Touhou Gameplay Thread

[Anonymous No.]

This thread is for discussing the official Touhou games. The TasoFro spin-offs, shmup fan games, and general STG discussion are also welcome.

Want to brag about your latest achievement?
Can't figure out how a pattern or mechanic works?
Curious what /jp/ thinks of your favorite Touhou game?
Having trouble getting them even running?
Need to bitch about that spell that killed your run for the fourth time today?

Get into this safespot and graze your fellow players!

>Resources
The Touhou98 Experience v2.00: https://nyaa.si/view/1743332
Touhou Project All-In-One Pack: https://nyaa.si/view/1743411
Thprac: https://github.com/touhouworldcup/thprac
Touhou 1cc Tracker: https://doopu.github.io/1ccTracker/
Maribel Hearn's hub for Touhou tools and information: https://maribelhearn.com/
Lunarcast replay archive: http://replay.lunarcast.net/
Silent Selene replay archive: https://www.silentselene.net/

Previous
>>/jp/thread/46300760

[Anonymous No.]

>>46732952
Neat, didn't have some of these links

[Anonymous No.]

>>46733543
Next OP suggestion

[Anonymous No.]

I still can't comprehend that both Tasofro and ZUN thought that CPU spamming super in their fighting game's story mode is a good game design
At least in the newer games there's a "shield break" mechanic where you can stun the opponent and dealing massive damage, but in the earlier games ,especially IaMP, is absolute fucking cancer

[Anonymous No.]

Had no idea another hitbox update took place on HSiFS, now I'm mad because Reimu's gimmick of having the smallest hitbox is gone.
It does explain however why I die so much to Okina's last spell on stage 6.

[Anonymous No.]

Got a UFO no bomb 1cc today.
This was probably the most difficult thing I've done so far.

[Anonymous No.]

I hate the need for repeated tapping the fire button in POFV, by the time I reach Shiki Eiki my wrist is tired as hell :(

[Anonymous No.]

>>46735811
Yeah the one thing th19 did better than it is the fact you don't need to spam the fire button till your hand cramps.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46732952
Can somebody please post the bullet hitbox one?
Goddamn MoF is always a lot tricker than I remember, the hitboxes feel much bigger compared to the previous games. Also, extra lives are ridiculously scarce, blundering a few spell captures means having to bomb everything else. At least power items are decently abundant but losing [P] upon bombing makes boss fights such a slog. I feel sorry for whoever picks MoF as a starter game because it's surprisingly tough.

Tried to clear MoF Extra but all that shit I said about Suwako being easy was wrong and overconfidence got the better of me. Turns out a run I done many years ago where I somehow reached Mishaguji and then "heh I could've finished it but I intentionally crashed into a bullet" was a fucking fluke. Now this month I have to clear fucking MoF and SA on the same day.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46736005

[Anonymous No.]

>>46739607
I hate the new stars so fucking much.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46739607
Aw I thought it would compare with pre-MoF as well. The small ellipse felt really iffy in Mr. Long-Arm and Mr. Long-Leg.

[Anonymous No.]

Am I crazy for thinking that Hidden Star in Four Seasons has the best gameplay of all the main series Touhou games?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46745677
I can see it. It's pretty unique among the main games and has a lot of variety if you like bullet canceling. The subseasons all play way more differently than you'd expect, even if they're not very balanced.
It's a bit more hectic than average, too. Aunn has really fast bullets for a stage 3 boss, the stage portions of 4 and 5 seriously require some routing, and then the dancers are just utter brainfuck.
Honestly I'd probably like it a lot if everything wasn't so bright and hard to see.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46739607
>Bill note

[Anonymous No.]

>>46735214
I went off about it the last time. I don't mind story only special moves, but the endless super stage and turning your attacks into wet paper sucks. IaMP especially because the controls are different than the rest (on my machine) and I get fucked by Marisa zooming across the screen endlessly shitting danmaku.

[Anonymous No.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ru--QIdjPs

[Anonymous No.]

I 1cc'd WBaWC on my FIRST FUCKING TRY with Marisa-Wolf. Normal, of course. Its definitely one of the easier games (Or maybe I've just got luck...)

[Anonymous No.]

>>46736005
>I feel sorry for whoever picks MoF as a starter game because it's surprisingly tough.
Marisa B at power level 3 is the one for me!

I actually thought MoF was an easier one for beginners. PCB, IN, MoF and TD are the most beginner friendly, I think. For a regular 1cc, I think Aya and Kanako are the worst when it comes to ruining runs, MoF does punish pretty hard if you keep dying with less power recovery though.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46732952
Some anon in the other thread mentioned liking Marisa A in SA so I gave it a shot. It was a bit harder than IN.
I hope I'll 1cc it on normal next

[Anonymous No.]

>>46745677
If you don't like dodging bullets, sure.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46745955
Yeah, I really like the subseason system and how non-intrusive power it up is. I also like 1-ups being tied to scoring and how subseasons tie into increasing the score value. It feels like there is a really nice feedback loop there that encourages good gameplay. And it's just so satisfying to get a good bullet cancel with the subseasons.

Some of the extra mechanics in the touhou games just feel either awkward, contributing to further cognitive load or inconsequential. I think Hidden Star gets it just right.

[Anonymous No.]

So, I just finished watching this "LNN relay" stream
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2136824916
How it worked is that six players were each assigned a stage, and did runs of their stage one after another in order. If any of them died, the entire cycle started over with stage 1.

I thought this might be a super fun idea for this thread. LNN is probably too restrictive, so 1cc/LNB, lower difficulties, or even scoring would be better.
Maybe how it could work is that the thread could have a couple "ongoing runs" that someone could claim and then post a replay for. So someone would post "claiming PCB stage 4", then post the replay of their run no matter how well or poorly it went. Then, assuming the run didn't game over, the person who claims PCB stage 5 would use thprac to set their resources, power, PIV, etc. to whatever the stage 4 run ended with and do their best. I think there should be some sort very short time limit (5-10 minutes) to discourage people from resetting for a good run.
It could even work across skill levels. A beginner could post a stage 2 where they died twice, and then an expert could follow it up with a stage 3 that NMNBs and gets all the score extends to rescue the run and give the stage 4 player a ton of lives to work with.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46748434
it's going to be too much of a pain to set up for this thread. also this kind of stuff works better if you play with your friends
you also have to go through all the trouble of finding a non scrubs which limits you to elsewhere than on here

[Anonymous No.]

Do the Extra endings remain the same regardless of shotype used?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46748434
Sounds like a fun idea
>>46749771
I don't see how it would be hard to set up as long as the difficulty is accessible to everyone. We could start out with a simple normal 1cc

[Anonymous No.]

Is using extra lives on IN a 1cc or not?
This is important

[Anonymous No.]

>>46746066
Remilia and Yukari is fucking painful to fight, almost every of their spell cards are just so ridiculously unfair I don't think they playtested it at all

[Anonymous No.]

>>46751373
Changing the starting lives is generally considered to not be a "true" 1cc. If you can't 1cc, I think it's better to just use continues.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46751373
ignore this anon >>46751716
Is considered a true 1cc anyway

[Anonymous No.]

>>46751373
It's "okay" if you do it on your first time, but when you get better you must try for a proper 1cc with default lives. I'm only saying this because I did it this way for my first time, otherwise it's more kino to grind and practice with default lives, especially since IN is very generous with extra lives + Spell Practice mode.
At least you're playing Normal instead of Easy... right?

>>46751514
I would personally suggest to move on to the next game instead of clearing everybody's story mode. The story mode of the characters of SWR and Soku are more tolerable, and by that point you should have enough fightan skill to be able to come back to IaMP and finish the rest.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46752180
Lunatic
I spill rigattoni at Reisen
But I was able to clear lunatic in UM after some practice with alice doll, extra snake and Ying Yang orb as Sanae, so I am ok, but I guess IN is harder for me

[Anonymous No.]

>>46752180
To add>>46752280
I can clear it Lunatic 1cc with extra lives, but since its not, I can see the differen e once I reach Bnnuy and then die instantly to Eirin

[Anonymous No.]

>>46752280
>>46752305
>Lunatic
I thought you were still a Normal-level player.
Well the same still applies: "Not a true 1cc" or "1cc+extra lives", since the general consensus is that a 1cc is with default lives and bombs. You can always clear it some other time to clear your conscience.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46735811
Playing on controller makes that less annoying, I've got the Z key bound to both the buttons X and R1, so I alternate between the two once in a while, when either my thumb or index gets tired.
Also, keep in mind that, unlike on PoDD, tapping faster won't make your character shoot faster, you only need to tap like twice per second.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46751373
It's not a real 1cc, it makes the run easier than with the default settings.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46751373
A 1cc is a 1cc. If you beat the game without using continues or cheats, it counts. It doesn't matter if used max lives on easy or LNN it, both are equally valid.

[Anonymous No.]

Why is it always Gengetsu Rape Time when Mugetsu is the infinitely more difficult one?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46754508
Rape Time specifically refers to her berserk mode, which she goes into if you time out her final "spell".

[Anonymous No.]

>DynaMarisa3D
>Touhou Diablo Hunter G
anymore action/action adventure fangames similar to these? They were really fun. I wish I could play DynaMarisa for the first time again

[Anonymous No.]

If you didn't know, you can use the 1, 3, 7, and 9 keys on the numpad to get perfect diagonal movement. What I mean by perfect is that, usually when you move diagonally, you press one arrow key at least a few frames after the other one, so there's a tiny bit of vert/hori movement first. I've so far found two practical applications for this:
>It makes Kogasa's second nonspell more consistent, at least to me.
>In ISC 8-2, if you get trapped, sometimes the gaps can be so small that being even a couple pixels off can kill you. The diagonals help you be more precise.
Anyone know of any others?

[Anonymous No.]

is it true that Subterranean Rose doesn't go beyond the first phase if you don't damage Koishi? i thought survival spells automatically moved on to the next phase after a certain amount of time

[Anonymous No.]

>>46764590
>survival spells
i made a mistake, the spell before that is a survival spell, idk why i said that

[Anonymous No.]

