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The Unofficial All-inclusive Touhou Thread
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MajorGeek42  





Joined: 22 Mar 2007
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Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:02 am    Post subject: The Unofficial All-inclusive Touhou Thread Reply with quote

*note: this thread has been coming for a long time now, and we are only just now getting around to it*

**bjw will be going into specifics on a lot of aspects of gameplay and other features later in the thread.**

I suppose I'll do this in a standard FAQ style, as I've been asked these questions many times. New questions brought up in the thread may be addressed here at a later date.

***This is a work in progress, more to be added as is necessary***

Q: What the hell is this Touhou thing anyway?
A: The Touhou Project is a series of 2D (with 3D background) vertically-scrolling danmaku shooting games made by Team Shanghai Alice, with two fighting game spinoffs co-produced with Tasogare Frontier. They are similar to regular shooting games, but focus more on weaving through complex patterns containing a
nywhere from dozens to hundreds of bullets. Every game in the Touhou series is set in the fantasy land of Gensokyo, and the series is known for its huge cast of characters, well-developed storylines, and related materials such as music CDs and fan-made comics. (source: copy/pasted from the Touhou Wiki)

Q: How does one go about obtaining a Touhou game?
A: Google is your friend. Even a simple query such as "download touhou" should be adequate.

When you have the game, if you desire to start completely fresh, without anything like extra stage unlocked at first, delete the score.dat file from the game folder. I did this with every Touhou game I have, and consequently unlocked everything over time (it's good to have achievement goals to keep you playing). The Touhou Wiki has information as to the specific unlocks for each game, as well as how to get them.

Q: Which Touhou game should I start with?
A: There are three that come to mind. Touhou 6, The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, is seen by many to be one of the best to start with, since you have no visible hitbox and it's simpler to play (it feels more like an arcade shooter, perhaps). The game is perceived as rather difficult because of the lack of a visible hitbox, as well as the fact that many Touhou players have developed a strong reliance upon seeing said hitbox to navigate the bullet patterns.

Touhou 7, Perfect Cherry Blossom, is perhaps the most well-known of the Touhou games. The difficulty rating is fairly moderate compared to some here. One feature of note is that there are two Extra Stages available; the second one being called Phantasm Stage, and is much, much harder.

Touhou 8, Imperishable Night, has the easiest easy mode out of all the games. It also has features that other games do not, including a spell card practice mode, which adds an amazing amount of replayability (other games only have stage practice mode).

In the later posts, bjw covers many of the specifics of the different games. Either read there for details, or look in the Touhou Wiki. That brings me to:

Q: Where's the best place to get information about the games?

A: http://touhou.wikia.com/wiki/Touhou_Wiki

Q: How the hell do you pronounce Touhou anyway?
A: The characters that precede every game title, 東方, romanize to Touhou, and in English is (rarely, as very few use it) spelled as Toho (short O vowel sounds). Pronouncing it like Toohoo (long O vowel sounds) is technically incorrect, though very common, as a result of the spelling.

Q: Did this ZUN guy or whoever really make all the Touhou games by himself?
A: Yes. He composed all of the music, created all of the art/graphics, and wrote all the programming. There exist various cases where he worked with others for specific games, as bjw describes below, but ZUN usually does everything.

Miscellaneous stuff:
Touhou 8 Imperishable Night English Patch
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bjwdestroyer  





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PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

FIRST POST YESSSSSSSSSS!

Preface:

Chances are, you have never heard of this series. But similarly, a fair amount of you who haven't heard of the series have probably once encountered something that has spawned from it (whether it's a crazy flash video or fucking Ronald McDonald singing and dancing in sync to music in the background). Funny how the internet works, huh?

The point of this thread is to serve two purposes: to act as the (un)official Touhou discussion thread, and to hopefully persuade more people to give this amazing series of games a chance.

I've wanted to make this thread for ages, however, creating it has always struck me as a daunting task. I wouldn't be able to make an OP that just says "hey, does anyone play Touhou?!" for the simple fact that it isn't a mainstream--or even uncommonly played--game series. I'd need to describe the series, give a general walkthrough on how to start out, and discuss why exactly its so great because the average person reading this won't have any clue.

But now, MajorGeek42 created it. And here I am. I must now share with you, Joe the Plumber, the luxury that is Touhou. The series might make you smile, and it might even make you cry. However, one thing is certain: the piece of shit will make you rage.

Excited yet?

Introduction: Touhou, Gensokyo, and Bullets

Touhou is like a box of chocolates, in that every chocolate is filled with coconut and has a strong desire to do nothing more but kill you.

