Touhou Blogging Thread

I'm still rather new to the games and fandom so please don't bite for my rather short history. o3o

Started off sometime during early March. I was just browsing through random stuff on YouTube then came across a couple Touhou gameplay vids. Needless to say the soundtrack, style and especially gameplay drew me in, and I was curious myself so decided to give it a shot.

Needless to say, I got utterly rekt on my first attempt of IN Easy. I didn't know what focusing was, nor did I know what a bomb did. I think I made it to Eirin before I used up all my continues, lol.

I did a couple games on Easy before I moved on to Normal. I think I cleared EoSD, PCB and IN easy before I made the switch. That was because I learned that Extra can only be unlocked on Normal and higher. ;w;

Hey, it did help me improve a lot! I was so happy when I got my first Normal 1cc which was EoSD. I retextured and hitbox patched it don't kill me pls
Most of the games pretty much had a cycle of "Go in, YOLO, use bombs and get first clear ASAP". It was especially painful with MoF/SA/UFO because their continues take you back to the beginning.

My 1cc's are honestly really lucky tbh. It's a combination of knowing how cards work and which ones I should bomb in order to not die.

Overall I'm really glad at my progress over the last 2 months and hope I can improve more on Touhou for the times to come.

I think I started playing in 2012. Around Jan I 1cc'd Normal on EoSD. Maybe around May-June ish to 1cc a Lunatic (EoSD or IN I don't remember). First LNB around September (PCB), EoSD around November when I switched to mechanical board.
First part of 2013 I grinded EoSD LNB enough to luck out on a LNBNF and 3MNB but the replay was desync'd. Started MoF Lunatic scoring in April or something. 2b at June/July-ish. Played some Hard/Normal and came back to 2.12b in December(?). Fuzzy memories. Oh my game says 12/23. And some random LNBs throughout the year.
Played some SA in early 2014. Routing was pretty fun. Didn't push it far though because I want to come back to MoF. 2.16b in May. 2.16b again in June. And finally 2.172 and 2.177 in July. Finished up LNB(+no whatever)ing all the games soon after. Got a few pb pace runs to stage 6 after that but didn't clear.
2015 -> fell for the boat meme, some stage 6 runs but again couldn't clear
2016 -> EoSD 508M to derust, took around a week, thanks to all the strms. And then MoF PB came after failing vowg once.
Probably missed a bunch of things due to not remembering.

this year I'm looking forward to playing 2hu again. Thinking of ReimuA/MarisaC runs, EoSD 600M, 5b IN. I probably won't do most of those though, setting goals aren't really my thing I usually play whatever I feel like.

In about 2008 I happened to stumble across touhou videos on youtube. I wanted to play the games because the videos looked cool but I didn't have my own computer yet and I had a strict mom that didn't want anything downloaded on her computer. But in 2010 I got my own laptop and almost immediately found PCB and IN and downloaded them. Obviously I didn't do very well. I don't remember much, but I know I probably got to stage 4 before game overing. I didn't play very often and kinda got fed up with not being very good so I stopped playing.


Back in the middle of May I decided that I wanted to try out the Touhou games again, so I went over to moriyashrine and downloaded all the main series games. I fired up IN first since I knew it was easier and somehow got a lucky 1cc on normal within a couple hours of starting the game. That made me want to actually start seriously playing. After that I went and 1cc'd PCB and MoF within a week or 2 of playing. About a week ago I decided I wanted to try extras, assuming I would never be able to at my skill level. I played for a few days, didn't get too far on them and took a break for a few days. So far I've 1cc'd PCB, IN, MoF, UFO, and DDC. A few days ago I finally beat Ran (Only because of a lucky save), getting my first ever extra stage clear. Currently I'm about to start trying out some Hards while also trying to 1cc the rest of the windows games, as well as redoing the games I have beaten with different shot types. 

Here is my short touhou diary I decided to keep after getting into Touhou. After that I've begun streaming on Twitch so I dropped the diary. It's a bit messed up in order so approach it like Kafka's writings. Enjoy my cringy views on Touhou that I had back then.


A long time ago, in a community far, far away...
a "crossover" mod called tetris touhou.
"Hm, so it's a game in which cute girls attack you by using so-called "spell cards"... The music is very nice too."