>>46764590
>i thought survival spells automatically moved on to the next phase after a certain amount of time
Most multi-phase spells indeed do, but yeah, not Koishi's for some reason. Timing it out is a legitimate strategy if you think you can endure 3-ish minutes of the first phase.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46764720
alright, i'll keep that in mind for some i plan on doing in the future

[Anonymous No.]

any fangames similar to Touhou Diablo Treasure Hunter G?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46735532
Just got Reimu A no bomb 1cc in UFO.
This one was much harder because you can't just stand in the middle during boss fights, without a homing shot you actually have to chase them around, and some of these cunts just love to run away.
Had to learn the stages properly too, couldn't just rely on the homing shot crutch.
Next is Marisa, not looking forward to that.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46754508
what the fuck are you talking about gengetsu is 999% harder

[Anonymous No.]

trying to timeout pdh bros

[Anonymous No.]

>>46770515
Do GBR next

[Anonymous No.]

>>46770515
advice coming from your local shmup superplayer:
don't substance abuse or do any kind of drugs :^)

[Anonymous No.]

>>46772096
Might try it, gbr looks fun. Have you tried bolad r before? Was considering it as well but not sure how fun it is

[Anonymous No.]

Update on my GBA remake of HRtP.
MIKOsan gets a cuter redesign along with a smaller hitbox. The Orb physics system has been rewritten from scratch (but is still incomplete). A long overdue player hit animation and state have allowed me to start working on gameplay balance more.
The gohei swing attack changes >>46462995 recommended have been implemented with these rules for now:
Simply pressing B does a "half swing" on its own.
Timing another B press at the very end of the animation completes the full swing.
Holding B to charge the swing for 30-44 frames results in a quick automatic full swing, and 45-59 frames for a slower full swing that protects you longer. After 60 frames the charge times out and returns to being a quick full swing. All of these are demonstrated in the beginning of the webm mostly in order.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46772428
This looks awesome, the ball physics also look pretty spot on too to the original game. How much of this is complete?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46772337
>Have you tried bolad r before?
No, too hard for me. I don't think I've ever seen anyone other than SOC do BoLaD before. Its up there with QED rage phase, probably a bit easier than QED

[Anonymous No.]

>>46772499
>Its up there with QED rage phase
Damn. I remember watching some people trying that thing and it seemed just so intense, but it might be worth a shot after PDH, im only a few hundred attempts in so far, if I stick with it

[Anonymous No.]

>>46772428
Looks great, and possibly a much smoother experience than the original, looking at the orb's behaviour!

[Anonymous No.]

>>46772428
pls remove inertia

[Anonymous No.]

>>46772485
Thank you! There are a lot of little things to tweak but it's largely complete except for music/sound and boss battles that take obscenely long to finish. I've been writing a music tracker for the last couple weeks but I'll take a break from that and go back to working on boss battles soon.
>>46772701
Thank you! I've tried to get closer to the original game's physics but am using a fixed point system for its position and velocity unlike the original game's hardcoded integer velocities of (-8, -4, 0, 4, 8), so there is room for much more granularity. I do not want to recreate some of the quirks from the original game like the orb barely hitting the side of a bar and it being handled as a collision from above, so some changes to the initial velocity of the orb were made to compensate.
>>46774142
Can you be more specific? You want the orb to come to a complete rest?

[Anonymous No.]

The games are unfun and repetive(and I played them for dozens of hours, even have a 1CC in IN).
I unironically had more fun with the Nokia Snake Game

[Anonymous No.]

>>46774831
Did you use an external script for the display of debugging info? Or is there a debug mode in game?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46777433
Why would you waste dozens of hours playing them if you don't find them fun?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46777522
I exit the game since it's automatically booted by the emulator, and then on the command line type
>game d
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Highly_Responsive_to_Prayers/Gameplay#Debug_mode
https://tcrf.net/Touhou_Reiiden:_The_Highly_Responsive_to_Prayers#Debug_Features

[Anonymous No.]

>>46778431
interesting, the more you know

[Anonymous No.]

>>46777433
out

[Anonymous No.]

>>46732952
Unironically never gotten filtered by something so hard like i have with touhou . FUCK this franchise.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46779686
Glad you could find the strength to get it off your chest, anon.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46779686
Just cheat. THprac has cheats built in for each game and it makes enjoying the games easy.

[Anonymous No.]

If my goal is LNN (or at least 1 or 2 miss for now), at what point should I stop practicing and start relentlessly spamming credits? Is relentlessly spamming credits even a good idea? I've so far NMNBed every stage several times each (and at least once each in a real run so far) and NMNBed every boss countless times.
I'm just afraid of reset hell. In the runs I've done, even if I died in stage 1 or 2, I kept going. But if I'm aiming for a low miss count, I obviously can't do that.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46781205
Well since you already have consistency, then go ahead spam credit
And for a low miss run, I think one death during Minoriko, Hydro camo, or Momiji is still safe to continue the run, since they're kind of notorious hotspots for miss during the early game anyway

[Anonymous No.]

>>46781663
>since you already have consistency
Nothing about that post implied this.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46781771
You gave me the idea to run through everything I'm remotely threatened by and do practice sets.
What number do you think is a good balance between short and accurate? 15? 20? 30? Obviously a bigger set is better, but it's really time-consuming to do 50 sets for everything in the game.

[Anonymous No.]

Finally 1cc'd IN with just Alice. It was a really unique experience.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46787116
Remilia was way easier. I thought it would be the other way around.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46781205
It depends on your consistency for the hardest attacks. For example, LNNN PCB will be rough even if you're consistent at everything except the fairy spam.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46769420
I have lost more clears to Muge's retarded first stage attack than I have any of Genge's

[Anonymous No.]

>>46736005
>Tried to clear MoF Extra but all that shit I said about Suwako being easy was wrong and overconfidence got the better of me.
kek, Something similar happened to me with MS extra, idk if it was just me but I remembered this being easier.
That being said I do thing MoF is easier in general, it's just that it has some harsh difficulty spikes. In Suwako's case a lot of her cards are pretty easy once you get the hang but others fuck me up all the dam time.
>>46794460
Was gonna say that the only thing that's harder with Muge was the curved bullet pattern at the start when I read your post, still surprised tho, but I can kinda understand it.
>>46787116
>>46790239
Alice might the hardest solo with her shot being so thin. And Remi's shot is a pretty decent solo shot and I kinda like the gimmick.
I'll have to revisit IN tho since it's been a while.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46772135
Is it legal to use performance enhancing drugs before getting you're 1cc?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46795727
I figured Alice would be the easiest.
Reimu and Yuyuko have too little damage
Reimu shoots too many familiars so Sakuya and Marisa would be too hard
Yukari's shot type is just too weird and I didn't know how Remilia's would work

[Anonymous No.]

>>46796596
>>46795727
My biggest problem wasn't her range, it was her bomb being awful

[Anonymous No.]

>>46795818
You haven't?
Sometimes I drink two whole pots of strong coffee to hype me up a bit
Pro tip; don't do that, you just give yourself diahorrea and the jitters
On the flip side stage 4 of MS suddenly becomes god's personal gift to you, so maybe it's not all bad.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46796596
I was wrong, Yuyuko has pretty decent damage.
Beat it on the second try, after a beer, too. I guess Alice just sucks

[Anonymous No.]

>>46796661
Mint candy is even better than coffee, it keeps you alert and you can have as many as you want.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46787116
>>46790239
>>46797845
Why aren't you showing the post-last-spell stage clear results.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46801522
I took the screenshots at random, didn't think the results were important.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46801645
Now he's gonna shit you up for
>player penalty

[Anonymous No.]

Imma hijack this thread for a moment to ask, how do I make the EoSD Retexture work? It clearly was made for the patching method pre-THCRAP but when I try that old-ass version from way back in the day, I can't do anything, because the menu is stuck scrolling up endlessly while the current version renaming files breaks graphics.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46801785
If you really want to use that crap, just run the thcrap configuration tool again and browse among the available patches, I think I remember seeing a retexture patch for EoSD there.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46801978
My eyes don't feel really good these days, so I was thinking maybe it'd help me a bit.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46802051
You should check if your gpu supports integer scaling and use that then, if you play on full screen mode. Otherwise set the 1280x960 resolution on vpatch and play windowed.
This way the game's screen will be doubled with pixel-perfect scaling, making things look less blurry.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46801645
>>46797845
>>46790239
>>46787116
>player penalty

Now it's clear why didn't want to show it.
Sorry to break it to you, but you didn't beat shit.
All your 1ccs are invalid. Try again.

>>46801665
Not even the same guy, but he would be right to shit on him.
It's better to correct them early on.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46802069
Thanks anon, you're an eye saver, this is much better.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46802108
You're welcome, not many can appreciate the difference.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46802051
You should also turn off the blur effect and the "dramatic" effect

[Anonymous No.]

>>46803069
Ooh, how do I do this, "don't use fog" and "don't use vertex buffer" on the config file?

[Anonymous No.]

Wow, spamming the fire button during boss fights makes th02 so much easier

[Anonymous No.]

>>46802076
ZUN says easy 1ccs are valid.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46805327
That guy isn't playing on easy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46805332
Forgot that meant extra lives. The point still stands.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46805373
Citation needed, then.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46805376
Extra lives don't lock you out of the ending or unlocking the extra stage and you're still beating the game without using a continue. Therefor, ZUN considers using extra lives acceptable.

[Anonymous No.]

>extra lives doesn't count!!
Then why are lives set on 5 from the start?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46805503
Because the guy you downloaded it from was a casual probably

[Anonymous No.]

>>46805481
"Acceptable for unlocking the extra stage" and "Acceptable for marking a square made by autists who want to track how much they've accomplished" aren't the same thing.

>>46805503
That's like asking "why is the sky brown?"

[Anonymous No.]

