Daily Touhou Best Topic Round 2 Part...2

[ARF]

Scoring most of the main games means studying high-scoring superplays and then trying to replicate them. It's really a matter of tedious memorization

Not if you are the guy that discovers all the best grazing tricks and invent the optimal routes! I have this rad way of supergrazing Utsuho's non-spell that not even the best players dare attempt. Imagine the awesome when I beat the world record using it and everyone can just stand and watch in awe because no one thought it possible before.

Spoiler:

No, but seriously, figuring out routes and stuff that suits your level of play is fun.

[chirpy13]

I'll be the weirdo who likes LLS.  I don't even like games that promote suiciding for bombs, but LLS just makes me so happy to do it and I don't know why.  IN is another favorite since it rewards good performance and also has a bit more depth when you're ready to go beyond the typical run and milk some time.  Unlike Zengy, I'm not a big fan of MoF.  To me it feels more like demanding perfection than it does promoting good gameplay.  Having one miss wipe out 1/3 of my faith is such a crushing blow to my morale that I can't really feel enthusiastic about scoring in it.  Having to replay 15 minutes of a game over one mistake isn't really my thing.

[pineyappled]

Mountain of Faith
Ten Desires is a mixture of fun and FUCK WHERE DID THAT FAIRY COME FROM Q_Q

[MMX]

Mountain of Faith
Ten Desires is a mixture of fun and FUCK WHERE DID THAT FAIRY COME FROM Q_Q

More like DYING WITH FULL TRANCE IS AWESOME! (More awesome is only with almost full)

[Alfred F. Jones]

Out of all the Touhou games, which one has the most unfair stage and/or boss fight and why? Super subjectivity time! But try to base your picks on things like tricky bullet patterns, blending or confusing backgrounds, and messed-up hitboxes, and not on what shot/bomb type you're using. Also, be sure to mention on what difficulty.

Shou. Curvy lasers. Radiant Treasure. FFFFFFFFFF. Not sure what I hate more, this or Iku's Cloud Realm spellcard on Lunatic because owwwww please let me get up damnit Iku.

[MMX]

Yoshika fight in TD stage 3. That autohealing, and tight kunais at weird angles, and curvy lazors caused a lot of problems in my runs. It's unreasonably hard for stage 3 boss. After that stage 4 is nice and easy.
I'm using Marisa on hard and lunatic.

[Raikaria]

Marisa Kirisame on Imperishable Night. [I've only played Normal of course]

She's LEAUGES harder than Reimu. Reimu can be dealt with viva memorisation of her patterns, with the exception of Fantasy Seal: Spread, which generally just requires a sidestep. Her nonspells are just laughable, especially with the Scarlet Team.

Marisa's nonspells require you to know the hitboxes of those stars like anything, and pray a wall dosen't form.

Milky Way has this nasty habit of hiding a small side-star behind a falling downwards one... sidestep the falling one... PITCHUN!

Stardust is incredibly flashy. It's not that hard... until you can't see through all the time orbs you're getting for grazing, and then, PITCHUN!

NDL is another one that requires hitbox knowledge, and precision. Just looking at it makes it look impossible to get through the stars. A little out of place and you die. Not to mention if the few stars Marisa shoots happpen to get in the way as you cross the big ones...

Master Spark is outright cheap with the screenshake messing you up, and the slalom of stars can easily make it so that you either have to try and get through unfocused [Very difficult with screenshake and different speeds of waves] to avoid the laser... or you hget Spark'ed.

And Earthlight Ray is streaming... until Marisa starts throwing the angled beams, then I generally die.

Marisa is the whole reason why I don't use the Border or Netherworld teams. I find her harder than Reisen. In fact, I find her harder than Eirin and Kaguya. And she's the Stage 4 boss.

No other boss makes me feel cheated out of my lives.

[Zil]

Yumeko. You can't move fast enough unless you're Mima. She is okay if you're Mima though. Marisa in SoEW is also pure bullshit from what I can see. She may simply screw you over with no reasonable way to survive.

Both of these on Lunatic and assuming max rank.

[BT]

Satori. Not out of outright terribleness, but out of anger.

Why do her non-spells even EXIST?

[ふねん1]

Shou here as well. Her danmaku and I just don't seem to agree on a fundamental level.

[Zengeku]

'This is such an awesome question', I thought to myself when I first read it. Its still awesome so I've been spending some time thinking about what my pick would be.

Stage;
And if you had asked me a year ago it would probably be something UFO related but through more recent developments I've really grown to get pretty tired of SA's Stage 5. Only the stage, not the boss nor midboss for that matter.

The part of the stage that comes right after midboss Orin. The pellet hell. This section generally only has one tool to mess you up with. Bullet density. I'm probably making this out to be a bigger deal than it actually is but I find it really infuriating to die simply because you run into a star that you very well knew were there but you still rammed into because the gaps are so tight. The part following it also seems to be nothing but lazy memorization nonsense that requires you to do things just right.