Googled it. "So it's a shmup game, meh"
(I had prejudice against "shoot 'em up" genre, being mostly a PC gamer.
One of my first games was American McGee's Alice, of all things... I've played it when I was around 7 years old;
I don't think that the content was disturbing for me during that time. I liked the colorful visuals and dark fairy-tale atmosphere.
When looking at shmups, I was like "Why people play stuff like that when there's 3D environments are possible?)
By the way, the first gameplay video I've seen was of IN Extra clear. I've never been so impressed and horrified at the same time.

TL;DR: I was so wrong back then...

10.04.2015 Introduction. Got into Touhou because of a Japanese guy whom I've beaten in tetris. He dared me to clear MoF normal within a month. I'm like k.

For me, B in ReimuB stands for boring.

For some reason, I start to feel like Reimu is kind of a jerk. "That's not necessarily a bad thing," I reassured myself - many protagonists in video games are jerks."


03.05.2015 Got MoF 1cc.

17.05.2015

Captured my first Overdrive (11 tries)

18.05.2015 Once again, got hit on the last second of Kanako's opening nonspell.
I've noticed that it happens to me rather frequently. Maybe I'm getting distracted with the Spell Card flash, maybe I feel too safe after it.


20.05.2015 Played LLS, cleared Normal on my 4th try while only trying out the shots (in order of attempts: MarisaA, ReimuA, ReimuB, MarisaB - )
21.05.2015 Tried IN with Magic Team. I'm aware of Malice Cannon, but I don't exploit it, even though this shottype is considered inferior (read: challenging) otherwise.

Fantasy Seal - Blink, I hate you... Got it. (12 tries)
Felt even better than after capping that overdrive.
Probably, staying in the middle is the best solution I could have thought of.
In the replay, Reimu got so fed up with my lucky dodging so she tried to smack me with her rod.

28.05.2015 After a break, tried MoF Hard with ReimuA. As I can judge from the first 3 stages, the cards haven't got much harder (maybe it's my training though), except Minoriko's first spell and second nonspell (I call BS on these). Also, overestimating the laser delay hurts. Got to stage 4 - difficulty spike shows up again, just like the first time playing.
After that, tried Normal with ReimuB once again. First three stages have got really boring, only music keeps me sane. After that I keep dying to stupid shit like Nitori's camo. Noticed that I can't capture Gray Thaumaturgy anymore, even though I used to capture it every time (at least got Guest Stars correctly, which is nice). Got to stage 6 (first time for this shottype). Without homing shots it looks much denser and harder, though bombs work the same. Died at Misayama's due to forgetting the existence of bomb key (my desire to capture it stayed, despite that I've got an "amazing" 2/40 history on it.)

16:54 06.06.2015 Tried IN hard. Got Asteroid Belt on the first try... in spell practice.
Captured Autumn Sky on Lunatic, but didn't get much farther.

Enjoy the game music. (write smth about that)
sanae's theme is a little sad, it is how she wants to be the protagonist but is stomped in the head repeatedly by a miko.
Kanako's fight is awesome, it really demonstrates her power - beginning with the first nonspell, trapping in logs, forcing to hug the bottom of the screen in 2nd card, throwing a gorillion knives at you later and of course MoF itself which really burns into your memory. Sanae goes back into the "pretty fireworks" category compared to her... Though I'm pretty sure that Aya could easily 1v1 Kanako (if she was ordered to fight, I guess)

Aya. My favourite boss theme in MoF even before playing it.
"I'll go easy on you"
Me: "Okay, even though 4th stage got a difficulty jump I might at least handle the boss since she says so..."
*cue Illusionary Dominance* wtf

the very first time I played mof, i picked normal, gameovered during Nitori, tried to continue - when it threw me to the beginning of the stage I said wtf and ragequit.

22:57 07.06.2015 I hate Monster Cucumber - too much flashes, it really hurts my eyes - who knows, maybe Nitori's tactic is to blind the enemy.
Completed the game with all other shottypes to see the endings.
The endings were worth wasting my time with the shots I don't particularly like. Quite nice to see Sanae being less of a jerk than Reimu is (then again, it's not that hard).
Nothing to show as my replays were too bomb-happy (badly trying to handle stages 4/6 with a non-homing shot; really bad luck on Aya in other cases) and I got really low scores because of that (though I don't care for score).
At least I capped MoF on ReimuB clear. I can only say that my micrododging and general feel of character have become a bit better after the break.
I wanna try for a bombless run with MarisaB to redeem myself for these bombthroughs.
The first 3 levels on Normal mode have gotten really boring, so I tend to mess up on them a lot lately.

