How do you play?

[Sriggle]

I always set the game to fullscreen, for that oldschool feeling. And I use speakers.

I use a PAD. It's made to look like an old NES controller.

Oh, and I use Marisa B. Always have, ^^
While I play, I sometimes also jeer at the characters for fun. "Cirno! Easy, easy mode!" "Alice! Ejee-modo!" "Cheeen!" "FUCK YOU YOUMU!!!" "Don't cave me, don't cave me..."
So, anybody else wanna state thier prefs?

[Esoterica]

Fullscreen, keyboard, earbuds.

Character preference changes between games; generally speaking I use Reimu.

[Tsubame]

Hmm, usually I play fullscreen as well. I wouldn't pay attention to any other window that I had displayed while playing, anyway.

Used to play with a gamepad (looked like a PSX controller), but lent it to someone and I haven't got it back. So I've been playing using the keyboard for a time now. Oh, and speakers are fine, too.

As for character... I usually choose the non-laser Marisa (or Marisa + Alice in SA), but as of UFO I've been picking Sanae B a lot. Has a lot of power, wide area, and well... It's Sanae.  :derp:

Now... I should really buy a new pad...

[Doomsday]

Always fullscreen and keyboard. I haven't got any PC-compatible gamepads that I know of so I couldn't try even if I wanted to.

I used to stick to Laser Marisa, but I've shifted over to Needles Reimu over time.

[Phlegeth]

Always full screen, I have a 10 inch screen so yeah, and full a little computer it has powerful speakers so that.  Unless its noisy, then I put on my sound cancelers.  And a keyboard.

I use the Marisa with Master Spark or Alice.

[jvpenguin]

Fullscreen, keyboard, and speakers.

If my hair is getting pretty long (like now), I sometimes wear a golf hat (kinda like what ZUN wears, but it's pink) where I stuff my bangs in so they don't get in the way. Looks pretty ridiculous, but it works. And I don't look half-bad in it either :3

Favorite in most games is homing Reimu, but it usually depends on the game.

[Bananamatic]

I don't play

[nintendonut888]

Fullscreen with a keyboard. I know 8 directions is supposed to be limiting, but it also allows a degree of precision I don't think is possible with a bendy analog stick.

As for when I play, I tend to play mostly silently, except when I commentate to myself on the mistakes I just made. Sometimes I even describe the attacks as if I were explaining it to a newcomer. ;>_>

I always use the forward type, except in PC-98 where I tend towards the wide shot.

[Krimmydoodle]

8 directions would be limiting if Touhou allowed more than 8 directions, but those of us with bendy analog sticks are stuck to 8 directions too, and yes, I would agree that a keyboard offers a degree of precision more than analog.

I play fullscreen, using an XBOX 360 controller. (A to fire, X to focus, RB to bomb, analog stick to move.  Objectively, I stand by the above statement that having a digital input for your movement offers higher precision, but I personally prefer the feel of an analog stick, even if it fails to offer real omnidirectional motion.)  I also, aside from rare cases (generally involving grinding spellcards in IN Spell Practice, StB, or DS) require listening to the in-game music to play, otherwise, it just doesn't feel right.  I"ll wear headphones if I feel like the music might get on anyone's nerves (if I'm playing a straight run, less likely so, but if I'm grinding out a single stage and hearing the same music repeat over and over as I restart, I don't want to subject anyone else to that).  As for shottype, Needle Reimu forever.

[Zetzumarshen]

I have quite rigid route in mind before trying a full run. Obtained by watching a good run, then try to imitate it in a stage run and tailor it so it suites with my play style and objective. Sometimes I don't have a plan, or don't know what I was doing it wrong, which will be exposed in a full run, especially on PCB and UFO due to carry over from previous stage. Make a theory about a route then test it, quite time consuming in my opinion.

Condition wise I place myself behind my old desktop, using keyboard without a remapper, and caffeinated myself before playing. Turned off the in game music and play other instead, usually vocal-less music, using a headphone. Fullscreen is a must.

I get emotionally attached with runs too. Getting angry, nervous, feeling accomplished, despair, etc., I think I had them all before.

[The Greatest Dog]

Lessee... Fullscreen, with a keyboard. Actually, no, I tend to play UFO better with a controller.

Anyways, I always play with the sound and music on, as it just doesn't feel right without the proper music accompanying every stage.

As for the shot type, I always like to use whatever shot type I feel like. Though I have a liking for Needle Reimu, unless there's a Magic Missile Marisa that's better.

[LHCling]

Windowed, keyboard with remaps to accommodate for the key collisions. Sound system I honestly don't care, whatever floats though I've been known to play sub-optimally more often with earphones. With regard to actually playing, I just read my notes as I play (or before).
...now that I think about it, I haven't touched Stage Practice in quite a while.