>>46805528
That's a given but if someone just wants to reduce the grind needed to beat all paths on IN or something I don't see the issue.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46805590
There's no issue, as long as they don't brag about getting a 1cc afterwards.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46805630
>brag about getting a 1cc
This is never not pathetic.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46808770
I mean, it's fine when some anon shows up and says "look guys, it's my first 1cc ever!" and a few people say "congrats", but when it turns out he was taking the easier way out you feel kind of cheated

[Anonymous No.]

>>46808770
You've just been playing for so long that you've forgotten who difficult it is to get one when you don't have thousands of hours invested in these games.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46804100
Yeah I guess, I don't really remember which option you should turn off, but you can experiment with those to remove the blur effects and 'dramatic effect' elements like fog and clouds
>>46805481
It's acceptable in valid point yep. Also I'm not sure about IN, but in EOSD, using extra lives means you're just getting all the 1ups from the score in the early game which can lead to bad habit
But as long that guy still using his bomb and PoC-ing, then it's still fine

[Anonymous No.]

Schedule for TWC is up

[Anonymous No.]

>>46814235
Wow, starting off with LoLK survival of all things? Interesting move. (probably due to player schedules)
Also, this should definitely be the next OP.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46814235
Nice. Just finished watching matches from last year.
This is the first time I'll be watching it live. Sure hope Gastari will be casting it this year as well, the guy is hilarious.

>>46814788
They did the same thing last year, I believe.

[Anonymous No.]

Hello anons. Does anyone have tips for orin's last non spell? The one before she starts throwing spinny things at you. It's super disorienting to me, can't read it at all.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46810624
nta but unless trying for special Lunatic-type clears like LNNs or so, "thousands of hours" is insane.
Understand gameplay concepts and how to apply them instead of mindless rote memorization. You can "brute force memorize" for your first 1cc but for anything afterwards it's unacceptable. What's so hard about "streaming", "misdirection", and "micrododging"?

That anon can "brag" about his Normal 1ccs as long as he mentions that it was cleared using extra lives. That's it. Just straight-up honesty.
My first clears were with extra lives as well and I went back and cleared them with default lives once I got better.

[Anonymous No.]

I've given up on trying to play the games conventionally since I don't play much and my next goal hard SA is too hard (for me) when you barely memorize anything.
So I've chosen to trying to complete stages individually, but without shooting, I forget less things between sessions so I can actually enjoy the game somewhat again, but I wanted to ask.
Should I just try lunatic in this case since it doesn't take me 20 minutes each attempt, so failing doesn't really matter?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46819109
Might as well skip to Lunatic, especially if playing SA. SA Lunatic pacifist is pretty easy except stage 5. Even Extra is easy since Subterranean Rose doesn't have a timeout phase.

But if you can't even 1CC Hard, you might not have a good time regardless.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46819138
Well I'm ok in my good moments, but I'm fucking SICK (as in health issues) and my memory sucks, so time windows where I can actually play the game properly are quite small, so I can do individual stages much more comfortably than playing the game stage 1 to 6.

By the way, I've always wondered is there any trick to memorize things, since (as I've already mentioned) my memory is godawful so people actually doing shit like memorizing UFO spawns look like wizards/adderall addicts to me.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46816720
Orin's 3rd non is static, the only thing random is her movement. Generally, you sit between two waves for a temporary safespot then hop to the next one as she fires the next waves. See the webm. I recommend practicing it on thprac until you get a hang of it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46819109
Just play photo games, or do something like time outing grudbow rage, dvowg, hpsi, etc

[Anonymous No.]

>>46819323
>Just play photo games
I FORGOT ABOUT THIS SHIT
Thank you anon I feel dumb now
I've played StB as one of my first games and quite liked it, but for some reason I forgot about non-mainline games.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46819323
Is there a list of the hardest attacks to time out? I know about those, QED, PDH, HBCB, maybe LFS and Rings of Death.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46819422
>Is there a list of the hardest attacks to time out?
Dragon Eater >>> QED > BoLaD > Grudge bow rage > LFS rage > HBCB phase 4 > ....
Easiest timeout would be Subterranean Sun

[Anonymous No.]

>>46820081
LFS rage is much easier than HBCB (HPSI too) or even PDH. Dragon Eater is meme shit that is impossible
QED VS BoLaD is hard to say but BoLaD should be on the same tier if not harder

[Anonymous No.]

>>46820810
nice table. where did you get it?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46819187
>By the way, I've always wondered is there any trick to memorize things
I don't think it's much different from memorizing a combination to a safe or answers for a test. Repeat it until you do it instinctively (even if you don't know exactly why) or come up with a mnemonic that makes sense to you (even if only to you)

A popular thing to do in all shmups is line yourself up with some element of the HUD. In Touhou, that's normally something in the background image. These are mostly used for consistency on precise strats (a well-known example being the N in Enemy for the Starbow Break safespot), but you can use it to help patterns stand out. If you find that there's a good place on the screen to be during a spell, see if there's a dot, line, or splotch of color in the BG close by and make a mental association.

One thing I'm particularly fond of is likening the movement you make to some shape or thing. My go-to is characters (U or L for streaming, C or D for macrododging, V or Y for misdirecting, etc.), but you can get super poetic here if you want. If the way you move reminds you of crashing waves, or falling leaves, or whatever else, take note of that.

And then another thing you can do is add congruence to your routing. Let's say all the post-midboss stage sections in stages 1-4 have streaming sections, but the stage 4 section DEMANDS you start it from the right side and you're having trouble remembering that. What you can do is see if the stage 2 section can be done from the right side, and if it can, instead of having to specifically remember stage 4, you can now remember "odd stage left, even stage right", giving you three additional places to drill it in. Generally, if you can reuse a strat, do so.

If you can't tell, memo is one of my favorite aspects of the genre. It gives every game its own unique rhythm and technique while letting you add your own personal touch.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46819268
Thanks for the reference video. That non is actually scary to me. Fast bullets flying from each direction and rapidly narrowing safe spots make me not feel right ~(>_<~).

[Anonymous No.]

>>46820810
Where do side game stuff place? Thinking that Satori's Seamless Ceiling from DS has got to be up there, assuming no photos of course, then 10-4 from ISC and other of similar caliber

[Anonymous No.]

>>46822831
It's very reminiscent of one of the SoEW third boss' final patterns, except it's even harder to dodge there.
You should play some pc98 games to get over your fear of fast patterns.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46819268
>>46823241
What a coincidence you mention SoEW, I was going to mention it's a similar pattern to the barrage fired by the tiles in the Extra Stage.
(source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvaGPhlDfV0))

[Anonymous No.]

Best playable character in MS?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46824258
Yuka.
Not because she's good, but her dialogue is funny.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46824258
If you mean as in "so strong it makes the game easier" it's mima.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46824258
Mima if you learn the game
Otherwise IMO Reimu is the best if you want the best chance of clearing with little to no practice

[Anonymous No.]

>>46824320
>Otherwise IMO Reimu is the best if you want the best chance of clearing with little to no practice
I'd say Yuuka is better in this case because her ridiculous spread means less enemies on screen at most power levels, compared to Reimu's somehow worse performing homing shot. As a trade-off, bosses would take slightly longer.
Also her slightly slower speed makes it easier for micrododging of which there are many instances.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46820810
> Dragon Eater is meme shit that is impossible
I gave this a few tries and was like huh, this is totally doable, it doesn't really get any harder?
>hit 25 seconds
Fug :-D

[Anonymous No.]

>>46820979
You sound like a person that gets to enjoy the genre to its fullest, unlike me who only gets to enjoy it sometimes when I accidentally don't fuck up.
Thanks for the answer, I'll try some of those.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46824320
>>46824599
I disagree that either makes for an easier clear by first time players. The later bosses are by far the biggest barrier to a 1cc, and being able to shorten the amount of time dealing with a pattern is what aids survivability the most. It's for similar reasons I would recommend Marisa A over Reimu B to someone playing EoSD for the first time.
That said, I do play Marisa in most games, so this may speak more about my preferences as a player than as general advice most could follow.

>>46824271
This however is advice anyone is bound to get mileage out of

[Anonymous No.]

>>46827339
You're forgetting that stages are at their deadliest when playing blind. Enemies can come from anywhere, shoot anything, and you can move into a space that looks safe only for some enemy you can't even see to completely wall you. Being able to damage everything on screen no matter what, even if only a bit, helps a lot.
also there's absolutely no way you can tell me Marisa A is better than Reimu A at dealing with the stage 5 pre-midboss fairies if you don't have their spawns memorized

But you can actually test this if you want. Go play exactly one credit each of 10 shmups that you know nothing about, 5 with a spread/homing shot and 5 with a forward focus shot. I'm willing to bet you'll get farther on average with the former than the latter.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46829701
Not him, but yeah most of the time, I get farther using homing, but my 1cc clears were with focus shots. Because homing or spread usually only good during Zako spam, which you can easily memorize or bomb during the first play. And don't forget in touhou, especially in EOSD, Reimu A bomb deals the least damage and least iframe which can be a newbie trap but Instead of Mari A I would recommend newbies to use Mari B since her bomb is pretty good at every range since newbie tend to use bomb defensively, and Master Spark also has the longest iframe, I believe

[Anonymous No.]

>>46820081
>>46820810
I greatly underestimated BoLaD timeout after watching the cheated GIL no vert run so many years ago.

[Anonymous No.]

>Start pushing to become luna shooter
>decide to try going through the games in reverse order 18 down since the newer ones are mostly easier
>Lunatic clear games 13 and up pretty quickly
>Get to 12
>cant beat hard after a week
>give up and go to 11
>Cant even get past Orin on hard
I knew this would be the difficulty spike but fuck...

[Anonymous No.]

>>46834775
Did you clear LoLK on legacy or point device?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46829701
>You're forgetting that stages are at their deadliest when playing blind.
>Being able to damage everything on screen no matter what, even if only a bit, helps a lot.
These are the exact ideas I had in mind typing that post. MS Stage 5 becomes a real breather with Yuuka. Unfortunately none of the later games' spread shots are as effective or fun.

