Author Topic: Touhou Blogging Thread (Read 209446 times)

Zil · « **Reply #360 on:** April 08, 2014, 09:05:22 PM »

Quote from: commandercool on April 08, 2014, 03:01:24 AM

I've been told, or at least I somehow got the impression, that the direction you're moving relative to the thing you collide with is a factor. Have you found/read this to be the case? Basically I thought that running directly into something would do more damage than a glancing blow, and this seems to have been observed in matches, but I have no real confirmation and it's entirely possibly I just made that up or something.

People have speculated that from time to time, but I've never seen any evidence supporting it. The set of rules that I posted earlier seems to explain every situation I've checked so far, and so I'm inclined to believe that's all there is to it.

LunarWingCloud · « **Reply #361 on:** April 08, 2014, 10:52:05 PM »

Still having trouble with Flandre. Got to QED once and her survival once out of like a few dozen tries, but not much else (I did get to Counter Clock and around there several times today).

Gave Mystical Power Plant's Extra a go after 1cc'ing Easy (which does unlock the Extra like the newer games have been doing). Got to her 6th spellcard without hardly much knowledge of how to dodge anything. Very fun fight. I'm not a fan of the midboss of the stage, though, I can't really keep up with sweeping around the screen while dodging bullets very well. I do love Riko Toone's theme, it's just so good, and she's a really cute character. ^_^

Karisa · « **Reply #362 on:** April 09, 2014, 12:33:37 AM »

Just thought I'd clarify-- being able to unlock Extra with Easy isn't exactly a quality of the "newer games" (the newest game, yes, but there's no evidence it's a standard yet). If anything, it corresponds more to the older games, since only two games from MoF onwards allow unlocking Extra by playing Easy (GFW and DDC, of which GFW requires a 1cc on all 6 routes), while before that difficulty didn't matter (except in LLS and EoSD since they don't allow you to reach stage 6 on Easy).

LunarWingCloud · « **Reply #363 on:** April 09, 2014, 03:07:33 AM »

Shhhh minor details...

Mino ☆ · « **Reply #364 on:** April 09, 2014, 10:54:19 PM »

4th LNN with Border Break on spam
Which also makes my 6th 1-mistake run.

I did some scoring tricks to improve the score. My border break was literally at the end of the spam because the point item numbers covered up the bullets in front of me and I couldn't see them. No fair!

SleepyYoukai · « **Reply #365 on:** April 10, 2014, 02:27:26 AM »

So I finally beat DDC Extra. But might try to make a legit run sometime when I'm NOT using the Marisa B bombing gimick.
Played some of the extras in the other games too, Marisa A is surprisingly powerful in PCB Extra, didn't beat it though, Ran killed me with her timeout card.
Speaking of PCB, Lyrica's spellcard in stage 4 Hard is INSANE, I would gladly take a screen flip over that any day.
And now that screen flips are mentioned, I finally realised that the controls aren't flipped on Seija's last spell, only the screen... well they are flipped, but I would always
try to move in the opposite direction than previously once she flips the screen and this would always result in a very anticlimatic death.

I went back to IN Extra today after trying some other extras, even if I've already cleared it twice and unlocked Imperishable Shooting. First I tried it with Marisa Solo, didn't go well at all,
then Remilia Solo, went somewhat well, then Marisa & Alice, went a little worse and finally Reimu & Yukari, which I managed to make it to Hourai Doll with. Mokou isn't too hard compared to the other EX-bosses.

LunarWingCloud · « **Reply #366 on:** April 10, 2014, 02:36:03 AM »

I just beat Riko Toone last night. Saved a replay of it. The survival card I messed up on really bad, but otherwise it was an easy, fun boss fight. Love the music so much, it's so catchy and matches how damn cute she is. >.>

Just out of curiosity I went back in since I read in Jaimers' perfect run upload that she goes crazy if you blow up all the nodes on the tree during "A.R. Tonelico" (her last attack). She decides to add stars to the attack, the tiny kind that give me so much trouble when fighting Marisa in IN. >_< Made the attack a lot trickier to dodge.

