東方輝針城 ～ Double Dealing Character

[Tengukami]

Easy - ReimuA
Karisa - 133,492,720 - C - 0.0% - Replay

This appears to be the replay of your previous record. Nope, nvm.

They've been valuable, by the way, thanks.

EIT: Stage 1 of this new one is hilarious. Poor Cirno.

[Karisa]

Easy - ReimuA
Karisa - 137,654,910 - C - 0.0% - Replay

OK, new discovery, I think-- ReimuA's bomb does more damage with the handle of the gohei (even though it looks like the tip would be more damaging). I wonder if it's better to approach midboss Kagerou even closer than I did there, as opposed to staying back to avoid her point items...

[chirpy13]

Easy - MarisaA
Chirpy13 - 118,664,990 - C - 0.0% - Replay

A dicking around run with MariA, no planning or defined route used, just did whatever made sense at the time ?\(ツ)/?.

EDIT: Did some more messing around.  The bullets from the fairies after Seki seem to be static, so if you plop yourself on the fairy's head you can supergraze them as they shoot.  It's worth about 150 graze per fairy on Lunatic, and 50 on normal.  The problem is they appear over the PoC, so you wouldn't really profit unless you only graze the fairy immediately following an item collect.  It might be worth going for the graze over the collect bonuses in the full version though.

[Karisa]

I'm not sure, since the items from those fairies are also worth a decent number of bomb parts...

Easy - MarisaA
Karisa - 137,037,330 - C - 0.0% - Replay

OK, now that I've tried all the shot types, I've concluded that MarisaA isn't as good as I'd thought. Her power seems similar to ReimuA's, but without the homing; the only advantage is her bomb (and speed, for those who like that). Still not a difficult shot type to score with though.

[chirpy13]

Easy - MarisaA
Chirpy13 - 122,574,050 - C - 0.0% - Replay,

Small improvement I guess.

[Karisa]

Easy - ReimuA
Karisa - 141,364,630 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Easy - SakuyaA
Karisa - 141,377,610 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Now only MarisaA has not reached 140m Easy.

Normal - ReimuB
Karisa - 166,820,090 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Normal - ReimuA
Karisa - 166,028,100 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Normal - SakuyaB
Karisa - 257,409,110 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Yay I reclaimed the overall Normal record! ...Except this stage 3 was bad. I know I've reached 212m pre-Kagerou (but died to her 2nd, finishing with only 252m). 262m is very doable.

On an unrelated note, I've now reached 50 hours of gameplay (all characters combined).

Normal - SakuyaB
Karisa - 257,806,250 - C - 0.0% - Replay

I've put way too much time into this today.
(259,129,110 visible in the screenshot, but no replay.)

Edit: And, of course, I lost the Royalflare record soon after. To a score that was apparently done two weeks ago but only uploaded now.


Normal - SakuyaB
Karisa - 264,223,350 - C - 0.0% - Replay

SJF's latest record of 268m uses the riskier strategy of using up literally every bomb on Sekibanki, for 119k+ PIV. So I guess I need to do that too. I've noticed my stage 1 strategy gains about 1000 PIV over SJF's though (a combination of defeating Cirno during the 3rd wave, and a more efficient 1st spell supergraze), so I think I can catch up.

I had another run that reached 217m pre-Kagerou, but yet again lost it due to dying to her 2nd.

[chirpy13]

Hard - MarisaA
Chirpy13 - 116,506,780 - 3 - 0.0% - Screenshot

First credit attempt, game overed on Kagerou final, failed every spell past stage 1, completely forgot routes, etc.  Why is the WR for this only 138m?  Someone please give MarisaA some love.  I think 170m would have been possible on this run mistakes on bosses.  Maybe 180-190 (200?!) for someone who actually knows what they're doing.  Scoring is fine.  Surviving is fine too.  Ask me to do both on anything above Normal and it becomes an utter mess though.  This is what I get for ignoring Lunatic I guess.  I've become too weak against bullets with any sort of density to handle the pressure when it counts.  I would try to improve this at least a little, but considering it took me 2 hours just to get past stage 1 once, I think I'll pass on that for now.  No replay because too ugly for human eyes.

