Getting to Enjoy Touhou Again

[ILikeBulletZ]

IMHO the only Intrusive gimmick there is that you could make an argument off and I would kind of agree with is UFO's gimmick, because how good you are at it really influences your resources so much, and actively routing the things are pretty much mandatory to do on higher difficulties, unlike every other games gimmick...its extremely "in your face" about it. Thats the only one though. I never felt like any other games gimmick forced me to do anything.

[ふねん1]

You know, I'd make point-by-point responses to certain parts of your post like what others have been doing, but at this point Zelinko, it's becoming clear that you're too wrapped up in how you think these games should be played for any of it to get through to you. You're continuously giving excuses to both honest advice that could help you approach these games better as well as corrections to otherwise incorrect info (done with no malicious intent, mind you). And given your wording, you're also repeatedly presenting your stances towards certain features of the games like hard facts rather than opinions - if not to the rest of us, then to yourself. But more on that in a sec. The real clincher is you saying you're only playing Touhou at this point to prove you're "not utter garbage at everything". This screams to me that the underlying problem to all this is your own pride. Whenever something comes up that makes things harder than you're used to or otherwise "gets in the way", you try to justify it after the fact rather than consider that your stance on something might be wrong. This includes your stated reason for playing as well - you want to show you're "not utter garbage", so when you fail at something, you try to pin the blame on the games instead of accepting that you might not be good enough yet and need to improve. You're only holding yourself back when you think like this, Zelinko. Trust me on this, I know better than some exactly how this works. When I first started out, I got into a really bad habit of blaming things like the RNG for me not being able to get better results. I plateaued hard because of this, and playing Touhou started making me feel miserable. It wasn't until I accepted that this mindset was holding me back and that I wasn't doing enough to get better that I actually started getting better again. Now, whether or not you continue to play Touhou yourself, you're gonna have to swallow some of your pride here. Whether it's recognizing you're holding yourself back like I described, or even just accepting that you don't have to prove you're "not utter garbage" at Touhou and moving on, you'll end up much better off in the long run and not needlessly making yourself suffer.

[ZM]

With MoF bombs you need to be right in the face of the boss which makes it more than useless. If a bomb doesn't actually go the full screen length it's garbage

Are you sure you're just not confusing MoF bombs with a couple bombs in SA? MoF bombs do plenty of damage regardless of where they're detonated on the screen. Some SA bombs (such as MarisaA's and MarisaB's bombs) require you to use them pointblank for their full potential.

Also your logic on what makes a bomb 'good' is pretty faulty. There are plenty of amazing bombs in the series that don't cover the entire screen. Maybe you should stop whining so much and play more.

[CopperMarten]

If your overall goal is to enjoy yourself, we need to understand where your enjoyment comes from. From what you said, your primary motivation for playing is to "show that you're not utter garbage at everything." In other words, you want to be good at the games.

Right now, you're obviously not feeling that way. You have a few options going forward:
-Get better at the games, and keep playing them
-Don't get better at the games, and keep playing them
-Stop playing them

The second option is not going to work for you. If your motivation is to feel like you're good at the games, playing on easy mode is not going to do it for you. There are a couple of reasons for this. In gaming, I've found that beating games can bring enjoyment in two ways. It can either be a personal achievement, where you feel good because it was hard for you personally, or it can be impressive to others (or some combination). If you got visceral pleasure from achieving an easy 1CC, we wouldn't be having this discussion, so I doubt easy 1CCs count as personal achievements. As for impressing others, easy 1CCs are not impressive. Again, they are worth doing if you personally find them to be challenging and worthy goals, but we both know an easy mode 1CC is not impressing anyone else.

What about the first option then? Well, if you challenge yourself to improve, you can start taking on the higher difficulties of the game. Beating higher difficulties will DEFINITELY feel like a personal accomplishment, and even a normal 1CC is starting to edge into the territory of "impressive" for a lot of people. This, I think, is the toughest option, but the one that will make you happiest. You will have to put the thought out of your mind that it is "the game's fault", or "the resource systems are broken", or "it's RNG's fault that you died". Even if those things are true, they're not going to help you achieve your goal. These are games we're talking about. Your mindset needs to be "what can I improve to better my chances of winning?" If you don't have that mindset, you will lose.

