A compilation of stuff that I learned after playing Touhou for a while, purely aimed at casual play. Results not guaranteed. I stream videogames at: / thtenco Stream Archive: / @tencoarchive Tumblr: / tennco Twitter: / thtenco
To add to the bombing point, I learned eventually that I tend to outright play better when I'm out of bombs. Not having to worry about the decision-making involved with trying to figure out if I should dodge this tough part or "give up" and bomb it makes it easier to focus on just playing, and easily accepting whatever happens, instead of getting stressed out when I get hit over the needless waste of the extra bombs I had. As long as you keep playing, you'll always get more chances to practice, so don't worry about your first 1cc of a game/mode being a "dirty bomb-spamming" clear, bomb everything that looks at you funny! You may find that, when your back's against the wall and you can't bomb out, you find yourself carrying that life further than anticipated.
"The only time you waste a bomb is when you don't use it" Instant like. I think is the single lesson that took me from barely surviving easy to 1cc-ing ,multiple games on normal lol
I know right! Furthermore, it's specially relevant when it comes to 1ccing th7, th8, th10, th14, th15 and th18 Or at least that's the way I see it. I've always made the joke that th7 was "press X to win" heh
2:34 : Deathbombing is an interesting topic. It’s totally impossible to perform a deathbomb with raw reaction time to a bullet, as the window to perform a deathbomb is 8 frames in most of the games, or 0.1 seconds. Yeah, it’s humanly impossible to react. Deathbomb is more about anticipating the bullet coming to you, and using a bombing because you have no way out, as a last resort. But honestly, just bombing normally is fine, you can get the timing of the deathbomb right the more you play, but as you are a beginner, it’s better to just use every single bomb you have to get a 1cc, because yeah, wasting 3 bombs because you died without using any of them may cost you a LOT of progression in your run, which is quite tragic.
2:41 - Actually, this is Last Spell on player's side. It's a similar mechanic, but separate from deathbombing. If you fail the usual window, you have some extra frames where the game still accepts the input, but instead uses your alternate bomb that costs two stocks (though it still works if you are on your last bomb stock). You can technically use regular deathbomb but it's pretty much frame perfect. Also iirc reverse engineering code proved that deathbombing existed as far as Lotus Land Story.
I can relate, I have a Lunatic 1cc on EoSD but I do still feel that I suck at Touhou (mostly on the bombing department) and this guy explained his stuff better than I could ever have, haha GL on your runs ^^
Great video! Utilizing your bombs really is one of the biggest hurdles for new players it feels. As far as ideas for future videos, it would maybe be interesting to have videos going over unique gimmicks from the games in more detail, such as the human/yokai meter in IN or the UFOs in UFO. A lot of the time it's difficult to understand how to use these things without looking stuff up
Not gonna lie ever since I've 1CC'd all of the mainline Touhou Games...I don't really see my own point watching "How to GIT GUD at Touhou Games" anymore. But I still watch em and enjoy em.
Nice video, I guess a good point is don’t feel afraid to bomb, your life more important than your bombs. I remember my first Touhou game I played was a fan game that punished you hard for bombing in difficult patterns. So encouraged me to never use bombs. But I’m breaking out of that habit and I remember I have preformed a deathbomb by complete accident once(my first deathbomb)
Great video! I'll be sure to keep these in mind going forward. I remember distinctly when I was forced to learn the tip about using the whole screen when trying out MoF's extra stage, as there's a section that's pretty much impossible unless you take advantage of that.
