BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

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To Far Away Times
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - IN)

Post by To Far Away Times »

Lethe wrote:PCB and IN feature the blunder of drawing the player's hitbox under bullets and other effects. Not a big issue in PCB, but in IN the flood of time orbs while focus grazing can get really distracting. I've no qualms about calling IN the best main game on balance though... actually I didn't like playing it very much at first because the Marisa fight dragged it down for me. Thankfully it's consistently replaceable with a much better boss via never playing a 4B team again. Really the different ways of splitting stages 4 and 6 are just short-sightedness; besides, I've always been annoyed Eirin wasn't a "real" boss. Wouldn't it have been better for each team to have its own unique combination?

The Marisa section is like the best part though. I love the high speed stage four chase and the ensuing battle.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - IN)

Post by BulletMagnet »

I reached Kaguya with Team Reimu not long after unlocking 6-B, and while I haven't closed the deal yet hopefully it's not too far off; that being the case I've continued to tool around with the other teams, and have some additional thoughts on them:

Marisa/Alice - After a bit of internal back-and-forth I now consider myself pretty solidly within the "Malice Cannon is kosher" camp, mainly because Team Marisa is 1) The only team without some "official" means to increase the damage of its yokai/focused attack, and 2) The only team where not being directly in front of a boss means you are pretty much guaranteed to be doing zero damage; since you need to be so much more persistent in chasing bosses down I think the overlapping damage once you manage to get there is warranted. This opinion, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I need all the help I can get. :P

Sakuya/Remilia - Yeah, Sakuya is largely just along for the ride here, but Remilia is able to pick up so much of the slack that you barely feel it; this is the non-Reimu team I've come closest to a 6-A clear with, I'm tempted to be stubborn about this...off to the side, in the battle versus Reimu on stage 4, is it my imagination or is only Remilia quick enough to consistently get through the pattern with the "walls" of card-shaped shots (a characteristic that can sometimes get me in trouble on other patterns)? When using Alice her speed seems too slow to make it through, especially if I misjudge which side of a wall a "roadblock" will appear on.

Youmu/Yuyuko - Team Counter-intuitive, aka Abnormal Reco Lite. Fun for a change of pace, and their "reversed" human/yokai characteristics can come in very handy at certain spots, but whenever I switch to them I have to kind of re-learn how I approach a lot of situations, particularly boss fights (constantly tapping "down" to get full damage on bosses with Youmu annoys me on some deep level, methinks). A clear with this team would be another personal point of pride, but would probably require a bit more dedication than I'm willing to give before moving on.

So yeah, if/when I do "legitimately" clear IN it'll almost certainly be with Team Reimu, unless I surprise myself, but the occasional walk on a proverbial side path is still enjoyable in the interim.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - IN)

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

BulletMagnet wrote:Marisa/Alice - After a bit of internal back-and-forth I now consider myself pretty solidly within the "Malice Cannon is kosher" camp
MAlice Cannon (you gotta capitalize the A ;V) is officially in Labyrinth of Touhou 2, and we know all Touhou fanon becomes canon, therefore MAlice Cannon is legit. Q.E.D.
(constantly tapping "down" to get full damage on bosses with Youmu annoys me on some deep level, methinks).
Just use Yuyuko for damage. :V She's not super powerful, but her kill times are nevertheless respectable, and your ability to deal damage even if you're not lined up with the boss is pretty handy. Switch to Youmu if you can if you need to bomb at long range though, but Yuyuko's pretty decently serviceable on bosses, especially ones you can get somewhat close to.

Counterintuitively, Yuyuko deals more damage if she's slightly off-center from the boss so her center line of butterflies is hitting along with one of her outer ones. If you can get close enough to hit with both of the inner wideshots, then center yourself.
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Despatche
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - IN)

Post by Despatche »

Offtopic I guess, but am I the only one who actually enjoys solo Alice and solo Yuyuko? I don't know, I get to play a different game with each of those characters, and it's good.

Only problem is I'm bad so I get a lot of timeouts with Yuyuko. The above tip seems real useful, thanks. Should have noticed it before.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - IN)

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Solo Alice has no spread, not much damage over say Remilia, Marisa, Youmu, and a bomb that deals negligible damage. Worst solo type in the game that's still viable (compared to Sakuya whose DPS is so appalling she qualifies as a challenge run). Might be decent on the Extra Mode boss because the bomb disadvantage doesn't apply and the piercing beam hits the wings and the boss?

