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Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

bullets, bombs, and girls, what more do you want? its touhou!
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megamario
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by megamario »

I haven't played touhou in a while, but tonight I got that itch and decided to take a Reimu run through all Noraml spell practice.
Everything to the end of Futo is a pretty dead ringer assuming I keep my cool. Only real exceptions seem to be Yoshika's 3rd spell (which I mostly fail due to being too twitchy and getting antsy towards the end; I can probably play super safe and time it out if need be) and Futo's fire carpet (mostly just due to the random movements of the fireballs). The thunder cyclone in past experience is mostly only threatening if the movement of the zigzag catches me off guard.
So for the most part barring the stages & nonspells pretty good until Miko in an ideal 1cc run.

But oh god Miko why. Of her 7 I can capture nnn 3, maybe 4 with relative ease. Spell 1 can be done in 1.5 cycles (I don't know if it affects anything, but I like to rush at the start, slink down to the bottom as the arrow heads come out and then do one to two dodges before they fade away), the Summon dance might give a little trouble but a little experimenting shows it's a lot safer than it looks, and the Secret Treasure (spiral fade in blues) is pretty easy depending on the patterns it throws at you. #4 is likely her final spell, but it's a total wash doing it in Spell Practice just for the lack of "OH GOD OH GOD OHGOD" factor.

But even then those 3 can still give a load of trouble (surprise arrowheads, arrows walling you off, random spiral patterns). Still better than her other 4, though, goodness.
The double yellow ring is still terrible and I hate its movement patterns forever. I've only caught it twice and it still has me on edge just due to the rapid precision movements with next to no break.
17 armaments or whatever is just so random and claustrophobic that I've only caught it once out of ~30 tries. Is there any trick to this? Doesn't help this one has the health of 5 walls.
But the worst by far is the Kanon. The disco shower petal thing. Have not captured it even once and I'm over 70 tries. I get that it's two spinning/alternating patterns but it is just so overwhelming to me. The colors and the speed are disorienting and make it easy to lose track of where you need to be and it continues to kind of hurt my eyes. ALSO has a billion HP so bombing it isn't going to solve all my issues.

ugh miko tone it down a bit for normal : (
I want to do the extra darn it
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darn
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by darn »

If you can do well on the first five stages, capturing 4/7 spellcards in the final fight is much more than sufficient.
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megamario
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by megamario »

darn wrote:If you can do well on the first five stages, capturing 4/7 spellcards in the final fight is much more than sufficient.
Well it's more consistency than anything else. I like having a nice emergency buffer in case things go wrong around late-fight Yoshika or Seiga
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yoshicookiezeus
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by yoshicookiezeus »

Been playing Super Marisa World again lately for no reason in particular, and I just somehow managed to clear the entire second half of the Scarlet Devil Mansion levels without gameovering once. Not too sure how I managed to pull that one off, especially given how I'm still absolutely terrible at the Remilia battle (although it's still incredibly fun to play, just because of how chaotic it is).

Also after watching SDA's annual speedrun marathon I've caught myself contemplating speedrun routes for the game. This can't possibly be a good idea. :ohdear:
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by raekuul »

The only Danmaku Touhou that I've got is PCB; I've been playing Lunatic 1-Life in order to get the hang of the hardest patterns (the theory being that if I can get through a stage without dying on Lunatic, I'll eventually be able to get through the same stage without continuing or bombing on Normal) - what I wish I had was a way to navigate using the mouse instead of keyboard.
Games Beaten In 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
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darn
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by darn »

Speaking of mouse control in Touhou, there's a thing that allows you to use mouse control in Touhou: https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/inde ... ic=11045.0. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on PCB, but it works on every game from Mountain of Faith onward.

I decided to try this out just now, so I started up UFO with the patch and played a game on Easy, expecting it to make the game impossible to play. The patch does make the game completely different from what it used to be, but the controls were actually a lot more natural than I expected. In fact, that was probably my best run of UFO easy (not that that means a lot, because I rarely play on Easy anymore).