MajorGeek42 pretty much nailed what Touhou is in the FAQ so I won't really bother describing what the series is like exactly, but rather, I can give a little more background on what I remember offhand (because researching is lame). Over 10 years old, Touhou started off as a team project consisting of ZUN and several other students. Here, this said team created the first 5 titles in the Touhou series (made for the PC-98, of which will require an emulator to play). After the 5th game, Mystic Square, ZUN decided to return to his original passion for alcohol.

But then, it hit him. An epiphany of sorts, he discovered that not only could he just drink alcohol, but he could also create games at the same time. Holy shit.

ZUN formed Team Shanghai Alice. This team consists of only himself. Well, fuck, I guess there is an 'I' in 'team.'

After this, I guess you could say that the rest is history. ZUN went off to binge alcohol while simultaneously developing sequel after sequel all by his lonesome self. Along the way, there has been spin-offs and fighters, as well as a crapload of fanmade games. Speaking of the fans and what they have made, Touhou has become a culture on the internet revolving around doujins. Unfortunately, when it comes to the culture, there is way too much stuff to talk about so I'll skip it all together for now. (Edit: I've recently made a guide on getting started with doujins, found here).

Gensokyo is a land consisting of nothing more but girls, youkai, and severe anger issues. Oh, there's one guy too, but we don't care about him.

The setting of the series, Gensokyo has quite a lot to offer. Humans live in peace (except for when they don't live in peace), and youkai like to eat humans (except for when they don't like to eat humans). The shrine maiden who protects the border between that of Gensokyo and our world would rather throw barrage after barrage of bullets than actually have a civilized discussion on finding a solution or compromise to a problem. I could go on and on, but I'll just cut it short and say that for the most part, Gensokyo is depicted as a lush, forest-heavy area with a fair amount of open spaces, a lake, and a few other interesting things we all have near us in the real world (such as Hakugyokurou, a ghost shrine that overlooks the Netherworld. Great tourist attraction.)

Bullets make the game. The danmaku (curtain-fire, or bullet hell) is beautiful; the screen will oftentimes be filled with pastel colored bullets in formations or patterns that will not only test your reaction speed but your wits as well. This, of course, is where the difficulty and entertainment come from. With four difficulty levels in each Windows game, there is a lot to bite and never a time to be bored. Easy mode can be tough depending what game you choose to start off with, and Lunatic will always offer a challenge whether you are playing the "easiest" game or the "hardest" game.

Here are some examples of the bullet patterns and arrangements:




The Gameplay (Beginner): Where the Hell are the Cheat Codes?



Danmaku is always fun. It's like some sick twisted bastard was able to combine both video games and sadomasochism. Unfortunately, like Guitar Hero, it can also be a drag on your fighting spirit and can bring you down, so always be up for taking breaks. In fact, when Touhou pisses you off, run off and play some Guitar Hero (and vice versa).

You can find general strategy, controls, and whatnot from the Touhou Wiki, but I'll attempt giving both a universal and easy to understand writeup on what you will be doing.

You will be dying.

Holy shit will you be dying.

Then you'll get lucky, think to yourself "HOLY HELL, HOW DID I DODGE THAT," and while you are having the time of your life, you die again. Thus is the cruel initiation that all Touhou noobs face. It is definitely pick-up and play, but like many other games, it will take practice and perseverance.

There are 3 main buttons at your disposal, along with the directional keys (the arrow keys on the right of your keyboard, or wherever they may be).

The X button is bomb. Each character (and more specifically, character type) starts each life with a preset number of bombs, and you can gain bombs throughout the course of the game during several critical points. Deploying a bomb grants you temporary immunity and will oftentimes completely clear or at least wipe away many of the bullets and/or enemies currently on the screen. Bombing isn't always best for your score (this is not necessarily true for Mountain of Faith), however, it is always better to bomb than to lose a life.

Unfortunately, bombing is actually a tough art to master. You need to understand your limits, and that is easier said than done. Many will think that they can handle the next incoming wave of bullets, but who knows if and when something will go wrong. As you play more, you'll understand strategic bombing better.

