Gameplay-Tipps für Anfänger

Touhou ist keine Mainstream Spieleserie. Deshalb kann man Touhou nicht mit der Einstellung und Erwartung wie ein normales Spiel spielen. Jem mehr du Touhou spielst, umso mehr wirst du anfangen, Videospiele auf eine komplett neue Art zu sehen. Hier hast du einen Guide, der dir helfen wird, die Mentalität eines Touhou-Spielers anzunehemen, sowie ein paar generelle Tipps, die dir hilfreich sein werden, um den riesigen Danmaku Mustern auszuweichen.

Basics

Die Goldene Regel: Es ist in Ordnung, zu verlieren

Mainstream Spiele haben in der Regel einen sehr gnadevollen Einfachen Modus für Menschen die vielleicht kein Spiel spielen wollen, welche man nicht einfach schnell beenden kann. Als eine Shootemup Serie folgt Touhou nicht dieser Regel. Touhou ist ein sehr schwieriges Spiel, ein Spiel um Fertigkeit, ein Spiel um Selbstverbesserung, ein Spiel in dem der Spieler häufig üben muss, um besser zu werden. Der Schwierigkeitsgrad mag vielleicht entmutigen, aber die Spiele sind nicht unschaffbar: Bedenke dass es viele Leute gibt, die die Extra Stage oder sogar den Lunatic Modus schaffen können.

Deswegen ist es keine Schande, alle seine Leben zu verlieren: es ist ein normaler Teil des Gameplays, und es bedeutet nicht, dass du das Spiel nicht kannst, sondern dass du mehr üben musst, und wenn du immer weiterübst, dann wirst du es irgendwann schaffen ein 1-credit-clear (1CC) in dem Spiel und der Schwierigkeit zu erringen, die du dir ausgesucht hast. Also rege dich nicht auf, wenn du wegen einer Kugel die du nicht gesehen hast, verlierst; spiele weiter, egal wie oft du verlierst, und irgendwann wird das Sperrfeuer, welches einst unausweichbar schien, machbar werden, du wist den Final Boss erreichen, und du wirst durch dichte Muster navigieren, als würdest du einen Spaziergang machen.

Konzentriere dich nur auf den Sieg

Einige Spieler werden dir empfehlen, keine Bomben zu benutzen, oder einige Charaktere nicht zu benutzen weil es "zu einfach" wäre. Höre nicht auf sowas. Dein Ziel, als Anfänger, ist es, das Spiel zu schaffen, einfach nur das, und nichts mehr -- wenn du irgendetwas versuchst, was über deinem Niveau ist, wirst du scheitern. Sei pragmatisch, und benutze alles was das Spiel dir bietet, um zum Ende zu gelangen. Beutze so viele Bomben wie nötig, versuche verschidene Charaktere und benutze nur die, mit denen du gut umgehen kannst, und sieh, welche Spell Cards einfacher sind und welche nicht.

Benutze Continues und den Practice Mode

Zu oft gibt es einen Stage Abschnitt, einen Boss, oder eine Spellcard die du as irgendeinem Grund besonders schwer finden wirst; vielleicht liegt es daran dass du (noch) nicht weißt, wie du ausweichen musst, oder du kannst die Schüsse nicht richtig nachvollziehen, oder du hast (noch) nicht die Fertigkeit auszuweichen. Dafür ist der Stage Practice Mode da, und das ist auch der Grund warum Imperishable Night, Ten Desires, und Double Dealing Character einen Spell Practice Modus haben. Dadurch hast du nicht nur die Möglichkeit, die Stellen, an denen du häufig scheiterst zu üben, und deine Überlebenschancen zu erhöhen, sondern es wird dir insgesamt helfen, deine Fertigkeiten weiter zu entwickeln und dein Gameplay verbessern.

Wenn du dann das Spiel nicht mit einem einzigen Credit beenden kannst, beutze ruhig ein Continue: sie geben dir eine weitere Chance, deine Fertigkeiten zu verbessern und weiter voranzukommen. Außerdem kannst du so weiterspielen und mehr Stages üben, als wenn du einfach aufhören würdest.

Lerne die Hitbos

Die Hitbox inUndefined Fantastic Object .

Danmaku Spiele setzen visuelle Ablenkungen ein, um den Spieler zu verwirren. Der Hauptkomponet dieses Konzepts ist die Hitbox, welche fast immer kleiner ist, als der Sprite des Spielers. Dies bezieht sich nicht nur auf den Spieler sondern auch auf die Geschosse. Aus Erfahrung wirst du sgaen können, wie nahe man ohne Sorge an das Geschoss herangehen kann.

