The Dream is Dead.

[Mr. Sacchi]

If you're sad because you're failing EoSD, then don't be, I should be sad on my first day of playing, after all I lost all of my continues on rumia's opener also I bomb-spammed Wriggle, on easy, with slow mode on.

If you need replays of easy/normal difficulties, you can ask me, I'm pretty much the most available guy around (Not really tomorrow/today(saturday), I got a shitton of things to do tomorrow/today, but I'm practically free on sunday)

The major tips were already given, know how to dodge each attack, know when to focus. But in all seriousness this is probably the most important tip:

BOMB WHATEVER MAKES YOU SCREAM.

This is pretty much what guaranteed me  my win on Yukari today, bomb-spamming through Boundary of Humans and Youkai.

Though by "Make you scream" I mean "And attack that you have played through and that you have lost several lives on while trying to capture".

[shadowbringer]

@Drake & Sapz:
sometimes, though, I'd revisit a shmup (Armed Police Batrider and Varth) and get better at them without stressing myself so much, compared to having grinded them (Varth, not so much, but with APB I was struggling to try to learn how to score well on the first stage) before the hiatus.

@Triple Factorial:
haven't watched your replay yet, but I'd say that there must be some way for you to clear EoSD on Normal. Different players have different developed (or underdeveloped) virtues and weaknesses. Some may have better self-control (paraphrasing this article, "A good gameplan requires above all a clear head to apply it."), some may have a better sense of observation (for example, noticing that you're dying too much on the exact same spots along the stages and planning out what to do to make that section easier), some may have better movement precision or bullet/path reading speed/range (maybe I mean the ability to see the "safest" escape options which lead to more escape options -- I mean, avoiding cornering yourself when dodging, if you see that the attacks are going to corner you further -- and plan ahead or spontaneously). If at first you get frustrated, this may mean that you don't have an answer to overcome the problem of why are you dying and what can you do against it.

Some suggestions:
- if you notice that a pattern is being too troublesome for you (even after watching replays to see other ways of dealing with them), bomb them. Example: one of Meiling's nonspells, where she spreads kunai around herself and may clip you (at least on Lunatic). Don't be afraid to die if you don't have bombs left, as bombs and lives are resources that must be spent properly, and dying with bombs on stock is harmful.
- There are some places along the stages which are made easier if you.. uh.. memorize them. Examples: some of the stage 4's attacks are aimed away from you, so you don't have to move around across the screen; the streams of enemies that shoot aimed spreads at you are made less troublesome if you know where they'll come from. Also, there are some safespots in stages 3 (one of the top corners against the fairies near the end of the stage) and 5. (top section of the screen when fairy maids come from the sides shooting downwards)
- keep playing the games on one credit until you've memorized enough to get to stage 5 with enough resources (lives and bombs), then SPEND IT EASY! (of course, the last two stages+bosses can ruin your credit, but by then you'll have developed the mentality in which dying with bombs in stock is harmful, so if you do it once, you bomb more instinctively due to the effort needed to bring said resources so far)
- maybe it would be a valid suggestion to play other shmups too, so that you get used with progressively faster bullet speeds, so you can, with time, be able to make decisions faster and more naturally when you come back to EoSD.
- finally, don't force yourself; like I mentioned before, grinding a game doesn't necessarily warrant satisfactory results, because frustration is usually a reaction from not having an answer to a given problem. Progress isn't something that you can force into yourself in such a short time.

[KrackoCloud]

I remember my first Normal 1cc was greatly aided by this little site: http://sites.google.com/site/touhoueosd/
It may be relatively simple, but it helps you anticipate attacks.

Besides that... Any other tips I may give have already been given.

