东方夏夜祭 ~ Shining Shooting Star. (release)(ultra patch added)

[Lollipop]

The sad part is I'm chinese and I can't understand anything 

Was able to make it to Stage 6 on Normal on my first try (I died on the boss's 4th card, I think)

Game is well made for the most part, (they misspelled 'return', lol)

[Zigzagwolf]

Koishi is MoF MarisaB confirmed.

 Koishi is a meme

funnily enough that is kind of needed for scoring in certain sections of the game.

[rsy_type1]

and I'm not sure if that would be okay with the original developer.

decompilation is OK

if there are any technical problem,you could tell us for help

[yoshimo]

  I am confused if that is confirmation or negation for distribution, but if you are interested in fixing the issues yourself, my thread explains the issues from the best of my understanding. It also shows my fixes, but my fixes are for a decompilation of the program, so they might not properly reflect your source code.

You may use my fixes if you wish, or you can invent your own. I would prefer that I be credited (not in money) if my fixes are directly used, but that ultimately is your decision.

<Karisa> Fixed broken link.

[Das]

https://youtu.be/Pz-7AQL9vLQ?t=1m16s

I think the ex boss kinda just pushed the midboss away

[Mikuru]

Well, I got all the Extras unlocked. Marisa's was a pain; her shot type is incredibly hard to use. There are some cards in the game for which it's well-matched and the health goes down nice and quickly (mostly in Stage 5, I think), but that's outweighed by the number of cards that get a lot harder.

Next thing to do is try to complete an Extra

[Karisa]

I was doing a casual 1cc on Hard to unlock Extras (since I still have yet to clear on a Normal scoring attempt). Just thought I'd note that it's easy to unlock stage 6's Last Spells without especially trying-- you only need 6 borders on Hard, and unlike stages 1-5 you don't get free bombs so it's a threat to survival.

I'd advise first Hard 1cc players to practice those Last Spells in advance (second spell in particular is almost certainly a death or bomb if you haven't practiced it). Or I suppose players who'd rather actively avoid unlocking them could deliberately break a few green borders on stage 6.

[TresserT]

Speaking of which, even after playing through it several times I can't figure out how the second last spell works. I can see that some of the stuff is aimed, I can see that some of the stuff is Utsuho nons, but I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do. Any tips? Specifically I don't understand the blue and yellow waves.

On another note, I was wrong about only being able to ever get one of Koishi's options to hit. I'm not sure if it works for every boss, but for the first and final bosses at least, you can shotgun with 2 options hitting to do ridiculous damage. You can completely skip the final boss's infamous last non.

[Karisa]

The 7b Hard scorerun that rsy_type1 linked captures it on Hard, and Jaimers' video captures it on Lunatic. I guess you could start from those to get a general strategy?

[ZoomyTsugumi]

Yellow bubble wave seems ridiculous and luck based ime just based on how little reaction time you actually have to dodge anything (and I think it's random too?)

[Zigzagwolf]

Still practising scoring a bit in this fangame, think I understand stage 1 until 3, did upload a video regarding some scoring strategies for the stage 1 boss (basically just the bossfight with one of the non grazes RLL did and the second non graze which I thought of.) Stage 1 boss scoring strats Seemingly allowing about 4k to be possible to get of the stage 1 boss, you can get about 500 graze from stage 1's stage portion with strategies iirc so I'm assuming about 4.6k to 4.7k graze should be the max attainable for stage 1.

I am not sure if graze might have anything to do with the clear bonus, but if it does, this should already provide a minor bit for the stage 6 clear bonus (as well as some additional PiV for the rest of the game.)

[Karisa]

Pretty sure the second nonspell graze was done in the Easy scorerun. Interesting to see it's possible on Hard. (Might've helped to mention Hard in your post, by the way. I assumed Normal at first since that's what we've been scoring in, and was surprised by the 4000+ graze on the boss.)

And 4000 PIV is a more significant amount than it looks, considering the hidden border multiplier to PIV reaches over 4x (30 borders) by stage 6. Probably even more borders on Hard than Normal, given there's an additional star item and set of point items after each Last Spell (plus higher bullet clears in general, of course).