What about the third option? Well, if getting better doesn't appeal to you, and you really just can't bring yourself to enjoy the games, then quit. There's no shame in doing so. At the end of the day, we are trying to convert time into dopamine in the most efficient way possible. If Touhou does not make you happy, then quit.

[Chill Observer]

As for impressing others, easy 1CCs are not impressive.

I'd argue otherwise. Even an easy clear impresses me because it shows someone who might be completely new to shmup genres actually took the time to learn, play and beat the game. It is an achievement just like any other successful achievement. What matters is what will you do from there. I play almost exclusively on lunatic now, runs or practice, because I feel like it's where I stand and that's how I can improve.

[CopperMarten]

I guess I should clarify. I'm always impressed when someone does something that's hard for them, but something like an easy 1CC doesn't make me go "Whoa, you did that? You're good!", and I feel like that's what Zelinko wants.

[Nova234]

when you fail at something, you try to pin the blame on the games instead of accepting that you might not be good enough yet and need to improve. You're only holding yourself back when you think like this, Zelinko. Trust me on this, I know better than some exactly how this works. When I first started out, I got into a really bad habit of blaming things like the RNG for me not being able to get better results. I plateaued hard because of this, and playing Touhou started making me feel miserable. It wasn't until I accepted that this mindset was holding me back and that I wasn't doing enough to get better that I actually started getting better again. Now, whether or not you continue to play Touhou yourself, you're gonna have to swallow some of your pride here.

This is the best advice in this entire thread. The same thing happened to me - and as a result, it took the better part of a year for me to move up from "can clear easy" to "can clear normal." Once I finally realized I was working with the wrong mindset and forced myself to seriously examine the reasons I was failing, suddenly I started making progress again. A week later, I'd cleared IN and LLS normal. Just a month after that, I'd normal 1cc'd nearly the entire series, and even picked up a couple of extra and hard clears as well. It's amazing what a sudden change of perspective can do.

There's nothing wrong with playing on easy mode, if you're comfortable with playing at that skill level. But if you want to get better at the games, you need a certain level of genuine dissatisfaction with your current skill level. If you can't beat the games at the desired difficulty, it's not because the game is cheating you out of your victory. It's because you're not good enough. That's the mindset you need.

I'd argue otherwise. Even an easy clear impresses me because it shows someone who might be completely new to shmup genres actually took the time to learn, play and beat the game. It is an achievement just like any other successful achievement. What matters is what will you do from there. I play almost exclusively on lunatic now, runs or practice, because I feel like it's where I stand and that's how I can improve.

Agreed. It doesn't matter whether it's "I finally beat IN easy," or "I just cleared LoLK Lunatic no miss no bomb no focus no vertical 120fps." Regardless of where it falls on some kind of absolute difficulty scale, a new accomplishment is a new accomplishment, and it's always something to be proud of. It's a sign of self-improvement, and that's never a bad thing. That said, one needs to be able to eventually look past that in order to continue progressing. Enjoy your accomplishment, be proud of it, but if you want to keep getting better, you have to be able to put that pride behind you and keep focusing on the next step forward.

And finally, on the subject of MoF's bombs: they most certainly don't require you to be point-blank, because (a) the circle drifts upwards over time, allowing it to hit across the entire vertical length of the screen, and (b) bosses still take significant damage from bombs even if they're outside the circle. They're quite a bit more effective than you're giving them credit for, and liberal use of bombs can make beating the game much easier (as Drake has rather thoroughly demonstrated).

[Zelinko]

Well then, you're not garbage at everything. Problem solved.

PCB in particular is on the tough side for an Easy mode, there's not much difference between Easy and Normal. I think you could get a Normal 1cc if you gave it a go.

