Touhou Accomplishments V3

[Zengeku]

Okay, i decided to gun for it anyways. Eternally Anchored Ghost Ship Capture. I knew my soul wouldn't find peace before it was done so i went for it and 10 ardous attempts later i got it. Overall it took about 20 attempts for me. 20 eternally frustrating attempts.

That concludes Stage 4 Lunatic capturing. I'll get on with Stage 5 as soon as i have recovered from the experience with Eternally Frustrating.

Zengeku: If Hourai Jewel is not your least favourite card ever, you lie about disliking micromemorization. Actually, the proper answer for those is "your opinion here". Good job getting the answer to that wrong.

Okay, i'll admit that Stage 4 of UFO actually is quite fun to play. Except for that part after the streaming session post-Nue: I can't comprehend how it should be possible to do that without dying or bombing consistently. In fact, i haven't even been able to do it once.

Still, i'll stick by the statement that a huge chunk of the game's stages are bullshit. There are parts that are pretty much impossible if you don't use the right character or have enough power.

Same thing goes for spellcards. Kogasa's first boss card is almost impossible with certain characters and i suppose it becomes completely impossible if you have 2.00 or something like that.

And yes. Hourai Jewel sucks so hard it would make me wanna kick ZUN's ass up and down the streets of Akihabara. But at least i can do it consistently with three bombs without any micro-shit.

At least that game gave us the curtesy of spell practice. Nice to not have to go through a several minutes long stage for a single attempt at a spell that will kill you immediatly.

Eternally Anchored Ghost Ship is a great example. Half the time, it wasn't misreading the blue bullets that killed me. It was either being hit by the droplets as the anchor hits the bottom of screen or by a retreating anchor. Eternally frustrating! Especially considering how i had to go through the stage all over again in order to get there. And maintain my power through the battle.

I couldn't even try my best at her non-spells or other spells because of not being able to take the risk because of how the power system works. That's actually one thing i think Ikaruga did right. Just give me that max power and never let me lose it.

[LHCling]

EDIT 2: As for the BS spell cards, Baity said it last night best: UFO places a much larger emphasis on patterns and micromemorization than previous games. Many many attacks appear to be impossible, but if you play them enough you'll realize that they're not as random as you thought they were.

PATTERNS

Micromemorization is really only for the Stages (like all the other games really) and a select handful of Spell Cards / Attack Patterns for each stage, with Stage 6 having more than the "norm".
Fun fact: I only counted ~8 attacks to be 100% micromem-based (i.e. static+aimed).

The rest is pattern "read 'n' dodge", or a nice combination between memorizing what happens next and read 'n' dodge.

The major Power loss encourages more bombing; isn't that a good thing? Learn to bomb, learn to not rely solely on a "monstrous" number of lives to pull you through, etc. What does this sum up to? Avoid dying.

Patterns that require micromemorization = bad.

Key word. You don't need it for most of the attacks.

And I'll stop there.

tl;dr:
:suwakodwi:
Really.

Still, i'll stick by the statement that a huge chunk of the game's stages are bullshit. There are parts that are pretty much impossible if you don't use the right character or have enough power.

Those spots that are "described" as being impossible in the stages are more or less a UFO chaining gold mine (end of S4, 5). I personally love that because it encourages "smart play" / scoring. Though you could be just as entertaining and (attempt to) perfect your way through it (and I've done gone through both several times without making a mistake).

[Sodium]

Zengeku. I didn't want your opinion. I said that IT'S A PERSON'S OPINION ON IF THE GAME IS FUN OR NOT.

Oh, and I got to the second part of Samidare Extra Stage, and then died because I forgot what to do there.

[theshirn]

Another LP, this one of EoSD Normal, up on my youtube page.  Still processing, run sucks, etc.

[Seian Verian]

I... I just 1cc'd LLS Hard!!!! ...And yet I can't do UFO or SA Normal... Hm... <.<;

[Kanako Yasaka]

Not to rain on your parade or anything, but LLS hard is about as difficult as any other normal.

Good job! It was my first hard 1cc as well.

[Twillsky]

So I was feeling a change of pace tonight: that means it's STB time. D: inner masochist go!