Meanwhile I still have yet to get a Reimu clear-- it's evident by now that Koishi's the higher-scoring character, but I'd prefer to clear with Reimu on a scoring route before relearning the route with Koishi.

[yoshimo]

Since it seems no one has discussed it yet, and it's only mostly explained in the in-game manual which is in Chinese, I suppose I'll discuss it.

There are some controls which are not modifiable in either the INI or the Config program. Most are not important for gameplay, but can be nice in certain cases.

If you are using a keyboard, the following controls cannot be modified:

• Esc - Toggle the game being paused.
• Left Ctrl - Fast-forward text scene. This includes the boss conversations, the endings, and the staff roll.
  EDIT: It seems this also includes replays.

If you are using a gamepad, you cannot modify what makes you move in any direction.

These controls cannot be modified regardless of your controller type:

• P - Take a screenshot.
• F8 - Cycle window size. The cycle is 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, and fullscreen.

Interestingly, it seems that taking a screenshot is supposed to make a sound, but the sound, "se_shutter.wav," doesn't exist.
If someone has the sound effect for Aya's camera shutter, we could probably add it to the Sound folder under this name.

[Zigzagwolf]

Pretty sure the second nonspell graze was done in the Easy scorerun. Interesting to see it's possible on Hard. (Might've helped to mention Hard in your post, by the way. I assumed Normal at first since that's what we've been scoring in, and was surprised by the 4000+ graze on the boss.)

And 4000 PIV is a more significant amount than it looks, considering the hidden border multiplier to PIV reaches over 4x (30 borders) by stage 6. Probably even more borders on Hard than Normal, given there's an additional star item and set of point items after each Last Spell (plus higher bullet clears in general, of course).

Meanwhile I still have yet to get a Reimu clear-- it's evident by now that Koishi's the higher-scoring character, but I'd prefer to clear with Reimu on a scoring route before relearning the route with Koishi.

Oh it was done before? I honestly have not yet seen the easy scorerun; only have been taking notes of the hard scorerun; have been improvising some minor improvements so far.. Did you know you can headgraze Tensei's first, second and fourth nonspell on her head? It's really dangerous and I wouldn't risk it in a run, but it gives a fair amount of graze too.

I do believe there is more borders to be gotten in hard in general (reminder that you can get bigger bullet clears; there are more star items + even bombs should get you better bullet clears, that all kind of adds up to a few borders more.) I'm not sure how many, but my guess is that it is a somewhat significant amount.

On another relevant note, hard scoring seems really tough as far as I've seen as of now. (I should have mentioned normal, I kind of ended up forgetting? Atleast I did include a link to the video I made on hard mode..)

Good luck with your Reimu scoring attempts, I'm looking forward to see your result. I might want to try to enact my hard route in normal once I'm done, since I don't think it is that different. (not much of a normal replay to learn from either.)

[RegalStar]

-Tries playing this game on Hard for the 2nd time (first run ended on stage 5)
-Barely beats Tensei's last card with no lives left
-RESURRECTION
-Manages to capture the first spell since it's just micrododging
-Bubble slam in the face before I can react
-kefit.wav

Cannot understand the logic of having last spells that can deliver Game Overs

EDIT: Went back and tried it again and this time I succeeded. Yays.

[Failure McFailFace]

Since it seems no one has discussed it yet, and it's only mostly explained in the in-game manual which is in Chinese, I suppose I'll discuss it.

There are some controls which are not modifiable in either the INI or the Config program. Most are not important for gameplay, but can be nice in certain cases.

If you are using a keyboard, the following controls cannot be modified:

• Esc - Toggle the game being paused.
• Left Ctrl - Fast-forward text scene. This includes the boss conversations, the endings, and the staff roll.
  EDIT: It seems this also includes replays.

If you are using a gamepad, you cannot modify what makes you move in any direction.

These controls cannot be modified regardless of your controller type:

• P - Take a screenshot.
• F8 - Cycle window size. The cycle is 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, and fullscreen.