Yuyuko's quite decent, with the only real downside being an inability to shoot spirits (having Youmu around or Youmu solo are handy for this).
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - IN)

Post by BulletMagnet »

Despatche wrote:Offtopic I guess
Nah, no objections here to some general Touhou talk and whatnot in between updates, seeing the thread bumped will hopefully motivate me to keep going when I get lazy. :)
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:MAlice Cannon (you gotta capitalize the A ;V)
...obnoxiously arbitrary capitalizations, however, are where I draw the line. :P ;)

In any event, I finally managed to clear Final-B with Team Reimu, but it was yet another squeaker, and the score (943,390,250) actually ended up being lower than my Final-A clear; I dunno, for all the game's reputation as a particularly easy one, I had noticeably more trouble with it than with PCB. I think part of it might be how the floods of "time" orbs make it even easier to confuse smaller/duller enemy shots with items and lose track of them, I certainly had more than my share of those kinds of deaths (albeit plenty of others alongside them :P).

Either way, I'll leave my former score up on the board, but will change the game's status to "Yes" - from here I'm entering relatively uncharted territory, as this is the most recent Touhou game that I'd previously spent any noteworthy amount of time on. Will it also be the last one I actually have anything left in me to finish? Guess we'll find out...
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - IN Clear!)

Post by pulsemod »

for what it's worth, I seem to score lower on B route as well. I hope you enjoy PoFV, it's very different but once I got the hang of it I loved it! I'd love to play with people again sometime (and maybe branch out the characters I play :wink:)
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - IN Clear!)

Post by BulletMagnet »

Phantasmagoria of Flower View


Overview: And now for something a bit different; unlike the rest of the "main" games, this one is a "versus" shmup, a tribute of sorts to Twinkle Star Sprites, where the screen is split between you and an opponent, with the most basic goal being to "chain destroy" generic targets to build up your power and send lots of junk at your rival, while they do the same to you. The computer is plenty tough enough for my liking, though I can only imagine the unspeakable horrors a skilled human opponent could unleash upon me...

Characters: Is it my imagination, or is Reimu's charge shot kinda useless? Guess the mini-hitbox is very much her main draw this time around...most everyone else I can manage some small degree of success with, though Youmu's ability to cancel bullets without using meter is quite handy, hence my score with her being nearly twice what I've managed with anyone else, and the only run so far where I reached the last boss.

Trouble Spots: If we're being honest pretty much any rival character can wipe the floor with me if given half the chance, especially the mercilessly screen-clogging late-game foes, though I'd name Sakuya and Aya as particularly nasty bugbears, as their "directed" attacks love to catch me off-guard when I'm already busy dodging all the spam. Second to them are lines of fairies that appear unannounced from the bottom corners when I'm trying to dodge a pattern, I can't count how many times I've gotten the middle finger from one of those at the worst possible time.

General Thoughts: While still very much a shooter, this feels kind of like a "crossover fighter" for the Touhou series up to that point; a big cast, fast pace, remixed music themes, hilarously dramatic onscreen messages, even alternate costume colors. I kind of wonder if the actual Touhou fighting games can match it in pure, candy-coated adrenaline.

Misc: I've admittedly only been playing for a short time so far, but I'm genuinely concerned that I'm not going to be able to finish this one; progress has been quite slow, and at times gone in reverse. I almost feel like I'm missing something, as opponents always seem to manage to send a LOT more special attacks at me than I send at them, even though they're "chaining" enemies less than I am...maybe I need to re-read the wiki, or watch a few replays?
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by To Far Away Times »

The AI in PoFV is total bullshit. Zun couldn't program your AI opponent to dodge correctly, so he did some funky stuff with turning off hit boxes in order for them to put up enough of a fight. They can take hits at the beginning, but the AI hitbox will be turned off on the final hit for a set amount of time. Don't think of it as a 1V1, think of it as a timed survival, and don't take any unnecessary risks.

