Author Topic: Touhou 16 「東方天空璋(とうほうてんくうしょう) ~ Hidden Star in Four Seasons」 announced  (Read 294915 times)

Chill Observer

  • Aimless fanatic
  • haHAA
Well, this is a thing that has already happened:

https://youtu.be/Wvxx0YVlqAw

700 million score within 2ish days. Crazy. Is Fall Aya going to be the go-to score choice?
You're a bit late on that. 1 billion has been reached.
Retired Touhou player. Not involved with anything Touhou anymore.

Serela

  • Moon Tiara Magic
  • VIA PIZZA SLINGING
.Aya feels somewhat weak compared to the other three. I tried her with both autumn and spring. Her shot-type is narrow and she doesn't have the same advantages as Marisa. Perhaps it's just me?
She's got Marisa-grade range, but without the firepower, which is a bad starting point. Instead she's got a fast unfocus (It's not stated but... it definitely feels faster, doesn't it? Am I wrong?) and piercing shots in Focus mode; whether piercing matters is to be seen in later stages, but the fast unfocus makes her good at using Fall, which... is very Aya-like, to say the least. Fall is ridiculously powerful so that alone isn't half bad, and fast unfocus has it's advantages. Other than that, her bomb is PERFECT for scoring... which is relevant for all players as score=lives, and it looks like there's definitely going to be score extends that are not easy to reach, unlike how it usually is. Cirno's bomb isn't bad either, but Reimu and Marisa... well, Marisa's all about power as usual, at least. Aya's gonna be the big score shot this time around due to her bomb, even if Fall gets nerfed before full release.

I was excited when I read somewhere that Aya's shots angle with your movement and thought it'd be like PCB SakuyaB's "Power Direction" shot, which was a really nice shot. However, if it actually does that at all, the effect is almost unnoticeable.

edit:Okay, I think the angle shots is just for Aya's BOMB. Also, Cirno's bomb has basically the same duration... you kinda need to cast it in a corner to farm score with it though, so it's a slightly harder to use. Spread shot probably isn't ideal for scoring either, and if Aya does have faster unfocus, that'll propel Aya ahead again. She'll still be fairly good at it, though. And if nothing else, that's important for casual players getting lives~
« Last Edit: May 09, 2017, 01:27:11 AM by Serela »
<mauvecow> see this is how evil works in reality, it just wears you down with bureaucracy until you don't care anymore

I was mentioning to someone on Discord, I love this game's balance.

Aya's a lot like MoF Reimu C. She sucks at the bottom of the screen, but she has insane shotgunning damage. And since you can stay right next to the boss for a good portion of the game thanks to the releases, it evens itself out.

Likewise, fall is probably the best release (though not so ridiculous that the others are blown out of the water) but it's also probably got the worst sub options. They're very weak in general, and the way they're positioned it's impossible to get all of them and your main shot to hit any individual enemy, which makes them even weaker.

That said, with spring release causing you to fail spell cards it's hands down the worst season.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2017, 04:02:25 AM by TresserT »
My name is Tres. It sounds like "Tray". Tressert is "Tray-zurt"; like Tres dessert.
I've cleared every touhou game on Lunatic, and beaten every extra except SoEW.
NMNB: MoF Hard, SA Extra, UFO Extra

Likewise, fall is probably the best release (though not so ridiculous that the others are blown out of the water) but it's also probably got the worst sub options. They're very weak in general, and the way they're positioned it's impossible to get all of them and your main shot to hit any individual enemy, which makes them even weaker.

That said, with spring release causing you to fail spell cards it's hands down the worst season.
I do believe Fall has the best release by a significant margin. I mean, sure Winter's is stupid strong, but Fall chains itself like it's nothing and it lets you retreat safely to boot. That said, Winter has the best sub-options by far

And yes, Spring is worst season

Things I've done (and maybe will improve):
SA L6MNB | SA Lunatic 3b Scorerun | MoF LNB | PCB LNB |DDC LNB

Y'all forgetting that there are more than enough people that just play to win and not play for score.

That would be true of most games in the series, but HSiFS is bringing back purely score-based extends. As such, a certain level of proficiency with the scoring system is important even if you're just playing for a 1cc.

