TOUHOU ~ Official Touhou Chat Thread~

[ZemZem]

Hello~ I was just passing through, I guess.

I do my best. I picked up Touhou a year ago, but I wouldn't say I'm too good. The farthest I've gotten in a single credit was in Imperishable Night Stage 5 with the Border Team on Normal. I play on occasion nowadays, but I like watching gameplay footage. Sorry if I worded my previous post ambiguously to make it seem like I'm hot stuff when I'm really not. ^^'

Ah, I see. No problem, man.

Play some more! We're all friends here. :) hope to see you stick around

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Their moving direction is, indeed, weird. Make sure you're focused and concentrate on your hitbox while you try to dodge the stars. The sheer density and annoying trajectories make these nonspells very difficult at first, but with time you'll find yourself being able to read the stars better.

Marisa's last nonspell (the one after Non-Directional Laser and before Master Spark) is a different case. The stars are tightly clustered and you'll need to actually read them from before (as opposed to just focusing on your character only) to find possible openings and even then, slipping through the openings is easier said than done. I would highly recommend bombskipping this nonspell.

On that note, make good use of your bombs. Marisa is imo the toughest boss in IN Normal (which probably stays true for Easy too), so don't hesitate to spend your bombs to murder her face in. Speaking of bombs, Reimu's bomb is more powerful than Yukari's at long range, so I would suggest switching to Reimu momentarily when you want to fire bombs. Otherwise, you'll generally want to use Yukari more (she's better against bosses in general). It's nice that if you get hit as Yukari, you can fire a Last Spell as Reimu.

Marisa's spells can be pretty annoying too:

Milky Way - Big stars from the front, small stars from the side, Marisa's first spell is her toughest spell imo (even tougher than Final Spark in higher difficulties!!!). It's very dense and annoying to concentrate on multiple threats at once. Would recommend skipping it with a bomb.

Stardust Reverie - Actually not too bad. Do NOT stay at the absolute bottom, but stay under Marisa, like at the midpoint between Marisa and the bottom. Early on, you'll be surrounded by a circle of stars, and they will lead you to circle around Marisa. Follow the arc until you're about a quartercircle in, and then try slipping through the gaps in the stars. Return to the position under Marisa and just dodge the rest of the stars normally. It may be worth mastering this spell on Spell Practice.

Non-Directional Laser - Try to stay close to the lasers, in front of them as they move. No matter how much you may try to avoid it, this spell will force you to slip between the stream of large stars. Since they're moving downwards, I personally find it easier to slip through them by moving diagonally (down-right or down-left). If slipping between the big stars proves to be too difficult, then bombskip this.

Master Spark - Except for the first one, all Master Sparks are aimed at you. So you need to anticipate when she'll fire her Master Spark so that you can rush to the other side. Make sure you avoid all the large stars on the way. Don't worry about hitting Marisa too much, because actively trying to stay under Marisa may be too risky and you're better off relying on Ran to damage her. The screen shaking is the most annoying aspect though, and can make it hard to avoid the large stars that would otherwise be simple to dodge. Consider bombing this if you have trouble even after Spell Practice.

Earth Light Ray - It may seem scary at first but all stars are actually aimed... at your sides. That means, if you don't move at all, the stars will never hit you. Ever. That being said, be sure to watch out for the lasers, and be prepared to move (watch out for the stars this time!) if a laser gets in the way. Otherwise, if the lasers aren't threatening you, just sit still and ignore the stars.

General advice - Try to manage your resources well. If you die, you will lose all the bombs associated with that life, therefore you should not hesitate to bomb if you are worried you might die otherwise. Fairies that have familiars (flashing white circles that merge with the background if you switch to Yukari) around them can prove to be extremely frustrating to deal with as Reimu, so always switch to Yukari to kill them. Note that even when you get hit, you still have some time to fire a bomb before you lose your life. Unless you're super-quick about this, the bomb you fire will be a Last Spell, which does more damage than a regular bomb, but consumes two bomb pieces. Since Last Spells cost double, it's generally better to rely on regular bombs, but do not ever pass up the chance to fire a Last Spell if you actually do get hit.

