Touhou Blogging Thread 2: The Journey Continues!

[Chill Observer]

After a couple weeks of not playing Touhou because of events on 100% Orange Juice (gotta get DLC and all the new event skins!), I decided to derust by playing UFO hard.
And, unfortunately, I game overed to Legendary Flying Saucer, with no resources left. 

I can definitely get this 1cc if I played less recklessly and panic bombed less often. Reimu A is the based shot of this game.

[Neptune]

Hmm.

So, before, I used to really dislike IN for a bit. Like, it was by far, my least favorite game, or at least second least favorite.

I still occasionally played it for a little bit, as I wanted to clear it with all the solo shots, but I stopped playing it for at least a month or so.

Now, I have a new friend who really likes IN, and as a result, I got the urge to play IN again. This time, instead of listening to the same ingame music, I decided to try listening to some other remixes of songs and such, of my favorite songs in Touhou, and well, surprisingly, I'm really enjoying IN again. I dunno, maybe it's because I really dislike the Stage 1 Stage & Boss theme (after hearing them so much, anyways), but this game is now way more fun for me.

Solo Youmu is incredibly fun to use, and she's probably another reason why I like playing this game so much now.

I feel motivated to actually go for things in this game now, like NM, or NB, or something. Eventually I want to try out Lunatic in this game, as well.

Feels kind of weird to say that I'm really enjoying my former least favorite game so much, although, this isn't the first time that's happened. Maybe I should try this with some other games when I get bored of them. :v

I'm really tired, so I apologize if nothing makes sense

[DarkPermafrost]

So I recently tried my hand at some ISC scoring. I'd say it went... eh. I subsequently improved the score slightly, but this video gives the gist of it, I guess.

[Mero]

I don't think this has to do with gameplay to ask in the help thread, so I'll ask here. Does anyone know how to make the DS+ games portable (as in self-contained in the game folder)?

I remember you just had to write a command in notepad and save it as a .bat file... but I don't remember what to write

E: nvm found it

[RB]

im getting close to an lnb

[Zigzagwolf]

im getting close to an lnb

Doing pretty good, certain you will get it soon. A few days ago I tried EoSD LNB and got to stage 5 midboss Sakuya, I should focus a bit more on attempting that.

[Karisa]

1 month later, the entire results screen is full of 730m+ scores, the latest of which still scored higher than my old 737m from 3 years ago despite failing two of Seija's spells (~10m each not counting the effect of lower power).

762m is possible with this route; this particular failed attempt was 2100 PIV ahead after stage 2. But how long until I don't have a silly death later in the run that fails a spell or drops a set of point items?

[Chill Observer]

[attachimg=1]

Seems like Shoot the Bullet really isn't that hard of a game, huh?

[KingofBaka]

Recently, I've been trying to finally achieve a SA Normal 1cc. Today, I actually came close to the 1cc three different times but all three times, I choked and got a game over on Hell's Artificial Sun. Even though I'm unhappy with the way the runs ended, it still shows that I am improving as before I couldn't consistently clear Stage 5 .

Also, playing LoLK and ISC over again after the save data didn't work after copying the save over to my laptop. In LoLK, I reduced my Pointdevice retry count by over 200. Played Extra as well and made it to Hecatias 2nd spell first try so that's some progress as well.

Not too much going on in ISC yet, made it to day 5 and got all the items before calling it quits for the day. Hopefully I remember how to do most of the stages from here on out (Although I already know I'm going to have "fun" on 10-9 ).

[Mikuru]

When I first started playing high-fps, I didn't really know what to expect in terms of what I'd actually be able to achieve. Still, I'm pretty solid at the MoF main game, so getting Easy 120fps and Normal 90fps weren't too surprising. Extra 90fps though? Nah, that was something to leave to players of a higher tier.

And yet, after giving it some real attention this week, I might actually be able to do this. My best attempt just now got all the way to Suwa War before game over (unfortunately, not even to the difficult part of Suwa War, but then, it's a very long time since I've seen that spellcard). If I can get this, that will definitely be my best Touhou achivement so far. I hope I can do it before the end of 2016

[ILikeBulletZ]

So I have been doing individual Stage Practices for all Stages of PCB on Lunatic (Except Stage 1 of course).