ふねん1

  • Scientific editor
  • If you're alive, you can always keep moving.
Given LoLK changed from score-based extends back to life fragments, we shouldn't project too far ahead on how scoring might mesh with survival. For the demo at least, scoring isn't really that necessary just to get a 1cc imo since releases have survival utility on their own and are so dang plentiful anyway, and there's a decent amount of bombs to back you up if you run out of subs.

Anyway, I haven't gotten to play too much over the past couple days, but I'm finding this game fairly interesting so far. As others have mentioned, the shot types are the biggest highlight of this game, and independent of anything else regarding release mechanics, pattern difficulty, etc., the sheer amount of style combinations you can make is reason enough to try everybody out. Previously the only game I was ever motivated to try more than one or two shots for was SA, mainly because it's my favorite, but going through HSiFS with all 16 shots oughta be fun (I've only done Reimu so far lol). Also as others have mentioned, scoring is absolutely bonkers, so I won't go too much into that other than presenting my slimmest of hopes that ZUN will see what people are doing on day 3 and realizing something needs to change. But something that might be a bit overlooked is how the release mechanic might affect survival play in the full version. Three games in a row now (TD to LoLK), we've had games where people argue that even Lunatic difficulty becomes not just easy, but borderline trivial because the unique mechanics lead to extremely heavy resource abuse (sometimes dependent on character/shot as well, but then again, all it takes is one good shot for it to be a problem). And the sheer frequency of releases in HSiFS has the potential to surpass all of them by miles the way it is now. As someone who enjoys the challenge of Touhou's danmaku patterns themselves (and I recognize I may be a rare breed on this front lol), seeing other mechanics greatly overshadow this aspect of the games as routinely as they've been doing lately is a bit depressing. Though on the topic of the danmaku, Lunatic's patterns feel like they're pretty close to where they should be - not as mind-numbingly boring as TD, but not as insanely hard as LoLK. I stop short of predicting where the second half might take things - I learned my lesson from TD when the second half of that game turned out to mostly not be any harder than the first - but at least we can be sure the first half of HSiFS is all right this time.

But enough of my moping about the gameplay, on to the rest of the game! Some things in HSiFS still tended to be hit-or-miss with me, but I think that's fairly normal - it's rare for anyone to like absolutely everything in a work, after all. Eternity was already an early hit when she was revealed, and I liked her even more after seeing her dialogue. Her trying to out-ham Cirno just put a huge grin on my face lol. Nemuno... I honestly don't know what to think about her. Everything about her just seems so off-putting to me (that includes her danmaku, but I digress). Maybe that was the intent considering she's described as a "mountain hag", but I don't know how much that really adds to things. If it weren't for the fact that she's based on an established Japanese youkai and made friends with the player after defeat like everyone else, I'd swear she was Shrek reincarnated into Gensokyo, which makes her seem more out-of-place than I think she was meant to be. I suspect this mainly lies in cultural differences here, so I'm more willing to let that slide. I'll never get over her ugly outfit though. :V Aunn I've started to warm up a bit more to after seeing her dialogue. In a universe where practically everybody makes friends after a good-old-fashioned duel, Aunn somehow manages to be friendlier than everybody else, a feat unto itself, given her nature as a guardian to the Hakurei Shrine among other places. I definitely look forward to how future works will portray her and her connection to the shrine. As for music, it's probably no surprise I find the title and Stage 1 themes to be amazing. Both are catchy as hell and provide good atmosphere. However, neither Stage 2 theme is really doing it for me so far. There are parts of the Stage 2 theme I like, but others not so much. And Nemuno's theme started getting grating really fast despite the relatively low amount of times I've fought her. I haven't listened to Eternity or Aunn's themes enough to really judge them, though first impressions are sorta in the middle - good, but not great. I thought Stage 3's theme would be kinda meh at first too, but it's been growing a bit on me the past day, so it'll likely end up a good listen. The overall presentation of the game is also very good so far, with a couple exceptions. Stage 2 has a couple danmaku patterns I think end up seeming too bright against the colorful background, never mind some of the danmaku feeling too similar to LoLK Stage 2 and imo not meshing that well with the autumn theme. Stages 1 and 3 are much better though. Stage 1 is very fast-paced and brimming with energy like the intense summer heat, and I can't help but feel pumped up by it. Stage 3 is more relaxing, kinda like what you'd expect at an actual flower viewing, but the danmaku has some great color choices to go along with the background, and everything just looks so inviting. There were a couple teases for a possible winter stage coming up, but given Reimu's musings, we may end up with something we never expected, so that should be fun to look forward to.