MarisaC has pleasantly suprised me with the damage, especially on MoF. The options also made stage 6 really easy, even easier than with ReimuA.
Capped MoF 2 more times.
I hate MarisaA with all fibres of my soul.

I've reached full immersion in the game - I even wince each time my character gets hit, as if I was being hit instead.

19:17 09.06.2015 Tried Hard with MarisaB. Finally beat Nitori, though not without a couple of bombs. Her "Mare" got a really sneaky kill on me. Wow, stage 4 has got it's difficulty spike again, it's just too fast to follow. Reached Aya - even though her nonspells are faster, they haven't become harder at all (except the first one). The cards have got a bit harder, but at least I can continue to rely on pure dodging skill instead of seeking a new pathway each time. Got murdered by the last card (first thought "oh, it's only faster, and not so dense after all" turned out to be the last one). All the time I was thinking that Illusionary Dominance would insta-gib me - it's not /that/ bad, but bombed regardless. No captures whatsoever though (except Minoriko's lasers and some of Hina's stuff).
Captured "Mare" with ReimuA shortly afterwards. Heh, progress.

20:35 19.06.2015 Got both Misayama and MoF on the very first try with MarisaB. The rest of the run sucked though. (All shottypes cleared, yay)
Went to practice the 3rd stage on Hard, nearly perfected it in one attempt (no bombs, died to Extending Arm, which is a shame). Hydro camo was only scary-looking at first. For some reason, third stage is easier than the first two combined.
After that, tried Hard once again. I've got really good at deathbombing (which sort of helps tolerating Minoriko's BS), though it won't help much avoiding these situations (when I die) in first place. At least I don't get instakilled by lasers card after I lose a life (Minoriko's got first blood already).
I'm trying only 2 shottypes for Hard - ReimuA (mostly easier stages and chip damage when dodging the cards), and MarisaB as a power type (smaller cards, like Leaves of Madness, burn before you really have to dodge). Plus Marisa can outrun bullets (which got really fast on Hard), and is only slightly weaker than ReimuB (fairies are so fragile that damage does only matter on cards, while extra speed is beneficial, also piercing shot is nice).
Tried Extra with MarisaB this time. The stage is pretty easy, but Suwako isn't (also it looks like I forgot how to handle 2 Kanako cards). Suwako is still hardcore, though I've discovered a way to cap two or three cards. Nonspells aren't hard (though, getting clipped on One Arm and One Leg [as Marisa] hurts).
I can't look at Moriya Shrine's columns without shivering (no antialiasing - calling myself a snob here).
On Hard, I'm getting extends really early (beginning of stage 2), even if I don't go for score. Maybe that's because keeping Faith meter high is easier. That certainly helps. Seems like Flash Flood is somewhat less dense than Pororoca. Getting butchered by the fountain again (more like lack of dodging skill than wrong routing IMHO). Zun's demo replay helped me to mitigate the losses at stage 4, sort of.
Tried Lunatic with ReimuA... Capped Broken Charm, almost got Ohgane's fire. With all this deathbombing I reached stage 4 (Spin the Cephalic Plate... was really surprised by that one, thankfully it's not as epileptic as green lasers). At that point I decided "screw Hard, this is now OK for me to practice on that". Remembered that I have continues, so I practiced stage 4. Now I suspect that Aya is no longer going easy on me... Nonspells are really crazy. Surprisingly, Saruta Cross feels easier than Crossroads of Heaven. Storm Day isn't that hard as I'd imagine (still bombed on both). Final spell seems doable, but I just don't like it on every level. But Peerless Wind God... I felt like using only one bomb on it was an achievement for me. After five tries, got to stage 5 via careful bomb management, died, then hit "Retry" by accident... I won't be surprised if Sanae or Kanako are (still) easier than Aya. The stages might be even harder than stage 4 though.
So even if I didn't beat stage 4 in one go, I've still unlocked it for practice mode, which is a nice touch. Now I can practice Aya without excessively bombing the stage. But... what, the fairies before Momiji are spawning randomly? That's also cool. Momiji doesn't feel as hard after I've practiced her on Normal so many times, but now she can wall you. The segment after her makes me want to fight her instead of bombing, though. Got first nonspell right. Bad luck on Saruta Cross, 3 times died just before clearing it. Storm Day feels like a fun card, it offers more varied and chaotic patterns than Hidden in Leaves. Died with 3 sec remaining on PWG (perhaps these 3 are the hardest to survive, but it's still the most random card I've seen yet). At Terukumi, I can finally dodge by being unfocused (with ReimuA), got through a few barrages, but it's still tiring.

