Author Topic: Favourite Spell Card?  (Read 5896 times)

Hakurou Tengu

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Favourite Spell Card?
« on: September 20, 2012, 08:16:00 PM »
In the ZUN's art thread, I noticed there was a lot of discussion on spell cards and how they too are like an art form. I agree completely, obviously. So I was just curious as to what some of your favourite spell cards are? Be it for the gimmick, difficulty, or design, what are some of your favourite spell cards?

My Favourite: Yuyuko's "Ressurection Butterfly"
This is my favourite for many reasons. First, and foremost, just when you thought you beat Yuyuko and Perfect Cherry Blossom as a whole, a ghost like figure appears and the music changes, which is BADASS.  suddenly a really small health bar appears and things just start flying your way. Next thing you know, you can't hurt the enemy. It's just an overall amazing feeling that I feel no other game in the series can recapture. It was shocking, intense, and just fun. It's even more great with it's relevance to the plot. It's just too hard to put into words, really. I would also like to mention that it actually has a quite a nice look to it, all of Yuyuko's spell cards to me look really nice visually. Even in 12.3, I love the effect and how Yuyuko's pallet changes to that shadow grey representing the battle in PCB. The Saigyou Ayakashi in the background... just...  :*

Favourite Gimmick: Kyouko Kasodani's Echo
GAH, why'd she have to be a stage 2 boss?! I really loved this gimmick more than anything else, bu since she was just a stage 2 boss, even on Lunatic she can't offer a whole lot. It has great potential and I hope to see it used again, but it better not be by anyone other than Kyouko. The reflection of the danmaku makes for an unpredictable safe spot, so you have to be on your toes (in the air, yep) to plan ahead. The effect on Kyouko's sprite is also pretty neat. If you look closely you can see her ears vibrating, and her hand over her mouth. I just thought it was a nice little touch.

Favourite PC-98 not-so-spell card: Devil's Recitation: Shinki version
I don't necessarily dislike Byakuren using Shinki's technique, but it didn't have the same impact (other than looking more visually appealing). Shinki's just has that nostalgia factor. It was one of the first PC-98 spell cards that game me any real trouble. I had to bomb spam my way through it, it was just too darn... everywhere. I was generally better at the PC-98 games because I played the Windows games first, for quite some time, before trying the older ones. I'm still not great at the games (I usually play on normal, but try other difficulties often). But this spell card... the nightmares. Glad her final danmaku pattern was easy in comparison.

I also really liked Seiga/Yoshika's spell cards, Keine Kamishirasawa's, and Eirin Yagokoro's. Heck, I can't really think of anyone who had any bad spell cards. But these ones stand out just a bit more than the others to me.
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Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #1 on: September 20, 2012, 08:36:05 PM »
Well, as I listed in that thread, Devil's Recitation and Colors of Twelve Levels for beauty. The latter I literally went "Wow" the first time I saw the colored arrows come out.

In terms of fun, I'm a fan of the puzzle-type cards, where there's a trick to figuring them out, but the execution isn't very hard. I kinda suck at random dodging, and like pulling off what look like impossible feats through memorization. So of course extra stages are my favorite. I also love any time you have to move above the boss, just because it gets you out of the repetition. So Ultimate Buddhist is up there among my favorites, as is Snake Eats the Croaking Frog. I also love doing Flying Phoenix and... Sakuya's Last Word... um... Deflation World.

I'll echo what you said about Kyouko. The first time I saw her gimmick back in the demo, I thought "This is awesome!" But then when all that reflecting breaks, it ends up just spitting out a handful of bullets that don't really do much. I'd really like to see her back as a stage 4-5 boss instead, where she can do something more.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2012, 07:31:57 AM by Goldom »

Darth_Sirov

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Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2012, 06:11:28 AM »
I got loads for each game, but among my best viewed favorites are mostly in MoF.

Aya's Illusionary Dominance - adding the music (esp. the chorus) gives the effect of "You can't hit me  :D" while dodging the rain-like bullets.

Kanako's Mountain of Faith - same with ID, you can't stop to rest and it just rains faith on you (unlike some final spell cards that often have the slow but steady approach).

Suwako's Long Arm-Long Leg - the pre-chorus music (with the rising and falling notes) combines with the crushing/claustrophobic effect of the attacks makes this spell card even more memorable.


Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2012, 06:38:14 AM »
I don't know most spellcard names off hand, but one of the ones that stuck out was Cranberry Trap. I like how you can do the entire thing the first time you try it out, without any idea what to expect, just winging it as you go.
Mountain of Faith I like for the same reasons, plus how delightfully intense it feels if you had no lives left and minimum power, so you had to dodge the entire time. It's such a satisfying way to finish the game for the first time.
The last one that really stands out is Danmaku Bounded Field, simply because it's great fun and looks amazing.