Shot Types? I actually broke off most of my preferences. With regard to survival, I'll generally pick <target> Homing.

[Zengar Zombolt]

Fullscreen

earbuds

keyboard with remaps to accommodate for the key collisions

Simple as that.

[ふねん1]

Keyboard (with remapped keys), fullscreen, and headphones (the kind that wrap around the ear).

Except for PCB and sometimes EoSD, I stick with "Needles Reimu". Forward-concentration shottypes are my overall preference.

[ebarrett]

Fullscreen, keyboard, earphones, after 1:00AM, and nowhere nearly as often as you'd think.

The "ritual" itself, when I have both the time and the mindset to actually play, is usually test run -> eat something while pondering how to best achieve whatever I'm trying to do -> one or two serious runs, with an optional fifteen minutes or so of stage practice if something REALLY wrecked the test run. If the goal is achieved, hooray; if not but the results were promising, try again the next day; if everything was a complete failure, don't touch that game for at least a month. And when not pursuing any short-term goals, random PoDD runs/PoFV matches to keep my reflexes/reading from withering.

[Sen]

Fullscreen. Easier to see the gaps in the bullets. Usually I prefer to play with just my laptop speakers, but if there's someone within earshot I'll wear headphones (this isn't just for Touhou, I generally prefer no-headphones).

My playstyle is about 80% survival, 20% scoring. My desire for grazegrazegraze has gotten me killed on more occasions than I care to admit :V

As for shottypes, I generally prefer forward-focus types (UFO!MarisaA, SA!ReimuA, etc), although spread types can be pretty fun every once in a while (SanaeB and MS!Yuka for example).


My style is generally "hey let's play Extra" or "hey let's do some stage practice" until I feel like doing a full story mode run.

[Nobu]

Used to play fullscreen, lately have been playing nigh-fullscreen-windowed mode. Headphones if i'm feeling fancy, and a logitech PS2 style controller.

I'm half-regretting not learning on the keyboard, as while I used to be about even on both, now i'm absolutely terrible on everything but a controller.

[Neo Aemilius]

Keyboard, Fullscreen, Speakers(sometimes headphone)

Always use some homing style reimu but in EoSD, Im sticked with Marisa A

sometimes watching 1cc replays before going to roll  :V

[Chronometer]

fullscreen, keyboard, headphones

Characters are.. well, the ones I like, I don't really care too much for what their attacks are (except that I can't stand homing attacks, i.e. I don't use homing Reimu except when I need to capture a spell card with her). Since I usually only play PCB and IN, my character/team of choice is Sakuya B for PCB and the ghost team in IN. I don't want to sound to arrogant, but I guess they're not the easiest to use, or are just a little unconventional.

While playing I usually have to constantly remind myself that I'm not good enough yet to go for score but should rather concentrate on survival - I usually start with that when I die two times in a row because I wanted to get those point items so terribly that I flew right into a barrage of bullets without focusing ~~ Of course, bombing is also no option... sometimes I'd rather die than to use a bomb - while this makes somewhat sense during boss fights in practice mode (since you can go on practicing this pattern then), outside of boss fights and during story mode that always makes me end up frustrated, since dying with 5 or so bombs in stock is just not cool.... Especially if you're not even able to 1cc normal mode on either games.

I hate left/right microtapping

edit: I just proved that I still can't get over my bad habit by using more continues than bombs in my PCB run a few minutes ago ~~

[CK Crash]

Fullscreen, keyboard, speakers.

I used to play 960x720 resolution windowed, because my old comp distorted fullscreen programs, but my new 1600x900 monitor properly pillarboxes the games. Windowed with default resolution is just far too small for me to see anything, even if it appears sharper. Also, I have no idea how anyone could ever play without a keyboard. Anything else just seems incredibly awkward to me.

[Treasurance]

fullscreen

then i press buttons

[shadowbringer]

(window/fullscreen)
- fighters and PoFV netplay: windowed (normally I leave msn open and close the other applications as I chat with whoever I'm playing with :p)
- PoFV: windowed/fullscreen (however this game likes to crash when I need to save replays)

- Mame: fullscreen/windowed (take some breaks between playthroughs and see what the people on msn are chatting about :p)

(input)
- keyboard (I don't have arcade sticks, want to get at least one)

(etc.)
- when playing PoFV, I'm mostly concerned with remembering the movement speed/shot damage/charge speed in mind, to not lose my chains (I usually try to create leftover time to give myself more time to think about how to maintain my chain and cancel bullets on the screen)

- when playing Mame (competing for score), I usually try to read the game's strategies and watch replays to see them in action and other important information (how to make certain parts/boss fights more manageable, or how do other players prefer to play on certain parts, for example). Since I think my memorization isn't good, I don't use savestates until I can get past the first stages in a satisfactory manner ( so I won't have to forget what I practiced through savestating and relearn it again ) and can absorb better this knowledge. Of course, sometimes (read: in some games) the score from the first stages won't make the difference you expected, so these could be played for survival in order to lead the player to those stages which he/she practiced better.