23.06.2015 Cleared LotLK trial. The whole game feels alien. Graze/scoring system is quite nice. I like Doremy for providing a fun challenge (struggled on penultimate card though).

23:51 25.06.2015 After looking at a few Twitch streams, I got UFO (practicing MoF is a bore). I can confirm that it is the most fun game to play of all four I've tried so far (still, IN is my favourite overall).
Initially I thought that I would hate UFO's - surprisingly, the UFO gimmick makes the game much more interesting to replay (and you don't want to throw each run after you only lose a life, like in TD. You really want to cling, even with worst luck and dumb mistakes.) Also it's reported to be one of the harder games, so it's better for practice in general.
By the way, I don't feel bad for bombing in this game, since you have to earn every life/bomb by yourself. Different types of bombs are nice, glad to see that they're back.
A few (mostly awful) tries of ReimuB at first. I used to get the rainbow UFO's all the time by accident. I couldn't pass stage 3 due to getting distracted with stuff (I wasn't ready for Ichirin's cards; while not being particularly gimmicky they're still different from standard Touhou fare.)
Later, I picked SanaeA (fave shot: perfect speed for me to handle) and got to Murasa in my first real attempt with her. Murasa seems bearable, but... survival, again? Exactly twice as hard as Aya's one. Won just barely, went to Makai. Makai is a really, really cool stage. Hard and beautiful. On last life/no bombs, managed to capture Nazrin's Pagoda in first try(!). However, Shou owned me right away. I'm eager to retry later (shouldn't have been losing so many lives earlier).

The patterns are really nice and challenging. Even though the music isn't particularly action-packed this time, it really fits for a hard game like this one (calms me down after mistakes). The story feels good, as far as I've read. I share Sanae's newfound passion of youkai-hunting. (NB. She actually shows some kind of emotion, compared to "seal everything" Reimu, so I started to like her more. She also has a better shottype - doesn't apply to TD, but they both lose to Youmu.)

18:14 30.06.2015 Tried UFO once again. Summoned UFO's twice during midbosses, then died to that light orb (Nue?) in stage 4. After seeing that it didn't drop an 1-up after I screwed up, I promptly ragequit.

19:00 01.07.2015 Tried Extra with MarisaB. Pretty good until I died 3 times on Suwako's first card and got finished by the second (makes me want to use ReimuA again). Tried to scorerun Normal with the same shot, died at Bad Fortune. Twice. In two separate attempts. I hate practicing MoF.
Decided to clear Extra with ReimuA first, as retrying the stage is less annoying with her. Captured Iron Ring by going around Suwako and chipping her with homing amulets. But the following 2 cards made me think about switching my goal. Even though MoF is the easier game, it doesn't apply to Extra at all.
Hard went a bit better. Aside from a few really stupid stage deaths, I managed to capture Kappa's Flash Flood, Extending Arm and Saruta Cross (history 1/2 on that last one; it's easier than Normal version). Got all of Aya's nonspells right this time and went to stage 5... where I was promptly "pwned" by Sanae's upgraded midboss nonspell (I guess that the initial rotation of her matters a lot). Still an improvement.

