/jp/ - Otaku Culture

this gets worse with Kanako, some of her non-spell cards are harder than her spell cards and her second-to-last one is insane.

You can always bomb away Hina's midboss spellcard away with no loss of power if you aren't doing so terribly that you should be playing a lower difficulty.

But yeah, I've also noticed that on other difficulties too. Minoriko's last spell on lunatic is harder than Aya's last spell for me.

MoF is balanced badly all over. SA's much better about most of its problems, though he still bungled the shot types for some reason.

You want to keep well off the bottom of the screen and dodge towards the waves during Hina's midboss spellcard, but as >>5756924 said, you can bomb it and get your power back almost right away.

But yeah, MoF's difficulty curve is all over the place.

>>5756949
The shot types aren't that bad except for Marisa B, who's even worse than UFO's Marisa B.

>>5756958
And just to add to that, the power system can end up making you divide spell cards into two piles - ones you can do easily and ones you won't bother with - especially on harder difficulties. If you can bomb the current card, and know you can do the next one easily and get your power back, why bother risking a life?

Tactical bombing makes things a hell of a lot easier once you know where the greater concentrations of power items are and you can have entire stages rehearsed.

>>5756999
Yeah, MoF gives ridiculous amounts of power. Apparently people have managed to bomb over 70 times in one game.

>>5756981
I'm sure you meant to say "except for Reimu B"

MoF is retarded because you can bomb every single card.

>>5757014
I can believe that. I'm pretty sure there's instances where it's more profitable to bomb to earn a bigger score.

I can do the first three stages of Lunatic MoF easily thanks to planned bombs. I'm still trying to figure out stage 4, but it's Aya that's the biggest obstacle.

>>5756981
>>5756949

SA is just fine, you can't expect every game to have hilariously broken shot options like IN or PCB

>>5757035
What? She's like my 3rd favorite. Sure, ReimuA does 1.5x the damage, but piercing, autocollection, and a little homing is highly effective in some places.

>>5757076
It's just how one character is significantly more damaging and easier to use and has a really handy unique ability, while the rest are various shades of annoying and underpowered without giving you much back. Nitori's cool though.

>>5757049
Am I unusual in not having much trouble with her last spell or is it the same for you?

>>5757151
It's straight up shmup dodging, no tricks to it. No clouds of random bullets that you have to read in real time or anything. So if you have good reflexes and control it should be easy.

>>5757148
They all have their good points. Except smelly patchy.

Stage 5 and Sanae are a joke compared to Stage 4 and Aya.
Other than that I don't think the difficulty curve is all that uneven.

Hina's midboss card is easy if you don't go all over the place. Just move out of the way on one side and then the other. Don't focus on both at the same time.

>>5757164
You can't juggle five different shottypes? What a wuss.

>>5756922
This, bitch killed me everytime with none spell cards.

>>5757188
That would probably be my favorite if you could scroll through them in both directions, but having to cycle through everything to go between the two useful ones is bullshit.

>>5757188
It's not that, it's that when I need to hit a distant target straight above me, which is most of the time against bosses, Fire-type is weaker than Suika and doesn't even have the homing. The stage portions in SA are already mostly pretty easy, but that seems to be what she specializes in.

Why do people consider Aya hard? I've never 1CCed a Touhou game on any difficulty, and I don't have much trouble with her the few times I get to her.

>>5757179

Yeah, the Stage 2 stuff was more or less just the tip of the iceberg.. it's the Stage 4 and Stage 5 difference that was really out of place.. I still think there are problems with the balance all over the game.. they're just getting over the top there

>>5757210
True it'd be nice if it was a bit more flexible but her shot type really just has a high learning curve. Though in all honesty it's her bomb that sucks.

>>5757164
On paper, yeah, but I haven't found most of the advantages to be significant while playing.

>>5757263
That's true; I forgot to mention that.
>>5757264
They're only significant when you force yourself to play beyond the extent of your abilities.

>>5757263
>it's her bomb that sucks
Ugh, yes. The bomb is why I can't use her. MarisaA does the offensive bomb much better, you can deathbomb and then move in and bomb the boss without losing half your power.

Poorly balanaced maybe, but its still one of the easiest touhou games.

Which kinda makes me sad, its one of my favorites as far as music goes.

>>5757318
That's not a problem for me. I actually feel like I'm getting somewhere when I play on lunatic mode!

For me is MoF fucking hard!
Ok, Stage 1-3 is not hard but Stage 4-6 are the hardest stages and boss batlles ever! Damn sluts and damn snakebitch!
PCB and UFO are the most easiest games.

>>5757340
I think you mispelled UFO with IN

>>5757291
>They're only significant when you force yourself to play beyond the extent of your abilities.

What do you mean by this? That some of the abilities are more exploitable when you're way underskilled for the game mode? Marisa A and C are kinda like that.

>>5757340

It is hard, but the thing is that you can just bomb through anything..

I was really frustrated at first because I tried to capture most of the cards and kept dying and the "no fixed number of bombs" kinda made me not bomb at all..