Later on, the AI gets quite hard. If you lose a life the difficulty will drop down for the next round. (At least, it always felt that way.) So on the last few battles go in trying to win the first one, lose the second one, then give it your best on the third one.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by pulsemod »

To Far Away Times wrote:If you lose a life the difficulty will drop down for the next round. (At least, it always felt that way.)
I agree, it definitely feels like the 'time needed for survival' drops considerably after losing a life, and I'm glad it's not just my imagination. gotta expect to lose a few lives near the end to make it reasonable
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by Lethe »

PoFV Yuuka was my first Lunatic 1CC. Weird game, probably the weirdest behind TH01, and one I've got conflicting feelings on. Never played it multiplayer, but I have a hard time believing it's any competition to Twinkle Star Sprites. Pretty much everything in that game is set up to enhance versus play, while pretty much nothing in PoFV seems to be.

Played solo, PoFV's mechanically unbalanced, has intrusive bugs (plus the infamous Ass Fairies you've encountered), and certainly isn't as dynamically complex as PoDD. But there's a rare animal thrill in the fight for score through momentary chaos. The final boss typifies it best: true hell on earth, real danmaku shit, and the only path is defiance till death.

Don't know how helpful they'll be, but here are some tips anyway:
- Most characters' level 1s can be used in tandem with normal shot, thus improving coverage. Try charging a level 1 or 2 in the gap between starting each combo such that the chain doesn't drop. Spamming level 2s constantly is fundamental to scoreplay as it keeps a lot of garbage in rotation (this of course makes the game harder).
- Try to get used to not using the focus button except for scoping spirits, in order to not despawn fairy waves. Youmu and Marisa theoretically never need to focus due to how their level 1s work.
- Most bullets are aimed at you; use the whole width of the screen to misdirect, and fight for vertical space so you can back up as needed. Being higher up will make your level 2/3/4 cancels more efficient too.
- Free boss spells appear only at 100k, 300k and 500k spell points. Keeping track of the opponent's spell points, and/or intentionally dropping your chain to get a summon to counter an enemy boss are good survival tactics.
- If you have a charge held and get hit, avoid releasing it until you regain control or the game won't award you any commiseration meter (the "deathcharge" bug).
- Sakuya's EX attacks visibly travel from her screen. Keeping a peripheral eye open for them can help you stay away (you don't want to get close, the hitbox on them is horrible). No such courtesy exists for Marisa's lasers where often the optimal play is to eat shit. Edit: Actually it's only Marisa's boss lasers but they're all stupid anyway
- The AI's survival timer drops drastically if you lose, as does the rank. If you can afford to die a lot on a later stage, victory is almost inevitable. There are plenty of score extends, but getting them is nontrivial.

I like some of this game's endings so I'd be happy to see you comfortable clearing it, but I'd be even more happy if you achieved BONUS!.
To Far Away Times wrote:The AI in PoFV is total bullshit. Zun couldn't program your AI opponent to actually dodge stuff, so he did some funky stuff with turning off hit boxes in order for them to put up enough of a fight.
It doesn't cheat, it's just inhumanly good at dodging. You'd be surprised at how many "impossible" things can be done with robot control.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by BulletMagnet »

Thanks for the tips, everyone. :)
Lethe wrote:- Try to get used to not using the focus button except for scoping spirits, in order to not despawn fairy waves.
Would you be willing to briefly clarify how this bit works? I must have missed this item while browsing the wiki.
To Far Away Times wrote: They can take hits at the beginning, but the AI hitbox will be turned off on the final hit for a set amount of time.
He's just sticking to tradition.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by Lethe »

BulletMagnet wrote:Would you be willing to briefly clarify how this bit works? I must have missed this item while browsing the wiki.
During focus, the game will wait until every fairy is gone before it spawns a new wave. During unfocus, waves are spawned periodically and overlap. The switch happens instantaneously, so flitting into focus to dodge costs very little, but unfocused should always be your "default" state. (Although you might be tempted to focus in the corner to avoid getting rammed)

The presence of lots of overlapping trivial enemies is one of the most basic and crucial differences between PoFV and other games of its ilk.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by Despatche »

How do we convince ZUN to do another Phantasmagoria anyway? Sure would be nice right about now. Or maybe some other kind of "versus shooting" game.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

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Lethe wrote:During focus, the game will wait until every fairy is gone before it spawns a new wave.
Thanks, did not know that; since PoFV is a "pre-how to play menu option" Touhou, I wonder, did ZUN ever "officially" document this and other such minutiae anywhere, or did players just somehow have to figure it out, a la Garegga's rank back in the day?