Three scenes completed: 3-7, 5-8, 9-8. 44 scenes cleared, and the next could be either 5-4 (which had eluded me for forever) or 9-2(certainly possible), and i figured a trick to 8-5, but that's gonna come far far later

[ebarrett]

IN lunatic 1cc, getting to midboss Eirin with six spare lives meant I could royally screw up Galaxy in a Pot which is the easiest stage 6 card ever and not even care.  :V

[nintendonut888]

There, finally 1cc'd HRtP lunatic Makai route again. I have Elis to thank for that. She teleported to a spot on the screen that coincided with the ball hitting her over and over again in a way that can only be described as "NICE COMBINATION!" Sariel isn't that hard, except for that one attack that is impossible. :|

[Zengeku]

When did an encouragement of bombing become a good thing? And why are certain parts of the game impossible if you don't bomb or get a UFO with the right timing?

Why is the stage 2 boss harder than Kanako?

[nintendonut888]

When did an encouragement of bombing become a good thing?

Highly Responsive to Prayers.

[LHCling]

When did an encouragement of bombing become a good thing? And why are certain parts of the game impossible if you don't bomb or get a UFO with the right timing?

Encouragement of bombing is a good thing because people weren't bombing in the first place. Why else has our advice always been

bomb more.

All parts of the game are possible without bombing or using a UFO.

Why is the stage 2 boss harder than Kanako?

Well, with ReimuB / MarisaB / SanaeA(?) maybe. All else, no.

Cut by donut:  :V

[Krimmydoodle]

Soon...

*notices the /04 history, goes and practices more Byakuren.

[Scooter1000]

YESSSSS

I finally beat SA Normal! The first 5 stages went by very smoothly and I had ~7 lives by the time I made it to stage 6. I'll admit though, I did really badly on Okuu; I had lost all but one of those lives when I made it to her last card. It was a really close call, too. I death bombed just as Okuu was blowing up, leaving me with absolutely no power.

Thanks to the people that gave me advice in the RAGE thread. Without you guys, I probably would have failed this and many other runs in the future.

I need to calm down. My hands are shaking pretty badly right now.

[nintendonut888]

Wow Krim has an even lower score than me Don't give up! And remember: If LFO is hard, that's because you need to memorize the route. As long as you don't screw up it's easy.

On a non-Touhou note, I can 3cc Dodonpachi. :|

[Zengeku]

Okay, okay. You win. UFO is not necessarily bad design. Its just a hell of a lot more difficult than Lunatic used to be back in the days and its some difficulty i'm apparently not ready for yet.

So, i'm going to leave it alone. Instead i'll focus on playing Pre-UFO Touhou games and get a Lunatic 1CC for those before working on UFO. I guess i'll give UFO a year or so. I'm not busy and i'd rather wait for my skills to grow than rush it and suffer the frustration that brings.

One step at a time. It did stick around with Normal a hell of a lot time before moving on to Hard after all.

So, now that i've got that out of the way... sorry guys. I was being unreasonable.

Now lets see someone do a no-bombs run! :V

[nintendonut888]

Okay, okay. You win. UFO is not necessarily bad design. Its just a hell of a lot more difficult than Lunatic used to be back in the days and its some difficulty i'm apparently not ready for yet.

'bout time you guys start seeing the light. If anything, UFO is crazy fun in stage practice. I didn't grind everything so hard just for training ya know! The amount of times I've practiced Byakuren are already approaching Kanako, who I've been playing a lot longer against.

And really. I'm not sure if my run was just a fluke or not, but I cannot imagine that UFO is that hard if I manage to beat it my first try with 3 lives remaining, even AFTER flubbing up stage 5 as bad as I did.

[c l e a r]

'bout time you guys start seeing the light. If anything, UFO is crazy fun in stage practice. I didn't grind everything so hard just for training ya know! The amount of times I've practiced Byakuren are already approaching Kanako, who I've been playing a lot longer against.

And really. I'm not sure if my run was just a fluke or not, but I cannot imagine that UFO is that hard if I manage to beat it my first try with 3 lives remaining, even AFTER flubbing up stage 5 as bad as I did.

It's just that sadist Power system... just that.  You have to at least have to admit that is a bad design.

And Stage 6 Practice is pretty bad at 2.00 Power, since you have to can't chain mixed at the dodge ball part in the beginning.  I blew them away before any bullets get too densed in a 1cc run.

[universalperson]

Honestly, I'm just happy I got all the good endings for the PC-98 shooters (not Highly Responsive to Prayers, but the other four). Granted they were all on easy (normal for Lotus Land Story), but hey...

