KirbyComment
東方妖々夢 ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom Demo (v0.01) - Lunatic No Miss No Bomb
updated
If instead you time the photo right after the timer hits 0.00s, the boss still dashes up offscreen but this action gets interrupted halfway and the next phase continues while the boss is in an unintended location (that being above the screen), as can be seen in the 7-1 example.
Because of how the glitch works, this works in multi-phase scenes only. The scenes shown aren't all of the multi-phase scenes, but these are enough examples to get the point across. And if it wasn't clear, these replays were TASed out of convenience.
Edit: In Double Spoiler this glitch does not work. There is however a glitch where there's a 4 frame window or 10 zoom frame window where you can take a photo of the boss, the boss still runs away, but the scene is considered cleared in the results screen. Whether the scene menu actually considers it a clear is unclear. This was something I had already discovered in mid 2020 when TASing 6-4 but now did finally make a clip of: streamable.com/cetiqx
0:00 1-1
1:24 1-5
2:16 2-1
2:51 7-1
3:39 10-1
In celebration of Shoot the Bullet's 18th birthday, this video was made as a collection of the highest scoring runs in every scene of this game. I want this video to be an easy way to view scoring runs in this game without having to download replays and even inspire some of you to try out any of these interesting scenes.
Special thanks to @iaasibt5156 for providing replays that were previously unaccounted for! I know there are still some scores missing, such as a 465k score in 6-6 as mentioned in this clip: clips.twitch.tv/DreamyTransparentKimchiFutureMan
The replay files used to make this video can be found here: mega.nz/file/kuEhzTjL#bu3dXncOzZ0v2ZLCmvsP94xltPtYEO4BihMQvRLXsNY
0:00 Level 1
5:57 Level 2
12:58 Level 3
22:49 Level 4
36:02 Level 5
46:19 Level 6
57:40 Level 7
1:11:33 Level 8
1:26:27 Level 9
1:40:21 Level 10
1:50:54 Level EX
2:05:23 End
I noticed there was an improvement possible in the first phase. By placing Aya's second and third blue ring in a certain way, you can include up to 8 of her bullets into the photo, increasing the score by 2,160 points per photo. I also wasn't that happy with the second phase in my 7.659m TAS, as I didn't really try to manipulate RNG much at all during it. This time I put much more effort into it by trying to get Aya to shoot bullets of certain speeds into the area where I want to take the photo while also trying to control how much she moves vertically. This phase is where I ultimately gained the most score (39,940 points).
Replay: http://replay.lunarcast.net/replay/th95_ud5817.rpy
My old 7.659m TAS: youtube.com/watch?v=Rju41gL22X4
kopiapoa's TAS (7,438,990): onedrive.live.com/?id=5F605626EE9F58E5%214741&cid=5F605626EE9F58E5
chum's TAS (7,390,700): http://replays.gensokyou.org/replays/th95/th95_udAS05.rpy
This video showcases the highest scoring run in every scene in Double Spoiler with Hatate. I hope this to be a way to view scoring runs in this game without downloading replays and even inspire some of you to try out any of these interesting scenes.
As a sidenote, the legitimacy of CLR's scores have been called into question. These are still shown as there is no conclusive proof and these scores (among all others) still serve as a reference point to learn about the strategies used to get these scores.
A Shoot the Bullet video will be in the works soon. I hope to have it done by the end of the year...
The replay files used to make this video can be found here: mega.nz/file/dmcVkYyY#IxpfR62VOw2z2Sia9leETx88Lttm1nsY4JPV4abJwfI
0:00 Level 1
4:42 Level 2
10:27 Level 3
20:37 Level 4
26:37 Level 5
36:18 Level 6
44:18 Level 7
53:25 Level 8
1:07:03 Level 9
1:17:43 Level 10
1:36:43 Level 11
1:47:31 Level 12
2:01:16 Level EX
2:16:39 Level SP
2:21:01 End
Not quite the 85m goal but it's close enough for me to be satisfied with it! I got a massive Stage 7 and 8. Then for Stage 9 I decided to just suicide on the first round because I wasn't feeling like having another run die to Yumemi being dumb. On the last round Yumemi got chain hit so it could've lasted a bit longer for a few more millions but so it be...
