Maidens of the Kaleidoscope

~Hakurei Shrine~ => Help Me, Eirin! => Topic started by: Sapz on January 18, 2011, 04:49:07 AM

Title: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sapz on January 18, 2011, 04:49:07 AM
If you're a newbie to the Touhou series or danmaku shmups in general, the chances are you'll be struggling to start off with. The curtains of bullets may seem way too fast, dense and confusing for you to dodge effectively, or you might just be slipping up at crucial moments - at any rate, you're looking for hints, tips and ways of improving. If this sounds familiar, this guide is for you.

There are a bunch of basic techniques you'll need to be familiar with in order to succeed, especially if you're looking to move up to the higher difficulties later on. Hope you guys find it useful. :V

As you may have noticed, this guide is a little bit :wikipedia:, so feel free to skip to the sections you're having the most trouble with or know the least about.



Streaming

Streaming is without a doubt the most widely used technique in shmups as a whole. It's very common for enemies to fire bullets aimed at you rather than in random or predefined places, and you can take advantage of this by making small movements to one side, letting all the bullets miss you. If there are lots of enemies or a long lasting pattern, you could be moving slowly sideways for quite a while, leaving a 'stream' of bullets behind you.

It seems like an obvious technique, but you never really realise until you try it just how much of these games is simple streaming. If you're entering a section of the game you've never seen before, you may as well just go to one side of the screen and start streaming by default; either the patterns coming up will be random/static, in which case you haven't lost anything, or they'll be streaming, in which case you'll be completely avoiding the danger.

Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc7hMo-PEIQ#t=4m05s) is a basic example of a streaming pattern; every bullet can be avoided simply by tapping to move out of harm's way. Not all of them are that easy to spot, however; ZUN quite likes to disguise his streaming, often making it look much more intimidating and difficult than it actually is. An example of this is the start of PCB Phantasm (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDt-ZsHOSxE) - it may look extremely difficult due to the bullet density and speed, but it's still just a streaming pattern. The opening barrage is made of bullets aimed at you (stream), followed by two sets of bullets aimed away from you (sit still), and another set aimed at you (stream), followed by a bunch of really fast green bullets aimed at you (stream) - I think you get the basic idea. You should be streaming enough that it becomes second nature to you after a while, and it'll help a lot in the long run.

A slightly more advanced technique is the 'crossover'. Often while streaming, you'll notice that you don't have enough space on-screen to keep going - if you try to stream the pattern all the way to the end, you'll crash into a wall. In these situations, you need to perform a 'streaming crossover'. This involves, while streaming, making a very quick dash forwards, then stopping immediately and starting to stream in the other direction. What this does is make a gap in the stream due to the quick movement, which you can fit through and begin streaming the other way. In this way, you can stream a pattern for an infinite amount of time. Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa9kEI5xslk#t=1m54s) an example of a pattern where streaming crossovers are needed; you need to keep doing them for Sanae's straight, aimed bullets, or you'll get trapped between the more random bullets flying about. Again, this should become second nature after you do enough of them.



Bombing/Resource Management

Good bomb usage is one of the biggest factors in how far through the game you'll get, especially as you're just starting out and don't have as much experience with the patterns. Each Windows Touhou starts you out with at least two, more often three, bombs for every life, with the possibility of getting more. With this in mind...

USE ALL OF YOUR BOMBS!

SERIOUSLY, USE ALL OF YOUR BOMBS!

Otherwise, this will be you (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osf1fa4UhP4#t=4m35s) (WARNING: turn down your volume before you click this).

I hope I've made my point. :V

I know it's always tempting to attempt a difficult attack without bombing, and in practice mode, this is encouraged, as it'll help you learn the pattern and get more consistent with dodging it. However, in a real run, you should be ready to bomb at any time during an attack you think is likely to hit you, and hit the bomb button as soon as you feel unable to keep up with the attack. You might want to try an 'all-bombs' run in one of the earlier Touhous just to get a feel for how far good bomb use can push you.

This advice is all well and good for the earlier games; Touhous 10-12 aren't so clear cut. Mountain of Faith has a system where bombing removes 1.00 power from your total power stock - however, bombs in MoF are extremely powerful, aside from which your power actually maxes at 4.00; the extra 1.00 when you're at 5.00 power is essentially just a free bomb. In addition to these, the bomb includes autocollect, and often you'll make back most of the power you lost by bombing! As Drake has shown (http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,2368.0.html), you can afford to be really generous with bombs here, so go nuts with them!

SA is probably the game you'll want to use bombs in most sparingly; it's like MoF, except minus the 1.00 buffer (it caps at 4.00), there's less chance of getting your power back from autocollect, and the bombs themselves are far weaker. Using too many is likely to hinder you at the very least, so only use them if you need them - having said that, it's still always better to bomb than to die.

For UFO, you'll likely want to bomb as in the earlier games in the series, since there's no power loss for bombing; however, there's another thing to consider here, of course.

-UFO Collection

UFO is kind of a special case due to (obviously) the UFOs. As you'll probably know if you've played the game, various enemies will drop UFOs when destroyed, and will summon a big UFO if collected in the right order. Three reds will summon a red, three blues summon a blue, three greens summon a green, and one of each summons a rainbow UFO. UFOs may spawn life/bomb pieces and other small UFOs when destroyed; in addition, they suck in point/power items while alive (don't worry, you get them back when they die), and when the ring around them is full of these items, they may spawn additional items. The list of spawns is as follows:

Blue UFOs: Spawns a colour-changing UFO when killed, and gives a large point bonus for filling up the ring.
Red UFOs: Spawns a colour-changing UFO and a life piece when killed, and gives another life piece for filling up the ring.
Green UFOs: Spawns a colour-changing UFO and a bomb piece when killed, and gives another whole bomb for filling up the ring.
Rainbow UFOs: Spawns a colour-changing UFO when killed; if you fill up the ring before killing it, it'll spawn two UFOs instead. It's also worth noting that a rainbow UFO will change any power items it collects into point items, and any point items into power items - this can be very useful if you're low on power and want to get back to max quickly.

Obviously, red and green UFOs are the most beneficial for pure survival play. You'll notice that while some small UFOs change colour, some will stay the same colour all the time; you should build your large UFOs around this. As a general rule for survival, you'll want to make a red UFO if there are static red UFOs, a green UFO if there are static greens, and a rainbow UFO if there are static blues, which will help you get more greens or reds in the long run.

There are quite a few spots where you'll have to make a choice between a red and a green UFO. The advantage of reds, of course, is that dying with bombs in stock doesn't hurt nearly as much, and you won't have to think about bombs at all after your stock runs out. However, bombs have the advantage of actually doing damage, as well as avoiding the power loss from dying. Really, it's up to you which to get. I've seen people have a lot of success with either or both - a common route to use is reds for the first four stages, and greens for the last two.

An important thing to mention is when to go after small UFOs. It can be tempting to grab them from near the top of the screen before they change colour to something less useful, but this is definitely not recommended if there's a decent amount of danmaku flying around; it's very easy to get blasted by a fairy from close range, and a death will definitely outweigh all the benefits you'd have gotten from grabbing the UFO. It's also worth saying that a UFO will delay its colour change if you are near it. This is useful if you want to grab it as it is, but if you're waiting for it to change colour, you're better off hanging back at a distance.

-Fairy Wars

Fairy Wars has a bullet freezing mechanic which can be used to clear out dense waves of bullets, and in that respect it works a little bit like a bomb which can get you out of bad situations. As such, it can seem a bit like an emergency measure; however, you should be using it every time there are lots of bullets on-screen. The more bullets you freeze, the more charge you regain to freeze the next bunch of bullets - in addition, you also gain charge towards lives, 'proper' bombs, and shot power, all of which are extremely helpful, especially later in the game. If you're feeling adventurous, you could even use your 'proper' bomb the same way - freezing a full screen of danmaku, including fire bullets, will net you a very large amount of charge.



Hitboxes/Your Field of Vision

You'll notice that from PCB onwards (and in EoSD if you're using the hitbox patch), your hitbox is displayed when you use focus; it can be very tempting to stare at the hitbox so you know exactly what gaps you can fit between. However, with the exception of very slow, very dense patterns (such as Youmu's spell cards which slow down time), it's usually a bad idea to do this when dodging. Many attacks come at you at a very quick pace, especially on the higher difficulties, and if you've only seen them when they're within a few inches of your hitbox, it's often too late to move out of the way.

As you practice more, you'll start to be able to concentrate on more of the screen at once, and intuitively know where your hitbox is from your character's position, allowing you more freedom of vision - however, you'll want to get this skill down as fast as possible, as it'll speed up your progress a lot. I find the default 'best' position to have your vision centred on is about 1/3 of the way up the screen; of course, this is just a guideline, and you can and should change this on the fly based on your position, enemy positions, and bullet speed density. As a general rule, the slower and denser the pattern is, the closer you'll want to be looking at your hitbox.

Another thing that should be mentioned is the hitboxes of bullets. While it may not immediately be obvious, some bullets have hitboxes that are smaller than the actual sprites! In practice, this means you can often fit between bullets despite their sprites touching or even overlapping. As a general rule, the bigger the bullet is, the bigger the percentage of non-hitbox space there is. For example, the tiny 'pellet' bullets are pretty much 100% hitbox,  while large circle and 'bubble' bullets have tons of non-hitbox space - bubble bullets in particular only start with the hitbox around the area where the clear part in the middle meets the colour on the outside, which means you can safely sit inside the white sections (IMPORTANT NOTE: these two types of bullets have a bigger hitbox in EoSD than they do in the rest of the series!). Exceptions to this rule are amulet and arrow bullets, which only have hitboxes in the centre of the spite despite being small, and Utsuho's nuke bullets, which are almost entirely hitbox despite being the biggest kind of bullet.

Having said that, it's usually not a good idea to push your luck unless you're playing for score and trying to accumulate graze - it's much safer to try to avoid a bullet entirely than to scrape past its hitbox by a small margin. This can also prevent annoying 'clipdeaths', which occur when you misjudge hitboxes and get hit while under the illusion that you're safe. Hitboxes can be forgiving, but don't push to take advantage of them if there's another, safer option.



Effective Practice

So, these basic dodging skills are all well and good, but you still won't make much progress on any difficulties you find challenging until you learn the stages well. You often hear inexperienced shmup players say that the kind of 'dodging skill' like what's mentioned above is what's important in shmups, and that memorization isn't that important - let me tell you now that this is wrong. Memorization, and the ability to learn stages quickly and thoroughly, is arguably more important than any perceived 'dodging skill' - sure, if you're good enough you may be able to dodge a relatively simple pattern on sight, but you're far better off learning what can be learned and saving your focus for the really tough patterns which can't be memorized, and even these (or particularly these!) should be practiced a ton.

A good example is EoSD stage 4 - the first time you try it on a difficulty you find challenging, the chances are you'll lose a whole bunch of lives due to stuff flying in from strange directions, huge lasers and a load of other complications. However, after a bit of practice you may notice that almost the entire stage can be streamed without much difficulty. If you practice the stage and learn where the enemies spawn, you can save yourself a whole lot of difficult dodging and practically cruise through the patterns, saving your focus for the potentially difficult battle against Patchouli.

Bearing this in mind...

