TOUHOU ~ Official Touhou Chat Thread~

[ZemZem]

Broke my UFO high score just now after not playing for a long while.

Whoooooo

Edited October 19, 2014 by Z.M.

[Pull My Devil Trigger]

Could solo Youmu/Yuyuko present any advantage over Netherworld Team for scoring?

[Balcerzak]

Solo Youmu is, IIRC, the flat-out best type for scoring.

[Scarlet]

Could solo Youmu/Yuyuko present any advantage over Netherworld Team for scoring?

Bal is correct, solo Youmu is the best shot type for scoring by a long shot (heck, she isn't half-bad for survival, either).

She has trouble avoiding the destruction of familiars, and some parts of the game are actually more difficult if you can't just shoot through them... ...but both sides of her Youkai gauge are only half size, and unlike all other solo characters, she still gets the boni associated with being human/youkai. What this means is that she can switch her method of gaining time points significantly faster than all other characters and teams can, all without missing out on any of the benefits.

Furthermore, without Yuyuko, going into focus actually locks the direction Youmu's familiar fires in, allowing her to make full use of her really strong shot.

Don't bother with solo Yuyuko.

[Emeraldfox]

So how do I deal with Kogasa's final spell

[ZemZem]

So how do I deal with Kogasa's final spell

It's harder on Easy than on Normal, fun fact.

It helps to pay attention to where her cards are flying before you make your move and stay near the bottom.

[Pull My Devil Trigger]

Solo Youmu is, IIRC, the flat-out best type for scoring.

Bal is correct, solo Youmu is the best shot type for scoring by a long shot (heck, she isn't half-bad for survival, either).

She has trouble avoiding the destruction of familiars, and some parts of the game are actually more difficult if you can't just shoot through them... ...but both sides of her Youkai gauge are only half size, and unlike all other solo characters, she still gets the boni associated with being human/youkai. What this means is that she can switch her method of gaining time points significantly faster than all other characters and teams can, all without missing out on any of the benefits.

Furthermore, without Yuyuko, going into focus actually locks the direction Youmu's familiar fires in, allowing her to make full use of her really strong shot.

Don't bother with solo Yuyuko.

hmm i see

gonna give it a try later on then

gotta make it use of the shot types that are actually good from my draft picks amirite /o/

[Emeraldfox]

It's harder on Easy than on Normal, fun fact.

It helps to pay attention to where her cards are flying before you make your move and stay near the bottom.

That changes everything.

Well alright then, with that I just might catch it, now to go through UFO so I can get back to my precious TD for the draft(and for fun)

Also, Seija what

Edited October 19, 2014 by #Most #Qualified

[Scarlet]

So how do I deal with Kogasa's final spell

On Normal, simply staying low on the screen near the umbrella trains that go upwards works for the most part. That way, aside from switching to the other side when the trains do, all you have to watch out for is some stray bullets.

(On Hard/Lunatic, the same strategy applies, but your vertical movement is greatly restricted by the horizontal lines of amulets the trains now also fire.)

gotta make it use of the shot types that are actually good from my draft picks amirite /o/

Go for it!

[ZemZem]

That changes everything.

Well alright then, with that I just might catch it, now to go through UFO so I can get back to my precious TD for the draft(and for fun)

Also, Seija what

You can do it, man.

Seija's something, alright.

[Pull My Devil Trigger]

Goddamit why can't i capture Yuugi's last spell (easy) anymore >_>

[Emeraldfox]

I see I see

[Kriemhild]

Am I the only one that thinks Utsuho is the final boss most likely to kill you from her death explosion

It would be kinda fitting at least

I've never experienced a clip death on Hell's Artificial Sun nor do I know anyone who's done so. It's because of the spell design, I think. You can't hit the red bullets unless you move, and you should be planning to dodge the small bullets well before they get close to you. So the slowdown from the explosion is unlikely to screw you over.

In other news got a Easy SA 1cc with MarisaA god the gaps are huge after just a bit of normal mode ;~;

Awful Orin fight and probably my worst Utsuho fight ever finished on my last live after getting to stage 5 with 8 extra and an incomplete one go me (~ouo)~

Congratulations! Entering Stage 5 with 8 extra lives and clearing the game with none is actually much more common than you might expect ;)

You'd be surprised how managable the first two phases actually are if you just move in the right direction. xD

However, the third is insanely hard no matter what you do. I've yet to actually capture Blue Lady Show without the SakuyaA cheese.