Interestingly, it seems that taking a screenshot is supposed to make a sound, but the sound, "se_shutter.wav," doesn't exist.
If someone has the sound effect for Aya's camera shutter, we could probably add it to the Sound folder under this name.

F8 definitely works, and with correct aspect ratios and centering, too.

But there's still that weird thing with the blur, even when full screen. Does anyone else have this problem?

Okay, I have a screenshot of the screen blurring.

I have no idea what's causing this. I can't read the life and bomb fragment counters....

[yoshimo]

It really amuses me how the main motives of each character somewhat fits their canon personalities, but in a parodying manner.

Reimu & Shinmyoumaru: Dangerous fragments...
Marisa: Powerful fragments!
Sanae: Faith-bringing fragments!
Koishi: Pretty lights!

[Karisa]

I was just thinking about Tensei's first spell-- is it better for score to wait for the screen to be filled for the extra PIV, or just finish it off as fast as possible for the spell bonus? I was waiting for the cancel at first (the Easy 4b and Hard 7b runs also wait), but now I'm wondering if going for the few extra million is better, since there aren't many point items after. There are the blue borders' bonuses to be considered too, though.

Also for anyone who isn't checking the scoreboard thread, I did finally succeed at a Reimu scoring clear. Twice actually, as of tonight. Still plenty of potential for improvement though.

[Zigzagwolf]

I was just thinking about Tensei's first spell-- is it better for score to wait for the screen to be filled for the extra PIV, or just finish it off as fast as possible for the spell bonus? I was waiting for the cancel at first (the Easy 4b and Hard 7b runs also wait), but now I'm wondering if going for the few extra million is better, since there aren't many point items after. There are the blue borders' bonuses to be considered too, though.

Also for anyone who isn't checking the scoreboard thread, I did finally succeed at a Reimu scoring clear. Twice actually, as of tonight. Still plenty of potential for improvement though.

Congratulations with the run. With Koishi I usually try to wait for the yellowish bullets to cover the screen if I can't speedkill the spellcard at that exact moment on the first moment (that is possible with the 2 familars strategy) but for Reimu... I'm not really sure if the PiV will matter that much, you might earn it back in the blue borders and the point items in the spellcards after, I know that on hard you want to bullet clear the second spellcard when the blue lasers are moving since it gives a lot of PiV which should make up for the waiting (although a minor amount.)

My assumption is that waiting for a bullet clear should be fine as long as it doesn't take too long since I'm assuming you earn it back afterwards.

I still got to work more on Hard mode, I should be capable of doing a full run but as of now I guess I got to postphone this a little bit thanks to the upcoming DRC.

[Karisa]

OK, now that I've had some sleep, time for some calculations.

Comparing my 3.77b (which didn't wait) to my 3.75b (which did), waiting is worth about 3300 PIV on Normal, and loses about 2m from the spell bonus as Reimu. It does not make a difference on the next border's timing (if it did, I'd wait regardless).

There are 3 blue border bonuses after (bonus of PIV*40, since all border bonuses add twice what they display), for a gain of 3300*40*3 = about 400k.

And that's before accounting for the value of point items (and their border multiplier-- in my run, 4.4 for the first spell's items, 4.5 for the second spell's items, 4.6 for the 3rd/4th/final spells' items). If I calculated correctly, Tensei drops 30 items after her first 4 spells, and 60 after her final (none after the survival). In that case, 3300 PIV is worth about 3300*4.6*150, or 2.3 million.

In other words, that small delay is worth a net gain of a few 100k on Normal. It should be worth significantly more on Hard because of a larger cancel, a higher border multiplier (5.3-5.8 in the Hard 7b, I think), and another border and 3 point item sets during the Last Spells.

Edit:
Meanwhile, on her 2nd spell (still Normal), canceling during the blue lasers seems to be worth about 2500 PIV, while canceling during the pink lasers seems to be worth about 6000 PIV, and during yellow lasers around 7000-10000 (!) PIV (plus 2000+ from the extra graze) for again, a loss of only ~2m in the spell bonus. Definitely worth waiting on that one too. The 10k cancel is hard to time, though-- I normally get around 8000 from the cancel (still worth waiting over getting 6000).