One last general note on bombs is the fact that if you get hit by a bullet (you will hear a distinct sound), you have 1/10th of a second to press the bomb button in order to do a deathbomb. A deathbomb will actually cancel your death and replace it with a bomb, thereby making you one happy and lucky bastard. Sadly, 1/10th of a second doesn't grant you much time to react and hit X, so chances are, if you deathbomb, it was just a really good strategic bomb in that you thought you were about to die, you hit X, and somewhere in between these two events you actually do die. Imperishable Night is arguably the easiest game in the series due to how overpowered one of the teams is (Reimu/Yukari). Not only do they have a powerful attack and a homing shot, but they also have a 1 second border between life and death. In other words, if you are playing as Reimu/Yukari and you get hit by a bullet, you have a full second to hit X. This, in essence, guarantees double or even triple your lives. Furthermore, in the last two games, Mountain of Faith and Subterranean Animism, you have no separate bomb counter. Rather, a bomb depletes 1.0 power from your power meter (the power meter maxes out at 5.0 and 4.0 in MoF and SA respectively). There's actually a little more to it (who am I kidding, there's quite a lot more), but I think this is all I should say about bombs to keep it simple.

Z is the shot button. Or shoot button. Whatever you want to call it. This button will be the one you will constantly be holding down as it is your main attack. Depending on which character you choose, your shottype could either be homing, a very powerful thin line of destruction, or a spread that is very useful during stages but not so much during boss battles.

The Shift Key is the button that gives you a fighting chance. Shift enables focus which does 3 things in total: (1) it slows down your speed, (2) it (usually) changes your attack, oftentimes making it thinner and thus your primary boss killing tool, and (3) it makes your hitbox visible (this is not true for Embodiment of Scarlet Devil).

(1) is important because the loss of speed will usually grant you a bit more accuracy in your dodging. However, sometimes, a quick burst of speed is also very useful to dodge certain patterns more efficiently (or at all), which is why you may see some players handle the more difficult cards by jolting between focused and unfocused movement on a regular basis. For the most part, staying entirely in focus mode can get the job done (especially for boss fights).

(2) doesn't need any elaboration. You want to knock bosses out ASAP, so making your attack thinner and more deadly is a privilege that you should exercise.

(3) is what will probably confuse most players during the first few seconds. The hitbox is very, very small. It is only but a fraction of your entire sprite, and this is what makes the game possible. Only thing that's important to note here is that all the characters share the same hitbox aside for Reimu, whom has a smaller hitbox by 1x1 pixel. This may not sound like a lot, but in reality, that 1 pixel means the world to many players. The diameter of the non-Reimu hitbox is 5 pixels; the diameter of Reimu's hitbox is 4 pixels.

And that's it, those are all your resources. You can start with a max of 5 lives (7 for IN), and a handful of bombs tied to each of those lives. You get to pick up a few lives and bombs along the way, and other than that, it's just you, the directional keys, and those three magic buttons.

Each game plays out in a very linear fashion: 6 stages in each game, where each stage consists of a "stage portion" (barrages of enemies and bullets), a "midboss encounter" (a fairly short battle that usually occurs around the half-way mark in the stage portion), and a "boss battle" (difficult and complex danmaku patterns; the main selling point in the series). Cheat codes are nonexistant.

Although, I must say that I am curious as to how Hyperspeed would look in Touhou.

The Gameplay (Intermediate): Touhou 101
The Gameplay (Advanced): Score Theory and Integrable Explorations of Modern Linear Danmaku

The Games: There's Always Something to Do in Gensokyo

Since 1996, ZUN has churned out 14 titles in the Touhou series. The first five were actually made over the course of 2 years for the PC-98, a Japanese microcomputer manufactured by NEC that was already in its last few years of life. These five games will require an emulator to play on, but chances are, you will be sticking with the Windows games. Of note is that the Amusement Makers developed the first five games, an unofficial student group that ZUN was part of. From The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil onward, every Touhou game has been fully developed by ZUN.

Touhou 1 東方靈異伝 ~ The Highly Responsive to Prayers
Touhou 2 東方封魔録 ~ The Story of Eastern Wonderland
Touhou 3 東方夢時空 ~ Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream
Touhou 4 東方幻想郷 ~ Lotus Land Story
Touhou 5 東方怪綺談 ~ Mystic Square
Touhou 6 東方紅魔郷 ~ The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
    - First Windows game
    - No visible hitbox
    - The least generous game in terms of helping the player surviving (for example, PCB has Supernatural Borders which allows you to absorb a single bullet without dying, as well as clearing the entire screen of bullets). Because of this, many argue that EoSD is the toughest game to 1cc (1 credit clear: clearing the game without exhausting all of your initial lives... if you need to use a continue and then you clear the game, that would be a 2cc, etc)
    - No intermediate scoring system (scoring is entirely based on graze, point items, and just doing good in general like capturing spell cards)
    - Lives are gained by reaching certain score thresholds (10 million, 20 million, 40 million, etc.)
    - An English Patch exists