Also any card that fits in with the music, like that one Prismriver's card that had the most excellent timing when I first started PCB, starting right when the music really kicks into gear, or Guze Flash. The music, the bullets, even the flower petals unfurling and the character portrait swooping in; it's just timed so well it elevates the spellcard from decent to exceptional.

Favourite Gimmick: Subterranean Sun
Normally I loathe cards with bullets coming in from the bottom while forcing you to stay near the edge, but I really like how you get drawn in automatically so you have to navigate the protons while avoiding the bullets coming in from the edge while making sure you don't get too close to either the screen edge or the centre. You have lots to handle at once, but as a result the pattern itself is simpler. Plus, no eye straining, which is a novelty for her cards.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2012, 06:40:17 AM by haoreos2 »

EthanSilver

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Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #4 on: September 21, 2012, 01:01:18 PM »
Oh wow. That's gonna be tough... Can't really settle on just one. Too many games, too many bosses, too many spellcards. ;)

Descent of Izuna GongenFor me, somehow, this is the series' most iconic spellcard. The first couple of screenshots of Touhou I saw when I first started playing it and looking things up online were of that spellcard and the image stuck with me. It's pretty great, going from "lol, wut is dis? XD" to "omg, wut is dis? :X" in a nice, gradual progression passing through "lol- wait wut?" and "wtf, hey, hold on a sec here!" before sharply reminding you that this is the extra stage and you're a moron for thinking the last spellcard'd be a joke to capture. :)

Reisen's spellcards and nonspells in generalHEISENBERG UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE! Seriously, a nod to quantum mechanics? You rock ZUN. (Also wave functions, indeterminacy, and all the other QM crap. :D) Having Utsuho comment on that aspect of her is my favorite Touhou moment (SWR win quote for Utsuho vs. Reisen, IIRC).

Astronomical EntombingThis is so fun to do. Sure, I could probably go into focus mode and shoot Eirin down, OR I can methodically break all of her familiars one by one, making the spellcard gradually easier and easier but much longer to beat. ...Option 2 please! ^-^

Honest Man's Death...Spent like 50 tries beating this one until I figure out that the friggin' laser only solidifies when it's right over where you were. Used to try throwing myself from one end of the screen through the bullets and to the other until I figured it out. It's the easiest spellcard in IN's extra stage for me now that I know the gimmick.

Devil's RecitationSo. Beautiful. @_@

GFW's last partTHIS is how you do cooperative spellcards! Also, Miyako and Seiga had something good going together, but IMO GFW's final battle was just awesome. The Three Fairies were really individual and independent parts of the spellcard as opposed to two halves of one single thing.

Forecast "Predict the Future"From Marine Benefit, so dunno if it counts. But good lord, this one is simply beautiful!


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Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #5 on: September 21, 2012, 01:19:36 PM »
Hmmm my top 5 for now:

Scarlet Gensokyo: This one stole the place of Jeweled Pagoda "Radiant Treasure Gun, The bubbles spawning and moving at a circular movement with that blur effect is awesome, and the other bullets moving like a rope, I am curious about what kind of mathematical formula it uses to make that  shape.
Light Sign "Guse Flash" : I think that the bullets pattern is pretty simple, but that bullets are like xmas lights, it's beautiful *-*
Mountain of Faith: I love that shapes and the pressure of the bullets raining at you without stop
Hell God Sword "God's Flashing Slash as Karma Gust": For the gimmick Slow motion + sliced bullets :D
Black Magic: Event Horizon:   This one stole the place of Ultimate Buddhist, spinning things are cool and this one fills the screen with colored stars making a pretty good visual effect at the screen's margins



My Favourite: Yuyuko's "Ressurection Butterfly"
This is my favourite for many reasons. First, and foremost, just when you thought you beat Yuyuko and Perfect Cherry Blossom as a whole, a ghost like figure appears and the music changes, which is BADASS.  suddenly a really small health bar appears and things just start flying your way. Next thing you know, you can't hurt the enemy. It's just an overall amazing feeling that I feel no other game in the series can recapture. It was shocking, intense, and just fun. It's even more great with it's relevance to the plot. It's just too hard to put into words, really. I would also like to mention that it actually has a quite a nice look to it, all of Yuyuko's spell cards to me look really nice visually. Even in 12.3, I love the effect and how Yuyuko's pallet changes to that shadow grey representing the battle in PCB. The Saigyou Ayakashi in the background... just...  :*
Oh yeah, I remember when I saw this spellcard for the first time, I thought that the game was ended and I made a pose like Rocky Balboa, I was happy since PCB is the first Touhou game that I played and I thought that I beat my first "bullet hell" game. Then I lost my last life and *game over*. But I didn't become angry, that was an awesome death.