Szayelaporro Granz · « **Reply #367 on:** April 10, 2014, 07:56:51 AM »

I can actually perfect the stage portion of EoSD Extra with MarisaA? It turns out that using retexture patch certainly helps a lot.

*bullies LunarWingCloud*

Ranko Hoshino · « **Reply #368 on:** April 11, 2014, 12:55:35 AM »

I've been playing Touhou for four years now! I'm pretty happy with my accomplishments thus far and I hope to get more at some point!

I've gotten a number of perfect survival runs on Easy along with other random stuff for that mode. I've gotten a decent number of Normal clears. I finally got my first Hard 1cc recently. I've still only beaten Mokou interms of Ex stuff, though. I'm still sitting at 218 spell caught out of 222 in Imperishable Night with Yukari.

I've been having good times overall, though! :toot:

Drake · « **Reply #369 on:** April 11, 2014, 07:21:27 AM »

So I haven't played Touhou (or many STGs) with pretty much any frequency since around October. Last year of uni is hard. I'm extremely rusty, as I found out two days ago trying to play SA and failing horribly, and yesterday when trying to no-bomb PCB and just barely getting to Prismrivers.

However, it may not be really bad, or just the kind of game, since my one credit of UFO (that wasn't stage 1 reset) today saw no-bomb all the way to Greatest Treasure before ending. My previous attempts only ever got to Shou at best, and my errors here were often poor twitches and particularly bad Sinking Vortex movement luck. I'll have to see tomorrow if I can get back up to speed any quickly.

CyberAngel · « **Reply #370 on:** April 12, 2014, 04:51:13 PM »

OK, I gave DDC a fair chance, and I'm disappointed. Between inane life/bomb fragment system, TWO shottypes that just outright break the game (MarisaB and SakuyaA), patterns that rely on badly-executed gimmicks (screenflip and hitbox screwup aren't the worst here actually, the real problem is with bullets that appear/become distinguishable too close with too little time to read them, as well as horrible slow/fast bullet combination usage) and uninspired pattern design (Sukuna would pass off as a stage 5 boss, but feels too lame for a final one), I just can't like the game. Of course, it's not all bad and has some nice things, but bad ones outweight them by far for me. I thought I just needed to give it some time, but no, it felt like a bad fangame from the start, it still doesn't feel like a good Touhou game now.

This pretty much means I'm no longer interested in further Touhou games. I like most previous ones and think they're pretty good, but with this one even I have started questioning ZUN's creativity. So much that I have little hope he will do anything good in the future. Of course, I like new characters, stories and music he makes, but not the gameplay. Oh well. Not that I'm too sad, I have enough catching up to do with just what I have already.

In short, I am a total nineball for worrying so much about this piece of a game for so long.

Mino ☆ · « **Reply #371 on:** April 12, 2014, 05:44:16 PM »

Fuck LNNN is really getting on my nerves right now. I've been working on it for 10 months and I still don't have it.

I know why I don't have it. It's because I'm not strong enough to get it. I feel like I'm never actually going to get it, because of my weakness. There's a reason I have 4 runs which have failed at Yuyuko. Whenever I get nervous, I lose the ability to play completely. Which means I'm going to pretty much fail the spam if I get to it. Even if I do capture it, Yuyuko will always deal the finishing blow, because I will be unable to stay competent while nervous. I simply cannot do so.

I also cannot grind anymore. I've lost the ability to grind in Touhou about a year ago. And that's the biggest thing stopping me. I simply do not enjoy grinding in Touhou. I have to constantly switch games and goals in order to keep things fresh. My streams are often only 2 hours long because of this. I do realize that I value replays too much. I care so much about the achievement rather than the fun it takes to get there.

Achievements in Touhou are like a drug to me. That self-fulfilling gratifying feeling I get when I do something cool is irreplaceable. It's simply euphoria to me.
_

But don't worry. I won't give up on LNNN. After a few hours or minutes, I'll have a giant mood swing like I always do, change my opinions on everything, completely contradict what I am saying right now, get this new inspiration and hope. Start playing again. Then quit after I lose a few runs.

The cycle will repeat itself until I either get the LNNN or give up.

