Bored of normal Touhou? (ability unlock challenge)

[Something XutaWoo-y]

While I was bored, I came up with an evil idea. Not the most evil, but definately below neutral.
It's a special way to play Touhou games when you're bored or up for a challenge. People who can regularly do no(x) runs would probably find this easy, but for those of you who can't beat one of those yet want to play a restriction challenge, here's one to try.

Basically, you start with only the ability to perform horizontal movement. That's the only thing you can do. However, once you hit stage 3, you can finally move up and down. After you've managed to beat that, you gain the ability to die, meaning you don't have to perfect through the latter half of the game. Stage 5 is when you finally gain the focus ability, and in stage 6 you can bomb. No deathbombing, though.

I tried this out on MoF and couldn't beat stage 1. Although I wasn't really trying and I suck at timing stuff out, so.

What do you think? Feel free to post replay, videos, or whatever of your arbitrarily limiting yourself. :V

For extra fun, combine with Drake's black squares of DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

[Arcengal]

Just tried this on MoF myself. It's rather unfun; Hina's mid-boss card is an absolute fiend when you're no-vertical but without focus is basically asking for death, which you can't do anyway.

Perhaps a better idea is to make it so you get abilities when you get a certain amount of points?

[Paper Conan]

I tried this out on MoF and couldn't beat stage 1. Although I wasn't really trying and I suck at timing stuff out, so.

Just tried this on MoF myself. It's rather unfun; Hina's mid-boss card is an absolute fiend when you're no-vertical but without focus is basically asking for death, which you can't do anyway.

Perhaps a better idea is to make it so you get abilities when you get a certain amount of points?

Pacifist =  no points (unless you count suicides past stage 3 or Eirin's last card) :trollface:
It is very.... meh. It's possible to do Hina's midboss card (on Easy/Normal), but it seems a little too harsh to be forced to dodge no-vert unfocused in the beginning half of the game.

Is there a tool/program that raises the rank up to max/makes bullets denser in some games? I opened this thread hoping to find one. ._.

[Vanhaomena]

My favourite self-imposed handicap is playing on a higher framerate. PCB Normal is suddenly a challenge again when the speed is doubled and it's surprisingly playable, the difficulty is of quite a different sort than standard speed Lunatic, it requires more reflexes and less tactical game sense. There's also a bonus of having everything look like it's in slow motion when you switch back to the usual speed.

[Sapz]

in stage 6 you can bomb. No deathbombing, though.

So what happens if you press bomb but you're a bit late? :V