Touhou Gameplay Help Thread #7 - Not just for spell card help after all

[WodofGar]

Either bomb, or there is a temporary safe spot at the very bottom very slightly left from the center - if you use Marisa-A at full power, you can finish before it disappears. Or you could do what the elitists say - watch replays and bash your head against a brick wall. Pick your preference.

I pick safespots, because "Icicle Fall"ing it hurts less than being set on fire, put out, and then skewered by metal, jewels, and moonbeams.

[Mero]

Either bomb, or there is a temporary safe spot at the very bottom very slightly left from the center - if you use Marisa-A at full power, you can finish before it disappears. Or you could do what the elitists say - watch replays and bash your head against a brick wall. Pick your preference.

I'm sorry, but Sakurei's reply was anything but elitist, the reason it might come across as dismissing it's because it is actually a very easy pattern that's always the same and, well, because he doesn't try to appear nice to everyone.

I'd say there are far worse things you'd want your bombs for, and a lot of people would like their solution be transferable across shottypes, so I will say for this particular case that watching a replay IS the best advice you can give.

[Nolegs the Cat]

How does DDC hard/lunatic compare to the other game's hard/lunatic modes?
DDC is probably the game I've played the least, and when I get around with it, I'll probably have done the other games first. But I might want to do it before certain... other games. Points towards SA, UFO and TD
Yes, I know TD is easy but I dislike the trance system immensly

EDIT: Holy shit, I forgot how fun VoWG is.

[Cream Soda]

Sakurei is a girl! Also yeah, there's no reason not to learn a reliable route through a static pattern.  Why make danmaku harder for yourself? Even if Sakurei words things a little brusquely, she's posting here to generously make people's lives easier so they have more fun.

[Nolegs the Cat]

So...

Night with Overly Bright Guest Stars. Beyond the obvious 'git gud' or memorising the lasers, is there a way to do it consistently?

Same with Moses Miracle.

[Reiko]

Moses Miracle is basically streaming : stream to one side while reading the knives ahead, and change direction to avoid getting trapped in the blue stuff on the sides.
The other one is memo ; routes for this one usually involve moving in a small square-ish shape in the bottom center of the screen (to finish it as quickly as possible). I'd advise watching a replay if you really want to get it down.

[Koog]

Doremy. Second non-spell. Lunatic. Help.

[Nolegs the Cat]

Doremy. Second non-spell. Lunatic. Help.

I know Doremi's nonspells have at least some sort of randomness beyond movement, but there is to my knowledge an overlying pattern. I suppose you could play it a lot to get a feel to that pattern, in a similar vein to VoWG. Sorry if that isn't much help...

So. EoSD Lunatic. While I haven't finished with MoF yet, I think I don't want to get stuck on just one game...

What's the best way of doing Cirno's opener? I think you know specifically what I mean. The shotgun part.

Also, I need to learn stage 3 :V
Something I'll get with practice, admittedly.
Anyway to make Meiling's last nonspell any less cheap, though?

(Also, Killing Doll is a shameless Clusterfuck. So is Scarlet Gensokyo.)

[Pakken11]

Yareyare. Did I even mention S of Sakurei in my reply? Cause I so wanted to have anything to do with her in the first place? But I guess the guilty dog always barks first.

[Mr Jovial]

What's the best way of doing Cirno's opener? I think you know specifically what I mean. The shotgun part.

Misdirect the first shotgun, sidestep the 2nd and 3rd (they're wide enough for that to be viable and the centre of the shotgun is aimed at you). Be sure to set that sidestep up in such a way that the ring of circle bullets from the first wave doesn't hit you.

(Also, Killing Doll is a shameless Clusterfuck. So is Scarlet Gensokyo.)

No mention of Scarlet Meister and whatever Remilia's 3rd spell is?  :derp:

[Nolegs the Cat]

Misdirect the first shotgun, sidestep the 2nd and 3rd (they're wide enough for that to be viable and the centre of the shotgun is aimed at you). Be sure to set that sidestep up in such a way that the ring of circle bullets from the first wave doesn't hit you.

I knew that's how you did it, just didn't really know how to execute it. Thanks, Jovial!