USE STAGE PRACTICE! ALL THE TIME! SERIOUSLY!

It can be tempting to just try full runs to try and get the 1cc (or high score) quickly if you think you're close to accomplishing it, but if there's something that gives you problems in the late stages of the game, there is simply no point going through the whole rest of the game to get one shot at practicing the section. If you're serious about your run, you should practice everything that you can't do consistently until you either can do it consistently or write the section off as an automatic bomb (this is entirely fine as well, but if you do this, make sure you follow it and use the bomb - it's very frustrating to die after planning a bomb and failing to use it).

Similarly, IN's Spell Practice works absolute wonders for practicing spell cards, which is very nice considering the memorization-heavy nature of its attacks. You may also find, if you're playing the PC-98 games, that your emulator supports savestates - if so, use these too! If it's not a full run attempt, anything goes as long as it helps you improve and learn the game.

When you want to improve your overall skills at a certain game rather than learning any particular attacks, a good way to go about it is to practice the game a difficulty or two above what you're used to. If you're going for a Normal 1cc, play on Hard for a while, and try to get consistent at some of the patterns it involves. If you're feeling adventurous, Lunatic will improve your skills very quickly, but don't expect to be able to handle everything there straight off the bat. Once you've done this for a while, you can go back to a difficulty  you're comfortable with - you'll likely find that it seems a lot less difficult than before.

If you're looking to practice your overall dodging skills rather than anything specific, there are other things to try; PoDD, PoFV, and StB are all excellent for this. The Phantasmagoria games are very nice for sharpening your random dodging and streaming skills - for the latter, I recommend fighting against Aya in PoFV (just don't expect to win). StB is less clear cut, but there's a huge variety in patterns, most of which are very tough - they definitely go above and beyond your regular Lunatic cards by the end, so you'll improve for sure if you stick with it.

There's one very important thing I haven't touched on yet, which is possibly the single best way of learning how to clear things. Namely:

WATCH REPLAYS MADE BY PLAYERS BETTER AT THE GAME THAN YOU ARE.

People have been playing these games for years and have developed all sorts of awesome survival and scoring routes through the stages during that time, and a whole bunch of the best are available on Gensokyo.org (http://replays.gensokyou.org/), or Royalflare (http://replay.royalflare.net/), or even YouTube, and it's a huge waste not to make use of these excellent resources. Often, you'll find there's a very simple trick to something you've been struggling with that just won't occur to you until you watch someone else's run - this is particularly important if you're looking to play Extra stages or Double Spoiler, which are full of 'trick' cards that look incredibly hard until you understand how to tackle them. Don't be afraid to shamelessly rip off copy or take inspiration from other players' tactics - it's one of the best ways to see what you're doing wrong and how to fix it.

Of course, it's also a good idea to watch your own replays to see what you're doing wrong! It's a lot easier to notice mistakes that you make later watching a replay than in the heat of the moment during gameplay, and possibly come up with a plan to fix them. You might also think up better ways to dodge certain patterns - it's very useful sometimes to just sit back and watch the patterns without being under the pressure of having to dodge them. Watching replays both from yourself and others is definitely one of the best ways to come up with strategies on the whole, so do this often!



Scoreplay Basics

First things first - I wouldn't call it impossible to go for scores straight off by any stretch of the imagination, but you'll probably want to hold off on all but basic scoreplay until you can 1cc whatever mode it is you want to score in; after all, survival in itself will rack in a decent number of points in most of the games. Once you're up to this level, there are a few general differences between playing to survive and playing to score:


That's the general side of things - for those concentrating on a specific game, as you should be doing if you want to nail a high score, there's an excellent rundown of both the overall scoring systems and a specific strategy for each of the games on the Touhou Wiki, and they can be found here (http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Category:Strategy). Definitely give these a read if you're unsure of how the scoring works for a certain game and want to get started.



Well then, that's about it, I think. Hopefully it helps you guys get to grips with things! If you're struggling with something very specific, there's a Spell Card Help thread (http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,6504.0.html) where you can ask about it and hopefully get some answers on how to approach it from your fellow players. Beyond this, it's largely up to your own practice, so keep at it and you'll have those 1ccs you're after in no time at all. When (not if) you do get them, feel free to post about them in the Accomplishments Thread (http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,7420.0.html)!

If you have any questions, or think of something that isn't addressed in this guide, is incorrect or could otherwise be improved, feel free to tell me about it either in this thread or PM, and I'll see what I can do to fix it.

Good luck, and have fun. :D
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Third Eye Lem on January 18, 2011, 08:04:31 AM
Very nice guide, it's a bit generic but it does give some good advice.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zengeku on January 18, 2011, 01:35:11 PM
Nice guide Sapz. Hopefully this will help people improve their skills.

Also: Wouldn't it be a good idea to mention that the rainbow UFO's can convert power items into point items and vice versa?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sapz on January 18, 2011, 01:43:36 PM
Ah yeah, probably a good idea, I'll add that in. Thanks for the feedback!
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Tengukami on January 18, 2011, 01:51:37 PM
An excellent guide. I'm surprised no one's done this sooner.

The only thing I'd add is that even watching your own replays can be helpful, as you can watch for what you might've done wrong, and come up with ideas as to what to do differently. Saving replays isn't just for bragging rights, after all.

Excellent.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sapz on January 18, 2011, 01:58:57 PM
Again, thanks for the feedback! And good idea, I knew there was something I'd forgotten. :V I'll go write something up about that.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Barrakketh on January 18, 2011, 05:19:20 PM
It could probably use a mention about how to switch direction while streaming (see: Source of Rains) since I don't think that is something that a new player will know how to do.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Silent Harmony on January 18, 2011, 08:25:52 PM
Excellent guide; i wish this was here when I started.

As for suggestions, I would mention practicing a stage at a higher difficulty if you get "stuck" at a certain point (and are close to a 1cc). Once you get used to the higher bullet density, it makes what you were stuck on a lot easier to read.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: DDRMANIAC007 on January 18, 2011, 09:51:52 PM
Mention twitch dodging, restarting a stream to go the other direction, and Great Fairy Wars tips as parts of the game are meant for freezing.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sen on January 18, 2011, 10:46:40 PM
Might be worth mentioning manipulation of Rainbow UFOs: how the UFO Tokens a Rainbow UFO spits out will start as the color of the last Token in your RGB chain. Also, blinking UFOs change color in Red -> Blue -> Green -> Red, etc. When a blinking UFO Token starts blinking rapidly, it's about to change color, and staying near it will keep it its current color. This is a good tactic for keeping UFOs certain colors until you get to a place with sufficient items to fill it up completely.

Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Drake on January 19, 2011, 01:54:46 AM
You'd think that after playing the game more than a few times people would learn themselves how UFOs work?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sen on January 19, 2011, 02:45:09 AM
You'd think that after playing the game more than a few times people would learn themselves how UFOs work?

IIRC Sapz didn't know you could stop UFO color changes until like three months ago :V
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sapz on January 19, 2011, 03:27:49 AM
Well, I've known for more than 3 months, but I didn't know until after the Lunatic 1cc. :V Again, thanks for the feedback, I'll update the guide in a bit.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: shadowbringer on January 19, 2011, 03:28:22 AM
HRtP:
- get used to dashing for moving around the screen (except when the orb is near you) and keeping the chain
- get used to dashing to kick the orb at fixed angles (60-ish degrees, or some 35-ish degrees when dash-kicking)
- get used to using the ofuda to maneuver the orb (consider the orb's momentum and where you hit it with your shot)
- get used to using the ofuda and gohei to neutralize enemy shots (most useful on certain bosses like Kikuri)
- bomb when you have maximum capacity if you can avoid dying, this way (since you gain bombs if you die, you avoid wasting a bomb)
- having lots of lives and few bombs is better than having few lives and lots of bombs because dying decreases rank noticeably
- try to play for score if you can (I'd say, through chaining tiles not point items -- which appear on random locations, can break your chain more easily and aren't as rewarding as tile chaining), because even if you spend bombs, if you can chain lots of tiles you'll gain enough points to make up for the bombs spent (this reminds me of Battle Garegga's "score -> gain extends -> spend lives to lower rank -> score more to make up for spent lives", though on a more lenient implementation)

EoSD:
- sometimes, timing out patterns is more rewarding, survival-wise, than capturing them, because failing to capture them (not sure about nonspells such as Cirno's) either lowers rank or avoids it from rising more than necessary
- also, sometimes learning safespots (such as some in the 3rd stage, 5th stage and some tricks on stage 4) is the option which takes less effort and gives better results than trying to play instinctively

PoFV:
- get used to spending lvl 2s once in a while, don't hoard them
- get used to the chain timing (so that you can feel it without having to look at the timer), avoid shooting at all the times, because this messes up your chain timer and makes it more difficult for you to summon bosses or cancel the one at your side of the screen through chain score
- also, get used to chain resetting when playing for survival so you can resummon bosses (and try to spam enough lvl 2s to raise the level of your ex-attacks up to the limit of 16)
- when a G item is on the screen, try to spam lvl 2s if you have the time (or lvl 3s or even a lvl 4 if you prefer) before collecting it
- when activating spirits, make sure you'll have enough chain timer to kill them (through direct shots or chaining) to extend your chain if needed; you can activate spirits near the upper half of the screen to chain lots of bullets
- speaking of lots of chainable bullets, avoid bombing them if you can chain them
- there's nothing wrong with bombing as a measure to keep your chain, though
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sapz on January 25, 2011, 04:01:18 PM
Guide updated! Added parts on streaming crossovers, practicing on higher difficulties, UFO chasing and Fairy Wars' freezing. Didn't touch 'twitch dodging' since that pretty much just involves 'move out of the way of fast bullets heading towards you', which isn't exactly useful advice.

shadowbringer: Your points are correct and make sense, but they're too advanced and specific for this guide for the most part. :P I don't know if I'll touch the Phantasmagoria games specifically, and probably won't touch HRtP... I might add something if there's a lot of demand for them, but I somehow don't think that's the case. :V
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: ghost333 on March 07, 2011, 09:59:17 AM
Also a good tip is to dodge forward (or diagonally forward+left/right)  and not to always wait for the bullets ,getting used to dodge in all directions is a must.
Another good tip that most new players don't know is that the bottom of the screen is not always the best place since it restricts your movements to only left-right ,upwards and their combinations , and at some attacks it is usually more tough to dodge becuase of the high density and the great number of bullets.

A small mention to deathbombing should be ok too.