I'm not saying that the stage is BS. I'm saying that I don't approve of the way the stage relies too heavily on pixel perfection and memorization with no real room for improvization. And that is unfortunately a kind of crutch that SA likes to use a bit too much rather than designing an interesting kind of challenge. Oh and its also pretty damn unfair to have anything before the midboss be a mindnumbingly boring tediumfest.  :V


Boss:

Kaguya.

Seriously I hate that damn moon bitch. All her spells are seemingly designed to piss me the fuck off which is why its awesome there is something called FinalA... except you lose out on major points. Even though and yadayadayada i'm here to whine about the boss.

So, first card and all non-spells; No issue at all.
Second card, sometimes giving me unreasonably little room to maneuver when it comes to dodging the stars. Apparently you need to abuse the fact that hitboxes on lasers turns on later than their sprites. Fuck. That. Noise.
Third card: Lame ass streaming but nothing really soulcrushing.
Fourth card: Kaguya flying into you, Kaguya caging you and butchering you with a wave of red bullets. Kaguya forcing me to dodge through something that almost looks like a wall!.
Fifth card: Its fucking Hourai Jewel. I don't need to elaborate on this PoS.

Why do her non-spells even EXIST?

Yeah they suck. Especially with Marisa.

[I have no name]

Stage: I want to say PCB lunatic Stage 6 because it's random spam, but instead I'm going to go with UFO Stage 3, hard (haven't faced it on lunatic).  There's SO MANY tiny gaps and not quite aimed spam that the whole stage relies on making precise movements quickly.
Bomb please.

Boss: Stage 6 Sakuya, lunatic. She can throw walls at you that will very likely kill you regardless of what you do.  Alternatively Remilia for walls on 3 of her spells+uber clippyness on basically everything.

[Naut]

Kogasa for most "unfair" boss (on lunatic). Compare her to Chen or Parsee... She's way out of their league. Harder than Ichirin and Murasa for sure. UFO stage 5 for most "unfair" stage, the glowy red shit at the end is really difficult for Reimu (but cake for Sanae!), and the very end orb wave is hit or miss even with the secret technique. I'll throw stage 5 Orin as most "unfair" midboss, catwalk is an ass-kicker at any skill level.

[MaStErSpArK94]

My opinions, which are mostly based on rage (I play on Normal):
- MoF stage 4: Midboss Momiji (Auto-bomb for me);
- SA stage 4 (The spreading amulet patterns combined with the aimed round bullets after the midboss; I hate that section);
- Shou (I hate the entire fight except for Absolute Justice);
- The Prismriver Sisters (I hate fighting them in general).

[Piranha]

Regarding the last question, my favorite scoring system is SA's, because of the autocollect.

- The Prismriver Sisters (I hate fighting them in general).

This, a thousand times. They just keep bullshitting me every time I face them (especially Merlin ).

Not even Sakuya annoys me that much.

[XephyrEnigma]

I'd say Shou in general as well. But mostly because of Most Valuable Vajra, at least on Normal. Not only do the lasers spin in place, they also move, causing an additional swinging motion, which can get pretty rough at times.

[nintendonut888]

Most unfair stage: I'd put my money on UFO stage 5. Though the first half of the stage is fine, I cannot figure out how ZUN expects you to survive the last third on lunatic. No matter what I do, what I try, I cannot consistently dodge the red spam. And the final part with the fairies chasing you and leaking bullets seems to be a rare instance of truly luck-based dodging. There's many ways to try and circumvent their pattern, and on lower difficulties they actually work. But on lunatic the bullets move so fast you pretty much have to hope the random number generator doesn't throw one too close (and if often does). Good thing you can get like seven bombs on the stage.

Most unfair boss: Eirin. Eirin Eirin Eirin EIRIN. I mostly hate her and her fight because there is absolutely nothing fun about it, but she has some truly shitty attacks that foiled nearly a hundred perfect attempts. Her third non-spell does the forbidden technique of flooding the screen with random bubble bullets. Making an attack hard by obscuring hitboxes is NOT fair ZUN. And then there's Omoikane's Brain, which depending on the RNG, may create a situation where no reasonable player could dodge it (heck, I had to use an exploit I found to make the attack at all doable on a consistent basis). And then there's Apollo 13.

...

Apparently most people don't find this attack as hard as I do. I don't know how. This has my vote for single most infuriating spell card in the series. There is exactly ONE formation where I can dodge it, and that doesn't come up often. Worst. Attack. Ever.

KIIIIIIII.

...Wait, wasn't this "Daily Touhou best topic?

[ARF]

Murasa on Lunatic because residual bullets from the second spell can carry over into the third non-spell. I saw a video of them coming up from the bottom of the screen, that seemed very unfair.

[Naut]

Murasa on Lunatic because residual bullets from the second spell can carry over into the third non-spell. I saw a video of them coming up from the bottom of the screen, that seemed very unfair.

They only do that if you are for some reason sitting above Murasa during the spell card (and you time killing her horribly). Still kinda lame that there are residual bullets though.

Most unfair stage: I'd put my money on UFO stage 5. Though the first half of the stage is fine, I cannot figure out how ZUN expects you to survive the last third on lunatic. No matter what I do, what I try, I cannot consistently dodge the red spam.

Reimu A has a really hard time with it due to poor area of effect (and Reimu B is also bad due to low dps and slow homing, but still much better). Use any other character and it's a lot more managable.

