Kags. That's a funny nickname, I really wouldn't have come up with it myself.
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So. I've scorerunned in this mode of this game for a while. It's slowly starting to pay off, albeit I'm still really bad, especially on the neat charachters. This time the update is of the 1.78B Yukari run from yesterday. Something important for me, and something I put quite a bit of effort into. Tiredom strikes and the words leave me, so I'm afraid I cannot give much of a larger introduction to it.
Easy - Yukari
Seppo Hovi - 1,783,066,590 - Cb - 0.509% -
ReplayAwfully lots of slowdown. We'll get to the reason later.
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The run.Everything has a beginning, and much alike the Universe,
this replay starts with a bomb. Since there will be a few overflow bombs in IN, you can use one at start of the game to instantly get to 80% or -80%, depending on what kind of shot you are using. IN Easy stage 1 has lots of things that need attention, therefore it also requires lots of practice and restarts to get going smoothly. And there still are always mistakes, minor or less minor, but certain amounts of them can be allowed. Main thing, keep yourself above 80% so that you gain the minor time increase from killing small fairies. Also, let all of the familiars spawn, and cancel as many bullets with them as possible.
I fare somewhat badly on the first two big fairies, resulting in 75 time instead of the 78 time that would be my target. Higher numbers are very well reachable by doing many kinds of shenanigans and prolonging, but I don't bother doing it, at least not yet. I get the first 4-familiar cancel right, resulting in
211 time entering the second cancel, which I promptly fail by killing the fairy way too early,
it doesn't have time to spawn the bullets. So, I have
316 time after the first two cancels. Not very good, since with my current route I could reach a bit over 350 had I done everything correctly. It's nitpicking at such a small thing, but the minor improvements at stage 1 are what carry me over AM during rest of the run. During the kedama spam, I kill
the left fairy a bit too early, resulting in the loss of 2 timepoints.
Good thing I aced the midboss cancel, otherwise this run would be borderline ruined by now.
Really awful grazing during the first midboss bullet-spread. I have to look into these more, I should be far more consistent than I currently am. (I could always blame it on tiredness, but that would not feel the right thing to do. And it would hardly improve me.) For whatever reason, you gain extra time from cancelled bullets if you cancel them just as they spawn. The timeframe for that extra time is not really lenient, I think it's less than one second.
It looks like this, when you succeed using that function, causing gain of extra timeorbs from the 4-familiar fairies of stage 1. Another thing can happen is that you kill the fairy a few frames too early, or something. It results in
The bullets appearing, but not being cancelled. It doesn't happen too often. For the final two big stage 1 fairies,
The first one is ok, albeit a bit unoptimal. The second one
Doesn't get any time to spawn bullets as I kill it too early again. This results in a fairly low amount of timepoints when I enter Wriggle (1300 is somewhat simple, and I believe 1400 could be reached if you did all of the extra shenanigans correctly.)
For the first boss noncard, I use the safespot and stream the aimed yellow waves, which is maximal timegain with somewhat easy movement.
Kill it on the last second, since it gets to spawn one final wave of familiars just before transforming to the spell. First Spellcard supergrazing isn't as simple as it looks, you need to keep up a certain speed and be vary of the blue balls so that they won't touch you. Also, getting optimal amount of graze and finishing it as fast as possible can be quite hard. The spell bonus is usually around 7.7M, this time
it was a bit lower. At this point, I've had over 1600 time for five times now, I think. 1700 is reachable if you're good.
Cancel on the second noncard as it spanws the last wave, so that you cancel the last wave and penultimate wave familiars, resulting in a cancel of 6 familiars instead of only 3. The timing is not very tight and if you play on a difficulty above Easy, you can use the green ring of bullets Wriggle spanws as a cue to finish the noncard. My grazing tactic for the final stage 1 spellcard is as aggressive as I can pull off, resulting in
8.2M Spell bonus. Also, 79,480 point-item value. I think 80,000 could be reached if you were aggressive enough. (I've never reached it myself.)
