The controls are simple:
-Arrow keys: move
-Z: press once to shoot. Hold to cast a spell, which is indicated by your spell gauge. Casting a spell above level 1 will deplete your spell gauge, and you can only cast a spell up to or equal to the level of your spell gauge. Killing monsters will refill your spell gauge, and the level to which it is filled can be seen briefly above your character, as seen near the character sprite in the left screen.
Spell gauges can fill up to level 4.
-Level 1: Standard special attack that does not affect your opponent’s screen or give you invincibility.
-Level 2: Clears a small radius of bullets around your character and gives you temporary invincibility for about 2 seconds. Also sends a small burst of bullets to your opponent’s screen.
-Level 3: Clears a greater radius of bullets and sends a stronger wave of attacks to your opponent’s screen.
-Level 4: The ultimate attack. Clears your entire screen and sends a copy of your character to the opponent’s screen to unleash terrible, terrible damage upon them. One example is visible at the top of the left side of the screen; they can be shot at, and cause a “boss” indicator to appear at the bottom of the screen.
-X: casts a spell without needing to “charge” it, but completely empties your spell gauge. Can be used for deathbombing (window is approximately 0.1 seconds)
-Shift: Turns your character’s hitbox visible and creates a spirit-converting field shaped according to character. The character in the right screen is focused: the field is star-shaped in her case, and the hitbox is visible as a square in the middle of her sprite. Even if bullets enter her character, as long as the hitbox is not hit, no damage is taken.
Each player takes one side of the screen.
-Fairies will spawn regularly: two are visible at the very top of the right screen. They will die in one hit from anything, and explodes when killed. Fairies and spirits caught in the explosion will also die, and round bullets in the explosive range are sent to your opponent’s screen. Killed fairies will send small round bullets to your opponent’s screen directly as well.
-Spirits: bird-shaped entities that will fly downwards most of the time. They take multiple hits to kill and are generated due to your opponent’s killing of fairies. (Two are visible in the screenshot, at the bottom right of the left screen and the right edge of the right screen.) When they come into contact with your purple field, they turn into spheres and stop moving downwards. They become easier to destroy. They explode when killed.
-Small, round bullets are basic bullets that can be destroyed or reflected by explosions. Other bullets such as knives, ovals, large circles, etc. cannot be reflected or destroyed except via a spell or special ability.
The killing of a spirit causes your character’s “Ex attack” to fly into your opponent’s screen. This can be extremely damaging, so it is essential that you not neglect spirits. Details on the ex attacks of characters will be elaborated on later.
Character analysis:
Reimu Hakurei:
Scope shape: Circle
L1: Homing hakurei amulet
Ex attack: Large ying-yang orb flying through your opponent’s field.
Attribute: Small hitbox
Pros:
-A hitbox that is half the diameter of other characters, aiding immensely when weaving through tight bullet formations.
-Ex attack is extremely large and distracting to the opponent. Seriously, I forgot how annoying those ying-yang orbs were. Their hitcircle is pretty small compared to the sprite size, so you can move through two overlapping circles with no problem if you know what you are doing.
-Spell attacks send fairly intimidating formations to your opponent’s screen. If they don’t know how to stream they’re pretty much screwed.
Cons:
-Slow. Very, very slow. I think she is one of the slowest characters in every touhou game. Ever. Although it does make her a good beginner char.
-Scope is tiny, making her miss spirits fairly often.
-Scope expands slowly, making her need stay in focused form to catch spirits reliably.
Usage:
Reimu is a good beginner character to start with as her small hitbox aids in helping new players learn how to graze and weave through danmaku formations. Her scope shape is also standard enough to get players accustomed to it. Reimu's movement speed is rather slow, but it is an attribute that will end up helping her dodge. Her L1 spell charges very quickly and home in on enemies, making it a fairly good spirit sniping attack.
Her Ex Attack, the ying-yang orb, follows a parabolic trajectory; it appears near the top of the screen and is thrown in a way that roughly aims at your location at the time it appears. It takes quite a while to fall down, so it will miss if you move, but they are very visually restrictive. When it hits the walls, it bounces off.
Reimu’s spells send fairly dense card bullet waves to the opponent’s screen, although many of them can be streamed. They are made deadly by the waves of ying-yang orbs.
Marisa Kirisame:
Scope shape:
L1:
Ex attack:
Attribute: Spell gauge recharges quickly
Pros:
-Fast character.
-Scope can be used to “snipe” spirits by tapping shift while under them.