0:00 Stage 1
1:34 Stage 2
3:05 Stage 3
4:33 Stage 4
6:32 Stage 5
8:21 Stage 6
10:12 Stage 7
15:42 Stage 8
21:05 Stage 9
29:16 End
Former Shottype Record: 23/11/2023
80m achieved! The big highlight was Stage 7. I got a very strong winning round on it. However the luck kind of fell apart in the final stage. I will try to reach out for something higher. 90m is technically achievable but I'll be happy if I get close to 85m.
This video showcases the highest scoring run in every scene in Double Spoiler with Aya. This includes scenes SP-5 to SP-9 that are accessible with Aya with a glitch. I hope this to be a way to view scoring runs in this game without downloading replays and even inspire some of you to try out any of these interesting scenes.
As a sidenote, the legitimacy of CLR's scores have been called into question. These are still shown as there is no conclusive proof and these scores (among all others) still serve as a reference point to learn about the strategies used to get these scores.
The replay files used to make this video can be found here: mega.nz/file/9itUBACI#XZusQkAjcZFIYC9cGtoDGRZja76lyccGoraYUzQi43s
0:00 Level 1
5:22 Level 2
12:18 Level 3
23:19 Level 4
29:17 Level 5
38:39 Level 6
46:56 Level 7
56:34 Level 8
1:09:49 Level 9
1:23:46 Level 10
1:39:02 Level 11
1:49:00 Level 12
2:02:41 Level EX
2:19:05 Level SP
2:28:01 End
Former Shottype Record: 20/11/2023
This score will be improved, as this was pretty much a non-improvement from my 2018 score and Yumemi robbed me from letting me play the final round.
Rerecord count: 18,042
This is a scoring TAS of a more obscure route. I scored this route as a means to help out Dagoth pushing more potential out of his C2 grinds. This TAS tries to play like a human (kinda turned out poorly) and it did manage to implement some new optimizations. The strategies in this TAS were however somewhat compromised and there were some extra freezes I could've done. I don't think these improvements would be enough to amass enough motivation for an extra life though.
Replay: silentselene.net/replays/th128/75866
0:00 Stage 1
2:46 Star Sapphire
6:07 Stage 2
9:13 Luna Child
13:28 Stage 3
17:22 Three Fairies
Skull emoji
0:00 Round 1
3:27 Round 1 Chain
9:28 Round 2
12:55 Round 2 Chain
Nazrin is one of the hardest characters to 1cc with. There are however some strategies that can make 1cc more reasonable.
Charging to at least a Level 3 recharges your shield. This does need some luck but it always keeps you from having to use bombs, which I think are usually not at all useful. Nazrin's bomb prioritizes moving towards spirits and destructable EX attacks over the boss.
For the final boss, Nazrin's Level 2 becomes important. This summons a yellow wave that instantly kills activated spirits. This effect extends to Yachie's big otter spirits too and these spirits even count towards summoning automatic Level 3 and 4 summons. The Level 2 also gives you a pretty large amount of invincibility frames which are useful to pass through the walls of Yachie's normal and penultimate spell.
Now Nazrin's Level 3 is also important. This summons a wave of pendulums. These have a chance to make the AI get hit. It losing all hearts is also a win condition. The pendulums break AI in the same way how PoDD AI gets broken (large objects they dodge poorly). When mixing summons from the big Level 2 cancels with manual Level 3s, you can get multiple waves of pendulums being fired simultaneously, which makes it unlikely the AI will dodge all of it, even with the protection from her Level 1 and 2.
The consequence of this strategy against the final boss however is that many things get reflected from both sides, thus making the playfield more intense. This was more fun and satisfying though and really got me used to this boss.
With this goal achieved, I'm probably done playing this game seriously. I may still decide to go for an Orin clear if it's not too frustrating, as at first glance she seemed even worse than Nazrin to play and not in a good way. Her Level 2 even has a glitch where it kills you if you're too high on the screen.
For a Twitch replay and other random moments I had with this game, check the highlights:
twitch.tv/KirbyComment/videos?filter=highlights
0:00 Stage 1 - Orin
2:59 Stage 2 - Ran
5:24 Stage 3 - Seiran
7:49 Stage 4 - Mamizou
11:03 Stage 5 - Enoko
14:02 Stage 6 - Yachie
Reimu changed little in this game compared to the demo. Her Level 2 still does immense pointblank damage. The only thing I know changed is that her Level 2 can no longer constantly cancel Marisa's lasers, which isn't a nice change considering her lasers are hard to see through Level 2 summon.
I did clear Reimu on Normal on my very first credit, struggled for 5 hours to get my first Lunatic 1cc and after 5 more hours went back to Reimu. I then got an LNN on the first attempt.
