Still a fail, but its a little bit closer to Byakuren... Game over'd at Shou's last spell card.
I generally don't have many problems with Stages 1 and 2. With Stage 3, either I do really well against Ichirin, or I completely derp. I think I do know how to dodge her attacks but nerves get me to mess up sometimes. I know her non-spells are static (took various failed attempts of 5-1 in Double Spoiler to realize that)
Stage 4 is... um... well I know I'll mess up at least once during it, especially with UFO collecting. With Murasa, her non-spells are cake, and I know how to dodge her first two spell cards. But it seemed that I needed to bomb when she had only a sliver of health left for her cards. Her third spell card made me really nervous and I just bomb spammed it. Now I just winged it when I was against her survival card, and generally did decent.... I think.
Stage 5, well the stage portion felt like a blur to me, even though I just went through it ten minutes ago. I died to Naz midboss non-spell and panic bombed her card. Now Shou... Shou is an issue here. I died to her opener with a bomb in stock. I pretty much bombed all her cards, and non-spells... and STILL game over'd. Now that I think about it, if I used that bomb that I had at the beginning of the fight, I may have made it to Byakuren...
So I need help with Murasa's third spell and her survival spell. Also need help with pretty much all of Stage 5.
I'll include a replay of this run incase anyone wants to see exactly how my recent run of UFO normal went.
I watched your replay and here are some comments:
Stage 2:
-In the last bit of stage 2 right before Kogasa midboss, you don't need to fire and burst those orbs immediately. You can stop firing for a bit and summon a UFO, then kill them and clear the screen by killing the UFO. It will make collecting the UFO pieces there slightly easier.
Stage 3:
-For Ichirin midboss's spell card, you can get up really close to Ichirin for the first part of it and shotgun her at close range for massive damage, then move down when the center fist spawns. It reduces the time spent dodging the card.
-After midboss Ichirin, I suggest kind of memorizing where the fairies spawn and immediately taking one of them out. It will make dodging the entire section much easier, plus you'll need to learn it when you move to harder difficulties anyway.
-You summoned two rainbow UFOs at the tail end of stage 3, which doesn't really help you that much. Try to get two reds or a rainbow and a red or something like that.
Stage 4:
-In the part after the stage title comes up, the red orbs that release UFOs spawn in the exact same position every time. In order, the red orbs spawn green, blue, red, then blue UFOs. You should probably memorize where they spawn to get them all/at least the red one.
-You should almost definitely bomb during the part where tons of red orbs appear and fill the screen with spam. It's very hard to do properly, and there are tons of small UFOs up for grabs that you don't want to miss out on.
-Your method of doing Murasa's first card is rather haphazard. You really don't need to move all around the screen to beat it. Stay under Murasa and dodge the anchor, in either order. You don't need to move that much from around the 40-50% vertical area.
-There isn't too much advice I can give for Murasa's third card. It's mostly a case of read and dodge. The anchors are aimed at your position, and you need to keep an eye out of bullets that are traveling quickly horizontally, as those will get you. Staying around the center is best, but sometimes you might get pushed to the corners, and you'll have to dodge a few uncomfortable waves. You really have to get an acquired feel as to how the bullets move.
-Murasa's survival is kind of tricky. On Lunatic, the four corners technique works really well, but it doesn't really work as well on lower difficulties because the rate at which Murasa moves is decreased, meaning that you'll end up dodging diagonal bullets at some point, which gets tricky. On Normal, Murasa moves slowly enough that you can use something like a 2 point system. The basic idea is to move to the point opposite of where Murasa spawns, drag her there, then move to a point where you're aligned either horizontally or vertically with the bullets that she spawns. It's kind of hard to explain, so I've attached a replay of stage 4 showing what I mean.
Stage 5:
-Woah I can't believe you lived running right through the orbs before midboss Nazrin. If you move in a circular motion around the screen, you'll pretty much clear that section with no troubles.
-For Shou's second card, the yellow bullets are aimed at you, and the walls are randomly generated (but the first wave is always the same or something). You want to dart between lanes while dodging the yellow bullets. It's not too hard once you get it down.
-Shou's third non-spell isn't that bad, and can be easily done. You can either cheese it by staying close to Shou and moving in a counter clock-wise direction, or you can pick a lane between the purple lasers and dodge the green ones vertically. You really don't need to spend a bomb on it.
General:
-Your UFO path could be optimized. You should be getting primarily Red UFOs for the first three stages, with maybe a green or two in stage 3 if you feel you need the extra bombs. But the way the UFOs spawn in stages 1 and 2 make picking up reds a really attractive option.
-You could definitely move around the screen a bit more to pick up UFOs and such. As of right now, you're playing a bit too conservatively, and that's overall reducing the life pieces/bombs you can get from the UFOs.
I want to especially emphasize the first point I made under the general section. You could have had so many more life pieces/bombs if you summoned red/green UFOs instead of rainbows. You should pretty much never summon blue ones during your run. Remember that even if you use two bombs to get two big red UFOs and grab four life pieces, you will still be ahead by one life. If you use a bomb to get a big green UFO and you fill it up, you have gained 1/3 of a bomb. Bombing to get a few more UFOs and learning the proper paths through levels is very important.
Anyway, attached are a stage 4 and stage 5 replay. I think I more or less perfected them while showing a pretty decent UFO route. Use your own discretion though with bombs and such, and don't be afraid to modify some things to suit your play style/skill level. You probably will mess up with collecting small UFOs during your run. Adaptation is important.