Touhou 7 東方妖々夢 ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom.
    - Visible hitbox is introduced
    - Supernatural Borders help protect you
    - Intermediate scoring system revolves around cherry items and the cherry meter
    - Arguably contains the most difficult danmaku of any game in the series
    - SakuyaA is very noob friendly: unfocused shot is a huge spread, focused shot is entirely homed
    - Lives are gained by collecting a certain number of point items
    - An English Patch exists

Touhou 7.5 東方萃夢想 ~ Immaterial and Missing Power.
    - First fighting game in the series

Touhou 8 東方永夜抄 ~ Imperishable Night.
    - Teams are introduced, but they do not change any of the gameplay dynamics (aside for the fact that the youkai, when focused, can safely touch familiars)
    - Reimu/Yukari is ridiculously noob friendly, having the smallest hitbox (remember, Reimu always has the smallest hitbox), a powerful attack that also homes, and an obscenely large Last Spell (further explained in the Intermediate Gameplay section) timing window; this practically doubles or even triples your lives
    - Easy mode is truly Easy mode; it doesn't get any easier than this
    - Spell Practice: allows you to practice individual spell cards--this feature is a blessing and will eat a lot of your time
    - Intermediate scoring system revolves around time and the phantom guage
    - Lives are gained by collecting a certain number of point items
    - An English Patch exists

Touhou 9 東方花映塚 ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View
    - Multiplayer SHMUP, much like Twinkle Star Sprites
    - Scoring revolves around strategic killing of enemies on your screen and using Spell Attacks
    - Features built-in, albeit buggy, Netplay

Touhou 9.5 東方文花帖 ~ Shoot The Bullet
    - Spin-off game
    - You take photographs of bosses; to clear a stage, you must take a certain amount of photos
    - Photos can be taken from afar, and any bullets caught in the image are eliminated
    - Scoring revolves around bullet density, color, including yourself and the boss in the shot, etc.
    - Has the unique feature of 3 movement speeds
    - It's basically IN's Spell Practice turned into a game on its own
    - Pioneers the new Touhou graphics engine, of which MoF and SA are based on
    - Lives and bombs do not exist, nor do drops of any kind

Touhou 10 東方風神録 ~ Mountain of Faith
    - Power meter no longer revolves around a logarithmic system that maxes at 128, but rather, a linear system that goes from 0.00 to 5.00
    - Bombs do not have their own separate counter, but rather, using a bomb depletes 1.00 power from your power guage. You cannot use a bomb if your power is less than 1.00
    - Intermediate scoring system revolves around constantly collecting items as to not drop your Faith meter
    - MarisaB is bugged: keeping your power guage between 3.00 and 3.95 will cause MarisaB's unfocused shot to pulverize bosses in mere seconds. Sometimes, you won't even need to dodge a single bullet
    - Lives work similar to the system set in EoSD

Touhou 10.5 東方緋想天 ~ Scarlet Weather Rhapsody
    - Second fighting game
    - First of the fighting games to support built in Netplay (IaMP requires a third-party program)

Touhou 11 東方地霊殿 ~ Subterranean Animism
    - Power guage now maxes at 4.00, in order to stop bomb whoring made apparent in MoF
    - Lives are gained by collected 5 star pieces. A star piece drops when you take down a bosses health bar without dying (you are allowed to bomb, and it doesn't matter if it is a spell card or a noncard)
    - Intermediate scoring system revolves around the Communications guage, of which fills with graze
    - ReimuA is literally the only shottype that is of any use


Other Stuff

Getting Started with Touhou Doujins

Well, I've pretty much accomplished what I sought out to do. And with that, here are some links you may be interested in:

Player Profiles:

YouTube pages (shameless self-promotion(s)):

Random Flash/Videos:

Touhou Related Websites:


[If you have any other links that you would like to see here, please go ahead and mention them. If you write a player profile (an about me), I will link to it here; if you post Touhou videos on your YouTube page, tell me and I will link it here]


Last edited by bjwdestroyer on Thu Mar 05, 2009 2:01 pm; edited 18 times in total
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mac081793  





Joined: 07 Aug 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

O thats what TOUHOU is.