I'm not going further and add No Focus on this one like I did for the demo, nor am I going to do No Charge. I will try to at least get a 1cc with Nazrin (and to that extent also No Focus because of her extremely sluggish focus speed), but beyond that I will probably only mess around in VS and Netplay somewhat, as there really isn't much else left for this game to offer, as it has no score.
For a Twitch replay and other random moments I had with this game, check the highlights:
twitch.tv/KirbyComment/videos?filter=highlights
0:00 Stage 1 - Aunn
1:24 Stage 2 - Nazrin
3:14 Stage 3 - Marisa
5:08 Stage 4 - Suika
6:55 Stage 5 - Hisami
8:59 Stage 6 - Zanmu
So there is at least one character that melts AI and I did suspect it to be this character. Chiyari (not to be confused with Chiyuri) summons spirits that chase you when you get close to them and the CPU does not have the foresight to know where to move to misdirect them. It seems they will even just sit still if they are inside of their character's hitbox.
To give a brief opinion of this game from a first impression. It is fun, but there are alot of characters that are weak on-field and the few that aren't are vastly superior in the DPS department. There are some other unfair imbalances and bugs that make things irritating. The addition of a shield mechanic I think is interesting. It does make using Level 4s to recharge them a risk-reward choice, as you will be a sitting duck for a while. The game as expected didn't add replays or score, making the incentive to replay much less, when a game like this should stay relevant for a longer time than the regular 2hus in my opinion. The game can basically only live off of PvP, but whether this is reasonable remains to be seen. Alot of characters may just get banned for just giving the other side no chance.
For a Twitch replay and other random moments I had with this game, check the highlights:
twitch.tv/KirbyComment/videos?filter=highlights
0:00 Stage 1 - Yuuma
2:46 Stage 2 - Nazrin
5:29 Stage 3 - Mamizou
8:12 Stage 4 - Orin
11:05 Stage 5 - Hisami
14:15 Stage 6 - Suika
This is one of few scenes where real time runs can't get close to the boss. Here I try to get very close to the boss with max Risk Bonus and getting Back Shots. The waiting is done so that the boss moves towards the large swirly ring that expands the most. There's always one swirly ring that does so and I can include some of it's leftovers in the photo.
Later on in the TAS I did find out that taking defensives does change the bullet pattern. Otherwise not doing so makes the RNG for every wave pre-determined, so that way I was able to get good photos more reliably. Doing this could've probably gotten me around 629k if I fixed the first two photos and went for high optimization.
It is worth noting that the large bullets can't be micro'd through even in a TAS, except for the very last two bullets fired. I also demonstrate how using zoom frames can distort patterns. This same oddity exists in StB as well.
Replay: http://replay.lunarcast.net/replay/th125_ud5372.rpy
Struggling to get good rounds going. I was only 3.8m ahead going into Stage 9, but I also had 4 lives less, meaning I should've been ahead by far more. This run only PBd because of an 11-minute Yumemi round.
All the luck was great this run. I did make some sad survival errors in the lategame, making me lose my lives quicker into rounds than I wanted, but the winning rounds on Stage 7 to 9 were all great!
0:00 Stage 1
1:28 Stage 2
2:58 Stage 3
4:40 Stage 4
6:31 Stage 5
8:39 Stage 6
10:20 Stage 7
15:55 Stage 8
23:10 Stage 9
30:33 End
Former Shottype Record: 10/06/2023
Second attempt of getting back to PoDD Hard for a bit again. This run randomly got a huge winning Stage 7 and 8 round, but unfortunately I wasted a life from Yumemi getting forked and winning prematurely
The match against Marisa was by far the hardest, but I actually somehow got her to take hits from spirits only, which was very lucky. Meanwhile I believe my match against Aunn took just one attempt and the rest also took much much less time than Marisa.
0:00 Aunn
2:03 Nazrin
5:20 Reimu
8:59 Seiran
11:50 Marisa
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/386171179758649344/1105246287709884566/SPOILER_image.png
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/386171179758649344/1105246288288690267/SPOILER_image.png
Sadly this madness wasn't really present in this run very much, but I'm not gonna do another run to show it off or anything.
Nazrin could be one of, if not one of the hardest characters to clear as of right now. I tried to 1cc Lunatic with Nazrin without using focused speed, as using this movespeed makes her move almost 4 times slower (equal to Charge Speed in StB and DS) and that's really bad for a game where slow movespeed is discouraged. She's also difficult because most credits will encounter Reimu in Stage 1 or 2, who I think is the hardest opponent in the game. There is no noticable limit to how many Yin-Yang Orbs can be on screen. I've ran into several situations where I got (close to) completely walled by them.