UFO normal. Stupid death at stage 2. Tried Lunatic - stage 1 went fine until I got nailed by the side laser of Rod Sign (miscalculated), and then died 2 times at boss' nonspell because I considered that bombing wasn't cool. So I died a honourable death against a mouse.
SanaeB normal. Really good shot - seems like SanaeA wasn't as good at selectively detonating UFO's, so I got more life in first run with this shottype. Nice speed, nice bomb, and the shot covers more than any of MoF's shots while still having decent power (Parasol Star, Kogasa's first boss card, dies in 9 seconds flat, which I like). Finally captured Heavenly Net Sandbag. However, that overconfidence cost me a lot in stage 4, where I got too much UFO fragments floating around (like 5 at one time), tempting me. And the red ones were changing whenever I got near them, so I panicked. That's why I lost a lot of lives just trying to get rid of them. I lost Nue's 1-up, screwed up Murasa's fight and went to Makai with 0 lives like the past time. However, when Nazrin caught up to me, I didn't bother dodging because I thought I had a bomb. Rip.
Seems like in UFO I died mostly because of overestimating UFO's bullet clear ability, so rushing in to get the next red life fragment wasn't a good idea. I like the scoring system for it's simplicity, you can ignore it if you're going for lives.
Tried all shottypes - I like all of them (what a contrast to MoF). But since Marisa is faster too, I had quite "fun" time running into bullets with her. Wanted to do a ReimuB attempt, but then lost a life to a barely noticeable single bullet in Stage 3 start (curse? payback for using mostly ReimuA in MoF?). After that, looks like UFO is a bad game for perfectionists. I feel bad if I don't get the UFO fragments of correct color, if I lose even a single life since it tends to snowball into more deaths (considering how much effort I apply to have a stack in first 3 stages); if I don't capture a card; if I lose power items early on; if I don't kill every enemy (pointless but still here); if a completed UFO gets away; if I bomb/lose life to Nue. I start to wonder if I was overhyping the "fun" the game presented to me early on. The game actually punishes my desire to try and dodge instead of using my bomb stack early and often.

Back to attempting TD's Youmu clear. Since every life costs more than previous one, I won't be looking at any items anymore. Just slashing things is fun. Nevermind though: seems like I have to play at the hardest level I can afford in order to prevent "deaths by boredom".
To relax after all that, I chose IN Hard. Finally capped Wriggle's Last Word and Keine's First Pyramid. Ephemorality is an easy card for me even without killing familiars. Everything went fine until Marisa took all of my bombs and lives (bombs are rather weak in this game), then showed me a real wall after Starlight Typhoon. No way.

Conclusion of the day: seems like "deaths by boredom" were my main problem all that time, so on my beaten games I must move on to Hard, even though I want to try scoreruns, challenge clears on Normal (namely bombless, maybe try pacifist on several cards) or to do clears with different characters. Maybe I should try 90fps.
After clearing 5 games (MoF, IN, TD, SoEW, LLS), first three levels become really boring to replay through (IN is a notable exception, mainly because all of its' music is perfect and I want to try for a better Normal run.) and dying on them sucks.

At night, I wanted to try and redo a IN Normal run, thinking it would be easy with my skills improved. Captured Mind Shaker (read as ZOMG FINALLY CAPTURED A REISEN CARD), then got a lot of time by grazing and captured Telemesmerism on my first try. I feel more confident on her other cards, but I randomly panic-bombed on them just like the last time. I cleared the game, but I didn't improve on that one (I lost exactly 1 billion of score, and finished the run with 1 life in stock as before.) IMHO, while IN is still considered the best game by me, the only(!) reason why it's considered the easiest - the game gives you a crapload of resources, so, when combined with probably easiest shottype in series, you can just tank through the game. But the patterns in IN are just as hard as the average Touhou game. That "clear" confirmed to me that in fact, the easiest game is MoF. Each boss in MoF gives me less difficulty than the respective one in IN. Maybe that's because I actually put a month of practice into MoF.
By the way, I hate Time system (why you don't get graze time points in stage when +80, that's stupid!), just like some people hate UFO's gimmick. I mean, it greatly fits in story, but I only get enough time for special cards if I specifically go out of my way to gain time points, so I stopped to care.

Quick update to my playing!
11/2/2016: Beat all main-game hard modes at least once.

From this point onwards I'm contemplating several things. Start lunatic difficulty, re-visit some hard modes (with different shots maybe?), do some restriction runs for run, revisit and reclear extras, make further progress in side games. I'm still not at a level I'm satisfied with right now so I'm slowly climbing up the difficulty scale!

Seems I need to continue writing about my progress, since...a lot has happened. 2016 was quite eventful, and the beginning of 2017 so far has been really nice for me. Here we go.