Otherwise a great topic!
good job sapZ
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Marisa Kirisame on April 03, 2011, 06:24:30 AM
Heh. I'm i found out the hard way the EoSD wasn't exactly the best place to get my introduction ino Touhou games (although the username seems to evidence of the mark it left). I didn't even realize there WAS an actual hitbox until I played PCB and Imerpishable Night. I still have troubles with panic bombing though. Is there and good way to avoid that?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sapz on May 06, 2011, 01:09:54 PM
'Panic bombing' is usually a good thing - if you're panicking it usually means you've lost track of what's going on, which is the opportune time to bomb seeing as a bullet could hit you at any moment. Of course, as you practice, this will happen less and less often, but it's good to keep a bombing reflex like that handy.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Generalguy on July 07, 2011, 08:38:28 AM
I'm the HRtP master here (because I said so :V) so I'll contribute a bit :

- You have three basic moves : amulet (Z), swing the gohei (X) and slide (X + move). Learn when to use them :
          - The slide is by far the easiest way to control the orb, as it sends it at a specific angle no matter how close to the ground you hit it. It should be used about 90% of the time. Be careful not too slide too much though : sliding non-stop will make Reimu kick every second slide, catapulting the orb around the screen and often making it very hard to get back before it touches the ground. A kick can be useful but it's hard to hit with it on purpose when you need it.
          - The gohei will usually send the orb at a steeper angle than a slide. This is useful for avoiding obstacles, or changing the orb's flight pattern when sliding can't hit any card anymore, and is useful for deflecting a thin wall of bullets (a thick wall will just kill you after your swings end). It's kinda random though, as sometimes the way the orb gets hit will send it much lower than expected, or even sometimes it'll launch it straight up.
          - Amulets are used to deflect the orb when it's high on the screen, and are also the main defense against bosses. Only throw one at a time when trying to control the orb because if two hit the orb could bounce on the ceiling very fast and end up straight in your face. Hitting with one amulet sends the orb at a (probably?) fixed angle depending on the area hit so it's usually easy to predict. But it's sometimes hard to get it where you want, because shooting too early will make the orb go the wrong direction, or rarely it'll hit dead center and the orb will go straight up (often incredibly annoying). Against bosses, this can completely neutralise bullet spam attacks that don't angle much, notably YuugenMaagan's bullet spam with the star, where standing in the middle of the screen and pressing Z will make all bullets miss, though the orb can still hit you (swing the gohei when it gets close, then resume spamming amulets).

Some more advanced attacks exist (amulet fast-fire, spinning kick), but they're hard to pull off and thus very unreliable.

Now for some level strategy :

- The orb's normal speed (at launch, after a slide, and pretty much any time it hasn't been catapulted) is EXACTLY THE SAME as Reimu's running speed. Why is this important? Because it makes it extremely easy to follow the orb and make it not touching the ground. Stay under it at all times, slide when it gets close to the ground, repeat. You usually want to slide the orb forward (aka don't make it backtrack) so it doesn't cover the same area nonstop.
- Your first priority in a normal stage is to not let the orb touch the ground, unless you're on your last life. As you get an extra life every 400k, and a card can give up to 25k, that's an extra life per 16 cards turned over. Sliding the orb forward makes it easy to do keep a long chain. Point items and end of stage bonus are completely insignificant comparatively. Time maxes at 65530 (around 1300 left) and Continuous is based on max combo anyway.

- Any empty stage (no teleporters or blockers or any of that) can be cleared in about 10 seconds for a max combo. The way the orb is launched, a slide to the left will make it hit the wall and come back to almost the same spot you hit it. This makes it possible to slide into it, bomb immediately, and if done correctly (correct slide distance) the orb will come back to hit Reimu as she's bombing, bounce back to the left, and go down nearby, close enough for Reimu to catch it with a slide, keeping the chain alive the whole time. This is huge for scoring and thus for survival.

If that's kind of hard to understand here's a video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8HWTnPEDW4
 I used that strategy in stages 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17. It works better in Makai because most of Jigoku's stages have obstacles. You can also see a bit of that "walk under the orb constantly" I talked about earlier.

It also showcases THE most important trick in HRtP :

- Suicide. :V As you get an extra bomb every death, suicide is very useful to boost score, and thus get extra lives to survive longer. Dying DOES NOT break a combo. This is why I think Lunatic is much easier than the other three difficulties (unless you go no-bomb or something) : you can die whenever you want to. By accumulating bombs by suiciding a few times in an easy to clear level, the next ones can be cleared very fast and give a lot of points to get extra lives for the next boss. This means an almost automatic max lives for every boss. Easy, Normal and Hard have to few good suicide opportunities (only boss attacks on Easy), forcing you to go the long way and risking a death to a orb hit or a Harry UP!, while getting a crappy score and few extra lives (especially because cards raise in value a lot slower on lower difficulties). Sure the bosses are harder on Lunatic, but as said before you'll probably have more lives. Also, they're not that much easier, as bosses tend to keep their hardest attack through all difficulties. YuugenMaagan still has his Red Arrows of Death on Easy. Same for Sariel's BS Laser Spam. So once you actually know what you're doing, Lunatic is the easiest difficulty. It's also a lot more fun  :)


...I wrote that at 3 AM so I might not be expressing myself very clearly  :ohdear:
If so, tell me and I'll try structuring it a bit better.

Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zil on September 02, 2011, 12:10:26 AM
I don't think you mentioned this, but it might be good to say how you can further slow your movement by moving diagonally into the bottom of the screen, if focused movement is still too fast. Essentially you just hold the down arrow, then move left and right as you normally would.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Drake on September 02, 2011, 12:32:53 AM
It actually isn't recommended to stay completely flat against the back wall, ever; in all cases it's much more advantageous to have the room to back up if needed.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: chirpy13 on September 02, 2011, 02:34:43 PM
It actually isn't recommended to stay completely flat against the back wall, ever; in all cases it's much more advantageous to have the room to back up if needed.
Ever is a strong word =/.  There's still a few shots like IN Nether and SA MarsaA that can't get any good damage out with focused movement and can't be easily controlled unfocused  without the diagonal movement.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: _cf on September 12, 2011, 08:59:03 PM
I don't know if these are too obvious to be stated, but:
1) Remember you can dodge up and down, too.
2) Sometimes the best dodge is to stop moving (this goes nicely with the streaming advice). Streaming apart, There are things like trap bullets. I don't know if trap bullet is the best term for this, but I'm talking about Clock Corpse: Sakuya seems to aim some bullets straight at where you will be if you keep moving left or right once time unfreezes. I stopped bombing to survive that card once I figured that.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zirene on September 20, 2011, 09:54:37 PM
I'm not sure that I'm qualified to post here but I consider myself a pretty decent shmup player.

First or all, great tips for beginners and experienced players alike in this thread.

Three tips that I have aren't related to the game itself but they help me so I figured I'd share.

1)Wear headphones, it helps me block out external distractions, and also who doesn't want to hear that beautiful music in amazing quality.

2)Mechanical Keyboard (expensive but worth it IMO). What happened to me is I was about to 1cc PCB for the first time and my left key got stuck on Resurrection Butterfly, ouch. Mechanical keyboards, as I'm sure most of you know, last much longer and respond quicker due to each key having its own switch. 

3) This is a tip I got from studying in college, clear off your desk except for the necessities (keyboard, mouse, speakers, ect..) It might not seem like much but it helps me.



Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Pandafaust on October 05, 2011, 09:50:45 PM
Thanks for he guide about bombing as I have about twenty bombs that I just forget to use, thus dying!

First time I went on touhou my eyes were in pain from all the bright lights.

If I use these tips I might finally get past patchouli on easy in EoSD... >.>
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: ChocolateLily on October 10, 2011, 12:20:28 AM
Thanks  :) now hopefully I can beat Utsuho on normal.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: nintendonut888 on October 10, 2011, 12:49:22 AM
It actually isn't recommended to stay completely flat against the back wall, ever; in all cases it's much more advantageous to have the room to back up if needed.

I disagree. While it's good to use the entire screen, you can only move most precisely at the bottom of the screen. I dunno if this FAQ has covered this, but by holding down while at the bottom of the screen and moving left or right, you can move even more slowly than normal focus speed (you can also do this at the sides, but this is less useful).
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: DarkslimeZ on October 10, 2011, 07:59:32 PM
I disagree. While it's good to use the entire screen, you can only move most precisely at the bottom of the screen. I dunno if this FAQ has covered this, but by holding down while at the bottom of the screen and moving left or right, you can move even more slowly than normal focus speed (you can also do this at the sides, but this is less useful).

The problem with saying this in a "how to get to grips with Touhou" thread is that this should under no circumstances be used as an excuse for new players to plop yourself at the bottom of the screen and sit there dodging. It's going to teach bad habits and ultimately hinder the person from reaching higher difficulty levels. Also remember that people "just getting to grips with Touhou" are not generally playing difficult spellcards that should require more precision than using Reimu and holding the focus button.

Due to the very slow, precision-based gameplay of Touhou, there might be times(at harder difficulties) where you'll benefit from this. But I haven't seen any other shmup outside of Touhou where this is recommendable at all. (though I am fairly inexperienced with shmups)
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zil on October 10, 2011, 11:35:30 PM
I don't think you mentioned this, but it might be good to say how you can further slow your movement by moving diagonally into the bottom of the screen, if focused movement is still too fast. Essentially you just hold the down arrow, then move left and right as you normally would.

What I had in mind when I originally mentioned this was that it ought to be used for streaming.  Very often you you want to stream as slowly as you possibly can, in order to avoid having to do a nigh-impossible "turn" or something similar. Also, against spells which involve streaming as well as random bullets, moving forward can cause the aimed bullets to "fan out" behind you, preventing you from backing up if you have to, so you may as well have stayed back anyway. A good example is Heaven's Dragon "Source of Rains" in Mountain of Faith.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Luna Scarlet on November 15, 2011, 04:31:54 PM
I want some more advices on Kanako's and Suwako's spellcards...
they really giving me a hard time...
tnx...
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zil on November 15, 2011, 09:54:09 PM
I want some more advices on Kanako's and Suwako's spellcards...
they really giving me a hard time...
tnx...
There's an entire thread devoted to getting help with spellcards. Ask the question there.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Luna Scarlet on November 16, 2011, 02:56:29 PM
whats the title thread or link?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sapz on November 16, 2011, 03:17:49 PM
Spellcard Help thread (http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,10829.0.html). You can find stuff like that here (http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,8641.0.html).
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Eatay on January 08, 2012, 03:54:26 AM
Typically, for practice and preparation, is it better to practice and 1CC easy, or go straight ahead to normal mode with as many 'cheats' as possible to somehow complete the 6 stages so as to unlock practice mode?

working to 1CC normal PCB

Oh and 'cheats' as in 5 lives, max bombs, slow mode etc
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zengeku on January 08, 2012, 09:12:31 AM
I recommend skipping to Normal mode. Easy mode doesn't really teach you much about anything. The idea of unlocking the stages for practice is good but you shouldn't use slow-mode. 5 lives is fine when you just want to unlock but you shouldn't use slow-mode since it will add slow motion that isn't meant to be there and you won't improve as much from dodging it.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Chuckolator on February 23, 2012, 12:04:26 AM
How am I supposed to enable the number pad for IaMP? Using spellcards by going down+downright+right is extremely awkward and rarely works, and there has to be a better way.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: shadowbringer on February 23, 2012, 03:37:49 AM
don't know how to enable the number pad, sorry. Down/Downright/Right is used not only for the spellcards (assuming you've declared them beforehand with Down Down D with 1 level of the Super meter or more and the declared spell hasn't timed out or you have enough Super meter levels to cast, and you're not spirit-drained as well), but for various special (non-supers) attacks as well.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Kanade on February 28, 2012, 07:19:26 PM
It all comes down to practice... I don't think there are no better advice than this.