Stage 2. The opener is simple enough, you go on top of the screen and don't move for the duration of the kedama. You can hang there immovable for all of the time, since the kedama on Easy don't shoot bullets. The fairies following afterwards, however, are a bit tricky.
You have to time the cancel on them so, that you get them to spawn the spread of bullets, but also so that they die fast enough. Since if you kill them too slowly, the next fairy doesn't spawn and you lose a few items. The timings aren't too lenient here, so I fail some of them by being overly careful and focusing on killing them so that I at least get the items. The general cue for starting shooting would be just as the third familiar is about to spawn, so you have to memorize a moment and remember it by the spawning sound.
Last one of the fairies can be prolonged as much you want to, so it's good to let it stay around a bit longer and spawn two sets of aimed bullets and cancel both of them, instead of just one set. For the following 5-familiar fairies, I hang on the top of the screen for instant collection. The timings are a bit off here,
especially with the last one, which is actually quite tricky to cancel with two waves of blue bullets, since Ran can jump to the kedama and not damage the big fairy. I don't bother forcing the optimal timing for the two durable fairies with four familiars, since the cancel wouldn't be that big on easy, and the timing is really odd, borderline random. Instead I just kill them and focus on other stuff. I don't even try to cancel all of the fairies in the latter stage optimally, since if they're spread out around the screen it becomes a hell to kill all of them correctly and PoC the items while doing so. However,
the four sets of fairies along the edges, I try to cancel optimally. I miss a few, but
3000 time and 94k PiV entering Mystia is acceptable.For Mystia's first noncard, I try to follow the trails left by familiars and graze as many of them as possible. Finishing the noncard at the final second again for optimal amount of familiars spawned by it. (and some extra graze too) The first Spell Card is usually done by just hanging low and shooting, which had started to bother me, since it certainly has bullets to graze, and the grazing is carried out on other difficulties. Easy has much less bullets, so the outcome isn't as large, but luckily, the difficulty isn't as large either. I spin around in a small U-like form,
within the circles. The arrowheads are always aimed, so you can dodge a wave by simply taking a single step whenever she shoots.
Spell bonus exceeds 10M, PiV is a bit low. I have managed a PiV of 101k at this point, but I'll live even with a lower one. Strategy for the second noncard is similar to first one, albeit the grazing will be slightly less optimal and you will end the noncard more early. The second spellcard I'm not very happy with. It does have bullets, but my current strategy is just to end it as fast as possible. There could be something, but I'm too lazy to experiment.
Spell bonus is 10.3M. For the third noncard, you're supposed to misdirect the bullets so that you get to graze two sets of green spread for both of the waves, and end the card on the fourth spawning familiars when six have spawned. It's not very hard. The grazing for the third spell is nonexistent on Easy, and I forgot to stall it for a bit of extra timepoints. Not a world-shattering mistake, but it's something awfully simple that I forgot to do. Oh well. Final Spellcard is easy enough, just follow the familiars as they spawn bullets and move up when the card is about to end. No misdirection shenanigans required, unlike on Lunatic.
Stage 3, the opener is simple. I'm not fast enough to act with the extra cancel for the first three big fairies, but if you wanted to use it, PoC after it and still move to good positioning and were able to do all of it, it's certainly worth more. However, I cannot misdirect enough waves in the case I do it, sadly. Something to look at for further improvements. Ah, the following portion is somewhat simple.