EDIT: Oh and how could I forget? "Spring is heeeeere!" :V Thank you Lily White for coming back and brightening up our playthroughs.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2017, 06:51:41 AM by ふねん1 »
"Science is more than a body of knowledge. It's a way of thinking." - Carl Sagan

NEW AND IMPROVED YOUTUBE, now with 60 fps Touhou videos! Latest video update: WBaWC Lunatic/Extra no-miss no-bomb no-Roars no-Spirit-Strikes compilation.

Serela

  • Moon Tiara Magic
  • VIA PIZZA SLINGING
Y'all forgetting that there are more than enough people that just play to win and not play for score.
As I was saying each time, you need score to get lives. In the previous games, just a very basic understanding of the system and attempt to regularly PoC was enough to get all the score extends (past easy or so, at least) but this time it looks like you'll need to ACTUALLY try to score to some degree if you want to get the later ones, since the score extends look to be extending rather far. Expending a little resources on the most milkable patterns in stage 2~3 at the least will probably be worth everyone's while in the full version so your PIV (point item value) is significantly higher for the rest of the game. If you're playing Aya or Cirno it's trivially easy since you just release, then use a bomb, run in a circle, throw a release or two after (depending on your season), so it's nothing tricky or fancy but it'll drastically raise your PIV in an otherwise casual run. Fall is also ridiculously good at racking up huge amounts of PIV, but I suspect it'll be nerfed by full version somehow.

Technically the LoLK demo and full vers swapped from score to life fragments, but I'm pretty sure that was just due to the awkward pointdevice/legacy shenanigans; the system already in place for giving bomb pieces was swapped to life pieces instead, probably because he figured Legacy needed the handicap. It could certainly still happen that we get life fragments again in the full version, buuuut it feels like scoring lives is actually intended this time. I mean, he even made a chunk of the UI for showing at what score you get the next life, so.

As far as the concern for releases making the later part of the game potentially too easy, I can definitely see that. Summer/Fall have immense potential and Winter does still hold possibility of dealing very heavy loads of boss damage by casting it before the cards start, etc. Spring's the only one that feels like it's "normal" in it's usability, making it the worst of the seasons because nothing about it seems OP :V ZUN has lots of time to tone the abusability down a bit though, so we'll see.

Likewise, fall is probably the best release (though not so ridiculous that the others are blown out of the water) but it's also probably got the worst sub options. They're very weak in general, and the way they're positioned it's impossible to get all of them and your main shot to hit any individual enemy, which makes them even weaker.
You say that, but Summer isn't any better XD Seems like the best releases have the worst options. Unless you're playing Cirno (or at least Reimu) I'm not sure the spread damage is worth anything on Summer options, and none of them go forward enough to overlap with your main shot even at max power. (Summer Cirno is also really weak vs. bosses, it feels like... unless you're shotgunning) At least fall will hit the boss when you're not directly on-center. You'll get an icicle or two offcenter with summer I guess, but the damage is probably too little to notice in such cases. So yeah, Winter definitely has the best options XD Spring's aren't bad, but the release doesn't have any really strong points like every other season does, so.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2017, 12:55:25 PM by Serela »
<mauvecow> see this is how evil works in reality, it just wears you down with bureaucracy until you don't care anymore

Summer is admittedly pretty useless on Reimu, and Aya needs power more than she needs spread. It helps Marisa a bunch though, and it lets Cirno melt through stages. Plus its release is a decent option (though definitely not as good as fall).

In general I agree that winter are the best sub options, but that's mostly because 3/4 characters are lacking in power and that's the only one that gives a significant damage boost. If we ignore releases, Marisa's going to do alright with spring or summer too, though super-high-melt-through-everything damage with winter options is still a good choice for her.
My name is Tres. It sounds like "Tray". Tressert is "Tray-zurt"; like Tres dessert.
I've cleared every touhou game on Lunatic, and beaten every extra except SoEW.
NMNB: MoF Hard, SA Extra, UFO Extra

Serela

  • Moon Tiara Magic
  • VIA PIZZA SLINGING
I'd wager ZUN will nerf Fall by making the duration at low levels shorter; lv1 winter and spring barely do anything (lv1 winter is hard to put on a boss without dying) but lv1 fall lasts for an awfully long time, giving it way more power than it should have. It'd still probably be a solid choice, just not... you know, totally crazeballs. The real issue is just that lv1 and 2 do way too much work when the other seasons are nearly useless at those grades past being a small range bullet clear for saving your life.

