Touhou games

True, but I think it's better to try an capture them and when it's seems you are going to die use a bomb. That way you can see which spell cards you can do and witch spell cards you use a bomb.

First of all, I want to thank you for your attention, but Clarste in special as his post was the most helpful of them. However, I've decided that I won't be playing the Touhou games for the time being, for a variety of reasons that it's not necessary to detail here. But if I do change my mind, I will make sure to keep his words to mind.

With that said, I have another question to ask: How or where can I view the game's endings? I want to see exactly how the storylines get resolved (even though they can all be summarized as Defeat Means Friendship). However, there's an obstacle in the way - I've read multiple times in this very Wiki that the fandom does not spoil endings anywhere, because ZUN once suggested it. It's followed so closely not even the Touhou Wiki mentions the ending in its plot synopses. What can I do now?

There's a Touhou endings wiki.

Song of the Sirens

Also, the endings don't really resolve the plot (except in the fighting games and PoFV, which are much easier to obtain than normal). They're basically omake set after the final battle

Improved run of MoF's Extra Stage

So. Let's all pause for a moment to smell what the Rock was, is, and forever will be... cooking.—Cave Johnson

Finally 1cc Normal'd Subterranean Animism.

Beat the Normal version of Hell's Artificial Sun on the first try. Loads of lives lost and bombs used yes.

And ZUN in the credits had an oddly peculiar yet accurate message in the Credits. "Next episode! Tears of blood in the Extra Stage!"

He's not lying.

I'd say it's probably the most difficult one for me. Nine Syllable Stabs needed a few trials before I could get the right method for it, Id and Superego feel pretty tough, Embers of Love fills up the screen fast.

In fairness, Youkai Polygraph is one of the easier , if not the easiest, time out cards in the series. The nonspells generally aren't too fierce either

edited 21st Sep '12 3:24:02 AM by hnd03

So. Let's all pause for a moment to smell what the Rock was, is, and forever will be... cooking.—Cave Johnson

After many weeks of effort, I have finally cleared the UFO extra stage! Take that, Nue! And I even had an extra life left at the end, somehow...the last spell is easier than most in the Extras, I guess.

Any suggestions for which extra I should attempt next? I've done the PCB, IN and TD extras; which of the others is the most doable?

I think Mountain of Faith. Suwako is supposedly one of the easier EX bosses.

From what I gather, Flandre, Marisa and Koishi are best avoided unless you're feeling really confident.

edited 23rd Sep '12 2:52:04 AM by asterism

Song of the Sirens

Alice is relatively easy

I actually found Flandre to be on the low end. With a couple exceptions, most waves of enemies during the stage aren't too hard. And Flandre's first half isn't too tough. Maze of Love is a pain though and I absolutely despise how erratically she moves around during Kagome Kagome. The second half is a lot tougher, but being smart with bombs goes a long way. I've said it before, but if Eo SD gave two lives for score like every other score based game I would probably rank it close to bottom.

Rika's not too hard, it's just mistakes during or just before the fight are going to piss you off as, for whatever reason, Rika doesn't drop power items. And you only get one bomb per life except for your last life where you get a lot. Plus, smart bombing will max out your lives in an instant

edited 23rd Sep '12 3:53:13 AM by hnd03

So. Let's all pause for a moment to smell what the Rock was, is, and forever will be... cooking.—Cave Johnson

Don't you only get, like, one extra life when you fight Flandre?

Song of the Sirens

One after Patchouli and one right before Flan. I put it in the edit, but I think it deserves repeating because it's kind of dumb: of the four games that gives lives for score, it is the only one that doesn't reward you during Extra

So. Let's all pause for a moment to smell what the Rock was, is, and forever will be... cooking.—Cave Johnson

ORRRIIIINNNNN!!!!!!! SANAEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SA Extra is brutal...so little room for error.

SA is brutal. SA extra is...worse. Damn Sanae and her lasers.

Well, thanks for the advice, guys. I guess I'll try Suwako next, even if it means putting Eo SD and Fairy Wars aside for a while. Although, maybe if I learned how to capture Royal Flare with Reimu B...I'll figure something out.

Actually, does anyone know where to get a PC-98 emulator?

Google either Anex86 or T-98 Next. They're both free.

Get T-98 Next if you want the better soundboard for the music.

x9 Suwako was the easiest Ex boss out of the first four main Windows games for me. I just went from having seen a couple Youtube videos of the stage at some point to beating it in about 45 minutes. Even with being easier, I still think Suwako was more fun to face than Mokou.