...actually, stalling the 2nd spell until the final yellow wave is worth about 8000 more PIV from grazing, for a loss of ~10m spell bonus. With 2 borders and 120 items for the PIV to affect, it seems too close to call on which is better.

Edit 3:
Actually, blue borders give PIV*40 (not PIV*400) points. This changes the calculation. The Tensei cancels should still be worth losing ~2m each from spell bonuses, but only slightly worth it in the case of her 1st.

[Neptune]

Wow, so before this, I've never played any fangames before (although I have watched a few), and honestly, all I can say is "Wow". The music is very nice, the characters are all really pretty, the playable characters are fun to use (Koishi <3), and the graphics are amazing!  :3

Overall, I love this game! 

_{even though I suck at it}

I got a Easy 1cc with Sanae, going to try for Normal now with Reimu!  :3

[yoshimo]

So, I have heard that some people have an issue related to the midboss of Stage 1 loading.
The issue is that its load crashes the game.
I do not personally experience this issue, so I cannot get any further information myself.
It seems to also affect bosses and other midbosses as well; though, most don't get to test this since they cannot progress past the first stage.

Has anyone else experienced or know someone who has experienced this issue?

[Karisa]

(Follow-up to my video's comments-- should those comments be copied here so the scoring discussion is in one place?) (Edit: copied.)

Pretty nice run, a few mistakes of which I assume the run would've gotten about 4.2b otherwise? (not counting getting all the star pieces to be blue since you got one life intentionally.) There's a few spots where better bullet clears could've been possible, Kage's first spellcard is one I can mention although that still seemed like the most logical bullet clear (most optimal is probably when all the danmaku has been spawned, but I think this is more of a matter of finishing the card off fast in this case, I can see how not waiting for the next one here was more beneficial.) I really thought a few spellcards would be scorebombed, I know that with Koishi you end up scorebombing Rakuki's last spellcard and Seiryuu's final too, but with Koishi you end up spilling quite a lot of bombs there. (gives tons of PiV too. This is a hard mode strategy though, I guess that makes sense because normal doesn't have the border spellcards which give a bomb when you're through them.)

On another note, don't the big fairies give more PiV if you finish them off with the little fairies remaining at the start of stage 2? As far as I'm concerned they keep shooting in hard and it gives a bit of PiV more. (same for the deadly safespot on the bit fairy in the stage, I can see how not trying to do that with Reimu makes sense, on another note I would argue that stalling it and trying to graze it's streams of arrowhead danmaku would help; finishing that fairy off as it goes down the screen because the danmaku of the fairies after will be converted in PiV then, if you time that correctly.)

I'm not really sure if this is true for normal mode, but on hard mode Rakukun's first spellcard has a safespot on her head, I've never failed to do that one with Koishi (basically the flame danmaku and the red ying-yang orbs spawn on top of you but don't kill you, it is a pretty interesting safespot that gives a good amount of graze too.) I'm not really sure how good that is for Reimu taking into account that she can't finish off Rakukun on top of her as good as Koishi can, maybe you can rush down after a wave?

Last but not least (and I don't think you should try this, because this is pretty deadly) the Tensei headgrazes during non 1, 2 and 4. Basically you can sit on her head and graze the danmaku, but it is very deadly when you move. With Koishi you can basically start off the fight above her head; when you expect her to move bomb and rush down, should give a fair amount of graze and PiV too.

Waiting on Kage's 1st seems to be worth ~500 more PIV for the cost of ~1.6m spell bonus. Worth it? I don't know. There is the entire stage 5 and 6 of point items for the 500 PIV to affect.

This route does have 2 spare bombs with no survival mistakes-- it'd defeat Rakukun 1/1 and use the last bomb near the end of stage 6, finishing 1/0 without picking up the safety life I didn't use.

I deliberately didn't route in that last life so I'd be more likely to finish runs, but it's now optimized enough (and I'm consistent enough at Tensei) that I think the bombs need to be routed in next. I was considering Rakuki's final; didn't think of Seiryuu's final. I think both bombs should be used on the same spell, assuming it won't finish the spell, so it only loses one spell bonus.