Tight timings for maximal cancel and I mess up quite a lot of the fairies. I'm still ahead and I succeed to PoC everything without dying, though, so it's OK. (It's not, but I pretend for it to be. The run just looks ugly now.) Entering the midboss, I leave two of the familiar-spawning fairies alive, since they hang around for a good while for the duration on the midboss noncard. Then, I let the midboss spawn some bullets for each fairy, and
kill them for the extra cancel. For leaving the spot, I usually
bomb for safety, but it's doable without the bomb. For every Keine noncard, including the midboss one, she spawns more familiars as time passes. For the first two noncards, you can kill her when she is spawning the familiars, but hasn't called the old familiars back yet, resulting in
external familiars for the cancel. For the midboss spell,
my grazing is unoptimal. It's not worth so much on easy, though, so the run is still alive. I also
ended it way too quickly, resulting in 3 onscreen familiars instead of 6. I paused for a moment to ponder a restart, but decided to carry on. For the later stage portion, I misdirect some bullets into familiars and kill the fairies. It's rather simple, and nothing too difficult to do. For the final familiar spawning fairies, I let all of them spawn, then kill all of them in a rapid succession and
PoC them at the same time.I try to be rather aggressive during Keine's noncards, grazing as many bullets as I can. You could graze a bit more, but I'll cut corners in this stage a lot. First spell is simple, no safespot to get into, nothing special. Both boss noncards must be timed well when killing, first one for extra familiars and second one for
some cancel. (don't kill it right away as it spawns the final set of familiars, let her shoot twice before shooting it off. The penultimate card spawns rings if you go close enough to Keine during it. I try to avoid doing that for most of the time, since the extra bullets could hinder my grazing momentum, not that I currently graze a lot. You could also time it so that you kill Keine just as she spawns a wave of those extra bullets for some cancel, but I prefer not doing it. Instead,
I get 16 onscreen familiars. The grazing for the final card is
unoptimal and easy. There is a more profitable method, but it is a lot harder, so I prefer not doing it. The card is static, though, so I could just micro-memorize it. Main thing is to kill her just as she has spawned a ring of bullets, resulting in
extra bullets to cancel into timepoints. You can use the lasers spawned by the middle familiars as a cue: when they face each other, start shooting.
Stage 4 is more of a cash-in here. You could do cancel shenanigans, but since the arrowheads are single instead of many, it's not as worthwhile as it's on lunatic. It can also lead into missing fairies, so I prefer not doing it. Main thing is to kill stuff and PoC.
I messed up one of the cancels, resulting in a loss of timeorbs. It's still winging along, since my Marisa performance is more aggressive than AM's. For midboss Marisa, I
end the first noncard too early. Not the largest of mistakes, but still on the
ohdear level. The mistiming throws me off and I play badly during the following spell, resulting in a bonus of
13.9M. I start getting into the thing again during the second midboss nonspell, but I still am a bit shaky and play it quite safely, not moving around as much as I usually do. Also,
I guide Marisa to the edge of the screen, which results in some of the familiars being offscreen as I kill her. Should've moved her to the right on the final movement, didn't focus. The endstage portion is quite simple. Kill stuff, PoC, and try not to PoC below the line. I collect a few items grayed, but thankfully not too many of them.
406M entering boss Marisa.
For the first boss noncard, I just hang around and touch as many stars as possible without risking it too much. She actually comes quite close to me so that the familiars are just on top of me, which scares me, since I'm unsure if I can react in time would they spawn bullets that head for my direction. Nothing hits and I finish the non. The first spellcard is fairly straightforward, moving vertically under her as much as possbile. I tried following the lasers for extra graze, but it was not worth it. For Marisa's final noncard, it must be noticed how she shoots a ring of stars towards herself and then it reflects off from herself and continues outside the familiars. I time finishing the spell so that the spawned stars are
starting to move towards the edges from Marisa, still within the familiar circle. Extra timepoints. Master Spark is quite straightforward: quide it around, hang around Marisa. Finish it as fast as possible so that you can get
over 15M Spell bonus. Also, grazing the laser is good, but you don't have to force it. Hang on the edge if it's possible. If it's not possible, then you can just drop it. The final spellcard of Marisa's is simple enough. The main thing is to end it just as she spawns the stars to cancel them, so
of course I fail it.Stage 5. I enter with 510M, which is a new personal record. The opener is simple, the following sets of fairies are simple. You could graze a bit there, but it's not a large enough of an increase to the score for me to bother with it. At least not yet. For the opening spam waves, kill every reqular fairy before the familiar fairy, since it hangs around a bit longer than the other ones. Start from up and move down. On the final wave, if something is about to escape and you're unsure (and if you have a spare bomb), you can bomb to kill all of the fairies and collect the items. The following sets of familiar spawning fairies are quite simple on non-human shots: kill them and PoC. I succeed in that quite well. For midboss Tewi, you can either hang low and take it safe, or go around the screen spinning around the spawning bullets, trying to graze them for a minimal increase of score. The latter is very haphazard thing to do, so obviously
I end up deathbombing while doing it. Luckily enough, the bomb doesn't finish the noncard, and I get to stall it up to the cancel.
