What difficulty did you start at?

[Aisha]

Started out with Imperishable Night on Easy. It was a new game at the time and I didn't have much experience with shmups before that, so yeah.. Nowadays when a new Touhou game comes out I start on Normal for a few quick runs to unlock things and to get a feel for the game, and then I move on to Extra, or Hard/Lunatic if I'm not bored with the main game by then.

[ebarrett]

Normal. As a normal person would.

[Udongein]

Easy mode, because the only shmup experience I had before Touhou is level 1 of Space Invaders.

Almost a year later I can consistently 1cc most of the games on Normal (</3 SA) and have cleared multiple EX stages.

Maybe I should move up to Hard soon...

[Janitor Morgan]

Easy

duh

This.

Took forever to work my way up to a 1cc of EoSD Normal...

[Poochy.EXE]

My first time playing ever was on PCB Hard, in spite of the fact that I had next to no prior shmup experience. Captured Cirno's midboss spell card, and nothing else, then made it to stage 2 before I ran out of lives and declined to continue. Then I went to look up why the "Extra Start" was disabled, found out the requirement to unlock it was to 1cc on any difficulty, and switched to Easy solely to unlock Extra.

I still like to make a runthrough on Easy whenever a new installment comes out, for the same reason I like to score attack a song on Normal on Beatmania IIDX before I play it on Hyper, and play Hyper at least once before I try Another, even if I'm pretty confident I can sightread clear it on Another.

[mew77]

I tend to do easy and normal...I try hard and lunatic every once in a while just to see how far I get. I'm still not that good.

[Alice★f]

Only kids play in easy mode!!!

I started with normal. I now play hard and lunatic, I'm not good, but I'm getting damn good really damn fast.

[?q]

IN Ijji Modo.  It took a few runs for me to learn that I didn't have to concentrate on each individual bullet in my immediate vicinity.  Things then improved from there.

I haven't really been in a rush to get better, what with other things taking up my time and having to develop senses for how to play this kind of game.  That's why I'm only barely a lunatic after being here for three years...

[Widermelonz]

I started with IN Normal during Zun's break before PoFV.

I still can't 1CC Hard

[Silent Harmony]

Normal.

I saw Overdrive before playing. >_>

This, on EoSD (and slightly PCB) for months. Got to the point where I wouldn't load the game for weeks because I was so annoyed with it. Finally decided I'd rather not study a video game more than school, flipped Overdrive and that god-damned mindset the bird, and went Easy.

Still there for now, though I do play Normal and Hard to see how far I get.

[Zengeku]

Imperishable Night Easy because i suck.

When UFO came out i played it on easy first too and i also think that i'll be playing any upcoming Touhou games on Easy first. Immediately normal thereafter obviously. Then Hard and Lunatic if the game is fun enough.

[Solais]

Normal, then Easy but when I found out that I cannot unlock Extra on Easy, I went back to Normal. But when a new game comes out, I always try it on Easy first, then moving to Normal. I never play on a harder difficulty than Normal.

[Fenrir the Dusk]

Imperishable Night on Easy, since I was, and still am, new to these types of games, I currently play on Normal, but I still play Easy every now and then.

[AM]

I started with hard, but after failing to clear any of the pre MoF games, I switched to normal and 1CC all of them.

[Reddyne]

I started by playing IN on Normal. I don't stray far from it because 3 years later I'm still bad at these things.

[Sapz]

EoSD Normal. Took me... a week? Something like that. :V

[Jaimers]

I think on easy for like... a day. Then working my way up from normal.

Later though, when I was doing that all games lunatic clear thing, I never even bothered with hard and just went straight to lunatic.  :V

[Formless God]

Oh ... that's exactly the same for me :V . UFO Easy for a few hours, then Normal right after I got a clear. I dropped it mid-way and went for Lunatic with infinite (ry though. After a while I came back to 1cc them Normals again and wow, loleasy. Cheating to practice is actually helpful.

I also skipped Hard almost entirely. It's just a slower Lunatic, good for 1cc purposes and nothing else :V

[Naut]

IN Normal, then went to hard two weeks later, after I bet Mokou. Tried easy once, almost fell asleep.

[Infy♫]

EoSD easy mode is where I started.
I had never touched a shooting game before, so I couldn't get past rumia without using a continue (sometimes 2)
Now I play everything normal or extra mode.

[Formless God]

No, you play Flanchan.zip :V

[lumber_of_the_beast]

Easy

duh

Three more UFO Easy 1CCs, and I'll finally be ready for Normal

[Athon]

EoSD Normal.
I breezed through the game until I met Pachu. Then I cried. Hard.

[Chainsaw Guitar]

Normal, so that in the event I actually manage to beat Sakuya, my sense of accomplishment wouldn't be cut short by her telling me to go home. Still hasn't happened yet though. I blame the shitty music on cracking my concentration.

[Raninf]

PCB Easy, then UFO Easy.

[Arcengal]

I played Touhou games on Easy by default until I got SA, which I figured I could try at Normal since I was a hard mode player by this time.

Got SMASHED by Orin, so went down to easy, 1cc'd on my first attempt, went back to Normal and managed it the second time.

UFO came out, tried it on Normal, got to Shou and got violated. Couldn't win after about 6 continues. Restarted next day, got past Shou, got to Byakuren, was destroyed. 6 continues, can't beat her. Next day, restart, get to Byakuren with 7 lives in stock, finish 0/1 blind capturing Fantasia. To this day, I have no idea how that happened.

When TH13 comes out, I'll be starting that on Normal too.

[Benny1]

PCB Easy, oh man that was the greatest run of PCB I've ever had, because all of the music was new and exciting and <3

[Krimmydoodle]

I started at Normal, although bjw constantly reminded me not to be ashamed if I felt I needed to drop down to Easy.  I still remember playing with max lives, getting game overs to Alice, and not being able to continuespam past Youmu, but I stuck with it and pushed on.  To this day, the only Easy playing I've done other than for lulz (usually with silly no focus/no bomb/pacifist restrictions, or with heavily unconventional control schemes like using a Rock Band drum kit... totally should have kept the video of that) was to unlock all of IN's spellcards so I could eventually go for 222/222 completion in Spell Practice.  I started clearing Extras and moved up to Hard after 1ccing EoSD through SA (minus PoFV) on Normal.  Sometime during my Hard career, I temporarily jumped up and bomb/continuespammed my way through some Lunatics, returned to Hard to roflstomp EoSD through SA (everything on Hard feels so slow when you spend a couple days on Lunatic), and have been a Lunatic ever since.

That said, UFO (being the first game to release since I started) taught me that just because I'm a Lunatic doesn't mean I can start there for a new game.  When a new game comes out, I start on Normal and work my way back up so I can at least pick up basic stage layout and spellcard concepts.  Starting on Lunatic and having absolutely no idea about what's to come is a big nono.

[SupahVee1234]

No, you play Flanchan.zip :V

Offtopic: the link for that is dead. Mind to upload it? I want to try it

[Infy♫]

Jaimers will be doing that.