Koishi doesn't have to bomb so many times to clear stage 5 enemies, so she has more spare bombs than Reimu (hence why I think she's the highest-scoring character, along with her unfocused close-range damage, for higher spell bonuses and defeating more yin-yangs on Rakukun's 2nd).

Which large fairies in stage 2? The one at 4:14 specifically? Seems to be worth around 400-500 PIV more than with this run's strategy, thanks. The fairies at 3:44 and 3:50 flee after a while; I had to defeat them then (so I timed their defeat before they stop shooting). And I just tested the fairy at 4:27, and it stops shooting before it reaches the center of the screen. It's possible to graze it from above on Easy, but on Normal it shoots loosely aimed bullets that have a high chance of hitting you.

The Rakukun safespot seems to only give 120 graze per wave? It does allow for a better cancel during the yin-yang orbs (normally Reimu can't cancel there since her shots just hit the orbs), so seems worth it for that.

Update: First of all, waiting on that stage 2 fairy can cause a problem: it delays the next border, which in turn seems to delay the midboss spell's border. The midboss border's just barely missed though, so it might still be reachable.

Meanwhile, looks like both Rakuki's and Seiryuu's finals survive 2 unfocused bombs. Seiryuu's comes close to timing out after also waiting out a border, but you still have time to let the screen fill for the cancel.

Rakuki's final is worth around 3000 PIV per bomb, and Seiryuu's final is worth over 5000 PIV. I'd go with Seiryuu's for the extra PIV despite it being later, assuming it works with my stage 4 border route. Now getting a run with a route that clears 0/0... that's its own issue.

Interestingly, the Easy 4b run bombs Rakuki's stage 5 midboss nonspell (for about 10k PIV from a single bomb on Easy). It's quite the PIV reward, but much later in the game...

10K PiV seems like a massive reel-in regardless; it is a bit before the part with the many enemies.. I guess that might be a pretty convenient find.

I suppose you can skip Rakuki's and do that on Seiryuu's final then, considering that gives about 2k more.

(I took my time to read everything, but I guess these are the only things I can note.)

Looks like an unfocused Reimu bomb on Rakuki's stage 5 nonspell is actually worth 15k PIV on Normal. I noticed that the Easy 4b has a way to collect all the blue stars in the second half of the stage with 1 fewer bomb (staying above the yin-yangs at 18:04, which only drop power items and don't seem to cause contact damage). I confirmed that's doable on Normal, so considering those yin-yangs' power items are just for the 51200's, bombing the midboss nonspell seems to be significantly better.

The border route does seem to sync up with that 15k PIV bomb, despite the midboss nonspell being finished during a border (it has to be, since that one bomb fills the gauge entirely, and delaying prevents star item fairies from appearing). I'd need to test in a full run to be sure, though, which may take a while. I've tried finding addresses in Cheat Engine like I've done in the main games, to partly fill the border at the start of stage practice, but Shining Shooting Star seems to have dynamic memory (like PCB and IN)-- the addresses change whenever you start a new attempt.

Edit:
Actually the yin-yangs do have a collision hitbox. I guess it's just much smaller than their appearance. More testing is needed.

Failed replay with new route (4.3b potential?) attached-- adjusted the pre-midboss border in stage 2 to a riskier strategy worth an extra 500 PIV, spent the last 2 bombs on Seiryuu's final for 10k PIV, and moved a stage 5 bomb to the midboss nonspell for 15k PIV. 85m and 39k PIV higher as of the start of Rakukun, but then died to Rakukun's 2nd-- still need more consistency at that, I guess.

Interestingly, I didn't need to bomb before the safespot laser grazing in stage 4 as planned, since the border was unexpectedly late there (probably since I mistimed the cancels at the start of the stage, so I didn't have a border from those first 4 fairies). But then I mistimed defeating a fairy and spent that bomb collecting its star as blue (it would've dropped to pink). I wonder if that bomb could be the one used on stage 5 Rakuki, instead?

[Zigzagwolf]

(Follow-up to my video's comments-- should those comments be copied here so the scoring discussion is in one place?)