I can deal with the first phase fine, even without the cheese, but I never thought of changing direction for the second. I kept trying to get through two streams of music bullets at once.

imo You Grow Bigger and Blue Lady Show are among the toughest spells in Touhou... and both of them are survival...

Keep in mind that a bomb that deals damage is still good to have against Raiko's tougher non-spells; besides, all the damaging bombs in this game also are very good at clearing the screen from bullets, so they're really not that bad.

Contrary to what you might think, as amazing as MarisaB is in the main game, she's completely terrible in the Extra Stage. She'll have a lot of resources by the time she reaches Raiko, but her bombs will be completely useless; in fact, during some of Raiko's spells, bombing with MarisaB is a very good way to make sure you die. Raiko stays invincible for the entirety of the Power Sphere's lifespan; Marisa won't. Do the math. Worse yet, the sphere doesn't protect you from the lightning lasers in Spellcard #5 and #8.

Honestly, the next-best shot types after SakuyaA to tackle DDC Extra with are both of Reimu's.

The only shot type worse than MarisaB for DDC Extra is SakuyaB, because she can barely get half the amount of resources MarisaB does... ...while doing far less damage and having a bomb that is barely any better than MarisaB's.

I haven't seriously tried DDC Reimu, so maybe I should check them out. I only 1cc'd DDC Normal with SakuyaA and MarisaB and MarisaB would definitely be really awful against Raiko if Raiko is invincible for the entire duration of the bomb.

SakuyaB probably tops the World High Scores though.

It's cheese-protection, really; even most HP-based final spells activate Rape Mode when the timer hits 30. Dunno about Koishi's off-hand, would have to check.

It's still a viable strategy to bombspam once the timer hits 30 if you can stall out the entire first phase and you have enough bombs to secure a timeout. After all, bomb spamming doesn't let you damage bosses, so it could work if you're really horrible at a spell but have enough bombs to timeout the insane section.

You cannot get full Power by the midboss even if you collect every single Power item available, the midboss is by far the hardest in any Extra Stage (and doesn't drop any Power at all), and you get no Extends whatsoever until well into the fight with Koishi. Koishi herself has some pretty nasty spellcards, too. The stage itself is pretty tame and Koishi's non-spells are lame, but even though it's the second Extra Stage I ever cleared, I would definitely consider it the hardest.

I can skip the midboss fight entirely with Patchy/Aya through the glitch though

I used to think Keine and Tsukumo sisters were the toughest Ex midbosses, but they were very manageable after abusing Spell Practice. Maybe Sanae is only exceptionally harder because there's no Spell Practice to abuse?

Getting those Extends requires you to not die during the nonspells and spells though, right? So if I'm really awful against them, I might easily GameOver before I even get my first Extend?

I already got spoiled of the Koishi boss fight, and well, Genetics of the Subconscious is not a spell I want to face without Aya or Patchy.

I can't deal with that one, either, but as long as you don't die, you should be fine (just bomb it). I'd honestly recommend going for bombs over lives in the Extra Stage; they don't damage Nue, but bombing doesn't drop your Power and still kills the annoying UFOs Nue summons in about half of her spellcards, usually giving you some breathing room. In my experience, if you drop below 3 Power during the fight with Nue and she still has any significant amount of spellcards left, you might as well just give up.

It's not like I can even summon much red UFOs even if I wanted to.

If I rack up a lot of bombs, it should be easy to avoid dropping below 3 Power against Nue. Unless she drops little to no power after every spell.

However, I ought to mention that Nue has a spellcard that is pretty similar to Princess Tenko in how it is dealt with (instead of teleporting on top of you, she dashes at you), and while it's possible to treat it like a survival card and just time it out, you're better off depleting its HP before it gets too fast. Definitely try to have full Power for that one.

Her second spell is already enough of a roadblock for me and now she has another one? Yeah, I should save Nue for later.