[Karisa]

Why is the WR for this only 138m?

Because no one has put any serious effort into most of the Hard categories? Seriously, as of the time I'm making this post, only SakuyaA and MarisaB SakuyaA, MarisaB, and MarisaA have a Hard record higher than the corresponding Normal record.

Hard - MarisaA
Karisa - 170,408,450 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Well here's some random MarisaA run I did that's not that great. Better than the 147m score I already had (which was too terrible to submit, with several of Sekibanki's spells failed), but still.

Also Sekibanki's spells are not particularly difficult, even on Lunatic. I bet you could capture them consistently if you put some practice into it.

[Sapz]

Update checkpoint.

[chirpy13]

Easy - ReimuA
Chirpy13 - 132,160,200 - C - 0.0% - Replay (no bomb)

Essentially a NMNB run, but I suicide at the start to drop some extra power items.

[Mesarthim]

Now that I have finally checked the game out I think I can get used to this hulk smash gohei thing. Now if only the stage 3 boss wasn't a pain. Oh and I definitely haven't mastered the most efficient way for resources but this run was better than all the rest.

Hard - ReimuA
Mesarthim - 140,282,270 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Actually it occurred to me that leftover resources doesn't matter. I had five lives left here.

[chirpy13]

Because I don't think there's any other appropriate existing thread to put this, I'll just put it in here since it's pretty much a DDC scoring thread right?  Anyway, I noticed some cool shit with ReimuA.  Maybe this is already a known stratetgy (I don't really watch replays, sorry :<), but apparently her focus shot does more damage when more of her gohei is on top of something, so it seems a good strategy is to sit close to bosses and as your gohei starts to slide away from the boss, unfocus and refocus to get it going at max damage again.  Testing it on Wakasagihime's first spell the times for constant focus in front of her vs resetting the stick were 10.48s to 8.04s at max power, and 13.89s to 12.15s.  It's something to keep in mind for getting bigger cap bonuses and speedkilling midbosses and stuff.  It also makes her the second strongest shot type in the game... And considering she's a homing type, that's pretty damn overpowered.

And while I'm already making a post on stuff like this, let's get some rough shot type data out of it.  4.00 power ReimuB takes down the spell in 10.88.  Forward shot weaker than homing?  Pretty funny.  This also gives her the weakest shot in the game.  Go figure.  Shotgun MarisaA takes top spot with taking down the spell in 7.91 (not bad!), however, she suffers greatly at a distance, clearing it at 10.25 1/4 up the screen and 11.55 bottomhugging (eww).  MarisaB is pretty buff at 8.43 from any distance and takes third place overall.  Very strong shot.  SakuyaA does a nifty 9.40, which is not bad for a homing type.  SakuyaB pulled off 9.86, which makes her not terribly weak, but her shot width gives her very little wiggle room for boss alignment and makes it tough to actually reach her max damage potential - realistically she is worse than ReimuB, since ReimuB's shot is a fair bit wider.

Organized into a list, the standings for damage output are as follows:

MarisaA Shotgun: 7.91
ReimuA Shift-Tapping: 8.04
MarisaB: 8.43
SakuyaA: 9.40
SakuyaB: 9.86
ReimuA Constant Focus: 10.48
MarisaA 1/4 Screen: 10.55
ReimuB: 10.88
MarisaA Bottom: 11.55

I'm not going to bother with unfocus shots since they aren't something you really try to use for killing stuff fast.

[ARF]

I already knew about ReimuA's focused shot working like this, but actually having this list is really awesome and it's great actually having numbers for all the other types too, thanks for taking the time to test this!

[Karisa]

It could go in here. There was some UFO info posted there at some point.

Also, yes, ReimuA focused has really high damage potential for a homing shot. If the damage rates remain the same in the full version, I know which shot I'll be using for my first Lunatic 1cc.