Looks like an unfocused Reimu bomb on Rakuki's stage 5 nonspell is actually worth 15k PIV on Normal. I noticed that the Easy 4b has a way to collect all the blue stars in the second half of the stage with 1 fewer bomb (staying above the yin-yangs at 18:04, which only drop power items and don't seem to cause contact damage). I confirmed that's doable on Normal, so considering those yin-yangs' power items are just for the 51200's, bombing the midboss nonspell seems to be significantly better.

The border route does seem to sync up with that 15k PIV bomb, despite the midboss nonspell being finished during a border (it has to be, since that one bomb fills the gauge entirely, and delaying prevents star item fairies from appearing). I'd need to test in a full run to be sure, though, which may take a while. I've tried finding addresses in Cheat Engine like I've done in the main games, to partly fill the border at the start of stage practice, but Shining Shooting Star seems to have dynamic memory (like PCB and IN)-- the addresses change whenever you start a new attempt.

Edit:
Actually the yin-yangs do have a collision hitbox. I guess it's just much smaller than their appearance. More testing is needed.

Failed replay with new route (4.3b potential?) attached-- adjusted the pre-midboss border in stage 2 to a riskier strategy worth an extra 500 PIV, spent the last 2 bombs on Seiryuu's final for 10k PIV, and moved a stage 5 bomb to the midboss nonspell for 15k PIV. 85m and 39k PIV higher as of the start of Rakukun, but then died to Rakukun's 2nd-- still need more consistency at that, I guess.

Interestingly, I didn't need to bomb before the safespot laser grazing in stage 4 as planned, since the border was unexpectedly late there (probably since I mistimed the cancels at the start of the stage, so I didn't have a border from those first 4 fairies). But then I mistimed defeating a fairy and spent that bomb collecting its star as blue (it would've dropped to pink). I wonder if that bomb could be the one used on stage 5 Rakuki, instead?

For the stage 5 sectionsd with te ying yang orbs and the big fairies, you kind of do the same on Hard. I imagine that happens on lunatic too except that on lunatic players probably try to take it easier at some point (Tensei on lunatic is pretty tough, a good player can definitely clear Tensei with about no resources left.)

Those comments could be copied to here, probably should've written this first but oh well. A discussion at one place might be handier in the long run. I never knew Rakuki's nonspell was worth so much.. I guess Reimu gains more PiV thanks to the bomb taking longer.. Koishi's bomb is an instant bullet clear basically rather than as long as Reimu, so I guess that makes a difference. Still a very neat find and that's definitely gonna be worth it in the later half of stage 5 and in stage 6 (also one extra border should help a lot.)

Seems like some nice new optimisation, can't wait to see a more optimised run later on.

[Karisa]

Koishi's bomb is 2 instant bullet clears, I thought? So its effectiveness relative to Reimu's depends on whether the bullets are released continuously, or in waves.

For example, Koishi's bomb should gain more on stage 2 Rakuki's boss opener, since Reimu's bomb is only enough for one wave of arrowheads (and the remnants of the wave before), while Koishi should be able to clear one full wave with the bomb activation, and another with the cancel. Koishi could also split a bomb onto two different patterns, if it turned out bombing each once would be better for the border route (which was the reason I bombed Rakuki's second nonspell for otherwise low PIV-- the border at the start of her final spell wouldn't occur otherwise).

And copied the YouTube comments (making my previous post ridiculously long with all the quotes). On a semi-related note, I'd recommend not quoting a full post directly above-- it takes up unnecessary space when readers could just scroll up.

[Zigzagwolf]

Koishi's bomb is 2 instant bullet clears, I thought? So its effectiveness relative to Reimu's depends on whether the bullets are released continuously, or in waves.

Hhm, that is true. Although the cancel is much shorter than the activation. (in a certain sense that should actually be better though, I was just thinking that Reimu's bomb duration is a bit longer and therefore should reel her in more PiV... But Koishi can cancel her bomb whenever she wants and can probably plan that on pretty convenient moments.)

[Arcorann]

LYX counterstop with Sanae. If you're having problems with Bilibili, here's a YouTube repost.