As it turns out, I am actually more likely to mess up on Stage 4 (Lily/Spam), 3 (Alice First Spell), and even somehow 2 (Just because I get cocky), than Stage 5...
Because on all other Stages other than 5 I feel like I am likely to mess up, but strangely I just perfected the entire Stage 5 again... TWO times... I feel conformable enough with it, despise it being the hardest one :/ lol.

I should probably focus on practicing Yuyuko since shes my weakest point in the whole game right now.-

I think I should be able to Lunatic No Bombs this.

[ILikeBulletZ]

Ok I need someones opinion on this:

Lets say there are two PCB Lunatic runs;

The first of them is a Lunatic No Bombs No Border Breaks... but it features 10 misses, half of them are incredibly stupid... (Like, dying on easy stuff like Stage 2, for starters...)
The second of them is a Lunatic No Bombs... with 1 Border Break (Gah!) so it loses that condition... however, it only has 4-5 misses, which were, for the most of the part, expected.

What one do you think its the better run? The No Bombs & No Border Breaks, despise the fact it technically has more mistakes on it, or the plain No Bombs one because it actually has less mistakes on it, despise the loss of the Border Break condition...

[ZM]

Ok I need someones opinion on this:

Lets say there are two PCB Lunatic runs;

The first of them is a Lunatic No Bombs No Border Breaks... but it features 10 misses, half of them are incredibly stupid... (Like, dying on easy stuff like Stage 2, for starters...)
The second of them is a Lunatic No Bombs... with 1 Border Break (Gah!) so it loses that condition... however, it only has 4-5 misses, which were, for the most of the part, expected.

What one do you think its the better run? The No Bombs & No Border Breaks, despise the fact it technically has more mistakes on it, or the plain No Bombs one because it actually has less mistakes on it, despise the loss of the Border Break condition...

The latter would be the superior run due to having less mistakes. As long as that border break wasn't intentional, either count it as a miss or just call it L4/5MNB1BB.

[DarkPermafrost]

I've recently started doing DDC LNB attempts and they are seriously getting quite annoying.

A good proportion of my runs fall flat because of silly mistakes before Kagerou, and majority of those that miraculously don't just get their lives chomped off by her to the point where I can't be bothered to continue with the run anymore.

This is also because a lot of the strategies I used while routing in stage practice assumes that I have 4 power to shotgun bosses with SakuyaA. When I make silly mistakes like die just before Benben, I won't be able to recover to shotgun-skip almost every attack she has (except Double Score, which I die to regardless).

The same goes for Seija and her comparatively deadly stage closing section. Not having 4 power means I can't shotgun Evil in the Mirror, Overturning All Under Heaven or Dream Bow of Heaven and Earth's Decree. This would not be too much of a problem if not for the fact that I usually enter stage 5 with less than 2 lives.

I realize that overreliance on SakuyaA's shotgunning ability isn't particularly a good idea, but it's probably my best bet.

TL;DR: Got 5 LNB runs to Seija. Lost 5 LNB runs to Seija.

[ILikeBulletZ]

I just had one of the most interesting "lol hitbox" moments I have personally seen in my own replays...

I mean, I have heard the lasers have a slight delay between when their visible hitbox spawns and when their actual hitbox gets active, but this just looks ridiculous:





Yep, what you are seeing is Reimu, literally right IN the middle of the laser!

I don't think this even counts as a proper dodge because the hitboxes are definitively touching each other, Reimu hitbox or not, no questions about it, at least the visual ones that is.

Its not like the laser JUST spawned either, I am sure you all know that the laser only gets this big after about 1 sec of spawning on this spell... to me at least it seems fully active... So why didnt Reimu die? lol. Must have been a pixel/frame perfect thing or something...

When stuff like this happens, I am really curious on exactly how close I was to dying.

Well, not that I am complaning... I got out of it alive ^^ (Too bad I died earlier on the spell).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On other news, I just got a LNBNBB8M, a sligth improvement over my previous 10 miss run...