[Drake]

Shadow, I never said grinding everything on Lunatic nonstop was the best way to do things. I was attacking the mentality that just because you can't play on [difficulty+x], you can't and shouldn't practice on that difficulty. Some people learn differently than others, some shmups are learned differently, hell even patterns are learned differently. And what if you can't beat Easy with continues on your first few tries? Does that mean you should pack it up? Well, you could (and be a gigantic wimp lololol), but you could also keep going at it until you can complete it. And then hey, you got better doing that, what's stopping you from doing even better? Time constraints, I guess. But you spent enough time beating Easy, you can spend some more time doing better. Unless you want to drop the games, and go back to where you were before tackling the game seriously in the first place and ruining your resolve. I suppose.

But yeah of course you can still get better by picking things up in bursts every once in a while. But I would suppose that might only work if you're still playing shmups, because you will get worse as you forget how to play properly. It's a bit different with more experienced players, of course, but yeah.

[Zengeku]

I'm translating "either trivial or about memorization" as "either I can beat it or I can't," since that makes a lot more sense in this context.

No Naut. What i mean is stages that are so trivial that you won't need to play it much at all to consistently perfect it; most stages 1 and 2's and the memorization stages; the stages that are easy as soon as you know what you are doing.

It really hasn't anything to do with what i can or can't do.

[shadowbringer]

Drake: I agree with you, I was just saying that, as an instinctive answer, "pushing harder" (not in the sense of persevering, but in the sense of keep trying and see what happens without having any answers to what you could've done to avoid deaths) may lead to further frustration (which will lead to further failed attempts and even further frustration) with fewer results; I'll agree with your point, when you say that different people learn in different ways, though.. maybe I like to try to think about why I lose matches in fighting games and, in the case of shmups, restart the games as soon as I die, because (like I've mentioned several times before :p) my memorization is so bad (and unreliable, sometimes) that I need to reset, so that it forces me to stop and gives me time to think about that mistake and to try to remember how it can be avoided   (sometimes I'd stress my memory with some information -- important "checkpoints", I'd call them -- when a particular stage was reached, so that I wouldn't forget it when the time to use that information came.. I say stress, because I like to remove such information from my memory as soon as it's no longer needed.)

To the OP, sorry if the above paragraph isn't helpful, but I agree (once more) with Drake, in that it's important to fight the "wall", or at least knowing that you can overcome it. Maybe you may believe you can't, but maybe you haven't explored enough of the gameplay possibilities (which lead to a deeper mental exercise, which lead to fun, from having more elements to play with such as path anticipation, rewards for taking the most correct-ish decisions, manipulation of rank or -- more often -- enemy behavior, gameplay space usage, feeling when a bomb is needed -- in the case you can't find a path while being progressively cornered, for example.. and judging, from the masses of enemies and enemy bullets and their speeds, where are the best places for you to escape, constantly)

[Drake]

Rampantly retrying without attempting to figure anything out is an example of "not trying". But yes, I agree.

[三重階乗]

I can't do it. There's just no way I'd ever hold on, so it's best to just let go now.

I am too weak-willed, too habitual, and too defeatist in the face of a long, hard climb like this to have even the most longshot of chances to actually be halfway-decent at Touhou after all this time. I've been like this my whole life, and probably will be until the day I die. I shouldn't have brought this site into my personal drama, and in hindsight I seriously should've let this urge pass like the other two. I was a worse idiot than Rumia to think otherwise.

But all of that is moot. I did what I thought was the right thing to do, and now I have to suffer the consequences for it. To be quite honest, I deserve all the flak I get and then some. I'd call being here an honor, but I'd be insulting every last member of this site including myself. I have no reason to live on in this community as anything other than a pure lurker, if even that.

I'm nothing but scum that thought it had a chance to become something else.

[Kilgamayan]

Uh if you want to play the games then just play the games
If you want to accomplish something specific keep playing the games until that happens
If you don't want to play the games because they're too hard for you, then don't play the games anymore

This is really not complicated, you don't need to do some kind of stupid penance for not playing the games, you just launch the application and then input commands to maneuver your player character until satisfaction is reached

[Vibri]

If you spent your time playing the game instead of being an overly dramatic wuss you'd already have achieved your goal

[Drake]

[ふねん1]

No need to be so down on yourself about this. Obviously I can't make your decisions for you, though I'll say again that getting better at Touhou is supposed to be a long process, much longer than the amount of time you seem to have given it. But if you're legitimately not having fun playing, then I suppose it is better to stop. Shooting games aren't for everyone, after all. None of us here will think you any worse for it, so please, stop beating yourself up. You'll still be welcome at MotK.

