Your first experience at (any) Touhou game(s).

[Schpwuette]

But like theshim's saying, how long you've been playing doesn't really matter. Some people are better at these games, plain and simple.

Early 2009 here.

[derail attempt]
Anyway - one wonders why exactly some people are better - is it the fingers, reaction speed, or the ability to read, or maybe the way they split their concentration... or all of these!
Well, obviously it's all of them, but to what extent? I'm tempted to think that it's mostly the fingers + reaction speed. Both of those are innate (particularly reaction speed - I think that's fixed from birth... I suck at biology though, so may be wrong), yet ability to read and where to concentrate on which attacks can be easily learned.
[/derail attempt]

[Marly]

I used all my continues by the team I got to the second stage, then I lost to Cirno on Easy mode. EoSD. D:

[type ABC]

I kept on seeing mention of Touhou on 4chan, and finally decided to give it a try last December (I admit the screenshots scared me off).

So, I gave them all a try, and stuck with PCB for the most part. I couldn't beat the first level on lunatic without being damn close to losing a continue... now I can get halfway through the 4th level without losing a continue, but only on hard. Yeah, I kind of suck!

But, 30 minutes a day average since then. I'm hooked for good though. 

[Gambit]

My first game ended up being EoSD after watching an LP of it back in November. Started off playing on easy mode then moved on to normal once I found out that you don't even get to face Remilia (stuck with easy mode for the other games though).

Its kind of funny looking back and noticing how much I have improved since then, considering when I first started I honestly did not think I'd be able to 1cc any of the games on normal let alone hard. 

[Zengeku]

I'm from 2007. 

November 2007. 

The last day of November 2007. 

But like theshim's saying, how long you've been playing doesn't really matter. Some people are better at these games, plain and simple.

That and the fact that there is a difference between how people play the games. There are those that constantly pushes themselves forwards and always strive to get better and as soon as they beat Normal mode never touches it again and move on to Hard, then Lunatic. Then there are those, like me, who wasted a crapload of time messing around on Easy mode. Then slowly, very slowly, moving on to Normal mode and hanging out there forever. Its actually not that long time ago i started playing on Hard and i still have a tendency to waste some time on the lower difficulties. Its probably because i have some weird tendency to not seek higher difficulties but have an idea that i am not ready even though i know i will never improve like that.

A final thing. There can be a big difference between how much time one spends on the games. You can play them an hour once in a while or you can spend your time on NOTHING ELSE WHATSOEVER!

But there really is no reason to be jealous. Everyone should just take their time and make sure to have fun along the way, then everything will be fine.

As a direct response to the topic: So the cheater wants to know how people started out huh? Thats alright then. Someone showed me a crapload of Touhou videos, both of us completely oblivious (damn, i hope that word means what i want it to mean) about Touhou and we were amazed by the players skills. In time however i realized: Why don't we try this out ourself? I hunted down IN as that was the only games title i could remember and i started playing. To begin with i wasn't very addicted so the first couple of months went slow. I estimate it took me 4 months to beat IN Extra. Another one to beat PCB Extra and several before i beat MoF extra. Silly no? I'm simply not a very patient dude when it comes to restarting games when i fail. Take EoSD extra for example. I haven't beat it and thats mainly because i don't feel like restarting when i fail. So thats why i'm the slug around here! A very obsessed slug, mind you.

[Lord Scalgon]

Let's just not talk about the past, shall we?

As a side note, I capture lunatic spell cards on spell practice in IN, at least.  The others approved it to be legit, and plus, I said 'honest to God'...but anyway...back to WoW for me...

[kdillon7323]

I first started playing Touhou about 1 year ago.
I was on youtube looking up DoDonPachi videos and Mushihimesama and was clicking on related videos and saw IN extra stage. I was like WTF is this it looks amazing.  So I got IN and(I already had experience with shmups from DDPdaioujou but that was nothing like touhou) beat normal using I think 1 continue maybe 2 and even had full lives set in option.  But now with my non stop touhou playing i'm able to 1CC IN on lunatic and normal 1CC MOF, and SA(I can only 1CC IN on lunatic because of the deathbombing).

[Kefit]

Anyway - one wonders why exactly some people are better - is it the fingers, reaction speed, or the ability to read, or maybe the way they split their concentration... or all of these!

The fact that I have been playing these games for three years and have amassed more than a thousand hours of gameplay probably has something to do with how good I am at them now. Things like finger speed and reaction speed may be helped by a life time of playing video games, but the majority of my Touhou skill - the ability to read complex patterns, find gaps, and control my character's movement precisely enough to get into said gaps - has developed from the ground up over a long period of time to the point it is at today. So yes, the amount of time spent playing these games usually has something to do with how good a player is.

It's not like I am some kind of ?bermensch, superior to all you feeble, inferior beings. But hey, if you want to think of me in that way then I am not going to stop you.