The most unnatural thing about these controls is that they trick you into thinking you can go really fast, while you actually can't go any faster than standard unfocused speed. The second most unnatural thing about these controls is that I accidentally press the left mouse button at times and waste a bomb.

Also, even though the run went really well, I still think this patch makes the game harder, because keyboards are just so much more precise.
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megamario
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by megamario »

darn wrote:Speaking of mouse control in Touhou, there's a thing that allows you to use mouse control in Touhou: https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/inde ... ic=11045.0. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on PCB, but it works on every game from Mountain of Faith onward.

I decided to try this out just now, so I started up UFO with the patch and played a game on Easy, expecting it to make the game impossible to play. The patch does make the game completely different from what it used to be, but the controls were actually a lot more natural than I expected. In fact, that was probably my best run of UFO easy (not that that means a lot, because I rarely play on Easy anymore).

The most unnatural thing about these controls is that they trick you into thinking you can go really fast, while you actually can't go any faster than standard unfocused speed. The second most unnatural thing about these controls is that I accidentally press the left mouse button at times and waste a bomb.

Also, even though the run went really well, I still think this patch makes the game harder, because keyboards are just so much more precise.
OKay Robin, from now on all of your future Ultra runs will be using the Mouse Patch
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RobinLSL
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by RobinLSL »

That looks hilariously stupid, I'll give a s hot! >_>
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by gamercal »

This would be a ridiculously awesome way for someone with a tablet to play these games. Though it would still be the worst thing ever to me, seriously. Imagine trying to do Danmaku Paranoia with a twitchy optical mouse?
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RobinLSL
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by RobinLSL »

Obviously you need to buy one of the non-twitchy kind!
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by gamercal »

What I need to get is a cordless mouse. Cause seriously, it's getting all frayed and junk, it's horrible.

But yes, less twitchy mouse go!

So, since you're gonna try it anyhow, here's a challenge - capture Scarlet Gensokyo with the mouse patch on :P
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by freelop »

Bullet hell shooters aren't that good on touch screens. Your finger gets in the way a lot so moving down the screen becomes difficult incase there are bullets behind your finger.

Icarus-X on IOS is pretty fun though and the developers have made it so the ship is a little bit infront of where you touch so that there is less danger from things being hidden however it still isn't perfect. If you have an IOS device I would reccomend it though.
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gamercal
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by gamercal »

The difference here though if one used a tablet would be that the screen and the touch device are not the same thing. I guess you trade reliability in seeing stuff on screen with the inherent confusion of having to gauge where you are in relation to where you're touching the screen - I imagine that those with excellent co-ordination wouldn't find this as hard as it sounds after some practice.
darn
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by darn »

gamercal wrote:What I need to get is a cordless mouse. Cause seriously, it's getting all frayed and junk, it's horrible.

But yes, less twitchy mouse go!

So, since you're gonna try it anyhow, here's a challenge - capture Scarlet Gensokyo with the mouse patch on :P
Unfortunately, the patch won't work on the games before Mountain of Faith.

So I played around with the patch a bit more on Ten Desires extra (which I have never cleared) and surprisingly (to me, at least) my skills with the mouse and with the keyboard seem about equal. Although the mouse isn't what I'm used to, the fact that you can control your movement speed without focusing is pretty useful. Also, the crosshair that appears when you're using the patch basically allows you to see where your hitbox is even when unfocused.

When I went back to playing with the keyboard, it felt kind of weird.

Also, Ten Desires extra is pretty ridiculous. Unless I'm somehow missing a large number of life fragments, it doesn't seem to be feasible to get more than two extends in this stage. And that's kind of not a lot.
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by gamercal »

Eh, Flandre also gave you just two extends in the whole stage, and her stage was far far harder. You also get bombs and Trance in TD's, which is not the case in EoSD.

I agree that it isn't a lot, but in the end with the resources the game gives you (at least 4 bombs in total - Mamizou gives two fragments per clear and I'm sure Nue did too) it's totally doable.