While I am not downright dissapointed on it like my trash 10 miss run, I am not fully satisfied with it, either. Theres still room for improvement, and this had somewhat less stupid deaths, except to Alice, who killed me not once but TWICE.

Who the hell dies two times to an easy stage 3 boss on a serious run? I was THIS close to just ALTing + F4 the game and call it a day, but I keep going for whatever reason...

Still, the run had a couple of good moments so its not TOTALLY bad... Ideally, I know that on a good day this 8 miss could be more like a 4-5 miss run... for the moment though, this will do.

[ZM]

Only a matter of time...

[ILikeBulletZ]

Sometimes I do wonder if I am doing myself any harm by completely skipping Hard difficulty in all games...(I go from 1ccing Normal to straight into trying a Lunatic 1cc).

So far it has worked out just fine, but thinking on future projects, I wonder if this will be a good idea (UFO...).

Maybe for UFO I will make an exception, and actually go for Hard 1cc first.

[Chill Observer]

Sometimes I do wonder if I am doing myself any harm by completely skipping Hard difficulty in all games...(I go from 1ccing Normal to straight into trying a Lunatic 1cc).

So far it has worked out just fine, but thinking on future projects, I wonder if this will be a good idea (UFO...).

Maybe for UFO I will make an exception, and actually go for Hard 1cc first.

IMO it really does not matter, as long as you put in the effort to practice whatever you want to do.

[Tashi]

After having three Extra Clears in my side, and that doing Normal 1cc is relatively easy for me (I think), I'm looking forward to turn things on and start with hard.

Results:

> I hate Hina's tiny black bullets in the last spellcard, in MoF.
> I hate Meiling's first spellcard (as a boss, not mid), in EoSD.
> I hate Marisa in IN. (All difficulties :V)
> Heck! I think Mokou is more easy than 1cc any Touhou game in Hard! What the hell is this?!

... Guess I will jump to Lunatic

EDIT: Wow! Talk about ironic things! Suwako, the extra boss that took me so many tries to beat, is defeated by Reimu B and C... one after the other. The most incredible thing? Those were credits to just pass the time, not an actual run. Get rekt Suwako.

[Mikuru]

I just realised that the symbol for "no focus" on http://replays.gensokyou.org/index.php is two yin-yang orbs. I always thought it was a cat.

[ILikeBulletZ]

Currently grinding the heck out of EoSD after my best Lunatic 1cc attempt run so far meet its tragic end RIGHT in the very end of the very last attack.

In particular I am grinding Stages 4 and 5 since I believe those are my weakest parts of the game. There has been some progress, but I still would like some consistency...

2 things that bother me a lot here:

1) Patchy non-spells can go to hell. They are kinda on the easy side, but can/WILL kill you unexpectedly everynow and then. On practice, it does not matter. On an actual run... yeah, bombing the heck out of them.
2) Stage 5 portion... cant quite figure it out yet. The wallfairies are probably the worst part. With my route I can only get by about 50% of the time, and its all thanks to this damn fairy right here:


This fairy is the reason of why I die here half the time. If luck is not on my side and it decides to shoot to my side a lot, it WILL almost certainly wall me. Its a VERY annoying section.I can kill all other wallfairies quickly except this one...

[Mero]

I've been playing LoLK quite a lot this week, mostly Extra as I was never really satisfied with my clear of it tanking everything with Reisen.
I'm just trying to NB clear, but it's proving to be quite an annoying task, not because it's too hard, but because outside of Lunatic Impact, every death just feels incredibly stupid (especially Junko's shit).

I also gave Martin's boss rush patch a try. Junko's was somehow my best Stage 4+ fight, with only 3 misses (two of them on PDH), compared to Sagume's four and Clownpiece's six (I miss IN's star hitboxes). If I manage to fix my atrocious Clownpiece fight record, maybe I'll try to get LNB soon, too.

[Mikuru]

I'm getting more confident at MoF scoring, ready to make the final push to try to hit 1 billion. Up to now my weakest part has been Stage 4, but I've been practising that a lot, and just now had a run that was really solid all the way to the end of S4. Unfortunately I died on Aya's final but still, that's an improvement in my game that I can feel really good about.