No mention of Scarlet Meister and whatever Remilia's 3rd spell is?  :derp:

You might as well mention the Books, then. :derp:
Also, Remi's third card is called 'God Art "Vampire Illusion"'.
And honestly, while probably the most difficult on a second-by-second basis, Scarlet Meister doesn't have the 'ZOMFG BULLETS EVERYWHERE' vibe that Scarlet Gensokyo, Killing Doll, or the Books have. Neither does Vampire Illusion, to a degree.

Is it good to be down low for Forest Blaze (One of Patchy's cards) or up high?
It looks like a relatively easy capture.
So does Agni Shrine High Level, but still.

[Naut]

Doremy. Second non-spell. Lunatic. Help.

Most of the trouble I find is the clumped up big balls, which can be avoided in a fairly straightforward manner, then it's just worrying about the little popcorn bullets after that.

http://i.imgur.com/MbQQ4ds.jpg (image taken from Jaimers' doremy nmnb run at 0:45)

So this is essentially wave one in a nutshell. In the left image, the idea is to be where the green arrow is since the walls will be appearing where the red arrow is. The wave of bullets approaching (right image) shows that the wall will be coming at you where it was safe last time (green arrow), so you just need to move to the red arrow area. Wave two is the reverse and should probably be easier to dodge cause the walls occur at the start of the wave instead of the end, but the general strategy is the same. Wave three is just wave one again, four is two again, etc. Repeats like this. The popcorn bullets can just be dodged after you pass through the wave of big bullets, don't worry about them until after you've spotted the clear path through the big ones.

I keep thinking you mean her first non which I find significantly harder personally, and have no real strategy for doing :V

[Nolegs the Cat]

Why am I finding Stage 3 harder then Stage 4 on EoSD Lunatic?

I'm much better at the stage portion it-self after practicing it, but I'm horrible at Meiling :V

[Pakken11]

Why am I finding Stage 3 harder then Stage 4 on EoSD Lunatic?

I'm much better at the stage portion it-self after practicing it, but I'm horrible at Meiling :V

Meiling's 2nd Card is actually her hardest pattern I feel like, then Colorful Rain and Typhoon can both give you issues depending on rank & what the game feels like. And then there's her 3rd non-spell, which is much like Yamame's first non-spell on Lunatic regarding ridiculousness lol

[FamilyTeam]

I need some serious help with, welp, pretty much the entire second half of PCB on Normal. I've had to replay Stages 1-3 so much I can recite them from memory, but it seems that, after Lily White, my performance drops down significantly. This is what I'm aiming for:
STAGE 1: Perfect
STAGE 2: Perfect
STAGE 3: Perfect
STAGE 4: Using 3 bombs at maximum, using just one is preferred.
STAGE 5: Losing 3 lives at maximum, losing one (or none but it ain't gonna happen) is preferred
FINAL STAGE: I don't care how good or bad I go here, just so long I get the damn 1cc in the end.
I tried watching replays, but Normal PCB 1CCs for Marisa seem rather scarce. Especially decent ones, most are literally just "watch me fail Stages 4 and 5 really badly then absoultely luck out in Stage 6", which I can't use to learn squat.

[Nolegs the Cat]

I tried watching replays, but Normal PCB 1CCs for Marisa seem rather scarce. Especially decent ones, most are literally just "watch me fail Stages 4 and 5 really badly then absoultely luck out in Stage 6", which I can't use to learn squat.

most are literally just "watch me fail Stages 4 and 5 really badly then absolutely luck out in Stage 6", which I can't use to learn squat.

Of course if you simply look up normal 1ccs you'll find that sort of thing, especially for first normal 1ccs.

I don't get the failure of stage 5... except to Youmu, anyway.
But PCB stage 4's stage portion is weird in that if you don't understand it most of it is really hard but once you understand it, literally only four points of it aren't piss easy. It's mainly positioning. Especially on normal, where one of said four parts is piss easy (fairies right before the death fairy) because the arrow spread is absent.
You'll want to look up stage perfects on normal, lunatic 1ccs and the like. If you want tactics, don't look up the bare minimum.

Here's a few examples:
A PCB Lunatic 1cc, show-casing my route for stage 4
Jaimer's perfect run of PCB Stage 4 Lunatic with Marisa
Perfect PCB stage 5 lunatic
Perfect PCB stage 6 lunatic
A whole lot of perfect lunatic stage practices for PCB, including many for stage 4 I'd imagine.

