EoSD Extra, in need of help

[Darkblizer]

Most of my troubles come from the stage itself, mostly the parts before and after Patchy

Before, there's that one fairy that is just stupid, where it's firing tons of bullets at you JUST AS you're recovering from that huge barrage of orbs you sustained (which I also need help with, but not as much)

And then after patchy is just a kick in the face with super-fast imsed spreads coming flying at you, without any warning whatsoever.

Also, I need some help on patchy's cards (LOTS of help, I'm ReimuA so these cards take a while to beat)

For the most part, after that, I'm good.
(although help on Flandre is still appreciated, especially on Cranberry Trap)

[Drake]

Start the stage a ways up the screen. When the fairies come, drop down and graze bullets to the left until they're dead. Collect items. Go to the right side, repeat x3. Kill all the next fairies as they come down, collecting items and such. Stay above 119 power, but not max. When the middle fairy comes down, kill it, then move up and collect the items so that you'll suck up all the oncoming bullets. Next, a fairy spawns in the middle, then left, then right, then middle again. Kill them soon so you don't have to deal with too many bullets.

Everyone hates the Death Fairy, just bomb if needed lol.

There's no real strategy for Silent Selene, just make sure to stay under Patchy as long as you can. Watch a replay for Royal Flare; it's static, so you just do the same thing every time. For Philosopher's Stone, Stay higher up at the beginning and work your way down as needed. One bomb should be enough to kill it anyways, so if you're stuck, just bomb.

Collect the items, and move to the left. The fairies shoot, you move to the right. Fairies on the right appear and shoot, you move to the left. Repeat until the last wave, which requires you to not move immediately or you'll get walled. Stream the bullets up next, and collect the items at the end. The books always have a few that shoot aimed shots, so slowly move to the left and right sides as needed. You can kill the books to lessen the load, but the rest is dodging. After the last wave, move to the left and stream once again.

[Azinth]

Yeah, basically what Drake said for the stage.

Cranberry Trap:  Shotgun Flandre for a little bit until the bullets spawn from the sides.  Then go to the middle and stream the side-bullets down slowly. Then three waves of bullets will come up from the bottom of the screen; use small horizontal movements to dodge those as you make your way downward.  Then move back up to the middle, dodging bullets as you go.  Flandre's spell circles will misdirect your homing IIRC, so you might have to do several cycles of this to kill it.  It looks daunting, but when you get it down it's one of her easiest cards.

Good luck beating Extra with ReimuA.  She can beat it, but it's definitely hardest with her.  If you feel up to it, you might want to try unlocking MarisaA or ReimuB, since they have the easiest time with it.

[Kiro]

Darkblizer: Wow, what timing. I had an urge to retry EoSD Extra last night, which I have never beatened and only unlocked with ReimuA so far.

What they've said makes sense, but sometimes I also bomb the wave of fairies right before the death fairy. If you max power before them, you can still kinda clear the wave of fairies. Dodge to about 1/3 to the left side when the first middle fairy fires her burst. Then I dodge the second wave that comes from the left and right by moving to the right about 1/3 to the edge. The rest is just fine grazing.

Also, as we're both working on our first clear of this stage, get good at clearing Silent Selene and Royal Flare (almost there on this one) so you're not compelled to restart the stage with a lack of lives to tackle Flan. I always bomb Philosopher's Stone just to get it over with.

And I hate Cranberry Trap with a passion. ReimuA's crap damage on that card makes it nerve wracking and I get the concept of how to clear it, but it takes way too long and I wear out and have to bomb/die.

The farthest I've gone is Maze of Love, but I spent last night getting back into the game and spending more time learning Royal Flare as well as clearing the Stage more efficiently.

[SP]

Also, I need some help on patchy's cards (LOTS of help, I'm ReimuA so these cards take a while to beat)

Reimu A is probably the worst character to use for EoSD extra.  With Reimu B there's TONS of shotgunning opportunities, which is a large part of how I got my no-death run.  Marisa A is generally who a lot of people (including me) use on their first clear though, because of her high damage, even at long range.  With Reimu A you'd be better off looking at my pacifist run instead of my No-Death run since her damage is so low 

[Darkblizer]

Reimu A is probably the worst character to use for EoSD extra.  With Reimu B there's TONS of shotgunning opportunities, which is a large part of how I got my no-death run.  Marisa A is generally who a lot of people (including me) use on their first clear though, because of her high damage, even at long range.  With Reimu A you'd be better off looking at my pacifist run instead of my No-Death run since her damage is so low 

   Yeah, but Stage 4 Patch with anyone but ReimuA is a complete nightmare, in my opinion.

And thanks for the help, everyone! It's a huge help.

[Mr_Bob]

I'm working on trying to clear Extra as well, I have all the characters unlocked, but I can't get past Maze of Love with any of them. In fact I have done math on this card to try and understand the dodging involved (20^o openings followed by 16^o of "love" ten times in a circle of about 2.75 in / 7 cm in diameter where you have to reach each safespot in about 0.7 seconds. This was measured by hand so it's only approximations.) I don't want to have to resort using the cheap way to clear it. It looks a lot more beautiful if you do it right. In fact I'm considering clearing Lavatein this way too. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

I have the stage down pretty well. The only thing I would advise differently from Drake would be regarding power-up at the beginning, rather than zooming up to the fariy to get the screen clear, instead kill the last fairy of the previous phase (the one on the off-screen far right) before it has a chance to escape. I find this power-up method is a lot easier to pull off than zooming to a cloud of bullets.

[Drake]

Eh, I've never once died trying it, so.

[SP]

In fact I'm considering clearing Lavatein this way too. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

This is really just a character control thing...  I had problems with it too for a while.  If you're bad at these attacks I'm afraid the only way to get better is to play embarrassingly large amounts of Touhou.