Another item I never would have figured out sans wiki is the whole "using special attacks more makes them more powerful" mechanic; sure, the onscreen indicator is there, but in the heat of a match heaven knows if I would ever have bothered to try to keep an eye on it and see what affected it, let alone somehow also manage to make the connection between it and its effects, since I so seldom look at the opponent's side of the screen. By the by, for purely survival-based play is that really much of a factor? You mentioned it's important for scoring, but seeing as I've only ever come remotely within striking distance of the second extend once I'm inclined to doubt I should bother if it's not.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by Lethe »

BulletMagnet wrote:By the by, for purely survival-based play is that really much of a factor? You mentioned it's important for scoring, but seeing as I've only ever come remotely within striking distance of the second extend once I'm inclined to doubt I should bother if it's not.
It doesn't matter. You need a minimal amount of stuff on the screen so the AI gets hit on cue, whether it's high or low rank makes no difference. The earliest clears I have on record got 1-2 extends so I wouldn't worry about score if you're not getting anything out of it.

And yeah, AFAIK the focus thing is never mentioned. The manuals for 06-09 are pretty good actually (I'm guessing the wiki articles are paraphrased from them), but this specific quirk is missing. Is it a continuation of the previous two games' systems that encouraged unfocused play? Was he meaning to do something else and typoed and never fixed it? Just one of those things...
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by BulletMagnet »

Sooo....on a whim I was in the mood for a more "traditional" shooter, so I took a quick break from PoFV and had a go at Mountain of Faith...and, to my immense surprise, managed a very quick clear. :shock: As such, guess I'd better do this:

----------

Mountain of Faith


Overview: ZUN billed this entry as something of a "reboot" for the series, and it does feel somewhat more like EoSD in a few ways, i.e. only Reimu and Marisa are playable (though with 3 variations apiece this time) and extends are once again tied to score. Speaking of which, the "faith" meter is what helps boost score items' value here; it rises when attacking/killing targets or collecting green "faith" items, and gradually decreases when not doing those things, essentially a more forgiving variant of DoDonPachi's "Get Point" meter. Finally, "bombs" are now tied to your power level; using one decreases your shot power one notch, though under most circumstances this means you can refill your "stock" of them much easier, which was totally not a factor in my sudden success here, nosiree.

Characters: ...well, considering the unexpected clear I suppose I'll have to name Reimu A as my go-to pick by default. :P I will have to at least have a quick go at the others before moving on, though.

Trouble Spots: Surprisingly few (albeit with a handful of outright lucky dodges saving me from a couple of Stupid Deaths), though I believe I died several times at the stage 4 boss; 5 and 6 also snapped a few lives off of me, though I am slightly proud of myself for getting through the final boss's last pattern on my last life without bombing, it's one of the few late-game attacks that I was somehow able to immediately get the "feel" for.

General Thoughts: As much as I like the more multi-layered elements from PCB and IN, I do understand why ZUN would want to take a step back and put out a more straightforward shooter, if only to make sure all the trimmings hadn't made him lazy with the fundamentals. I prefer the character art from IN in particular, but the in-game visuals are quite nice, particularly the waterfall level.

Misc: Stupidly small detail, but is it my imagination or do items get vacuumed into you past the point of collection just a little bit slower than before? I don't know why, but that immediately stuck out, not like it actually affects anything too terribly much.

---------

So yeah, I will have to play it some more to flesh out my overall impression of it, but after getting my scrubby rear end kicked so hard by PoFV it does admittedly feel nice to cross one off the list I wasn't expecting. Will probably backtrack to PoFV and see if I can finally finish it off before putting any more time into MoF.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by Despatche »