I LNBed UFO for the first time on January 28th, 2016. Was really happy with it since it only took me two days of serious attempts. February came along and I decided to continue LNBing UFO. I NMNBed Stage 6 for the first time a little before my birthday (February 19th), and on that day I got my second LNB. Even more followed after, including my first with a non-ReimuA shot (SanaeB) near the end of the month. I thought that run was pretty shitty, though, so I wanted to work for a better LNB with her. Got my wish in March. During that month, I also got 502m in UFO Extra after a full day of grinding for it. You can correctly assume that I was sick of the Extra after that.

Time went on and UFO LNBs were piling up because I just really enjoyed doing them casually. I got my first 5 miss LNB at the beginning of May on a random credit, which I was really happy with (I decided to not do LNBNV for a while due to this). Since I already LNBed with three of the shots (I got an LNB with MarisaA a little while before that five miss), I wanted to do all shots. I also wanted to try and learn scoring in UFO. KG told me all the way back in January that I'm good enough to get 1.7b/1.8b in the game, but I held off on doing anything too serious until I felt pretty comfortable. So I spent the summer learning scoring routes as well as finishing up with the LNB all-clear. LNBing with ReimuB and SanaeA happened very quickly, and while my MarisaB LNB took a fair bit of effort, I eventually got her down, too. UFO LNB All-Clear get.

Along with my UFO shenanigans, I got an urge to do a couple ExNNs. I chose to do MoF and SA because they seemed fun enough, and I got them both quite quickly. I didn't really have any interest in doing other Extras, though, since learning UFO scoring was my priority. My first goal was obtaining Lunatic 2b with SanaeB, and since school was approaching, I wanted to get the score before I had to go to uni. I managed to get my first 2b clear (2.046b) a week before I had to go, and I was quite happy. I told myself that I was satisfied with my UFO progress and I wasn't going to play too seriously from that point on. Hahaha, good joke.

More time went on. I joined Sukoata on a whim and won my match-up, got an LNB with max lives remaining with SanaeB, quickly got an LNBNV with ReimuA without too much grinding, and got a random LNB that captured every spell in the game also with ReimuA. I scored Hard a bit and got 2.081b there, but aside from that, I didn't take scoring seriously until December. After getting 543m in the Extra out of boredom, I returned to Lunatic and got my first scorebug clear (2.269b). From that moment on, I knew what I wanted to finally aim for: Lunatic 2.5b. I kept grinding away and learning new things, KG being a huge help during this time since he gave me a lot of advice and even replays to study off of. A couple weeks after that PB, I managed to get a 2.421b clear. What was really cool about that clear is that I entered Byakuren with 0/0 and still managed to clear after a really nice NMNB of her. That run actually could've gotten 2.5b if it weren't for some key mistakes in Stage 5, but I didn't dwell on it. My goal was really close. I didn't know whether if I wanted to end the year with a 2.5b clear or start 2017 fresh with one, but I decided on the latter since I felt that it'd feel better that way. 2017 soon began.

I spent January practicing and grinding away for 2.5b and came close a few times, but most of those attempts reached Byakuren with 0/0 and died to Good Omen. I PBed again (2.436b) near the end of the month, but I didn't think much of it. It was still a 2.4b clear. February then started and I set up the seventh round of DRC (DRC needs its own post later for sure, since I have a lot to say about it.). KG convinced me to play UFO Hard with him and score it, so I spent the two weeks before the round began learning Hard routes and taking a breather from Lunatic. When the round began, I felt a surge of stress and worry. I feared that I'd choke hard and fail to get a good run in and not only disappoint myself, but KG, too. Thankfully I was just worrying over nothing, since I was able to quickly get a 2.365b Hard clear (on my birthday, too!). I was really happy with this run since it meant that I now had scorebug in two difficulties now. After that, I decided that I was completely satisfied with my submission (by the way, DRC7 isn't even over yet, but I still consider myself satisfied).

A little after that, I decided to finally go back to Lunatic. I practiced some more, but...I never really felt any serious urges to do credits. I told myself that I wouldn't get 2.5b at all if I was going to be lazy about it, so I put in some attempts during the weekend and grinded for a few hours. I didn't make it to stage 6 during that session, but I was happy I still made it to Shou with 2.5b potential a few times. That happened three days ago. And well...

