Touhou project games

[Bananamatic]

IIRC EX Sanae also has animations in SA because there is another overlooked safespot

[cj iwakura]

Like I'd ever touch Lunatic. And UFO is certainly the most professional looking. Compare that to, say, EoSD and the improvements are amazing.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

UFO Lunatic and Hard are so terribly designed.

Way too many cheap gimmicky attacks that I just gave up on the damn game. I should have given up on Hard with how rageworthy it was. I only got to Stage 6 of UFO Lunatic twice, and never could clear it with credit feeding, but still it wouldn't be hard if I could actually get there with high resources, but the rest of the game is so unfair. Never cleared the stage even with credit feeding but could if I got there with high resources. Too bad there's way too many garbage attacks that rely more on luck than skill in the game or have certain gimmicks that like to screw you over. Stage 5 I think is fine though as well as the stage part of stage 4, nothing terrible about that one, and it has a great Extra stage. But outside of that, the game just isn't fun. And yeah, trying to 1cc Lunatic isn't worth risking one's sanity. I'd rather 1cc something I find fun and doable like Futari Black Label God Mode and DoJ BL.

List of problems I have with UFO:

All stages except Stage 4, 5 and Extra are boring.

Nazrin's stage 1 final with most, but not all shottypes.

Parasol Star Memories (random boss movement pretty much can make this trivial or almost impossible)

Bone Dry Monster (Expanding and Retracting circle affects where the bullets spawn, but if you pay attention to that, you're not paying attention the bullets, and if you're paying attention to bullets, something could spawn right by your hitbox)

Stage 3(admittedly, this isn't bad with ReimuB, but for everything else)

Stage 3 Circle Streaming with anyone except ReimuB.

King Kraken Strike (Fists cover the bullets)

Hook Combo (forced unfocus movement through very small gaps because if you wait you get hit by the fists)

Midboss Nue(both)

Sinkable Vortex (okay, this is probably fair, but I just don't like this one)

Second anchor spellcard (can randomly be walled)

Survival (mainly because I don't have it down, I can admit this one is fair)

Murasa's third nonspell(randomized boss movement can make it impossible, plus bullets from sinkable vortex can interfere with the first wave)

Byakuren in general really isn't fun, though it is a fair fight.


I actually find EoSD, IN, MoF, and SA to have some well designed gameplay and scoring systems, even if I'm not skilled enough to go for score on those ones. Okay, maybe MoF, but I always mess up somewhere. And the PC98 games are kind of fun too.

[RNGmaster]

Are you OmegaWeaponX25, by any chance?

[Bananamatic]

UFO is probably the most memorization based shmup I played so far. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless you are an Ikaruga fan or something

PCB is by far the most fun out of the PC games as it isn't flawed in some ways like EoSD is but the patterns are still rather simple yet fun to dodge compared to the laserfests in the later games which are just tapping in one direction in disguise.

The PC-98 games don't look half bad either(except for the first one, or rather the first shmup one), but never really got into them.

Or try Seihou. Pretty much Touhou with fast patterns that feel like an actual shmup, and the same goes for PC-98 from what I've seen.

UFO Lunatic and Hard are so terribly designed etc.

pretty much, the later touhou games are nice looking but the gameplay is going down the toilet. story, characters, "beautiful spellcards" but the "shmup" part is kind of gone.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

No, I'm not.

OmegaWeaponX25/Zengeku is definitely better at the genre than I am. He gave up on UFO Lunatic long before I did. Also, no way I'd get close to timing out many of the cards that he timed out, though at least I got the VoWG one as well.

[Funen1]

Are you OmegaWeaponX25, by any chance?

He is EnigmaGamer.

UFO is mixed for me. A decent portion of the danmaku is okay by itself, though I wouldn't call it particularly exciting. I don't like the UFO system at all. But the game does have Kogasa.

If we're going to go on the topic of favorite Touhou games, mine is SA. Very solid danmaku, a unique "gimmick" that actually works really well with the gameplay, great music, and likable characters. Sure, most of the shottypes are bad, but as far as I'm concerned only one is necessary to play the game.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Yeah, that is my Youtube account.

Enigma on MotK, though I changed the display to Phoenixma there after an incident that pretty much made me lose a lot of respect for the site.


Kind of thought of it like


I'm almost always coming back to these games despite defeat, so the phoenix thing kind of made sense.

And obviously due to how close it was, I just combined the two things.

I added Chaos here due to how random my skill pretty much is. Sometimes I play well and other times it is just fail after fail after fail.

[Sapz]

Too bad there's way too many garbage attacks that rely more on luck than skill in the game

UFO is probably the most memorization based shmup I played so far.