[LHCling]

Things like finger speed and reaction speed may be helped by a life time of playing video games, but the majority of my Touhou skill - the ability to read complex patterns, find gaps, and control my character's movement precisely enough to get into said gaps...

...the only thing holding me back from Hard / Lunatic 1cc's. Also the reason why my practice runs look so good and (sometimes) professional.

Anyway, I believed I started somewhere in 2008, with PCB. At Easy Mode, usually ending somewhere between the Prismriver Sisters and Youmu. Deathbombing back then is just as hard as it is now for me *goes to check reaction time*.

[theshirn]

Things like finger speed and reaction speed may be helped by a life time of playing video games, but the majority of my Touhou skill - the ability to read complex patterns, find gaps, and control my character's movement precisely enough to get into said gaps

I just died to VoWG around eleven times in a row.  Eight of them, I didn't focus or unfocus or change directions quickly enough by the merest fraction of a moment.  (Several were me not nudging the button hard enough, but sometimes I nudge just a tiny bit too hard.  Maddening.)  I'm getting much, much better at reading patterns (such as VoWG, but not such as Storm God or Kanako's opener), but my mind reacts faster than my fingers can.

BaitySM - I thought you'd already 1cc'd all the Hards and a Lunatic or two???  I am confuzzled.

[SP]

my mind reacts faster than my fingers can.

Going along with the thread derail....

Ugh, this.  I can picture what to do quite easily often then fail miserably at actually doing it.  It's only the rare attack where my mind is completely screwed up by the pattern, and that's usually fixed by practice.

[LHCling]

BaitySM - I thought you'd already 1cc'd all the Hards and a Lunatic or two???  I am confuzzled.

Unlocked most of the Lunatic Practices? Yes.

1cc Hards' - PCB, IN.

I'm close to EoSD, MoF and SA 1cc's. EoSD and MoF should've been done already, but my CPU has trouble opening them at a normal speed; 95% of the time, they lag at ~54 FPS. On fullscreen, the work fine, but I'm not adjusted to fullscreen (so I seldom play).

No 1cc Lunatics... 2-4(3?)cc exist though.

[theshirn]

Waugh, you play windowed?  Not that it's an insult, it's just...a lot harder to work with a smaller screen...

I'll trade you a MoF for your PCB.  MoF I'll play any day, but PCB's deathbomb time just pisses me off enough that I rarely even try to 1cc Hard anymore.

[LHCling]

Waugh, you play windowed?  Not that it's an insult, it's just...a lot harder to work with a smaller screen...

I'll trade you a MoF for your PCB.  MoF I'll play any day, but PCB's deathbomb time just pisses me off enough that I rarely even try to 1cc Hard anymore.

It's a matter of self-preference. I find it easier to play windowed anyways. I can see much more of the screen. (but then again, maybe that's why I clip so much).

[Anima Zero]

IN, Easy Mode, max lives, Border Team.  Went max lives so I could see what the game was like difficulty wise and what I was going be in store for when I got around to doing serious runs with default lives.

I didn't know the controls at first and bombed literally in the first 2 seconds of stage 1.

Even better...I didn't know the meaning of focusing which meant long moments spent draining boss lifebars.

Yet somehow I did rather well, needing no continues at all.  Then again,  Eirin ate like 4-5 lives so...yeah.

Amusingly enough I saved the replay of that run.  Heh.

[Vile Lasagna]

Also on thread-jack:
I hope reaction time is not that important since I am about 40ms below the reported average on that score.
I do find that one important stuff is when you start being able to look and quickly project the expected trajectories of several bullets on the screen doing sort of a "macro reading" instead of just focusing you attention on your hitbox and such.

[Zengeku]

That picture... is horrible!!

Let's just not talk about the past, shall we?

As a side note, I capture lunatic spell cards on spell practice in IN, at least.  The others approved it to be legit, and plus, I said 'honest to God'...but anyway...back to WoW for me...

Its time i forgive you. I really just hate cheaters so much you see but, you have admitted your illegitimacy and i can't really hate anyone who have confessed their sins and are now following a more true path, now can I? I'll let the grudge go. Peace out pal.

[Lord Scalgon]

That picture... is horrible!!

Its time i forgive you. I really just hate cheaters so much you see but, you have admitted your illegitimacy and i can't really hate anyone who have confessed their sins and are now following a more true path, now can I? I'll let the grudge go. Peace out pal.

Thanks.

I've already learned my lesson, so let's just put this behind from now on.  Come to think of it, do I always have to say 'honest to God' the entire time I achieve something?  (I pity those that lie to God, but anyway)  Currently, I've achieved nothing, so there's...well, nothing.  Latest achievement done in Touhou is capturing spell 171 in spell practice in IN (I've shown this replay before...approved legit by people like Rabbit and bjw), and that's pretty much it.  But, if you guys want the replay, I won't hesitate to post the link.

So yeah.