-Giant lasers :3
Cons:
-Attacks are all straight upwards; difficult to kill unreachable enemies
-Spell attacks somewhat disappointing in strength, barring the L4.
Usage:
Marisa is fast, and her spell gauge also recharges very quickly. Therefore, it is very beneficial for Marisa users to constantly use her L2 as frequently as possible. Because of the forward nature of her L1 (which is embedded in higher-order spells), using them during a boss summon will not hinder her ability to kill them. Learning to tap-activate or "snipe" spirits with the infinite forward scope is extremely important for utilizing her devastating Ex attack, essentially cutting the screen in half for a few seconds.
Her L1 also allows her to start to kill fairies a bit later than her opponent at the start of a round, meaning she will be able to reflect the initial salvo of bullets as well as reach the 100000 point mark later than her opponent (meaning the first L4 boss will be reflected to her opponent). Combine this with the deadly laser barrage of her L4, and it makes Marisa an excellent PvP character.
Sakuya Izayoi:
Scope shape: Circular sector in the opposite direction of your character
L1: Jack the ripper (Awesome homing attack. See? It even sounds awesome.)
Ex attack: Stream of knives aimed at your opponent.
Attribute: Activated spirits do not drift upward.
Pros:
-Fast character
-Versatile scope
-Good L1 and restrictive Ex attack
Cons:
-Scope hard to use in heavy danmaku patterns
Usage:
Sakuya's scope is a peculiar one, and it seems as though using it effectively requires her to be focused all the time due to its slow deployment speed. However, because her scope rotates according to your movement, you can "tap activate" spirits the same way that you can with Marisa.
Essentially, move near a spirit you want to activate, press shift, move in the opposite direction as the spirit and quickly change direction by 90 degrees. Release shift; the spirit should have activated. With enough practice it can be performed without the scope becoming visible for more than an instant, or about 0.1 seconds. Even though this may yield some spirits that you cannot reach with a conventional attack, you can charge your L1 to attack it.
Sakuya's spells have an intriguing property: time is "stopped" for about one second when she uses her L2/L3/L4 spells as knives appear around the opponent. This is extremely critical to utilize as it has the following properties:
-All bullets are stopped for the duration of the time-stop.
-During the time stop, neither character may shoot.
-Sakuya may move, but the opponent cannot. Extremely useful as it lets Sakuya have some extra time to move out of some danmaku formations.
-The opponent may not "bomb" until the duration of the time stop is over.
-Sakuya may charge a spell during this time. Allows her to "chain" L2 spells one after another without giving the opponent breathing time.
Keep in mind that chaining 3 L2 spells will not guarantee a kill all the time, so do not rely on it too much.
Youmu Konpaku:
Scope shape: Large circle
L1: Forward sword slash; destroys all bullets in front of her, including Ex attacks
Ex attack: Stationary ghost on opponent’s screen acting as an obstacle
Attribute: L1 can destroy bullets
Pros:
-L1 is very powerful; can be used to substitute for L2s in certain situations.
-Moves quickly when unfocused but slows down significantly during focus to aid dodging.
-Very, very large field
Cons:
-Very slow charge speed for spells. Her L1 takes as long to charge as Reimu’s L3.
-Ex attack is stationary.
-Scope is formed very slowly.
Usage:
Youmu needs to be constantly focused to take advantage of her large scope due to the deployment speed, however she is quite slow when focused. When she is unfocused she moves extremely quickly, but when focused she is as slow as Reimu. Thus it comes to a tradeoff between agility and ease of spirit killing. Sometimes, it’s better to kill the unactivated spirits with brute force.
Youmu’s L1 can remove bullets and Ex attacks (aside from poison clouds and sword-generating vortices). It takes quite a while to charge, but clears all bullets immediately in front of you, essentially acting as an infinite-use scaled-down version of a L2 attack. Placed correctly, this L1 can destroy entire bursts of bullets like Lyrica’s Ex attack, and other pesky things like Reimu’s ying-yang orbs, Yuka’s sunflowers, or Sikieiki’s sword barrages. Of course, you must anticipate them well ahead of time, since the charge time is very high.
This and her unfocused speed easily makes her one of the most difficult characters to kill in PvP, and her Ex obstacle is quite frustrating to deal with as it lasts a long time and impedes movement.
Reisen Udongein Inaba:
Scope shape: Rotating eye shape
L1: Explosive missile
Ex attack: Explosive bomb on opponent’s screen
Attribute: Activated spirits move upwards quickly (HOW IS THIS A GOOD THING?!)
