I'd be all ears for any other tips or quirks, especially anything that one might never know. I'm in sponge mode.
Well alright then. I guess I'll write out everthing I know, including some plainly obvious stuff just for the sake of being thorough. I'll try to keep it organized.
First off, the enemy formations. (Ghosts, moons, whatever, I'll just call them ghosts.) A few of them have some not so obvious tricks to them, so I'll mention them. Some general stuff though, would be that the next wave of ghosts won't appear until the current one is removed from the screen, and if the last one to be removed left on its own (flying offscreen) there will be a notable delay before the next wave appears. Also note that only the ones which are destroyed in explosion will charge the spell gauge, so sweeping them away with a lvl1 does nothing, though it can still be a good idea for getting rid of the crappy unchainable waves quickly. As for specific waves:
The waves that appear from the very center of the screen, led by a large ghost followed by a spinning circle of smaller ghosts - If you let the lead ghost get pretty close to the bottom of the screen and then destroy it, the explosion catches all of the other ghosts in the circle, which won't happen if you destroy it near the top.
The long line that slides down one side of the screen, then moves horizontally to your position - If you remain perfectly still, they actually won't reach you, instead dropping down just to the side of you, but still close enough to get hit by your shots. So they effectively have no way of hitting you unless you move toward them on your own. They can also be very useful for reflecting bullets and spirits since you can guide them to any part of the screen that you want.
The short column of large ghosts that appear on one side, follwed by a similar row from the center - When the column reaches the bottom it "falls over" and spreads across the screen. If you wait until it's almost overlapped with the other set then shoot the ghost nearest the edge of the screen, you'll usually chain them all together.
And that's all I can think of for those idiots at the moment.
Now about the characters. Spells, Boss attacks, etc. First, a short thing about boss attacks in general. With the exception of Chiyuri, who seems to teleport at random, every boss appears to follow a specific movement pattern. They appear in the upper center, then move in a counter-clockwise diamond shape. Knowing that makes it easy to predict where they will be so you can hit them much more easily, especially if you have a really slow lvl1 ( like Yumemi's, for example). Some attacks that they use cause them to stop moving, however. Anyway...
Reimu - Her spell attacks are aimed (it took me forever to realize this) though a few bullets appear to be static. If you're feeling adventurous you can attempt to massively misdirect the whole thing to one side, but the screen needs to be fairly clear and it helps to be a fast character. (It's usually a bad idea.) Otherwise a single tap dodges it easily enough. Her boss attack has two attacks that look similar though you want to be able to tell them apart quickly. One of them fires yin-yang orbs to the sides and then brings them to the center, where they form a pretty solid wall. For this, I dodge completely around it. Then there's a similar one which is much easier to deal with, so staying under Reimu the entire time should be easy for that one.
Mima - I think the spell attack is all random. Her boss has one attack that alternated between an aimed shot and then aimed around you. So you can effectively just stream that one. Remember that the EX attacks are color coded (red goes offscreen) and otherwise there's nothing too noteworthy about Mima.
Marisa - The lasers are actually bullets that fire from the bottom of the screen, leaving a wall behind them, so they have no "inactive phase" like Chiyuri's. The boss attack that is made of only purple stars is static, and so is the one where she summons lasers on her own. For that I usually go to the side, since there will be two lasers right next to each other in the middle. (Also note that Marisa can't bomb or hyper while firing her laser.)
Ellen - Fuck Ellen. There's not much to know about her, though she has the mysterious property of dying much more quickly than any other character. I think it's from her slow movement paired with her utterly useless lvl1. If you're playing as Ellen, make sure to stand on top of bosses while using a lvl1 during a bomb. That way every missile hits the boss, and sometimes they hit twice. If you don't do that she can't kill bosses with just a bomb and a lvl1.
Kotohime - She indicates what she will do next with the behavior of the bombs orbiting around her. If they stay still, she uses the aimed attack, so misdirect it to a corner. If they spin close to her, she does the slower attack, and if they spin while drifting away from her, she does a faster attack. They're all static-ish, so knowing which one is coming helps a lot. She doesn't signal the attack with reflectable bullets, but that one is no threat. It's worth noting that her boss attack produces almost no reflectable bullets (only 1 out of 4 possible moves), so it's usually hard to get rid of her by chaining bullets. On the other hand, she attacks so slowly that you usually only have to dodge one attack if you keep hitting her with lvl1's.
Kotohime's lvl1 seems to do much more damage at close range, probably because it starts out moving slowly.
Kana - The easiest opponent in my opinion. Her EX attacks don't even block bullets. Her spell attacks are static and have countless safespots, though they vary depending on spell level. I don't know if you can tell if her Yuuka-esque move will create gaps or go with the big wall approach.
