I have never played a Touhou...

[Zengeku3]

How I've managed that when you are all convinced they are so easy for the genre I do not know.

It might be because of your inexperience. When you get to know Touhou better you'll realize how easily most of them can be taken apart. Since you so often get a ridiculous amount of extends you'll be able to go into stage practice, figure out all the problem spots and bomb basically everyone of them and following a memorized route for the rest of the game.

Take PCB Stage 5 for example. The only somewhat difficult part of it can be neutralized with a bomb leaving the rest of the stage outrageously trivial. When I got my first 1cc of that game I hadn't even practiced it. I went to unlock Stage practice, bombed everytime I could and abused the systems as hard as I could, through improvisation that is, and managed to 1cc with 4 lives in stock.

VoWG

I'll make an exception for VoWG.

Oh so the other ones I mentioned aren't easy? Nice. You've improved!
EDIT: The thing I wrote before wasn't English.

lunatic touhous have harder earlier stages and around st4 the difficulty becomes rather stale for the rest of the game

This doesn't make sense unless you refer to UFO having a Stage 2 and 3 boss who both have a spell that is harder than almost any card in Stage 4, 5 and 6.

normal shmups start off really easy and eventually shit hits the fan

Touhou is the same way. Take IN for example. Stage 1,2,3,4 and 5 can be easily no-missed. Stage 6 however is a lot more difficult. There does happen some inconsistency though. Aya is way harder than Sanae. Marisa/Reimu are harder than Reisen.
Oh and EoSD's difficulty scales pretty 'normally' too.

and yes VoWG is cool

Part of the reason I think MoF is the best game. I have a 70/281 capture rate on that thing. That suggests around 4-5 hours of play against one spellcard not even considering that many of those were failed attempts at a timeout until I finally succeeded. Kanako is thus one of my most played bosses in any shmup game. Only Aya, Shou, Byakuren and Orin cuts it close.

This. Even disregarding when you're playing for score, plenty of attacks require quick thinking. You know all those slow, random, but really dense attacks you see? You have to be constantly analyzing everything going on in order to consistently (I stress "consistently") find a way through them without dying or bombing.

What cards are you thinking about? Name me some examples.

[STGnoob]

The backgrounds in touhou are pretty weak, and the portraits aren't that great, but the character, bullet and enemy sprites seem just fine to me, and personally I find MoF at least to be quite pretty, and it actually has backgrounds. I can think of a lot of games that I would call uglier than MoF, although from the list I provided earlier I could only point to DDP and possibly exceed as examples of being outright uglier in my eyes. So the hating on touhou's art seems a bit excessive to me, when there are much uglier shmups out there.

ddp is probably the best looking game on your list... MAYBE behind ketsui

Art is very subjective, so note the abundance of subjective language I employed there Personally I dislike DDP because to me, the enemy design is very bland and generic for a shmp. Tanks are very blocky and look almost like plastic toy tanks to me, there's not much in the way of details, etc. Actually ketsui was another of the ones I was thinking about including in that list, so apparently our tastes are radically different

Zengeku - Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's because of my inexperience. I know touhou gives you tons of resources, and I'm guessing the difficulty cap on learning how to tap and read patterns is a lot lower than the difficulty cap on a more traditional shmup. I think part of my problem with touhou is I just feel a lot more confined than in other games... most games you have a lot more room to move around, and it feels like you need to be a lot more precise in touhou because there's literally bullets EVERYWHERE. In most of those other games, most things are aimed, so you can create gaps by making things aim themselves at you away from other bullet clusters. So I guess what I'm saying is I can't dodge, but in touhou you're forced to Anyway I just thought it was funny my experience was so different from the norm so I had to share.

[dunpeal2064]

Why, when touhou fans choose to compare touhou graphics or music to cave, they always choose a 15 year old game?



Try comparing touhou to all of Cave, since all of touhou is usually refferenced

I better stop before I get in trouble for comparing cave and touhou.

[STGnoob]

Why, when touhou fans choose to compare touhou graphics or music to cave, they always choose a 15 year old game?



Try comparing touhou to all of Cave, since all of touhou is usually refferenced

I better stop before I get in trouble for comparing cave and touhou.