[Mesarthim]

Since I'm a ReimuA player I found the discussion relevant anyway. I knew without even having to research that there was something about the focused gohei. Speaking of which I just got done with my first full (well demo full) lunatic run. I came out of it with six lives. Third boss is basically bomb hell. Second boss is so... easy.

Lunatic - ReimuA
Mesarthim - 135,030,970 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Although unless my play style changes I see a definite pattern in my scoring.

[Karisa]

On the topic of ReimuA...

Hard - ReimuA
Karisa - 192,143,440 - C - 0.0% - Replay

This turned out surprisingly well. All of Kagerou's spells captured (except the midboss one, which is auto-bombed as usual). The route is probably improvable though.

Hard - ReimuB
Karisa - 173,125,460 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Also, some random ReimuB run to bring all of Royalflare's Hard categories over 170m (though seriously, they should all be over 190m by now, but most categories aren't competitive enough). First attempt, quality is similar to my MarisaA run.

So needle Reimu is weaker than homing Reimu? That's weird. At least ZUN broke the pattern of needle Reimu always being one of the best characters in the game.

[Zengeku]

Might as well update my SakuyaA Lunatic score. I've been playing this a bit on and off lately and I find it pretty fun to just be reckless and not really be bound by any strategy or such and apparently i'm pushing my PB still. Definitely would say that anyone would be able to beat this score provided they have decent survival and actually form a route or do more milking but whatever, i'm having fun with this so shut up.

Lunatic - SakuyaA
Zengeku - 175,533,360 - C - 0.0% -replay

Also features a seriously stupid death because my brain operates in slow-motion, holy cow.

[Karisa]

Hard - SakuyaA
Karisa - 189,455,630 - C - 0.0% - Replay

I didn't notice it when playing Easy and Normal, but now that I'm playing a difficulty where capturing spells is more of a challenge, I've concluded that SakuyaA with her slowdown effect is really good. Possibly overpowered. It explains why so many people are using her.

Chirpy, is your SakuyaA time from constant focus, or briefly unfocusing whenever all her knives are fired for extra damage? It's probably a good idea to include both, since sometimes you may be concentrating too much on dodging to time your unfocusing.

[chirpy13]

Constant focus.  I didn't even know unfocusing did anything with her.  I tried once and it was slower, but maybe I wasn't waiting long enough between shift taps.

[Karisa]

You know how the homing knives float around Sakuya for a while, then fire, then explode when all of them are fired? I think it's a slightly higher damage rate if right after the last homing knife is fired, you release shift for a fraction of a second, since it removes the small delay before the explosion.

[chirpy13]

I discovered a neat trick by accident with ReimuA.  If you pop all four of the start fairies (the big ones, not the start start ones)  and then get your focus shot constantly popping the little fairies that come in after so that you keep poc collecting without getting your bonus, you can get a nifty 2.0 bonus before Cirno.  It's really hard though.  Sadly I messed up on Wackysacky and my esc+r reflexes were too strong, so I didn't save the replay and I can't seem to replicate it, so this explanation is the best I can offer  .

[Karisa]

Lunatic - SakuyaA
Karisa - 177,982,500 - C - 0.07% - Replay

Lunatic Kagerou = too hard for me
(not that I'd support reducing her difficulty in the full version)

Zengeku/ARF/whoever it was (sorry I forgot), do you still think 200m SakuyaA is reachable without capturing any of Kagerou's spells? This is the best I could do today. Not particularly polished, but I'm not sure how to gain a whole 22m from here...

Normal - MarisaB
Karisa - 171,237,890 - C - 0.1% - Replay

Normal - SakuyaA
Karisa - 170,360,730 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Hard - SakuyaB
Karisa - 253,989,980 - C - 0.0% - Replay

[chirpy13]

