Touhou Project

[CRBWildcat]

What can I say? I find speculating details like those to be troublesome.

I wish ZUN would get around to establishing something as canon for the fan-fiction writer in me. XD

Hasn't stopped me yet.

[Gnudist]

I wish ZUN would get around to establishing something as canon for the fan-fiction writer in me. XD

And they shot tons of bullshit at each other and lived happily ever after. The end.

[CRBWildcat]

Last night, I made a decision that's probably going to haunt me for a while: I placed Subterranean Animism back on my laptop. Puzzle frustration, you now face Curtis!

[CRBWildcat]

One of the manga-only characters, Kasen Ibara, was considered for placement in Ten Desires' Extra Stage before ZUN went with Mamizou instead. The fans imagined what could've been, and it resulted in this: a fanmade Phantasm stage for TD.

[CRBWildcat]

Puzzle frustration, amongst other things, has gotten the best of me. I've been playing SA off and on the last few months, and Easy Mode's effectively mastered; even managed a no-deaths run using the Marisa/Nitori team, something which I've never accomplished on any of the games. Then I decided to try playing it on Normal.

Normal mode for SA is akin to Hard Mode for the other games (I should know; I've tried to 1CC Imperishable Night on Hard several times). Stage Three is frustrating me beyond even my standards of disbelief. Why? Too many lasers. TOO... MANY... LASERS!

[Crescent Pulsar S]

Oh, you and your lasers. ;p

Normal for SA isn't as bad as GFW's hard mode, I can tell you that right now. Not only do you get that extra difficulty goodness that you expect from hard mode in general, but you're not allowed to rest because every enemy defeated sends out death bullets at your location upon being killed.

Marisa and Nitori fire those slow-launching blue missiles, right? I think my favorite pairings are Reimu and Yukari, Reimu and Suika, and Marisa and Patchouli. Although I think I disliked the Reimu and Aya pairing the most, I think that's the one I actually made the best run with. O_o

[CRBWildcat]

What can I say? I hate lasers, and lasers hate me. At present I consider them my biggest obstacle to beating UFO on Normal, let alone SA.

I'll take your word for it; I haven't beaten GFW on Normal yet, either. But... that sounds rather distressing.

Yeah; they're essentially the Magic Missiles of the game. The Reimu/Aya team gave me some trouble, control-wise; several times I stopped firing and rocketed up to the screen to grab powerups, only for the Puma Man Effect to kick in. Having played all six teams, I think I prefer the Marisa/Nitori team, if anything because of the bomb's effects.

[Crescent Pulsar S]

So you must not like the fifth boss very much. That's the boss that I have problems with, actually. I probably have more problems with that one than I do with Byakuren.

Well, the good thing about GFW is that you can beat it on easy. ;p

I think my favorite out of the ones I prefer is the Reimu and Suika pairing. The minor homing of the fireballs doesn't offer much in terms of area coverage, but I like the piercing effect and the added ability to draw in items from anywhere on the screen without having to move to the top of said screen.

[CRBWildcat]

Yeah. That one card Shou has is more than just a laser---it's a blasted lightsaber. GAH! (And I forgot about the stage 4 boss having a survival card on Normal Mode and up. Crud.) I think I might try playing as MarisaB next time and forego the Master Spark; it's keeping me from collecting the red UFOs.

More than that, the Extra Mode can be unlocked on Easy. That's the whole reason I switched to that level in the first place.

The bullets had a piercing effect? I hadn't noticed.

[Crescent Pulsar S]

What's your UFO strategy? I don't need to use bombs in the first four stages, usually, so I get red UFOs during that time and green UFOs during the last two stages.

Oh? Wanted an epic battle with Marisa? Or was it just for the sake of opening the extra stage?

Yeah. Instead of stopping on one enemy, they also hit whatever's beyond them, too. That's to my understanding of it, anyway. I never looked at it close enough to tell, since I'm usually busy dodging and stuff. XD

[CRBWildcat]

On Easy, I start using bombs during Ichirin's last card, none for most of stages 4 and 5 unless I'm backed into a corner, and frequently against Byakuren (and if I die at all in the first three stages, I just start over). For a while I didn't know what the red UFOs gave me; I just concentrated on bombs. Nowadays I'm going to try to get the red ones full-time unless I have no other choice, like with the 6th stage.

