SoEW Button Mashing

[Decroux]

Hi, I'm fairly new to Touhou and I thought I'd start with SoEW - really enjoying it. I recently beat normal, but not until I discovered that if you mash the fire button you get faster bullets and therefore more damage.
I'm curious as to whether this is an acceptable method of play or if it's a bug that I'm exploiting? Some sections like Meira's last phase and especially Mima's orbs seem to require lots of damage to get through unscathed.
For reference, I use the middle power Reimu.

[Decroux]

*tumbleweed*

<Tengukami> Don't doublepost, least of all to bump your own thread to get a reply. People will respond; even if it can take longer that 24 hours.

[The Greatest Dog]

Don't worry, it's perfectly acceptable. It's the only game in the series where tapping rapidly provides more damage than continuous fire, though, so might as well take advantage of it.

Fun fact: there are multiple levels of firing rate depending on how quickly you tap.

[Decroux]

Sorry about the doublepost

Thanks for the confirmation! I feel less bad now, I was worried it was an exploit. Though, I wonder why it's the only one with that feature?

[Zil]

It's a glitch. Personally I view it as cheating, but really, nobody cares.

[nintendonut888]

It's not a glitch; if you read the manual on the Wiki, ZUN explicitly mentions rapid fire as a mechanic. I still think it's stupid that it exists, but it's entirely recommended. Some bosses will take absolutely forever without it.

[Zil]

Well now, that's surprising. I assumed that since only amulet bullets were effected, and not her other bullet types, it must be some kind of glitch. The general jerky behavior contributed to that impression. I agree that it's kind of a dumb thing. (Actually, I'm somewhat inclined to wonder if ZUN would just pass it off as an intended mechanic because he didn't feel like fixing it.)

[Agent of the BSoD]

That's what I think. It was his first danmaku game, so of course there was going to be unintended quirks in the code. He probably just didn't care to fix it. Least it's really helpful.

[Tengukami]

And yet ZUN has owned up to every glitch there has been and made an effort to fix them. No, I think if dude specifically wrote that this was an intended mechanic, then I'm pretty sure we can assume it was intended.

[Agent of the BSoD]

Never fixed that DS bug with invisible bullets. :derp: (though in his defense, those games don't get updates anyway, still, not sure how he missed that one)

[Tengukami]

Point still stands that he owned up to it. He's kind of like that. It would make zero sense for him to not just ignore a bug, but deliberately write up some explanation about how it's actually a feature.

[Karisa]

And yet ZUN has owned up to every glitch there has been and made an effort to fix them. No, I think if dude specifically wrote that this was an intended mechanic, then I'm pretty sure we can assume it was intended.

There are at least a few notable glitches that weren't fixed. SA Extra becoming locked after an Easy 1cc comes to mind. Also, MoF MarisaB, and some display glitches, such as the GFW bomb counter and the UFO score overflow.

Also, he said that the letter scores in LLS were intended (near the end of section 5 on this page), which also seems like a glitch that he discovered and mentioned in the manual instead of fixing. At least because numbers overflowing into letters are a recurring type of glitch in various other games.

[Tengukami]

It would make zero sense for him to not just ignore a bug, but deliberately write up some explanation about how it's actually a feature.

Big difference between a font glitch and a whole other shot-type, folks. But hey, don't let me get in the way of your psychic powers about what the game creator really intended, despite what he specifically wrote in the game profile.

[Decroux]

The way I see it, Mima's orbs seem to require some serious firepower - granted that perhaps that's the reward for using the slow heavy-hitter, I'd assume that Reimu would destroy the orbs fairly fast. There just seems to be sequences in the game that would require you to mash the button at some points. Meira's last phase gets really messy if she doesn't die quickly, to the point where it becomes harder than any other pattern in the game left long enough. I dunno, now I'm conflicted! Did I genuinely finish Normal using the rapid fire method or do I need to go back?

[Agent of the BSoD]

The way I see it, Mima's orbs seem to require some serious firepower

You mean Marisa's. :V

Well, the way I see it here is that there are bugs, and ZUN decides they're ok and puts them into the readme. However, I doubt most of these are intentional, but since (for the most part) they aren't game breaking, he leaves them in there and makes it a feature. I think the rapid fire from SoEW was an oversight, but since it didn't really change the game much, he didn't think it was worth his trouble to fix. Only after did he have each time you press the shot key, you shoot a limited amount of amulets/whatever, and can't shoot while that's happening. The overpowered MarisaB laser in MoF he knows about, but doesn't feel like fixing it. (he put a decimal in the wrong spot) Luckily, vsync patches fix this. Is this really not the same scenario? Only thing he did differently was put one in a readme and the other not. And being a coder myself, I can see how both of these are quirks in the code, when you think about the coding process.

Also, on the topic of bugs, I've also found myself to have loaded up MoF with the graphics all messed up before. It happens very rarely. (think I've had it happen 3 or 4 times ever, and have a recording of one, right before the game crashed)

[Goldom]

MoF's done that to me a few times too, I start it and there's colory lines all over, and it always also kills my score file, requiring a Dropbox rollback. A few others also have had score file crashes that needed reverting, 11 and 13 I know, I think 7 too, but those never did the graphic thing.

[Agent of the BSoD]

MoF's done that to me a few times too, I start it and there's colory lines all over, and it always also kills my score file, requiring a Dropbox rollback. A few others also have had score file crashes that needed reverting, 11 and 13 I know, I think 7 too, but those never did the graphic thing.

I've never had score files be corrupted before, though I've heard about it. Guess I'm lucky there, though I keep backups anyway. I have had, though, a replay from someone else in PCB actually desync when it got to the Prismrivers. Quite interesting that desyncs go back that far.

[Decroux]

You mean Marisa's. :V

I'm talking about the 4th Boss. Marisa is the 3rd boss, the one that shoots the lasers and starts the fight with 5 orbs, 4 of which need to be destroyed in the first phase of the fight.
Mima is the one with the 4 circling orbs that she detonates herself if you don't kill them in certain amount of time. I believe she's also immune while the orbs are out. That's the fight that makes me think that the button mashing was intended. But as I said before, that could just be the reward for using the slow Reimu instead. Granted I haven't got that far with Slow Reimu so I don't know if that'd be enough either.
I could have the names mixed up, but I'm pretty sure I was right

[Zil]

The third boss is a nameless set of five objects, usually called the "Five Magic Stones." The fourth boss (the one you're thinking of) is Marisa. Mima is fifth.

Even with double tapping, it's not like you can destroy Marisa's orbs before they fire a few attacks, so it's not saving you from having to deal with them. And no, she's not immune when they're out. In fact, she repeatedly leaves herself open while using them, while when they are destroyed she uses much more difficult attacks.

(And for the record, the first boss is Rika and the second is Meira.)