Easy - ReimuA
Chirpy13 - 133,496,790 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Good in some ways, disappointing in others.  Improved the stage 1 route a bit (go me), but I messed up a bit (missed a 2.0 before the green bullet fairies at the end, should have let a couple more spirits live before the last chain), plus I'm not very good at the last section of the stage.  It could be better.  Not sure if I should be milking Wackysacky's spells or if the spell bonus is worth more than the PiV.  I just graze when there are bullets and then finish them the wave after she starts buzzing.  I'm probably doing it wrong on her first though, should probably finish on third last wave (timing is too strict on final for perfect cancel, doesn't seem worth it).  Stage 2 was... Okay.  I probably shouldn't have bombed Seki's mid non, since it totally screwed up the cancel.  Oops.  Kedema section was sub-par (let a few get away), but I guess it wasn't terrible.  Can probably chain items at the stage ending a bit for a bigger bonus but it was okay.  1 miss on stage 3 portion (a few mil) and 1k PiV lower than Karisa's run going into the stage, so I think that's what got me (I blame the Seki mid bomb for this).  Also a few other minor mistakes on stage 3 that contributed (dropping items from the death, collecting some below PoC, not killing some enemies fast enough because not max power).  The death and that really stupid Seki mid aside though, it's a pretty okay run I guess and worth posting even if for nothing other than showing off the stage 1 route.

Easy - ReimuA
Chirpy13 - 133,736,330 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Finished Seki's first non with a bomb by accident.  Oops!  Stage 3 was an absolute trainwreck with my bonuses.  Way too many not-2.0s plus a death.  Also a death on Kagerou's second non.  This run is pretty much terrible but somehow managed to be a high score.  Huh.  Better stage 1 route this time, more aggressive Kagerou because I didn't really have anything to lose at that point.  Oh, and here's another replay that ended on Cirno.  I managed to full-chain the section before her which was pretty cool and worth sharing for other ReimuA players.  It's tough to get it right though and I've only managed it once so far.

[ARF]

Normal - MarisaB
ARF - 180,901,560 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Yay 180m is a nice benchmark.

Easy - MarisaB
ARF - 151,022,070 - C - 0.0% - Replay

Some mistakes, but I haven't tested stuff enough to know what kind of score those cost me.

Hard - MarisaB
ARF - 232,692,990 - C - 0.0% - Replay

No grazing, just winging it, I wonder if 250m could be reached with a polished run.

Zengeku/ARF/whoever it was (sorry I forgot), do you still think 200m SakuyaA is reachable without capturing any of Kagerou's spells? This is the best I could do today. Not particularly polished, but I'm not sure how to gain a whole 22m from here...

Eh, probably not then. It was just a guess after doing my atrociously bad run.

[Sapz]

Update Checkpoint 2: Revenge of the Replay. Zengeku's scores removed by request.

[ARF]

Lunatic - MarisaB
ARF - 331,733,240 - C - 0.0% - Replay

I really enjoyed this shot in the trial, I hope it stays like that for the full release.

[Zil]

I think I've come to agree. The bomb make be "broken" but actually optimizing it for points seems like crazy complexity. I too hope it stays the same.

It's a shame I can't run this game properly on my shit computer. I kinda want to join the attack on RF too. ;-;

[Zengeku]

Sucks that you can't run it. You're really missing out. 

Also, didn't really intend to have my scores removed from this board too lol, forgot about it. However doesn't really matter with the full game coming out 

[Karisa]

@Zil: If it loaded the window for resolution selection, did you try various options? Apparently on some computers (including mine) it refuses to run in 1280x960 mode.

I think I've come to agree about the MarisaB bomb as well by the way, for scoring purposes. So far, three of the DDC shots (SakuyaB, MarisaB, and ReimuA) have distinct scoring styles... I wonder if the rest will be differentiated eventually. At the very least, SakuyaA's time-slowing, and ability to auto-collect twice per bomb, should lead to some route variance.

@Zengeku: I can re-add them to my files if you'd prefer; it shouldn't take more than a few minutes. Though if I recall correctly, you said you didn't release your latest Lunatic SakuyaA score anyway?

[Zil]

@Zil: If it loaded the window for resolution selection, did you try various options? Apparently on some computers (including mine) it refuses to run in 1280x960 mode.

I can only play it at 60fps in a tiny window, which is too tormenting for me to able to play it seriously.