Oh and watch some replays as well, to guide you that is.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: SusiKette on June 06, 2012, 04:43:58 AM
I just started playing PoFV few days ago and I'm having hard time with it, because it's so different to the other games. So, how do I get charge levels and what affects on how fast I get them, and how I beat bosses (when one appears to my playfield)
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sanger Zonvolt on July 23, 2012, 01:32:51 PM
This was helpful to me when I first started, thank you for writing it.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Piranha on August 02, 2012, 11:10:17 AM
Thanks for this guide, I desperately needed it when I started.  :]
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: cactu on September 07, 2012, 06:20:36 PM
How am I supposed to play this game for longer than 2 hours without having sore arms and hands for the rest of the week?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Drake on September 07, 2012, 08:59:26 PM
exercise
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: ARF on September 11, 2012, 05:43:24 PM
How am I supposed to play this game for longer than 2 hours without having sore arms and hands for the rest of the week?

I'm guessing either the controller you're using isn't great, or that you're exerting gratuitous amounts of force pressing buttons.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Chalros22 on September 14, 2012, 09:49:29 PM
I'm guessing either the controller you're using isn't great, or that you're exerting gratuitous amounts of force pressing buttons.

CONTROLLER?!?! :O
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: _cf on September 20, 2012, 02:57:21 PM
CONTROLLER?!?! :O
I'll get my shotgun.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Cream Soda on October 17, 2012, 02:45:50 AM
I tried using a controller. The keyboard is way better. :) Also, thank you Sapz for that excellent guide!
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Miky200 on February 17, 2013, 06:25:18 PM
If somebody wants have guide to use controller Xbox-360 i got guide for you.

LB:Bomb,change spell card in fighters
RB:Focus mode this helps me a lot,Using spell card
Y:Skip events or dash in the fighters
A:Shot and melle attack in fighters
X.Trance in TD and weak range attack in fighters
B:Sometimes i using for skip and it is for have stronger range attack in fighters.
Start.Pause Menu.



 
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: LepLep on February 17, 2013, 07:54:52 PM
If somebody wants have guide to use controller Xbox-360 i got guide for you.
People have different preferences on different key settings. Although thanks for sharing your input method, everyone has their own ideal key settings I guess. ;)

Mine's:
LT: Pause
LB: Skip/Trance
RB: Bomb
A: Focus
X: Shoot

In case anyone is interested, here's a video of MASTU with a PiP showing his(her?) PS2 controller inputs  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv7aGlnUNf0)I believe.

MATSU's:
L2: Focus
R2: Skip
R1: Pause
Square: Bomb
Cross: Shoot
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zil on February 17, 2013, 09:14:53 PM
A: Focus
X: Shoot
This strikes me as being difficult to use. At least, I wouldn't want to play PoFV like that.

In general, I use...

A: Shoot
X: Bomb
RB: Focus
LB: Ice
Y: Pause
B: Skip

I'm never sure where to put Cirno's ice power. In the past I've used B but LB is probably better. I've also tried bombing with the bumpers/triggers but I feel like I'm slower to react that way. Then I once tried something like:

RB: Right
LB: Left
RT: Up
LT: Down

Hoping to gain total control over every direction at once. I think those buttons are just too slow to press though. Especially the triggers.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: ciddypoo on February 18, 2013, 10:01:27 AM
Yeah, triggers are probably the reason I'm switching 'back' to Dual Shock 2 as far as gamepads go.

I like uh:

Square (PS) / X (360) for Shoot
X (PS) / A (360) for Bomb
R1 (PS) / RB (360) for Focus
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Osiris on March 16, 2013, 05:35:06 PM
Thank you so much, i'm new to touhou so i'm sure this will help me!  :D
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Nindella on March 16, 2013, 10:02:12 PM
Kefit's reaction is still one of the best things ever, haha.

Man this guide's been out for a while, still really super good!  (I remember reading this in my bed on my phone when I was still going for normals, hehe   :derp:)
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Kurosun on April 05, 2013, 07:43:12 PM
Maybe a little consideration about using bombs the moment you get hit to preserve a life (even if it uses all of your unused bombs and one at least must still be there) could be done, especially for those who want to playu and survive on. Basically this was what saved me on IN and got me to finish it and reach Stage 6 final boss with full lives. Other than that, the guide is epic!
And for the controller, I got a XBOX 360 as well, but my keys are like:
Y: Skip text
X: Focus mode
B: Bomb
A: Shoot
LB/RB (depends on the game): Pause
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Karisa on April 06, 2013, 03:35:42 AM
That only works in IN. It should be an automatic reflex after playing for a while. If anything, it could be mentioned that it's important not to over-rely on IN's deathbomb interval, which I think is a common mistake by people who play IN as their first game.

The deathbomb interval isn't large enough to reflex-bomb in the other games (except maybe PCB Reimu), and even in IN it costs you an extra bomb, which adds up if you deathbomb often throughout the game (meaning you'll finish with several more lives by manually bombing instead). I'd say look at IN's deathbomb interval as a smaller penalty for mistakes that would result in a death in the other games.

Also, although I don't use a controller, I do wonder how you can bomb while shooting focused with that setup...
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Kurosun on April 06, 2013, 07:09:18 PM
Oh, I see. No wonder it didn't work when I tried in Touhou 13...
That was something very interesting, I've learnt something new and very useful.
And about the controller, well, I rarely bomb when focused, but to do so I hit the focus and shoot key by pressing them with my thumb and with the index finger I bomb.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Fonzi on May 12, 2013, 03:31:30 PM
Greetings. I'm Fonzi and still relatively a new face on Shrinemaiden. Nice to meet you all.
While I'm not a complete beginner in the Touhou games, I have nothing significant to brag about either. The "Help me, Eirin" attracted my attention, since it's been some time since I've played the games regularly, with clear and certain goals in mind, and now I'd like to continue and improve myself. But the first step would be getting back into the groove, which isn't half as easy as I thought. I've found a lot of helpful information here, for which I'm grateful. Hopefully I'll learn something from this thread and from the resident danmaku masters. 
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Szayelaporro Granz on May 30, 2013, 04:01:22 PM
I just started playing PoFV few days ago and I'm having hard time with it, because it's so different to the other games. So, how do I get charge levels and what affects on how fast I get them, and how I beat bosses (when one appears to my playfield)

PoFV is basically a pvp danmaku, this means you use ALL you have without holding back in order to win asap because it will get worser as the battle takes longer.

-Spam level 2 bombs whenever possible (you can choose bomb type by holding Z), the more bullets on enemy screen the harder the time given to the enemy. Don't take my words too literally though, there are times when you have to save bombs.
-Level 1 bomb won't delete bullets (except for Youmu), but it will fill your spell bar so use it!
-You beat you opponent appeared on your screen by either: surviving as much as possible while shooting the boss or using level 4 bomb for counter attack and you will get extra points by doing so. In case of Lily White, just shoot her as much as possible and get close to her for a bit before she drops bullets.

Hopefully this will help, because I suck at PoFV either :P Good luck :)

-------

Oh and, I think I need some tips for another improvement. I've 1cc TD on normal before, but I haven't 1cc any other games on normal yet so is it a good idea to play TD on hard mode to improve? Thank you beforehand.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Kenta Kurodani on June 12, 2013, 10:27:12 AM
I use a ps2/3 style controller, so here's my layout:
L1: Focus
R1: Bomb
Square: Shoot
Triangle: Pause
Circle: Skip Text
Thinking of putting Trance/Ice on X
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: RegretDesi on June 13, 2013, 08:47:12 AM
I could use some tips for the photography games.  :derp: No idea what I'm doing.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sage Ω (Ultima) on June 21, 2013, 01:43:44 PM
Anyone got any tips for Mystic Square's extra? I tried it again today and I barely made out of the stage portion and I bombed through Alice's first spell.

Also I noticed that the number pad makes my characters move super slow but this never happened last time I played.

(I made it to her second spell card and I must say that Sanae is a thief just like Byakuren.)
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: FamilyTeam on July 03, 2013, 06:08:49 PM
Since there are some people posting their controller layout here, I'll do the same
X: Shoot
△:  Usually nothing
O: Focus
▢: Bomb
Select: Trance
Pause: Start
Movement: Analog stick
The reasons why I use the controller instead of a keyboard, are because i can't get past stage 1 on easy without a continue using it, (this is NOT an hyperbole, I'm dead serious) my keyborad sucks anyway, and I grew up playing videogames, so I fel right at home using controllers.
Also, unlike some few people users are insinuating here, using a controller isn't bad, because playing with one doesn't make you any more or less skilled than a keyboard user. I mean really, THIS IS A BLOODY TUTORIAL THREAD, don't put your personal bias in here when it comes in how to play the game. I don't have anything against keyboard users, neither should keyboard users have anything against us.
YES, I do realise it was sort of a joke, but a mean intended joke nonetheless
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zil on July 03, 2013, 06:34:17 PM
What are you talking about? If you mean the shotgun thing cf said, that wasn't "sort of a joke." It was 100% a joke.

In any case, moving with the analog stick is probably a bad idea, as well as bombing with square and focusing with circle. There are a few games where your bomb is affected by focusing.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: FamilyTeam on July 03, 2013, 06:51:03 PM
What are you talking about? If you mean the shotgun thing cf said, that wasn't "sort of a joke." It was 100% a joke.

In any case, moving with the analog stick is probably a bad idea, as well as bombing with square and focusing with circle. There are a few games where your bomb is affected by focusing.

Nah, it's a matter of preference. I feel that for Touhou, this is my optimal setup. I like to use the analog stick since I can quickly switch between being highly offensive (LVL1~3) and defensive when I need to do very tiny adjustments on my movement.
And while I'll admit that my button loadout seems iffy, it really only looks like that on paper. When I'm firing and focused, my thumb is already halfway through the buttons, just long enough so I can hit the bomb button if I need it. However, this is a pretty bad setup for Touhou 9 since the way autofire works in that game still, I already 1cc'd Touhou 9 and I HATE that game anyways

(Thanks for telling me your opinion on it in a intelligent way. You guys are not like the Call Of Duty forums where you say "I USE SENSITIVITY 5 : D" And then idiots come and "NO, YOU ******* PIECE OF **** YOU ******** USE 7 BECAUSE 5 IS TOO SLOW FOR THIS AND *arbitrary reason goes here*" I'm really not used to forums where people are POLITE)
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: commandercool on July 03, 2013, 07:08:33 PM
I'm still convinced a perfectly laid out controller is the way to go, but that controller doesn't exist to my knowledge. I vaguely intend to make one at some point, but that's a long-term project that I haven't even come close to starting.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: FamilyTeam on July 03, 2013, 07:20:33 PM
Well, you could try all sorts of controllers to see if the perfect one already exists for you. PS2 and Xbox controllers aren't the only ones that you can use for PC gaming. You should try Wii Controllers (http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/videogames/detail-page/WiiRemote1.jpg), Wii CLASSIC controllers (http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20071214143140/nintendo/en/images/d/d1/Virtualconsolecontroller.jpg), Sega Saturn controllers (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Sega-Saturn-ControllerS.jpg), (I REALLY like those for DoDonpachi) and And Sega Dreamcast controllers (http://users.axess.com/twilight/console/detail/dc.jpg) (Really good for racing games people with bulky hands)
All of these controlers have pretty different shapes and button layouts, so maybe you can think of one that could suit you without having to build a new one from scratch
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zil on July 03, 2013, 07:24:28 PM
I like to use the analog stick since I can quickly switch between being highly offensive (LVL1~3) and defensive when I need to do very tiny adjustments on my movement.
Wait. That's like a sensitivity setting? In COD the sensitivity affects how quickly the crosshairs move. Are you saying you can adjust the character's movement speed?
I'm still convinced a perfectly laid out controller is the way to go, but that controller doesn't exist to my knowledge. I vaguely intend to make one at some point, but that's a long-term project that I haven't even come close to starting.
I'm curious, just what would this ideal layout be like?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: FamilyTeam on July 03, 2013, 07:31:19 PM
Wait. That's like a sensitivity setting? In COD the sensitivity affects how quickly the crosshairs move. Are you saying you can adjust the character's movement speed?

