So after that bad experience with Kagerou I had today, I figured I owed it to myself to sit down and practice Kagerou. So I did. And I ended up timing out all of her Lunatic spellcards.
During my journey, I developed lots of speculation about these spells.
Spellcard 28: Fang Sign "Canine Teeth Under the Moon"
I actually don't mind this spell one bit. It's my favorite in the stage. It's very active, and forces you to misdirect each wave at certain points in order to be able to damage the boss, while still being able to dodge the spray of bullets she sends at you. I like to misdirect the waves upward and diagonally. Alternating sides on each way. That way I can dodge each way in the center and damage Kagerou, effectively capturing the card.
Spellcard 32: Transformation "Star Fang"
So this is the spellcard that gave me the most trouble. Upon my 99+ tries of experimenting, I pondered the idea of my dodging strategy being off. So I decided to do something way out of my comfort zone. Now, it's very common to not want to glue your eyes to your hitbox. And it's not something I particularly do, either. Most of the time I dodge by keeping my eyes glued just a bit ahead of my sprite. But this time I aimed my eyes far away from my sprite, way out of what I would be comfortable with. That way, I'd be able to dodge and look at every bullet with my peripheral vision. Basically. The bullets spawn fast, but appear to slow down with time. If you can locate all the bullets and their path before they get close to you, you can make some pretty interesting dodges. Peripheral vision dodging is not something I find myself having to do in Touhou, well, not to this extreme. But this really did help my dodging skills. I believe that this spell IS best done in the center. While it may be less dense on the side, Kagerou stops in the center. So good luck damaging her if you are a non homing shot on the side.
Spellcard 36: Roar "Howling of the Full Moon"
Now this is an interesting one for me, and one that I still don't fully understand. Obviously, you'll want to stay in the corner. But you won't be able to really be 100% safe, as there is still potential for very tricky set ups. I've noticed that the gigantic white balls spawn before the red bullets come firing at you. I figured you'd want to examine this before the red bullets spawn, so that you could see where the safer gaps are. But as much as I tried, I failed to find any type of reliable pattern. So I just dodged to the best of my ability until I was able to get good RNG and successfully time it out. I'm still convinced that the position of the white balls has to do with where you want to dodge though. So I'm going to keep investigating.
Spellcard 40: Sirius "High-Speed Pounce"
This one is difficult mostly because it requires you to dance around the screen more than you would like to. But once you understand where she moves, and what's going on, you can form a route for this spell. I timed it out as if I were trying to damage her, so that I could get the maximum amount of practice I could from timing the spell out. The hardest part is when the white balls disperse into red bullets. Especially when you're surrounded in the purple bullets that she spawns after each wave. It's scary dodging, but as long as I knew where Kagerou was going, it helped me dodge the bullets as they came without getting too overwhelmed. The places she spawns the white balls is generally static. So knowing where the soft spots beforehand sure helped. It was still difficult though.
I complain about Kagerou a lot. And I truly do think she is the hardest boss in this game. But I don't think she is bullshit. Obviously, you CAN learn her attacks, and there can be some point of consistency with her fight. Kagerou reminds me heavily of EoSD, which is filled with mostly random patterns that are hard to get consistent at. Kagerou's style of patterns really got to me, and I found myself dying way more than I would have liked to for something as early as a stage 3 boss. I found myself losing all of my extra lives and game-overing at Kagerou even when I got to her without dying prior. I believe that one day I'll be able to get some consistency with her fight. But for now, I'll see what I can do. I love DDC. I love doing LNB runs of this game. And I won't let my incompetence at Kagerou ruin it for me. I think I'll grow on her fight. In fact, I already am, just from the timeouts. With more practice, comes more experience. I think I was just mostly shocked that I would find the stage 3 boss of a Touhou game to be the hardest boss of that particular game. Given that there's three more stages above that stage. I will say that Yatsuhashi IS definitely a close second. But I really love Yatsuhashi's fight. Anyway, enough rambling. I hope to achieve a B-shot LNB of this game soon.
