I have never played a Touhou...

[STGnoob]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNC_Sph_Z2g

[Zengeku3]

Lol, I knew that was possible but that is basically just making things harder on yourself.

@NCP
And your point is? Something being harder than the other spellcards on the same difficulty doesn't make it bullshit or impossible. Its a spell that is difficult to capture for a normal mode player perhabs but I can verify that its completely legit. It adds a bit of challenge for a score runner of Normal difficulty and anyone who doesn't have the skills to capture it can bomb it.

[-Bridget-]

Also psikyo gives you 3 lives, touhou like...ten? In the former a small cockup can cost you the 1cc, in the latter you can waste 3 lives on one attack and still beat it with lives left

A small cockup can cost you the run in either game, and Psikyo has less lives (though it's actually 4) because it's a very short game and very much done in an arcade style. You could easily apply what you said to Touhou to Crimzon Clover, except that it has, in general, even more lives. The amount of lives a game gives you does not dictate how difficult the game is.

What point are you actually trying to make, here?

He does kind of have a point there, though. This is also one of the (numerous) reasons why I think the Touhou games are too easy.

And it's not JUST the lives... but for each life, you get a pile of bombs. And some of the Touhou games seem to make bombing even easier than ever. I think it's only certain games that do this in the series, but there's that thing where, you get hit, and then you have a split-second to hit the bomb button ANYWAY, which sets the bomb off and saves you.

I have an extremely fast reaction speed, so if I'm playing a shmup that does that (I've seen it in other places than Touhou as well) I'm generally nigh-invulnerable as long as I have bombs in stock. This makes the game in question *much* easier, and I usually wont even USE bombs unless I DO get hit.


Even without that aspect though, having a ton of lives still means you have *ALOT* of bombs. If you're the sort of player that's good at bomb use in a general sense in danmaku shmups, this can make you last a VERY long time.

[ncp]

well zengoku lets just talk about how good you are bro lol!!

it's obviously misplaced (like the normal/easy final attack), because it really shouldn't end up being significantly more difficult than the final attack. Also I never called it bullshit or impossible. Makes me nervous as hell though.

[STGnoob]

I haven't played the pc-98 games, but the rest of the touhous all have the deathbombing mechanism. In some of them the window is larger than in others... it's really small in MoF and SA and rather larger in IN for example.

Sapz mentioned crimzon clover in that quote... which has even more bombs than touhou, infinite basically. All you have to do is be able to survive for maybe 10 seconds and you can bomb again. Crimzon clover definitely gives you more resources than touhou if all you care about is survival. In touhou most games really don't give you resources for survival, they give them to you for scoring. In MoF if you want to score well, you have to always deathbomb when you hit the bomb button, and never die. Or else your potential score drops massively. In others you have to blow your bombs and suicide lives for more bombs to get your best score, so you have to balance scoring against survival. Meanwhile you're encouraged to spend as much time as possible hugging bullets. I suppose if you don't care about scoring though you could just pretend that bombs don't exist, or you only get one per life to make it more challenging.

ncp - Huh? I've had people tell me that Mountain of Faith easy is harder than Virtue of Wind God hard, and I can no death no bomb Hunting Shrine Ritual, but MoF normal.... I'll be lucky if I can do that with a full life.

[Bananamatic]

CC gives lives for scoring

touhou gives them for free pretty much because you'd have to really, really suck to not get them

[Chaos Phoenixma]

On my first 1ccs of EoSD and MoF Normals, I didn't even get the final extends.

And no, Crimzon Clover does not give you lives for use in scoring since the best scores would be no miss. The lives are a chance to screw up and still 1cc.

And I can deathbomb almost 100% in MoF as long as I make sure to ram the bullet when I want to do it. Deathbombing from a mistake is less likely for me though.

[Bananamatic]

how did you manage that

also CC is bloody long compared to most shmups

[Zengeku3]

well zengoku lets just talk about how good you are bro lol!!

it's obviously misplaced (like the normal/easy final attack), because it really shouldn't end up being significantly more difficult than the final attack. Also I never called it bullshit or impossible. Makes me nervous as hell though.

I didn't mean anything like that. I was talking about this post:

if you want to see some real bullshit look at that hunting ritual card

Misplaced stuff is pretty common though. Kogasa's 3rd card in Easy mode is harder than the Normal mode version. As has been previously mentioned VoWG Easy is harder than VoWG Normal. I don't know if it is harder than VoWG Hard though. Kanako's 4th card is also harder than the Normal, Hard and Lunatic mode imo. Its those aimed bullets that moves so slow that i sometimes make semi-walls on myself. I also remember Orin's 2nd card to be harder on Normal than Lunatic because of speed differences.