I thought it was some stupid inside joke or a food.
Yeah, those games were pretty cool especially RAIDEN X. Is that a Touhou game?
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MajorGeek42  





Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 431
Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

bjwdestroyer wrote:
amazing post


Holy shit man, that's one extensive post. I didn't think you had it planned out to such an extent. This is why I don't write guides and whatnot, because i hate writing and they would suck.
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bjwdestroyer  





Joined: 30 Jun 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Gameplay (Intermediate): Touhou 101

There's obviously more to Touhou then just understanding what button does what, and this is what this section is for. Here, I will explain everything you see on the screen, some important lingo, integral aspects of the game, and detailed game-specific information/strategies/theory.

Before we analyze all the stuff you see while playing the game, let me give a brief summary of a very important aspect of Touhou: Spell Cards. Spell cards are specialized attack patterns that are unique to each boss. Spell cards tend to be the most difficult patterns under the boss' arsenal, and they also usually fit around some sort of theme. You will become very accustomed to spell cards in no time, and it is also very clear when they are used: the background will change, a name will pop up in the center, and an image of the boss will appear on the screen itself.

Spell cards offer the main challenge in each Touhou game, all of which revolves around the idea of "capturing" the spell card. Capturing a spell card requires you to deplete the boss' life for that card without dying, using a bomb, or if you are playing PCB, busting a Supernatural Border. In other words, all you can do is dodge and shoot. If you capture the card, you are rewarded with a nice score boost. Furthermore, spell cards also have a sort of win/loss record, of which is touched upon a bit later.

Lastly, a danmaku pattern created by a boss that does not involve a spell card is known as a noncard. A spell card with the unique feature in that you cannot damage the boss requires you to bring the timer down to 0: this type of card is known as a time out card.

Now that that's out of the way, the image below is a screenshot from Perfect Cherry Blossom. All of the 5 major Windows games (EoSD, PCB, IN, MoF, and SA) share the same mechanics aside for a few tweaks here and there. I will explain these differences in the upcoming individual sections.


(Only reason numbers 8 and 9 are cyan is because I felt that it would show better than red in those locations. Number 10 does not refer to the horizontal blue line, but rather, the sprite next to it.)

1) These are your lives. Try not to lose them (if you don't know why, then stop playing video games).

2) This is how many bombs you currently have in stock. You start with the exact same number of bombs every time you die. Leftover bombs do not roll-over to your next life if you die with some still in stock. This counter does not exist in MoF and SA because bombs and power end up being combined into a single entity.

3) This is your power.
    - In EoSD, PCB, and IN, minimum (starting) power is 0 and maximum power is 128. As power drops fall from killing enemies (they appear as red blocks; small ones are worth 1, large ones are worth 8), you can touch them to slowly fill this guage. As you gain more power, you will hit distinct values that increase the damage or spread of your attack (such values include 8, 16, etc). Upon reaching 128, or max power, power drops no longer appear on the screen (this is not true for EoSD). When you reach max power, all onscreen bullets at that instant will turn into small-value point items and they automatically get sucked into you. If you reach max power while other power drops are still on the screen, they will turn into other items (this is not true for EoSD; in PCB, they turn into cherry items; in IN, they turn into time items).
    - In MoF and SA, minimum (starting) power is 0.00 and maximum power is 5.00 and 4.00, respectively. Small power drops are worth 0.05, large power drops are worth 1.00. Every time you reach an integer value (1, 2, 3, etc.), your attack will do more damage or the spread of your attack will increase. Using a bomb depletes 1.00 power (you cannot use a bomb if your power is less than 1.00). Upon reaching max power, power drops no longer appear on the screen. Unlike the first 3 Windows games, obtaining max power will not clear the bullets onscreen. However, remaining power drops will change into small-value point items.

4) Graze is the action of getting dangerously close to a bullet (the hitbox for this is bigger than you would expect... a little bigger than your character sprite). Graze is an emphasis in all games aside for MoF, in that grazing a single bullet awards you 2,000 points (SA's score system revolves entirely around graze, while MoF doesn't award any points for graze and does not even have a graze counter). More on grazing can be found in the advanced section.

5) The Point meter does not exist in MoF or SA. The Point meter details how many point items (the gray drops) you have collected.
    - In all games, point items are worth more points if you collect them at a higher point on the screen. They reach a maximum value at the Point of Collection (PoC). Scoring strategies dealing with point items are further explained in the Advanced section. The PoC will be explained shortly.
    - In PCB and IN, the Point meter will appear as a fraction. The numerator (left) details how many Point items you currently have. The denominator (right) details how many Point items you need to earn an extra life. In other words, this crap is important.