Now I just thought "fuck it" and bombed my way through practically every single spell card after level 4 and started stage 6 with 7 lives...the bombing system is a fucking joke

>>5757164
You consider Patchy's shots to be weaksauce? I usually don't have problems with her both clearing boards and managing tricky cards that call for some weird maneuvering (like Parsee's). Or maybe I'm still a noob in this.

>>5757494
The game just isn't constructed in a way where a spreadshot or sideways shot helps you much. Water shot does make a couple parts much easier, but shooting things really hard with another character makes everything easier.

>>5757389
Sort of, yeah. You can use their abilities to plan for things that you can't handle yourself.

>>5757076

Wait, what shot type is broken in PCB?

There is quite a large difference between a "difficulty curve" and "sparse difficult sections".

In my opinion the game would be hella boring if there weren't some hard spots earlier in the game.

>>5756922
Truth be told, I haven't beaten MoF on Normal yet because Kanako is cockblocking me

I can cruise right through to stage 5, but she stops me cold every time.

It seems ZUN constantly has some problems involving balance or difficulty levels in every game.

EoSD: The difficulty spike in Stage 4 is ridiculous, and Sakuya's midboss spell card is harder than some of her regular cards.

PCB: All of Stage 4 is harder than the rest of the game with the exception of maybe Yuyuko. At least you're able to pick your poison in the Prismriver fight after the first spellcard.

IN: The game as a whole is probably the most balanced and fun if it weren't for the fucktarded shot types. The only shots I actually like are Marisa solo or Yuyuko solo. Everything else seems fucking horrible.

PCB: It's a VS game and doesn't fit in with the rest of the series, but I actually have fun with it.

STB/DS: There are several retardedly easy scenes at higher levels and some really difficult ones in lower levels. At least he should remain consistent with a difficulty curve from the beginning.

MoF: The bomb system allows for easy abuse; it doesn't help that this is the only game where the bombs are not unique to shot type. Second, difficulty fluctuation. Nitori's final spell card and all of Stage 4 wreck my shit up so I barely have any room for error once I hit Sanae's retardedly easy level.

SA: Probably the best game in terms of difficulty curving (even though it starts out high), but there are even less shot types that are actually fun to play with.

UFO: Okay...great difficulty curve, great shot types (except Marisa B), but the god damn UFO system completely ruins what would have otherwise been the best game in the series.

Don't get me wrong, I love the games, but I'm just making a point that there is usually one crucial flaw with each one that really bugs me.

Which one was the game where dying or bombing at certain points was somehow more effective than simply trying?

I read about it but I forgot which one it was

ITT: people suck shit at best touhou game Mountain of Faith and have no taste

>>5758604
SA: no fun shot types? ReimuC? MarisaB?
UFO: ufos ruin the game? i thought they made the stages far more exciting as you can't hug the bottom anymore

IN's concept of balance is the worst of all games. The second half contains barely any interesting cards, just retardedly small gaps between bullets that create the artificial difficulty of pressing your arrow keys lightly enough to get into the correct position.

one thing: Sanae's pentagrams and some of her nonspell make you feel really claustrophobic. on the other hand, her final spell is plain ridiculous

>>5758604
>PCB stage 4
>harder than Youmu
Basic memorization makes the entire stage and almost every non-Merlin spellcard very easy.

>>5761204

I hated those shot types...the only ones I actually liked were ReimuA and MarisaC. They were "interesting," but I didn't find them fun. That's my opinion, but the shot types were the worst part of SA.

Yes, the UFO system ruined it. First, I never hug the bottom, and any player who's gone into any of the games would know better than to do so very early on.

I'll list all my problems with the UFO system:

You have to chase the damn thing around the screen. This isn't as much of a problem for the static ones, but if you're aiming to spawn a specific type of UFO then you could be screwed over because you can't get free of a pattern to grab the thing...and if you get it, there's a chance that it would have switched colors by the time you get it.

The UFO itself as an item vaccuum. I spend a lot of time around the POC, so it annoys me when the thing comes up and I have to shoot it down to get my items.

The fact that the UFO is a target with a limited amount of time on it...in later levels, there can be a LOT of enemies that get in your way when you try to shoot the damn thing down, and it can fly away with no reward for you if too much gets in your way.

Meh, opinions.

>>5761156

IN. While Marisa solo is a viable shot, Marisa/Alice is not that good...the only good part about that shot type is if you focus as Alice, go off and get hit...then Deathbomb. FinalSpark is ridiculously overpowered and can take down a spellcard really easily.

>>5757996
Arguably, Sakuya B is due to the obscene scoring possible with her, thanks to her bomb type.

>>5761236

I realize that now, and can plow through stage 4 unless I face Merlin. It's just stupid that the stage punishes yo for shooting everything in sight...and punishes you again if you don't shoot them.

I'm too much of a casual to use stage practice so stage 4 in pcb is too hard for me.

>>5761280
memorizing. also, if you don't blow up certain enemies they will just selfdestruct in easily avoidable shots
however you wont be getting any items that way

>>5761280

>stage 4 in pcb is too hard for me.

Why so shitty at touhou, bro?

>>5761363
I actually did beat the game on normal yesterday, first time with reimuB. I bombed and broke borders like crazy all the way.