Rikako - Nothing too special here. The spacing of the bullets in her spell attack is determined by spell level. Normally it will miss of you don't move, but at level 16 the last bullets are aimed right at you. There's some other spell level (it may or may not be 15) where the bullets seem to be aimed around you but one of them hits you if you don't move. Riakako is fairly simple to deal with when her boss attack isn't active, since the gears are so slow (though the homing ones will move absurdly fast if you go above them near the top of the screen) and the spell doesn't threaten you until the last few bullets.
She's also got that weird glitch. From what I've seen, it (sometimes?) activates when you win a round during a hyper. Essentially, the spinning gears from the hyper will remain around you, though you do not keep the invincibility. You also can't use spells of any level (even level 1), so it's really a disadvantage in my opinion. The only way to get rid of it is to hyper again, which means using up your bombs. It's really not an problem though since it can't happen to you in story mode (presumably because winning a round just takes you to the next opponent). It can happen to the AI however, if you end up losing a round to it. Since it won't be sending any spell or boss attacks at you (at least not the manually activated kind) until it hypers again, it usually makes the match a cakewalk.
And another thing. If your timing is perfect with her lvl1, you can kill most bosses before they do anything. You want to use the lvl1 just as the boss appears, and slightly to its left, so the right half of the circle of gears hits the boss. They always move left first, so the boss moves right through the gears and takes a ton of damage. If you're firing normal shots the whole time and the boss isn't abnormally speedy, it'll die before getting in a single attack.
Chiyuri - The lasers are much more forgiving than Marisa's kind, since they show you where they will be before they activate. She's pretty straightforward to play against. Everything goes apeshit, and you spend a lot of time streaming. I recommend not being too reluctant to bomb, since with all the crap flying around you recharge hypers almost instantly, and I personally find that a single bomb may not even be enough to kill a boss attack against her. Either her boss is healthier than everyone else's or it becomes invincible while teleporting, or something. (And the teleporting itself can just make her hard to hit too.) Also, if you ever end up trapped and are forced to stream up the edge of the screen, charge a lvl1 as you do so to get rid of any spirits that might spawn above you. That's a pretty good idea in any situation where movement is restricted in fact. (Lasers, while streaming, etc.) Prepare a lvl1 for stuff that you can't dodge because your movement is limited. Also remember she's got the same glitch as Marisa going on, in case you're playing as her.
Another odd thing about her - She's the only character who's boss attack changes the background. :wat:
Yumemi - Half of her attacks are easy and half are impossible. The spell attacks are aimed and are effectively no threat. When she does the aimed crosses try to stream diagonally, since if you go all horizontal the arms will catch up with you, the idea for this attack is not scatter the crosses all over the screen.
Some random other crap:
Most characters have the same hyper, though Reimu, Marisa, Mima, and Rikako's are unique and more powerful. Ellen's is also unique but it's total shit and worse than the normal one.
The AI seems to get stupider while you're using a hyper. I'm not sure if the stupidity goes away completely after the hyper wears off, or if you keep weakening the AI with each one you use. In any event, using a hyper when the AI has half a heart left usually kills it.
The combo counter in the upper left caps at 99, though if you go over it the "max combo" bonus at the end of the stage can be over 99. That one won't ever go past 255, and I'm not sure if the game keeps track past that point and it's just a display thing, or what. That other number under the hit counter (is it "spell points?") won't go past 6mil or something, and again, I don't know if the game keeps track past that point or not.
If you're going for score, the best strategy I've found is to spam lvl2's and hope the AI reflects them back at you.
Generally, it takes 3 hits for you to die, but getting hit early on does little enough damage (1 heart or less) that you still need to get hit three times again to die. So getting hit very early doesn't matter, and you've no need to bomb. Also, it can be a tough call sometimes whether you'd rather use a bomb or just take a hit, even late into the match. Generally I'd say don't bomb if you know you'll only be hit once, since they are best used as "get out of hell free" tickets. (Killing bosses, in other words.) On the other hand, using up the bombs lets you use hypers, and against some people (Chiyuri, for instance) you may not want to value bombs as highly, since you'll be getting hypers very quickly. This kind of decision making is weird and depends on the situation though, so you'll end up thinking on the spot in most cases. Or just winging it. :V
Now I realize I just typed a wall here, and a lot if it's probably useless info. That's all I got for now then, though I may think of other stuff later. Character specific strategies, blah blah, etc. You maybe knew it already, but I've got lunatic runs with every character other than Chiyuri on Youtube, so maybe they could be somewhat helpful.
Also, I'm going to check out how continues effect Yumemi's immortality. It's odd that she'd sometimes lose the first round, especially to Kana. It might make sense if she were completely trapped, but when I beat her with Reimu she pretty much just threw herself into the ghosts. If it's true that she weakens with time instead of victories, I wonder just how she could get messed up.
And as long as I'm posting in this thread, here's an accomplishment. -
Proper streaming technique!