Pick Marisa B and keep your power level anywhere between 2.00 and 3.00.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Despatche wrote:Pick Marisa B and keep your power level anywhere between 2.00 and 3.00.
Actually, it's between 3 and 3.95. Specifically, there's a bug where Marisa B's unfocused laser does WAY more damage than intended due to a typo in the damage value when between these power levels. Literally kills bosses in seconds flat. There's a patch if you want to play with the correct intended damage values though, and patched Marisa B is my fave shot type in this one as the lasers are pretty decent (and her other shot types are simply too weird for my tastes). Details on Touhouwiki here:
MarisaB power glitch: When MarisaB's power is between 3.00 and 3.95, the middle laser of her unfocused shots does 10x as much damage as intended, beating bosses in literally a matter of seconds after they appear. Note that because you can reduce your power by bombing, it is very easy to make use of this glitch, even if you collect too many power items. This glitch results from ZUN accidentally putting another 1 in front of the number that represents the laser's damage output.
Reimu B or Marisa B, as the game's focused damage types, tend to work best for clearing. Their bombs are also exceptionally strong and you can dump bombs to clear the game relatively easily.

Avoid Reimu C. The wide spread when focused looks impressive, but has tremendous damage dropoff at long range. It feels quite a bit weaker than Yuyuko in IN. This, combined with bombs reducing your shot power, makes it arguably the worst shot type in the game (alongside Marisa C's difficult to use gimmick shot type that does deal pretty respectable focused damage).


As far as PoFV goes, consider using Youmu. She's got the only level 1 charge attack in the game that also cancels most types of bullets with the sword slash.

Alternatively, the AI is exceptionally vulnerable to Medicine Melancholy's poison clouds (which slow you down tremendously when stacked) due to the AI not being equipped to deal with them, making her the easiest to 1CC with if I recall correctly. If you manage to unlock her via credit feeding (I think it's possible?) try her for a 1CC. Reimu's giant yin-yang orbs are also pretty effective against the AI.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by To Far Away Times »

MoF is cool. I like the waterfall stage a lot.

The bomb system is very generous, so if you go in with the mindset that you should be bombing all the time its not too rough. I remember getting stuck for a while because I was scared of the power loss on bombing, but it really is balanced in the player's favor. Once I let the bombs fly I made quick progress. Zun way overcorrected for this in Subterranean Aneurysm. That game punishes bomb use pretty hard.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Agreed. Bombs feel way too weak in SA, especially given you're also losing your shot power to use them. MoF was the point that the standard shmup games felt like they were getting a bit "weird" in terms of mechanics, with SA and UFO going further down the experimental route (UFO's shot types and bombs feel much more robust like earlier games, but the whole UFO system felt very distracting to me).
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by To Far Away Times »

SA is one of my favorite games in the series outside of the "core" of the EoSD, PCB, IN trilogy.

It's hard, and the power loss is mean spirited, but the patterns, stage music, and last two bosses are some of the best in the series outside of the "core three." SA is a very honest game. You can read the patterns and react. Not a lot of bullshit. It's the kind of difficulty that's fun to persevere through. UFO is where things start getting kinda dumb. I think there's a big drop off between those two games. UFO is the kind of difficulty that sucks.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by BrianC »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:Agreed. Bombs feel way too weak in SA, especially given you're also losing your shot power to use them. MoF was the point that the standard shmup games felt like they were getting a bit "weird" in terms of mechanics, with SA and UFO going further down the experimental route (UFO's shot types and bombs feel much more robust like earlier games, but the whole UFO system felt very distracting to me).
One thing I didn't think of until playing UFO is that the power up system in Space Invaders Extreme has some similarities. Wasn't Zun involved with the DS versions of the first two games?

edit: Zun is not in the credits of the SI Extreme games and left Taito around 2007 or 2008, before the games were released. UFO also came out after SI Extreme 1. I'm not sure why I assumed it came out before SI Extreme.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by pulsemod »

UFO is a game where it feels like the difficulty drops drastically if you perfectly route the UFOs, but is unreasonable if you mess them up at all. I haven't played it a ton because I'm not really a fan of games where you have to time pickups like that.
I gave SA a first try recently after breezing through MoF and I felt the opposite, there were a ton of "gotchas" that kept grabbing me out of nowhere and you have way less opportunity to safely go to the point of collection safely (probably because of the graze collection mechanic). but there were a lot of impressive patterns and cool stuff going on and I think I'll end up enjoying it once I get used to it!
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Yeah, there's a TON of resources available if you're able to route the UFOs, but if you're struggling to do so or if you're playing for score (whereby you basically ignore red and green UFOs) then you can kiss it goodbye. The UFOs also feel too distracting to me and dominate the playing field when they're on the screen, making it hard to focus on and enjoy the bullet patterns.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by Lethe »

I agree with Roo's implication that SA's not "robust". Reduce the excess of gimmicky Extra-style stuff that has no longevity, make Lunatic not defined by bombing absolutely fucking everything (spell bonus scaling?), fix the trivial cloudgrazing and safespots, then it'd be in better shape. I feel like SA was in a race to replace all the things that were left out of MoF, without taking the time to lay the more complicated groundwork which made such things work in previous games. It's a shame because it really is a great fan's game, just not so great as a shmup once you look at it closely.