And the final part with the fairies chasing you and leaking bullets seems to be a rare instance of truly luck-based dodging. There's many ways to try and circumvent their pattern, and on lower difficulties they actually work. But on lunatic the bullets move so fast you pretty much have to hope the random number generator doesn't throw one too close (and if often does). Good thing you can get like seven bombs on the stage.

There is a secret technique, but it's very precise so you're probably better off spawning a ufo to clear it all. But you can definitely remove the luck factor (and replace it with "very very hard").


I think we're using "unfair" in place of "stuff we find difficult," which are very much not the same thing...

[Azinth]

...Wait, wasn't this "Daily Touhou best topic?

We did plenty of 'least favorite' questions during the previous series of these threads didn't we?  I kinda liked those, because they often sparked some passionate debate. :V

Unfair attacks:  pretty much any attack in EoSD and UFO where random boss movement can make dodging way harder/easier than it should be.  Either from the boss going down low on the screen and making it really dense or moving off to a part of the screen where you can't damage her and making it last longer.  Really annoying, especially with forward-firing characters like needle-Reimu.

[Zengeku]

I'm surprised no one has said Mima yet and I like how the Naut's mentioning nothing but UFO.
Oh and...

Murasa on Lunatic because residual bullets from the second spell can carry over into the third non-spell. I saw a video of them coming up from the bottom of the screen, that seemed very unfair.

This so very much. I'd also add that her third card acts like a dick sometimes with those blue bullets that spawns when the anchors hits the bottom. I've had them materialize in the gaps of the bullets coming in from above which really sucked.

...Wait, wasn't this "Daily Touhou best topic?

Which Stage/Boss is best at pissing you off!  :V

I think we're using "unfair" in place of "stuff we find difficult," which are very much not the same thing...

Hibachi and Doom are pretty unfair. :V

[I have no name]

I think we're using "unfair" in place of "stuff we find difficult," which are very much not the same thing...

agreed, but my boss pick is exempt since I picked random BS wall bosses.
That said...

Stage: I want to say PCB lunatic Stage 6 because it's random spam, but instead I'm going to go with UFO Stage 3, hard (haven't faced it on lunatic).  There's SO MANY tiny gaps and not quite aimed spam that the whole stage relies on making precise movements quickly.
Bomb please.

Add to that if you don't handle it a specific way you die, and to handle the arrows on lunatic you NEED to be point blank, be at the exact right spot to spawn kill one or summon a UFO, else expend resource.
In terms of pure unfairness though EoSD Stage 5 lunatic, specifically the wallfairies before Sakuya.  avoidable with luck, but bad luck is trapped.

[nintendonut888]

I'm surprised no one has said Mima yet

Mima's stupid, not unfair. BV She's actually the opposite of unfair in that she's a total pushover once you learn the stupid trick for each attack.

[MMX]

Most unfair boss: Eirin. Eirin Eirin Eirin EIRIN.
. . . And then there's Apollo 13.

How about Nirvana's Cloudy Way in Purple?

...Wait, wasn't this "Daily Touhou best topic?

Yeah. And we talk about best BS we've got in touhou :V

[nintendonut888]

I'll give you that Byakuren's first spell card is almost as bad (and is the one blemish in one of my favorite bosses). However, the fact that it's at the beginning makes it less mind-crushing. A bit.

[Zengeku]

Mima's stupid, not unfair. BV She's actually the opposite of unfair in that she's a total pushover once you learn the stupid trick for each attack.

Bah, it's the same. Though, isn't Mima like choosing the order of her attacks at random so you need to guess when she'll use that star rape that you need to misdirect?

[Alfred F. Jones]

...Wait, wasn't this "Daily Touhou best topic?

I don't really care as long as it's inspiring some discussion, but I will try to go for something more positive next time ^^'

[Vanhaomena]

Not if you are the guy that discovers all the best grazing tricks and invent the optimal routes! I have this rad way of supergrazing Utsuho's non-spell that not even the best players dare attempt. Imagine the awesome when I beat the world record using it and everyone can just stand and watch in awe because no one thought it possible before.

Spoiler:

No, but seriously, figuring out routes and stuff that suits your level of play is fun.

Sorry to ruin your dreams but the recent WR already maxes out the score multiplier before the Utsuho battle  :V

[nintendonut888]

Bah, it's the same. Though, isn't Mima like choosing the order of her attacks at random so you need to guess when she'll use that star rape that you need to misdirect?

Nope! In actuality, Mima has various "sets" of attacks she'll use when she's at certain health amounts. Though which attack in that set she starts with is random, they always go in a set order. So during her third phase, she'll use "wide spread white bullets," then "spiraling orreries," then "star spread," then "wide spread white bullets," and so on. When the phase starts she'll use any one of these at random, but she will then always use the next in the set. And before you say it, there's a certain tell that lets you know when she's about to use her infamous star spread attack, and gives you ample time to set up the counter.

...Can you tell I've analyzed this fight a bit too much? ;^^

[Zengeku]

Well if you put it like that then I guess she can't be labelled as unfair. Just stupid as you put it.