Nice consistent criticisms, guys. :V

Really, there's nothing the other games in the series do that UFO doesn't do just as well, I find; UFO is simply more difficult, and has an emphasis on read and dodge. I mean, do you really want to argue that attacks are luck based because they can't be memorized down to the individual bullet, like some earlier attacks in the series? The bullets are obviously in different places but the difficulty is consistent between attempts, which is what matters. You have the ability to think on the fly for a reason. You could argue that it helps to learn which UFOs spawn where, but grabbing reds for four stages and greens for the other two is a surefire way to 1ccing.

[ebarrett]

flawed in some ways like EoSD is

As far as I remember EoSD's biggest "flaw" was that it kicked you around p. badly until you gave up.

[cj iwakura]

UFO has my favorite stage music in the series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofuPQIPotn0

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Don't really see them as inconsistent.

Randomness complaints focus more on the bosses. Even in EoSD, another game with lots of random attacks, there's very little where randomness can give you something impossible.

Memorization complaints focus more on the stages than on the bosses.

There are a few memorization based attacks on the bosses, but it really isn't much in UFO.

There's very little memorization in terms of UFO stages, Stage 3 being the main offender in terms of bad stages in Touhou.

So it seems our complaints focus on 2 different aspects of the game.


if memorization was a complaint for me, I wouldn't like IN which is probably the most memorization reliant one in the series.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

As for analog sticks like TVR mentioned, I can't even imagine seriously playing a shooter with an analog stick. Although I guess I did play a lot of Ikaruga with a Gamecube controller... haha.

I wouldnt say analog sticks are bad for all shmups, infact I swap between dpads and using an analog stick, the reason why i use AS even now is because when i 1st got into stgs all i had was an logitech dual action ps2 clone which the d-pad was uselesly crap so I learnt how to play shmups with an analog and im quite used to it.

Aslong as your analog stick is quite loose and not stiff like some pads are, and you can increase the deadzone settings using say xpadder. Its quite allright using one to play shmups like DDP, Samidare (both ive 1ALLed using an analog) and Rayforce. Where the analog stick totally fall flat is Touhou where you need to make lots of small precise tap dodges one after another, (analogs are also no good for playing contra aswell).

Another problem of analog sticks is that you need to be very prisice with your thumb to beable to play the game effectivly. This is no problem when your calm but as everyone reading this will know been calm and collective go through the window when your playing really well and your high on adrenaline


Back to talking about the touhou games themselves. Ive heard many ppl say ZUN's best shooters are those not in the main series like double spoiler, fairy wars and that VS shmup. What do you guys think about them are they really that good? have any design flaws?

[cj iwakura]

I wasn't that impressed by them.

[Naut]

Back to talking about the touhou games themselves. Ive heard many ppl say ZUN's best shooters are those not in the main series like double spoiler, fairy wars and that VS shmup. What do you guys think about them are they really that good? have any design flaws?

Erm, I wouldn't say so, both in terms of design and scoring. While enjoyability is dependent on personal preference, scoring in all those game is absolute crap and I'd say that games like MoF, SA and UFO were all designed better. They're certainly much more consistent at what they throw at you. Fairy Wars can get much harder than Lunatic of those three games, but it's difficulty is absolutely all over the place for the most part. Double Spoiler is fun every now and then, but personally I'd rather play a whole game than grind 45 seconds of attack over and over again. PoFV is pretty much only fun when against friends. Otherwise it's just random bullets thrown everywhere. It's probably the best for improving your skills, but I find it just to be a random mess of crap.

~opinions~

[Funen1]

Back to talking about the touhou games themselves. Ive heard many ppl say ZUN's best shooters are those not in the main series like double spoiler, fairy wars and that VS shmup. What do you guys think about them are they really that good? have any design flaws?

They're not as good as those in the main series, if you ask me.

GFW is my favorite of the side-games, but it still doesn't stand up to the full-fledged shooters. A bit too short, and like Naut mentioned the difficulty is erratic (I swear the Forest of Magic (Evening) level must be the hardest stage in the game, and it's only a Stage 2). Having said that, the danmaku is still fun to play every once in a while, and I find it quite helpful for training, especially by going through Extra. But I kind of wish the scoring didn't depend so much on your life count, otherwise I might give scoring in GFW more attention.

Double Spoiler was kind of a letdown, mainly because the attacks were too gimmicky to make me feel like I accomplished much in the "general skills" department. StB was more fun to play in that aspect.

I've yet to play PoFV, but from what I've heard of it, I don't know if I would enjoy it.

[shadowbringer]

my opinion on PoFV is that players are supposed to reset chains for survival (as doing so allows them to resummon bosses at 100k, 300k and 500k chain score), and supposed to not reset chains for scoring (though like Enhasa once mentioned, PoFV has decreased the importance of looking at the opponent's screen, compared to TSS). You're encouraged to use the spirits (activating them at good places where they'll cancel bullets where the fairies usually won't) to build your chain, this in turn encourages planning ahead and having a feel of your chain timer (so that you don't need to look at it and can focus on planning ahead to continue chaining when the next fairy waves come). The only problem (for scoreplay imho -- for versus matches I'd say that Reimu, Sikieiki and Komachi, and mostly Marisa are characters that I don't like to use or fight against) is that the AI can die when you're playing well enough, like in Twinkle Star Sprites.