Re: SA's weak bombs, try Reimu C. Pointblanking is strong.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by BulletMagnet »

Took a bit of a break and went back to PoFV; truth be told, I'm getting frustrated with it at this point. I've tried my best to play defensively, picking characters that avoid my worst matchups (which I still can't get past without losing at least one life), but to no avail, I honestly feel like I'm going backwards at this point, and every time I cancel out an opponent's boss attack only to have them somehow instantly send it back I just feel like I'm playing a completely different game than the computer is. I guess I just don't "get" this game, not so much in terms of its appeal, because I want to like it, but in terms of how I should be approaching it, because despite helpful advice from everyone I'm still doing it wrong somehow.

Chances are I'm going to either give up on this one entirely or perhaps credit feed to unlock a character I'll have more success with and settle for a "sorta" clear.
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

I honestly feel like I'm going backwards at this point, and every time I cancel out an opponent's boss attack only to have them somehow instantly send it back
It sounds like you're not clicking with the fundamentals yet. Don't feel bad though, it's a pretty complex (and frantic) game. The thing the bosses are doing? You can do it too.

At 100,000, 300,000, and 500,000 spell points a level 4 attack is automatically unleashed against your opponent. Furthermore, at 500,000 spell points you also get a free level 3 attack unleashed at the same time. If you reach 999,990, it stops increasing and every fairy you destroy from then on shows a yellow BONUS! marker, each of which indicates a 5000 point bonus.
Spell points are gained by cancelling a lot of bullets at a time by shooting the floating spirit enemies that explode when destroyed.

My general advice is if the enemy spawns a boss, focus on racking up your spell point counter to cancel them. If it maxes out at 999,990 you're scoring well, but you can deliberately let your combo drop so you can start refilling it for the free boss summons.

Try to avoid using Level 3 or Level 4 charge attacks if possible. Level 2 is handy for the screen clearing and should give you sufficient time to kill a boss or Lily White if they appear. Only use a Level 4 if you're desperate to get rid of an enemy boss. It's almost always preferable to eliminate and enemy boss by comboing. Use your focus aura to "trigger" the floating spirits, then kill them to cancel bullets.

This strategy section details a couple ways to play, give it a read and maybe it'll help.

It's much more hectic / chaotic than the traditional shmups are, so it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea.
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BulletMagnet
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by BulletMagnet »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:It sounds like you're not clicking with the fundamentals yet.
It really does feel like I'm completely missing some key facet someplace; on the one hand you need to attack targets and cancel bullets to hit your opponent and build up meter in case of an emergency, but on the other hand sending too much over means the enemy can send most of it back and overwhelm you (and, particularly if said opponent is Sakuya or Aya, sneak in a directed attack from out of nowhere while you're attempting to visualize a way through the onslaught headed your way). And as I said before it just always feels like the AI is invariably sending over LOADS more special attacks than I am no matter what I try to do; maybe I need to record some replays and keep a closer eye on what the computer is actually doing, in hopes of emulating the general strategy for its seemingly bottomless supply of meter.
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Lethe
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Re: BM's Filthy Casual Touhou-Palooza (Now - PoFV)

Post by Lethe »

I think the most important thing is finding the right flow of when it's appropriate to charge/dodge/shoot. Strategizing about stuff like meter use comes later, use it when you need to. The cancels from enemy explosions should be cutting paths in the pellets; are you shooting constantly and killing everything too fast? If you are, that might be why you're having meter trouble as well (less cancels = less combo hits = less meter). If you're still playing Youmu, I can't overemphasize how much you should be spamming the level 1. It deletes nearly every hazard in the game and will neuter any Sakuya problems.

If you're truly hung up about it, you could share one of those replays.
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