If you're referring to me, I compared a specific touhou game to a specific cave game out of convenience since I had previously been talking about it. If you prefer I could compare it to mushihimesama (not futari) instead, which I would say has better backgrounds but generally uglier sprites. Most cave games look better than any of the touhou games though in my opinion. Of course, the other reason I compared touhou to a 15 year old game is because no one complains that 15 year old games have bad graphics, but they complain vehemently that touhou's art sucks. If you're willing to play a 15 year old game despite it having lackluster art, what's your problem with playing a slightly more recent game with lackluster art? If your problem with touhou is the gameplay that's fine and I can understand that, but if someone were to go and play something like gradius 3 in preference to touhou because touhou is "too ugly", then I would be forced to facepalm heavily.

[dunpeal2064]

Sorry, I was not trying to reffer to anyone in particular, I just see a ton of Touhou > Cave comparisons, and they usually site DDP or Guwange as the comparison. Just kinda erks me, since Cave > Touhou comparisons are not even permitted.

Wasn't trying to point you out, that was just bad placement

[STGnoob]

Oh, that's alright, I wasn't offended.

[AliceMargatroid]

Sorry, I was not trying to reffer to anyone in particular, I just see a ton of Touhou > Cave comparisons, and they usually site DDP or Guwange as the comparison. Just kinda erks me, since Cave > Touhou comparisons are not even permitted.

Wasn't trying to point you out, that was just bad placement

If you want to compare Touhou to Cave, the best you can do is take Mushihimesama / Futari.
Mushi is like Cave's Touhou. It's much better imo.

[Zengeku3]

Just kinda erks me, since Cave > Touhou comparisons are not even permitted.

Not permitted? Is that some new rule I haven't heard about? MoTK has one but last I checked, there was no such rule on this forum.

[AliceMargatroid]

Just kinda erks me, since Cave > Touhou comparisons are not even permitted.

Not permitted? Is that some new rule I haven't heard about? MoTK has one but last I checked, there was no such rule on this forum.

The shmup forum isn't a forum for idiots who can't argue.
Any discussion is allowed as long as it doesn't involve breaking standard forum rules.

[Bananamatic]

lunatic touhous have harder earlier stages and around st4 the difficulty becomes rather stale for the rest of the game

And now we've once again reached the point where no one can take you seriously. :V

I meant harder as in early stages in touhou lunatic are harder than early stages in cave games for example - the latter is an arcade shmup and no one wants to throw in a quarter just to get raped by memotrash in the first stage

of course later stages are harder than earlier ones in the same game

I don't see a difference between stage 4, 5 and 6 in touhou - it's the same inconsistent difficulty where you have really trivial stuff and downright impossible stuff mixed with memorization

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

I meant harder as in early stages in touhou lunatic are harder than early stages in cave games for example - the latter is an arcade shmup and no one wants to throw in a quarter just to get raped by memotrash in the first stage

Well, duh. In console shmups, you have the option to restart if you screw up early on. Anyone developing a console shmup has the liberty of putting in whatever unconventional design choices they want because the player now has all the time in the world to figure them out.

[Naut]

downright impossible stuff

examples

[dunpeal2064]

I find most lunatics to be easier starting out than futari ultra

[moozooh]

I find most lunatics to be easier starting out than futari ultra

I wonder why!

[ncp]

I find most lunatics to be easier starting out than futari ultra

I find most everything to be easier starting out than futari ultra

[Zengeku3]

downright impossible stuff

examples

Kanako's first for example.

[Naglfar]

downright impossible stuff

examples

Kanako's first for example.

Scarlet Meister.

[Bananamatic]

books

also stuff like st5 SA - you pacifist half of the stage dodging absolutely nothing and tap dodge 40% of it

and then you have cat's walk and the streaming from hell which will rape your shitter

[Chaos Phoenixma]

On books and cat walk and the part after,

I thought you liked difficulty.

[Bananamatic]

I like fast difficulty
not slooooooooooooooow difficulty

books are rather fun but still out of place compared to the rest of the stage

cat walk is slow+75% of the attack is waiting for it to build up

[Naut]

downright impossible stuff

examples

Kanako's first for example.

I timed it down to one second in the same replay that I timed out VoWG

Scarlet Meister.