6) Frames Per Second. By default, you should be set to 1/1 frameskip (you can check this by opening Custom.exe in the folder of any Touhou game in question) which will present a maximum of 60 FPS. 1/2 frameskip skips 1 out of every 2 frames; maximum of 90 FPS. 1/3 frameskip skips 1 out of every 3 framesl maximum of 120 FPS. Using 1/2 and 1/3 frameskip makes the game run in a choppier fashion, rather than faster (increasing the FPS is misleading). The benefit of this is for recording videos if you have a slow computer, or simply playing the game if you have a really slow computer. If you have an obscenely high FPS (or any FPS that makes your game run faster than it should), then there is a problem that needs to be addressed in order to make the game playable (FPS problems seem to be most common with EoSD).

7) The intermediate scoring system. Seen here is PCB's Cherry Guage.
    - IN has the Phantom Guage
    - MoF has the Faith Meter
    - SA has the Communications Guage
    - Intermediate scoring systems are further explained in the Advanced section

8) You. This is your character sprite. Look closely around Reimu's waist and you will notice this small white circle on her: that is the hitbox. Because we can see it, this means that she is currently focused (shift is being held down).

9) Enemy marker. When danmaku is raining from above, it tends to be difficult to glance up and spot where the boss is currently located. That's where the enemy marker comes in: the boss is always directly above it. The enemy marker does not exist in EoSD.

10) The boss. In this case, it is actually a midboss encounter.

11) The name of the enemy is to the left (Alice Margatroid). If the enemy has any spell cards, the amount of spell cards in their possession will appear under their name. Above the name is a long horizontal bar: this is the boss' life. There are two things to note about the life bar:
    - Life bars do not necessarily represent the life of a boss as a whole, but only the life of the current attack pattern. In other words, when you fight a boss, you will need to shave away multiple life bars before you actually win.
    - Life bars come in both red and white. White life bars represent the life of an attack pattern that isn't affiliated with a spell card (thus, they are called noncards). Red life bars represent the life of a spell card.

12) Timer. This represents how much time the current noncard/spell card has left. If the timer ever reaches 0 (this will only ever happen if you can't deplete the boss' life in time, or if there is no way in damaging the boss), then the current pattern will end and the next one will begin (only if the boss still has another noncard/spell card to use, otherwise, you have defeated her). If the current pattern is summoned by a spell card, then the name of the spell card will appear under the timer. In addition, a little record in the form of a fraction (x/y) will appear next to the name: this record tells you how many times you have captured the card versus how many times you have failed to capture the card.

The horizontal blue line represents the Point of Collection (PoC). In EoSD, PCB, and IN, the PoC is an imaginary horizontal line that roughly intersects the bomb meter. In MoF and SA, the beginning of the first stage will graphically present to you the location of the PoC. At max power, going to the PoC will cause all item drops on screen to autocollect towards you. In MoF and SA, you can be at any power to utilize this. In IN, you only have to be at max power to use the PoC if you are unfocused: focusing at the PoC, no matter what your power is, will autocollect all item drops onscreen. The PoC is crucial in maximizing scores, as explained in the Advanced section. Using a bomb will also autocollect all items on the screen.

Universal Notes
    - You unlock stages in Practice Mode by clearing the stage itself. If you clear Lunatic Stage 4 with ReimuA, then you unlock Lunatic Stage 4 for ReimuA and ReimuA only. Stages are unlocked via single player only to the character you are using. Using continues is a great method of unlocking all the stages early on.
    - Extra Stage is unlocked by 1ccing (clearing the game without the use of a continue) Normal difficulty or above. Extra Stage can only be played with characters that you have 1cc'd the game with (Normal difficulty or above)
    - StB's Extra Stage is unlocked by clearing 66 scenes
    - PoFV's Extra Stage is unlocked by clearing the game on any difficulty (continues do not matter) with the first set of characters (12 in all) seen in Single Player. This will unlock Komachi for Extra: clearing this stage will unlock Sikieiki for Extra. Clearing both these stages will allow you to fully unlock all the characters (16 in all)

Game Specific Notes

Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
    - Practice Mode lets you start with 3 lives. Every other game gives you maximum lives.

Perfect Cherry Blossom
    - The cherry meter contains a fraction and a "+ XXXXX" above it. Shooting enemies in general will increase that number on the top, and collecting cherry item drops (pink boxes) will increase it by 1,000. When it reaches 50,000, a Supernatural Border is created.
    - If you are hit while you have a Supernatural Border, it breaks (and thus, shields you from death) and all onscreen bullets disappear.
    - You can manually bust a border at anytime by pressing X.
    - Having a border disable without busting it grants you a score bonus. If you stop shooting and concentrate on nothing else but graze while you have a border, the reward will be greater.
    - Busting a border a split second before it disables (note that the + XXXXX number will constantly decrease at a fast rate; once it hits 0, the border will disable), you can receive the score bonus and you can eliminate all the bullets on the screen at the same time. This is extremely difficult to do.
    - Phantasm Stage is unlocked by clearing Extra Stage and at least 60 unique spell cards, all characters combined. Phantasm will only be unlocked for characters that you have cleared Extra with.

