New ~Official Touhou Chat Thread~

[ZemZem]

what's wrong with playing SA XDDD

[Kriemhild]

what's wrong with playing SA XDDD

SA is one of my favorite Touhou games but... it's definitely one of the harder ones and I wouldn't recommend it to a new player. Edited June 13, 2016 by Rainbow

[かベリー]

_{I'm gunna rek all of u n00bs with me m8 weedecine<3333}

Um, what. I gave Flower View a go and it was honestly awful. It's too fast, there are no interesting patterns, random bullets everywhere, it's not hard or technical or anything and it feels empty...I really wanted to like this game, but what the heck am I doing wrong?

Edited June 13, 2016 by Floral Pattern

[Zak Something]

ironically I had an easier time with SA than I did with UFO or MoF sooo

[Magical Glace]

SA Easy is fairly standard for an Easy mode tbh.

Normal is above average for a Normal.

Don't know about H/L.

_{I'm gunna rek all of u n00bs with me m8 weedecine<3333}

Um, what. I gave Flower View a go and it was honestly awful. It's too fast, there are no interesting patterns, random bullets everywhere, it's not hard or technical or anything and it feels empty...I really wanted to like this game, but what the heck am I doing wrong?

Tbh I hate PoFV for the reasons you noted and then some, so nothing.

[Balcerzak]

I really wanted to like this game, but what the heck am I doing wrong?

Playing it single player. Phantasmagorias need human opponents, imo.

[かベリー]

I played SWR and it was pretty fun!

I first tried out Aya, I normally prefer speedier characters and got rekt by Suika on Easy. Then I tried Alice and I beat Suika, Yuyuko, Reisen, Reimu and Sakuya on my first try and I stopped when I got to Youmu. I really didn't expect Alice to be so fun to use!

[Magical Glace]

I played SWR and it was pretty fun!

I first tried out Aya, I normally prefer speedier characters and got rekt by Suika on Easy. Then I tried Alice and I beat Suika, Yuyuko, Reisen, Reimu and Sakuya on my first try and I stopped when I got to Youmu. I really didn't expect Alice to be so fun to use!

Now go play the superior fighter aka Urban Legend in Limbo.

[かベリー]

Now go play the superior fighter aka Urban Legend in Limbo.

I don't like the characters in it and it looks weird.

[Magical Glace]

But it's superior!

[かベリー]

n

But it's superior!

no

[Magical Glace]

Whyever would I lie?

[かベリー]

Whyever would I lie?

Because you have no proof to back your statement.

[Magical Glace]

Because you have no proof to back your statement.

I have proof in my Mokou Lunatic 1cc and Marisa Lunatic 1cc.

[Ercdouken]

[Kriemhild]

_{I'm gunna rek all of u n00bs with me m8 weedecine<3333}

Um, what. I gave Flower View a go and it was honestly awful. It's too fast, there are no interesting patterns, random bullets everywhere, it's not hard or technical or anything and it feels empty...I really wanted to like this game, but what the heck am I doing wrong?

Were you possibly expecting it to be similar to standard Touhou danmaku games...? Because that's not what it is. It's a very different multiplayer game with more emphasis on the competitive aspect (sending bullets, timing spell casts, etc) than on general Touhou dodging. It does, however, help a lot in training yourself to dodge random bullet hell (which is fairly common during stage sections of other Touhou games), but if you were expecting to engage in boss battles with spellcards and such, then sorry, you won't find that in PoFV.

[Chen]

>pofv is meant to be played on lunatic. any other difficulty is a waste of time

>pofv is not your regular touhou, compare it to something like twinkle star sprites or kanossyu 2

>some characters are objectively better than other characters, this is fact

>the ai cheats but will kill itself after a certain time passes. basically, it turns into a battle of attrition

[かベリー]

...Ooooooooh. So it's fun when it's multiplayer? Alright, I'll be training for the tournament then!

[Kriemhild]

...Ooooooooh. So it's fun when it's multiplayer? Alright, I'll be training for the tournament then!