Also if you look the Yuyuko's spellcard names, it tells her story, is pretty unique in Touhou-series I think. It make me remember progressive rock musics, where the music lyrics from the entire CD can be connected telling you a story.
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Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #6 on: September 21, 2012, 02:14:29 PM »
Let's see...To play, there're two that I can definitely think of:

Mountain of Faith:  The music, the fact it's Kanako's final spell, and the compressed viewing area make this a high pressure spell card.  It FORCES you to do lots of focused/unfocused movement and many dodges you make, even if they're utterly ordinary for the card, just feel like you're being so awesome.  Probably my favorite part's gotta be right at the beginning, where in the way I play it, I slide just BARELY under like 3 walls in quick succession as I dash to the left.

I like this card so much I even decided to do a timeout of it, which I rarely choose to do outside of to practice a card.  This one's just because it's that FUN.

Balance of Motion and Silence:  Much more fun than Ran's second Spell Card.  I dunno why, but the redirecting those glyphs and having the spell's difficulty basically be entirely in my own hands is something  I find really enjoyable.  This is one spell that if you fail it, you have nobody to blame but yourself, and I like that.  It doesn't pull any cheap tricks, or FORCE you to make crazy dodges or anything.  It's all in how YOU set it to go.

I know there're others I like to play, but I can't think of them off the top of my head right now.
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Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #7 on: September 22, 2012, 03:07:00 AM »
Virtue of Wind God is my favorite. I've played it over 2,000 times. I think that's more than any other spell, excluding the others in that stage that you have to go through, and maybe some early ones in SA. I never did capture it though. :fail:

Other favorites are Unseasonable Butterfly Storm, Scarlet Gensokyo, Scarlet Meister, Ripples of 495 Years, Sakuya's nonspells (especially the second one), and any of Patchouli's fire spells (minus Royal Flare). Or I guess you could just say "half the stuff from EoSD." Also Peta Flare, Master Spark Style Flashlight, Open Universe, (GFW in general, really)...

A lot of things. Too many to list them all. I can't say about visuals; it's too hard.

Gimmicks - I like bullets that fall as if gravity were effecting them. Reimu's orbs, Peerless Wind God, etc. Also spells that require heavy use of misdirection.

this is the extra stage and you're a moron for thinking the last spellcard'd be a joke to capture. :)
Dohoho~

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Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #8 on: September 22, 2012, 03:36:41 AM »
Dohoho~
Good lord, lmao. Reminds me of Yuyuko's overdrive in TD. Half of the time you can stay perfectly still and capture it without even moving.

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Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #9 on: September 22, 2012, 02:31:51 PM »
Yay! A long awaited topic, i've been waiting for this to come up. Prepare for my rambling now  :getdown:
Well, my preference of spellcard is "fun", whether it's fun to watch, or fun to dodge, or any other "fun". I always love spellcard that have a lot more than it appears.
Guess I'll make it short in the end, don't want people to see the great wall of text.
First off :
Most of Youmu's spellcards (and non-spell), especially ones that fucked up with your sense of direction, with the added tension. Her spellcard is actually simple when you know what you're doing and thinking ahead of things, but when you rely on your reflex and intuition, dead is on the way. This battle is really a mind trick that are implicitly created by ZUN (I wonder if he's really drunk or not when he creates the spellcards.)
Divine Spirit -Fantasy Seal- ~Blink~ : This spellcard really is fun to dodge, at first you just gotta deal with those homing amulet "easy, easy~" and then she dashes straight to you and shot you with a stream of fast danmaku that makes you go "shit." and boom, you either died, or have a lucky escape, then died the next wave (or at rare occasions, managed to capture it.)
Heaven Sign "Scorched Earth Mandala" (Shou's spellcard at DS scene 7-5, don't know if it counts or not, but, whatever) : This. You really don't want to be in the same cage as Shou. This spell is really fun, that feeling when you eventually figured out how to not get eaten by the tiger. Heavenly. I actually spend 2 whole damn hours to figure this out (yeah, i'm an idiot).
In term of epicness, I'll go with Descent of Izuna Gongen (you already know why) : my reaction is mostly the same as EthanSilver there. When I first faced this spellcard, I already cleared some of other game extra's and this is my actual "mind" quote: "Alright, last spellcard i can do this" First 5 seconds *already very tense* "Okay, there's no way it'll gonna this easy, there will be more than this, prepare for the worst" yellow danmaku appears *panic mode on*, Blue ones appears *Died the last live and bump head to the table*  :V
In term of most beatiful, Saigyouji Flawless Nirvana comes to mind : It's just dazzling and it feels like you really look at a sakura tree at full blossoms, a real nirvana.