My tips:
* First of all, be patient. Moving up a difficulty level is always going to be a process of gradual improvement until you get the 1cc.
* Start by clearing the game with continues, so as to unlock every stage in stage practice. (Exception: In MoF, because of the weird continue system, clearing with continues is harder than just getting a 1cc. However, MoF has a bug where watching a replay unlocks stage practice.)
* Split your time about half-and-half between attempting runs and doing stage practice. Both are important. Even when you're not ready for the 1cc yet, it boosts your confidence to get further than you could previously, come out of the early game with more resources than you're used to having, and watch yourself improve.
* Post a Normal replay so that we can have a look at it and give specific tips. There might be particular things you could do better, or particular patterns you're not understanding, that would be obvious if a more experienced player looked at your replay.
* Don't be so dismissive of streaming. It makes some of the nastiest-looking sections really easy. All you need to do is, if a lot of aimed bullets are coming at you at the same time (for example, most of MoF Stage 4), make small, steady movements and they will all miss you. If this isn't working for you, keep practising until you get it. It will improve your overall game enormously.

Stage replay often does the complete opposite for me.  It utterly crushes me when I look at the math that I've used more lives than possible.

SA/N runs
Ten Desires/N Run

At least TenDesires actually lets you IIRC continue from point instead of continue from stage restart which just results in endlessly being stuck in a loop.

[ZM]

Stage replay often does the complete opposite for me.  It utterly crushes me when I look at the math that I've used more lives than possible.

SA/N runs
Ten Desires/N Run

At least TenDesires actually lets you IIRC continue from point instead of continue from stage restart which just results in endlessly being stuck in a loop.

Then try to no miss the practice stages? Try to route?

People practice all the time, and it truly does work wonders.

[Nova234]

After a quick glance at some of those videos, I don't think your skills are the main problem. You're not playing at a Normal level yet, but you did pull off some reasonably proficient dodges when the game forced you to (look at the way you handled Green-Eyed Monster in the first SA video, for example). As far as I can tell, your main issue is that you're too afraid of the bullets. I suspected that would be the case based on what you said earlier about grazing and streaming, but it really is your main concern at this point. Most of your deaths are the result of panic-induced overreaction - a bullet comes near you, then you panic and run away from it, only to run right into another bullet.

I can't stress enough how important it is for you to learn how to stream. Not only does it trivialize many otherwise difficult segments in its own right, it leads into some other extremely important skills. In your case, perhaps the most important thing that would come out of it is learning to trust yourself. Trust your dodging, trust your hitbox. You're always trying to be as far away from the bullets as possible, which seems reasonable on the surface, but it's really crippling you.

[ZeroPride]

First post ever, so hey people.
Anyway it seems like you could use a break.When i first started playing Touhou, in December, i became so obsessed with a lunatic clear, that it wasn't a fun experience anymore.Instead of keeping on going, i took a few weeks break, and came back when i felt like playing again (then i pulled an 8 hour session for the clear, but let's not talk about that).I was slightly rusty, but at least it became fun to play once more.I would also give you other advices about practicing ecc... but it seems that the thread is full of them

[shockdude]

I agree with all the others about the mindset.
The games aren't going to change for you unless you use cheats. If you want to get better, you're gonna have to change yourself.

You said that rote memorization is the opposite of fun. I'm not going to argue about the "fun" part, but I will say that you cannot avoid memorization in Touhou.
NES Megaman games aren't easy. How did you beat them? You had to learn, and then memorize the levels, enemies, and bosses. And then you defeated them and beat the games.
The exact same principles apply to Touhou. Learn the stages, learn what the enemies and bosses do, and defeat them.

You said that Youtube players approach things differently from you, which makes those Youtube videos "worthless." Have you considered why they approach things differently? Remember, the Youtube players aren't dying in places that you currently are.
MegamanOmega184's videos are pretty good, and his video annotations explain his strategies very well.

After a quick glance at some of those videos, I don't think your skills are the main problem. You're not playing at a Normal level yet, but you did pull off some reasonably proficient dodges when the game forced you to (look at the way you handled Green-Eyed Monster in the first SA video, for example). As far as I can tell, your main issue is that you're too afraid of the bullets. I suspected that would be the case based on what you said earlier about grazing and streaming, but it really is your main concern at this point. Most of your deaths are the result of panic-induced overreaction - a bullet comes near you, then you panic and run away from it, only to run right into another bullet.

I can't stress enough how important it is for you to learn how to stream. Not only does it trivialize many otherwise difficult segments in its own right, it leads into some other extremely important skills. In your case, perhaps the most important thing that would come out of it is learning to trust yourself. Trust your dodging, trust your hitbox. You're always trying to be as far away from the bullets as possible, which seems reasonable on the surface, but it's really crippling you.