Marisa's purely micrododging. Thankfully her nonspells are static, so figure out how to handle her nonspells and you're good to go.

Jules!

Like ZM said, Marisa is all micrododging. Stay focused, even if it hurts your time score, and slip through the gaps.

Her biggest problem is probably Master Spark, which you need to misdirect to one side before moving to the other. Have Ran do all the damage.

Thank you guys for all your advices!

Will try it later.

Are you okay with using Continues (continuing after you lose all your lives) as you progress through the game? If your objective is to clear the game without Continuing, then just ignore the entire Time system. It's only important if you want to Continue or if you want to score.

Wait... do I understand right, that I can continue after a Game Over? Where can I fix it in the options?

Finally, if you want, you can save a replay of your progress and I would willingly watch and analyze your performance to help show you how you can improve. I'm always happy about helping other players get better, so don't worry about being a bother or anything.

I've posted a replay of my run (Jules).

However I don't know, if you can watch this.

I can't open this file, because I've no program yet to open this file type.

[Junk]

words

you can't fix continuing. Basically IN has a time system, don't get enough time clock advances by an hour or continue and clock advances by another hour per continue I think. Hits 5:00 AM and game over. I highly wouldn't recommend continuing though unless for a first time playthrough as that takes a lot of challenge away and you basically can beat these games in a few minutes and then throw them away.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

^^ Ah ok, thanks.

Actually I'd not like to continue anyway, because it's kinda cheap.

Anyway I've recently noticed that I can fix to five lives in the settings. Haven't noticed it before. Always only played with three (default).

This should make the next run a little more bearable.

[Kriemhild]

Thank you guys for all your advices!

Will try it later.

You're welcome and good luck!

Wait... do I understand right, that I can continue after a Game Over? Where can I fix it in the options?

Yes, you can! It's not in the Options though. Basically, when you play the game, after you lose your last life, you will be asked "Do you challenge again?". The top option is "Yes", which allows you to Continue the game with the normal starting resources, but continuing at the same place where you left off. The in-game time will advance by half an hour too, which limits how much you can Continue. The game ends at 5 pm and clearing a stage takes up either half an hour or an hour (depending on whether the Time threshold is fulfilled). Anyhow, I'd suggest that you don't worry too much about the Time mechanics, but just know that you can Continue after you die.

Here is a screenshot:

[spoiler=Screenshot]

I've posted a replay of my run (Jules).

However I don't know, if you can watch this.

I can't open this file, because I've no program yet to open this file type.

Ah, yeah, I found it on the replay site and downloaded the file. Semi-busy right now, but I'll watch it later today!

The only program you need to open the file is the Touhou game (Imperishable Night, in this case) itself. In the title screen of the game, you can choose Replay to watch the replays in the replay folder.

[Kriemhild]

Gah, I got cut off. I agree with Coco/Junk in that clearing the game with Continues shouldn't be your ultimate objective in a Touhou game, but I'd still certainly recommend pursuing it when you first start, since it takes time to get good enough at these games to feel like a 1cc (1-credit-clear aka clearing without using any Continues) is feasible. I used to be happy with my IN 2cc back when I first started :P

And yes, that is correct, you can increase your starting lives. In fact, I would strongly recommend maximizing your starting lives, because the only penalty is that it will hurt your score, which is not something that you should be caring about anyway (your objective should just be to clear). Also, fyi, currently the max limit may be 5, but if you end up getting too many Game Overs, the game will generously allow you to increase it up to 6, and finally, 7.

I actually assumed you were playing with max lives. Being able to reach Marisa with default lives without Continuing while starting off on Touhou is actually pretty good!