Just got to keep at it until I combine good scoring with a no-miss

[Nova234]

Yeah, Aya's final can be surprisingly nasty. The worst part is that it seems like it should be a relatively easy attack (especially coming off the tail end of PWG), so I feel like an idiot every time I get hit.

[Mikuru]

Ironically enough, by this point Illusionary Dominance is the only one of Aya's attacks I feel entirely comfortable with.

[Failure McFailFace]

I decided to succumb to my masochism again and play Double Spoiler.

It's still really hard. I managed to gold 6-8, but not 6-3, yet.

I also notice that the wiki's strategy gets very sparse or nonexistent once you get to 9+ -x, despite the fact it's been literal years since I've looked at those pages. Can a more skilled player than me make some guides for the levels past 9-x?

[Chill Observer]

I decided to succumb to my masochism again and play Double Spoiler.

It's still really hard. I managed to gold 6-8, but not 6-3, yet.

I also notice that the wiki's strategy gets very sparse or nonexistent once you get to 9+ -x, despite the fact it's been literal years since I've looked at those pages. Can a more skilled player than me make some guides for the levels past 9-x?

But you can reach the gold requirement for any scene in just one photo... you should be able to automatically gold any scene upon clearing it.  :V

There are video guides out there for Double Spoiler (and Shoot the Bullet too). Unfortunately the Wiki isn't the strongest gameplay strategy wise. I have strats for each scene as well, although I didn't annotate them.

[ILikeBulletZ]

So I have been doing some more serious PCB practice grinding, finally with some good results!

The 2 annoying Yuyuko spells that I had no real clue on how to do them, and as a result were most certainly guaranteed deaths? (Demon Dance and Butterfly Delusion if you are wondering) well I just found routes for both of them and now I practically dont die to either of them! Together with everything else I have learned, I can now pretty much perfect the whole Yuyuko fight very consistently save for Resurrection Butterfly which still kills me occasionally... But overall I say this is pretty good!

Stage 6 spam is still the Stage 6 spam. Nothing much I can do about that. But I noticed I have been getting slightly more consistent at capturing it. I now cap it about 4 times out of 10 as opposed to like only 1 out of 10 attempts... That's something, right?

I also found a way to properly misdirect Youmu's opener twice and with little risk as it should be. Thus her first spellcard is the only really dangerous thing about her (the rest of the fight is not exactly EASY though but its certainly manageable).

Stage 4 is easy except for Lily/spam which is occasionally mean, and also Lunasa's opener is def. The hardest part in the whole stage, but I usually manage to perfect it.

Stage 3 has Alice first spellcard that can sometimes give trouble. Otherwise, easy.

Obviously the first 2 stages are trivial.


So, to recap, I figured all this up;
Troublesome Spots:
1) Alice's First Spell
2) Lily/Spam
3) Lunasa's opener
4) Youmu's First Spell
5) LE SPAM
6) Resurrection Butterfly

... That's it. Other than those 6 dangerous spots... I practiced so much I can do everything else with really, really good consistency (Capture it 80%+ of the time= Really good consistency to me).

And out of that list, I can keep grinding the heck out of those things so I can be more consistent at them, too. Well, except the spam. Screw the spam. But, other than it, if I can do this... If I can manage to get all of the other 5 points down...

I didn't want to come to this, because up until recently I haven't realized just how close I was, but if this continues going right and I keep grinding ...












I think I might actually be ready to go for an LNNN.

[ILikeBulletZ]

The other day per chance I decided to check out the stats screen of my PCB only to find out this...WTH??

Is there a know bug on this screen that makes it say wrong stats or something? (I heard IN?s has some issues) Because I mean, I just...

Can you see whats wrong in this picture?




This makes zero sense.

[DarkPermafrost]

I beat MPP Lunatic the other day, but my replay desynced... on the final spell. Quite a shame, really.

So naturally I did it again. It was irritating, but it's nice to see that I don't suck as much at the game as I did when I first started out and had to make sense of everything.

MPP Lunatic 1cc (recorded live)