I agree with this. You can't avoid not touching the bullets, and streaming isn't hard to learn.
Pull up SA Stage 2 Normal. Start near the bottom-left corner of the screen. Don't shoot, just hold shift and tap Right. Rinse and repeat until you get 100 graze at the stage title.

Related to this is to not hug the bottom of the screen if you don't have to. If you hug the bottom, you can't dodge downward, which limits your mobility. It also puts you further away from the PoC.
This would also explain why you think MoF's bombs are awful; if you're always hugging the bottom the bombs never reach the boss.

[Chill Observer]

Once again... whether or not MoF bombs reach the boss is irrelevant. When a boss is on screen, bombs will damage the entire screen instead of just its area of effect.

Also, you can't die unless you actually touch a bullet in the affected part of the hitbox! Everything is not as dangerous as it looks. Make smaller taps. Things aimed directly at you are entirely avoidable by even the tiniest tap. A big mistake players make when they're new is making movements that are way too large when they don't need to be.

So just remember, as long as nothing actually hits you, you can't die. If you think something's going to hit you and there's no way of getting out, just bomb. You could try to luckdodge but that rarely works in that situation.

[Drake]

Thank you for posting replays, because it means people can actually advise your play.
Your problems in-game are almost exclusively:
- Lack of understanding the patterns
- Lack of routing/planning (which results from the above)
- Panic (which results partially from the above two)

As I had suspected earlier, you practice ineffectively and are not learning from your mistakes nor others' successes. You are going to keep feeling as though you are just blindly feeding credits without getting anywhere because that's exactly what you are doing, and despite all your whining about watching others play, looking at how others accomplish things is an important key to learn when you have no idea what you're doing.

I watched just the last video of SA Stage 4.
- You do perfectly fine for the first half of the stage. You more or less have a plan and you execute it.
- Once it gets to the green section, you seem to acknowledge that you're having bullets aimed at you but repeatedly turn around right back into them. You die a bunch because of this. You can actually bomb through most of this section and still keep a lot of power, or if you're more confident than that you can just not turn around and bomb when you reach the sides.
- You can clear the purple amulet fairies at the end by tapping once in the same direction for each fairy. Their patterns aim at you and as long as you this you're fine.
- I can't tell if you have a plan for the last fairy or not. You kind of look like you might but didn't get into position. The pattern is completely static.
- I can't really advise you on Satori because you seem to flail wildly with no plan at all. Essentially you move too much and die because of it.

Most of your problems of panicking and making wide movements way more than necessary are normal for new players. You aren't doing anything of the ordinary and your play is perfectly fine for where you're at. Your main issue is that you aren't learning and you don't seem to be open to the prospect of learning, but instead prefer blaming the games for faults that they don't have just to appease your own sense of righteousness, which is why this discussion is so stupid.

[Zelinko]

After a quick glance at some of those videos, I don't think your skills are the main problem. You're not playing at a Normal level yet, but you did pull off some reasonably proficient dodges when the game forced you to (look at the way you handled Green-Eyed Monster in the first SA video, for example). As far as I can tell, your main issue is that you're too afraid of the bullets. I suspected that would be the case based on what you said earlier about grazing and streaming, but it really is your main concern at this point. Most of your deaths are the result of panic-induced overreaction - a bullet comes near you, then you panic and run away from it, only to run right into another bullet.

I can't stress enough how important it is for you to learn how to stream. Not only does it trivialize many otherwise difficult segments in its own right, it leads into some other extremely important skills. In your case, perhaps the most important thing that would come out of it is learning to trust yourself. Trust your dodging, trust your hitbox. You're always trying to be as far away from the bullets as possible, which seems reasonable on the surface, but it's really crippling you.

Developing self confidence is kinda the problem.  I Might go in good but once it goes wrong it goes extremely wrong.  And often once it's wrong I can't recover at all.  Morale broken and all that.

My PCB 1cc run IIRC has a 10 minute break realtime around the time of the Prisrivers as it lead to that just panic to the point where It was close to scrubbing the run as it might have still been too close to the 0 second failure I had on the survival card the time before. The clock was at Zero but didn't clear. 

Then try to no miss the practice stages? Try to route?

People practice all the time, and it truly does work wonders.

