And how is Eternal Meek even humanly possible to dodge consistently without the safespot?
You capture it with inhuman reflexes. :3
Now, let me get something off my chest now that an appropriate thread has been made for it.
Subterranean Animism. This is one of my least favorite Touhou games, and only above SoEW in my liking of the shmups. I have never understood the appeal of this game, especially when people dislike UFO so much. Why, you ask? Well, let's go in depth. Keep in mind this is only my opinion, which should invalidate anything I say right off the bat. :V
First, the music. A lot of people really like the music in this game, but I...DO NOT.
Granted, this IS ZUN, so there's very little of the music I outright dislike. However, the music feels a little less inspired than usual. Songs like Yugi's theme feel a little half-hearted, and the stage 1 theme is outright grating. For every Last Remote there is a Heartfelt Fancy. It doesn't help that the worst songs play over the worst parts of the game. I could go on, but SA's music doesn't do it for me overall.
The lives system is also something that has annoyed me for a long time. The lives system is built with a cruel logic behind it: The people who are awesome at the game get to be more awesome, reaching max lives by stage 6. The people who are not so good on the other hand are handed less lives because they survive less attacks, digging a big hole for themselves. The power system is also sadistic in the way it handles deaths. Satori is a great example: It you die between 3.00 and 4.00 power against her first three attacks, you'll come out with 3.20 power. Before her three recollection spells, Satori gives you .75 power, leaving you with...3.95 power. Each spell card break gives you .50 power back, meaning that unless you capture some spell cards, you'll NEVER reach full power in this fight. The game loves to do this, and IMO it is worse than UFO's power system, which is at least consistent in how much you lose.
Next, the general stage design. SA relies on memorization much more than the rest of the shmups, and it shows. Stuff like stage 3 and stage 4 are downright impossible until you learn the patterns. Unfortunately, the fact that the patterns can be learned is a poor excuse for patterns that are full of clipdeath. Border of Wave and Particle is a particularly guilty example of this. Because it's a 20 second repeating pattern that is static, most people tease me for finding it hard. Even if it's static, the pattern, particularly the "wave" part, are very easy to clip. The attack has too large a health bar and combined with this, even I find myself using the safespot to avoid ruining a 1cc attempt.
The big part of the game that ticks me off is the obscene amount of areas that kill you via clipdeath. Turning to stage 4 once again, the laser spams are pretty much down to luck for short-ranged Reimu A, as the lasers may very well not leave an opening that can be worked with. Uncontainable Nuclear Reaction and Subterranean Sun both take their difficulty almost entirely from forcing you to make precision movements through a bunch of bullet types with tight hitboxes. Without exception every Touhou has this to an extent, but SA takes this to ridiculous levels. Parsee's sole avenue of difficulty comes from random clips. Clipdeath after clipdeath is simply not fun in my book.
And that's the biggest issue of all: The attacks just are not fun. When I thought about it really hard, I could not think of a single boss in this game I could say I thoroughly enjoyed. The one I play the most is Satori, but that is because I am a masochist and for some reason like to bang my head against a fight I really dislike. Every stage and every boss has a gimmick that is either annoying or unfun, and all rely on clipdeath. Therefore, I conclude my reasoning on why I dislike Subterranean Animism.
tl;dr: SA SUX U ALL TEH SUXXORZ