If that's the only nerf he does then seasons will still be super strong, so, we'll just have to see.

Honestly I don't think about the options so much as the releases, but it depends what difficulty you're looking at I guess. On Lunatic you can abuse mass-releasing due to all the bullets (and as well, you'll probably want to do so; hence the release becomes more important than the options), but on normal you're probably enjoying your options more often than you're releasing them.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2017, 01:19:11 PM by Serela »
<mauvecow> see this is how evil works in reality, it just wears you down with bureaucracy until you don't care anymore

Tengukami

  • Breaking news. Any season.
  • *
  • I said, with a posed look.
And yes, Spring is worst season

I'm not getting this at all. Do you mean as a subweapon? If so, yes, it is definitely the weakest. But when activated? It can be hugely useful for autocollecting enough to fill the Season gauge right back up again, and is very powerful when fully charged. Fall's deal when activated is pretty useless to me.

So I guess it depends what you choose a Season for, really.

"Human history and growth are both linked closely to strife. Without conflict, humanity would have no impetus for growth. When humans are satisfied with their present condition, they may as well give up on life."

I'm not getting this at all. Do you mean as a subweapon? If so, yes, it is definitely the weakest. But when activated? It can be hugely useful for autocollecting enough to fill the Season gauge right back up again, and is very powerful when fully charged. Fall's deal when activated is pretty useless to me.

So I guess it depends what you choose a Season for, really.
It's what Serela said basically, it's the "worst" because everything else is better in some way: Summer has multiple releases and is good for a little burst damage at the start of spellcards, Winter has the best options and its release outright destroys bosses, and Fall is super good on Lunatic's bullet count on top of being decently strong. Spring is more like a PCB border to me, and it does have uses, but it's rather unimpressive (I actually don't care much about it failing spellcards, right now they're looking up to be pointless for score)

Things I've done (and maybe will improve):
SA L6MNB | SA Lunatic 3b Scorerun | MoF LNB | PCB LNB |DDC LNB

Tengukami

  • Breaking news. Any season.
  • *
  • I said, with a posed look.
It's what Serela said basically, it's the "worst" because everything else is better in some way: Summer has multiple releases and is good for a little burst damage at the start of spellcards, Winter has the best options and its release outright destroys bosses, and Fall is super good on Lunatic's bullet count on top of being decently strong. Spring is more like a PCB border to me, and it does have uses, but it's rather unimpressive (I actually don't care much about it failing spellcards, right now they're looking up to be pointless for score)

This I can agree with, definitely. Just been avoiding Winter because it seems brokenly overpowered at the moment.

"Human history and growth are both linked closely to strife. Without conflict, humanity would have no impetus for growth. When humans are satisfied with their present condition, they may as well give up on life."

(I actually don't care much about it failing spellcards, right now they're looking up to be pointless for score)

I've actually been wondering about this. I'm sure cheesing Etrainity's spells for a higher piv is more important than capturing them, but at what point (if ever) is capturing a spell worth more than cheesing it? Since the later in the game you are the less point items there are left, I'd imagine it's have to stop being valuable at some point.
My name is Tres. It sounds like "Tray". Tressert is "Tray-zurt"; like Tres dessert.
I've cleared every touhou game on Lunatic, and beaten every extra except SoEW.
NMNB: MoF Hard, SA Extra, UFO Extra

I've actually been wondering about this. I'm sure cheesing Etrainity's spells for a higher piv is more important than capturing them, but at what point (if ever) is capturing a spell worth more than cheesing it? Since the later in the game you are the less point items there are left, I'd imagine it's have to stop being valuable at some point.
If this keeps up, we'll probably get TD 2.0. The cancel items here look like IN's time orbs, in the sense they increase PIV but still are score items themselves. With PIV capping at stage 3 and bonuses being really low, it seems more valuable to just cancel bullets for 50k each on later stages. It's probably why timers are also really short this time around, enough to cut the time-out ticks to 5 seconds left instead of 10

Things I've done (and maybe will improve):
SA L6MNB | SA Lunatic 3b Scorerun | MoF LNB | PCB LNB |DDC LNB

I was just struck with realisation: sub-seasons enable you to use parts of shots of other characters. Meaning that other characters lend you a part of their power. You could say that you are posessed by parts of their power... Antinomy of Common Flowers incident anyone?