NO, NOT THAT! I'm just saying that it's easier to control your movement  :V The sensitivity thing was just an example on how stupid the COD community is sometimes regarding opinions  :V
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: commandercool on July 03, 2013, 09:24:11 PM
Well, you could try all sorts of controllers to see if the perfect one already exists for you. PS2 and Xbox controllers aren't the only ones that you can use for PC gaming. You should try Wii Controllers (http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/videogames/detail-page/WiiRemote1.jpg), Wii CLASSIC controllers (http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20071214143140/nintendo/en/images/d/d1/Virtualconsolecontroller.jpg), Sega Saturn controllers (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Sega-Saturn-ControllerS.jpg), (I REALLY like those for DoDonpachi) and And Sega Dreamcast controllers (http://users.axess.com/twilight/console/detail/dc.jpg) (Really good for racing games people with bulky hands)
All of these controlers have pretty different shapes and button layouts, so maybe you can think of one that could suit you without having to build a new one from scratch

I have tried all of those (except Dreamcast specifically for bullet hell games, although I don't care for Dreamcast controllers in general). None of them quite work for me. The Wii Classic is probably closest but it's not quite the right shape or size and the build quality is only okay.

I'm curious, just what would this ideal layout be like?

I'd have to experiment, but my best guess for me would be a large controller with a high-quality stick and d-pad close enough together to be able to switch from one to the other with your thumb almost instantly. Sticks and d-pads are useful for different things, and I often find myself wishing I had one when I have the other at a moment's notice. Unfortunately with most controllers that have both only one is really good enough quality to use, and often they're not placed close enough together to be able to swap reliably quickly. Large buttons that are spaced far enough apart so that there's no risk of accidentally hitting two at once are also nice, as well as good shoulder buttons that are comfortable while using either the stick or the d-pad.

What I may ultimately end up doing is trying to set up an arcade stick with a d-pad. The joystick and buttons are just how I want them, and with a tabletop controller you don't have to worry about the body being the right size and shape and there's a lot more room to space out the buttons. I use my current arcade stick for Touhou occasionally and it's absolutely perfect except for micrododging, where there really is too much travel on the stick to be able to make precise movements, so to get things just right it would have to have another method of control for those situations. Putting the d-pad in the right place to be able to reach it in time might be tricky, but at some point I may experiment with it.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zil on July 03, 2013, 10:42:17 PM
In my experience, the keyboard is more reliable than the d-pad for microtapping, especially diagonally (that is, any time you're at the bottom of the screen). Assuming you're manipulating the d-pad with your thumb, anyway. I don't know if it'd be different with a tabletop thing.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: FamilyTeam on July 04, 2013, 04:30:23 PM
Hello. I just came to give you guys a very generous tip: Don't play Touhou while wearing gloves.
Hear me now, thank me later.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Karisa on July 05, 2013, 06:19:21 AM
Wait, why would you try that in the first place?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: FamilyTeam on July 05, 2013, 01:11:27 PM
Maybe 'cause it's winter around here. Using gloves drastically hinders your reflezes.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Mordon on July 07, 2013, 04:32:39 AM
How to deal with the frustration of making a mistake in stage 2 or 3, like dying with bombs, and having to restart? I get really sick of having to do the first stage again and again, it's such a waste of time and it's been pretty much proven that I have no difficulty with it, so why do I have to restart at stage 1 ;_;

I always say to myself, "screw it, try to finish anyway" but that death cannot happen in order for me to 1cc (assuming I will screw up again sooner or later). I even tried playing at least once a day with no retry/ragequit, but I quickly get frustrated and lose interest.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Space Flower on July 08, 2013, 07:38:53 PM
How to deal with the frustration of making a mistake in stage 2 or 3, like dying with bombs, and having to restart? I get really sick of having to do the first stage again and again, it's such a waste of time and it's been pretty much proven that I have no difficulty with it, so why do I have to restart at stage 1 ;_;

I always say to myself, "screw it, try to finish anyway" but that death cannot happen in order for me to 1cc (assuming I will screw up again sooner or later). I even tried playing at least once a day with no retry/ragequit, but I quickly get frustrated and lose interest.
Practice mode and replays, yo. Dealing with frustration is impossible, it will only propagate itself because you will swear and cuss at that 'loli cunt' and her 'cumguzzling spellcards' (yes, I shouted that once) and every mistake will make you angrier and more liable to make more mistakes which will continue the spiral. So the trick is to do everything not to get to that breaking point.

The first time I ever downloaded and watched replays was for PCB Extra. I couldn't get to Ran with lives left, let alone get past her first spellcard. After watching two replays a few times each, I played the part up to Chen a few times to get the POCing down perfectly, and on my first try on Chen I beat her with one bomb and no deaths. I captured Ran's first two spellcards and ended up getting to Princess Tenko -Illusion with no lives left and capturing it before dying to Unilateral Contact. So basically, because of replays I got through over half of Ran on my first try.

My playing was literally better after watching the replays. My angular movement has never been so precise and fluid. I really see what this topic means when it tells you to use them.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: argentum-zeena on July 09, 2013, 02:45:07 PM
Practice mode and replays, yo. Dealing with frustration is impossible, it will only propagate itself because you will swear and cuss at that 'loli cunt' and her 'cumguzzling spellcards' (yes, I shouted that once) and every mistake will make you angrier and more liable to make more mistakes which will continue the spiral. So the trick is to do everything not to get to that breaking point.

The first time I ever downloaded and watched replays was for PCB Extra. I couldn't get to Ran with lives left, let alone get past her first spellcard. After watching two replays a few times each, I played the part up to Chen a few times to get the POCing down perfectly, and on my first try on Chen I beat her with one bomb and no deaths. I captured Ran's first two spellcards and ended up getting to Princess Tenko -Illusion with no lives left and capturing it before dying to Unilateral Contact. So basically, because of replays I got through over half of Ran on my first try.

My playing was literally better after watching the replays. My angular movement has never been so precise and fluid. I really see what this topic means when it tells you to use them.
I agree with this 100%. While I'm still pretty bad at 10D Extra, watching replays has helped me get by some parts I had trouble with.

And even if you're pretty good at a stage, it never hurts to watch replays. Often, I'll watch a replay and learn strategies and techniques that are less risky than my own, saving me from getting into situations that allow for dumb mistakes.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zengeku on July 10, 2013, 05:57:23 PM
because you will swear and cuss at that 'loli cunt' and her 'cumguzzling spellcards' (yes, I shouted that once)

You have potential, please keep this up.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Szayelaporro Granz on July 11, 2013, 08:36:11 AM
I need some help here. I have a difficulty at dodging unfocused for scoring purpose and other things (eg. time points in IN, cherry points in PCB, etc), does anyone have advice to improve this? Thank you beforehand.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: LepLep on July 11, 2013, 02:03:57 PM
I guess all I can say is work on micro-tapping and moving in all 8 directions fluidly, so get them fingers (or thumb  :3) nimble to press and release your keys quickly.  :)
I suggest no-focus runs, silly 90fps runs, or just straight onto PCB/IN scoring to work on your unfocused movement.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Szayelaporro Granz on July 11, 2013, 05:33:59 PM
I guess all I can say is work on micro-tapping and moving in all 8 directions fluidly, so get them fingers (or thumb  :3) nimble to press and release your keys quickly.  :)
I suggest no-focus runs, silly 90fps runs, or just straight onto PCB/IN scoring to work on your unfocused movement.
Does such practice work on every mode? I think I'm going for no-focus runs in PCB at practice mode. Though I don't dare to do such practice for stage 5-6. I don't have 90 fps patch yet and I have no plan on downloading it atm since the internet in Indonesia sucks so badly.

My unfocused stage 3 run. (http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=29221) What do you think? That was pretty nerve-breaking at some parts ._. I did surprisingly good at Foggy London Dolls, although I didn't capture it (who can?).
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: CyberAngel on July 11, 2013, 06:29:30 PM
Does such practice work on every mode? I think I'm going for no-focus runs in PCB at practice mode. Though I don't dare to do such practice for stage 5-6. I don't have 90 fps patch yet and I have no plan on downloading it atm since the internet in Indonesia sucks so badly.

My unfocused stage 3 run. (http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=29221) What do you think? That was pretty nerve-breaking at some parts ._. I did surprisingly good at Foggy London Dolls, although I didn't capture it (who can?).

Not too bad, actually. You can become better, whether you realize it or not.

I think that moving unfocused freely is one of those things you start doing when you become better overall. And to become better, you just need to step out of your usual range. Try higher difficulties. Go no-bombs on easier ones. And just get bolder. This is just a game, dying isn't a big deal. Also, there's a good saying among pilots. "Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement." Don't be afraid of mistakes. Everyone makes them. Just enjoy the games in ways you can.

Another general advice from personal experience is to circulate games. Can't get farther in one game? Switch to another one. Odds are, when you're back to the first one, you'll discover you're noticably better than you were before.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: SesMoge on July 11, 2013, 09:51:29 PM
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Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Szayelaporro Granz on July 24, 2013, 12:54:07 PM
Hello again, everyone. I tried the same practice again (see my previous post), tried to use Sakuya A instead, but apparently she doesn't fit for scoring at all since her unfocused shot barely do anything to bosses so I need to switch to focused shot almost every time. But I seem to survive more with Sakuya A although Reimu A has smaller hitbox. Is there any tips to score a bit with Sakuya A?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Kaze_Senshi on July 24, 2013, 03:35:11 PM
Hello again, everyone. I tried the same practice again (see my previous post), tried to use Sakuya A instead, but apparently she doesn't fit for scoring at all since her unfocused shot barely do anything to bosses so I need to switch to focused shot almost every time. But I seem to survive more with Sakuya A although Reimu A has smaller hitbox. Is there any tips to score a bit with Sakuya A?

I don't think that "shoot power" is important on PCB scoring, as far as I saw in some replays they are used to use supergrazing and beat spellcards at their last seconds to get more graze bonus or bullet clear bonus.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sakurei on July 24, 2013, 10:27:32 PM
I don't think that "shoot power" is important on PCB scoring, as far as I saw in some replays they are used to use supergrazing and beat spellcards at their last seconds to get more graze bonus or bullet clear bonus.

a lot of spellcards in PCB are being grazed to raise the spellbonus value. this is why you sometimes have a bonus of 10m, and on yuyuko over 60m on easy even.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: FamilyTeam on August 24, 2013, 08:39:41 PM
Okay, I'm done, I'm asking for help.
Can anyone show me a good run of PCB's Stage 5 on normal with Marisa? I tried to get some replays on Replays-Gensokyo, but really, in most of them, the guy doesn't fare much better than I do, and in some of them, I actually play better than the guy on the replay. He just loses all his lives on Stage 5, and then lucky dodges his way through Stage 6 and gets the 1cc.
Please, somedy help me on this.