ReimuA is in fact the shot type I cleared UFO Extra with, so you should be fine. MarisaA and SanaeB have some advantages against the UFO cards, but surprisingly enough, ReimuA actually beats them in raw damage output.

ReimuA's superior damage output is her only advantage though. MarisaA has piercing lasers and SanaeB has spread (splash damage is useless against bosses) that might perform better against Nue's UFOs.

It's some weird combination of misdirection and streaming, but it's definitely one of Nue's harder spellcards. It's fine if you can't capture it; depending on your timing (if you time it well, you can protect yourself from the current wave of UFOs and kill the next wave the instant it spawns, all with a single bomb), a bomb or two should get you through it.

I haven't really been able to experiment on this (because I have to go through the entire Ex stage every time), but is it similar to Mamizou's first spell?

If you'd like some visual guidance, here's the replay of my UFO Extra Clear with ReimuA I uploaded a while ago.

Yay, thanks!

It can definitely catch you off-guard, but Byakuren's is worse. xD

Indeed. My only final spell clipdeaths were with Ripples of 495 Years and Flying Fantastica. And I'm not the only one who experienced it with Fantastica.

Hmm, i dunno, I only cleared Byakuren once and i can't remember that well but that might be more her final spell being harder?

Again, it's more of spell design than actual difficulty. Flying Fantastica at its later phases requires you to dodge cards from multiple different sets. It becomes a very reactive spell and the barrages are somewhat relentless. Dodging requires you to plan your movements for the short term, so the explosion slowdown can seriously mess up the execution. The gaps are also really tight so there's not much room for error.

you know, now I kinda wish SA had something akin to Resurrection Butterfly or Hourai Elixir...

...you do know that clearing Resurrection Butterfly is mandatory, right?

Broke my UFO high score just now after not playing for a long while.

Whoooooo

Whoa, congratulations! Considering how high your previous best score was, this is really impressive!

Could solo Youmu/Yuyuko present any advantage over Netherworld Team for scoring?

Solo Youmu is, IIRC, the flat-out best type for scoring.

^This. Youmu gets 50% on both human and youkai meters. So she can abuse both sides (like the other teams, but unlike the other solo characters) but gets a reduced meter on both of them. Netherworld Team only gets a reduced human meter, while the other solo characters can only utilize one meter (with a useless 20% on the other). So yeah, Youmu has the greatest scoring advantage in IN.

Still, though, due to how Yuyuko obliterates stages, it might be safer to go for Netherworld Team instead. Unless you're really good at the stage parts that you can afford to go with Youmu Solo.

Furthermore, without Yuyuko, going into focus actually locks the direction Youmu's familiar fires in, allowing her to make full use of her really strong shot.

I just looked this up and while Malice Cannon is slightly stronger, Remilia is actually about the same as Youmu+Myon. I knew Remilia was good, but I didn't know she was THIS good.

Getting Youmu+Myon with Netherworld Team is easy though. It resets to having their shots align whenever you unfocus. Freezing Myon's shot to other directions can be quite useful though, and can only be achieved by Youmu Solo.

So how do I deal with Kogasa's final spell

Depends on the difficulty. It's pretty hard on Easy and I'd suggest bombskipping it. On Normal though, all you have to do is look at where the trains are coming from and head towards their safe areas, which is horizontally opposite the source e.g. if a train comes from the top-right, you should move towards the top-left of the area under Kogasa. The safe area for a single train is rather large, so even when you have two trains from completely different directions, there will always be a small overlapping safe area for you to abuse.

This does not work as well on easy, since the bullets from the train spread out more. So although there are no safe areas, you can still follow a similar strategy and then micrododge the intense barrages from the cards at each wave.

Also, Seija what

tahw ajieS ,oslA

[Fera]

Don't know if I want to resume SA Lunatic or go back to UFO Hard

Both of these are equally masochistic as hell

And no, Proto, I'm not going to try any Extra stages, the repetitive music kills the experience

SakuyaB probably tops the World High Scores though.

By miles

[Scarlet]

I haven't seriously tried DDC Reimu, so maybe I should check them out.

You definitely should; ever since TD, Reimu has undeniably become amazing. Being able to whip out a homing shot for weak stage enemies while still being able to switch to a stronger focused shot when needed is really useful, and Fantasy Seal has always been a pretty good bomb.