[Stuffman]

LOSING IS FUN!

[Alfred F. Jones]

Hey, Triple Factorial!!!

I was pretty much in your position two years ago, except I didn't blow up in front of people, just at myself. It got to the point that I hated the daily grinding of trying to beat EoSD normal. I even practiced on hard, and sucked at it, too. Then I went back to normal and sucked worse.

Eventually I made it. By the skin of my teeth, but I made it. And to this day I wasn't able to beat Remi with anything close to dignity. 'till tonight. Your defeatism reminded me of me, so I went back to try and beat Remi, no restarts or ragequits. I died when I should have bombed, had plenty of embarrassing screwups. But if nothing else, you inspired me to this.

Look, I've been there. I know how it feels to despair against not being able to beat EoSD. But if you keep going, someday, you'll get there. And even if you decide not to keep trying, you still have a place here at MotK. Giving up on an entire community because you can't beat a game is silly. And don't delete your account over something like this. You won't lose until you stop trying to win. Now get back here and press on and rub Remi's face into the dirt with your victory.

[Thata no Guykoro]

But all of that is moot. I did what I thought was the right thing to do, and now I have to suffer the consequences for it. To be quite honest, I deserve all the flak I get and then some. I'd call being here an honor, but I'd be insulting every last member of this site including myself. I have no reason to live on in this community as anything other than a pure lurker, if even that.

I'm nothing but scum that thought it had a chance to become something else.

Hey, don't beat yourself up. I have very little skill in shumps and have put very little effort into practicing. And yet I still post and participate here. :V

[Furienify]

Seriously, what is this thread I don't even. :/

It is a game. You did not just fall dead in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. You did not fail to get above the yellow line in Biggest Loser. You didn't fail miserably on Jeopardy. You didn't fail to rescue a child from a burning building.

You lost a computer game. A game. I don't know how to not sound like a jerk in saying all this. Stop becoming an hero. World will not end, community does not care, nor should you care what the internet thinks of you. tl;dr? Harden up, princess.

[Chronojet ⚙ Dragon]

Hey, don't beat yourself up. I have very little skill in shumps and have put very little effort into practicing. And yet I still post and participate here. :V

This.
Gonna just second that.

* Mewkyuu walks back to his desk

[Tengukami]

I can fully appreciate having a goal in mind and wanting to achieve it, but for me - and I say this as a terrible, terrible shmups player with almost no self-discipline and the attention span of a humming bird - I get the greatest amount of enjoyment out of the trying. Just opening the game, hearing the music, fingers on Z, X and arrows - always gets my heart pumping. I laugh at my stupid deaths, facepalm with a chuckle when I completely forget about those columns of bullets that fall straight down from a row of fairies in Stage 3 of EoSD. It's a game.

Try to shift your focus away from getting the 1CC and towards just the joy of playing. If you'll pardon my bastardized zen koan here, maybe if you let go of the desire to 1CC and concentrate more on just playing casually, you'll see things you never saw before in the game. Drake makes a good point in trying and trying again, as does shadowbringer in saying that walking away from a game for a while can give you a fresh perspective. I'd add that watching your replays to see what you might've done wrong will also help.

But the point of a game is to have fun. Forget about achievements for now, and just play for the hell of it. Don't let anyone else tell you what sort of player you're supposed to be or what kind of goals you need to accomplish to be a "true" fan or player. Just have fun with no goals in mind.

[Sen]

Dude seriously, it's a god damned game. There is absolutely no reason to be so amazingly dramatic about not being able to complete an obscure Japanese shoot-em-up.