Also, it took me 20 minutes to write this message thanks to my shitty keyboard.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zil on August 24, 2013, 08:53:29 PM
http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,156.0.html
http://replays.gensokyou.org/index.php?u=&g=7&p=&t=0&d=2&c=1&ch=40&order=score&sort=DESC

Don't just grab random replays. You can search for things specifically with the "no death" and "no bomb" tags.

By the way, the other thread (http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,14197.0.html) is probably a more appropriate place to ask things like this. This thread is just kinda... whatever it is.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: FamilyTeam on August 24, 2013, 08:58:06 PM
http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,156.0.html
http://replays.gensokyou.org/index.php?u=&g=7&p=&t=0&d=2&c=1&ch=40&order=score&sort=DESC

Don't just grab random replays. You can search for things specifically with the "no death" and "no bomb" tags.

By the way, the other thread (http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,14197.0.html) is probably a more appropriate place to ask things like this. This thread is just kinda... whatever it is.
I looked at that thread, and I tough it was just help with SPELL CARDS, and I have problems with the entire level.
But I'll watch them and see what kind of intel I can get from this.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zil on August 24, 2013, 09:10:21 PM
Yeah, the name could afford to be different, but that's basically just a general help thread. You can ask anything there, unless it's like something that should go in tech support instead.

(Also, for pure survival purposes, any non-homing shot should more or less be able to do that stage the same way. You could limit the search to Marisa runs but you'll just get less results.)
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Mordon on August 24, 2013, 09:14:05 PM
Replays of someone the same or worse than you are good too, because that's how you'll probably do in game, so you don't get your hopes too high. If you watch only no death and no bombs replays you'll think you can do the same and end up dying in unexpected ways. I recommend watching some of each, replays from good players to see how to do some parts properly, and "first time" clears to see more or less how much you can fail or not.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: FamilyTeam on August 24, 2013, 09:48:25 PM
Replays of someone the same or worse than you are good too, because that's how you'll probably do in game, so you don't get your hopes too high. If you watch only no death and no bombs replays you'll think you can do the same and end up dying in unexpected ways. I recommend watching some of each, replays from good players to see how to do some parts properly, and "first time" clears to see more or less how much you can fail or not.
Nah, I don't need to watch one of these to not have good expectations. Trust me, my brain does a good job of doing that by default.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Soul Devour on September 08, 2013, 04:53:02 AM
I was told once by a friend (who doesn't play Touhou games but rather fighting games) that it would be to my advantage to play Touhou on a CRT Monitor as opposed to my HD TV. While I always thought having less space to cover with my eyes would probably be helpful, he was speaking specifically about removing input delay. Can anyone speak to this?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: LepLep on September 08, 2013, 05:27:39 AM

CRTs generally have less input/display lag or whatever you want to call it, so I suppose it can improve your reaction time. Unlike some LCD monitors, CRT monitors do not have ghosting issues which can be a bit of a nuisance when dealing with really fast bullets. Also LCD monitors often have a native resolution so playing Touhou on Fullscreen may make the pixels slightly more blurry compared to a CRT monitor.

In my opinion the difference between the two isn't much unless your monitor has serious ghosting issues.

Well, that's my two cents.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Drake on September 08, 2013, 06:18:55 AM
Most of the games introduce some small amount of input lag on most systems and monitors; PCB is generally the most obvious and noticeable offender. Most HDTVs, especially older ones, also introduce input lag, more so than your average monitor. CRTs, on the other hand, carry no input lag. So he's pretty much right in that regard.
For most people, the VSync patches are usually enough to significantly decrease input lag, but I haven't heard of anyone using it with an HDTV before.

Personally I have to play in fullscreen along with vpatch to get the best results.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Szayelaporro Granz on September 25, 2013, 02:38:13 PM
Is there any tips to summon UFO as fast and often as possible? I'm very poor at UFO gimmick and for this reason I'm always short on supplies :( If I can be better at this I should be able to 1cc UFO on normal.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zengeku on September 25, 2013, 03:40:27 PM
Go for Hard mode bro, seriously. :3

As for your tips. There's a handful of things I like to keep in mind when summoning UFO's.

1: Remain close to UFO's before to pick them up. Doing this will prevent them from switching colors and allow you to double check that you are indeed picking up a UFO of the intended color instead of having it switch color just before you pick it up. You don't have to hover close by them for long, just for long enough to make sure you are picking up what you want. Don't be greedy and rush for them or you'll be sorry.

2: In the case you are sorry and rushed and now find yourself with two different colored UFO's trying to summon a red one, instead of restarting your red chain, just pick up a UFO of the final color you lack to summon a rainbow UFO. filling this up and destroying it gives you two rainbow tokens which is a lot more effective than restarting your red UFO chain.

The math shouldn't be hard. picking up three entire tokens to make a red UFO or finishing your rainbow chain with just one UFO to spawn two more. This is obviously even better if you are picking up a static colored UFO.

3: If you find yourself in a situation where you find a static blue and green UFO. Pick these up and collect a red one to summon a rainbow. Don't just ignore them while exclusively going for red ufos. I've seen far too many beginner players do this.

Oh and don't memorize UFO routes. It hurts your flexibility. It doesn't hurt to memorize where and when the game drops you staticly colored UFO's but if you're playing for survival, i think that following a route will only hurt you unless you master the system well enough to quickly recover from mistakes. Also, it's more fun to improvize.  :)

Good luck with playing the best Touhou game.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Szayelaporro Granz on September 25, 2013, 06:35:24 PM
Thanks a bunch, it's not still as good as intended but I definitely have improved :) I just Icc'd UFO on normal... with autobomb patch *facepalm* Oh well, it seems that at the end my major weakness is bombing otherwise I would've 1cc'd most of the games on normal.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Raekuul on October 06, 2013, 11:44:59 PM
Bombing properly seems to be my problem as well. I dislike UFO for other reasons, but for the most part I agree that it's one of the best Touhous.

For my part, does anyone have any recommendations for going toe-to-toe with Merlin in PCB other than "don't"?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: ?q on October 07, 2013, 11:53:38 PM
How to deal with the frustration of making a mistake in stage 2 or 3, like dying with bombs, and having to restart? I get really sick of having to do the first stage again and again, it's such a waste of time and it's been pretty much proven that I have no difficulty with it, so why do I have to restart at stage 1 ;_;
This is the question I wanted to ask.  I don't think it was really answered before (and "watch replays" doesn't really help consistency at all), so I'm curious if there are any second opinions.

Quote
For my part, does anyone have any recommendations for going toe-to-toe with Merlin in PCB other than "don't"?
Speaking as someone who hasn't played PCB in years and just now gave it a go,
1) Merlin's opener is, with the exception of the red rings, aimed.  You should be able to sweep in one direction across the screen with each wave using the power of SakuyA's cheesy homing and only really need to worry about those rings.  If you're using SakuyaB, that's your fault.
2) Merlin's second nonspell is aimed at you.  If you stay between the lasers it's shockingly easy.
3) Merlin's third nonspell is similar to the second, but the residual ball bullets tend to wind up in inconvenient places.  You'll wind up micrododging between the slowest bullets of a wave and the fastest bullets of the next wave.
4) The only things I got from Ghost Clifford were that it was aimed at you and you should stay out of the corners.  And bomb.

I also learned that too much time with Danmakufu made me terribly unused to small deathbomb windows, large hitboxes, and fast focused speed.  :X
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Quukii on October 08, 2013, 12:16:54 AM
This is the question I wanted to ask.  I don't think it was really answered before (and "watch replays" doesn't really help consistency at all), so I'm curious if there are any second opinions.
Yeah, having to restart again and again is annoying. I just practice the stages until I get consistent with them, and maybe watch a good replay. I don't know what else you could do, really.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zil on October 08, 2013, 12:45:10 AM
You can always just not restart.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: ?q on October 08, 2013, 12:54:38 AM
You can always just not restart.
NO
I HAVE SERIOUS ANGST ISSUES ABOUT LETTING MYSELF SURVIVE ANOTHER STAGE KNOWING I GOT THERE WITH A FAILURE SO EMBARRASSING I CAN'T ADMIT IT TO MYSELF

Actually, the thing in my case is that I've beaten the game and I have a fairly decent replay, but I want to get a better one.  Unfortunately, 60% chances of doing each of the three stages perfectly don't sync well.  I guess there's something to be said about just continuing and using the run as practice for the other parts of the game...
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Seppo Hovi on October 08, 2013, 11:12:10 AM
My first 1cc died twice to Chen.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sakurei on October 09, 2013, 02:59:00 PM
my first pcb lunatic 1cc died on cirno. yes, stage 1 midboss.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Szayelaporro Granz on October 19, 2013, 08:35:00 AM
NO
I HAVE SERIOUS ANGST ISSUES ABOUT LETTING MYSELF SURVIVE ANOTHER STAGE KNOWING I GOT THERE WITH A FAILURE SO EMBARRASSING I CAN'T ADMIT IT TO MYSELF
^Pretty much this.

I think I have a serious trouble at bombing properly, or else I should've been able to 1cc every game on normal or maybe even extra stage easily >:( Can anyone help me? :(
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Zengeku on October 19, 2013, 11:08:10 AM
I think the only way you can improve your bombing is through playing more. When I'm not playing with any sort of restrictions, I try to bomb whenever I can't find an immediate way out of a given harmful situation. Better than losing a life. A lot of people have the idea that bombing looks bad so they tend not to do it even if they need to, but what looks even worse is getting hit with full bombs in stock while caught in a sticky situation.

Of course, you can't just jump into a game with the mindset that if you are caught in a bad pattern you just bomb. Because then you'll be bombing a lot more than you should need to. What you need to do here is to practice the stages and bosses so you know how to avoid getting into tricky situations in the first place (although avoiding tricky situations can of course be impossible if something is designed to be tricky like random dodging patterns.)

If you then make a mistake during a stage, you will probably notice that what you are doing now is a bit different from what you should be doing and quickly analyze if there's a way to recover from it and if you can't find one quickly, you slam that x-button and use that bomb.

When it comes to the dodging of random bullet patterns, you will get experience with them as you go. When the RNG offers you patterns that you can dodge with ease, you just dodge them but when it gives you patterns that you can't see any way of dodging, then you bomb. The better you get, the more rare these situations will be.

You can practice your dodging in practice mode or when you are out of bombs. Don't be reckless when you are playing full credits and use your resources to the fullest. That's about all i can say on the issue.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Kimidori on October 19, 2013, 12:02:09 PM
please tell me how to survive kanako last spell card on normal, that the only thing stop me from 1cc MoF now. ;_;
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Kaze_Senshi on October 19, 2013, 12:50:30 PM
please tell me how to survive kanako last spell card on normal, that the only thing stop me from 1cc MoF now. ;_;

It is better to use the spellcard help topic to ask questions like this one. You can find help faster there.