By the way, it seems he streams on Bilibili as well.

[Catmusica]

What's the ideal resource management on this with stars should I be aiming for all bombs or lives or balanced?

[Mikuru]

As you get more lives, they require more fragments -- 3, then 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, 18. Each life is worth two bombs and a bomb always requires four fragments, so you should go for lives up to the third (8 fragments). After that, it depends -- it's more efficient to go for bombs if you can manage to use them all, but since there's always a risk of dying with bombs in stock, you may prefer to go for lives up to the fifth or sixth.

Another consideration is that it's always possible to get green fragments, whereas some attacks make it very difficult to get red ones -- sometimes it's even easier to get blue than red. So you should go for red in the early stages when it's easier to do so, then you don't have to worry about going for them in the later stages.

[Karisa]

There's also border colors to consider-- do you prefer the power boost or the ability to take a hit during that time period? You can partly control the color, by collecting the appropriate star when the meter's, say, over half full (and the other color when the meter's empty or during other borders, as needed).

Note that if you're going for Hard/Lunatic's Last Spells (and their free bombs), pink borders are potentially safer, since you can freely bomb without breaking a pink border, but pressing X during a green border breaks it early.

(Comments on LYX's impressive counterstop coming later. Has anyone timed Sanae's bomb duration compared with unfocused Reimu? They seem about the same-- if so, Sanae's would be slightly better due to bomb-grazing.)

Edit: Various random thoughts. Split as bullet points for (hopefully) easier reading.
- Sanae is an interesting choice for scoring character, that I don't think any of us had considered. (I know I thought Koishi would be best, for multiple bullet clears per bomb, and the close-range shot power. But if Sanae's bomb lasts long enough, it doesn't matter that Koishi gets twice the number of clears...)
- It's nice to see that after boss defeats (and even at the start of survival spells!), it's possible to collect the star as blue without triggering the PoC. It's barely worth any points, but I like those minor optimizations.
- Another eye safespot on Rakuki's first boss nonspell? Looks like it only works on the first wave, though, since she later starts moving mid-wave.
- And a partial safespot on Rakuki's second boss nonspell-- this one looks very risky, but I wonder if it could be reliable with practice on lower difficulties?
- Interesting route starting at 9:40 (early stage 3) to squeeze in an extra border.
- Seiryuu's 1st gets nearly safespotted too (and it even lines up for a good cancel). Need to test if that works on all difficulties.
- Sanae's spread clears the stage 4 fairies at 15:01, where I kept having to bomb as Reimu. The spread actually seems overall better than Reimu's homing for clearing weak enemies, in contrast to most of ZUN's spread shots (UFO SanaeB excepted).
- I'm guessing every shot needs to bomb to PoC at 15:17 on Lunatic (unless a border happens to be timed there).
- The optional extend on stage 4 makes sense, considering bombing would otherwise be necessary for some of those blue stars-- it's worth 3 or even 4 bombs' worth of cancels, not just 2 bombs.
- Sanae still needs to bomb to PoC in various parts of stage 5, so Koishi saves a few bombs there (but I guess not enough to compensate for Sanae's bomb duration).
- 22k PIV from stage 5 Rakuki's nonspell.
- Another nice delay at 21:30.
- Interestingly, Rakukun's 1st was not safespotted. Does it work on Lunatic?
- Sanae's spread seems to have an easier time destroying the yin-yangs than Reimu's shot (where the homing doesn't target them). Good to know.
- 5.9x border multiplier (49 borders) at the start of stage 6.
- Routing in a 2nd optional extend was unexpected. The PIV gain from the extra bombs needs to exceed 15,000 for the first life to be worth it, and 25,000 from the second (after accounting for both displayed PIV, and the increase to the border multiplier from the extra canceled bullets). I wonder if those 5 pink stars were really worth it over skipping the bomb on Rakukun's 3rd nonspell...
- I don't understand the bomb on Tensei's 4th nonspell...? It did fill a border, but that border seems like it would've triggered anyway if not for the missed cancel on the previous nonspell. Is there anyone here who can translate the annotations?