It's still a viable strategy to bombspam once the timer hits 30 if you can stall out the entire first phase and you have enough bombs to secure a timeout. After all, bomb spamming doesn't let you damage bosses, so it could work if you're really horrible at a spell but have enough bombs to timeout the insane section.

Sure, but you'd probably still be more likely to expend less resources just doing it the normal way. xD

Maybe Sanae is only exceptionally harder because there's no Spell Practice to abuse?

I don't think so; I can't figure out how to reliably dodge the lasers on her first spellcard (in fact, by now I'm pretty sure there is no reliable way), but I keep dying to her other two despite them looking deceptively simple, and I've had plenty of time to practice them (over 40 attempts with all shot types combined).

I have a measly 10% capture rate on her first two spellcards and about 20% on her third. I have never beaten EX Sanae without dying at least once.

Getting those Extends requires you to not die during the nonspells and spells though, right? So if I'm really awful against them, I might easily GameOver before I even get my first Extend?

Yes, that is correct. Timing any of them except Koishi's two survival cards out forfeits the life piece, too. (I mention this because I very frequently find myself timing out Genetics of the Subconscious.)

I already got spoiled of the Koishi boss fight, and well, Genetics of the Subconscious is not a spell I want to face without Aya or Patchy.

Yeah, trying to deal damage to Koishi during this spellcard without getting your face torn off in return is a pain. Personally, I also absolutely cannot deal with Danmaku Paranoia because wtf that's ridiculous.

It's not like I can even summon much red UFOs even if I wanted to.

True that, although you could probably get two Extends via red UFOs if you make no mistakes with summoning. One is more realistic, though.

If I rack up a lot of bombs, it should be easy to avoid dropping below 3 Power against Nue. Unless she drops little to no power after every spell.

Nue drops precisely 0.50 Power after every spell except her survival card. Timing any of them out forfeits the item drops (including the life/bomb piece), too, so avoid doing that if you need to refill your Power.

However, if you screw up and die two times in short succession, recovering from the Power loss will be very difficult.

I haven't really been able to experiment on this (because I have to go through the entire Ex stage every time), but is it similar to Mamizou's first spell?

I literally cannot remember at all how to deal with Mamizou's first spell, so I'm afraid I can't answer that one. xD

Basically, though, the bullet trails the UFOs leave behind are aimed at your position the moment they spawn, but only start to move with slight delay. What this means is that you should avoid moving around too much while the UFOs spread out, dodge the UFOs if you can't kill them fast enough, and then sidestep the bullet trails.

I just looked this up and while Malice Cannon is slightly stronger, Remilia is actually about the same as Youmu+Myon. I knew Remilia was good, but I didn't know she was THIS good.

She would be even better if bosses in IN didn't have stupid amounts of armor. :/

Don't know if I want to resume SA Lunatic or go back to UFO Hard

Both of these are equally masochistic as hell

Nah dude, I'd take SA Lunatic over UFO Hard any day. Using continues, I've beaten SA Lunatic before (and even without, I can make it at the very least to Stage 5 with relative consistency), whereas I can't reach Stage 6 in UFO Hard no matter how many continues I use, and most of my runs are ended prematurely by Unzan's Fist lol.

[Kriemhild]

And no, Proto, I'm not going to try any Extra stages, the repetitive music kills the experience

Mute the in-game sound and listen to something else then.

You definitely should; ever since TD, Reimu has undeniably become amazing. Being able to whip out a homing shot for weak stage enemies while still being able to switch to a stronger focused shot when needed is really useful, and Fantasy Seal has always been a pretty good bomb.

Well, she's my favorite in TD, but I didn't know she was good in DDC too. Would you recommend A or B?

Sure, but you'd probably still be more likely to expend less resources just doing it the normal way. xD

This is true, yeah.

I don't think so; I can't figure out how to reliably dodge the lasers on her first spellcard (in fact, by now I'm pretty sure there is no reliable way), but I keep dying to her other two despite them looking deceptively simple, and I've had plenty of time to practice them (over 40 attempts with all shot types combined).

I have a measly 10% capture rate on her first two spellcards and about 20% on her third. I have never beaten EX Sanae without dying at least once.