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Gah, I got cut off. I agree with Coco/Junk in that clearing the game with Continues shouldn't be your ultimate objective in a Touhou game, but I'd still certainly recommend pursuing it when you first start, since it takes time to get good enough at these games to feel like a 1cc (1-credit-clear aka clearing without using any Continues) is feasible. I used to be happy with my IN 2cc back when I first started :P

And yes, that is correct, you can increase your starting lives. In fact, I would strongly recommend maximizing your starting lives, because the only penalty is that it will hurt your score, which is not something that you should be caring about anyway (your objective should just be to clear). Also, fyi, currently the max limit may be 5, but if you end up getting too many Game Overs, the game will generously allow you to increase it up to 6, and finally, 7.

I actually assumed you were playing with max lives. Being able to reach Marisa with default lives without Continuing while starting off on Touhou is actually pretty good!

This is really good to hear!

Tbh I lost two lives unneceesarily in stage 3 so I had no more life in stage 4. Marisa's third phase broke me finally the nack.

You're welcome and good luck!

Thanks :)

Yes, you can! It's not in the Options though. Basically, when you play the game, after you lose your last life, you will be asked "Do you challenge again?". The top option is "Yes", which allows you to Continue the game with the normal starting resources, but continuing at the same place where you left off. The in-game time will advance by half an hour too, which limits how much you can Continue. The game ends at 5 pm and clearing a stage takes up either half an hour or an hour (depending on whether the Time threshold is fulfilled). Anyhow, I'd suggest that you don't worry too much about the Time mechanics, but just know that you can Continue after you die.

Yeah, I've noticed it... though a little bit late.

I've played with small screen in the beginning so I couldn't read the small English text.

The only program you need to open the file is the Touhou game (Imperishable Night, in this case) itself. In the title screen of the game, you can choose Replay to watch the replays in the replay folder.

I think it worked. Could watch my one.

Anyway I must go to college; will retry it at the afternoon.

[Magical Glace]

This is really good to hear!

Tbh I lost two lives unneceesarily in stage 3 so I had no more life in stage 4. Marisa's third phase broke me finally the nack.

Thanks :)

Yeah, I've noticed it... though a little bit late.

I've played with small screen in the beginning so I couldn't read the small English text.

I think it worked. Could watch my one.

Anyway I must go to college; will retry it at the afternoon.

Okay, I watched the replay and noticed a few things:

>You didn't focus. At all. Focusing (accomplished by holding shift) slows down your character and therefore makes bullets easier to dodge. You also do more damage like this, since Yukari +Ran does more damage than Reimu could ever hope to.

>The item collect border. Some way up the screen is an invisible line that lets you collect every item on screen when at full power and/or focusing.

>You occasionally died with bombs left. If you do (or even if you don't, you want to get in the habit of this) quickly hit the bomb key and save your life. The Border Team is very good at this, so you shouldn't have much issue once the reaction time is built up.

>Speaking of bombs, some of them, like the first one, felt a bit unnecessary. Just an observation, but I think you could have lived without spending those resources.

[Kriemhild]

Okay, I watched the replay and sorta analyzed it but there's something else you should know first.

It seems you weren't aware of IN mechanics. Or Touhou mechanics in general. Holding the Shift key enables you to go into focused state. This changes your character to the youkai (Yukari, in the case of Border Team), slows down your movement speed, and also allows you to see your hitbox i.e. the exact location within your character in which contact with a bullet will count as a hit. Surprisingly, the hitbox size is very small relative to the visible size of your character, so being able to see the hitbox is very important when dodging dense patterns of bullets.

Every time you hear somebody reference being "focused" or using "Yukari", they're referring to this. Also, if you move high up across the screen, going above a certain invisible line, you will auto-collect all items on the screen if you are either in focused mode or at max power. At the start of the game, of course, you'll want to just go high up and then focus to autocollect. Due to the slower speed of the focused state, you'll want large movements to be done unfocused.