Not smart enough or having enough memory to  Route.  Practice stages tend to make some situations worse as coming into early ones at full power is often impossible and that difference in firepower radically changes how a boss fight goes due to how having their TTKs reduced by such a degree that you're not seeing full patterns at times. 

I agree with all the others about the mindset.
The games aren't going to change for you unless you use cheats. If you want to get better, you're gonna have to change yourself.

You said that rote memorization is the opposite of fun. I'm not going to argue about the "fun" part, but I will say that you cannot avoid memorization in Touhou.
NES Megaman games aren't easy. How did you beat them? You had to learn, and then memorize the levels, enemies, and bosses. And then you defeated them and beat the games.
The exact same principles apply to Touhou. Learn the stages, learn what the enemies and bosses do, and defeat them.

You said that Youtube players approach things differently from you, which makes those Youtube videos "worthless." Have you considered why they approach things differently? Remember, the Youtube players aren't dying in places that you currently are.
MegamanOmega184's videos are pretty good, and his video annotations explain his strategies very well.I agree with this. You can't avoid not touching the bullets, and streaming isn't hard to learn.
Pull up SA Stage 2 Normal. Start near the bottom-left corner of the screen. Don't shoot, just hold shift and tap Right. Rinse and repeat until you get 100 graze at the stage title.

Related to this is to not hug the bottom of the screen if you don't have to. If you hug the bottom, you can't dodge downward, which limits your mobility. It also puts you further away from the PoC.
This would also explain why you think MoF's bombs are awful; if you're always hugging the bottom the bombs never reach the boss.

With Megaman never underestimate how useful it is in 4+ to grind for E-tanks and lives.  And in MM3 to start with A6 (red).  A lot of Megaman games also suffer from being various degrees of stupidly broken.  MM1's Elecbeam, MM2's Metal Blades, MM3's Shadow Blade, Half of MM4's arsenal, MM5's Buster, everything is shit in MM6... Why do you even exist MM6?  Seriously?

With the Youtube cases a lot of it is such a skill gap that it's not useful with my abilities. I can't pull off what they do or even half the reactions to do so.  I can get all the Whys and Hows but It's a case of I can't cash those checks even if I have it perfected in theory, no plan surviving contact with the enemy and all that.  With SA/MoF the entire bomb=Power forces me to minimize bombing when I could have out of worry of put simply not having enough firepower to kill enemies or the boss.  Being stuck with 1.xx power is agonizingly bad.

SA outside the bomb weirdness is pretty much an ideal game mechanically as it really is already aesthetically ... Now if the Yukari copied patterns weren't so impossible to understand...

----

With the fangames mentioned are they just danmakufu scripts or stand alone executables?  Since one's just grab and the others is a bit more... questionable to get.

[Jimmy]

Your abilities will develop progressively as long as you regularly practice. You'll improve your memory over time if you keep focusing on patterns that you have difficulties to deal with and learning them step by step, perhaps best with some videos of decent Normal Mode runs. No matter how wide the gap between your current skills and the other players' are, if you keep practicing on how to approach and deal with the difficult spots, the gap will gradually narrow and eventually even close itself. Don't think too much about clearing the entire game first, that'll make you lose focus on individual patterns and as a result your overall progress rather slows down. Working through the patterns themselves one by one will accelerate your progress of clearing the entire game, because then you've got a grip on the difficult parts and make the game as a whole considerably less stressful. Don't let a single screw-up break you down. Everyone makes mistakes, and it's a vital part of acquiring new skills.


As for the fangames, the fully developed ones are indeed Danmakufu scripts (except "Shining Shooting Star"), but are always pre-packaged including an executable, such as "Riverbed Soul Saver" and "Book of Star Mythology", they run perfectly without switching locales. If you rather want to play older releases such as "Mystical Power Plant" or "The Last Comer", you'll have to switch to a Japanese locale to run them properly (in case of SSS, it's a Chinese one). LocaleSwitch provides a simple solution for both.