>>46830059
My play style similar too. As a new player I preferred Reimu for homing shots as a crutch against bosses, and she's still the main pick for new mainline games when playing for a 1cc.
Otherwise, I've had more fun playing as Marisa or anybody else for later casual clears. The different damage output and spread makes gameplay drastically different, which is a nice change of pace; but I think most importantly the stress of trying to get first 1cc is gone.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46835229
Legacy, Lolk was actually shockingly easy, beat it third try
I played Reisen though

[Anonymous No.]

>>46781205
>>46786231
Okay. I made a list of everything in the game that remotely scares me and spent the past week doing sets, pic related. Anything not listed I've been consistent enough on that I don't feel the need for a set, so assume those are all close to 100%. Though obviously I could be underestimating something.
To answer my question, 30 makes for a good balance. On the average spell card, it'll take only ~10 minutes to do it 30 times in a row, while any weird edge cases that would throw you off your normal route are likely to pop up at least once.

What should my next step be?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46843353
Now track entire stage practice consistency. Start with sets of 5~10 then go from there.

The percentages you listed have you at a 11% success chance for everything 3rd stage onward combined, which would nominally mean you have a 1/9 chance of any given run being a LNN. Obviously that's not the case, since practicing one thing multiple times is very different from being consistent at a string of many different things requiring ~30 continuous minutes of mental stamina. The things that give you trouble in real runs might be different from what gives you trouble in individual spell practice.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46843697
>Now track entire stage practice consistency.
I'd already gotten consistent enough fighting bosses that I was tacking on stage portions for the hell of it, so this is a good idea.
What do you think is a good success rate to aim for? For my individual practice, I aimed for 90% on most things with a couple things allowed at 80%. I presume I'll be fine if my stage consistency is a little lower than that, since there's only 6 things that need to succeed instead of 30+.

>The things that give you trouble in real runs might be different from what gives you trouble in individual spell practice.
I feel this goes the other way, too. S6 spell 6 has a lot of precise micrododging and takes ~40 seconds to capture, so a 60 set is 40 minutes straight of final boss-tier difficulty with almost zero downtime, which is honestly exhausting. Knowing I only have to survive 1% of a 60 set in a real run is freeing in comparison.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46732952
I can only take so much... And no more. (i'll eventually try another toohoo playthrough)

[Anonymous No.]

>>46843353
what game is this?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46829701
>>46841356
Yeah, on second thought both of you bring up fair points. Homing shot types will carry people further on their first several runs and in practice mode.

That said, my line of thinking was pretty much on par with >>46830059. I totally see the value of using homing shots when you're trying to figure out the game, but once you've memorized enough that the 1cc becomes a real possibility, I still do think switching over to a damage oriented shot type to make quick work of enemies makes most Touhou titles easier overall.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46844378
Infinite Blade Pavilion. Fangame

[Anonymous No.]

>>46844166
Please respect the board culture and refrain from posting wojaks and its derivatives.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46844939
i will swear to holy Reimoo that it won't happen again

[Anonymous No.]

>>46844166
I get you. I find I have to be in a very specific mindset to enjoy these games. Otherwise I play for a few minutes until I die and lose all motivation and quit the game.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46844516
One thing I guarantee is the unpleasant feeling of:
- Playing focused or high-damage-low-scope shottype in a game where the bosses move too much or the spellcards force you to move away from the boss.
- Playing homing or low-damage-high-scope shottype in a game where the spellcards are not difficult but very annoying to dodge and drives you nuts the longer you stay on it.

[Anonymous No.]

Could someone help me with some tips on how to deal with UFO's gimmick (and the game in general)? I've been 1CCing all the games on normal in order and UFO has been giving me a very hard time because it feels that I need to constantly juggle the ufos flying around changing colors while dodging everything and it gets absurdly complicated at some points. Not only that but getting power back up after getting hit feels almost impossible.

My strategy has been to get as many green ufos as possible to stock on bombs so that I can use them more often, but from stage 3 onwards I can't consistently get them in moments that I consider ideal.

[Anonymous No.]

>enter UFO stage 4 with 6 lives
>exit with 1
I hate this stage so goddamn much. People meme about Shou's curveball lasers but I frequently have a much easier time with those than I do Murasa's bullshit. Even her timeout to me is harder than fucking Junko's.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46852881
There are to many different things you could be doing wrong, so it's hard to know what to tell you unless you post some replays.

From what little information you provided, you should probably instead be aiming for bombs lives or bombs depending on what's convenient, and rainbow when neither is convenient.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46852881
I think the issue people have with th12 is that they start stressing out over collecting the UFOs on the screen as well as shooting it down after it collects the required count of items. The solutions are to "take it easy" and "memorize".

"Take it easy" as in don't stress out. If you missed out on collecting them when they were at a specific color, then let them pass by and pick them up when they return. If they fly away, then fuck em. If you missed out on killing the UFO or killed it too soon, it's no big deal. Losing your life trying to reach a UFO is always worse.

"Memorize" as in have a general idea of the points at which UFOs spawn. You don't have to pick up EVERY UFO by the way. There are some ideal points at which to collect, especially when there are tons of enemies who could drop items for it. Also, there are some points in certain stages where spawned UFOs are of a specific unchanging color, like the green UFO at the very start of Stage 3 iirc. If you keep this in mind then you know that at the end of Stage 2 you should have some green to pair up with it, or be prepared to focus on green after it.

>My strategy has been to get as many green ufos as possible to stock on bombs so that I can use them more often, but from stage 3 onwards I can't consistently get them in moments that I consider ideal.
Overall I'd say it's best to focus on red UFOs/lives rather than bombs, because if you die without using them then you're fucked out of all the hard work you did.

>>46853429
I don't know who you're quoting, but I know you're not the same anon as above. Here's a writeup I made about Murasa's spellcards on Normal. This also applies to >>46852881 (You)
>>/jp/thread/46300760#p46500509

[Anonymous No.]

>>46854926
Add someone who's captured the survival, I'd say the trick for it is just moving around the screen very slowly, focusing on dodging each wave as it comes. Dodging only requires some very minor adjustments, because the waves are aimed to begin with.
The hardest part is not running yourself into a corner while wandering around.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46855035
As someone*

[Anonymous No.]

>>46855035
>because the waves are aimed to begin with.
Oh I didn't know this, that makes it a lot easier in a way. I guess it should be treated similar to the second part of Possessed by Phoenix, right?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46852881
*ufo_color_change_sound.wav*

[Anonymous No.]

>>46854841
I do that, my issues is that I can't seem to focus on getting the UFOs in an ideal manner while also dodging everything else. I've been learning what colors shows up when and trying to build a strategy based on it but I always end up fucking up at some point, which in turn disrupts my whole plan

>>46854926
>I think the issue people have with th12 is that they start stressing out over collecting the UFOs on the screen as well as shooting it down after it collects the required count of items.
You just perfectly describe what happens to me. I'll try to worry less about following my plans perfectly and see how it goes in that case, though I constantly feel like that I could've been able to get more lives/bombs which bugs me a little.

Thank you for the advice!

[Anonymous No.]

>>46855212
I was going from memory, so I've just watched a replay just to make sure it's aimed (and realized I haven't saved a replay of the run in which I've capped the spell, great) and can't tell with absolute certainty, but it sure looks like it.
I've never got to mokou's survival spell yet (mostly for lack of trying) so I can't answer your question.

[Anonymous No.]

The Touhou World Cup stream is live and starting in 40 minutes!

https://www.twitch.tv/touhouworldcup

[Anonymous No.]

>>46863342
What are the prizes? Fumos?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46863342
Commentary stream
https://www.twitch.tv/touhou_replay_showcase

[Anonymous No.]

GB got Marisa LNN holy..

[Anonymous No.]

>>46863988
After a match filled with 5 miss clears and early game resets, too!
If anyone is curious, the mainline games that don't have a TWC LNN yet along with the dates they happen this year are
>EoSD (July 7th)
>SA (June 16th)
>UFO (June 22nd)
>DDC (June 8th)
>UM (June 23rd)

[Anonymous No.]

>>46864059
DDC was so close to getting a LNN last year.
With the worst possible shottype too, which is just simply insane.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46863342
>streamed at 9 am here

Wish they could pick more reasonable times.

[Anonymous No.]

>sunk 12 hours into UM
>still stuck on level 3 normal
yes i am a shitter
yes this is my first touhou game
card recs?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46865880
Start with Megumu's and the one that gives lives when you capture spells

[Anonymous No.]

>>46865880
UM doesn't seem like the best place to start the series from.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46865880
For me it's wolf and bomb amplifier card

[Anonymous No.]

What's the bug with Doremy's first non on lunatic?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46867673
ZUN made a typo in his code resulting in the even waves of Doremy's non 1 on Lunatic being faster than intended.

https://nylilsa.github.io/#/bugs/th15/doremy-n1

[Anonymous No.]

>>46867753
Post a webm of the nerfed version

[Anonymous No.]

>>46864903
It's a worldwide event, there's not really anything they can do about it. 3 PM for you would be 3 AM for someone else

[Anonymous No.]

>>46865880
You're making a mistake starting with UM.

Saki (increased shot damage), Byakuren (increased bomb damage), Miko (removes most bullets on screen), and any of the bullet-clearing ones (Nue orbiting UFO, Misumaru side Magatamas, Okina (back door) are beginner crutches which should be useful.

[Anonymous No.]

When will touhou have a true revival?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46870009
what you meant

[Anonymous No.]

>>46870009
To be perfectly honest it'll require either the games drastically lowering in difficulty or completely changing genres.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46870154
I mean since touhou 15 the game has become drastically easier and even become more and more braindead easy to UM

[Anonymous No.]

>>46870009
Touhou has been declining since MoF.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46871054
I would say they're only easy compared to the older games. You put a first time player in front of UM or WBaWC and it'll take them weeks to clear, if they can even do it at all.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46871465
>You put a first time player in front of UM or WBaWC and it'll take them weeks to clear
Sounds pretty normal

[Anonymous No.]

>>46871054
Are they really considered that easy? I've always personally found 15-18 much harder to get into than, say, anything 2-10 sans Phantasmagorias. That said, I've never tried to seriously grind any of the newer games besides LoLK and HSiFS, both of which I have yet to 1cc.

