IN: is there a point to destroying familiars?

[twosixtyseven]

hi, i'm new here. here's a newbie post for you guys.

i've been playing imperishable night for a while, and i'm having trouble on the hard difficulty setting. i came here for some random tips and some gameplay mechanics i didn't fully understand (there's still some out there) and i stumbled across some beginners videos that showed people destroying familiars.

i'm using the border team, and maybe reimu is just too weak to kill the familiars fast enough, but even so, the familiars come back preeetty fast, thereby wasting all that effort. can someone please explain how destroying familiars actually helps in-game? i do much better when i ignore the familiars.

(PS: is there a site with the scoring system, gameplay mechanics all listed out and easy to read? thanks.)

[theshirn]

http://touhou.wikia.com/wiki/Touhou_Wiki

Very much is your friend.

Some familiars are eminently worth destroying, as they make dense clouds of bullets trivial.  Others, as you have noticed, respawn so fast that it may not be worth it.

Also, if you're a newbie, I'd highly recommend knocking it down to Normal until you're more comfortable with the gameplay, but that's just me.

[twosixtyseven]

i was sorta torn regarding that. i've played some shmups, so i'm not THAT new. i figured i would switch it up to hard once i beat normal, and i did, both endings. the beginning was getting boring so i figured i would move on. but hard is pretty overwhelming at times. the scrubs between bosses are what get me, honestly.

edit: oh yeah, and also: i've been there! but the only thing i could find was that 2 paragraph spiel on the imperishable night page. and i was looking for something a little more in depth than that.

double edit: JUST found that strategy section, WHOOPS! thanks!

[Drake]

Destroying enemy familiars don't yield as much Time as killing the enemy, but familiars, especially bosses', fire extra bullets. If you destroy them, they won't fire any more bullets. That's pretty much all there is to it.

Also some familiars you can't destroy, either.

[twosixtyseven]

Destroying enemy familiars don't yield as much Time as killing the enemy, but familiars, especially bosses', fire extra bullets. If you destroy them, they won't fire any more bullets. That's pretty much all there is to it.

Also some familiars you can't destroy, either.

the thing is, the familiars that i want to destroy are usually far or rotating or both, making them hard to hit. so it takes forever, then theres usually only like 3 seconds of cease-fire.

edit: maybe if someone could upload a replay with a good example? =) (boy this board moves fast for the middle of the night and being a fairly obscure game!)

[Ghaleon]

I'm no IN pro... Not that I'm a pro with any Touhou game yet. But I consider myself able to get the job done mostly. Anyway, I generally find that killing enemy familiars for the most part is just a waste of time. Alot of them take so many shots to kill, that they are pretty much all the way across the screen by the time they die.

Only real exception I remember is elrin's final spell where she surrounds you with like 30 and they all shoot at you, you shoot a bunch down and she never replaces em.

[Helepolis]

Killing familiars is something you should really do vs some bosses. Observe, analyse, plan and act. You deffiniately want to kill the familiars Wriggle, Mystia spawn for example. They can make your life quite miserable. Not to mention Marisa's opening attack and last non-spellcard.

The only one who has annoying familiars which have tons of life to kill are Keine, Reisen and Kaguya, generally you should not even attempt to kill those.

Also when you are playing Reimu solo, you will discover how valuable it is to destroy familiars.

[Gambit]

It's a good idea to destroy the front two familiars for all of Keine?s non cards to lessen the amount of bullets on the screen since you usually can get her health almost all the way down before she spawns the next set.

Also don't you generally have to let the fairies in stage 2 spawn their familiars in order to get enough time to face Mystia?s last spell?

Aside from that I find it safer to just ignore the familiars altogether. 

[Helepolis]

If you are going for a CC then you shouldn't even be worrying about Final spells. Those can be always unlocked in practise mode anyway.

I indeed forgot about Keine's first boss non-card and second also Keine's mid non-card. Deffiniately have to kill those familiars. Basicly staying either constantly focussed or nonfocussed there is the best way.

Mystia's last two spellcards have familiars which can be killed relative fast which helps alot in reducing ammount of bullets because you can't see a damn thing in the darkness.

And Eirin's last spellcard is familiar hell, killing them ASAP only makes your life easier.

Basicly -> KILL KILL KILL.

[Gambit]

True, no point in going for last spells if you are just trying to clear the game.

I also forgot to mention that destroying the familiars the fairies in 6b create helps out too.

[Helepolis]

Actually in 6b and 6a you should aim for the rabbits and not for the familiars. Because they all explode anyway and the rabbits fire aimed bullets alot.