Best be trollan

books

Bleh EoSD. No comment, I don't play it.

also stuff like st5 SA - you pacifist half of the stage dodging absolutely nothing and tap dodge 40% of it

and then you have cat's walk and the streaming from hell which will rape your shitter

But it's not impossible, it's just badly balanced difficulty. I'd be more likely to complain about all the easy shit in the stage before I'd complain about Orin and her follow-up, anyways. The streaming part is one of the most fun sections in any of the Touhou games.

[Bananamatic]

scarlet meister also happens to be easier to time out than defeat

[Sapz]

How I've managed that when you are all convinced they are so easy for the genre I do not know.

When you get to know Touhou better you'll realize how easily most of them can be taken apart. Since you so often get a ridiculous amount of extends you'll be able to go into stage practice, figure out all the problem spots and bomb basically everyone of them and following a memorized route for the rest of the game.

Numerous extends aside, can you give me any examples of shmups where this is not the case? That seems like a pretty standard 1cc-any-game tactic.

Apparently lunatic touhous are harder for me than anything other than ketsui and ikaruga! How I've managed that when you are all convinced they are so easy for the genre I do not know. Of the above games I've played DDP, hellsinker, ikaruga and UFO the least, then espgaluda and exceed, and the rest about are about even for playtime.

That's likely because generally, a Lunatic is of a similar difficulty to an arcade shmup. Something like UFO Lunatic, probably the hardest, is certainly more difficult than something like DOJBL. I think your initial impressions are accurate.

[RNGmaster]

Numerous extends aside, can you give me any examples of shmups where this is not the case? That seems like a pretty standard 1cc-any-game tactic.

Burn resources in ESP Ra.De and you get fucked on the final boss.

Bomb a lot in any Psikyo game, and congratulations, you have no bombs on the final boss. Good luck micromemorizing every attack.

[ncp]

Numerous extends aside, can you give me any examples of shmups where this is not the case? That seems like a pretty standard 1cc-any-game tactic.

Burn resources in ESP Ra.De and you get fucked on the final boss.

Bomb a lot in any Psikyo game, and congratulations, you have no bombs on the final boss. Good luck micromemorizing every attack.

care to explain how these aren't cases of "figure out all the problem spots and bomb basically everyone of them and following a memorized route for the rest of the game"?

[RNGmaster]

care to explain how these aren't cases of "figure out all the problem spots and bomb basically everyone of them and following a memorized route for the rest of the game"?

In Psikyo especially, you're not supposed to bomb the problem spots, since you'll lose all your bombs by the time the actual hard stuff starts.

[Erppo]

care to explain how these aren't cases of "figure out all the problem spots and bomb basically everyone of them and following a memorized route for the rest of the game"?

In Psikyo especially, you're not supposed to bomb the problem spots, since you'll lose all your bombs by the time the actual hard stuff starts.

Have you ever even played a Psikyo game more than casually? They are full of attacks that appear really hard but are actually pretty easy when you figure them out. You always have plenty of bombs for anything acutally difficult in the first loop.

[Bananamatic]

less extends=less spots you can afford to bomb through/less mistakes you can afford in general

also it's harder to pull off stuff consistently through memorization when everything isn't pixel perfect like in touhou

[Sapz]

care to explain how these aren't cases of "figure out all the problem spots and bomb basically everyone of them and following a memorized route for the rest of the game"?

In Psikyo especially, you're not supposed to bomb the problem spots, since you'll lose all your bombs by the time the actual hard stuff starts.

The problem spots are the hard parts. For example, you'll want a couple of lives for RaDe's last boss, which takes into account bombing said problem spot. What are you talking about?

less extends=less spots you can afford to bomb through/less mistakes you can afford in general

also it's harder to pull off stuff consistently through memorization when everything isn't pixel perfect like in touhou

But then on the other hand, the games are generally a lot longer; an average Touhou lasts about twice as long as a Psikyo loop. Also, I would argue that there's not many truly static attacks like you claim; something like a Psikyo game is far more memorizable (not that that's a bad thing, I like Psikyo games a lot).

[NzzpNzzp]

Numerous extends aside, can you give me any examples of shmups where this is not the case? That seems like a pretty standard 1cc-any-game tactic.

You've never played Gradius?