[Zelinko]

Your abilities will develop progressively as long as you regularly practice. You'll improve your memory over time if you keep focusing on patterns that you have difficulties to deal with and learning them step by step, perhaps best with some videos of decent Normal Mode runs. No matter how wide the gap between your current skills and the other players' are, if you keep practicing on how to approach and deal with the difficult spots, the gap will gradually narrow and eventually even close itself. Don't think too much about clearing the entire game first, that'll make you lose focus on individual patterns and as a result your overall progress rather slows down. Working through the patterns themselves one by one will accelerate your progress of clearing the entire game, because then you've got a grip on the difficult parts and make the game as a whole considerably less stressful. Don't let a single screw-up break you down. Everyone makes mistakes, and it's a vital part of acquiring new skills.


As for the fangames, the fully developed ones are indeed Danmakufu scripts (except "Shining Shooting Star"), but are always pre-packaged including an executable, such as "Riverbed Soul Saver" and "Book of Star Mythology", they run perfectly without switching locales. If you rather want to play older releases such as "Mystical Power Plant" or "The Last Comer", you'll have to switch to a Japanese locale to run them properly (in case of SSS, it's a Chinese one). LocaleSwitch provides a simple solution for both.

Ahh in part it was if some of those fangames were for sales making it a case of piracy etc.  But which were the easy ones again?  I'm trying to remember which ones are.

I just wish there was some playable Okuu ones...

Still I need a mood enough to play Touhou as I'm often just needing enough alertness to play as I'm not fully awake for it well exhaustion degrades performance and it shows up far more in danmaku games than anything. 

[Drake]

mystical power plant literally has playable utsuho

[Mikuru]

With SA/MoF the entire bomb=Power forces me to minimize bombing when I could have out of worry of put simply not having enough firepower to kill enemies or the boss.  Being stuck with 1.xx power is agonizingly bad.

In MoF that's really not true. I just had a run on Stage 4 (Normal) in stage practice to remind myself how it goes, in which I bombed every moderately difficult pattern. It went like this:

* Start at 4.00 power.
* The first section is trivial streaming, so I collected items up to 4.80 power.
* Bomb the first waterfall. With auto-collection from the bomb, I was already back up to 4.00.
* More streaming.
* Spend two bombs on Momiji. With the items she gives, I was already back up to 3.80.
* Bomb the second waterfall. Back up to 3.00.
* More streaming.
* Bomb all three of the popcorn fairies. They all give you back some power.
* Bomb the crows. Back to 3.00 power for Aya.
* With the power Aya gives you between attacks, you can now bomb every pattern Aya has and that's the entire stage and boss complete and you haven't had to dodge anything except for the easy streaming sections.

That said, even though it is possible to no-miss the stage just by bombing everything, don't worry if you make a mistake and die once or twice in a stage. The game lets you die up to eight times and it's still a 1cc.

[Mikuru]

And just for fun -- I know Drake has already done something similar, but I wanted to do this myself without watching his so I could have an honest appraisal of what it feels like -- I saved a replay of getting through MoF, the entire game, bombing or dying to everything that wasn't streaming. (Except Exiled Doll, because I was out of power at that point and wasn't sure how many lives I'd need for the run. Well, I finished with a life to spare, plus two silly deaths when I had power during the run, so I could have stuck to the condition and suicided there too.)

Now, it certainly isn't easy to clear the game this way. The self-imposed condition of bombing everything, and suiciding for more bombs, uses up most of your lives, and for a first 1cc, you should aim to have more spare lives at the end for Kanako's final card (as in most Touhous, bombs don't work on the final card). Still, you can easily get through Stages 1 to 5 this way to unlock them in stage practice, then play them so as to work out which parts you feel confident enough not to bomb on, and which you will still bomb. That should, if you are willing to put in the time to practise, definitely be enough to get you to Stage 6 with enough resources to clear it.

But really, the point of this experiment is simply to illustrate the moral: don't be afraid to bomb. Even if you bomb, then die to a later attack because of having low power, that's better than dying to the first attack because you were afraid to bomb, then still having to bomb the second attack. Both scenarios lose a life but the second loses 1 power as well.

[Jimmy]

Ahh in part it was if some of those fangames were for sales making it a case of piracy etc.  But which were the easy ones again?  I'm trying to remember which ones are.

I just wish there was some playable Okuu ones...

Still I need a mood enough to play Touhou as I'm often just needing enough alertness to play as I'm not fully awake for it well exhaustion degrades performance and it shows up far more in danmaku games than anything.