I think it's funny. I'm the one who was most obsessed with LNN/LNNN runs, yet I am going to be the last one to get it. Cactu already got EoSD, Denpa got MoF, Nindel got SA, Zil got PoDD, Chum got GFW, and even someone (who shall not be named) apparently got UFO.

PCB's not even that hard. The spam isn't too bad. I'm just making it harder than it is because I'm weak. Nothing new.

-

EDIT: An interesting thing I notice is that I often feel like I'm being rushed every time I try LNNN. I think that the length this has taken me to get this run is what's causing this. I feel that I need to just get it immediately. Instead of grinding to get as far as possible, I just wanna get it. It adds more stress to the grind.

Yatakarasu · « **Reply #372 on:** April 12, 2014, 07:43:16 PM »

-sigh- I have a feeling my latest hiatus has taken quiet a hit to my playing skills, damn you higher learning (college). Before my break, I was making some good progress on Lunatic DDC, but now I can barely get past stage 2 without bomb spamming. SA Lunatic will be on hold until I get this sorted. MoF Hard still continues to elude me despite my best efforts. I just keep getting game over'd on Kanako and I have a feeling I'm going to have to start restarting if I lose more than 2 (maybe 3) lives on stage 4. At least I got to Reisen in IN hard last night without really concentrating on it. I might start working on some No Bomb (forget no death for now) normal modes to take my mind off Hard/Lunatic.

LunarWingCloud · « **Reply #373 on:** April 13, 2014, 08:16:08 AM »

I decided to give Flandre a go after taking a two-day breather from playing EoSD. I had cleared Riko Toone's stage in Mystical Power Plant a second time just for the fun of it, it's a damn shame I can't get the game to run at higher FPS (it constantly flops around 45 and on a lot of Riko's spellcards chugs around 30-35 because it can't keep up). I know it isn't my computer, because it handles every official Touhou game without lag.

Anyway, I was giving the Extra Stage a try again in EoSD and it went terribly. I couldn't get a good foothold anywhere and I kept dieing, I barely got to Flandre and I got REALLY pissed about it. Took a breather, came here and found a reply to one of my posts in another thread and I had completely forgotten about using the VSync patch. I popped it in and it went well, until my tiredness got the better of me. I still haven't beaten Flandre, but at least now I can't be pissed at the game anymore for that. If I make a mistake I KNOW now that it's me, before it could've been the input lag killing me softly, but now it's more me if I'm making this mistake. But it's 4am now and I realize this just isn't gonna happen because I've been up for almost 18 hours after only having slept 4 hours the night before, including working for 12 hours. So my ability to play has faded away for the night.

On the plus side, before my tiredness got to me I managed to get all the way to Flandre's survival card at one point with 2 lives and it was either 2 or 3 bombs, I can't remember, but regardless, that's proof that I can probably beat her... I just need to put it all together at this point.

In any case I've got plans for the day once I get up after I get some sleep so I dunno if I'll be giving Flandre a shot until later on tomorrow night, but if I do, I'm hoping I can actually get some solid practice in and possibly beat her sometime soon. My next target would be Ran since I've gotten to her 7th spellcard before, but only once or twice.

cactu · « **Reply #374 on:** April 13, 2014, 10:32:30 AM »

I made a guide on how to do the Stage 3 opener graze. http://imgur.com/a/LqnUV#0
Guide for stage 4 laser book graze and the fairy safespot graze http://imgur.com/a/Mi1MZ#13

Star King · « **Reply #375 on:** April 13, 2014, 12:06:49 PM »

Amazing guide, I would die to the 4th pair of fairies every time I tried this and didn't understand why.

Mew seeker · « **Reply #376 on:** April 13, 2014, 06:38:57 PM »

I managed to make it through the infamous floors 10 to 12 in Labyrinth of Touhou.
I now see what it the big deal about those. It's not that those floor are hard, it's that they're long and you need to go back to a few places because some switches need to be activated (and in some rarer cases deactivated).
Also, those top enemies (as in, the toy that spin) are not too hard but they're so fast that they'll just be faster than anyone and of they gang up on someone weak physically, that character just died.
The shadow cats monster are annoying too with their instant death attacks but it's much easier to become faster than them.
On the plus side, there is a ton of loot to be found. ^^