The only thing for the stage portion that's the best for lunatic that ISN'T what is the best on normal is the "aimed shot/arrow rings" fairies right before the death fairy. On normal, they just have the aimed shots. So just stream it slowly at the bottom of the screen for an easy time.

Also, Lily will teleport above where the red arrowheads from her previous barrage aims at, or at your position when she finishes her teleport - I'm not 100% sure.
Move very little during the first phase/third phase/odd phases of her non spell to damage her fairly quickly.
Each wave is rotated based of your position relative to it. You can memorize a safe path if you so wish.

For Resurrection Butterfly... for a first 1cc, don't risk dodging it - just bomb the red waves, hopefully in fashion that gets you a decent amount of the dropping point items.
Milk borders for all it's worth - dodge until it's about to run out, and if you survive until then, pop the border. This goes more so for Resurrection Butterfly because it's so late and the wave-based nature of the attack, but is useful in general. You can pop borders by pressing the bomb button.
Shooting unfocused will get you ~10x more cherry then shooting focused. This means much more borders, which is very helpful for survival.
Just don't be suicidal about it.

The black-haired Prismriver Sister is probably the easiest one on normal, if only because she has the easiest second solo spellcard of the three.

Marisa-B's non-directional Laser does ridiculous damage if you move on top of a boss. Master Spark will also kill most spellcards alone, if only because it lasts for a long time. You can essentially use them to 'instant kill' spell cards you don't like.
Marisa-A's unfocused bomb does nearly 3 times as much damage as her focused bomb's highest possible damage value at point-blank. Due to Marisa's already high damage, you can use it in a similar sense.
Some attacks I recommend doing this to are Yuyuko's second and third spell cards - they normally take a while to die, one planned bomb is better then 2 - 3 ones spent for a low possibility of capturing it. Also good for many of Youmu's spellcards. Marisa can't do so as well as the others though, due to only having one bomb.
Use bombs. Especially for Marisa, who only gets two - you cannot afford to waste any.

Stage 6 spam portion - bomb it. Helps you get point items - and thus, more lives -  because it auto-gathers enough P to hopefully get you full power, kills many enemies, and Marisa has fairly long bombs too.

For stage 5's stage portion... learn it, really. Try to kill things ASAP, and learn when you can and cannot PoC safely - the extra life or two you can gain from it will help a ton, trust me.

For the 'aimed barrage' fairies right before Lily, they don't shoot anything but slow, easy green arrow rings if you don't shoot.

For Repository of Hirokawa, there's a safe-spot in the butterfly arrays about 40% of the way up on the screen. It's there regardless of difficulty, on both edges of the screen When the aimed shots come, move a very small amount for each shot then dash to the other side of the screen for an easy capture or timeout.

Thank your for taking your time to explain it.

It's what we're here for, isn't it?
You're welcome. Now go get that 1cc :V

[FamilyTeam]

Woah, long post. Thank your for taking your time to explain it. I always liked Marisa B simply because the Master Spark and the Non-Directional Laser are absolutely ridiculous things.
I'll try to follow that advice next time I play the game. I forgot that you could end the border prematurely by pressing the bomb button until recently. D'oh.
So basically, this is what I should be doing:
-Shooting unfocused more often so I can abuse borders;
-Try to exploit safe spots in the second half of Stage 4;
-Don't get cocky with Stage 5;
-Don't be shy about bombing on Yuyuko, especially during Resurrection Butterfly.
The Master Spark is so ridiculous that, even if you only have 2 lives left during R. Butterfly, that means 4 potential Master Sparks, and that means you're guaranteed atleast 20 seconds of safety, I presume. Yeah, it makes sense. If you mix in a border or two, there, that could open up a lot more possibilties. I'll try playing it right now, see what I can accomplish.

[Third Eye Lem]

Ah, it's been a while since I played Touhou...And now I can see why. >_>;; I need to get my skills back in shape.