Serela

  • Moon Tiara Magic
  • VIA PIZZA SLINGING
Spellcard bonuses are mostly ever only important on Extra mode anyway, iirc. However, since most season uses don't actually stop you from capping cards right now, it's feasible to grab both.

In terms of PIV capping at stage 3, I think Fall's probably gonna get nerfed, and it's the only reason you can get that much -that- fast. It doesn't take much skill to just spam fall almost -constantly- in Lunatic and avoid any actual dodging, you just have to make sure not to ram into enemies. If it remains as-is though then el o el, but I bet ZUN'll kick down the duration at low release levels.

Spring's not exactly -bad-, it's just that the other seasons are all really abusable looking. A high level release of Spring is impressive, but even on really good casts it's not exactly "sustainable" to the immense degree summer and fall are, and winter does boatloads of damage in exchange for less spammability (and even it's spam potential isn't necessarily too bad since it sticks around awhile)

Hmm, one thing I didn't consider with Spring though, is it'll make you invulnerable for a bit. The pop only lasts a moment in terms of clearing bullets out, so you might be able to grazespam for a little bit and get more season items.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2017, 05:45:40 PM by Serela »
<mauvecow> see this is how evil works in reality, it just wears you down with bureaucracy until you don't care anymore

Drake

  • *
Spellcard bonuses are mostly ever only important on Extra mode anyway, iirc. However, since most season uses don't actually stop you from capping cards right now, it's feasible to grab both.
Feasible yes, but with a good pattern bombing for graze when you run out of gauge, and then continuing to spam Release, is still better.

The cancel items here look like IN's time orbs, in the sense they increase PIV but still are score items themselves.
Yep. Really a lot of the brokenness of this system could likely be fixed by not giving the green point items their insane value, and/or by nerfing the amount of Season you get from canceled bullets. Bombing to graze for Season is not particularly broken by itself.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2017, 08:03:58 PM by Drake »

A Colorful Calculating Creative and Cuddly Crafty Callipygous Clever Commander
- original art by Aiけん | ウサホリ -

As I was saying each time, you need score to get lives. In the previous games, just a very basic understanding of the system and attempt to regularly PoC was enough to get all the score extends (past easy or so, at least) but this time it looks like you'll need to ACTUALLY try to score to some degree if you want to get the later ones, since the score extends look to be extending rather far. Expending a little resources on the most milkable patterns in stage 2~3 at the least will probably be worth everyone's while in the full version so your PIV (point item value) is significantly higher for the rest of the game. If you're playing Aya or Cirno it's trivially easy since you just release, then use a bomb, run in a circle, throw a release or two after (depending on your season), so it's nothing tricky or fancy but it'll drastically raise your PIV in an otherwise casual run. Fall is also ridiculously good at racking up huge amounts of PIV, but I suspect it'll be nerfed by full version somehow.

Technically the LoLK demo and full vers swapped from score to life fragments, but I'm pretty sure that was just due to the awkward pointdevice/legacy shenanigans; the system already in place for giving bomb pieces was swapped to life pieces instead, probably because he figured Legacy needed the handicap. It could certainly still happen that we get life fragments again in the full version, buuuut it feels like scoring lives is actually intended this time. I mean, he even made a chunk of the UI for showing at what score you get the next life, so.

As far as the concern for releases making the later part of the game potentially too easy, I can definitely see that. Summer/Fall have immense potential and Winter does still hold possibility of dealing very heavy loads of boss damage by casting it before the cards start, etc. Spring's the only one that feels like it's "normal" in it's usability, making it the worst of the seasons because nothing about it seems OP :V ZUN has lots of time to tone the abusability down a bit though, so we'll see.

You need score to get lives, yeah.

Not only does Spring generate a lil' bit of score from deleted bullets but it generally does a better job at defending yourself than the others; Will I lose out on a bit of score? Yes. Will I survive and keep my remaining bombs instead of letting them fly into the netherland? Yes.

It's the weakest by far, but not by a large margin if you ask me.