Imperishable Night
    - The phantom guage has two sides: human on the left, youkai on the right.
    - Shooting enemies and grazing while unfocused will bring the meter farther to the left; shooting enemies and grazing while focused will bring the meter farther to the right.
    - When the meter reaches 80% to 100% or -80% to -100%, you will start receiving time points (note that they always autocollect).
    - If you are at 80% to 100%, attacking enemies in human form will give you time points.
    - If you are at -80% to -100%, grazing bullets in youkai form will give you time points.
    - On the right hand side is the Time meter. Having a numerator higher than the denominator at the end of the stage will allow you to face the boss' Last Spell, and it will also decrease how much time has gone by at the completion of each stage (this is important in order to get a good ending and score)
    - More on time and IN's intermediate scoring can be found in the Advanced section
    - The timing window to deathbomb is 1/10th of a second, as it is with any other Touhou game. However, IN has a secondary timing window that begins right after it known as "Last Spell."
    - Last Spells have a far larger timing window to counter with a bomb as compared to simply deathbombing (for Reimu/Yukari, the timing window is 1 second).
    - A Last Spell depletes 2 bombs. If you only have 1 bomb in reserves, then it only depletes 1 bomb.
    - A Last Spell is significantly stronger than a bomb or deathbomb. You will know when you use a Last Spell because much like how a cut-in of the boss appears when they activate a spell card, a cut-in of your character will appear on the screen. The screen will also freeze for a split second
    - Spell Cards in Spell Practice are unlocked by simply encountering the Spell Card in normal play (this can either be by Single Player or Practice Mode)

Shoot the Bullet
    - Shift and X do the exact same thing (focus), so you can use them interchangeably in these notes
    - Charge the camera by holding Shift + Z. You will slow down greatly, but you will be able to take your next photo sooner
    - Holding shift (focusing) will cause your camera's crosshair to not only aim towards the boss but get a little closer to them as well
    - To take a picture from afar, press and hold Z: you can now use the directional buttons to move the crosshair of the image around. Note that time slows down during this because Aya cannot be controlled (so hopefully she survives), and that the crosshair of the image will constantly be shrinking until you lose the image. Release Z to take a picture while in this phase

Mountain of Faith
    - MarisaB is bugged. Having any amount of power from 3.00 to 3.95 will cause her unfocused central laser to do incredible damage (ZUN probably put a decimal in the wrong place, or added an extra digit in the code). Using this bug, many noncards and spell cards have absolutely no difficulty whatsoever aside for placing Marisa anywhere directly below the boss.
    - The Faith meter is explained in the Advanced section.

Subterranean Animism
    - The Communications guage has a multiplier on the right-hand side of it. It goes up .01 for every 100 graze you collect.
    - If you graze enough bullets in a short span of time, the multiplier will begin to rise. When it maxes out equivalent to your current graze (i.e. if you have 1050 graze, the current maximum for the multiplier would be 1.10) you can autocollect item drops from anywhere on the screen.


The Gameplay (Advanced): Score Theory and Integrable Explorations of Modern Linear Danmaku
Back to: The Main Guide


Last edited by bjwdestroyer on Fri Dec 19, 2008 6:08 am; edited 9 times in total
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TransfuSe  





Joined: 20 Oct 2007
Posts: 1203
Location: Alberta, Canada

PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 4:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

hey guys can I hang out in here?


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Squirrel  





Joined: 27 Jul 2006
Posts: 4828
Location: Wyano, PA (Come visit! My gameroom is always open.)

PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 5:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Holy crap BJW... this is an insane guide.

I just wish I had more time to play these games, I should now, I now have a media pc hooked up in the living room, and I can use the tv as the monitor.

I do have to say, playing TouHou, with a usb sega genesis style controller, is absolutely amazing, when sitting on the couch, playing it on a TV.
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TransfuSe  





Joined: 20 Oct 2007
Posts: 1203
Location: Alberta, Canada

PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So what difficulty do you guys play on?