Während die PC-98 Spiele und Embodiment of Scarlet Devil die Hitbox des Charakters nicht indizieren, ist in allen anderen Spielen die Hitbox genau angezeigt. Es handelt sich um einen weißen Punkt im Sprite, der erscheint wenn die slow/focus Taste gedrückt wird. Selbst wenn die Hitbox (während unfokussierter Bewegung) nicht sichtbar ist, lässt sich vom Sprite des Charakters ungefähr der Aufenthaltsort der Hitbox bestimmen.

Benutze den ganzen Bildschirm

Viele neue Spieler halten sich hauptsächlich am unteren Bildschirmrand auf, um eine größtmögliche Reaktionszeit zu haben. Das Problem daran ist, dass der Spieler sich auf eine einzige Dimension, links und rechts, festlegt . Viele erweiterte Muster verlangen die Nutzung der zweiten Dimension, um abgewehrt zu werden, weswegen du dich mit der Idee anfreunden solltest, den ganzen Bildschirm zu benutzen.

Der Sammelpunkt ist ebenfalls ein guter Grund, sich im oberen Bildschirm aufzuhalten, aber während der Bosse solltest du dich nicht zu weit oben aufhalten.

Erweitert

Streaming

Streaming Beispiel : links, mit / rechts, ohne

Streaming, or herding, is the basic principle of controlling bullets in danmaku shooters. The majority of the enemy shots are aimed directly at you, so by standing still, you're effectively luring the enemies to shoot at the spot you're in. To take advantage of this, move as little as possible so that you can gather all aimed bullets in one tight stream slowly following you from one side. This way, you can dodge most of the incoming bullet bursts with just a small tap away from the stream, giving yourself more freedom to move in case of emergency.

To change the direction of the herd, do a quick move away from the stream (called "jerk" or "cutback") to make an opening, wait a bit to let the enemies re-adjust their aim to your new location, then proceed streaming to the opposite direction. It is advised to make cutbacks perpendicular to the stream source to increase the size of the opening (i.e., if the majority of the bullets are shot from the center of the screen, and you're streaming from left to right, cutback diagonally towards the top-right corner of the screen). If you're doing it right, the opening will be large enough to let you go through, no matter how dense the bullet stream is. As a rule of thumb, it is a good idea to cutback when you're reaching one third of the screen.

The more experienced you get, the more calm and confident you become about the streams and going through openings. As such, the technique becomes the key to evading most aimed attacks; danmaku shooters developed by Cave popularised the U-shaped movement pattern based entirely around streaming and doing cutbacks at the edges of the screen to be able to survive the bullet onslaught during the stages.

Streaming is commonly used when moving left or right, although purely vertical streaming does exist. Some cards where streaming is essential include Sakuya's, Yuyuko's, and Kaguya's.

This technique is the key to getting many graze points from any streamable attack.

Advanced

Memorization

This is a necessary skill to get good at all games. While there is enough randomization to keep it interesting, learning the general flow of the patterns is essential for success, particularly in the Extra stages.

Memorization is especially prevalent if you're doing scoreruns as opposed to playing for survival, since scoring systems in games like Perfect Cherry Blossom and Mountain of Faith require you to remember the correct bombing locations and enemy appearance timing to succeed.

Expand your visual range

Don't focus on just your character and the boss marker on the bottom. Try to look at a greater area, so you can read more bullets and try to determine their paths. With enough practice, you should be able to interpret the bullets around you and figure out the best way to move.

Combined with effective use of streaming, you can safely observe the whole screen and react accordingly. Certain players also advise looking at your shot to determine the precise horizontal position without having to look directly at the character.

Community rules of conduct

Forming part of a community of fellow players can greatly enhance your experience as a Touhou player, especially considering many Touhou players have a significant emotional commitment to their hobby stemming from all the effort they have invested in clearing the games. In addition, being around greatly skilled players can be an excellent way to learn and to receive feedback about your skills, and being around people who have your same interest can lead to making new friends -- it is in fact not uncommon for two Touhou players who have only seen each other online to strike an offline friendship and act like they were best friends. However, like all communities, there are some implicit yet necessary rules to follow:

