Touhou

[Agent of Dread]

Wow, outside of ZUN's woeful drawing of her, Satori is actually pretty cute.

[Agent of Dread]

Damn, if only I hadn't lost those two lives to Resurrection Butterfly.

[octagon]

"Satori's Room" is a popular show on Gensoukyou TV, where viewers are entertained by how Satori's face goes red or blue as she reads her guests' minds without permission.

[Agent of Dread]

I hate it when I'm really starting to enjoy fighting an extra stage boss (I'm starting to get pretty good at Flan and Ran ), but once everything starts going peachy I get stuck behind a million trillion billion bad stage runs and have to restart over and over before getting discouraged and leaving once more.
I'll catch you, Starbow Break! You're my best type of danmaku dammit!

[Agent of Dread]

Downloaded + gave Hisoutensoku a shot. Quite fun, although I'm still having trouble working out the control kinks and grasping how I'm supposed to fight in general. Quite a change from Ougon Musoukyoku, I'll say that.

[octagon]

Have fun!

I'm playing the game for about half a year now, and I still feel like I have no clue how to fight in general. Fighting games are like that, I think.

Block hits, graze bullets, randomly shoot your own bullets for cover, try to interrupt your opponent's actions with something that hits quickly, and try to turn every hit into a combo. That's how I (try to) play, at least.

By the way, did you already download Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and link your copy of 12.3 with it? It's required for playing the majority of the characters, including Youmu, Yukari, Sakuya, Yuyuko, Reisen, Remilia...

In your "Touhou 12.3 - Unthinkable Natural Law" folder is a file called "configex123.ini," which mostly contains gibberish, but near the top, has an entry for "[th105path]," under which it says "path=". You need to tell it the exact path to your SWR folder, as seen in the screenshot below (highlighted). That's how it's done.

[Agent of Dread]

Yeah, I hooked the two up. The download was really informative on that one.

Well, I pretty much just need to get used to the characters' toolsets, if you will. What's a good move for which situation.
The lack of a list of the 'string' specials for each character is a bit of a barrier there.

[octagon]

There actually is a list. Go to Profile -> Deck Construction. It also lets you replace them with alternate moves, if you unlocked them. (Do you understand how the card system works?)
There's also a wiki that literally covers every move in the game, with in-depth information about frames and hitboxes and whatnot.
(BTW: Story mode is effectively unrelated to the normal gameplay, and the AI has decent reflexes, but is extremely gullible and acts without a plan, even on Lunatic. These things can't compare to playing with someone else.)

[Agent of Dread]

Oh god, Kikkouri-san's Contract hurts my brain. And I just died on the very last second. Screw you, Ran.

I played some more Hisoutensoku today, and yeah, I know how the spellcard stuff works. Potions and miscellaneous enchantments seem to be the epitome of useless, though. I'm getting fairly good at Youmu and Marisa (dat bloomer powah).

EDIT: Yes, screw you indeed, Ran.


EDIT 2: I... am definitely going to need some explanation for the UFO system in UFO. Am I trying to collect three different colours, or three of the same?

[Shade]

EDIT: Yes, screw you indeed, Ran.

You're insane.

EDIT 2: I... am definitely going to need some explanation for the UFO system in UFO. Am I trying to collect three different colours, or three of the same?

Both works, depending on what kind of bonus you want.

3x Red: Red UFO. Drops a life piece when it collects enough items, and another when you destroy it before it escapes. x2 point multiplier when you're at Full Power (and the UFO too is full), otherwise none.
3x Green: Green UFO. Drops a full bomb when it collects enough items, and a bomb piece when you destroy it before it escapes. x2 point multiplier when the UFO is full.
3x Blue: Blue UFO. Drops absolutely nothing, but gives a x8 point multiplier when completely full.
One of each: Rainbow UFO. Turns point items it collects into power items and vice versa. x4 point multiplier when completely full.

If you never destroy a single Red UFO and never die, you'll end up with a measly 5 reserve lives at the end of the game (2 from life pieces dropped after most bosses, and the only 1up in the entire game if you don't mess up during Stage 4. If you do mess up, it'll be a bomb instead), so you'll probably want to focus on red UFOs in the beginning.
Also note that Stage 6 doesn't have a single red UFO, so if you die and continue there, you'll have to beat Byakuren with only your starting lives. Have fun.

[Agent of Dread]

Ran is easier than Mokou by far, imo. She pretty much has only one 'wtfridiculous' spellcard, Buddhist Paradise. Utter joke if you ask me. x(

[Shade]

That doesn't matter, I can't beat Mokou either. I keep losing too many resources throughout the stage itself.

I always get my face destroyed by Ran's very first spellcard, despite knowing how it works. I just cannot get it right no matter how often I try. Combine that with the fact that you can't skip Extra boss spells by bombing and you've got an insurmountable roadblock.
The few times I somehow make it past that first spellcard I clear like 5 or 6 of her spells at 0 lives, but at some point I just mess up and die.


But hey, you know what? Your Extra Clear depressed me so much that I absolutely had to pick up Touhou again and try to compete. I know I won't clear PCB's Extra anytime soon, so I did SA's instead. I actually won.
...I think the adrenaline's gonna kill me, haha.

Replay's here~

[Agent of Dread]

Her first one is of the sort where you either clear it with flying colours or have absolutely no hope; messing up makes the formations go completely crazy. It's just a little reflex test, tap left every one-two patterns and you'll do fine.

Nice job on Koishi, btw. I still haven't 1cc'd MoF or SA, but I get the feeling I'll manage the latter soon. When Sanae stops being so dense (ha, ha).
Race you to beating Flan?

[Agent of Dread]

Oh my god Yukari. Holy balls.
...Nah, not really. Half of her spellcards are seriously easier than Ran's, or at least no harder. Shade will be delighted to know her first spellcard suffers heavily from this.
She's still tough, though, and the stage portion is face-crushingly ridiculous.

And as for UFO... the stage 4 theme is awesome, and Unzan is beyond words. Bro freaking fist.

[Shade]

messing up makes the formations go completely crazy. It's just a little reflex test, tap left every one-two patterns and you'll do fine.

And that's the part I just don't get. I do exactly that and yet her pattern does go crazy every single time. Even if I bomb and stay completely still during that period, she just continues to throw walls of nigh impossible-to-dodge bullets at me afterward.

Race you to beating Flan?

Oh dear, please not. I already told you I died to Flan's very final spellcard when she only had like 20% HP left. The sheer frustration of thinking about it alone is enough to prevent me from ever wanting to try that again.

Yukari supposedly being easier than Ran is of no use to me, as I cannot access the Phantasm Stage until I have beaten the latter.

Have you gotten to Byakuren yet? I seriously consider her the hardest Stage 6 boss the series has to offer up to this date.
You wouldn't believe how often I've lost my last life to her after already having defeated her.
Gosh freaking darn stray bullets combined with forced sudden slowdown, dang them to heck