I think that alone should already be enough for you to significantly improve your performance. In fact, you can probably ignore my wall of text for Marisa for now since you likely won't have as much trouble with her if you were aware of focusing. In any case, I provided a detailed analysis of this run anyway, if you want to read it:

[spoiler=Analysis]Stage 1 - It seems you weren't aware of focusing, or autocollection on focus, which slowed down your power growth. You also bombed a few times, hmmm. You have a limited number of bombs, so you'd generally want to spend them only in portions where you feel like you might get hit. If you feel safe, then you should just rely on your normal shot to take out enemies as you dodge, even if it takes longer.

Wriggle - You probably weren't aware of focused mode, but I'll point out anyway that Yukari is usually better at dealing with bosses. Regardless, although the battle was much longer than it normally should be, you still were able to perfect clear the boss just fine! Good job!

Stage 2 - This was going pretty nicely, actually. Your Power being lower than expected for this point (since you haven't been autocollecting since the start), as well Reimu's generally low power (compared to Yukari) resulted in enemies being harder to kill. Note that the green B item that you collected earlier was actually a bomb, which you could have used during the time where you were surrounded by bullets and ended up dying to. As you may have observed, many fairies here have white flashing "familiars". They don't hurt you if you touch them but they can block the fairies and take hits for them, making the fairies more annoying to kill. Switching to Yukari makes the familiars merge with the background, allowing you to kill the fairies with no obstructions.

Mystia - I don't think either of those bombs were necessary (you dodged well enough) but you otherwise perfected the boss, great!

Stage 3 - Both of the deaths here were really sad, but I'm guessing you understandably have trouble dealing with multiple threats at once. Once again, this stage would be a lot easier if you were aware of how to switch to Yukari. That being said, note that when you get hit, you can still react quickly and fire a Last Spell before you actually lose the life.

Keine - Not knowing your hitbox size made you panic and bomb to milder attacks, and it seems you weren't aware that you could still bomb while getting hit. You still handled this quite decently, despite the losses.

Stage 4 - Excellent survivability here, despite not knowing about being focused. Trust me, using Yukari will make the Marisa fight a LOT easier (she's still no pushover, mind you)

Overall - Not knowing about the focused state (press SHIFT) or about the actual size of the hitbox made your run a lot harder than it actually should be. This makes it hard for me to analyze your actual performance, since I'm sure your approaches would be different if you were aware of those. I suggest trying to hold Shift, check out how the focusing works and then alter the way you play based on that. You should be able to make a lot more progress then. Good luck!

Edited May 22, 2015 by Formina Sage

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Okay, I watched the replay and noticed a few things:

>You didn't focus. At all. Focusing (accomplished by holding shift) slows down your character and therefore makes bullets easier to dodge. You also do more damage like this, since Yukari +Ran does more damage than Reimu could ever hope to.

>The item collect border. Some way up the screen is an invisible line that lets you collect every item on screen when at full power and/or focusing.

>You occasionally died with bombs left. If you do (or even if you don't, you want to get in the habit of this) quickly hit the bomb key and save your life. The Border Team is very good at this, so you shouldn't have much issue once the reaction time is built up.

>Speaking of bombs, some of them, like the first one, felt a bit unnecessary. Just an observation, but I think you could have lived without spending those resources.

Okay, I watched the replay and sorta analyzed it but there's something else you should know first.

It seems you weren't aware of IN mechanics. Or Touhou mechanics in general. Holding the Shift key enables you to go into focused state. This changes your character to the youkai (Yukari, in the case of Border Team), slows down your movement speed, and also allows you to see your hitbox i.e. the exact location within your character in which contact with a bullet will count as a hit. Surprisingly, the hitbox size is very small relative to the visible size of your character, so being able to see the hitbox is very important when dodging dense patterns of bullets.

Every time you hear somebody reference being "focused" or using "Yukari", they're referring to this. Also, if you move high up across the screen, going above a certain invisible line, you will auto-collect all items on the screen if you are either in focused mode or at max power. At the start of the game, of course, you'll want to just go high up and then focus to autocollect. Due to the slower speed of the focused state, you'll want large movements to be done unfocused.