I'll probably write up somewhere what my final thoughts of the game are someplace else once I've collected my thoughts on it. The game is okay so far, but there are alot of things that could prove very detrimental to the replay value. This may turn into another game where you play and mess around for a few days and then never play it again, if certain features currently absent stay absent.
After a month of grinding this (and despite 2 years of not playing Lunatic) I was able to get a huge PB. This category is really nasty given the score variance is huge with Yumemi. Opponents also love to be very uncooperative and die immediately or they'll wreck you. I've been struggling alot with the final three opponents.
Yumemi lasted 4:29 this time which is a long time. Thankfully I was lucky with my survival this time. Even while playing safe that was still a good round. I've had another run a few sessions before this one that had the same score into Stage 9 (103m) where Yumemi died in less than 2 minutes and only got 107m as my final score. A 4m round compared to this being a 14m round should say something about said variance. It can be very frustrating. There's nothing you can do about this. You generally just have to hope your boss Yumemi doesn't do the cross attack alot, since the AI gets hit by that 80-90% of the time.
Former PB / Shottype Record: 22/04/2023
I've come back to a bit more podding on Lunatic. The last time I did was when I got the immensely strong 122m with Reimu. This was the only shot I wasn't really happy with yet, but it's also a very luckbased category.
This run started off very strong in the earlygame, even with a death in Stage 5. Unfortunately the last Chiyuri and Yumemi round scored poorly because the rounds ended far too early. Even if Yumemi just survived maybe 10 seconds longer, I could've gotten 110m. Obviously even more could've been obtained if the unfortunate luck and somewhat poor performance on the other late game rounds weren't there. I will try some more to get 110m.
This is a new improved version of the Makai TAS I did earlier. I changed the VSync setting on Neko Project so that the immense bullet flickering is no longer present, so you get to see the actual flicker improvements from the Anniversary Edition.
As mentioned in the old video, you only get access to shooting amulets and swiping away the ball or bullets when doing a No Movement run. The old run finished with a 12 Miss 13 Bomb. This new run ends with a 7 Miss 9 Bomb clear.
I did find a way to get the panels in the very top corners during the Jigoku TAS, but the one stage that had a panel positioned in this way (Stage 16), had a bumper in the way, so it still had to be bombed. The larger amount of rerecords were mainly due to spending alot of time manipulating teleporter RNG in Stage 8 to maximize score. In Stage 19 I also spent alot of extra rerecords to make sure that Sariel's lasers didn't kill me, she didn't switch phases quickly and her phase 1 bird pattern wasn't the aimed pattern.
Jigoku TAS: youtube.com/watch?v=Vj21U7KZ8L4
Anniversary Edition page: github.com/nmlgc/ReC98/releases
0:00 Stage 1-4
1:51 Stage 5
2:43 Stage 6-9
5:03 Stage 10
5:56 Stage 11-14
8:02 Stage 15
9:06 Stage 16-19
11:17 Stage 20
I finished my Makai TAS recently, so I decided to tackle the Jigoku route as well. I managed to make some improvements to the first five stages, going from 4 Miss 2 Bomb to 1 Miss 2 Bomb. Another resource improvement is that I managed to make the very top-corner panels just barely hittable without having to bomb, but only with the swipe move. The ball has to be at a very specific height and the ball needs to be hit as early as possible. The only stage where there was an unhittable panel here was Stage 16. This run ends with a resource use of 4 Miss 6 Bomb.
During this run I enabled the Disp vsync option in Neko Project, as having it disabled was causing immense flicker during the Makai run. Thank you to Nmlgc for pointing that out. This run is also running a bugfixed patch of the Anniversary Edition, as the first iteration of this patch caused graphical bugs during the TLB phase of Sariel's fight that weren't in the original game, though these graphical bugs weren't really visible during the Makai run.
With the above fixes, I will now redo my Makai TAS. I can get a No Movement clear with less resources spent and also make the footage look cleaner by applying the aforementioned fixes.