The following day, I felt a huge drive to play UFO. I spent the morning practicing an alternate UFO summoning route for Stage 6 in case anything went wrong on Shou, then began to put in credits. After a few Stage 1 resets...I managed to achieve my goal. 2,543,164,610. I finally got Lunatic 2.5b. After I saved the replay, I lost my composure and began to freak out quite a lot. I've never felt that way about ANY achievement before. I just...I've never been more happy with anything, either. I felt utterly fantastic. After I told everyone about it, I just sat there unable to move while talking to Obama/Scala in call (he was the first to know about it). The grind finally paid off. That happened two days ago.

Now I'm just...really satisfied with everything. I definitely have plans to push my Lunatic score higher, but right now I'm quite content with a small break and maybe doing some more casual achievements. Perhaps I can LNB the other games, or maybe learn some other categories for score? Not sure. I'm just glad I have my Lunatic 2.543b. It's by far my proudest achievement and it can only be topped in worth with PBs. But on a sentimental scale, I don't think it'll be topped.

Me becoming a Lunatic!
So I decided to write a blog entry about me and my efforts in Lunatic Mode. Sit back and enjoy

It was back in late december 2016 that I decided to go for a Lunatic 1CC of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. That was when I had just gotten my Hard 1CC of it after ages of struggling (first Hard 1CC, too). So setting this goal did seem overly ambitious and it was mainly a "screw it, I'm just gonna do it" type of decision. I started by clearing with all continues, then clearing with one continue at max lives setting in order to unlock stage practices. Even that took quite some attempts and made me feel proud when I had done it. That was the beginning time when it gave me shivers of amazement everytime I would hit "Lunatic" in the selection menu. You know, those feels of "wow, I'm actually doing this crazy that never used to be more than daydreaming"?
Right now is probably a good time to throw in that I do not only want a Lunatic 1CC no matter what. In addition, I also imposed on myself the restriction of doing this with nothing else than the game originally offers. That is - no scorefile to unlock practice, no SpoilerAL or other cheats for practicing individual parts, no vpatch, no visible hitbox and not even looking up strategies from other people to use them. That may or may not be idiotic since it makes an already hard game even harder and way more frustrating. The reason I'm doing this for is related to my backstory with EoSD. EoSD was not only the first Touhou (or STG) game I've ever played but also the first I've 1CC'd on Easy, Normal and Hard. It's kinda become the game I play whenever I want a really tough challenge that will require me to give it my all (that's why naturally I also wanted it to be my first 1CC on Lunatic). That's because it really feels - and it is - hardcore for many reasons. One of them are the bombs. From the very start up until now I never stopped having troubles about dying with bombs left in store and this applies for EoSD above all. No matter how often I thought I was finally making progress with EoSD's bomb timings it just keeps happening to me that something kills me when I clearly feel I reacted so early that it shouldn't even have been a deathbomb which is potentially the thing that frustrates me the most in all of Touhou. At first, not being able to see the hitbox also was a huge reason why EoSD was so hardcore for me (back when I first played Normal). Nowadays the bigger issue is that the controls seem to be so damn irresponsive everytime I come back to EoSD after playing some other Touhou games. This of course contributes to me dying unexpectedly and makes me feel like I just lack the precise control over my movements that would be necessary (I don't even wanna imagine what wonders vpatch could do on this game. Stay determined, Shnippy!). Finally, the worst reason why EoSD has always been so frustrating for me is the practice system. Seriously, entering the stage with two lives only?! I barely can clear some stages with that, why on earth should my main focus be not getting a gameover in a "practice" mode. Why should I have to fight to even get to the spell I wanna practice? Really, the practice mode of EoSD is such utter garbage that I ended up just starting runs and using all of my continues after gameover just to practice the later stages.