Just, make sure you use your trance at the very end of the stage (kill one of the big faeries first before using it, to make sure it lasts for all 8 of them). Don't even continue runs where you don't have Trance for the end of the stage unless you're confident you won't need the bombs/life pieces.
darn
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by darn »

I can tell it's definitely doable (I probably shouldn't have used the word "ridiculous"), but it's certainly not as forgiving as the other extra stages. Although maybe that's because the other ones give you too many resources rather than because this one gives you too few.

Also, even with the bomb fragments, you probably end up getting the same number of bombs in EoSD and TD extra anyway.
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by yoshicookiezeus »

World 6 of Super Marisa World clear! 6-2-1 took me much annoyance and the better part of an hour to clear, but the Eirin and Kaguya battles more than make up for it. :D

Only one world to go! (well, not counting the secret exit of 5-1-3, which I kind of haven't bothered to get yet)
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by RobinLSL »

OK, I think one of my objectives this year will be beating MoF Lunatic without bombing.

I just did a "test" run, and managed to get all the way to Aya's opener. That might not seem so impressive, but since I'm now reaaaaally good at the last stage, that basically only leaves Aya and Sanae.

I actually did really good on stage 4 too! Beat the first waterfall AND Momiji, and did pretty well at the second waterfall (still died though).

I was playing with Homing Reimu, but I'm probably going to switch to Marisa C for awesomeness reasons, though it kind of feels like cheating XD


Meh I'm crazy, I'll never manage XD
gamercal
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by gamercal »

Quit your lying, you totally will manage. At the point you are at now, it's really not going to be that hard for you I don't think. Sanae herself is actually really easy (it has to be if I'm saying so!), and you're already super good at stage 6 so... really the only obstacles I would think would be Nitori (those spells man...I know how to do them but they're still fucking crazy!) and stage 4. Possibly Aya as well, as doable as half of her attacks are her second non-spell is bullshit, as is Peerless Wind God. First half of stage 5 is also tricky but especially if you switch to Marisa C I think you'll find it pretty doable once you've played it a bit.

I don't consider stage 3 itself to be a problem anymore (here's a nice tip for Marisa C - place the options on the right after beating midboss Nitori, it lets you stream the four faeries properly and makes sure the first set of FOE's can't fire too much on the screen to dodge at the same time as the rest of the previous section. Basically learned to do this after always having to bomb the start of the FOE streaming constantly since all of my firepower was on the wrong side.
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by freelop »

Guh 99.61% complete on EoSD hard again.

Scarlet Gensokyo is just a fraction of a second too long for me.
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RobinLSL
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by RobinLSL »

Perfect MoF stage 4 GET ! This cost me 45 minutes of sleep (in an already short night) and I got angry at some points, but it was well worth it.

I can now confirm that the best strategy for the second waterfall is indeed to wait out on Momiji for a little bit, I think that defeating her when there's 11 seconds left on her timer is good enough.

And I captured Aya's survival card TWICE IN A ROW this night, that was random... but awesome!
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by gamercal »

I captured it once... in about 35 goes lol. With Marisa though, that makes it slightly more impressive!

My biggest issue with Momiji is that I have no idea where to place the options in order to not kill her way too fast, but at the same time deal some damage to her whilst actually surviving. Surviving in and of itself is also a challenge but I'm slowly getting better at it - I just can't survive for long enough to whittle the timer down to the point where the waterfall is doable.

I did however figure out how to do the big fairy section right at the end with Marisa C though - place the options in the top-right corner and stream the previous section over to the left. Then dodge like crazy basically. You just about kill the first fairy without options before the second one comes, the second fairy dies by the options themselves not too long after the third one spawns, then the third one dies a little bit into the crow segment. The bonus about doing it this way is that the crow segment becomes instantly simpler to gain the items from because your options are already optimally placed by being on one edge of the screen, so gaining power back is really easy. Meaning I always reach Aya with full power.