Once you manage to get into practicing and learn to navigate the player and read the patterns at the same time, the stress of failure will go away. As for learning stuff, failures are essential for understanding your weaknesses, so there's no need to take them that hard. It was part of my personal experience when I got into Touhou games as well, constantly lamenting my own apparent inability to do something while I actually can do it is basically humiliating myself, and that's really unnecessary. Don't look back, try to always look ahead.

From the fangames that I've played so far (that would be all the games I've listed except TLC), I'd recommend to you either to give RSS or MPP (hence you want a playable Utsuho) a start, while I think RSS has a simpler and more generous gameplay mechanic than MPP does, but I'll leave that choice to you. Also, the mentioned fangames are actually all free, otherwise their developers wouldn't provide downloads afaik.

[Sophilia]

Honestly, most of the good advice has already been said.  But I can definitely relate to hitting the wall hard.  What got me over my wall was actually the photo games.  Their puzzle-like structure kept my mind engaged, while actually completing them trained me in the necessary skills for the more traditional shooters.  Some levels can only be solved with streaming, or full screen use, or getting in close to bosses, or micrododging through tight bullets.  And once I was more used to these techniques, it became a lot easier for me to get those Normal and Hard 1ccs.

[Chill Observer]

Also a lot of games contain spell practice and boss practice, and/or patches that allow easy access to either.

Use these and abuse these. Preferably on lunatic. You can become very used to patterns very fast by just practicing attacks on lunatic.

Also, shmup fangames are almost always free. Don't worry about it.
implying anyone would ever dare sell a Danmakufu script Kappa

[Zelinko]

Honestly, most of the good advice has already been said.  But I can definitely relate to hitting the wall hard.  What got me over my wall was actually the photo games.  Their puzzle-like structure kept my mind engaged, while actually completing them trained me in the necessary skills for the more traditional shooters.  Some levels can only be solved with streaming, or full screen use, or getting in close to bosses, or micrododging through tight bullets.  And once I was more used to these techniques, it became a lot easier for me to get those Normal and Hard 1ccs.

The photography games are just slamming my head into a wall until it miraculously breaks outside like the first two stages.  It was just quickly leading to just more and more frustation as often there was no way out or way to do it.  Like Yamame's string card. Literally no idea how to deal with it.

And since I ain't found a score.dat that's a full unlock (or at least a Hatate unlock) it's a no real will to push

Once you manage to get into practicing and learn to navigate the player and read the patterns at the same time, the stress of failure will go away. As for learning stuff, failures are essential for understanding your weaknesses, so there's no need to take them that hard. It was part of my personal experience when I got into Touhou games as well, constantly lamenting my own apparent inability to do something while I actually can do it is basically humiliating myself, and that's really unnecessary. Don't look back, try to always look ahead.

From the fangames that I've played so far (that would be all the games I've listed except TLC), I'd recommend to you either to give RSS or MPP (hence you want a playable Utsuho) a start, while I think RSS has a simpler and more generous gameplay mechanic than MPP does, but I'll leave that choice to you. Also, the mentioned fangames are actually all free, otherwise their developers wouldn't provide downloads afaik.

Uh how do I find those?  They're not on wiki soo... yea. 

Also was my videos looking good for video quality?  Ran it through MSI Afterburner's recorder at 60FPS and I Think high settings.  Only 480p but I Think it looks good.

[Drake]

The photography games are just slamming my head into a wall until it miraculously breaks outside like the first two stages.  It was just quickly leading to just more and more frustation as often there was no way out or way to do it.  Like Yamame's string card. Literally no idea how to deal with it.

Not that one scene stops you from progressing, but if you're really stuck on one scene, again, see how other people are attempting it. Some of the more stressful scenes later on can take hundreds, thousand-plus attempts for people to clear and most people haven't cleared every scene. You really aren't that stuck, even if you don't want to figure a solution out on your own.

And of course, if you don't want to learn how to stream, you're absolutely never going to clear 3-4, because it is an exercise in streaming.

[Sophilia]

The photography games are just slamming my head into a wall until it miraculously breaks outside like the first two stages.  It was just quickly leading to just more and more frustation as often there was no way out or way to do it.  Like Yamame's string card. Literally no idea how to deal with it.