For all of those reasons together my thoughts after beating EoSD on Normal were along the lines of "Fuck it, I'm finally done with this game!". It is kind of a mystery even to myself why I'm still playing it now; I can't recall at all what it was that made me come back to this game. It was some months later (after playing IN, PCB and SA) that I somehow found myself playing EoSD on Hard mode and wanted to beat it. Once again, it was a traumatizing experience. The struggle I've had with Normal doesn't even compare to Hard. I got to Scarlet Gensokyo pretty fast on a fluke (first time making it past Sakuya) and from then on it still took me an entire month filled with constant attempts to get it done. I had 10+ fails on Remilia, at least five of them on Scarlet Gensokyo, mixed of course with lots of annoying Stage1/Stage 2 resets and fails (*bombs wasted all over the place*). I had the perfect run thrown away (entering the Remilia fight 4/3) and hilarious shenanigans (failing to pick up the 1UP of Midboss Sakuya on a pretty decent credit). It went to the point where I didn't even get very nervous on Remilia anymore and where I got salty over every little mishappening. During my efforts to get this 1CC I also realised, however, how satisfying EoSD could be whenever I was doing something right. Deathbombing in EoSD feels great everytime you pull it off, learning to do precise dodges despite not seeing your hitbox makes you feel like the greatest pro ever and even restarting the whole thing from the beginning everytime due to the lack of practice didn't feel that bad after a while (let aside the Stage 1 resets). It actually felt like I was always getting a little more consistent and making slight progress on all those attempts, slowly getting to perfectly know this game (strangely opposed to SA, where I never managed to unlock Stage 6 Practice and the restarts just drove me up the walls to the point where I got frustrated that I kept away for a loooong time from SA after my finally getting my Normal 1CC). Eventually, I got the Hard 1CC in after having to last through half of Scarlet Gensokyo with no lives or bombs remaining. That was one of my favourite moments ever in Touhou since I told myself to shut up my thoughts about how I was going to fail and focus purely on dodging right when I had used my last bomb and since I miraculously managed to put that into action. Thus, my journey for Hard Mode had one of the most epic conclusions I could have imagined.
Starting Lunatic in december, I did a lot of stage practice and developed most of the strategies I'm using right now but nothing really seemed to shape up back then. I estimated that I should be able to get to Stage 6 on one credit if I only got an ok run that wouldn't waste more than, say, five bombs but I just couldn't get the run that would put all of my practice together and show me that I was making progress in praxis too. It weirdly seemed as if the link between my practice and my runs was missing and while in theory I had improved I wasn't making any progress in actual attempts.
I then took an unintentional break to participate in two different Touhou competitions which led me to getting a Pacifist Normal 1CC of PCB (a game which I hadn't liked before but which could very well be my favourite at the moment) and seeing insane improvements at IN Extra, my favourite Extra stage ever, as thanks to DRC I kept improving my personal best to the point where I could consistently No-Bomb the Extra. My personal highlight of this was that I started to capture Imperishable Shooting, the card which took me 378 attempts to capture blindly (developing my own strategy) in Spell Practice in real runs as well. The final turnout was a No Miss 3 bombs run with Shooting capture which marked the first time that I had pushed my accuracy and consistency with anything in Touhou this far. I most definitely intend to come back to perfect it when I'll have build up the skill to get past Mokou's purple rings of doom.
When all of this was over, I slowly got back to EoSD lunatic (while doing various side stuff, like UFO, Shining Shooting Star or 90FPS attempts). For a while, it felt like a huge step back compared to the fun I had had with those other games (well, not UFO, perhaps). But lately, maybe a week ago, I started getting in the groove that I know already from Hard. Despite my fails and all the Stage 1/Stage 2 resets (which have intensified so much in Lunatic that quite often only 1 out of 20 attempts makes it past Stage 2) I've come to enjoy the Lunatic difficulty more and more. Likewise, I'm seeing the first blossoms of progress right now. I've gotten runs past Stage 5 (my current best made it to Vampire Illusion) and I've done a perfect timeout of Killing Doll, a card which I had considered impossible for me, during Stage Practice. Everything seems to come together a little bit more every time now. I've also noticed that a lot of the stuff that seemed completely overpowering to me when I started practicing in december is now perfectly doable. Patchouli, however, is still the biggest trainwreck in existence. Just today a great run (5/0) was reduced to (1/1) by her alone. Remilia's not going any better, either. So I'll most likely still have a long journey ahead of me - and I really hope I do. This Lunatic 1CC is intended to top off my Normal and Hard ones (and all of my other Touhou achievements ever, for that matter) and thus it should be more time consuming, reset-heavy, fail-intensive and frustration-inducing than even my Hard 1CC of EoSD which was about the toughest thing I could imagine. If my Lunatic 1CC doesn't feel really well-deserved at the time I'm going to get it, I'll probably be a bit disappointed.
That's the current state as of now. I want to get EoSD Lunatic done until 25.5 no matter what because that's the day I've played Touhou for the first time ever. Having gone from Easy to Lunatic within a single year would definitely be an amazing thing to have achieved. Right now, I'll just keep trying!
~Shnippy