I've only been playing a couple weeks so I can only beat half of hard.
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voidedalive2x  





Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 7922
Location: jefferson city, MO

PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey, guess who forced his hand *wait expectantly*

wow...that is a BIG guide to touhou...maybe they should st-uhhh...can we still ask to do that?

oh and what about PoTF? shouldnt there be a breif section on that?
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bjwdestroyer  





Joined: 30 Jun 2007
Posts: 4784
Location: I have more posts than you, who cares where I am.

PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mac081793 wrote:
O thats what TOUHOU is.

I thought it was some stupid inside joke or a food.
Yeah, those games were pretty cool especially RAIDEN X. Is that a Touhou game?

No.

TransfuSe wrote:
hey guys can I hang out in here?


Yes.

Squirrel wrote:
Holy crap BJW... this is an insane guide.

I just wish I had more time to play these games, I should now, I now have a media pc hooked up in the living room, and I can use the tv as the monitor.

I do have to say, playing TouHou, with a usb sega genesis style controller, is absolutely amazing, when sitting on the couch, playing it on a TV.

Do it damnit, play more :P

And damn, I need to hook up my computer to a TV sometime so I can play on a bigger screen too. Although, I prefer the standard keyboard controls >_>

TransfuSe wrote:
So what difficulty do you guys play on?

I've only been playing a couple weeks so I can only beat half of hard.

Lunatic, because I'm a whore like that.

Beating half of hard in a few weeks time is pretty good. What game in particular, or do you mean the series as a whole?

voidedalive2x wrote:
Hey, guess who forced his hand *wait expectantly*

wow...that is a BIG guide to touhou...maybe they should st-uhhh...can we still ask to do that?

Thanks, and it still isn't quite done :P

As for your question, well, we can't answer a question if you don't even complete writing it. The only question we can't really answer is how to obtain Touhou without buying it: you need to do that on your own time (see the FAQ in the OP).
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voidedalive2x  





Joined: 29 May 2008
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Location: jefferson city, MO

PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

well i meant to ask if it could be stickied, but i didnt know if we could. sorry.

Staff edit: I took that out for a reason.

EEP!!! well, crap, i didnt know that! thanks for doing that, though!

dang, my first staff-edited post . Now i gotta hope i dont get a locked thread(by that, i mean a thread of my own that i didnt ask to be locked)
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RB accomps: RB3 MDrums FGFC! RB3 MOMBFGFC!
Old Youtube, New Youtube | I do Twitch, now!
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bjwdestroyer  





Joined: 30 Jun 2007
Posts: 4784
Location: I have more posts than you, who cares where I am.

PostPosted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 12:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

voidedalive2x wrote:
well i meant to ask if it could be stickied, but i didnt know if we could. sorry.

Staff edit: I took that out for a reason.

EEP!!! well, crap, i didnt know that! thanks for doing that, though!

dang, my first staff-edited post . Now i gotta hope i dont get a locked thread(by that, i mean a thread of my own that i didnt ask to be locked)

Probably won't get stickied unless this thread becomes huge or if some staff member is absolutely in love with Touhou :P

And just so you know, I did see your original post (and your edited post), and yes, you can obtain the games there. However, because the only legal way to get the games is to import them directly from Japan, that site that hosts them for free (albeit, popular in the Touhou community) is illegal and thus no discussion of them is allowed here.
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voidedalive2x  





Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 7922
Location: jefferson city, MO

PostPosted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 2:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ok, so i just finished downloading Imperishable Night from this site which i am unable to say(once again, sorry mods!). But once its done, i get this:

error message wrote:
Cannot find C:WINDOWS\temporary internet files\content.IE5\EXZ0H8JA/ImperishableNight[1].rar


any help with that?
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RB accomps: RB3 MDrums FGFC! RB3 MOMBFGFC!
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Shikka  





Joined: 08 Feb 2007
Posts: 402

PostPosted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 3:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I decided to give these games a shot and started with Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. I have one word to describe it: insanity. And I haven't gotten past stage 4 of normal difficulty. Although I did manage to get a few spell card captures, stage 4 destroyed me. I'll keep trying though.
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TransfuSe  





Joined: 20 Oct 2007
Posts: 1203
Location: Alberta, Canada

PostPosted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 3:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Shikka wrote:
I decided to give these games a shot and started with Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. I have one word to describe it: insanity. And I haven't gotten past stage 4 of normal difficulty. Although I did manage to get a few spell card captures, stage 4 destroyed me. I'll keep trying though.


fuck yeah nice avatar! I love taiga <3

and to BJW

Touhou 10, 11, Perfect Cherry Blossom, and Imsomethingsomething Night
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