[O. Van Bruce]

As an actual fan of the Touhou series i have to make my stand here for those games. And i won't say that the graphics are good or the mechanics are tricky or challenging. I won't even say that the music is good.

I'll only say that if i hadn't played Touhou i wouldn't have dreamt about playing shmups seriously .And, as much as i have grown to love shmups during the last year, I would still be thinking that this games are just for terrible freaks who will have epilepsy in some years or something like that... mostly what normal people coment on the replay videos on youtube.

Touhou is a great introductory shmup/danmaku series of games, cause it's not only easy to clear (scoring can be diffcicult), but also has a lot of fanmade doujins, games, music, etc. which makes it much more apealing than some videogame company that seems to like speleology or indie games that only those who were waiting for it during years actually play it.

Oh, and BTW, I dunno if Crimzon Clover is THAT difficult, but i've (semi) cleared that game after 15 tries. All thanks to the practice Touhou gave me.

[Bananamatic]

some videogame company that seems to like speleology

also when I really think about it, everything ZUN made himself sucks
what kind of a franchise is it if the only appealing things are fanmade

[RNGmaster]

...or indie games that only those who were waiting for it during years actually play it.

>implying that nobody like non-Touhou indie shmups

Go play Stella Vanity.

[O. Van Bruce]

...or indie games that only those who were waiting for it during years actually play it.

>implying that nobody like non-Touhou indie shmups

I'm implying that very few people who isn't on the shmups know about indie titles like galshell or Crimzon Clover... I've recently bumped with a friend that loves shmups and the amount of games that had been waited over a lot of time is incredible... 2 or even 3 demo versions...

I'm saying this because only just recently i've taken shmup seriously (though i've been playing touhou for a year)... I also play Paradox Entertainment, Total War and Valve games...

Go play Stella Vanity.

Interesting I've just got my first "game to wait for years" Where can I download the Demo?

[Zengeku3]

some videogame company that seems to like speleology

also when I really think about it, everything ZUN made himself sucks
what kind of a franchise is it if the only appealing things are fanmade

The result of some drunk japanese guy with a lot of free time on his hands I'd imagine. Its not really his fault. You can see at his boss fights that he knows how to make games. Its just all that alcohol that makes him think Space Invaders level design is a good idea.

...or indie games that only those who were waiting for it during years actually play it.

Go play Stella Vanity.

I've only really played the first stage but what i've seen is indeed pretty awesome. Getting a decent framerate is another thing however.

Touhou is a great introductory shmup/danmaku series of games, cause it's not only easy to clear (scoring can be diffcicult), but also has a lot of fanmade doujins, games, music, etc. which makes it much more apealing than some videogame company that seems to like speleology

I don't think defending Touhou using fandom stuff is the best strategy on this forum, though that might just be me.
I wouldn't even call it Touhou stuff if ZUN is not involved in the production. Its just derived fandom material that may or may not be good but trying to defend something using derivative works doesn't really make sense at all. That's like saying ZUN's art is good because people can make good art based on it.

[RNGmaster]

I've only really played the first stage but what i've seen is indeed pretty awesome. Getting a decent framerate is another thing however.

Um, that's intentional slowdown. I think.

[Zengeku3]

Ugh. I don't like that intentional slowdown crap. It messes with my characters movement speed and thus my judgment of hitboxes and my abilities to make certain gaps.... Touhou doesn't have that! HAHA!!!

[dunpeal2064]

Ugh. I don't like that intentional slowdown crap. It messes with my characters movement speed and thus my judgment of hitboxes and my abilities to make certain gaps.... Touhou doesn't have that! HAHA!!!

Yeah, because if the bullets went any slower, they wouldn't be moving

[Bananamatic]

actually, touhou does have that slowdown option but seriously

[Barrakketh]

actually, touhou does have that slowdown option but seriously

It doesn't have intentional slowdown by stage/boss design. You know, like Cave's stupid approach of throwing tons of bullets at the screen that the hardware can't handle.

[dunpeal2064]

Intentional slowdown... Bullets that the hardware can't handle?

Hmm

[Barrakketh]

Intentional slowdown... Bullets that the hardware can't handle?

Hmm

It's not difficult to comprehend. The games run on a fixed hardware platform, and they choose to design attacks that the machine can't handle at full speed. This isn't an issue of some bastard using an ancient computer and whining when their PC can't handle it.