One hurdle I've had recently is Kogasa's last spell card in UFO on Easy. I keep dying on it because I can't keep track of the bullets from either Kogasa herself, or those amulets. And yes, I made the mistake of shooting her party balls once. :fail:

[Pakken11]

Ah, it's been a while since I played Touhou...And now I can see why. >_>;; I need to get my skills back in shape.

One hurdle I've had recently is Kogasa's last spell card in UFO on Easy. I keep dying on it because I can't keep track of the bullets from either Kogasa herself, or those amulets. And yes, I made the mistake of shooting her party balls once. :fail:

That card is actually harder on Easy than on Normal lol

The arrow bullets are aimed at you, so if you use streaming techniques (on EASY? ikr >A>) you can focus more on the amulets.

[Nolegs the Cat]

That card is actually harder on Easy than on Normal lol

Eeer... um... aaah... what?

I mean, it's a hard card difficulty relative I guess, but... compared to the normal version?
It looks nowhere near as difficult...

Also, does anyone know a way to do the bit after Midboss Seiga on Lunatic TD Stage 4 as Reimu (the aimed spirit shots before roflminifairy spam) without a bomb? :V

[Sakurei]

Also, does anyone know a way to do the bit after Midboss Seiga on Lunatic TD Stage 4 as Reimu (the aimed spirit shots before roflminifairy spam) without a bomb? :V

The easiest way is probably doing it unfocused why staying somewhere mid-height on the far left or far right (whichever side you're more comfortable with. It's left for me). Your main shot will kill the fairies spawning over you, and the homing will do some damage to the ones from the other side. It'll still be fairly difficult to dodge, but it's manageable. Staying at the bottom corner is no good though, because there's more bullets, so it's important to be a bit higher! I wouldn't really advice for dodging it unless you're doing LNBNT or something though.

[Electric Tengu]

Eeer... um... aaah... what?

I mean, it's a hard card difficulty relative I guess, but... compared to the normal version?
It looks nowhere near as difficult...

I think there was something about how some of the bullets move slower on Easy and linger on the screen longer, making it hard to swap sides of the screen.

Also, does anyone know a way to do the bit after Midboss Seiga on Lunatic TD Stage 4 as Reimu (the aimed spirit shots before roflminifairy spam) without a bomb? :V

+1 to above post but for the aimed bit before the spam, what I do is stop the spirits/ghosts from spawning by stalling on Seiga's midboss spell a little. There's a point in the song you can listen for to know when to kill it.

[ZM]

Kogasa's final spell is indeed harder in Easy than in Normal. Hell, I'd argue it's tougher than the Hard variant, as well.

ZUN is pretty weird with spell cards and non-spells in the games sometimes, especially in MoF:
-Aya's first spell being tougher in Normal than in Hard
-Kanako's first spell and second non spell being tougher in Normal than in both Hard and Lunatic
-Sanae's first non spell being tougher in Hard than in Lunatic
-The infamous Easy!Mountain of Faith

And so on XD

[Nolegs the Cat]

Kogasa's final spell is indeed harder in Easy than in Normal. Hell, I'd argue it's tougher than the Hard variant, as well.

ZUN is pretty weird with spell cards and non-spells in the games sometimes, especially in MoF:
-Aya's first spell being tougher in Normal than in Hard
-Kanako's first spell and second non spell being tougher in Normal than in both Hard and Lunatic
-Sanae's first non spell being tougher in Hard than in Lunatic
-The infamous Easy!Mountain of Faith

And so on XD

No mention of Miracle of Otensui on easy?

Speaking of, Sakuraji in Flames seems to be easier on Lunatic than on Hard.
Same for Storm Day.

Also, how does DDC Hard/Lunatic compare to the other hard/lunatic modes?

[ZM]

No mention of Miracle of Otensui on easy?

Speaking of, Sakuraji in Flames seems to be easier on Lunatic than on Hard.
Same for Storm Day.

Also, how does DDC Hard/Lunatic compare to the other hard/lunatic modes?

Yeah, Otensui is another one that's pretty crazy on Easy. Way harder to approach than in the other three difficulties, imo.

Names fail me. XD Which game are those two spells in again?

DDC Hard is definitely one of the tougher Hard modes in the series (I'd say out of the windows games, third to SA and UFO). As for Lunatic, I've heard it's a force to be reckoned with.