You do know that the lasers in her first spell are static, right?

But well, I do remember Fera whining about how difficult she was too, so yeah, sure sounds like the hardest Ex midboss.

Yes, that is correct. Timing any of them except Koishi's two survival cards out forfeits the life piece, too. (I mention this because I very frequently find myself timing out Genetics of the Subconscious.)

Heh, yeah, I can imagine. And it looks hard to get through her second survival spell without dying.

Yeah, trying to deal damage to Koishi during this spellcard without getting your face torn off in return is a pain. Personally, I also absolutely cannot deal with Danmaku Paranoia because wtf that's ridiculous.

Isn't it just micrododging in a super small space?

True that, although you could probably get two Extends via red UFOs if you make no mistakes with summoning. One is more realistic, though.

One red UFO is only two bombs, and I'm pretty sure I can summon three green UFOs in Ex. And the whole power drop is really annoying so green definitely wins.

Nue drops precisely 0.50 Power after every spell except her survival card. Timing any of them out forfeits the item drops (including the life/bomb piece), too, so avoid doing that if you need to refill your Power.

However, if you screw up and die two times in short succession, recovering from the Power loss will be very difficult.

I guess I need to get better at her second spell to not time it out then.

I literally cannot remember at all how to deal with Mamizou's first spell, so I'm afraid I can't answer that one. xD

Basically, though, the bullet trails the UFOs leave behind are aimed at your position the moment they spawn, but only start to move with slight delay. What this means is that you should avoid moving around too much while the UFOs spread out, dodge the UFOs if you can't kill them fast enough, and then sidestep the bullet trails.

I see. That makes sense. My problem was with not being able to kill the UFOs, so I end up trying to dodge all the UFOs and all the bullets, which is really unrealistic.

She would be even better if bosses in IN didn't have stupid amounts of armor. :/

Boss armor is the worst thing about IN imo. I'm glad ZUN never brought it up again.

[Pull My Devil Trigger]

Man I'm pretty sure if I didn't keep dying randomly at SA Easy i could no miss this thing >_>

Edited October 20, 2014 by Thordo

[Fera]

I've cleared SA Lunatic with continues before as well (formatted that drive tho, rip savefile) and only reached the nonspell before Vajra on UFO Hard.

Mute the in-game sound and listen to something else then.

stop being reasonable get out

[Pull My Devil Trigger]

Btw muting a touhou game to play something is high class heresy and Proto should he burned at the stake for saying such a thing

[Fera]

Btw muting a touhou game to play something is high class heresy and Proto should he burned at the stake for saying such a thing

Try saying that when you've heard UFO Romance's opening for the n+1th time

[Pull My Devil Trigger]

Uhh

Uhhhhh

Just lower the bgm volume until the soubd effects don't let you hear it gotta be better than ufo romance

[ZemZem]

UFO Romance is nice.

[Balcerzak]

I've never experienced a clip death on Hell's Artificial Sun nor do I know anyone who's done so. It's because of the spell design, I think. You can't hit the red bullets unless you move, and you should be planning to dodge the small bullets well before they get close to you. So the slowdown from the explosion is unlikely to screw you over.

Hi~

[Kriemhild]

Oh, wow, I can't believe this. I decided to try out PCB Extra again after quite some time. Not only did I clear it, but I even captured Princess Tenko. Except for her last one, all of the spells that came after that were really easy and I could have captured them if I didn't manually break borders or panicbomb upon first encounter.

Ran is definitely the easiest Windows Extra boss. I can't believe I left this on hold for so long

Man I'm pretty sure if I didn't keep dying randomly at SA Easy i could no miss this thing >_>

This applies to like, everyone in every game.

stop being reasonable get out

no u

Btw muting a touhou game to play something is high class heresy and Proto should he burned at the stake for saying such a thing

I never do that myself, btw.

Try saying that when you've heard UFO Romance's opening for the n+1th time

I cleared several Extra stages myself. UFO is not amongst them, but I do think UFO Romance in the Night Sky is better than most of the other Extra Stage BGMs I've been entrenched in.

Hi~

Hi Bal~

How the heck did you clip death at Hell's Articial Sun?

[euklyd]

[snip]

Proto I saw you reading the ! thread don't think you can hide here