I think the only way you can improve your bombing is through playing more. When I'm not playing with any sort of restrictions, I try to bomb whenever I can't find an immediate way out of a given harmful situation. Better than losing a life. A lot of people have the idea that bombing looks bad so they tend not to do it even if they need to, but what looks even worse is getting hit with full bombs in stock while caught in a sticky situation.

I like to think that bombing is like dodging but you don't need to think in a direction to move. So it's an easier dodging, like moving in the Z-axis. One day I'll be able to think in a direction to dodge instead of just pressing a button :)
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: uc9 on December 25, 2013, 01:09:54 AM
Oh just a general tip, don't know if it's been mentioned before, but I'm a new player to the franchise and a thing I have noticed is that I tended to have a over reliance on bombs.  When in lower difficulties it is fine, but for lunatic this habit will really mess you over.   If you are new to touhou and are starting to get the hang of it turn down the number of bombs you have so that you can learn how to dodge better.  You're going to get your butt kicked to the next town constantly, but it will help you in the long run on how to predict bullet movement and how to dodge.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: CyberAngel on December 25, 2013, 05:33:05 PM
I'd say that advice applies more to training Stage Practice runs. Aside from EoSD, you get enough lives there that you can ignore bombing for the most part, which allows you to easily try finding paths through places you have problems with, or at least identify points you're not confident about and should consider bombing at if things don't go your way. Trying that with full runs is counterproductive, though. You have much less lives and limited continues. I'd understand credit feeding through an arcade shmup, but here you have Stage Practice to do your training.

That said, bombing is an important aspect you should learn doing properly if you're still striving for a 1cc. Bombs are an important resource you have no excuse for not using. Short of doing no-bomb runs, of course, but doing that is several times harder than plain clears. LNB is a mark of mastery few can achieve for a reason. Also, if you progress naturally, there should be less and less places that scare you into bombing. If over-reliance on bombs is an issue, maybe you're trying to bite off a bigger chunk than you can swallow. Panic bombing is actually a VERY useful skill that can help you a lot if you're still striving for your first clear on a higher difficulty.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sakurei on December 25, 2013, 08:47:42 PM
Except LNB isn't mastery of anything. True, not many people on this board are capable of it, but "mastering" a shmup is something nobody will ever do. Not the mention the gap between LNB and a good scorerun are massive. There is still a _lot_ of a gap between someone like me who can barely LNB some games and someone like chum or cactu who're capable of good scoreruns.

but everything else you've said is right. The bombs are a resource you're given - so use them unless you want to clear with a condition. Not using them when you just want to 1cc is counterproductive.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: BT on December 25, 2013, 08:59:29 PM
Except LNB isn't mastery of anything. True, not many people on this board are capable of it, but "mastering" a shmup is something nobody will ever do. Not the mention the gap between LNB and a good scorerun are massive. There is still a _lot_ of a gap between someone like me who can barely LNB some games and someone like chum or cactu who're capable of good scoreruns.
Eh, don't compare mastering something to being "perfect" at it. Usually mastering something means being an expert and knowing something from top to bottom. For the most part, all of the games have their masters - they're usually the ones getting WR-level scores. But C. Angel's standards are not as high as mine, so he sees LNB runs as a mark of mastery because it means someone knew the game enough to beat it without bombs. (this isn't always the case since you can have minimal knowledge of the game and just be really good at dodging, which isn't really mastery)

Oh just a general tip, don't know if it's been mentioned before, but I'm a new player to the franchise and a thing I have noticed is that I tended to have a over reliance on bombs.  When in lower difficulties it is fine, but for lunatic this habit will really mess you over.   If you are new to touhou and are starting to get the hang of it turn down the number of bombs you have so that you can learn how to dodge better.  You're going to get your butt kicked to the next town constantly, but it will help you in the long run on how to predict bullet movement and how to dodge.
About the bomb thing, it's interesting, because usually new players complain that they don't use their bombs - and discover that they need to learn resource management a few months in. Players need a good balance. Bombspam is bad, I guess, would be your point.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: uc9 on December 26, 2013, 12:26:59 AM
I'd say that advice applies more to training Stage Practice runs. Aside from EoSD, you get enough lives there that you can ignore bombing for the most part, which allows you to easily try finding paths through places you have problems with, or at least identify points you're not confident about and should consider bombing at if things don't go your way. Trying that with full runs is counterproductive, though. You have much less lives and limited continues. I'd understand credit feeding through an arcade shmup, but here you have Stage Practice to do your training.

That said, bombing is an important aspect you should learn doing properly if you're still striving for a 1cc. Bombs are an important resource you have no excuse for not using. Short of doing no-bomb runs, of course, but doing that is several times harder than plain clears. LNB is a mark of mastery few can achieve for a reason. Also, if you progress naturally, there should be less and less places that scare you into bombing. If over-reliance on bombs is an issue, maybe you're trying to bite off a bigger chunk than you can swallow. Panic bombing is actually a VERY useful skill that can help you a lot if you're still striving for your first clear on a higher difficulty.
Yeah I know; bombs are important and practice mode is important.  When I first tried lunatic I was going, "lol just use a bomb".  Practice mode with no bombs and one life really helped me learn to dodge and not just bomb spam.  If you can clear all the stages in practice mode without bombs or dying then the story mode is a lot easier to get through.

A lot of people that I have known that have tried touhou and quit do so cause the vast majority of other video games don't ever teach the player about hitboxes or resource management due to them just having the player resort to spamming to win.  Most games don't ever teach the player how to dodge, what a hitbox is or they have a generic dodge button you press.  That is something every game should at least attempt to make the player aware, but apparently very few video games even attempt to make the player understand how to dodge.

So yeah, totally agree with you, but if someone is new to the franchise like me then practice mode with no bombs and only one continue is a really great way to learn how to play if they have never before played any sort of bullet hell games.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Oh on December 26, 2013, 12:28:36 AM
LNB is a mark of mastery few can achieve for a reason.

The western community is more obsessed with fandom than the actual games. Anyone can LNB provided they practice rigorously, and it does not signify mastery in a game. I feel like the community does not want to put in the time it takes to reach a decent level of play, and rather just label common achievements such as LNBs as high-level play.
But if it's UFO LNB than you sir are a superplayer
So just play more, improvements will be easily visible if you put in the time.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Mino ☆ on December 26, 2013, 12:40:55 AM
To me, LNB symbolizes a basic ability of Lunatic survival. It's not the greatest thing in the world, but it still takes time to get to. At least it did for me. For most games, you need the ability and knowledge to capture many parts of the game without the ability to bombspam everything. I would definitely say that being able to do a good LNB in a game is beneficial for scoring in that game. Cactu, who has great survival of EoSD (and started out doing LNB runs), is capable of really high scoring on Lunatic mode, which really calls for that type of good survival play.

As Sakurei said, there's no "mastery" of any game. Especially Touhou, a land of optimization.

To "master" a game, you'd have to be good in survival and scoring in all difficulties in all shottypes and etc. in that game. Like HS is to PCB or Shin is to UFO. We'll probably not see someone like that in the west for a long while.

To be honest, I think it's great to just let the community go with the flow. Let those who want to achieve go forward. I didn't even think I would ever even play for score. But now things have changed. I plan to score myself, once I'm done with PCB LNNN. (And once I'm used to this new monitor).
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Kaze_Senshi on January 06, 2014, 01:28:54 AM
Hey guys lemme ask a question, well I have the (bad?) habit of playing different Touhou games at the same time. For example yesterday I was training to beat Raiko and in the day before yesterday I was struggling to perfect Imperishable Night's 3rd stage. One problem of this habit is that I keep forgetting tricks that I learned some days ago. So do you guys have some kind of "model replay" that you are used to watch to refresh your brain about some bullet pattern or stage that you haven't played recently?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Drake on January 06, 2014, 02:49:13 AM
I just play over and over. You could watch some of your own replays if you really actually forget what you do, I guess.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Oh on January 06, 2014, 02:57:26 AM
Hey guys lemme ask a question, well I have the (bad?) habit of playing different Touhou games at the same time. For example yesterday I was training to beat Raiko and in the day before yesterday I was struggling to perfect Imperishable Night's 3rd stage. One problem of this habit is that I keep forgetting tricks that I learned some days ago. So do you guys have some kind of "model replay" that you are used to watch to refresh your brain about some bullet pattern or stage that you haven't played recently?

What Drake said. Or focus on one category at a time until you meet your goal, makes learning a lot easier.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Tsym on January 06, 2014, 04:16:35 AM
Ideally what you want is to focus on one game to the point where you have the muscle memory of the specific trick down to a high enough degree so that when you leave the game and then come back after a while, you only need to practice the stage a few times until it comes back. It's fine to switch between games, but if you're coming back to a game and have no recollection of how to do a certain segment after a few plays, then you need to practice it more in a concentrated fashion.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: SirSlarty on January 06, 2014, 04:29:12 AM
Speaking from someone who's only played for a few months: For me it took a lot of my own replay viewing and a lot of "just keep playing it" over and over again to get my first Normal 1CC on Ten Desires.

Before that I kept switching between games hoping that something maybe in another game somewhere else my skills would just click. Nope. Just keep playing the same thing until you got it. Much of these games are memorization.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: EndlessBlue on January 25, 2014, 09:53:42 PM
Always remember, it's better to bomb stupidly than die stupidly. True words of wisdom.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Andrew on April 19, 2014, 09:42:11 PM
I think it should be mentioned somewhere in the first post that it's a good idea to download the vpatch for the older Windows games, to get rid of the input lag that those games have on most computers. The vpatch will improve your performace in the older games quite a bit if you don't have it already, especially for EoSD and PCB. If other people don't think it belongs here because it's more like technical advice than a gameplay tip (Though input lag does affect gameplay), then perhaps a new sticky could be created for it. I noticed a surprising number of players who had been playing the games with input lag all this time, and didn't think to try the vpatch until I mentioned it in the rage thread, so I think posting about the patch along with a download link for it in the first post of a sticky would raise awareness of it. While it could go in the technical forum, I think most players are less likely to read it there, compared to here, so I think an HME sticky would be the best place for it.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sapz on April 23, 2014, 12:21:10 AM
Not a bad idea to mention it; I don't feel it belongs in this thread, but I'll stick a link to the touhouwiki page with the vsync patches available in the 'Welcome to HME' post.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Andrew on April 23, 2014, 06:01:01 AM
Thanks. Hope it helps inform more players about the patch in the future.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Ayu224 on April 29, 2014, 02:39:06 AM
I kind of have an odd question here, but is it at all normal to do better in lunatic than you do in easy? cause apparently I can do that, no clue how since I usually use a continue in the first stage of easy, also it doesn't seem to only be a single game it's usually right across the board.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: I have no name on April 29, 2014, 02:53:12 AM
Not really, but I can think of a few reasons for that.

1. Lunatic is overwhelming, so you bomb a lot.  On easy, you think you can handle it and don't bomb, but die as a result.  If so, bomb more  :V
2. Easy is too easy so you don't pay attention.  If so, try normal  :V
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: LunarWingCloud on April 29, 2014, 07:08:16 PM
Thanks. Hope it helps inform more players about the patch in the future.
I am grateful for being reminded of it. It was the key to clearing Flandre.