[Uruwi]

Yeah, Otensui is another one that's pretty crazy on Easy. Way harder to approach than in the other three difficulties, imo.

Names fail me. XD Which game are those two spells in again?

DDC Hard is definitely one of the tougher Hard modes in the series (I'd say out of the windows games, third to SA and UFO). As for Lunatic, I've heard it's a force to be reckoned with.

The first is from TD Stage 5. I'm not sure about the second.

[ZM]

Ah, Futo's penultimate. I always thought it was pretty easy on Hard.

And aha, Storm Day is Aya's second spell. Yeah, it's tougher on Hard than on Lunatic, as well.

[FamilyTeam]

So, people, although I've been playing Imperishable Night for nearly 2 years, now, only now I'm trying to put real effort into 1CCing it, and only now I'm trying to understand how the time mechanic works.
...So how does it? I've figured if you fire for too long unfocused, once the bar in the bottom reaches 100% and turns purple-ish blue, killed enemies will start giving you time points, but if you fire too long focused, then once the bar at the bottom reaches 100% and turns orange-ish red, grazing gives you time points. You only get those points if you stick to one extreme... but look at this situation here:
If I finish Stage 1 without focusing once, I finish it with about 8400 (this is all with Marisa/Alice, btw), which is more than double of what you need;
but if I finish Stage 2 without focusing once, then I finish it with about 8100 average, and seeing how that Stage demands 7200, it's just *barely* more than enough;
and of course, there's no way I can no-focus the entirety Stage 3, so I can't meet the required time there.
Is there something I'm missing? Is there a strategy to atleasy semi-reliably always meet the required time?

[Karisa]

First of all, it's -80%/+80% (or -30%/+30% for Youmu), not -100%/100%. Also, grazing only gives you time when a boss is present, even if you're beyond +80%.

Anyway, I think you missed the way familiars give time. If you defeat an enemy (or boss phase) while some of its familiars are still on screen, all of the familiars give time orbs (and any bullets touching those familiars also give time orbs), regardless of where the gauge is.

So you may want to focus at some points, since human shots can destroy familiars directly while youkai shots can't. Also, it's worth waiting before you shoot some enemies, since some spawn more familiars over time. Try watching a scoring replay.

Edit:
Here's a random stage 3 Normal run (I assume you're playing Normal?) I just did using Marisa/Alice, where I reached more than 13.5k time by Keine's Last Spell. This is without particular effort to score (like supergrazing or dodging denser patterns unfocused).
http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=37448

So basically if you can gain around 2/3 of the time I did (a bit more if you can't perfect the stage, since spell captures give time and dying/deathbombing loses time), you'll get the Last Spell. Try it out in stage practice.

[FamilyTeam]

First of all, it's -80%/+80% (or -30%/+30% for Youmu), not -100%/100%. Also, grazing only gives you time when a boss is present, even if you're beyond +80%.

Anyway, I think you missed the way familiars give time. If you defeat an enemy (or boss phase) while some of its familiars are still on screen, all of them give time orbs (and any bullets touching those familiars also give time orbs), regardless of where the gauge is.

So you may want to focus at some points, since human shots can destroy familiars directly while youkai shots can't. Also, it's worth waiting before you shoot some enemies, since some spawn more familiars over time. Try watching a scoring replay.

Edit:
Here's a random stage 3 Normal run (I assume you're playing Normal?) I just did using Marisa/Alice, where I reached more than 13.5k time by Keine's Last Spell. This is without particular effort to score (like supergrazing or dodging denser patterns unfocused).
http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=37448

So basically if you can gain around 2/3 of the time I did (a bit more if you can't perfect the stage, since spell captures give time and dying/deathbombing loses time), you'll get the Last Spell. Try it out in stage practice.

I didn't notice it was 80% since, well, I can't keep my eye on that bar all the time...  And yes, I'm playing on Normal.
I read what you said and didn't get it at first... but then I watched the replay, and I think I get it! Thanks for going through the trouble of doing that replay.
Another question is... what exactly does the time change at all, really? I do understand that, if you're too late by Stage 6, you automatically get the bad ending, but I never knew exactly how late, and I think I was only too late once (back when I used to play on Hard but didn't aim for 1CCs).
Again, thanks for going through the trouble of explaining it for me.