Pros:
-Nice L1 and high AoE for the Ex attack
-Decent speed
-Decent boss and spell attacks
Cons:
-Bad attribute
Usage:
The L1 is an AoE missile that explodes on contact, and charges relatively quickly, but is nothing to brag about as it only moves forwards... That is, until you see how much damage it does. Hitting Lily white with it when she’s on her way down lets you kill her before she starts firing, and a successful hit on a boss lets it die much faster (Two or three direct hits will kill a boss). Extremely useful as it almost guarantees a kill before it naturally disappears, and is also useful for dealing with stray groups of spirits.
Reisen is relatively slow when focused, but still faster than Sikieiki. Her scope deploys almost instantly, but is small. Its orientation depends on your movement, so controlling the movement may aid in activating spirits a little bit too far from you.
Her Ex attack is a proximity bomb; it explodes when the opponent’s character gets too close to it. However, the explosive range is lower than the proximity at which it will explode, meaning if you don’t move closer they will harmlessly explode.
Cirno:
Scope shape: Small circle
L1: Circular icicle burst
Ex attack: Falling icicles on opponent’s screen
Attribute: Activated spirits last longer
Pros:
-The attribute helps immensely to counter the smaller scope size.
-Fast character
-Decent spells
Cons:
-⑨
-Somewhat slow spell charging
-Scope is fairly small
Usage:
Cirno’s scope is tiny. TINY. You will most likely kill a lot of spirits in their unactivated form if you are not used to unfocused movement. Her icicle burst also isn’t really a good L1, as it does not do enough damage to kill spirits with one spike, and also is limited in range: the bullets disappear after half a screen.
There is one aspect of Cirno that is not mentioned, though: her L2 spells and above will freeze remaining enemy bullets on her screen for a few seconds before scattering them in a random direction, applying to both normal and special bullets (including Sikieiki’s swords) but excluding other Ex attacks. This is a glitch relating to the routine that freezes bullets fired by Cirno’s L2 spell. Sometimes this is good; other times, this is very, very bad (especially vs. Reimu). Cirno remains the only character capable of changing the motion of bullets due to this bug.
Lyrica Prismriver:
Scope shape: infinite vertical (upwards and downwards)
L1: Stationary keyboard that fires shots for a short time while in place
Ex attack: burst of musical notes
Attribute:
Pros:
-Ex attack that takes up a lot of screen space
-Scope and attack goes behind character as well
-High danmaku density for opponent
Cons:
-Slow. As. Fuck.
-L1 is mediocre.
-Like, seriously. She’s really, really slow.
Usage:
Lyrica can shoot behind herself and her scope can be used for spirit “sniping” just as Marisa’s scope can be, although not as well due to its smaller initial size and Lyrica’s lower speed. Her ability to shoot behind herself gives the player the advantage of being able to stay near the middle of the screen while still inflicting damage to fairies and spirits.
Her L1 is nothing to brag about, but it does help to deploy it in a region that you need to damage but cannot stay in; also good for preemptively damaging Lily and bosses.
Merlin and Lunasa Prismriver:
Just unlocked them (You have to beat extra mode twice to unlock these guys. WTF.), so I’m not too sure about their usage yet. As far as I can tell they are very, very good.
Mystia Lorelei:
Scope shape: Circle placed in front of your character
L1: Burst of spread bullets
Ex attack: Projectile arcing through enemy’s screen to produce a lot of bullets
Attribute: Spirits fly towards her
Pros:
-Holy shit this Ex attack is annoying. Not hard to dodge but it populates your screen with bullets for a long time.
-Fast character
Cons:
-L4 is really mediocre.
-Scope does not overlap character.
Usage:
Mystia’s L1 can actually destroy spirits, and is not limited in range; her Ex attack and spells actually produce a decent number of bullets, although their hitboxes are pathetically tiny and they are quite spread out. They do populate the screen for a fair amount of time, though.
Not a great character, but I suppose it can’t be too bad.
Tewi Inaba:
Scope shape: Eye (does not rotate)
L1: Trailing rotating flame burst around character
Ex: Bouncing red circle around enemy screen
Attribute: Autobomb when 0.5 lives remain
Pros:
-Autobomb prolongs your eventual, long, painful death.
-Scope is as wide as the screen allowing reliable spirit-catching.
Cons:
-Spells royally suck
-Ex attack royally sucks
Usage:
I daresay this rabbit is the worst character in the game. Her L1 Is virtually useless (terrible damage, terrible range, terrible charge cooldown), her spells produce danmaku no denser than Cirno’s icicle fall on EoSD easy, and she’s slow as hell. The only thing going for her is the auto-bomb, but you should be able to do that already.