I think that alone should already be enough for you to significantly improve your performance. In fact, you can probably ignore my wall of text for Marisa for now since you likely won't have as much trouble with her if you were aware of focusing. In any case, I provided a detailed analysis of this run anyway, if you want to read it:

[spoiler=Analysis]Stage 1 - It seems you weren't aware of focusing, or autocollection on focus, which slowed down your power growth. You also bombed a few times, hmmm. You have a limited number of bombs, so you'd generally want to spend them only in portions where you feel like you might get hit. If you feel safe, then you should just rely on your normal shot to take out enemies as you dodge, even if it takes longer.

Wriggle - You probably weren't aware of focused mode, but I'll point out anyway that Yukari is usually better at dealing with bosses. Regardless, although the battle was much longer than it normally should be, you still were able to perfect clear the boss just fine! Good job!

Stage 2 - This was going pretty nicely, actually. Your Power being lower than expected for this point (since you haven't been autocollecting since the start), as well Reimu's generally low power (compared to Yukari) resulted in enemies being harder to kill. Note that the green B item that you collected earlier was actually a bomb, which you could have used during the time where you were surrounded by bullets and ended up dying to. As you may have observed, many fairies here have white flashing "familiars". They don't hurt you if you touch them but they can block the fairies and take hits for them, making the fairies more annoying to kill. Switching to Yukari makes the familiars merge with the background, allowing you to kill the fairies with no obstructions.

Mystia - I don't think either of those bombs were necessary (you dodged well enough) but you otherwise perfected the boss, great!

Stage 3 - Both of the deaths here were really sad, but I'm guessing you understandably have trouble dealing with multiple threats at once. Once again, this stage would be a lot easier if you were aware of how to switch to Yukari. That being said, note that when you get hit, you can still react quickly and fire a Last Spell before you actually lose the life.

Keine - Not knowing your hitbox size made you panic and bomb to milder attacks, and it seems you weren't aware that you could still bomb while getting hit. You still handled this quite decently, despite the losses.

Stage 4 - Excellent survivability here, despite not knowing about being focused. Trust me, using Yukari will make the Marisa fight a LOT easier (she's still no pushover, mind you)

Overall - Not knowing about the focused state (press SHIFT) or about the actual size of the hitbox made your run a lot harder than it actually should be. This makes it hard for me to analyze your actual performance, since I'm sure your approaches would be different if you were aware of those. I suggest trying to hold Shift, check out how the focusing works and then alter the way you play based on that. You should be able to make a lot more progress then. Good luck!

WOW, I'm a little bit impressed tbh!

Thank you for the so detailed feedback! It'll help me a lot!

And yes, I didn't know about some mechanics like focussing (using shift) or switching the characters during the battle.

It was pretty much blind for me. I didn't get any information before.

At least after a while I've noticed that the green icon gives me a bomb I can touch these fairies without getting hit.

However I didn't know, what the other items will give me. Accidently I always thought a certain number of these red icons (power items) will give me an extra life.

Have researched all the items and spellcards in Wiki so I know about their function now.

Again many thanks for your taking the time and giving me all these advices!

Now I'm much better prepared for this series.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Mister IceTeaPeach

[Magical Glace]

You're welcome!

There are two main item types. Power items, which increase damage, are red, while point items are blue. Collecting enough point items grants a 1-up. In addition, they're worth more if you collect them high on the screen.

[Kriemhild]

You're welcome and good luck!

The wiki explains everything, yeah, but it also contains a lot of information that probably wouldn't be relevant to you (like Time mechanics and other scoring stuff). But yeah, as Glaceon said, red items are for your Power (you should max this as early as Stage 2) while blue items are for points. The quantity (not value) is important for Extends, but you probably don't need to worry too much about this as long as you autocollect whenever it's safe to do so. Green items are bombs, and purple items are 1ups.