It IS a multiplayer game. Even the Story Mode that you probably tried out is basically 9 stages of multiplayer duels against a computer AI. Surely you've noticed the split screen...? But yeah, you really can't compare it to standard Touhou games, because it's very different and multiplayer.

Note, I still find Story Mode really fun, but again, being a multiplayer game places heavy emphasis on the competitive aspect. So it's more about "how do I outplay my opponent" than about "how do I progress through the stage/boss". The stages don't have finite progression (even the enemy patterns, though randomly selected from a finite subset, do not change as you progress), and boss battles don't even exist.

So I'm not saying it should ONLY be played against a human opponent, but what I'm trying to say that even when playing against the AI, you should approach it as a multiplayer game and would only be able to enjoy it as such. Unless you just want practice with general random-hell patterns (which are fairly common in Touhou), in which case PoFV is also a good game for that.

Edited June 13, 2016 by Rainbow

[かベリー]

I just have a question, during all the mayhem of bullets, where do outplaying and strategy come in? I can't seem to do anything really logical or thought out.

[ZemZem]

DRC 5 is here!: http://eientei.boards.net/post/53149/thread

SA is one of my favorite Touhou games but... it's definitely one of the harder ones and I wouldn't recommend it to a new player.

Cut that out.

Let new players play anything they want and see if they can get into it.

Edited June 13, 2016 by Zeems

[Zak Something]

idgi i just said i had not much problem with SA and everyone knows i cant danmaku for shit.

[Magical Glace]

Seriously guys, SA Easy was my second 1cc. It's not that bad on that mode...

[Chen]

you're supposed to kill the enemies in a manner that you rack up bonus points (your points go yellow) the more points = more attacks you get

never ever ever use level 3 charges or level 4

use level 2 to clear out bullets

kill bosses and lily white because they drop useful things

never use the level 1 attacks for anything but killing bosses because you'll have an easier time using your regular shot

[Kriemhild]

I just have a question, during all the mayhem of bullets, where do outplaying and strategy come in? I can't seem to do anything really logical or thought out.

...I guess I can give you a compressed guide for PoFV basics

[spoiler=PoFV Basics]Health

- Your health consists of five yin-yang orbs, that are in 0.5 increments.

- You lose health each time you get hit. The amount you lose depends on various factors but it maxes at 3 damage.

- Your spellcard gauge increases each time you get hit

- Your health will drop to 0.5 before you can die. When this happens, your spellcard gauge will be maxed to Lv4. Getting hit any more will result in death.

Spells and Bombs

- Spells and bombs are based on the spellcard gauge at the bottom of the screen. It contains four levels. Initially, the gauge is filled up to Lv1.

- The gauge fills up as you kill enemies, get hit, or if time passes.

- To fire a spell, you need to hold the button to start charging, and then release the button to fire the spell. The level of the fired spell depends on how far you've charged, from Lv1 to Lv4, and you can only charge on the filled portion of the gauge. So if the gauge is only filled until somewhere between Lv3 and Lv4, then you can't fire a Lv4 spell, but you can fire any of Lv1, Lv2, or Lv3 spell based on how long you charge.

- When you fire a spell, the gauge decreases by (Level of unleashed Spell - 1) levels. Note that this means that Lv1 spells are free, but they don't erase bullets or grant invincibility anyway.

- Each spell of Lv2 and above will clear some bullets and send an attack to the opponent. Both the area of the clearance and the difficulty of the sent attack increases with level.

- In particular, a Lv4 spell will clear all bullets on the screen. Furthermore, instead of sending a single attack to the opponent, a Lv4 will cause your character to appear to your opponent as a boss of sorts, that fires various attacks for quite some time before they fade away or are destroyed. Also, firing a Lv4 will cancel your opponent's Lv4, if any, thus erasing the boss from your screen and instead sending your boss to the opponent.

- You can also press X to fire a bomb. A bomb will instantly fire the highest spell level that your meter is filled up to. However, as a downside to skipping the charging time, the cost of a bomb is equal to the level of the spell (not Level - 1), so you will lose an extra quarter of the gauge if you bomb. Should be obvious, but bombing is strongly discouraged except for emergencies and before getting G items.