Makai TAS: youtube.com/watch?v=59HcxfC6KdI
Anniversary Edition page: github.com/nmlgc/ReC98/releases
0:00 Stage 1-4
1:51 Stage 5
2:43 Stage 6-9
4:38 Stage 10
5:21 Stage 11-14
7:22 Stage 15
8:36 Stage 16-19
10:45 Stage 20
Rerecord count: 3,559
When doing No Movement, you only get access to shooting amulets and swiping away the ball or bullets. Nobody has done this in real-time yet but I do believe it's possible. This TAS could have probably spent a little less resources, but there are points where I'm forced to die because of too many bullets coming at me from an angle or because the panels in a stage are unreachable without bombing.
I played this TAS back on the first Anniversary Edition, released by ReC98 on 5 March 2023 in celebration of this game being fully reverse-engineered. Unfortunately this patch doesn't fully function on Neko Project which I had to use to make and play back the TAS. There are points where there's alot of bullet flickering, perhaps even more than the original. Perhaps once I figure out how to fix that or a more updated Neko Project comes out, I may re-upload this one. I will probably make a TAS of the Jigoku route soon.
Jigoku TAS: youtube.com/watch?v=Vj21U7KZ8L4
0:00 Stage 1-4
1:19 Stage 5
2:09 Stage 6-9
3:16 Stage 10
4:16 Stage 11-14
7:07 Stage 15
8:16 Stage 16-19
11:06 Stage 20
There have been nine total players who submitted for at least one of out 10 scenes in Shoot the Bullet and Double Spoiler. Five of them were new to photogame scoring. Thanks to everyone who participated and congrats to Fallen Wisp and Acaride for taking the first place in 1 and 9 of the scenes respectively.
Twitch VOD: twitch.tv/videos/1749071310
0:00 StB 1-6
26:05 StB 3-3
43:40 StB 7-1
1:00:46 StB 7-8
1:14:52 DS 2-5 (Aya)
1:25:59 DS 8-7 (Aya)
1:43:14 DS 11-6 (Aya)
2:00:20 DS 3-3 (Hatate)
2:12:37 DS 8-2 (Hatate)
2:22:36 StB 7-6
Leaderboard: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R3Pkc0oM5kCvKscDwKYdzHVXVzEx1KMvhoB9tmLRz9Y/edit?usp=sharing
Shoot the Bullet Scorefile: cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1059043669363142656/1061232392133677066/scoreth095.dat
Double Spoiler Scorefile: cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1059043669363142656/1061232392465035264/scoreth125.dat
Server invite link: discord.com/invite/dzHtJ4bdTz
StB Scoring Replays: maribelhearn.com/royalflare/th095
DS Scoring Replays: maribelhearn.com/royalflare/th125
The Shoot the Spoiler 3 tournament has now begun! These are the scenes that have been voted for. This tournament lasts until 19 Febuary 23:59 CET. To recap: StS is a fun and casual scoring competition involving the photogames: Shoot the Bullet and Double Spoiler. When you participate, any level of dedication is welcome! The goal is to simply have fun together and try out some photogame scoring!
You can submit without being in the Discord server linked above - being in the server is not a requirement to participate. There are two scorefiles for StB and DS with all scenes unlocked in case you need one. For scoring strategies beyond the ones shown in these recent StS 3 videos, you can download replays from Maribel's RoyalFlare archives linked above.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or leave a direct message on Discord (KirbyComment#8925)
Had to improvize Evil Eye Σ because I somehow died to one of it's cronies and thus had one bomb less. Would've been a good run if not for that, but I may not be getting a run past the point item birds again tomorrow.
Only the second run to get past the orb spam section of Stage 3. It kills you way too much because they like to stack up and the non-piercing side shots don't kill them fast enough. No deaths this time too. I only really accidentally let Marisa die because I miscounted. I've been doing this embarrassingly often. Still satisfied though.
Former World Record: 09/01/2023
ReimuA's piercing shot doesn't occupy a whole lot of the screen, meaning that if enemies stack up too much, you basically just take a death. That's annoyingly common in Stage 2 and 3. I got past those two parts once but then the rest of the run went into the gutter. With savestates my run scores around 25.3m.
Former Shottype Record: 08/06/2023
I was just playing PoDD with Yumemi for the Christmas occasion and I ended up PBing by about 70k
Voting form: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfHo6HruFGORN-tRcFp3-3A9sgFDNuHbVva3Pp3pFKdte8N_g/viewform?usp=sf_link
Fan Favourite! voting choices: youtube.com/watch?v=Ay0G9BuCAHY
Submission form: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdhesQETDTb4o49vfwXLm5L1UoADaieeezOS7Ht1Iy28MbKyg/viewform?usp=sf_link
Leaderboard: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R3Pkc0oM5kCvKscDwKYdzHVXVzEx1KMvhoB9tmLRz9Y/edit?usp=sharing
The third Shoot the Spoiler tournament is around the corner! StS is a fun and casual scoring competition involving the photogames: Shoot the Bullet and Double Spoiler.