[Anonymous No.]

MoF or EoSD has got to be the easiest to get into, no gimmicks to pay attention to, just play

[Anonymous No.]

>>46872669
They're more exploitable than necessarily easy. If you know what's broken and how to use it, then they're honestly effortless to clear. Completely blind, though, they're a bit less approachable than the earlier games.
>>46872680
I started with MoF and I think it's the best one to start with. It doesn't have any esoteric systems like PCB or IN and it emphasizes a very important skill for beginners, that being to use your goddamn bombs

[Anonymous No.]

>>46872669
It's quite easy to me and even makes me ditch habit such as not pov, bottom hugging, and most important part is actually use my bomb

[Anonymous No.]

>>46872729
>it emphasizes a very important skill for beginners, that being to use your goddamn bombs
Double-edged sword though considering it consumes P which will make the rest of the game torturous. On the other hand it will force them to dodge better.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46872669
I'm a pretty new player. The only game I've 1cc'd on Normal is PCB. I have 1cc's on Easy in several of the games. My take is that the newer games have a more smoother difficulty progression, but they also have elements that make them harder for newcomers compared to some of the old games, while having not-so-perfect balancing choices with skew the picture.

UM relies heavily on the various bullet wiping cards. Even on mere Normal, the danmaku patterns get extremely dense and very fast. This makes it excruciatingly hard for total novices. Yes, you can learn to dodge them, but they are overwhelming to cognize for newcomers. And yes, you can and indeed have to use items, but to get them you have to play the game, play it well enough to have the money to buy them and so on.

Wily Beast is completely screwed balance-wise. The ottermode borderline trivializes a lot of it, but once you stop using it, you run into issues with how cognitively stressful and visually hard to read the game is with all the blinking, noisy shit on the screen and questionable visual design choices.

Hidden Star feels less wonky than those two, and is actually among my favorites that I've played so far, but grasping the extra mechanic could take some effort for complete newcomers. It also really stops playing around by stages 4 and 5 and Aun is quite hard for a stage 3 boss. Satono and Mai are totaly overwhelming to read for complete beginners.

By comparison, for example PCB isn't all that hard in my opinion, but there is an insane difficulty spike a the Prismriver sister's stage. Another relatively easy to manage Touhou game with a big later difficulty spike is DDC, where Seija's battle is probably gonna bend over most of players for the first 3 or 30 times. So some of the "easier" old games also have wonkiness to them.

The hardest games in my experience are SA and UFO. SA is just repulsively hard. Parsee feels like a stage 4 boss. The shot types are weird. The extra mechanic is both boring and weird. I dislike the "you go to the start of the stage at loss of continues" era. I dislike power based bombing and how dry it feels. It's weird, dark and murky, a nasty cave wall to bang my head against. Truly the Dark Souls of 2hu games and for me on the absolute bottom of the to play list.

UFO is just Wily Beast but it's also really hard and the blinking shit on the screen doesn't give you crutches, it just gives you more annoying shit to deal with.

Overall, the series has really uneven difficulty progression both within the games and from game to game, and part of the "new games are easy" comes from people being very experienced with 2hu games and partly from them having some wonky balancing choices which experienced players can exploit.

[Anonymous No.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgqFOToKA9k

[Anonymous No.]

>>46872391
But that's the issue. Plenty of them would get frustrated or bored before that happens and just give up. It's not like in Dark Souls or YS or something, as while those games can be challenging, there's more game to sink your teeth into and each victory along you to move forwards and motive you alongside with being a lot more clear where you messed up so you can improve.

[Anonymous No.]

Double TD LNNNFS just happened, both Reimu and Youmu. The skill level of these matches has gotten so high wtf

[Anonymous No.]

>>46875563
The year is 20XX. Everyone can LNNFS every Touhou game with any shot type with 100% consistency. Because of this, the winner of a match depends solely on clearing with the fewest keyboard inputs. The minimum input metagame has evolved to ridiculous levels due to it being the only remaining factor to decide matches.

[TJ "Yachie" Kicchou No.]

>>46876673
A shift press is a shift press, you can't say it's only half

[Anonymous No.]

>>46863988
I just watch this (unspoilered). Holy shit.
I love TWC so much.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46872729
>They're more exploitable than necessarily easy.
So they're like HRtP in that regard? I see.
I've never been able to figure out how to properly bombcheese HRtP and I can't stand that game, so maybe that's why I'm so bad at the new ones lol

>>46872864
This isn't so true for MoF; the universal bomb is basically giving everyone a Master Spark, and the game is pretty generous with giving out power. The only exception is Kanako's last spell card, which is what I consider the most frustrating run killer in the series besides maybe Okina's last spell card.
You're on the money with SA though, the bombs are so bad that using them actively sabotages you. I find I do better off just learning how to dodge the patterns, and the only reason I even 1cc'd that game was due to Reimu A.

>>46873029
Thanks for the detailed breakdowns. I should probably try out otter on WBaWC, haha.
For what it's worth, I'm largely in agreement with your opinions on the earlier games. I'm not sure where I'd be put in terms of experience with Touhou, but I have normal 1ccs for 2-13 sans UFO and Phantasmagorias, as well as an LLS hard ReimuA 1cc.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46875129
But a lot of people also give up in dark souls game too

[Anonymous No.]

>>46879245
>how to properly bombcheese HRtP
It's really easy. You first figure out if the stage has a ton of cards or not, it's only worth it in the former case.
Then you take a couple steps to the left when the stage starts, and once the ball is about to hit you from its initial jump you use a bomb and watch the lives increase.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46879474
The Dark Soul games are massively popular and influential while its considered an achievement for a Touhou fan to pick up one of the games, yet alone beat it as intended. It all comes down to how they're designed, I think.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46875563
Survival is too easy when the games don't change and people grind them for years to achieve high consistency.

They should make a wheel of misfortune and spin it right before the match starts. TD survival, but you can't use the focus key. UFO survival, but collecting a UFO token counts as a miss. DDC survival, but you're playing HardDDC.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46881284
Fun and great idea! Could have a random challenge per stage basis too to score extra points.
Bonus for never let go of shot during Parsee clone spell bonus if no top of the screen safespots used during Orin boss. Timeouts of hard random spells like Peta flare or cat walk give bonus. Doing a single stage no vert. And so forth.

[Anonymous No.]

How much playtime do LNNN'ers have in the games they can LNNN

[Anonymous No.]

>>46881698
Around 25000

[Anonymous No.]

>>46881698
For the first LNN probably around 500 hours

[Anonymous No.]

>>46875129
>>46879474
>>46879713
I know it's leddit but I saw this the other day and this conversation reminded me of it. There are some solid points, some of which are already mentioned.
https://www.reddit.com/r/shmups/comments/vljjd0/what_is_stopping_shmups_from_entering_mainstream/?rdt=34391

[Anonymous No.]

>>46882278
I don't understand why they blame the difficulty when some """difficult""" game can still be popular, but I understand the lack of story and how game is too linear

[Anonymous No.]

>>46883410
>when some """difficult""" game can still be popular,
That's because people are more familiar with the game/genre, so they have gained some general skills from playing them. That and it's not as difficult as most arcade games
99% of the people who try this genre usually quit after a few credits just because they're "bad" at it which is completely natural if you have zero experience. But the thing that truly filters most people is that to get good, you need to put in a huge amount of time/effort practicing these games which people aren't going to do
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqL_AfNxNEE

[Anonymous No.]

>>46883720
I think that's the main issue. Games known for their difficulty can get popular, but the main barrier people hit is the process of improving at Touhou is a lot more frustrating then most games. You have to beat the whole thing in one go, so there's not that much sense of relief when you beat a difficult level or boss, because you'll just have to face them again later. Like rougelikes they center around replaying a game over and over until you get to the end, but lack the randomness that makes it enjoyable on repeat playthroughs. Another issue is that Touhou games are pretty terrible at teaching the player what to do, to the point where looking up the solutions to spell cards is pretty much a requirement for new players.

I think there's a reason why ZUN started to get more experimental in LoLK and UM, and that was it find ways to make the learning process more enjoyable.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46884126
I mean, the games lengths are only 25 to 30 minutes and the non final bosses probably only take 2 to 3 minutes to beat, so it kinda makes sense if the sense of relief comes from beating the games, not the bosses
>looking up the solutions to spell cards is pretty much a requirement for new players
Touhou doesn't do well at teaching people how to play its game yeah, but not for this reason

[Anonymous No.]

>>46884126
>Like rougelikes they center around replaying a game over and over until you get to the end, but lack the randomness that makes it enjoyable on repeat playthroughs
I dunno, the randomness of roguelikes makes it feel as if my success is tied to the whims of the random number generator. I'd call the randomness a contributing factor in why I find roguelikes to feel way more repetitive and draining than 1ccing a Touhou game, or any other arcade game really.

>I think there's a reason why ZUN started to get more experimental in LoLK and UM, and that was it find ways to make the learning process more enjoyable.
This, I agree with. Making the learning process more enjoyable or otherwise incentivizing repeat playthroughs, be it through extra content or streamlining the process with anti-frustration features, does add value.
For example, with LoLK, I think pointdevice mode is a great concept, think the particularly deranged bullet patterns are some of the series' more interesting ones, and in general I enjoy "IWBTG-likes". I just think the execution was poor; if he merely made retries completely instantaneous and gave an everlasting BGM option, I'd probably enjoy the game considerably more.

[Anonymous No.]

You think that touhou peaked in IN?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46882278
Washed up shmup player here, for me it's because a single run takes too long and is mentally exhausting. Maintaining concentration for 25-30 minutes is a long time and I have other shit to do and think about. Then I look at PCB and IN scoring or a 2 loop game like DDP where one run can take 40+ minutes, and I'm just too old for that shit. That's why I usually just play around with thprac on hard attacks if I boot up Touhou nowadays.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46886449
yeah

[Anonymous No.]