Of course, its not like I can beat Extra...darn you Extra.

[Zengeku]

'bout time you guys start seeing the light. If anything, UFO is crazy fun in stage practice. I didn't grind everything so hard just for training ya know! The amount of times I've practiced Byakuren are already approaching Kanako, who I've been playing a lot longer against.

And really. I'm not sure if my run was just a fluke or not, but I cannot imagine that UFO is that hard if I manage to beat it my first try with 3 lives remaining, even AFTER flubbing up stage 5 as bad as I did.

Were it just so. I think a better power system would have made a world of a difference. Its good if you have fun with it but the game completely destroys my perceptions of practice start.

Usually, its a mode where you get all the lives you'd ever want so you could play freely without having to fear death. But in UFO, you will lose your power if you die so i can't just play carefree and try the best i can at anything. For example, when i grinded for Eternally Anchored thingy i couldn't even attempt her non-spells or her second card because of the risk of dying so i wouldn't have power to tackle the card i was targetting.

That, is pretty poor game design. Maybe its not so much the bosses and the stages. They might just be cool and all (except for Shou, you'll never convince me there  ) but the power system just kills all the fun.

But i suppose, that aside its a pretty good game.

Oh and Baity:

Encouragement of bombing is a good thing because people weren't bombing in the first place. Why else has our advice always been bomb more.

Well its not that bad during 1CC attempts but the power system just destroys practice. What's the point if you can't risk dying?

All parts of the game are possible without bombing or using a UFO.

So is Scarlet Meister.

Well, with ReimuB / MarisaB / SanaeA(?) maybe. All else, no.

Okay. That's only half of the cast. Maybe she isn't as hard as Kanako even though i have better chances at VoWG than her first spellcard unless i'm using SanaeA and have enough power. Second spellcard is way too hard for stage 2 (Heck, even Fallen Angel Veronica said the card was hit or miss) and the third one... is sort of managable as soon as you know what you are doing. You taught me that! But still... it just doesn't feel like anything that should be in Stage 2. 

[Zengar Zombolt]

So I decide to get Dangerous.
And lo, I got dangerous.
Capped Hourai Elixir Easy, Normal and Hard.

[Milkyway64]

Completed all Windows games' Extra.

Ironically Flandre was my final Extra boss to take down, and she was, IMO, the easiest Extra boss I've faced yet.

It took me many more attempts to beat Suwako, for cryin' out loud.

[Zengeku]

Completed all Windows games' Extra.

Ironically Flandre was my final Extra boss to take down, and she was, IMO, the easiest Extra boss I've faced yet.

It took me many more attempts to beat Suwako, for cryin' out loud.

Just did this myself. Koishi was my last.

[Serela]

Completed all Windows games' Extra.

Ironically Flandre was my final Extra boss to take down, and she was, IMO, the easiest Extra boss I've faced yet.

It took me many more attempts to beat Suwako, for cryin' out loud.

Just did this myself. Koishi was my last.

Ah, Koishi was my last too. Subterranean Rose is much less easy in person, compared to what it looks like in videos 

[Zengeku]

Yeah, it was actually surprisingly difficult although i got it at my first clear of the stage.

[Milkyway64]

Koishi WOULD have been my last if I wasn't so determined to get her over with. The order I did them in was Mokou > Ran > Yukari > Nue > Koishi > Suwako > Flandre.

As for Subterranean Rose, er, yeah. It was, uh, very difficult. I'd know, because I beat her and totally didn't opt to time it out, having arrived with 0 lives and no power. >______>

[Seian Verian]

I... I just captured Flower Dream Vine! YES!!!! Haha, take taht Meiling, I JUST CAPTURED YOUR MOST FREAKING INSANE CARD!!!!!

[Bananamatic]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
Attempt #119.
I'm a bit surprised since I was extremely sleepy.

I've wasted 3 days on this, haven't played anything else than stage 6 MoF lunatic.

[Sapz]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
Attempt #119.
I'm a bit surprised since I was extremely sleepy.

I've wasted 3 days on this, haven't played anything else than stage 6 MoF lunatic.

Congrats! The first cap of VoWG Lunatic is always awesome.

Spoiler:

Now capture Scarlet Meister Lunatic.

[Seian Verian]

MS Hard... Got all the way to Devil's Recitation before failing the 1cc. I seriously can't believe it...