So, should I play them all ?

[Marron]

Hello. I'm playing touhou on Lunatic, I am able to 1CC some of them and all.(except UFO) But I would like an advice.
Should I play each character ? I mean, I have been used to play only Reimu most of the time. And when I played Marisa, I played only her.
But I wonder, for me to progress, should I play each of them instead of focusing on only one character to get better ?

I need your advices and opinions about that....

[Tengukami]

I think this is largely a matter of personal taste, but playing the different characters will anyway improve your skills with different types of shot-types. In addition, in some (maybe all?) the games, there is sometimes a path which leads to the "canon ending". In UFO's case, I believe it was Marisa B, iirc.

[Cream Soda]

Usually  there are one or two types that are the best for survival and one or two that are the best for scoring overall. Even if you score, though, you can play a less capable type and there will be a category for it. Sometimes you can do things with a certain type that aren't immediately obvious but you can learn a lot about that from watching Royalflare replays and understanding how everything works, which probably means looking at the Gameplay sections on Touhou Wiki first, if you haven't. Even a Lunatic 1cc won't teach the finer nuances by itself. It may work best to focus on one type at a time and get good with it, hopefully one that you enjoy. There's no need to play every type unless you want to personally see every ending. Speaking of which, I don't believe anything in the Touhou games is canon. It's hard to imagine a plot summary where Reimu sits under Kogasa's dress and rubs against bullets that are being spawned around her. Or was it Marisa doing that, or Sanae? Which dialogue is "canon?" Which ending is "canon?" I think it's all very ambiguous, which is fine.

[Tengukami]

Speaking of which, I don't believe anything in the Touhou games is canon. It's hard to imagine a plot summary where Reimu sits under Kogasa's dress and rubs against bullets that are being spawned around her. Or was it Marisa doing that, or Sanae? Which dialogue is "canon?" Which ending is "canon?" I think it's all very ambiguous, which is fine.

I think you might have a different understanding of what "canon" is. I mean, if you want to be super-literal about it, no, the girls do not live in two dimensions, are not made of pixels, and do not actually pay attention to point items (although Sanae did make a reference to power items in UFO, and Flandre tells Marisa she "can't use Continue" at some point, so who knows?). But pretty much all the words and actions that go on in the games are canon.

But no, canon is not always cut and dry. Especially when it comes to endings. More on that here.

[Cream Soda]

I haven't read the dialogue in so long that I forgot there is no fourth wall. I think the touhous know they are inside of a game and they have fun with it. I think the touhous definitely do live in two dimensions and dodge bullets and graze on bullets and pick up items to get scores, when they feel like it. Anything that can happen in a Touhou is canon, yes? I think canon itself is a strange concept, since the only things that happened *for sure* in a fictional story (which never happened anyway) are the things the story shows us. What happens when the story is interactive and can go different ways? No one path is the correct answer but at the same time all of them are correct. That's what I think, anyway.

[shockdude]

If you want, you can also try some touhou fangames (Concealed the Conclusion, Fantastic Danmaku Festival), or even other bullet hell games (Crimzon Clover, eXceed 3rd).

[Marron]

I tried some fangame, the problem is, for mystical power plant for exemple, my computer don't follow. It seems my computer is not so powerful to run these game, it lags so much. For Riverberd Soul Saver, the stage 4 is just impossible.... and desactivate the background and all is clearly not my thing at all.

Ah, by the way, White Namse Spoiled Past works greatly, no problem running this game.(The Last Commer works too)

But anyway I think I will play in hard, since I don't really want to focus on one shoot/one character and that I clearly don't play that good in lunatic.. I'm bad with bombing, do stupid mistakes, so maybe I should learn things in hard for a long time before playing on lunatic...

[shockdude]

I tried some fangame, the problem is, for mystical power plant for exemple, my computer don't follow. It seems my computer is not so powerful to run these game, it lags so much. For Riverberd Soul Saver, the stage 4 is just impossible.... and desactivate the background and all is clearly not my thing at all.

Ah, by the way, White Namse Spoiled Past works greatly, no problem running this game.(The Last Commer works too)

But anyway I think I will play in hard, since I don't really want to focus on one shoot/one character and that I clearly don't play that good in lunatic.. I'm bad with bombing, do stupid mistakes, so maybe I should learn things in hard for a long time before playing on lunatic...

Seems like a good plan.

Out of curiosity, what are your computer's specs?

[Marron]

Operating System: Windows XP Pro 2002 Service Pack 3

Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo CPU
E4600 @ 2.40GHz
2.00Go RAM

As for the graphics processing unit(I hope it's what you say in english.), I've got a NVIDIA GeForce 210.

Well I'm not really knowledgeable about these things, so sorry if I didn't give the good details !

PS: By the way, I have 1CC MoF on Hard with Marisa C, I had 5 lives left and have captured 4 of Kanako's spellcards. :p