• Be humble; don't brag. Regardless of how skilled you consider yourself, in a medium as far-reaching as the Internet there are lots of fellow Touhou players who are much more skilled than you. So if you brag about having cleared Imperishable Night on Normal, chances are you'll get an ego-crushing retort like "Ha! I've finished UFO on Lunatic with both legs cut off, in the night, drunk, with three IRS collectors knocking on my door, on the run from two Russian Mafia henchmen".
• The same goes the opposite way: even if you're skilled, don't brag. You don't want to crush a poor budding player's motivation by rubbing in his face his lack of skills. Even if you can clear UFO on Lunatic and the other guy still hasn't figured out Cirno's Icicle Fall Easy this is absolutely not a cool thing to do, it scares newcomers away, and you never know if today's newcomer could be tomorrow's Touhou champion.
• If you're a newbie, it might be intimidating to be surrounded by so many experts. However, rest assured that these experts usually appreciate when someone shows willingness to learn. Even if you're literally the worst player of your entire Hisoutensoku community, even if Soku is literally the only serious fighting game you've played in your life and you can barely defeat the story mode, and even if you have to resort to calling yourself the group's resident punching bag, if you show you want to become a better player you will get respect even from the cream of the crop of the group -- sometimes even more than a self-centered expert!
• Discussions about the literary side of Touhou Project are part and parcel of any Touhou community, what with all the official expanded universe that has been written over the years. In these cases, make sure you distinguish between canon (stuff that actually happened) and fanon (fan theories that are at best merely plausible and at worst blatant untruths). It is generally considered very bad form to mix them up. Referencing this wiki can greatly help.
• Unless your community explicitly states otherwise, do not ask for download links. It is a controversial issue among some communities and it's better if you avoid it altogether.
• Remember that all people are different. The people you're talking with could very well know you're just kidding, and the next people you're talking with could take your insults seriously and feel offended.
• In the same way, remember that all communities are different: two different forums about the same thing and sharing the same basic culture will have different attitudes, different people, different opinions, and what one group might find acceptable another could find it offensive. If you have already gotten to know a certain community and yet don't feel satisfied, don't hesitate to move -- there are plenty of them, from Steam groups to Facebook groups to dedicated online forums, and it's not like there's anything that prevents you from freely moving to another forum.
• Don't test your moderator's patience. They hate people who ask questions that have already been covered by an FAQ, they hate people who badger other fellow players or disrupt the peace and order of a community, and quite often they actually get off on punishing trolls and shitposters with extreme prejudice.
• Act decently; don't be lewd. Even if it's the internet, it leaves a very bad impression about yourself and the group when you start sharing your dirty thoughts about a fictional character. Mind you, this doesn't means you should be a square, you just need to act like you'd act in an IRL group setting.
• Even if you're tired, write correctly. Use a spell checker, and if English is not your first language, use a thesaurus, a dictionary, and help yourself but don't abuse Google Translate.

Advice

• The final golden rule of Touhou, and all videogames in general, is to play to your fullest and have fun: give all your effort and have fun, but don't force yourself to the point of turning it into heart-wrenching suffering. Play for yourself and only yourself, and have fun in doing so -- it is admittedly easy to fall into relentless competition due to the way people sometimes express themselves on the internet.
• It does not matters where you come from or what you used to do, you are welcome to the world of danmaku. Do you come from playing a lot of Dodonpachi or other CAVE shooters? Welcome aboard. Were you a pro-level Starcraft or LOL champion? Welcome aboard. Were you the top-ranked player of a huge Counter Strike server? Welcome aboard. Was Candy Crush the last game you played? Welcome aboard. Did you used to play absolutely everything on Easy out of fear of losing? Welcome abord. What you used to do does not matter, the only thing that matters is where you stand here and now.
• Don't feel bad if you're not naturally good at danmaku. Comparing yourself to others on the internet is pointless, simply because on the internet there will always be someone better than you -- if you can clear UFO on Lunatic without holding Shift with no bombs, there will be someone who can do the same but with the Ultra mod. Different people advance at different paces, and nobody has ever declared that this was a competition. As stated before, people can show more respect and encouragement for someone who is putting effort in his playing technique, than for someone who is already at the top -- even if it takes you three years to clear Imperishable Night on Normal, it's the three years of effort that count.
• If you're not naturally good at danmaku, don't quit! It does not matters where you come from Otherwise, your skill will quickly decay, and it will be very demotivating to keep going afterwards.
• Once again: Touhou is not a mainstream game series, where anyone who is skilled enough can start from a high difficulty right off the bat and figure out stuff on the fly. It requires far more skill than your average modern videogame. It literally takes years of practice and a good heap of natural talent to clear a game on Lunatic. If you're a beginner and try to pull this off, you'll just end up getting crushed with extreme prejudice.
• Some players suggest starting from Normal mode, not Easy, arguing that discovering Touhou on the easiest difficulty setting will ruin your skills forever. This depends greatly on your natural talent and your ability to endure repeated defeat, however, so don't hesitate to go for Easy if you really find this learning curve way too steep.
• Unlike mainstream videogames, Extra Mode is not playing the game once again with extra bonuses -- it is a one-shot, very difficult stage usually comparable in overall difficulty to the normal game on Hard.