~Hakurei Shrine~ > Help Me, Eirin!
Some of my observations and further questions
Zengeku:
It doesn't matter if you choose to do Hard mode first or move straight on to Lunatic. Just make sure not to stick around with Normal. I did that for a goddamn eternity and my first Hard 1CC which was of EoSD was mainly due to me wasting time with easy stuff.
As all others here recommend you should make sure to push your limits. Don't be a coward like i was and stick around with what you can do and improve yourself instead.
If you don't you will end up like me regretting you didn't move on to Lunatic ages ago.
stargroup:
Aha, so you're memorizing the stages huh?
My advice is, don't brutally burn the stages into your head. Just play them naturally, and eventually you'll get a feel for all the stages without having to remember where each enemy spawns and stuff.
The problem with memorization is that you end up doing everything by muscle memory, so you don't actually build up your dodging skills as much, which ends up being a time-waster. Focus on pushing your limits in reading bullets, and dodge the manly way whenever you can. And this is also the reason why you shouldn't be afraid of switching games. New patterns, fresh moves, they will greatly help your reading skills, and beating the stages will be much more comfortable than sheer memorization.
You have a slight case of OCD, just like me. However, as painful as it might be, you have to let go of it and just enjoy the game. The whole point of bullet hells is to dodge, and memorization will only frustrate you and you won't go very far.
Ghaleon:
oh I'm plenty used to dodging stuff, which is why I'm always reluctant to use bombs on spellcards. I haven't really memorized anything totally, it's just nice to know certain things like on stage 4 trash, don't move until they stop shooting, then move just a bit. Otherwise if you're moving to a big safe area which is relatively far away, you'll only make them spread attacks all over the damn place and make it that much harder.
anyway I was currently playing the extra stage for fun, got to the leviathan spell card 3 times now. though it killed me twice all 3 times with 3 bombs left (I refuse to bomb it cuz I'm dumb lol). I realize the boss prob doesn't take much damage from bombs but you get to live for at least another wave.
theshirn:
Flandre is immune to bombs during spellcards, as are all Extra bosses (as well as midboss Ran in Phantasm, and a bunch of final cards like Scarlet Gensokyo and Virtue of Wind God). As for Laevatein, look up a replay or a video of it; it's probably the second-easiest Extra card.
stargroup:
Yeah I'm reluctant to use bombs too, but it's also extremely important to know your own limits. Most of your "deaths" should actually be deathbombs in that case. Learn to figure out when you actually get hit, so you can time these correctly.
And yeah, what theshim said, Leviathan is so incredibly easy it's hilarious, so you should really try and figure out how to do it the "right" way (it's actually the wrong way but nobody dodges that one the manly way)