Also, I met Flandre and she's bored. What could possibly go wrong? X D
Also, my characters saw a black cat thingy? Orin recruit coming soon? :3

I also defeated the boss that await you after that failsafe door thingy.
After several battles where I finally ended up owned again and again, I had a revelation : paralysis work on the boss. Actually quite well.
So eventually my core team became Mei Ling, at the front and Cirno and Reimu at the back. X D
While Cirno and Reimu spammed paralysis, Mei Ling kept switching whoever I needed at the moment.
If the paralysis failed to latch on, it was usually Yuugi to try to make up for it with limited success. X D
But eventually I would manage to beat one and then I would try to beat the one on the left ASAP before it attacks me with a super strong attack that would beat my whole party.
Then I would finish the last one which is quite weak to paralysis but keep debuffing your team.
Eventually, I won... but then, the game would freeze in the dialogue afterward. X D
I redid the battle several times but the game froze afterward each time.
I did had a second revelation in the process : Ran's buff works for the whole team, not just your front line which is actually quite useful when you keep switching to get around the cool down time of powerful moves. (That's what happens when you don't spend enough time to translate skills before using them X D )
Ran was thus more active in that boss battle.
Eventually, I realized that to prevent the game from crashing, I had to install the 3.01 patch from the developper for the special disk version of the game.
Now, I have to defeat that boss one, last, time. X D

CyberAngel · « **Reply #377 on:** April 13, 2014, 07:34:11 PM »

Hm, I might have an idea why I didn't like DDC so much. You know how hardcore shmups are generally divided into two subtypes? One is the slower "bullet hell" kind, the other is faster with fewer bullets but heavy on memorization? Well, it could be just me, but I think DDC generally has patterns with fewer bullets which are faster than usual for a Touhou game. Could it be that ZUN started leaning towards the latter subtype, compared to earlier games that were firmly on the former subtype side? That would explain it since I don't like the latter kind at all. Maybe some people like playing those, but I've just never seen the appeal behind them. So, what are your thoughts on this, people?

Karisa · « **Reply #378 on:** April 13, 2014, 07:41:57 PM »

I don't think DDC has that many static/memorization-oriented patterns, though Shinmyoumaru's 3rd spell and survival come to mind as exceptions. It might be more like DDC has fast bullets that are still random? (UFO does too, though a lot of UFO's nonspells are static based on the boss position)

Though I might be misunderstanding what makes Touhou different from those other shooters that I don't play.

Star King · « **Reply #379 on:** April 13, 2014, 09:00:04 PM »

Yeah IN has way more memo attacks, which you seem to like. So that doesn't really make sense as a reason.

Reiko · « **Reply #380 on:** April 13, 2014, 09:02:26 PM »

Do you have any examples of such patterns ?
Pretty much all of my knowledge of DDC comes from watching replays, but the game didn't look like it featured unusual stuff for a Touhou game. Stage portions seemed to put an emphasis on speedkilling big enemies, but that's about it. Can't say I remember any "know-it-or-die" patterns.

Mesarthim · « **Reply #381 on:** April 13, 2014, 10:48:15 PM »

Reimu B has finally been done. Never again.

http://i.imgur.com/cyssWLE.jpg

CyberAngel · « **Reply #382 on:** April 14, 2014, 06:05:47 PM »

Sorry for being a bit confusing, but "memorization" part was just to describe the kind of games, though I guess it's not really accurate. I meant "reacting to stuff before it appears" kind of memorization, which is much less widespread and isn't as important in slower bullet hells, where you can make do with just some basic routing and good reaction. Psikyo is known for such games, I think.

For myself, I just don't like very fast bullets in general, be they random, aimed or static. While that's a way to make things harder, it's a different kind of "hard" that I don't think was widespread (or at least AS widespread) in earlier Touhou games.

Examples may be a good idea. Wakasagihime's first spell, Kagerou's midboss, first and second spells (these four are random but too fast to read), Benben's first spell (organized pattern that has too little room for error).

Snakebite969 · « **Reply #383 on:** April 14, 2014, 11:24:49 PM »

Currently listening to staff roll of EoSD after my second time beating a touhou game.

Also the second time beating a touhou game with Bad Ending #1 .