Some stuff that helped me after I already knew everything in the video: Move vertically when dealing with diagonal bullets. You know those tricky diagonal patterns, especially with criss-crossing bullets? Think of EoSD stage 3 onwards for example: Meiling's two last spellcards, Patchoulli's books, then most of her spellcards (earth, fire, metal, earth and fire, mercury poison...), all of Sakuya's nons, they all use this. All you need to do is start moving vertically (as well as horizontally). It takes a while to figure it out, but the principle is easy: you go through the gaps above you before they cross and close right at your position. Or, you move down to run away from bullets crossing just above you. This requires you to never stick to the bottom, to avoid getting trapped. It sounds hard but I swear it's not the hardest thing in the world when you actually try it. It's just that we learn from the start that it's better to slowly tap left and right instead of going all around the screen, so most of the players don't even consider deliberately moving vertically. Playing EoSD after being familiar with this was something ELSE, one of the fastest 1cc's I ever did, since most of it's difficulty in later levels come from these diagonal patterns
Kind of a shame you decided to name the section on bombing after deathbombing, because that's really not what's important. It's about bombing in general. You do seem to understand this, as is apparent from how you worded it in the video, but it's very misleading to say that it "applies to most games" that deathbombing should be considered, when it's actually only IN. In fact, it's a very common beginner *mistake* to think you can reliably deathbomb and to rely on it all the time, when it's not humanly possible to react to a death with it. I wish people stopped talking about the mechanic; its relevance in discussions has a lot to do with why beginning players think it's important, when really it's just a minor leniency mechanic that can usually be ignored. Basically, I hope this video won't contribute to the confusion. The wording after the first bit is totally fine, but I'm still left worried because of that opening.
Instructions unclear, I Accidentally ended up doing this instead: -Streaming against random bullets -Do a perfect run completely removing the idea of bombing -focused entirely on my characters hitbox by stage 6 of TH7 Only advice I did end up taking was switching to Sakuya B - It did give me one hec of a headache having to both learn her movement speed and not having homingshot anymore. Good video though :) (Sidenote: 5:20 Kind of ironic you went with the books for your screenplay while talking about stuff that feels less scary now vs some time ago, considering it is argued to be one of the most RNG heavy places in TH6 if not most of the franchise)
@@thtenco Yep, Books is completely RNG (books always shoot the same way, but spawn in different places, so it's too much for a human to keep track of), but I personally do believe your mention was spot on, it's one of those sections that test your raw dodging abilities so it does depend a lot on your skill! (i.e RNG doesn't make the difficulty vary a lot in Books, unlike Eternal Meek for example, which, even if it's also completely RNG, RNG has much more influence here, making the difference between a completely free spell and a very difficult spell)
a year ago, i could only hope to get to stage 5 on any touhou game (except lolk) on normal before wasting all my continues, now i could only hope to get to stage 5 on any touhou game (still except lolk) on hard mode before wasting all my continues, mof excluded too obviously
In almost any Touhou game, I'll get to either the stage 5 boss or the final stage and suddenly fail over and over. I also used to have a bad habit of trying to get as many points and heart pieces as possible for an extra life, often dying in the process.
i like to watch videos like this because 1.) maybe i’ll learn something new and 2.) i like listening to touhou players trying to help beginner touhou players it’s very sweet
nice tips! I typed the comment before watching the stream, but there are still some tips I don't think appeared in the video here. though, I kinda forgot that streaming is something that you learn about... before I started playing, I saw a video about tips on how to play the game. the tips I remember are: either bomb whenever you're slightly afraid or don't bomb at all, as it's better to waste a bomb and not get hit then get hit with bombs in stock and thus lose all bombs and a life. stay a bit away from the bottom of the screen, since you can then see the bullets earlier and move back to dodge them, as opposed to being at the bottom of the screen(if you're focused on your character, you'll have the same reaction time). also, try not to tunnel vision on your character. try to look a bit in front of where you are(from personal experience, it's a skill, where you learn to "switch" according to what comes next, but I usually look ahead of my character to react faster. but, the character is still in my vision). I don't remember if it's just something I learned or another tip, but I usually find the game easier when I play "aggressive". usually you can find "spots" when you can go forward unfocused(not just straight forward, it slightly depends on context) and grab all the point items and such(you almost always have an opportunity between boss attacks, right after spell cards or in general after screen clear). this should allow you to get extra lives. another tip specifically from me is, try to learn the pattern and how it works. it's much easier to dodge something you understand. for example, in Keine's 1st and 3rd attacks in the extra stage, there are certain places that are safe until the homing part. or, Ran's and Yukari's 1st non is aimed, so you can use that. Youmu's nons are aimed... you can try and look at videos to find ways to dodge it.(the 3 types of danmaku are "aimed", "static", and "random". most are mixes, and sometimes the aimed parts are sometimes around you rather then at you) well, this was longer then I intended it to be... anyways, I'm gonna go try and 1CC Touhou 14 EX stage or Touhou 10 on hard...