Imo Spring is the best season for new players as it's the only one where you can't die after using it, and the AoE is big enough to collect plenty of PiV at any given point for extends.
The other seasons are obviously better for score or survival (at a certain skill threshold), but Spring is good for what it is.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2017, 06:36:03 PM by shockdude »
Playing Touhou since 18 March 2012. Playing video games since 19XX.
Normal 1CC: EoSD, PCB, IN, PoFV, MoF, SA, UFO, TD, DDC, HSiFS, CtC.
Extra 1CC: EoSD, PCB+Phantasm, IN, PoFV (K&S), MoF, SA, TD, HSiFS, CtC+Phantasm.
Hard 1CC: EoSD, PCB, IN, MoF, TD, CtC.
Lunatic 1CC: EoSD

Everyone's dissing spring but I quite like it.  Considering not for the release but for the options themselves. 

Considering the game has right now a -ton- of streaming patterns and some spellcards last as little as 20 seconds (another thing I'd like to discuss, everything feels so shorter duration-wise compared to the other games!) , those homing shots can help quite a lot.

I've found spring to work best with Aya, since her shot deals a ton of damage but has a very narrow size.  Helped me not-timeout all of Nemuno's nonspells.


GenericArrangements

  • The Monthly Ghost of the Art Atelier
  • i do the music thing (!?)
Spring Marisa is good. Nice focus power, speed and homing.
Please read my posts as if I'm not taking them too seriously.

i did a lunatic 1cc of MoF once and i'm happy enough with just that

Karisa

  • Extend!
  • *
  • High scores are meant to be broken.
Spellcard bonuses are mostly ever only important on Extra mode anyway, iirc.
They're relevant in the main game about half the time, I'd say. Specifically, spells are mostly captured in PCB, IN, MoF, UFO, and DDC, and mostly stalled/bombed in EoSD, PCB, SA, GFW, TD, and LoLK. (PCB is an unusual case where they tend to be relevant only if stalled for graze. IN is a mixture of that and regular captures depending on difficulty.)

The initial spell bonuses tend to reflect whether they're intended to be captured or not-- for example, SA, TD, and LoLK all use a standard formula of (stage+difficulty)*1 million, which maxes at 9m Lunatic stage 6, 11m Extra. Meanwhile UFO bonuses are double that, and DDC's bonuses are about 2.5x as high.

As for the spell bonuses in HSiFS? At stage*(difficulty+1)*500,000, they're the lowest in the main series since EoSD.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2017, 12:22:42 AM by Karisa »

ふねん1

  • Scientific editor
  • If you're alive, you can always keep moving.
As an attacking option I actually think Summer is worse than Spring. Both are indeed very weak, but Spring at least hits things more reliably because of its homing nature, most notably bosses. Though given Winter's sheer power, this is one of those "better than nothing" scenarios, which is basically what Summer is as a sub-shot. :V

Also I'm pretty sure Aya's main shot isn't that strong unless you're shotgunning unfocused. Probably why she has piercing and not Marisa.
"Science is more than a body of knowledge. It's a way of thinking." - Carl Sagan

NEW AND IMPROVED YOUTUBE, now with 60 fps Touhou videos! Latest video update: WBaWC Lunatic/Extra no-miss no-bomb no-Roars no-Spirit-Strikes compilation.

Spring has the standard homing issue- it's veeeeery easy for the shots to target the wrong enemy, and that enemy flies off screen and the shots don't target the enemy you were going after until it's too late. This is an advantage spread shots have over homing in general, not just in this game.

Though that's only part of the issue. Having a slow homing shot combined with the extremely short release is what makes it the worst season imo. Though now that I know spell card bonuses don't really matter in this game, I might have to give it another try.

Unrelated to that, listening to the soundtrack outside of gameplay has given me a much greater appreciation for it. All the songs feel like ZUN's music CD style. I really enjoy the first and third boss themes.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2017, 10:54:07 PM by TresserT »
My name is Tres. It sounds like "Tray". Tressert is "Tray-zurt"; like Tres dessert.
I've cleared every touhou game on Lunatic, and beaten every extra except SoEW.
NMNB: MoF Hard, SA Extra, UFO Extra

Tengukami

  • Breaking news. Any season.
  • *
  • I said, with a posed look.
Yes, homing is often frustrating, being useful only in some portions of a stage. I do like using the option on Spring when it's charged enough or close enough to the boss, but yeah. I still prefer forward focus.