Hibachi's washing machine and DOOM's final attack manage to be difficult without slowing the game down to a crawl. I wish developers would remember that.

[Bananamatic]

they don't run at full speed because you would get horribly, horribly raped

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Futari Arrange Ultra.

Good luck dodging anything since all the slowdown was removed. But the top scorers can dodge the patterns without it.

I only barely 1cc'd both times I did on that mode in Arrange. It's still a fail mode in terms of survival and the scoring isn't fun either.

[dunpeal2064]

Try some Mushi 1.01.Ultra

[Chaos Phoenixma]

If only I had a code to access it.

The first 2 stages actually look funner than 1.5 Ultra from what I've seen. but the others are definitely harder.

[Zengeku3]

Ugh. I don't like that intentional slowdown crap. It messes with my characters movement speed and thus my judgment of hitboxes and my abilities to make certain gaps.... Touhou doesn't have that! HAHA!!!

Yeah, because if the bullets went any slower, they wouldn't be moving

You're wrong. They would probably be moving backwards.
Seriously though, that's one of the good parts about Touhou. None of that intentional slowdown nonsense that basically ruins half the fun of playing Futari for me. (The other half is ruined by that awful Xbox controller).

[Barrakketh]

(The other half is ruined by that awful Xbox controller).

Arcade stick!

You can even replace the stick with buttons if you have a hard-on for keyboard-like controls.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Didn't Sapz use the 360 controller for his 411 million 1.5 Original and 1+ billion BL Original?

And I used the 360 controller for my 270 millions 1.5 Original and 500+ Millions BL Original.

[Zengeku3]

(The other half is ruined by that awful Xbox controller).

Arcade stick!

That might be a good idea. Which one would you recommend?

Didn't Sapz use the 360 controller for his 411 million 1.5 Original and 1+ billion BL Original?
And I used the 360 controller for my 270 millions 1.5 Original and 500+ Millions BL Original.

Good for you. Personally, I can't make accurate movements at all with the thing since I can't even alternate between moving left and right without occasionally hitting up and down too. Even pulling off simple button combinations in Castlevania SoTN can be a troublesome process for me... not when I played the game emulated on my PC though...

I hope someone makes Futari available on Mame one day.

[K.B.]

A bit of a bump.

and personally I find MoF at least to be quite pretty, and it actually has backgrounds.

but MoF has the most interesting backgrounds so I've gone with that one as my example game.

Try playing it colorblind (partially colorblind).

It's horrid. And it's the main reason why I have no desire to play it again except for stage six practice.

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.

That butthurt-moderation retort of MotK was hilarious. Truth's too painful for some, I suppose.

As has been previously mentioned VoWG Easy is harder than VoWG Normal.

Not in this thread, far as I recall. Regardless, that's debatable. I've captured easy without much trouble, but I've yet to capture normal. That's with only one weekend's worth of play (again, not going back), with all my time being given to normal aside from, it seems, three stage practices on easy simply out of curiosity to test this claim (1/3) [and a Marisa B lunatic clear for shits], so I think this illustrates how talent at certain aspects affects perceived difficulty (in my case I'm far better at micrododging than macrododging). I suppose it's a minor point but I dislike the handwaving.


I don't get playing for score (possibly an extension of my suckiness at shmups), and I'd rather rise to the challenge of 1ccing or perfecting. So I can only guess at the accuracy of the detailed posts defending the scoring aspects of Touhou (*cough* certain games therein). But I don't understand the criticisms of Touhou's difficulty. If the games are too easy and you're not interested in perfecting, not interested in scoring, or not intrigued by the given scoring system, then why multi-post? You're either not interested or it's beneath you, right?

I enjoy the Touhou series. I suck at shmups, music is always at the forefront of any game I evaluate, and I usually like Zun's compositions (though most everything in IN is horrid). So that's probably why I like Touhou. And Ikaruga on at least the same level, and a host more just below that. I'd also like to say I prefer denser, slower-moving patterns as they require more multi-object tracking as opposed to faster patterns which require better twitch-reflexes, but I'm aware that I suck and that I have a disdain for memorization and that these biases heavily influence my preferences. I apply those biases similarly on every game I play, but again inexperience and ineptitude could be a large factor in their base so I won't suppose that my preferences should carry weight beyond myself.

Regardless, give me a pvp shmup that isn't a bag of dicks. Until then, I'll keep playing the daylights out of PoFV. Challenges welcome.