So my best for the stage now is one bomb. Theoretical best for Aya is also one bomb (auto-bomb the second non-spell, I find it 100% walls me every single time I play it), but PWG is always 1-2 bombs and I often struggle to complete the second spell without one too. Slowly but surely capturing her last spell too... I know it's easy-ish but the sheer speed of it always catches me out somehow. But I can capture it even with just 1 power left now, and I timed it out from 40 seconds left so I'm improving.

As for the game in general, my best run to date saw me go perfect until boss Nitori. In theory I could now perfect her too, but mostly why I can't is down to her second spell. I dunno why, but at the speed it goes at I cannot for the life of me consistently work through the gaps before they close. That's one thing I'm terrible at it seems - flowing bullets. Like, Mercury Poison-style flow I can (mostly) handle, but this sort of flow eludes me completely. It was the same when I played Marine Benefit's Stage 5 boss too - her non-spells utterly wrecked me. Oh well.

When I stop failing so much on Sanae for no reason whatsoever I'll likely have a newer, better playthrough to put up. Because yeah, I feel like a lot of my last one's griping was down to lack of working stuff out... or maybe I just wasn't good enough to go on top of that, I dunno. But I can do much much better now so yeah.
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by gamercal »

Double post because yeah.

I'm literally never going to be able to do UFO Lunatic. It's just way way way way way too hard. Apart from just being insanely good Robin (and/or learning the game so well) I have no idea how the hell you managed to make it look even remotely doable, because it really isn't at all. Part of it is that there's just so much random spam, part of it is down to the UFO system itself often conflicting with survival, but most of it is just how fucking much stuff is always on screen. It's ridiculous... I physically cannot concentrate on this much stuff at once, no matter how hard I try.

I'm lucky if I get away from Kogasa with less than 4 mistakes. Usually one is a death on her second card, I NEVER anticipate the death on that one since it is always so sudden. I'm lucky if I don't bomb more than about 4-5 times on the stage part of stage 3 (though I've slightly improved at that recently, even managing once or twice to do the final section with no mistakes and two green UFO kills), and again on Ichirin (I know how to do her attacks, I just physically can't). I always without fail get walled by Nue's final wave in stage 4 (usually by something appearing RIDICULOUSLY FAST right in the only possible pathway she gave me through the initial needle wave... therefore it's a death and not a bomb). For some reason I'm always getting killed by Murasa's first non-spell too, dunno WHY. And in general I'm getting walled by at least half of every stage past 2 without actually being able to do anything about it. It just feels completely unfair.

And I can't even practice Stages 5 and 6 because I cannot ever hope to clear Stage 5 in a normal run... I take back what I said before about there being no visible difference between Hard and Lunatic - whilst there's not really any physical bullet count difference there sure as hell is a huge SPEED difference, and I just can't keep up with it all. The best I can do from a continue state is reach Shou with 1 spare life and 1 bomb, and even that only happens about 5% of the time. Just... there's so much random glowy bullet spam everywhere, and the parts that aren't that are still practically impossible anyhow without using a huge number of bombs that I simply will not ever have by that point (because actually REACHING stage 5 is a huge ordeal in its own right for me - as much as I know how to do a lot of the first four stages it never works out for me...).

I'm not sure where I'm even going with this. I'm not really asking for help because it doesn't matter what is said it won't make a difference - I physically cannot concentrate on this much crap at the same time, and since much of the game is random rather than patterned it's not like I can just "lrn2plybtr" like I did with MoF. This is the only Touhou that I cannot beat on Lunatic, and it will forever stay that way because I've pretty much hit my limit as to how far I can go. Too much... too much...

Shame too, I actually captured King Kraken Strike twice in 8 attempts as well.
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megamario
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Re: Touhou Danmaku Hell - Success and Failure Stories

Post by megamario »

I felt pumped.
I was going to do it.
Totally going to 1cc TD Normal.




And then I somehow died on Yuyuko's final card. I don't
but it's so
I never
why

Like seriously even with the demo I never died on this card. Ever. And honestly the last time I played I noticed myself doing bad at it too.
This is a terrible development D:
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