I can't comment on the other games (even EoSD, which I don't like because it demands more memorization for grazing opportunities than I can handle, besides requiring more execution for point-blank grazing than I'll have for a long time.. and my lack of practice for capturing spellcards :p) but some opinions stand:
- I don't understand the hitboxes (don't know if I've actually grazed the bullets I wanted to graze, so that I end risking myself more or less than I wanted -- for example, when trying to graze streams or masses of bullets)
- I'm clueless about what to do on the stages (what are the optimal strategies, and I lack the memorization to keep them in mind while playing -- I think I'm a special case of bad memory, I can easily misremember things and can't make good use of stage practice or savestates because I have difficulties trusting my memory when I try to put the training into an actual run. I have to restart often, because that's how I remember that I've messed up somewhere.)
- MoF chaining can go die in a fire (sorry for those who like it, it's quite a terrain disadvantage for me -- Mars Matrix chaining can go die in a fire too )

[Treasurance]

What? Shoot the Bullet and Double Spoiler are the only GOOD games (addictive gameplay, consist of many very short but very difficult challenges). PCB and IN are somewhat decent, and the rest are...not.

[Naut]

What? Shoot the Bullet and Double Spoiler are the only GOOD games (addictive gameplay, consist of many very short but very difficult challenges).

loves me dem puzzle games

[Bananamatic]

UFO is simply more difficult, and has an emphasis on read and dodge.

wait so how could I 1cc DOJ just by randomly practicing stages without any replays while UFO made me ragequit with all the dumb crap it throws at you and you 1cc'd it months before DOJ.

If UFO is difficult, it's difficult in a wrong way

[moozooh]

Maybe it's just that UFO is considerably harder than DOJ. I can tell; I can't get past stage 3 in the former.

[Naut]

If UFO is difficult, it's difficult in a wrong way

Because you're bad at it, this is the conclusion you come up with? The game is just difficult. Get better or drop down to Hard mode.

[Barrakketh]

If UFO is difficult, it's difficult in a wrong way

Because you're bad at it, this is the conclusion you come up with? The game is just difficult. Get better or drop down to Hard mode.

Some consider UFO Hard to be more difficult than Lunatic. I can't remember the details as to why, though

[moozooh]

Nazrin's last spell in st1, probably.

[Treasurance]

whats UFO????? is it this???

[Funen1]

Nazrin's last spell in st1, probably.

Not this again...

Both spells can be memorized. To anyone who's having trouble with this attack on Hard, go above one of the pendulums as shown here.

Fake-edit: You just won't give up, will you Treasurance?

[Treasurance]

You just won't give up, will you Treasurance?

I'll take that as a compliment

[Bananamatic]

If UFO is difficult, it's difficult in a wrong way

Because you're bad at it, this is the conclusion you come up with? The game is just difficult. Get better or drop down to Hard mode.

I could probably no miss hard if I didn't fall asleep halfway through stage 3 every single time

how to 1cc UFO lunatic
1) memorize stages down to every single fairy
2) break the extend gauge with the insane amount of lives you get
3) bomb everything that can't be memorized
4) ???
5) You don't profit goddamnit

and you still have enough lives left to afford several cockups(provided that you memorize the first 3 stages and the 4th one is a freebie because it's ACTUAL DODGING)

[Sapz]

Would you mind providing a demonstration replay of your brilliant strategy in action, then? I'm sure Lunatic 1ccs would be far more commonplace if it was that simple.

Aside from that, you haven't taken scoreplay into consideration at all. You'll need to swap out those resources for points if it's as easy as you make it out to be, right?

[Funen1]

how to 1cc UFO lunatic
1) memorize stages down to every single fairy
2) break the extend gauge with the insane amount of lives you get
3) bomb everything that can't be memorized
4) ???
5) You don't profit goddamnit

1) Don't you already memorize enemy locations in almost every single shooting game anyway? And not all the danmaku is memorizeable, obviously.
2) It takes at least a few stages to get that many lives, and you can't take any stray hits lest you break your UFO path. It is still more resources than other Touhou games, though.
3) You get two bombs per life if you only go for red UFOs, so you'll have to try some dodging at some point on each life (provided you aren't actively suiciding or anything).
4) !!!
5) You aren't profiting, judging only from what you're saying.

Even methods as extreme as maxing out the life gauge aren't necessary to 1cc UFO Lunatic. As much as I dislike the UFO system anyway, it's not game breaking or anything. Find a balance that fits for you.