Having played fighting games against other players helped make me more perceptive about what I'm doing wrong when I'm getting my runs ruined, and at least these "don'ts" I can remember and avoid, or try to.

Also, of course I'll restart the game if I get frustrated from noticing that I've missed an opportunity to score well, and said opportunity was within my reach. My memorization isn't (once again) good enough to benefit myself from not restarting.

[Garlyle]

I play windowed.

Does this make me a freak?

[RainfallYoshi]

Fullscreen. Keyboard. Headphones.

:3 I just can't concentrate and do well unless I have some headphones in to fill my ears with the sounds of bullets and awesome ZUN music. Also helps me drown out distractions.

Also, Homing Reimu. :V

[Zengeku]

I play Full Screen with keyboard and i like listening to the games OST with the volume set pretty high. If anyone in my house gets annoyed they know that i respect requests to turn the volume down so its not a problem.

Loud music also helps drown out swearing and cursing.

The music is actually very important for me. If i don't like the music in a particular stage i don't feel like playing the stage for example. That explains how i consistently perfect MoF Stage 4 (aside from a bomb you know where) but have to bomb spam MoF Stage 5 (not just as a means of scoring but because i die if i don't). Autumnal Waterfall has drawn me to play Stage 4 a lot while Stage 5 have been neglected because i don't need practice for Sanae and find her stage theme mediocre.

[RegalStar]

I play windowed. After doing so for more than half a year it's hard to gauge gaps in full screen, as I found out when once EoSD for some reason refused to work under windowed mode until I restart the computer.

For sound I just use a pair of speakers. Touhou music for everyone in the house!

As for shot type, I'm mostly leaned towards homing, but I use ReimuA in SA since ReimuB's homing is really awkward. I don't always use Reimu's homing when other homing are available, though - SakuyaA and SanaeA are my perferred shot type in PCB and UFO, respectively.

[Zengeku]

Oh yeah, forgot:

When it comes to shot types i pretty much always use the same character.

EosD: ReimuB
PCB: ReimuB
IN: Border Team
MoF: ReimuB for Lunatic mode. ReimuA for Extra.
SA: ReimuA
UFO: ReimuA for Lunatic mode. SanaeB for Extra.

[Ghaleon]

Fullscreen, Headphones, Keyboard.
I tried playing around with a PS3 controller awhile back, it was better the first time I tried it with SA only, but it never really helped after that, so back to keyboard for me.
My fave character types as follows (I think they're pretty normal)
SoEW: Slomo-reimu (#3 I guess)
LLS: Not sure who I like most yet.
MS: Mima (seriously, is this even balanced?)
EoSD: MarisaA
PCB:  MarisaA...Though I'm trying to prefer Needles Reimu, I just can't for some reason, I always do worse.
IN: Reimu/Yukari. I suck at IN so being the hax team helps. If I have to pick another one I do significantly better with Sakuya/Remi than the other 2 teams. I find using the malice cannon is distracting and I can't dodge properly when I do, and weaker than Remi if I don't. And I just HATE youmu/Yuyuko's shot styles. Remi's familiar system really kicks ass against bosses too. It's like homing reimu only stronger.
MoF: Needle Reimu, is it even possible to survive Sanae's BS dense spellcards without bombinb as someone else? I guess I should watch a replay of MoF (I have yet to for lunatic, I'm such a slacker). I do better with homing Reimu when I go for a 1CC, until Kanako that is then it's lol need needles.. VoWG without fast dps is just NOT going to happen for me.
SA: Reimu/Yukari...Again, not even balanced, small hitbox, strongest shottype, best "special" (screen wrapping thing), ezmode team ftw.
UFO: ....I like t he danmaku in this game, and the boss fights. but *I HATE THE POWER UP SYSTEM SO VERY MUCH*.. I just can't enjoy this game, I just can't. But I like Piercing Marisa so far with this one.

[Zengeku]

People gotta learn that characters like SA ReimuA or MS Mima isn't overpowered but EFFECTIVE. 

[The Greatest Dog]

ReimuC, MarisaA, MarisaB, and MarisaC are possibly more effective at surviving, provided you have the right mindset, than ReimuA in SA.

It's just that ReimuA is more effective at capturing shit.

That being said, in SA Extra, it's either ReimuA, MarisaC, or bust.