Aya Shameimaru:
Scope shape: Forward fan
L1: Rapid strong forwards attack
Ex attack:
Attribute: Bullets in her field are slower
Pros:
-Very powerful Ex attack that can catch both humans and Insane AIs offguard. Doesn’t look like much, but its speed is ridiculous.
-Great spells
-Very, very fast character, good L1 for taking down Lily and bosses for the powerup.
Cons:
-Well, there really isn’t any. Aside from the scope shape, perhaps.
Usage:
Aya is extremely fast. I think she is the fastest character in the game, and this is good unless you have bad keyboard control. Her Ex attack rapes enemy AIs, and her spells produce bullets that literally shoot across the screen in under a second. Her focused speed is just as fast as Cirno’s, and her Ex attack moves at ridiculous speeds. The one bad thing is that they are all exactly aimed, making them easy to stream due to the width.
Due to Aya’s special ability, her speed relative to the bullets seems to be even greater; precise control is therefore required.
Medicine Melancholy:
Scope shape: ☆
L1: Burst of homing amulets around character.
Ex attack: Poison cloud that slows movement.
Attribute: Is not hurt by collisions with bullets.
Pros:
-Ridiculous Ex attack. Poison can stack so much as to immobilize the opponent.
-One of the only characters that can reliably kill Lunatic AIs
Cons:
-Spells are pretty bad, although it’s mitigated somewhat by the poison.
Usage:
Her L1 is pretty mediocre, but most of Medicine’s destructive power lies within her ability to poison the enemy with her Ex attack and slow her down. That being said, play her carefully; her offensive is weak by itself.
Yuka Kazami:
Scope shape: Circle with six attached circles that rotate.
L1: Burst of spread flowers
Ex attack: Large falling sunflowers
Attribute: Her normal attack is a spread three-way shot (about 15 degrees in each direction)
Pros:
-Scope is instant and is quite large
-Ex attack can form a nearly solid line
-Decent L1 and spells
Cons:
-Annoyingly distracting sprite
-Very slow
-L4 too easy to kill
Usage:
I tried and tried to come up with a good way to use Yuka, but her sheer lack of speed and spread shots make her unable to escape from some danmaku formations and unable to kill Lily White unless a L1 is unleashed point-blank when she is coming down. I suppose ZUN’s original concept was that lack of speed and damage was made up by strong spells and Ex attacks, but it simply doesn’t work when you’re so slow that you can’t even escape rudimentary bullet patterns.
Komachi Onozuka:
Scope shape: Covers entire screen instantly
L1: Homing coin stream
Ex attack: Burst of eight arcs of coin-shaped bullets
Attribute: Can activate all spirits on screen instantly with scope
Pros:
-Fairly dense danmaku cloud with the Ex attack
-Really OP scope; never needs to miss a single spirit.
-Ex attack stays on screen for a fairly long period of time
Cons:
-Somewhat slow
-Spell attacks disappoint; relies a lot on spirits
Usage:
Her L1 is okay, but the real destructive power lies with her Ex, which produces a LOT of bullets. Komachi’s screen-covering scope means that she never needs to focus for more than an instant to activate all spirits on screen, and this attribute combined with her strong Ex makes her able to generate dense danmaku with just her Ex attacks.
As the penultimate boss for most characters in story mode, her PvP ability is indeed great, although AIs have no problem weaving through her patterns due to the algorithm knowing what the bullet hitboxes are.
Sikieiki Yamaxanadu:
Scope shape: Circle (did ZUN run out of ideas or something?)
L1: Large burst of swords attacking forwards
Ex attack: Black swirls that turn small round bullets into fast, large swords
Attribute: Spirits only produce one red bullet upon expiry
Pros:
-Notorious for spamming the screen with swords. Human players who do not know the hitline of the swords die really fast to this character due to being overwhelmed with them
-Can force a life loss/bomb if the Ex attacks are generated appropriately
-Ridiculously dense and powerful spells
Cons:
-Ehh… I don’t like the scope. Lulz
-Attribute kind of pointless
Usage:
There’s a reason Sikieiki is the final boss; she can create and keep up danmaku so dense that even Lunatic AIs are overwhelmed by it. Due to her Ex ability, bullets that she reflects to the opponent are not always reflected back, due to being converted to sword bullets. Her L4 does use a disappointingly slow and narrow laser, but as long as a sufficient mass of bullets exist, her Ex danmaku will be devastating.
I’ll update this later.
Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jul 10 2010, 9:36 pm by Aristocrat.
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