EDIT: Just remembered that the game pretty much pauses when I alt+tab out.
IT'S GOING ON FOREVER.

chirpy13 · « **Reply #384 on:** April 15, 2014, 02:03:07 AM »

2hu 2hurd

I have no name · « **Reply #385 on:** April 15, 2014, 02:21:23 AM »

High level Touhou is an endless cycle of goals, meeting the goals and then immediately shifting to another goal or being dis-satisfied with the goal reached. I find myself in the peculiar position of having only really 1 big thing left that I'd need to grind for on the list-NMNB IN extra, having finally been able to check off MoF LNB. Sure, it aws an 8 miss run and I could definitely get a 6MNB run if I elected to grind for it, possibly better...but not only am I satisfied with actually -having- an LNB but I know that I definitely do not want to start my way down the spiral of not good enough.

I don't know where I'm going to go from where I currently am. Possibly IN LNB but I'm not sure I want to go down that road again...once I perfect IN extra (had a 3 mistake run today, all 3 being silly), I'll have no goals I'm actively pursuing. Is this the end? Will I be moving on to other things? Or will I just be taking a break? I honestly don't know. It's nice being able to play a run casually though, without thinking "I should be doing this" or "how did I fail that, the run is now awful ;_;".

One thing is for sure, I still want to revisit Double Spoiler, though that's more a speedrun thing than a purely Touhou thing. Maybe ISC alongside DS will rekindle interest and I'll return to the endless hardly escapable spiral of goals. Maybe I'll never return to seriously attempting things (aside from getting lunatic 1ccs of new games). I honestly don't know. We'll see where the future leads.

Karisa · « **Reply #386 on:** April 15, 2014, 04:03:20 AM »

You could always try for improving your high scores. If you haven't scored before, it should be very different from what you're used to-- the distinctions between gameplay gimmicks and shot types are much more relevant, and a lot more of your actions matter than just whether you died/bombed/collected resources or not.

Snakebite969 · « **Reply #387 on:** April 15, 2014, 11:35:40 PM »

3rd time beating a touhou game!
This time, IN!
I GOT... The... normal ending...

And again, the staff roll music is still playing. I should probably get back to finishing up.

CyberAngel · « **Reply #388 on:** April 16, 2014, 08:06:32 AM »

Now that I think about it, there really aren't all that many attacks in DDC that are faster than usual, though I still think that those that are present are way harder than usual in an unfair way. However, it seems that the game is full of different kinds of annoying attacks instead. In addition to unfairly fast ones (I can add stage 6 yellow bullet spam to what was already mentioned) there are attacks that spawn very close to you (Kagerou's final, Yatsuhashi's nons), attacks that come from behind you (in addition to two Seija's there's Yatsuhashi's final), boring gimmick-centric attacks (neither screenflips nor big hitbox are hard once you're used to it) and too many suicide bullets (streamable, but if you mess up initial positioning...). It seems that being annoying is this game's gimmick :V

Well, I've been saying what I don't like about it, but it would be fair to mention what I liked as well. Wakasagihime's attacks that aren't "Tail Fin Slap" are fun to dodge. Stage 2 laser mesh is interesting. Sekibanki's gimmick is fun as well. Stage 4 is good (minus post-midboss spam). Benben's final is awesome because curvy lasers. Yatsuhashi's second is a rarely-seen classic. Stage 5 ying-yangs are actually a nicely done idea. Sukuna's survival isn't half bad once you know how to do it and learn not to trust the hitbox.

Anyway, it seems I just don't like dealing with so much annoying stuff, so no more DDC for me. On to some better stuff now.

LunarWingCloud · « **Reply #389 on:** April 16, 2014, 09:03:34 AM »

With Flandre cleared (uploaded the run to my YouTube channel), I decided to play MPP's Extra, I fudged the Michel midboss fight, but I _almost_ no-missed Riko. Disappearance of Riko Toone catches me off-guard sometimes. >.> I've cleared Riko 4 times so far, 2 of those runs being today. The first one I decided to completely go against Jaimers' advice on A.R. Tonelico and purposely blew up all the nodes. HIGH-SPEED STARSTORM ENSUED. It was fun. Second run out of the 2 was the nearly no-miss.