Pretty informative video all around, it's a nice introduction to some core concepts of Touhou gameplay. I do have some stuff I'd like to comment on tho, the main one being the whole deathbomb part but Maribel already expressed similar concers of mine in his comment so I'll skip it. The only other thing I'd like to comment on is when "not learning much by bomb spamming a game" is mentionned. Given this video is targetted towards newer players, I don't believe this statement is really something you should be telling them. As you get better by playing the games you naturally will end up bombing less and getting better at utilizing your ressources efficiently (Which is a very important skill in shmups). Throughout my time as a player I've seen a common misconception among newer players that bombing means you're bad or that you won't get good if you do. I do think the wording was a bit awkward in this statement, especially as right after you do incentivize players to bomb by saying a wasted bomb is a bomb you didn't use (which I highly agree on). Other than those details, good job on this video 😄
Thanks! Honestly I would go back and rewrite that whole section if I could, wasn't too sure about how to word it at the time. "Try to learn the patterns instead of bombing through every tough section, but don't force yourself to not bomb because it's just gonna be frustrating", something like that was the idea.
Nice video! These tips are great not just for Touhou but for all bullet hell shmups too! I started with the arcade bullet hell shmups like Mushihimesama and Crimzon Clover (which technically isn't really an arcade shmup, but it basically is) and have been thinking about trying to get into more Touhou after I get my Arcade Original 1cc for Crimzon Clover. Do you have any suggestions for games to start with? Is there a Touhou game that is closer to the style of Cave shooters in particular?
Don't really have experience with other shmups but from what I've seen, I don't think any Touhou game quite matches Cave's style. Touhou puts a lot of focus on complex bullet patterns and figuring out how to get around them, instead of the more fast-paced gameplay that I've seen in other games. That said, if you managed to clear those games you really should have no problem jumping into any Touhou game.
Played Lunatic mode and practiced it a lot and got a Lunatic 1cc on PCB but still can't do any other games on Normal reliably. It's really fun trying stuff out and pushing limits. You should definitely try playing Lunatic, it can be intimidating but just try it and maybe you'll like it.(?) Currently practicing Lolk Lunatic because a friend told me to do it.
Since the video is only about Windows, here a random tip for TH1: Just don't bother trying to dogge the danmaku, either you block the stuff with your own attacks(Recommended, if one doesn't want to tryhard at the harder bosses for what feels like hours like I had to do because I suck, lol) or assume you get hit. That may sound completely contradictory to the point of a bullet hell series like touhou, one is obviously meant to dogge everything one can. However, it is essencially random in that game as the collission detection is programmed and set up all wrong, the decompilation proves it. The only "normal" TH I played thus far is TH6 and I certainly failed. After a lot of trying and improving, I got to Meiling before no longer making progress. Did I say I wasn't good at this yet? Yeah, I then just "took a break" for multiple years because it was putting a decent amount of strain on me because I had to play to the extend of my ability and I am planning to give it another shot with TH10 somewhen this year, expecting it to be a trip. Maybe TH15 for the memes because that game decided to have a mode to reward the type of player that tryharded TH1 to completion with an automatic 1cc, which seems like the only 1cc I could ever get.(It genuinely frightens me a bit that Touhou is considered a pretty middle of the road-shmup series interms of difficulty or sometimes even lower end. How insane does this type of game get? Lmao)
No I won't try characters other than Reimu. That's not because I'm a Reimu supremacist, but because I've been playing as her for so long, all of my muscle memory is based on her speed, so I will end up being much less successful with other characters.