[Pull My Devil Trigger]

I'm back in black baby

edit: wrong link, fixed >_>

Edited May 22, 2015 by Tonton

[ZemZem]

gj

[ZemZem]

tfw the general opinion of IN shots is that Youmu solo is the best in the game XD

[Pull My Devil Trigger]

afaik she's the best for scoring but rather bad survival wise

[ZemZem]

even survival isn't that bad

[Kriemhild]

Scoring, she absolutely owns not just the other solo shots, but even the team shots. Suvival-wise, she is still okay, but still worse than Marisa, Remila (these two being on par with non-Magic teams), Yukari and Yuyuko imo.

I wish Marisa Solo won, but well, score players regard scoring very highly (obviously), securing the victory for Youmu. At least Marisa beat Magic Team, yay~

Edited May 23, 2015 by Formina Sage

[ZemZem]

Marisa solo isn't even that bad! I'd say 7/10 for sure, maybe 8/10.

[Balcerzak]

Scoring, she absolutely owns not just the other solo shots, but even the team shots. Suvival-wise, she is still okay, but still worse than Marisa, Remila (these two being on par with non-Magic teams), Yukari and Yuyuko imo.

I wish Marisa Solo won, but well, score players regard scoring very highly (obviously), securing the victory for Youmu. At least Marisa beat Magic Team, yay~

Won what? I'm lost.

Edit: Just checked to make sure I wasn't blind and missed a new poll in the thread here. Doesn't seem to be the case.

Edit Edit: You know what, since we haven't had a poll in a while, why not?

Edited May 23, 2015 by Balcerzak

[ZemZem]

Nether~

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Ok, I could finally beat Marisa.

She cost me five or six of my eight lives (had no single death until stage 3).

Her crazy star showers and spark attacks made me almost blind ;)

I still feel uncomfotrable with focussing.

BTW her bosstheme rocks!

Posted my replay on the site.

Ooooh, nice! The game crashing in Stage 5 is pretty weird though. Was there like, some error message or something?

Yeah, an error message.

However replayed it and no more crash happened.

So everything's fine!

Edited May 23, 2015 by Mister IceTeaPeach

[Kriemhild]

Won what? I'm lost.

Edit: Just checked to make sure I wasn't blind and missed a new poll in the thread here. Doesn't seem to be the case.

Edit Edit: You know what, since we haven't had a poll in a while, why not?

Sorry, we were talking about the Eientei shot type ratings.

Ok, I've could finally beat Marisa.

Played with five lives and had three left.

Unfortunately the game crashed in stage 5 :(

Ooooh, nice! The game crashing in Stage 5 is pretty weird though. Was there like, some error message or something?

[Magical Glace]

@Poll: Border ftw

Speaking from EX experience.

Ok, I could finally beat Marisa.

She cost me five or six of my eight lives (had no single death until stage 3).

Her crazy star showers and spark attacks made me almost blind ;)

I still feel uncomfotrable with focussing.

BTW her bosstheme rocks!

Posted my replay on the site.

Yeah, an error message.

However replayed it and no more crash happened.

So everything's fine!

I watched your replay, and while you did show signs of knowing the mechanic existed, You didn't really use it as much as you really should have. Don't just lightly tap shift every now and again, press and hold.

The slower movement alone should help you with Marisa

The PoC (Point of Collection) is another thing you didn't use as much as you could have. Autocollecting a lot helps you gain the extends faster, as well as maxing your power faster. You timed out Firefly Phenomenon, which indicates learning how to exploit the PoC is something that would help a lot.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Like I mentioned already I kinda feel like uncomfortable to hold shift, press the y button and move at the same time.

I think I only used focussing in very chaotic situations like against Marisa's star showers. I don't really have a feeling for focussing yet.

What exactly is PoC (point of collection) and autocollecting?

I know that I sometimes get items automatically, but tbh I've no idea, why!

Edited May 23, 2015 by Mister IceTeaPeach