou, but I'm not sure if I should do Hard first or go straight to Lunatic. From what I've tried of Hard, I think I should be able to get a clear easily with some strategic bombspam, while Lunatic looks like a proper challenge.

 

[Jasede]

Y'know, I don't think I've cleared any of those games on Lunatic; just all of them on hard (from what I remember). Good luck. Did you Hard clear EOSD yet?

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Y'know, I don't think I've cleared any of those games on Lunatic; just all of them on hard (from what I remember). Good luck. Did you Hard clear EOSD yet?

Haven't done anything on Hard, just all the Normals and some Extras. PCB Hard feels about as difficult as UFO Normal, maybe a bit easier, so if you cleared UFO Hard, you should be able to do the easier Lunatics without much trouble (and the easier Cave clears as well). EoSD in particular I'm just bad at.

 

[Jasede]

For some reason everyone is bad at EoSD even though it was my first Touhou Hard clear, even before IN. I guess it's the original's wonky input lag and lack of hitbox.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

For some reason everyone is bad at EoSD even though it was my first Touhou Hard clear, even before IN. I guess it's the original's wonky input lag and lack of hitbox.

It's the bullet hitboxes. The player hitbox can be enabled through a patch, and EoSD doesn't have that many bullet patterns requiring you to precisely know the vertical position of your hitbox. The bullet hitboxes, on the other hand, are bigger than they are for the rest of the Windows games, for the same sprites. The bubble bullets, for example, have large square hitboxes and it's really easy to clip one if you're used to how they work in the later games.

EoSD also has very impactful rank, unlike the other Windows games, which serves to throw people off even further.

 

[Mr. Pink]

100% canon

 

[Mr. Pink]

new touhou characters revealed

:kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah::kwafuckyeah:

 

[Nikaido]

Easily the hardest touhou, and not necessarily for the good reasons, since Zun's source of inspiration for this is "I wanna be the guy". At times it feels like playing an official "asshole touhou" game. While all Touhou games have had a few completely unreadable/unpredictable moments on the first encounter, requiring knowledge of what is going to happen to pass without dying/bombing, this one is filled with that kind of crap to the brim. That's why Legacy mode made resource collection too easy (you can have the max number of lives by the end of stage 3 if you 420 graze it), the game is entirely balanced around the concept of Point Device and expects you to die a great deal before memorizing stuff. Legacy mode is actually easier than Point Device after you've experienced the game once because you can spam bombs (die, and then get bombs back) and when you already know what to expect from the stages you can graze a lot.

Stage 5 boss (Clownpiece) is literally hitler and easily harder than the average extra boss of previous games too. Constantly constrained in your movements by lasers while being targeted by random shit you have to almost pixel perfect dodge.

Well, at least the OST is awesome.