>>46886449
It peaked in PCB, carried on the momentum till PoFV, and started a slow descent from MoF on.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46886696
>Then I look at PCB and IN scoring or a 2 loop game like DDP where one run can take 40+ minutes
I know what you mean. I have no idea how someone can score a game like LoLK where it takes almost 20 minutes to just leave stage 3 and half of that is graze milking. I feel like once a run surpasses 27-ish minutes in length, there's almost always some kind of bloat.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46883720
Speaking about familiarity, I don't understand why big players in the shmup genre like Cave, Raizing, etc, didn't try to make a high budget adventure action game with shmup elements, similar to Pocky & Rocky but with a mission system style like DMC, so people can still move freely and aren't expected to clear the whole game in one sitting back then

[Anonymous No.]

>>46884126
>You have to beat the whole thing in one go, so there's not that much sense of relief when you beat a difficult level or boss, because you'll just have to face them again later.
Damn this reminds me of how dreadful it is to go through stages 2-4 when retrying a run.
I can clear those stages with no deaths easy, but it's awfully tedious to redo just because I decided to play riskier on stage 5 and 6. However, the catharsis at clearing a game is absolutely heavenly.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46884555
>only 25 to 30 minutes
That's a long time for one sitting. "Hard" games nowadays either have a ton of checkpoints or very short levels.

[Anonymous No.]

How exactly does the slow rate for replays work? Is there a formula I can find anywhere?

[Anonymous No.]

I can finally say that I can consistently reach orin without dying! Proud of myself (* ^ ω ^)

[Anonymous No.]

>>46894954
Good thing there still are games which aren't like that.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46886388
In rogues you usually end up figuring shit up and can still do decent with bad RNGs so the most important factor is usually knowledge, still in some cases RNGs affect way to many thing or item balance is shit.
>>46886696
I think exhaustion is a big part of it, you can barely take it easy at any moment as well as the lack of "having a build" since building up some OP character seems to be pretty popular. And there are a ton of video thumbnails of whatever hard game saying how to get OP or 1hit KO bosses, so another factor is that even if you check a guide you can get screwed on shmups.
>>46890394
Closest thing we got is photo games I guess, but if it's a whole map to explore I think I've only seen ReversEstory(mobile bullet hell) which had a metroidvania mode.
>>46895674
That's pretty good, SA in general is pretty hard and Orin is when the game goes full bs.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46895674
nice job anon!

[Anonymous No.]

>>46895674
Nice, good luck with orin and okuu they are hard

[Anonymous No.]

>>46895674
UwU congrats Anon! for doing this very basic thing a five year old could do! So impressive!

Yeah, no.
Stop being a shitter and wasting our time with this basic bitch nonsense.
Either start getting lunatic no bomb no miss clears, or don't bother.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46896739
Go back

[Anonymous No.]

All this talk about difficulty and game progression has got me thinking. I've thought about making an STG, and I'm leaning on deviating from the standard six stage structure somehow, largely in interest of improving replayability. Some of the ideas I've tossed around are (a) making stages more free-roam and incentivizing exploration through secret paths and/or upgrades, or (b) having stages be picked through a branching world map like Mario.
The issue is that I'm not sure how to handle difficulty balance with that kind of level progression, and these changes would require eschewing the concept of a 1cc. The alternative option I've thought about is maintaining the on-rails, six stage structure but implementing alternate routes (think Star Fox), which would probably make balancing everything a lot easier.
On paper, do any of these ideas sound appealing, or is it just gimmicky genre blending? Would the end result even be a shmup at that point?

>>46895656
Bumping this, I'm curious as well.
But if I had to guess, I'm assuming that the "slow %" is calculated as the amount of frametimes above 16.67ms over the total amount of frames displayed throughout the run. Or at least that's how I would calculate it, if I were making a game.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46897440
>a) making stages more free-roam and incentivizing exploration through secret paths and/or upgrades,

This sounds like it could be fun, I immediately saw a vision of MoF stage 3, but player scrolls the screen to the side and ends up entering into an offshoot river canyon where kappa snipe you from the water and the walls.

[Anonymous No.]

I just defeated Konngara, onto Makai now

[Anonymous No.]

>>46897632
How long did it take? Also makai is more easy so you were supposed to do it first

[Anonymous No.]

>>46897690
In this session, 4 tries after choking during Konngara that many times
ever since I starting playing, around a month I think, playing one day a week. Went for Hell first because I indeed felt it was the more tedious route.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46897690
Why do you say that? I've seen most people say the opposite

[Anonymous No.]

>>46895656
>>46897440
If I were to guess its:
(number of frames that go below 60 fps / total number of frames) * 100
So if you were to spend most of the game at like 50 fps, you'd get around 80% slowdown rate

[Anonymous No.]

>>46897690
>>46898964
I'll chime in as someone who has got a 1cc Lunatic on both routes:
Since lives can usually be refilled completely over the course of four stages, the difficulty is given by the hardest boss.
On Normal and Hard, this is clearly Sariel, making Makai the hadest route. On Lunatic, Sariel is barely harder, while Kikuri gets to the point in which her opener is extremely hard to dodge while aiming the orb at her, making Hell the harder route overall.
It took me like 7 tries to get the 1cc on Makai, and around 13 tries on Hell before I managed to beat Kikuri, after which Konngara was beaten at the first try.
I can provide a replay I've saved on youtube if requested.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46903692
Im interested in the video

[Anonymous No.]

>>46903769
Here you go, I recommend watching muted if you don't want to listen to the fag speaking.

- Hell route
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHVZU1HIhFs&t=9460
- Makai route, one week later
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEf8EbFrFPA&t=12249

I've also gone through them again so I could write a recap here.
- Hell route
Start, fail on kikuri, continue on as practice. Finish run with 4 continues used on kikuri, none on Konngara.
Start new run, fail on kikuri.
Start new run, fail on kikuri.
Practice on kikuri with the Continue button and exiting after the first wave, restarted 8 times after managing to get through the first wave with 3 or fewer misses, semi-consistently.
Start new run, fail on kikuri.
Start new run, fail on kikuri.
Start new run, success.

- Makai route
Start, fail on sariel, continue on as practice. Finish run with 6 continues used on sariel.
Start new run, success.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46903955
restarted 8 times <and stopped> after managing*

[Anonymous No.]

>>46903955
don't call yourself a fag anon :(

[Anonymous No.]

>>46904074
We're all fags here. 2hufags, for one.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46903955
Bullet beams protruding from Kikuri was very freaking. Never seen that so far myself.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46897440
It can be done on many ways I guess, depends on if you actually get player upgrades or not, I think the only free roaming stg I've seen is Guardian Legend where you got some straight stg sections and the some exploration Zelda like sections that play kinda like Kiki Kaikai where the direction your facing is where you shoot, but I'm not sure if that strands too much from your typical danmaku.
>>46903955
lmao at that one bullet of a ring killing you, that's some shitty luck, I guess I'll also have to check Kikuri again in normal just surviving or something to see if new bug(?) attacks just keep appearing over time. The opening attack of Kikuri has always been some bs, something more intended for a normal danmaku game.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46897490
Thanks for the feedback, and I really like this idea. You're a lot more creative than I am with conceptualizing concrete examples lol, I haven't yet been able to think of anything beyond "this idea sounds neat on paper"

>>46908134
I'm leaning towards no permanent player upgrades, since I think that strays too much from the "one sitting marathon" challenge of typical STGs, which I would ideally like to preserve. Not sure how else to incentivize going off the beaten path besides giving out cool rewards, though.
>exploration Zelda like sections that play kinda like Kiki Kaikai
That was actually one of the main gameplay loops I was considering. The other one I wanted to do was a side-scrolling shmup, because I can't think of any other danmaku ones besides DeathSmiles and I think the style has a lot of untapped potential. But that doesn't really allow you to deviate from the fully on rails structure very much
>Guardian Legend
Thanks for the game suggestion. I'll have to check it out sometime, that mix of genres sounds right up my alley.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46911859
Have you looked at freely scrolling shooters like Defender, Fantasy Zone, and Luftrausers? You sound like you're leaning in that direction.
>Not sure how else to incentivize going off the beaten path besides giving out cool rewards, though.
If you're going with the 1cc idea, this will more or less incentivize itself, to find the easiest path.
Another option might be to offer a large quantity of alternate paths, where some are easy to find and others hard, in hopes that the player will be curious enough to go down the easy ones and then want to "complete the collection" and go searching for the hard ones. (this is basically how cheevos work)

[Anonymous No.]

i died to the final wave of the final spell on LNN pace
it was my first time entering stage 6 on NN pace and my hands were so fucking shaky
JAJWADKNFJWFBEWKJFJDADNSKNJENJWEFWEKFNEWKF WWYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

[Anonymous No.]

>>46732952
it always bothered me Sakuya's PCB player sprite looked like Letty
>>46739607
Big star isnt here but fuck Zun for making its hitbox bigger in LoLK

[Anonymous No.]

>>46739607
i feel like some of the bullet hitboxes are larger in ISC, is this true or am i a schizo?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46912093
I honestly didn't even know of any freely scrolling shooters outside Pocky and Rocky, haha. Thank you for the suggestions, and multiple ones at that.
>to find the easiest path
That's true, but the concern I have is that once players do find the easiest path, there won't be any reason to go down the others.
>offer a large quantity of alternate paths
Y'know, that's a good point. With multiple, distinct paths, each time players revisit a level, they might inadvertently go down another one, making each playthrough unique without trying. That uniqueness, in turn, might prompt them to actively try out new things on their next runs. Thanks for framing it like that.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46912940
How does this fangame compare to normal games?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46918469
Definitely on the easier side. It has way more static/aimed patterns and way fewer RNG patterns than usual, so getting high consistency is very easy. Many things boil down to a simple execution check, some strict, most lenient. The hitboxes are also extremely tiny across the board, which I like because it means I can spend more time acting on instinct and less time thinking about how to fit myself into gaps. Lategame also has a lot of Ten Evil Stars-tier breathers (though also the hardest things in the game)

Probably the hardest thing is that it has a lot of precise memo. I use something like 15 different lineups/sound cues throughout the whole game that are necessary for consistency, and a lot of things will outright wall you if you forget exactly how to do it. There's less room to "just dodge". I've definitely lost a few decent runs because my mind blanked in the heat of the moment. Early game is also pretty hard, where the stage 1 boss is about as hard as safespot-less Seiran, and the stage 2 boss mixes and matches bullets of different speeds at awkward angles. Think Chen final, but spread across an entire boss.