26-familiar cancel at 00 seconds. It was not planned, I noticed the clock a bit too late and panicked. She spawned the wave just as I killed her. Luck. Eep. I stall the second wave a bit too long, as well,
so the cancel sucks. It's not the worst one around there, but you'd probably wait for a bit better performance from a WR, especially if the attack in case is really simple. On the final waves that have bullets getting aimed at you with a little prolonged time, I try to PoC everything and kill everything. It usually works, but I make some major mistakes this time and get strayed behind from the beat. This leads into scary sitiuations, and, well, me being bad at dodging leads into a
collision with a bullet. It's not the end of the world, but this deathbomb pushes me low enough on bomb stock to finish with 1 less bomb in stock than maximal bombs would allow. It's a 2.5M loss. The following set of familiar-spawning big fairies is rather simple. Let the bullets spawn, kill the fairies and remember to PoC. I enter the boss with
613M. (Konatan enters with 599M)
Reisen's first noncard is surprisingly dense, but the bullets are slow, so it's not really much of a threat. If she doesn't move down, you also are likely to get a gap in the waves so that you can flail around for some extra graze. If she moves down, you get a stacked wave. Her first spell has a grazing method that uses spinning around her as she spawns bullets as a movement. It's very tight to do, so I prefer an older and less optimal, but safer, method.
20.2M bonus. For the second noncard, you can either flail around, or hang somewhat still without moving too much. I try to move around a little bit, but I do nothing too scary to not risk the run. Reisen's second card is mainly just moving down and hanging below the boss. It's not very difficult, and there is no known supergrazing method (yet).
20.5M bonus. The final Reisen noncard is an easy supergraze, that gives a good bit of graze. I stall the noncard while moving around along the spawning bullets for extra time. For the penultimate spellcard, I do
this grazing at the start of it. However, I don't think it's worth it to do it after the first wave, even though it is very much possible (you just need to be more careful.) The timing to end this attack is very strict, so of course I mess it up and
end it a bit too late. The final card also has a new spinaround method, but again, it's very hazardous, so I prefer not doing it. Instead I go by the older method, grazing a quarter of it.
FinalB has the simple opener, and then the massive milking waves. My strategy is to kill one or two fairies in the case I get bad spawn locations, then PoC and then kill the final one and PoC it after. Youkai solo don't have to worry of familiars, or human-youkai gauge, so it's fairly simple. There would be some cancel shenanigans here, but I don't see it happening on human limits. I succeed in three of the waves, but the final wave is slightly shorter since Eirin comes around, so
I end up gathering two sets of items below the PoC. That's a lot of points lost, but I'm still ahead. I had to pause to catch a breath. These pauses and the screenshots I took midrun of spell values / stage progression scores were the thing that pushed the slowdown to 0,5%. The midboss Eirin supergraze on Easy is, well, easy. So I do it, but I don't do the Galaxy supergraze, since it's a bit dangerous if you tap too much, and not worth overly much.
979M entering Kaguya. I'd like to believe that 1B could be reached at this point, but that could be pushing it.
Kaguya's first noncard is simple streaming, while avoiding the extra walls. I take it more profitable to graze the stream instead of the walls, but some dancing in between would probably prove superior. First spellcard is going in between lasers and streaming down alongside them, so that you gain graze during it.