And speaking of MoF, I think I've played it enough now to have an opinion about the game. It feels a lot like EoSD, just a simple, basic danmaku game. It has no major gimmick (the Faith thing is just another item to collect), just the two playable characters, no ability to speed through replays, and no other extras like PCB's Phantasm stage or IN's Last Words/spell card practice.

The diversity of shot types is nice: two forward shot types, one (powerful) homing, an inverted one, and two weird shot types for Marisa. I got up to Virtue of Wind God and then the sixth stage again thinking Marisa C had just a weak version of Scarlet Team's shot type, then noticed all of the fairies above where I left the options continued just sitting on the screen, completely unaffected.

The bosses went down a lot faster after I realized that.

I don't like the new way the game handles continuing. In all the other games I always continued after running out of lives so I could play the later stages. Restarting from the beginning of the level just means starting the whole run over. I won't even see Lunatic stage six until I can reach it legitimately.

This is the first game that's been seriously buggy. It crashes a lot, fortunately only at start up or while watching replays (so far). Replays also seem to desync randomly, mostly during the fourth stage. Sometimes it works, sometimes it desyncs one way, and sometimes it desyncs a different way. Are these bugs just me, just MoF, or all the games using the new engine?

Edit: Those last three posts didn't show up when I refreshed for some reason. You can do Royal Flare this way with Reimu.

edited 24th Sep '12 12:37:35 AM by kenb215

You can fast forward through replays for every game from Mountain of Faith on by holding Ctrl.

As for desync, I have only had it happen with SA's stage 6 if you try to rush it.

edited 23rd Sep '12 9:29:56 PM by hnd03

So. Let's all pause for a moment to smell what the Rock was, is, and forever will be... cooking.—Cave Johnson

Desyncing on stage 4 is a known bug. Crashing is probably just you

Ah, thanks, that looks vaguely doable. I'll give it a go.

Desyncs happen on MoF stage 4 and SA stage 6. It's a bug with the replay playback, not the replay itself. And it's basically the same bug in both - just don't start playback on that stage, and don't fast-forward at all once the bugged stage starts, and it won't desync.

And MoF occasionally crashes at startup for me too. I have no idea what causes it, it's so random that it could very well depend on the phase of the moon for all I know.

edited 24th Sep '12 2:49:57 AM by PoochyEXE

Extra 1: Poochy Ain't Stupid

Captured Suika's "Pandemonium" in StB

Add Flan's first scene to that too.

Let's end the night with Mokou's second.

I have officially cleared every scene in Shoot the Bullet's Extra Stage.

edited 24th Sep '12 6:08:32 PM by hnd03

So. Let's all pause for a moment to smell what the Rock was, is, and forever will be... cooking.—Cave Johnson

Finally was able to simply make it to Koishi. (Cost me both lives on Sanae however.)

I lost horribly to the first attack of the first spellcard.

On the upside I know how to capture Miracle Fruit and have done so. Also on the upside, the first half of the stage has become jolly good fun despite the zillions of bullets.

edited 24th Sep '12 6:25:56 PM by MajorTom

Sanae's first and third spellcards as well as Koishi's first SC are made significantly easier by memorization (like much of SA).

• For Sanae's first, every time the laser grid comes, move to the very bottom of the screen (as far as you can go) and center yourself over the second "e" in the "Enemy" marker.
• For Sanae's third SC, there's a safespot glitch. Position yourself over her hand, where the bullets are spawning. (It helps to use a bomb as the spellcard starts.^note It's possible without a bomb if you REALLY know what you're doing, but I advise you don't chance it.) Make sure you position yourself just below the center of the safespot (there should be a stream of bullets headed downwards below you, almost exactly vertically), otherwise you might have a random bullet bounce off the top of the screen and then hit you on the way back down.
• For Koishi's first SC, shotgun during the first wave of lasers. As soon as they pass, move back down and dodge, then make sure you're at the bottom center when the second wave of lasers come (same position as Sanae's first SC). When they pass, move back up to shotgun, and repeat.

I have an old replay which demonstrates all 3 of these strategies. Hope that helps. (And keep in mind the safespot glitch is harder than it looks - I still mess it up about 30% of the time.)

edited 24th Sep '12 11:14:15 PM by PoochyEXE

Extra 1: Poochy Ain't Stupid

Woohoo! Just finished beating up Suwako! That was actually not very hard, compared to the other extra stages. It only took about three days, while Nue took more like a month. Does anyone else find her much easier than all the other extra bosses?