Dohoho~
And here I am dodging bullets like my live depends on it. But wow they really know how to find a loophole, just like those stage part of IN extra where you can just stay at the bottom left corner without getting hit at all.. :fail:

Accomplishment? Let's see :
EoSD normal 1cc (Marisa A). PCB normal 1cc (Sakuya A), EX clear. IN normal 1cc (Border Team), EX clear. MoF normal 1cc (Reimu A,B), EX clear (Reimu A). UFO normal 1cc (Reimu B). TD normal 1cc (Reimu and Marisa)

Goldom

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Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #10 on: September 22, 2012, 04:09:00 PM »
I always thought that trying to hit that safe spot on Descent was the intended method. I mean, it doesn't work every time you just sit in that place, so you end up dragging Ran back and forth trying to get all the parts lined up right. If there's a more reliable way to capture it instead I'd love to know.

Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #11 on: September 22, 2012, 04:38:38 PM »
I have a special place in my heart for Youmu's Easy/Normal card Animal Realm Sword [Karmic Punishment of the Idle and Unfocused], because it was the first card of hers that I captured.  Same with Yuyuko's Flowery Soul [_____ Butterfly] line of cards for the same reason.

As for ones I have a lot of fun with, the aforementioned Yuyuko card, Marisa's Magic Sign [Stardust Reverie], Miko's Summon [Royal Clan's Chaotic Dance]  and Light Sign [Halo of the Guse Kannon], and a few more I can't think of at the moment.

Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #12 on: September 22, 2012, 06:38:35 PM »
Scarlet Meister, it reminds me of Seihou and PC98 patterns that challenge your peripherical vision and reflexes. Also, it looks really nice in that red background, and goes well with the user.

Massaca

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Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #13 on: September 23, 2012, 03:27:10 AM »
Mokou's Fujiyama Volcano. By far and away.

From GFAQs:
Quote from: Massaca
had 2 lives and 3 bombs for the "Fujiyama Volcano".
Only had 1 life and 1 bomb at the start of "Possessed by Phoenix".
Gunna have to practice that Fujiyama Volcano a lot.
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Fujiyama Volcano is a lost cause. <_<
*cue obsession*

At first this card was just so impossible but I stuck to practicing it and eventually figured it out and kept at it until I was good at it. I can't really explain it but I just love playing this spell for challenges and just plain fun. Been playing it at 120-180 fps so much lately that I put it back to 60 once and couldn't bare it cause it felt so~ slow~. I think my only challenge left is to time it out at 120 fps in which I've been unable to do more than 2 full loops. ::)


Flandre's rainbow coloured spell (Starbow Break I think) and Suwako's one with the blue glowing orbs and white shots raining down are high up there too, along with Reimu's Last Word (IN Spell 215)

Darth_Sirov

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Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #14 on: September 23, 2012, 03:43:48 AM »
I might want to add "Scarlet Weather Rhapsody of Humankind" - It looked nice in the fighting games (as an opposing laser-type attack to the Master Spark), but then I saw that move in DS, and it was great trying to avoid the rebounds.

Zil

Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #15 on: September 23, 2012, 04:01:55 AM »
I always thought that trying to hit that safe spot on Descent was the intended method. I mean, it doesn't work every time you just sit in that place, so you end up dragging Ran back and forth trying to get all the parts lined up right. If there's a more reliable way to capture it instead I'd love to know.
I highly doubt ZUN made that possible intentionally, if that's what you mean, nor is there any sure-fire way to create the safespot (that I'm aware of). The intended and most reliable way is to simply dodge things as they come.

Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #16 on: September 23, 2012, 06:01:28 AM »
Yuyuko's Resurrection Butterfly -80% Reflowering- feels kind of special, mostly because it has made me panic way too much in the past.

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Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #17 on: September 30, 2012, 03:40:58 AM »
I know I'll be the odd one out there, but my favorite will always remain Byakuren's final spellcard, Flying Bowl "Flying Fantastica"

Yes, I think it's very modest in appearance compared to the others, but it makes up in beauty with his simplicity yet hair-ripping difficulty. I was yelling madly in incredible stress during the whole spellcard, trying to dodge all the amulets-bowls, and then I noticed...

I was going through the spectrum of colors, dodging a different colors everytime, slowly reaching the end as the amulets around me were red.

It's the very first spellcard I had a ''Oh my god, this is so hard, yet so fun'' feeling, unlike Reflowering, which dazzled me, but left me in a ''God this is too hard'' state. (Admittedly, PCB was the first game I played)

I often replay stage 6 just for Byakuren's fight, and get better and better at flying through magic rainbow bowls~

Cor

Re: Favourite Spell Card?
« Reply #18 on: September 30, 2012, 08:42:49 AM »
My fave spellcard has always been Flying Bowl "Legendary Flying Saucer". It's one of the spells that's kept giving me trouble. Prior to just now, I hadn't captured it even once, but Ikari over there motivated me to go and cap dat shit out. It's tough, but isn't clusterfucking bullets together. And it's static. Makes it easier for me. :derp:

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« Last Edit: September 30, 2012, 09:00:44 AM by Coreven »