23.3M spell bonus. For Kaguya's second noncard, you just graze as many balls as possible, and end it just at the end, there's nothing special on youkai solo, other charachters have some milking added. Second spellcard is fairly simple as well, the strategy is to graze as many lasers as possible while standing under Kaguya.
24.3M spell bonus. The third noncard is plenty difficult even on Easy, and I really think that it shouldn't be in the said setting. You wouldn't except someone who is having a struggle clearing Easy to read this kind of a puddle. I end it a bit too early, but at least I get the familiars onscreen while doing so. There is a small gap during which there are no familiars on screen, and I actually succeeded in hitting it on one of my runs. For Kaguya's third card, there would be the crazy grazing method by st, but I'm not going to do it this late into run, unless it's the last thing left to do.
23.3M bonus. The final noncard is fairly simple, there are jellybeans and you have lots of space to move around. I graze a bit, but mainly focus on watching to clock so that I don't end up finishing the attack too early. For the fourth card, I don't do any hapazard supergrazes. I touch 4 lasers a wave, that's enough. The cancel is a bit off, though.
23.8M bonus. For Rainbow Danmaku, I could hang above the familiars. I even practiced it in spell practice a few times and it wasn't too bad. The gain, however, is not very large, so I'd rather not do it. The card is completely micro-memorizable, though, so it's certainly very doable. I just didn't bother spending my time on it.
22.0M bonus, and then we enter the Last Spells.
First Last Spell is simple. Stream up-down, try to graze as much as possible.
39.1M bonus, 40M is possible. Second Last Spell is also quite easy, read a gap in the waves, move into it and enjoy. The third one could be supergrazed by moving really close to Kaguya, but it's rather hard, so I play it safe and hand low.
35.1M bonus. Then, the supergraze. Two WR attempts failed at this card, third time was the catch.
64.0M bonus, and only Morning Mist left. The final Last Spell would be fairly simple, but my heartrate is in heavens, hands are shaking, and my whole body is sweating. It's the rush of a good run. I fucking love it. The attack ends, I raise my hands in the air and yell
"YES!" aloud. Little dance is done with the charachter, the replay is saved and a little flood is posted on IRC.
[17:29:03] <SeppoHovi> MOTHERFUCKERS
[17:29:05] <SeppoHovi> 1.78b
[17:29:05] <SeppoHovi> WERFinal score of 17.83B, and it's a new standing WR. I'm really happy and pleased.
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Several kinds of praise is recieved. Yay. I don't really play for the fame, or the praise, but I do enjoy recieving comments, mainly since people can sometimes be rather quirky and funny with their congratulations. For example, I lauged at this:
[17:45:54] <hoboko> >no eppu normaali lyrics in the comment
[17:46:09] <hoboko> Wasted wrWith or without congratulations, however, it will be a memorable moment to me, and I believe it'll remain as one until the very end.
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I still have to say, that all in all, it still was only one thing. Achievements are memorable, sure, but they just mark a single moment, not a large timespan.
Large timespan, such as the time I've spent with IN scoring. Looking back into it, it was Summer 2011 when I noticed Dodgeball blogging about one of the MotK weekly challenges on the Finnish forum, and his submissions to it. I decided to try IN Easy scoring on Youmu instead of grinding the UFO Lunatic 1CC I was working on back then. Or maybe it was some other lunatic 1CC, I don't even remember. My first attempts were horrendous, reaching 1.8B on Youmu solo was already very difficult. I slowly increased the route and lashed onto other shot-types as time passed. However, I soon quit IN scoring in late 2011, after reaching the initial goal of 2B, to 1CC UFO Lunatic and do some Lunatic NB. It was the Netherworld Team scoring week on the MotK weekly that got me started again. I fared quite badly and didn't reach the goal I had given myself. I also believed that I'd never reach the numbers my back then foes were setting. Hard work was spent across all of the charachters, and memorably, got my first 2.3B Border Team and 2.6B Magic Team runs, which were called impressive by some older scorerunners I respected (and still do). Then, I started working on UFO again, this time the target was to a) Counterstop and b) beat Dotsie. I never reached either of them, albeit my routes were well enough for the former. I never managed to finish a run, and the full-time grind had taken all of the fun off the game from me. (100 hours a week, 16 hours a day if necessary.) I played some PCB and didn't return to IN Easy until late Autumn of 2012. Then, I got some memorable achievements, including the two FinalA WR's (that are both still standing). Later, came several Extra scores. Then, I met vcz who shared the same passion of playing IN with me, and I enjoyed discussing with him very much. I also enjoy following him, and whatever he does might (and has) encourage me into working on a score. The Remilia FinalA score, or the Marisa Extra score, for example. Thanks.