And in terms of fun, I think it's an awesome game for survival play, way better than most mainline games in that regard. There is a lot of variety in required techniques and screen usage for both stages and bosses. One moment, you'll be swooping from side to side doing wide dodges, then the next you'll be misdirecting stuff above the boss and spinning around them, then the next you'll be moving along the entire perimeter of the screen. I'm pretty sure if I made a heatmap of where the player character is during a run, it'd be all over the place.
It also has a balanced difficulty curve with no massive spikes like books, PWG, or PCB stage 6.

[Anonymous No.]

https://www.twitch.tv/touhouworldcup

[Anonymous No.]

How do I enjoy these games? I know I really should but they just feel like a chore to me now.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46926373
don't force yourself. if the games aren't your cup of tea then that's fine. nobody's forcing you to play them

[Anonymous No.]

>>46926373
Besides what anon above said, if you used to enjoy them but then grew tired, just take a long break until the itch comes back.

[Anonymous No.]

Is Yuyuko the most op spreadshot in the series or is it just me?
>>46886449
Probably, it's pretty polished, has some extra content and some fun interactions with the teams, the music and stages are pretty nice but I think PCB feels better in those things but gameplay wise IN might be the best.
>>46926373
Avoiding to retry and just doing one serious run and call it a day has helped me to get back to the games after not playing for a while, since retry hell is very draining.
>>46918293
If you make each stage distinct especially if they have different bosses many players will probably try other paths just to see what's there, maybe having a list or a map that gets completed over time can incentivize player to get into completion mode.

[Anonymous No.]

Anyone else having problems with thcrap in SFW? Dialog with Yuugi in Marisa's scenario is broken.
On that note, got tips on playing as Marisa? I'm stuck on Murasa's stage currently and I don't know if it's the stage that's hard or I can't use the character effectively.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46927240
>Is Yuyuko the most op spreadshot in the series or is it just me?
When paired with Youmu, I think so too, but she's not very good solo. Just too weak against bosses even if she utterly decimates stages. UFO Sanae B is a better overall package.
Is Yuyukofag still around?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46926479
But you have to beat them to be a touhou fan.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46928660
If you do something you like, even housework doesn't feel like a chore

[Anonymous No.]

>>46928660
Only secondaries give a shit about other people being secondaries.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46928984
secondary detected

[Anonymous No.]

>>46929015
secondary detected

[Anonymous No.]

>>46929015
Primaries are too busy playing the games to care about someone's Normal 1ccs

[Anonymous No.]

>>46912940
Got my vengeance. I had a stage 6 entry yesterday that died in a silly way, but today's was the one. Third time truly is the charm.
https://litter.catbox.moe/72a87e.mp4

[Anonymous No.]

>>46929623
Congrats!

[Anonymous No.]

>>46929623
Congrats, is this your first LNN?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46930144
>>46930171
Thanks! And yeah, it's my first LNN

[Anonymous No.]

>>46929623
great job anon!

[Anonymous No.]

>>46927429
I found the ground-slam attack that spawns mushrooms rather effective at damaging bosses when they're down, and be sure to refill your water meter often for that water "Master Spark" because you can refill faster and the aim is pretty awful so you should spam it more.
Honestly you're just going to have to brute-force the game in general imo, because enemy bullet detection is pretty bullshit. Rest assured that all bosses fight the same way, so focus on learning the character's moves first, then the bosses' spells and how to nullify their shots.
Marisa and Kanako have the worst bosses. This page gives a general rundown on how the characters play (spoiler warning, if that's your thing):
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Sunken_Fossil_World/Gameplay#Characters

>>46928660
>But you have to beat them to be a touhou fan.
To be a Touhou primary fan, not a secondary one. The fanbase has more secondaries than primaries but they're still considered "fans".
Also you're not forced to do them all in one go, just play whenever you feel like playing. As long as you're able to get at least Normal 1cc clears consistently then you're all good. I'm saying this as a player who really hates secondaries.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46931850
>As long as you're able to get at least Normal 1cc clears consistently then you're all good.
Yeah, that's never going to happen. Easy mode is already difficult for me, and Normal is like pulling teeth.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46930310
Maybe now you can play real Touhou games?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46932166
Not with that mentality you won't.
Start with the games that have easier Normal modes, like LLS.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46932194
None of the Touhou games are real. They've all passed into fantasy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46919026
Just finished watching yesterday's survival match.
Yet another LNN!

LoLK, TD, HSiFS, so far every single game this year we've seen an LNN clear which is insane.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46932249
I'll try it out and see how it goes.But I want to ask you something else. I've already got a few 1ccs under my belt, but I just want to know when it'll "click" Is there a point where it all becomes smooth sailing and I starts going "These games are actual really fun!" Because I haven't reached that point yet.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46932380
If you don't find them fun the moment you start playing them for the first time, you probably never will.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46932380
That point in time is when you finally understand gameplay concepts in shmups, mostly recognizing bullet patterns (aimed, random, static...etc.) and how to deal with them (misdirection, streaming, weaving...etc.). Once you figure them out then you unlock the skills to play every other shmup, the rest is memorization and physical skill, as well as enjoying the other aspects of the game of course. When you play, analyze the bullet patterns and learn how to dodge them.

There is no "single point" by the way because you learn as you go, but you'll gain the confidence needed as you keep on playing. In my case I started playing since 2011 and realized I really understood stuff once around the time of HSiFS's release, but my real "enlightenment" only came last year when I cleared all chars in all the three Phantasmagoria games. PoFV was a real bitch and clearing it gave me enough practice and confidence to capture many mainline spellcards that I would simply bomb through, and I'm looking forward to getting the rest of the Hard 1ccs I never got and even move up into Lunatic.

A note about memorization since many people often bring it up: it's not as bad as many people make it. This anon >>46820979 made a write up on it that summarizes it perfectly. Just note that you don't have to take it literally because you're supposed to come up with your own methods. But really it's one of the best parts of Touhou, especially where the OST rocks and the patterns are both aesthetically pleasing to look at and fun to dodge because you learned how to dodge them.

[Anonymous No.]

wow the art for TWC this year are so bad. maybe they should had limited it to JP artists only?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46932442
How do I force myself to like these games?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46932738
If you're going to force yourself to like something, force yourself to like language learning or programming or a musical instrument or something.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46932738
Why do you feel like you need to?
If you don't enjoy this style of gameplay simply move on, find something else.
When I started playing them I immediately knew this is something I would enjoy.
On the other hand, I hate rhythm games, absolutely despise them, but I'm not gonna force myself to like them, get better at them, or even play them for that matter. That would be a waste of time, because I know I'll never like them no matter how good I get at them.
So yeah, maybe shmups are just not for you. Which is perfectly fine. I feel like they're a niche genre for a reason.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46932852
>force yourself to like programming

Not him, but I would honestly rather slit my wrists.
That would be a more enjoyable experience.

[Anonymous No.]

Being someone who likes danmaku, rhythm games and programming makes this conversation quite amusing to read.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46932261
Where do you think the LNN streak will end? The next few survival matches are WBaWC, IN, and DDC. WBaWC is probably on par with TD in terms of survival difficulty, so an LNN(N) is likely. IN is IN, plus SOC is playing so the chances are even higher. DDC could very well end the streak if the players go for the harder shots for the lulz/TWCscore
>>46932738
For me personally, watching high level gameplay like score runs TWC matches really motivated me to improve and appreciate the games more

[Anonymous No.]

>>46932857
Unfortunately, endings are locked behind 1ccs, so you either have to be amazing at these games or you miss vital information. People always talk about how ZUN is a genius at making games, and the only way to understand these characters is to analyze their patterns so you have to play the games to get the full experience. I like the print works and the music, and shitposting and the fanworks, but I just can't bring myself to like the games. I don't think they're awful, they're just stressful and annoying which is a bad thing considering how many hours you need to put in it to beat one of these things

[Anonymous No.]

>I just can't bring myself to like the games
This is like the third time we've had this exact same discussion

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933112
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYKKUzwIK9LgRE2pKTWd94zNjFUYlLkWw

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933126
And we're getting better at it every time.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933134
That's cheating and against ZUN's rules.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46932967
>if the players go for the harder shots for the lulz/TWCscore
The good shots are worth so little that you pretty much have to. An LNN with Sakuya A or Reimu A loses to a 4 miss with Marisa A or Sakuya B and a 3 miss with Reimu B.

[Anonymous No.]

if you didnt liked in the first eosd play then its larp

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933379
If you didn't love HRtP the second you played it, you're a fake Touhou fan

[Anonymous No.]

>>46932967
IN and DDC are next, WBaWC is way further down the line.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933112
>People always talk about how ZUN is a genius at making games
Come on, he's really good not a LA CREATIVIDAD. This sounds like secondary exaggeration.
>I don't think they're awful, they're just stressful and annoying which is a bad thing considering how many hours you need to put in it to beat one of these things
Once again you're thinking about "hours" and other metrics which will only stress you further as you try to reach them unsuccessfully.
Take it easy and understand the concepts instead of playing haphazardly. I already mentioned it in the first paragraph here >>46932603. Hell, if you want to be cheap, you can watch a few certain videos on shmup gameplay concepts and you'll be able to 1cc anything immediately afterwards if you're not a brainlet.

