As you no doubt know, it's typical for Stage 4 of a Touhou game to change in some way depending on which shot type you're using--usually in the boss fight, but sometimes in the stage itself as well. How would you say that the difficulty of these different versions of the stages compare to each other?
I've only played a few games, but my rankings, from hardest to easiest, would look something like this:
PCB: Lunasa (Reimu) > Merlin (Sakuya) > Lyrica (Marisa)Lunasa's second attack gives me a lot of trouble, more than Merlin's opener. Lyrica is generally not too bad by comparison (except on Easy, where slow bullet speed makes her second attack much more annoying). Beyond the opening attacks, you can pick which sister you want to fight, so your shot type doesn't matter too much.
IN: Marisa (Border/Ghost Teams) > Reimu (Magic/Devil Teams)I've seen some people say that Reimu is harder on higher difficulties, but Asteroid Belt gives me a ton of trouble and Marisa's non-spells still tend to befuddle me. If we're including Last Spells, though, Blink is definitely harder than Final Spark, for what that's worth.
SA: Yukari (Reimu A) > Patchoulli (Marisa B) > Aya (Reimu C) > Nitori (Marisa C) > Alice (Marisa A) > Suika (Reimu B)I don't think anyone will dispute that Double Black Death Butterfly is a major pain, and it doesn't help that Yukari's recollections apparently have
more health on average than the other sets. Patchoulli's recollections are pretty tough all around, though not to the same extent. Aya's set has Tengu Macro Burst, which tends to overwhelm me in short order. Nitori's set doesn't seem like it should be all that bad, but I suck at reading Extending Arm for some reason and I tend to get clipped on Kappa's Pororoca. Alice's set includes probably the easiest (and most tedious) recollection of all, Straw Doll Kamikaze; Return Inanimateness does somewhat make up for the easier cards, though. Suika's recollections generally seem the simplest and most forgiving to me.