Now that I'm namedropping (again, tell me if you happen to read this and want it removed), other person would be .ASP. I don't have any chatlogs, but for the time I grinded for this run, I blogged about it and my failures to him. I wouldn't probably have been able to sustain four failures at the final boss and carry on, hadn't there been someone rooting for me and telling me to carry on. I don't know how to repay it, there hardly is a way. All I currently can do is to say thank you. Very much.
Then, after all that, comes this score. One run, less than a hour. Somehow, I can't but smile when I think of it, how after all of the hard work, instead of most of the invisible hours, the thing you can see is the result, one single credit. It's very much unlike gardening, where your work can make entire gardens grow in glory of beautiful flowers.
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Well, I've done some scoring, now. I've noticed that some people like to claim that they're
not good enough to score. - I promptly disagree. You don't need to NB every game on Lunatic to start scoring, and you certainly don't need to start scoring with a WR. To be honest, it would be kind of dull if you got a WR right away, I've spent some quite memorable 1000 hours playing IN, and I wouldn't trade them for any amount of WR's. When you start playing Touhou for points, the first scores will most likely be somewhat low. However, the scores will increase as you put more time and practice into it. Small steps are easier to take than giant leaps, and certainly more enjoyable to. Slowly inching over yourself is certainly one of the most important things for me about scoring. It's fun.
I'd also hope for more people to start playing for score. The current community is vastly talented, I'd be also very scared. But it would also encourage me to improve faster, so there's that, too.
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Ah. What next? I was thinking of working on Phantasm NMNBNBB route that was able to reach 1.3B. After it, I could possibly improve my Extra routes, making it so that I'd reach at least 1.15B with the NMNB condition. Or I could use bombs, but that would get serious and scary.
I was also considering a NMNB of IN Lunatic, and I did some consistency grind, boss pacifism and such earlier, but there would be much more grind left before I could even dream of a full run that reached it, given how uncomfortable I am with the difficulty setting. Also, there's the stress effect, Eirin's two final cards would be something. (Hell no I'm going FinalB) My part-time job will end soon, though, so I'll be unemployed again a few weeks into the next month. Who knows, maybe I'll grind the hell out of IN Lunatic, during that time, maybe I won't. Most likely the latter.
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First of all, however, I'm going to put on this dress I bought and read the Forbidden Scrollery which arrived in mail earlier. I'll smile and blush, surely.
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Putting on a dress is way harder than it looks like. I don't think I'll wear it on a daily basis, but on special occasions. I really like it, though, wearing a dress feels very nice. I can wholeheartedly suggest it to all of you.
And, back to the comfortable silence of the scoreboards. I guess I could only update once a month as well, but I don't think I could gather the self-control to do that. I usually post and write stuff whenever I quite feel like it.
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Extra - Reimu
Seppo Hovi - 2,267,102,620 - C - 0.12% -
ReplayClean unfocused play around places, that's about it. Several PoC mistakes, deathbomb on penultimate non which I'm quite consistent on, and I didn't even try dodging RoD, since I entered with 2 bombs. Including the same-old cowardish playing during the survival again. IS failed, not a surprise. Next improvements would be in the stage cancels and the death fairy. Maybe I'll return to this one day, I really like playing Reimu solo in IN.