That, and I wanted to get that last song on the music list. Magus Night has long been a favorite of mine, although it doesn't quite crack the Top Twenty now that I've played SA and UFO to their completion. (Farthest I've ever gotten against Marisa has been... her third card, I think. Same as EoSD's Flandre.)

[And speaking of SA, I found an awesome remix of Satori's theme that, for me, succeeds in being ominous without coming off as creepy.]

I'll have to take another look at the replay I saved for that team, then.

[Shadou]

Anyone know what the difficulty ranking order of Touhou games is? Imperishable Night was the first Touhou game I played, and was for a while the yardstick I used to measure other Touhou games' difficulty... until after I played a few more Touhou games I determined that my yardstick was too short to measure other Touhou games with. It failed to measure up to Perfect Cherry Blossom, Mountain of Faith, and only barely measured up to Phantasmagoria of Flower View.

[Crescent Pulsar S]

I think it mostly depends on the person, and which character/shot they use. Particularly, if a person likes to use a certain character, but they don't realize that the shot they use isn't as good for them as another character's might be. You also have to put into consideration which games you can open the extra stage with on easy, normal and whatever condition(s) there may be.

As strange as it seems, Phantasmagoria of Flower View is probably the easiest to me. I've come to this conclusion because I never once failed to complete a character's run, despite most of the bullets and such being random rather than patterned. I was also able to play it with very minimal use of the focus, as crazy as that might sound. But, there's also the fact that, if you lose, your next encounter with the opponent you lost to will be easier.

Most would probably agree that Imperishable Night is either the easiest or next to easiest, despite the conditions required to open up the extra stage. Perfect Cherry Blossom is probably the next that's considered easiest or next to easiest, though it can be pretty brutal because the first five bosses really don't prepare you for Yuyuko, who's more like an extra boss compared to the boss before her. If you're only skilled enough to handle the first five bosses, it better be to the extent that you stockpiled enough lives and bombs, because you're likely going to be spamming bombs and dying quite a lot.

On the other side of the spectrum, where you need to play in normal difficulty to open up the extra stages, I think it's a tossup on which one's more difficult, but Mountain of Faith, Subterranean Animism and Undefined Fantastic Object can be pretty unforgiving. Some think -- and I more or less agree with them -- that Undefined Fantastic Object is the hardest, due to how distracting and dangerous it can be to increase your lives and bombs. On the other hand, some think that Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is the hardest, or at least up there with it, because of the controls and having to get an idea of exactly where the hit box is, in addition to the standard difficulty of the game.

[CRBWildcat]

I generally use whatever tears through the bosses the quickest (which means Marisa most of the time, plus Youmu in TD).

Most would probably agree that Imperishable Night is either the easiest or next to easiest, despite the conditions required to open up the extra stage. Perfect Cherry Blossom is probably the next that's considered easiest or next to easiest, though it can be pretty brutal because the first five bosses really don't prepare you for Yuyuko, who's more like an extra boss compared to the boss before her. If you're only skilled enough to handle the first five bosses, it better be to the extent that you stockpiled enough lives and bombs, because you're likely going to be spamming bombs and dying quite a lot.

Case in point... although I've obviously improved since that time.

On the other side of the spectrum, where you need to play in normal difficulty to open up the extra stages, I think it's a tossup on which one's more difficult, but Mountain of Faith, Subterranean Animism and Undefined Fantastic Object can be pretty unforgiving. Some think -- and I more or less agree with them -- that Undefined Fantastic Object is the hardest, due to how distracting and dangerous it can be to increase your lives and bombs. On the other hand, some think that Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is the hardest, or at least up there with it, because of the controls and having to get an idea of exactly where the hit box is, in addition to the standard difficulty of the game.

Feh. Mountain of Faith's nothing; Kanako's the only hard boss of the bunch for me. UFO, likewise, pales before the overly frustrating puzzle bosses of SA, and EoSD's only difficult until you're able to get past Sakuya on your own merit.

[Crescent Pulsar S]

Are you referring to those games (excepting EoSD) in easy or normal mode? 'Cause the one I have the least problems with is SA (which is funny, since I think ZUN made a purposeful effort to make it a bitch), and I have a problem with MoF and UFO for different reasons. Regardless, though, the fifth boss of UFO is a real pain in the patootie.