Honestly?  That stage, or the StB equivalent with Alice, is exactly where I expected you to have problems.  There's two steps to solving it, and both of them are things you have refused to engage with previously, streaming and planning your bombs.  But that's a matter of mindset more than it is skill.  If you insist on approaching everything in the exact same manner, that's just going to get you riddled with bullets whether it be in these puzzles or in the main games.  Yamame's just a bit more blatant about it.  Being able to choose the right tool for the situation will get you much, much farther than raw dodging skills will.  And if pride or frustration gets in the way, step away to clear your mind when you need to.

Some of the more stressful scenes later on can take hundreds, thousand-plus attempts for people to clear...

Yeah, I can testify to that.  I thought the Eientei section's reputation was overblown until I actually got there and died oh so many times.  I'm a bit of an overdodger myself, but if I can pull through that hell, I'm certain a Normal 1cc is within your reach.

[Jimmy]

Uh how do I find those?  They're not on wiki soo... yea. 

There's a blog by the developers themselves where you can find the downloads for TLC, MPP, RSS and WNSP. BoSM is also listed there, but has a standalone website. For BoSM, download the bottommost version on said website using the MEGA mirror, since the Axfc one tends to show NSFW ads.

[Zelinko]

There's a blog by the developers themselves where you can find the downloads for TLC, MPP, RSS and WNSP. BoSM is also listed there, but has a standalone website. For BoSM, download the bottommost version on said website using the MEGA mirror, since the Axfc one tends to show NSFW ads.

Stupid question but what does the skill things do in MPP?  keep getting things flashing on after getting the falling leaf items but no clue if they're passive or things I trigger?  Also really feels funky not having the audio feedback of doing hits especially against bosses since I kinda track bosses by sound a lot

Also with the entire Spell practice is blacked out is weird.   Pretty game although the suddenly lasers in stage 2 is just weird. Presuming fixed pattern but kinda cheap as hell on first encounter and without audio confirmation of scoring hits I wasn't even sure if I was actually damaging something or the beams just blocked the shots. Also not really a fan of the SUDDENLY Lily White Blitzing North pattern of the opening fairy.

Not that one scene stops you from progressing, but if you're really stuck on one scene, again, see how other people are attempting it. Some of the more stressful scenes later on can take hundreds, thousand-plus attempts for people to clear and most people haven't cleared every scene. You really aren't that stuck, even if you don't want to figure a solution out on your own.

And of course, if you don't want to learn how to stream, you're absolutely never going to clear 3-4, because it is an exercise in streaming.

Tried going slow.  Just get caught by the rebounds either way.  Just was a skip as I think I got enough to get to 4... I think? 

[Nova234]

As you collect leaf items, you'll gradually fill the gauge in the bottom left corner of the screen. As the gauge fills, you'll start accruing passive bonuses - smaller hitbox, increased damage, etc. The effects are small, but not negligible. When you fill the gauge completely, you'll get a life piece and a bomb piece - but the gauge also resets to empty, so you lose the skill bonuses. That said, it's still almost always worth it to do so; the resource pieces are worth more than the bonuses. Just note that the PoC doesn't work unless you have at least one level of the gauge filled, so it'll be momentarily disabled after you do that.

[Zelinko]

As you collect leaf items, you'll gradually fill the gauge in the bottom left corner of the screen. As the gauge fills, you'll start accruing passive bonuses - smaller hitbox, increased damage, etc. The effects are small, but not negligible. When you fill the gauge completely, you'll get a life piece and a bomb piece - but the gauge also resets to empty, so you lose the skill bonuses. That said, it's still almost always worth it to do so; the resource pieces are worth more than the bonuses. Just note that the PoC doesn't work unless you have at least one level of the gauge filled, so it'll be momentarily disabled after you do that.

So what's the meter on the sidebar for then? I really don't figure what it means.

Still good to know about the mechanic's work as I figured the Leaf Items gave the bits for resources.  Not sure if I like Reimu/Okuu A or B more since both have nice unfoused shot types. I mean holy shit an aggressive high speed, strong tracking homing shot from  Reimu. Ain't seen that in ages.

Also is my configuration wrong as I'm getting hit sounds or pop sounds for fairy kills

Also what does "Effect Cut" mean?