[Vile Lasagna]

That picture... is horrible!!

Their laughter is ALWAYS on my mind... PARTICULARLY when I'm being SLAUGHTERED at SA normal...

[Kefit]

By the way, after I died to the Prismrivers on PCB Normal I went and played PCB Easy. It took me a week to 1cc it.

Nothing wrong with Easy mode.

[notanineidiot]

Around early October 2007, EoSD Easy. Still haven't beaten it, but I usually play in random concentrated bursts when I feel like playing and the laptop isn't about to overheat.

As for finding out about Touhou, it was either IOSYS' Hare Hare Yukai bonus track or a Marisa Stole the Precious Thing MAD with Taniguchi.

[Arcengal]

Their laughter is ALWAYS on my mind... PARTICULARLY when I'm being SLAUGHTERED at SA normal...

I had 1cc'd every previous Windows game on Normal and I STILL went down to Easy to beat SA for the first time. When you game over at the level 2 mid-boss, you know that the game is playing by different rules.

[Serp]

I had 1cc'd every previous Windows game on Normal and I STILL went down to Easy to beat SA for the first time. When you game over at the level 2 mid-boss, you know that the game is playing by different rules.

I still haven't beat SA Normal, but I refuse to go down to Easy to beat it.  Instead, I'm going back and trying to 1cc each game in Hard mode before returning to SA.

On the bright side, ramming my head against SA Normal has improved my Touhou skills a lot.  When I went back and played Imperishable Night after repeatedly failing against Orin, I felt like a Touhou god.

[Generalguy]

Actually, I'm not sure if I tried SA or EoSD first anymore.

All I know is on SA I tried Lunatic and Game Over'd before Kisume.

I tried again last week and Game Over'd on Yamame's opener. Lol progress.

[Vile Lasagna]

Zun forgot to put Normal mode on SA. I went to Easy Mode to try and see if my Normal difficulty was there but it wasn't. The game goes from a pathetic easy to something more on less on par with PCB Hard.

[Azinth]

SA really isn't that bad as long as you follow these three steps.
-Let go of your dignity and bomb the shit out of everything.
-Whore star pieces.  Achieving this step in later stages requires you to bomb the shit out of everything.
-Use Reimu A.

SA has some of the hardest bullet patterns in the series, but it gives you a crapton of resources.  Use them.  When I got my first Normal 1cc of SA, I had like 5 lives by the end(though this proceeded by plenty of trainwrecks).  There's no way I'd have been able to do something like that with, say, EoSD.

[?lice Bl?ckb?rn]

SA really isn't that bad as long as you follow these three steps.
-Let go of your dignity and bomb the shit out of everything.
-Whore star pieces.  Achieving this step in later stages requires you to bomb the shit out of everything.
-Use Reimu A.

The problem that I have with this advice is that you can't bomb the shit out of everything as you can in MoF, as you hardly ever get resources. Combine this with ReimuA at 4.xx power dealing amazing damage, ReimuA at 2.xx dealing craptastic damage and ReimuA at anything below 2.xx basically timing out everything that Orin onwards has, and you have a recipie for all kinds of argh, basically.

[Vile Lasagna]

MoF was even better at teaching me to "BOMBS AWAY!!!!". But the champion in that one for SA is Aya, her bomb does MIRACLES for you.
As for whoring star pieces, I do so but so many times I see myself starting from a continue with 2.0 lives that it's more of a thing I know but I don't see THAT much (except when I do get that extra life on the boss (Satori/Orin/Utsuho since I've been able to sort of regularly get past Yuugi already on my first).
And Reimu A? I know she's good but my favourites are probably Alice and Aya(Yeah, I DIDN'T see this one coming, but then I bombed...). Even if I'm going for forward focus it's hard not to bring myself to go Nitori, even though she's crap (I've been experiencing an all-around obsession with her lately).

Edit:
I've just remembered how I LOVE to triple-bomb Youkai Blazing wheel and finish it in 7.5 seconds with Alice... Makes me feel SO good after all that crap that cat always gives me.

[Azinth]

Eh, I might have exaggerated a bit, since it still takes a good deal of planning and familiarity with the stages/bosses to pull off.  My main point is to simply never ever take chances in SA, especially against bosses.  Bosses are where you get the majority of your lives; even if you bomb to the point of being at 0.00 power by the end, it will give you a good enough buffer of lives to compensate.  Not to mention that you can always get your power back at the next stage.

[FinnKaenbyou]

Started playing EoSD back in '06. I think I lost my first continue to Cirno first time I played (I insisted on Normal since I didn't want to play only 5 stages). It took me a week of practice to beat Remi on all continues (using one continue for Red Magic alone).

Then I found out I needed to 1cc the game for the good ending and died inside.

Needless to say, I didn't hold onto my dignity in this manner for PCB and IN, and it did me a world of good. Still took me about a year to get good enough to beat an Extra Stage, though. >_>