- The attack that is sent during the spell depends on the character and level. Each character has a single Lv2 attack, a single Lv3 attack, and several Lv4 attacks (that are used by the Lv4 boss).

- There are a lot of factors surrounding the spellcard gauge but a general basic principle is that the more aggressive you play, the faster the gauge fills.

Destroying Enemies and Focusing

- When you kill a fairy, the fairy explodes. This explosion cannot hurt your character but it can kill other fairies nearby. This can lead to a chain of explosions.

- Furthermore, small white bullets caught by the explosion will be sent to the opponent's field.

- In addition to fairies, there are also spirits. These are the whitish stuff that simply fall straight down. They have a bit more health than fairies and descend pretty quickly.

- Killing spirits will send an Ex attack to the opponent's screen. This is a distinct attack that is unique to the character. Killing spirits can be made easier through focused fields.

- Like other Touhou games, you can hold SHIFT to focus. In addition to slowing the character and displaying the hitbox as usual, focusing also creates a field around your character. The size and shape of the field depends on the character, and may not be static.

- Any spirits caught by the field will awaken. Instead of continuing to fall, awakened spirits will descend upwards very slowly, making them easier to kill.

- However, if a spirit is awakened and is not killed within a short period of time, then the spirit will dissolve into three red bullets that are directed towards your character.

Bosses and Items

- There are two types of bosses: your opponent's character bosses, which arrives when they fire a Lv4, and Lily White, who appears randomly towards both screens at once and fires a bunch of bullets.

- These bosses will leave the screen after a while (Lily leaves much faster), but you can shoot them down before that to halt their attacks.

- Shooting down bosses will also drop one of four items:

- A yellow item with a G will instantly max out the spell gauge to Lv4

- A blue item with Ex will fire a lot of Ex attacks on the opponent's screen

- A red item with some kanji will create a lot of small bullets on the opponent's screen

- A blue item with some kanji will add a lot of spell points, which speeds up the rate in which the spellcard gauge fills.

Strategy?

- I'll leave it to your creativity and playtyle to figure out what strategies you can pull off in various situations. But here are a few variables that you should consider carefully.

- When to fire spells: Unlike other Touhou games, simply surviving for a period of time does not inherently indicate progress. You don't just need to survive, but you need to push your opponents to get hit. As such, spell usage should not be limited to "I'm-gonna-die" situations (unless you intentionally want to play passively as part of your strategy) since their offensive effects can be important. On the other hand, if your gauge is insufficient for a Lv2 when you need to survive, you won't be able to clear bullets to save yourself.

- Which spells should be fired: There are four levels of spells now, and aside from the Lv1, the tradeoff between spell power and spell cost should be considered when deciding which spell to fire at which time. There are also other factors that can be relevant, like your opponent's spell gauge, the bullet intensities, etc.

- Killing fairies: Killing fairies can send bullets to your opponent, but your opponent can also send them back to you. Being aggressive can speed up your spell gauge filling rate, but passing bullets around between you and your opponent (instead of letting them go in your screen) can cause the bullet intensity to accumulate to hellish extents. Transferring bullets means you don't need to deal with them, but they can be transferred back to you!

- Focusing: Focusing slows your character and shows your hitbox, but you also need to consider the fields around you. Can you afford to consciously activate spirits and exploit them? Is your current plan of action causing spirits to be activated when you don't want them to? Can you afford to deal with the activated spirits or will you let them turn into red bullets?

- Dealing with bosses: This time, bosses are not isolated from the rest of the bullet hell. They can appear when the bullets are mild, or they might appear when the bullets are intense. How would you deal with them? Do you wait for the boss to leave or can you afford to try shooting them down? If it's a Lv4 boss, is it worth cancelling it with your own Lv4 or should you try to shoot them down for a useful item?

Enjoy your PoFV~

Edited June 14, 2016 by Rainbow