>>46933134
kill yourself

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933300
The shot balance in DDC is fucked beyond belief, so it's no wonder.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933547
>kill yourself
get out of the chan zun

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933598
No.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933547
I think I'm at the point where I kinda get how the game works and know how streaming etc is important but that's different from putting into practice. I feel that means there's many, many hours of grinding ahead to even get good enough to even consistently 1cc normal. Which does get old fast.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933842
If you're still insistent on concerning yourself about "time" then forget it. If you set goals like it's some kind of project management shit then it will be a "grind" instead of improving yourself naturally as you play.
>but that's different from putting into practice
Well then keep practicing? Is there anything specific you need help with or are you just going to whine?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933884
I need help on how to actually get to the skill level to be able to reliably get 1ccs without luck or cheese.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933930
Play the fucking games.
Alternatively, watch videos on shmup skills, then play the fucking games.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933985
>Play the fucking games

B-but I don't wannaaaaa...

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933215
Heh, perfect reference.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933394
This but unironically.

[Anonymous No.]

Hello everyone, old touhou fan but newfag poster. I set a goal to 1cc (normal) every touhou game with every character/shottype.
So far I have:

EoSD: full clear + extra stage
PCB: full clear
IN: all team eirin clears, 2 team kaguya clears
MoF: full clear
SA: full clear
GFW: route A clear

Currently working on UFO (can reach Byakuren), IN, and GFW. I also dabbled in Mystic Square lately.

I hear a sentiment that Touhou was declining since MoF. Why do you think that? Do you mean decline in popularity, or decline in game quality, or decline in fandom?
I haven't really played any of the Touhou games from 13 onwards, and it is my goal to get deeper into the "new" touhou stuff.

[Anonymous No.]

Also btw I've been doing this on and off for about 6 months now, and I really liked everything about it.
Most memorable thing so far was using thprac to grind Orin's last non-spell for about 3 hours nonstop and now I have gained true sight and I can clear it consistently no problem at all.

I personally don't think Touhou is super hard, it's mostly getting used to it all, and just exposing yourself to it will make you a better player.

That, or I guess I am part of the exclusive primary fan club. But even then, I really think anyone can beat touhou if they really want to

[Anonymous No.]

>>46934639
Good luck!
>>46934746
>Orin's last non-spell
Are you this anon? >>46816720

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933985
Guess I'll just get back to it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933930
>>46934232
Unironically play LoLK pointdevice to get better at dodging
Also (outside of LoLK) use bombs pretty laxly, its better to waste all your bombs than die with them still in stock

[Anonymous No.]

>>46934793
Oh no actually, I'm not, that's funny

>>46816720
Yeah it's hard to explain without a slowed down video or something.
The basic facts are:
- the attack is static
- unaimed
- direction/orientation is random

What you want to look out for are these widening "columns". It helped me to just look at the attack over and over and over again until I saw what exactly the static pattern looked like.
Once you identified those widening columns, try to position yourself next to one as it comes down. Then, when the structures start to overlap, you hop in the pattern so that the rest of the wave just passes you easily.

If Orin decides to aim her attack so that you are exactly in the middle of two of those columns, then it's so fucking over and I always bomb.

I might fire up my OBS to try and capture a good example maybe...

[Anonymous No.]

>>46816720
Also, you have to realize that in each of those 6 columns, every bullet part of that column goes the exact same speed and exact same direction.
I always position myself in such a way so that I only ever have to take 1 of those moving structures into account. For this attack I'd never want to deal with overlapping directions ever.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46934639
I meant decline in game quality, you can see it from the story and spell cards slowly becoming less inspired, more generic. They're still good, but they don't feel as amazing.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46927240
>make each stage distinct especially if they have different bosses
That's the plan right now.
>maybe having a list or a map that gets completed over time can incentivize player to get into completion mode.
Could I ask for an example of what you mean? That description made me think of Shadow the Hedgehog, but I'm wondering if you meant something else.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

>>46933930
Assuming your troubles come from not knowing what to do: to learn what to do in general, look into those "shmup gameplay concepts" videos others have mentioned. To learn what to do for specific patterns, watch some replays.
Assuming your troubles come from being bad at dodging: that's mostly a matter of practice and getting accustomed to the "feel" of the game (eg. understanding hitboxes, getting comfortable with movement), as others have mentioned. Check out THPrac, which is almost like giving every game a pointdevice mode, alongside much more.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46931850
I just tried Kanako and I've reached the conclusion that Murasa is a pain in the ass.
>Marisa and Kanako have the worst bosses.
Fuck. I didn't like Joon and Shion fight, so this checks out.

[Anonymous No.]

Another thread at bump limit. I think that's third or fourth in a row now
Can I just say I love these threads as of late? Tons of enthusiasm for higher level play like TWC, good and varied discussion throughout with detailed posts like >>46934895 >>46873029 >>46820979, and a nice atmosphere where obvious shitposts don't derail the thread. Just a great place to shoot the shit about 2hu.

[Anonymous No.]

Speaking of SFW, some might not know this update wasn't included in the all-in-one pack:
http://tasofro.net/touhou175/download.html

[Anonymous No.]

>>46934985
Not him but UFO system is actually good, GFW is arguably one of the best bullet cancel doujin shmup out there, and HSiFS is probably the most unique Touhou game patternwise, emphasizing diagonal movement making it feels fresh if you try to NB it

[Anonymous No.]

>>46935934
>HSiFS emphasizing diagonal movement
I've never heard someone say this before. Can you elaborate?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46935980
I mean the bullet itself. Aunn, Narumi, and the dancers have a pattern that consists of continuous dashing lines moving diagonally in parallel. And, all of these patterns also do not stay in the middle but slowly move to the right or left, making it easy to get trapped

[Anonymous No.]

>>46927872
True, Sanae's frogs, I might have to get my ass to complete UFO since I remember very little of the game aside from the last stages and extra.
Still got surprised that I somehow went to defeat Kaguya directly with Yuyuko.
>Spoiler
afaik no
Don't think so,
>>46935061
>Shadow the Hedgehog
Kinda like that something to keep track of which stages are connected, either that or a list with some ??? to make players curious but maybe just the music room having some songs unlocked is enough to motivate people to explore more.

[Anonymous No.]

my mind has been slipping as of lately, I am dodging all fine, but then my brain turns off and i fucking PICHUUUUUN, consequently I rage quit because I cant bear this mental illness

[Anonymous No.]

>>46936805
get tested for adhd

[Anonymous No.]

>>46935061
So I just download THprac and turn on infintie lives and play that way?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46938389
No, you download it and then practice parts you struggle with until you're decent at them.
>>46933930
>luck
Any run that isn't way below your skill level involves some degree of luck. Calculating and routing around your odds is a huge part of shmups.
>cheese
Doesn't exist. If it's a good strategy, it's a good strategy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46933930
Normal 1CCs require almost no skill at all. Route your stages and know which patterns you can't dodge so you can readily bomb them. Do NOT hesitate to bomb. Spam credits until you get a good run and get your 1CC. Thats literally all there is to it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46936568
>something to keep track of which stages are connected
Ah, think I have a better idea of what you have in mind now. Thanks for clarifying.
Your idea made me visualize something like a SMW or SA2-esque map of Gensokyo, with clearly outlined stage-to-stage progression like Star Fox. And practice mode/the music room have a list of all the stages and tracks in the game, which go from ??? to their titles when unlocked, almost like minigames in Mario Party

>>46938389
That could be considered an alternative to multi-credit clears, but the real benefits of thprac come from the very specialized and dedicated training it provides. Multi-credit clears a good starting point though, to at least familiarize yourself with the game's progression and figure out which parts you struggle with.
Like the other person said, practicing specific parts you struggle with is where you'll really be able to hone your skills. Thprac's main draw is how it divides each stage into chunks and lets you jump in at any point, just like PD mode. When I'm grinding out a pattern, I personally like to turn on godmode so a miss doesn't clear the screen, then keep trying until I can NMNB it somewhat consistently.
Beyond that, it's good to practice running the entire stage, and then practice running the entire game, because part of these games' difficulty is marathoning the whole thing. For stage practice, try to no-bomb it, but with entire game runs, bombs are your friend

[Anonymous No.]

FUCK I HATE SOEW EXTRA STAGE SO MUCH IT'S UNREAL

- BLOB HELL
- BIRDS BULLETS MIXED WITH SCORE ITEMS
- HITBOX DISSONANCE
- FUCKING TAPPING AGAINST BOSS RUINS DODGING
- AWFUL VISIBILITY COMPARED TO MAIN STORY
FUCK

Any tips or tricks?

[Anonymous No.]

I just hate SoEW.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46939204
play an actually fun game

[Anonymous No.]

>>46939290
But I'm trying to clear the Extra stages...

Thankfully I already did MoF earlier today, and SA is later tonight, but I'm trying to do SoEW and LLS now so that I can do UFO and MS together, like a Makai 2-for-1 bundle.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46935934
>UFO system is actually good
It would be if it weren't so frustrating at times. The fact that midbosses and bosses make big ufos pop when they show up, without even giving you the fragment you'd get by popping them yourself, is a shitty gameplay choice.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46941515
It does give you the fragment though.
Watch your life/bomb meter and you can see it goes up when the boss pops the ufos automatically.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46941581
Oh, that's better I guess

[Anonymous No.]

>>46938631
>Normal 1CCs require almost no skill at all.
No need to lie.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46941810
He's just someone who has forgotten about his beginnings, plenty of those around.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46941810
he's correct though. the same also goes for lunatic 1ccs too if you played through all the games
most players can get the 1cc on their first try blind now for the newer games

[Anonymous No.]

>>46941849
I have the date of my first Normal 1cc (PCB Sakuya A) ingrained into my mind and every year on the same day, I do a run of it. It's a nice reminder of how far I've come.
Does anyone else do something similar?

[Anonymous No.]

>>46941874
The fact they've already got the skill needed to clear the newer games blind first try doesn't mean it requires no skill, you can say it requires "no effort" if you've got the skill.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46941884
Not really, but I still remember the way I did my first few runs on SoEW until I got my first 1cc ever.

[Anonymous No.]

>>46941884
>Does anyone else do something similar?
you are like a little baby
watch this

[Anonymous No.]

>>46942626
Very nice, anon

[Anonymous No.]

>>46942626
Cute!

[Anonymous No.]

>>46941810
That post sounds hyperbolic, but the skills you need for 1cc is resources management and I think everyone who plays this game has received education, so they can do simple calculations