It's pretty much just an excuse so people don't have to say 'holy shit this game is really hard, I have to practice it a lot to be good at it'. It is damn hard, but it's one of the least memo-heavy games in the series for sure, maybe tied with EoSD. In exchange for the UFO chasing you have a huge amount of fuck-up room, so even if your route isn't optimal you can still clear it if you're putting in the effort.
but it's one of the least memo-heavy games in the series for sure
can't really comment, haven't put much effort on UFO.. well, beca-
maybe tied with EoSD.
AGHAGHAGHAGHAGHAGHAGAHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAHGHAGAHGAHGAHGAHGHA
*the simple mention of EoSD makes my sensors go berserk and with a Terminator-like efficiency, I bite Remilia's neck out, ignoring clipdeaths, confuse hitboxes, and then dying from all those restarts.. from some 3 or 4 days spent to clear EoSD on Lunatic DURING SOTW'S VARTH WEEK. While a friend of mine attempted to beat me by reaching DDP's second loop before I 1cc EoSD.*
If you readers consider that I'm too greedy to not bother about missed scoring potential in most shmups (save some few like Battle Mania Daiginjou), playing for survival isn't interesting enough. (read again, I get bothered all the time with missed scoring potential and restart a lot due to that)
So, I try to enjoy the scoring mechanics. But I dislike the grazing system, even in the Seihou series (save for Kioh Gyoku, in which it's not a main source of points iirc). My point is, for a lot of shmups, what you have to do in order to score is easily understandable, in terms of strategy. Let's say, in Dimahoo, one skilled enough player may try to not get the secret item from the first boss' head, but instead choosing to get an unique set item to complete that item's set earlier and then gain the missed secret item later with a better multiplier later. Easy enough to understand, though not as easy to actually perform. There are also lots of ways you can reach such a goal, too. But with most Touhou games, there are a lot of "checkpoints" you must follow (when random bullets aren't involved), there's no definite way to know if you're really taking the most from your runs (someone discovers that, for example, activating borders at some place will lead to a better score with less effort.. then, those who worked harder wouldn't have any way to know their gameplan without trial and error. Even watching a replay isn't helpful enough, because there are tons of little checkpoints, based on enemy bullet paths). It may be for this reason, that there are guides explaining how to score in the Touhou games (once more, save for PoFV), but not explaining what are the optimal routes and why. I have a feeling that the games don't reward my efforts (or, I just dislike graze more than most people here.. plus I have a really bad memorization, due to the belief that understanding > memorizing.), so I feel cheated if I see someone else score better with less effort (or with just a bit of memorization. Seriously, I don't want to keep a bgm's section in mind to prepare myself for x enemy/enemies in anticipation. That's distracting for me, more distracting than flying UFO tokens will ever be, at least for non-colorblind people).
Also, did I say that losing a life while trying to graze, and restarting due to this, and repeating this pattern, is frustrating? (even if the games didn't have point-blank grazing)
Or maybe I'm really underestimating the graze hitbox (so I have a worse expectation of the effort needed for grazing), or overestimating it (and getting frustrated due to the unrewarded effort).