No one should be ripped of an Extra Clear or 1cc because of input lag.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Nolegs the Cat on June 02, 2014, 07:21:10 AM
I'm a normal player, so I'm not sure how useful this would be, but a video said it's a good idea to focus on the gaps between bullets as well if not more then the bullets themselves... I managed to get from Yuyu's first spell on hard with 5 starting lives to the middle of 50% re-flowering with 5 starting lives. Not sure if it did help or if I just got lucky, but if I didn't then it could be a good tip. Ironically, I got this from a video of easy mode...
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Colticide on December 09, 2014, 03:56:57 AM
OK I've about had it with this. I've been playing IaMP again and trying on harder difficulties and for some reason the most trouble I have is against Marisa's Stardust Reverie (aka her first spell card! Grr!), I have trouble getting the timing of when to hit her and have no idea why I have trouble jumping over her. I tried looking for replays so I can see how other people do it but no luck. I've also tried playing on lunatic and how the heck do people dodge all that crap?! I powered through Marisa with Reimu but Alice just had nonstop attacks that I couldn't dodge.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Brocolli123 on December 16, 2014, 04:13:55 PM
Ok I am new and I started on Touhou 6 and I was wondering. How do I tell which ones I can dodge, and what is graze. Because sometimes I walk through the smaller pro]ectiles and even sometimes some of the larger ones. also on the config it says x is block and the power or bombs but I only end up using the power
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sakurei on December 16, 2014, 11:08:59 PM
Graze is when you get close to a bullet without actually hitting it. It's a major factor is almost all scoring system of the regular shooters, with the exceptions of Touhou 2 (which had no graze yet), Touhou 10 (which has no graze) and to an extent Touhou 13 (where graze is fairly obsolete). Touhou 1, 3 and 9 aren't regular shooters so there's no graze in them either, but for every other main game, graze is very important if you want to play for score. It doesn't really have any survival purposes.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Cream Soda on December 17, 2014, 06:06:54 AM
Ok I am new and I started on Touhou 6 and I was wondering. How do I tell which ones I can dodge, and what is graze. Because sometimes I walk through the smaller pro]ectiles and even sometimes some of the larger ones. also on the config it says x is block and the power or bombs but I only end up using the power
The hitboxes are smaller than the sprites, especially on the player character. X is the "bomb" button and makes you temporarily invincible. Bombing is the only way to block bullets.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Maple on January 01, 2015, 04:01:23 PM
Lasers. How do they work? In technical aspects, are they multiple sprites one after other or a single, elongated sprite? Now more on-topic, does getting close to the laser give me 1 graze point or multiple graze points? I think that was the case with the orb's six lasers in SA stage 4, my mind is nebulous about Kaguya's Dragon Jewel (i'm sure that one are elongated triangles), Shou's lasers (curvy and not), and Alice's Bunraku.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Cream Soda on January 02, 2015, 05:48:20 AM
In the older games, lasers give you 1 graze each second or something like that (someone correct me if I'm wrong). In the newer games (SA onward), lasers give you graze very quickly and constantly.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: anthonyshu01 on February 13, 2015, 04:29:30 AM
How come sometimes my bombs hit super high on a boss but sometimes deal almost no damage at all. Do you need to position yourself somewhere to get the maximum damage out of a bomb or something?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Drake on February 13, 2015, 04:51:17 AM
Some bombs do more damage with better positioning, but in general if a glowy thing that explodes is hitting the boss then it's probably doing damage. For example, in PCB Reimu's Duplex Barrier only does damage in a square, and Marisa's Non-Directional Laser deals anywhere from "ok" damage to "outrageous" depending on positioning. There's some data on bombs in the sticky (https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,181.0.html) just a few threads down.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Ozzter on March 16, 2015, 05:58:07 PM
Something I've been curious about, but are there actual differences in hitbox sizes in EoSD, or item collection ranges as well? I feel like Marisa has the same hitbox as Reimu at times, and I have so far been only able to capture Royal Flare as Marisa, so I'm not sure on this.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Romantique Tp on March 16, 2015, 06:14:39 PM
Marisa and Reimu have the same basic stats in EoSD, the only difference between them (ignoring shot types and bombs) is that Marisa is faster. Additional special abilities such as Reimu's smaller hitbox were added in PCB.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sonne on March 14, 2016, 04:22:55 PM
Is there any tips to make combos on PoFV? I tried to find replays to help but it is an obscure game Dx
Sometimes I can manage to summon one or two bosses, but it's very common to drop my combo before the 100k bonus.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Cream Soda on April 05, 2016, 04:00:15 AM
Unfocus as much as possible because this will make fairies appear more quickly. Try to cancel spirits and bullets with their explosion radius. Use level 2 spells as much as you can and try to maximize the fairies, spirits, and bullets inside the circle when you use it. As the match gains momentum there will be more opportunities to do this. Everything you need to know is here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCB3r0zVmF8)
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Sonne on April 14, 2016, 08:32:25 PM
Unfocus as much as possible because this will make fairies appear more quickly. Try to cancel spirits and bullets with their explosion radius. Use level 2 spells as much as you can and try to maximize the fairies, spirits, and bullets inside the circle when you use it. As the match gains momentum there will be more opportunities to do this. Everything you need to know is here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCB3r0zVmF8)
Thanks! I didn't know about the focus o:
I tried to search about it before but only found the guides of the two wikis. It's hard to find something about this game or people that still play :(
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Catmusica on August 06, 2016, 11:35:59 PM
In EOSD is marisa B good for if i just wanna 1cc the game for the first time? or is it harder to clear with her?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: R.P. on August 08, 2016, 09:33:58 PM
In EOSD is marisa B good for if i just wanna 1cc the game for the first time? or is it harder to clear with her?
Well based on my personal experience generally Marisa is a bit hard to use because of her fast movement speed that can make her hard to control and her narrow shooting range that requires you to be directly in front of the enemy to do damage but she balance this with her speed that made her able to chase the enemies compensating her's poor shooting range and an higher attack that permits her to quickly defeat enemies if she get them in her's shooting range. That's said Marisa b in EoSD is particular because of her's bomb master spark that makes a lot of damages and last longer than the others bombs, so to answer to your question, it depends: if you lose because it took too much time to defeat enemies and feel like your bomb don't last long enough she may be good but you still need to get used to her narrow shooting range and her speed, otherwise I suggest using Reimu a (I got my first 1cc with her) also for now avoid Reimu b: is a good shoot type but it got the hardest fight with Patchouli
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Chill Observer on August 21, 2016, 09:52:52 PM
Quote
SA is probably the game you'll want to use bombs in most sparingly; it's like MoF, except minus the 1.00 buffer (it caps at 4.00), there's less chance of getting your power back from autocollect, and the bombs themselves are far weaker. Using too many is likely to hinder you at the very least, so only use them if you need them - having said that, it's still always better to bomb than to die.
I would argue that SA is still one of the most generous games bombing-wise, though indeed it has some of the weakest bombs in the series. Using power as bombs is too op.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: LunarWingCloud on September 30, 2016, 06:25:33 PM
Yeah SA has really stupidly weak bombs. SA isn't too stingy at least. It's certainly no EoSD in the department of skimping you out of resources, as long as you don't die on boss attacks you can get ton of lives.

Considering how difficult SA is compared to other games, you kinda need that. :V
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Aldnox on October 19, 2016, 02:42:46 AM
This is super useful. Thanks for putting this together!
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Tashi on October 29, 2016, 02:24:53 PM
One good thing about Touhou is that, by becoming a regular player of a high difficulty (hard, for example) the below difficulty will not be much problem (In this case, Normal). Proof of this is that when I first started with Touhou EoSD, did not know I how to finish it in easy. After so much practice playing at normal (And 1cc it) at this moment I consider myself a normal player, able to 1cc player in this difficulty. Needless to say, if I decide to play a little the easy difficulty to see as it is, almost use no bombs and do not die (That ego, my god). Actually, this is simple logic.

I have to say it... I HATE LAZORS! It's me or they appear to have a larger hitbox than they pretend to have, because the last spell card of Nitori in MoF REKT me everytime (if I don't bomb. I'm the type of players that don't want to bomb so much  :getdown: )
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: ILikeBulletZ on November 29, 2016, 03:13:23 PM
I really believe the "hugging aganist the walls while focused will make you move even slower  , allowing for ultra precise movement" trick should be somewhere in the OP.

I know I know, it seems kinda off seeing as another tip is to not just stay below and use most of your screen to dodge, but hey, it IS a good trick to know and can come in handy at times in my opinion, its not common but it certainly has its uses...at the very least a mention of it would not hurt?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Onion on December 18, 2016, 04:25:00 AM
I have the issue most new players have, where I don't bomb enough.
But, when I die, I feel like "I can handle this" all the way up until I die!
How do I learn to feel "Now is a good time to bomb"?
Also, I'm playing EoSD, and I have doubts that deathbombing actually exists in this game. Out of curiosity, I've tried deliberately deathbombing, to no avail. Can it actually be done? Or was it not implemented yet?
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: SomeGuy712x on December 19, 2016, 07:45:04 PM
Also, I'm playing EoSD, and I have doubts that deathbombing actually exists in this game. Out of curiosity, I've tried deliberately deathbombing, to no avail. Can it actually be done? Or was it not implemented yet?
You can indeed deathbomb in EoSD, but the timing feels much stricter than in later games, and I also feel like the timing window is kinda random. Like, sometimes I'm sure I had pressed the bomb button the instant I was hit, if not before, but I'll still die anyway. But other times, I'll feel like I was late on the bomb button, but the deathbomb was still successful. However, maybe that's just my perception playing tricks on me. I don't know. (Note that if you do successfully deathbomb in EoSD, it'll still add 1 to your "miss" counter at the end-of-game statistics screen, but I think that's because it counts the number of times you were hit, not the number of times you actually die.)
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: ILikeBulletZ on December 20, 2016, 06:34:39 AM
I remember reading that the deathbomb timer in EoSD gets smaller and smaller the more times you deathbomb- I dont remember who or where I read that though so it might be wrong, but it would explain why it feels so inco sistent.

Even then, its probably smaller than other games... Its way more rare IMO.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: Mero on December 20, 2016, 07:00:53 AM
I remember reading that the deathbomb timer in EoSD gets smaller and smaller the more times you deathbomb- I dont remember who or where I read that though so it might be wrong, but it would explain why it feels so inco sistent.

Even then, its probably smaller than other games... Its way more rare IMO.
It's both.
EoSD has a deathbomb window of 6 frames (0.1 seconds), which is shorter than the window for other games: PCB has 6, 8 and 15 frames for Sakuya, Marisa and Reimu, respectively; IN has Border team and it's affected slightly by bomb stock iirc, and MoF+ games have 8 frames.

On top of that, the window does become smaller; if you deathbomb on, say, frame 2, your next deathbomb will only have 4 frames to activate. The 6 frames window resets after you die, though.
Title: Re: How to get to grips with Touhou - general hints, tips and advice!
Post by: hellish_moon on September 30, 2017, 11:46:18 AM
Aaa thank you for this guide! I've been trying to 1CC PCB, and this really helped me on my way haha. Again, thank you!