I'll miss these bombs that last forever though.

"Human history and growth are both linked closely to strife. Without conflict, humanity would have no impetus for growth. When humans are satisfied with their present condition, they may as well give up on life."

So what is the general vibe surrounding 16 so far?

From what I have seen the most complaints come from the high level players, with the broken scoring system, *somewhat* extremely abusable releases and certain safespots, people going so far and telling ZUN to throw the towel, geez.
The more casual side seems to enjoy it as always, with this thread being in the rather mixed to positive side.

It isn't uncommon for ZUN to make larger changes to earlier stages in full releases, right? Or is it unrealistic to be expecting those issues that high level players have, such as the broken scoring system, to be fixed?

Jimmy

  • Shameless spender
  • gaining big pounds
So what is the general vibe surrounding 16 so far?

From what I have seen the most complaints come from the high level players, with the broken scoring system, *somewhat* extremely abusable releases and certain safespots, people going so far and telling ZUN to throw the towel, geez.
The more casual side seems to enjoy it as always, with this thread being in the rather mixed to positive side.

It isn't uncommon for ZUN to make larger changes to earlier stages in full releases, right? Or is it unrealistic to be expecting those issues that high level players have, such as the broken scoring system, to be fixed?
I can safely say for myself that I'm thoroughly enjoying this game so far, mostly because of the shottype customization that enables a wide array of various strategies that can be played with. While I agree with that the release mechanic is out of normal compared with most other official Touhou games, I think the main issue lies within the damage output of the flashbombs (of all seasons) rather than the flashbombs themselves. That would the only major criticism I have so far, because more skilled players could just detonate them right at the boss and utterly trivialize all the attacks, so tweaking the flashbombs' strength should do it. Other than that, fixing the safespots in Eternity's patterns would be nice, and alter stage 2's pattern designs a bit, which do look quite similar to that of LoLK's stage 2 but still have their own vibe combined with the background scenery and stage theme.

With that said, I have a positive outlook to the full release and am still meddling around with different shot combinations and scoring strategies. 1 billion, heck, even 100 million ain't a piece of cake with the releases, so I'm somewhat puzzled by all that backlash against this mechanic. I mean, it has issues as mentioned above, but honestly I see a lot of potential with this scoring system. Considering that the amount of PIV obtained by the releases depends on the level of the gauge and not just maximum PIV gain at, say, a level 1 or 2 release already, and that the amount of season items dropped depends on how quickly you kill the stage enemies, it's actually a pretty well worked out system already.

On a side note, there are also some huge-ass arguments going on on Jaimers' demo playthrough about exactly that. There are sure some quite stubborn folks out there.
Normal 1cc: EoSD, PCB, IN, PoFV, MoF, UFO, TD, DDC, LoLK Legacy, HSiFS, WBaWC
Hard 1cc: IN, DDC, HSiFS
Extra clears: MoF, DDC, HSiFS, WBaWC

Goals: Going Extra Hard!

Lt Colonel Summers

  • Lieutenant Colonel
  • Do not mess with a soldier
On a side note, there are also some huge-ass arguments going on on Jaimers' demo playthrough about exactly that. There are sure some quite stubborn folks out there.

As someone who play video games as an enjoyment, I am quite ashamed to find that there are morons who play games not to enjoy but to look cool.
There's nothing inscribed on the dog tag...

GenericArrangements

  • The Monthly Ghost of the Art Atelier
  • i do the music thing (!?)
Honestly unless you're going for score Touhou 16 is perfectly enjoyable. I especially like the sub-weapons shot-type system, because it leads to more variety for each playthrough. Talking about problems though, it may just be me, but I'm having difficulties noticing some bullets because of the lack of contrast between the bullets and the background (particularly in Stage 2). Just a small tweak would help enough.

As someone who play video games as an enjoyment, I am quite ashamed to find that there are morons who play games not to enjoy but to look cool.
100%. Video games were originally intended to be for fun. Even if you play Lunatic Mode, if you aren't having fun there's a problem.

EDIT: Speaking of Lunatic Mode, Stage 1 feels a lot messier than other Lunatic Modes. Particularly the part with the green yin yangs.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2017, 10:14:21 AM by WaluigiTime64 »
Please read my posts as if I'm not taking them too seriously.

i did a lunatic 1cc of MoF once and i'm happy enough with just that