If this peaks your interest, the way it's going to work is that we will be having 10 categories. Each category has two scenes you can vote between before StS starts. The categories will be laid out as follows:
• 4 Shoot the Bullet scenes
• 3 Double Spoiler scenes playing as Aya
• 2 Double Spoiler scenes playing as Hatate
• 1 Fan Favorite scene, picking 3 out of 20 of the scenes played in Shoot the Spoiler 1 and 2.
To help your decision, these two videos provide a quick and organized showcase of the scenes you can pick between.
The Shoot the Spoiler 3 competition will last from January 20th 18:00 CET until Febuary 19th 23:59 CET. You can vote for the scenes in the 10 categories until three days before the competition starts (January 17th 23:59 CET). When you participate, any level of dedication is welcome! You don't have to play all of the scenes. You could play only your most favourite scene, or give all 10 scenes some attention. The goal is to have fun together and try out some photogame scoring!
For the tenth category, you can vote three out of the 20 categories played in the previous two Shoot the Spoiler tournaments. Whichever scene gets the most votes will be played as the tenth category. If the winner is a Double Spoiler category, there will be a second poll in the Shoot the Spoiler server to decide which character we play. The voting choices for this tenth category is linked at the top of the description.
0:00 Category 1 Choice 1 (StB 1-4)
1:06 Category 1 Choice 2 (StB 1-6)
2:27 Category 2 Choice 1 (StB 3-3)
4:06 Category 2 Choice 2 (StB 5-3)
5:27 Category 3 Choice 1 (StB 7-1)
7:27 Category 3 Choice 2 (StB 10-1)
8:34 Category 4 Choice 1 (StB 7-8)
10:03 Category 4 Choice 2 (StB 10-6)
11:09 Category 5 Choice 1 (DS 2-5 Aya)
11:50 Category 5 Choice 2 (DS 4-7 Aya)
12:41 Category 6 Choice 1 (DS 8-1 Aya)
14:31 Category 6 Choice 2 (DS 8-7 Aya)
16:52 Category 7 Choice 1 (DS 9-4 Aya)
18:25 Category 7 Choice 2 (DS 11-6 Aya)
21:14 Category 8 Choice 1 (DS 3-3 Hatate)
22:43 Category 8 Choice 2 (DS 3-6 Hatate)
23:38 Category 9 Choice 1 (DS 8-2 Hatate)
24:23 Category 9 Choice 2 (DS 10-2 Hatate)
Voting form: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfHo6HruFGORN-tRcFp3-3A9sgFDNuHbVva3Pp3pFKdte8N_g/viewform?usp=sf_link
Main category voting choices: youtube.com/watch?v=Pceipkhiy84
Submission form: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdhesQETDTb4o49vfwXLm5L1UoADaieeezOS7Ht1Iy28MbKyg/viewform?usp=sf_link
Leaderboard: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R3Pkc0oM5kCvKscDwKYdzHVXVzEx1KMvhoB9tmLRz9Y/edit?usp=sharing
For the tenth category, you can vote three out of the 20 categories played in the previous two Shoot the Spoiler tournaments. Whichever scene gets the most votes will be played as the tenth category. If the winner is a Double Spoiler category, there will be a second poll in the Shoot the Spoiler server to decide which character we play. The replays shown here are the winning scores from the previous two tournaments.
0:00 Choice 1 (StB 1-5)
0:59 Choice 2 (StB 7-6)
2:47 Choice 3 (StB 9-6)
4:33 Choice 4 (StB EX-3)
6:04 Choice 5 (DS 1-4)
6:32 Choice 6 (DS 8-3)
9:01 Choice 7 (DS 8-6)
11:00 Choice 8 (DS 9-6)
13:11 Choice 9 (DS 9-2)
14:28 Choice 10 (DS 12-4)
15:04 Choice 11 (StB 2-5)
16:24 Choice 12 (StB 6-8)
18:04 Choice 13 (StB 9-5)
19:54 Choice 14 (StB 10-8)
21:53 Choice 15 (DS 3-5)
22:52 Choice 16 (DS 5-4)
24:45 Choice 17 (DS 6-4)
25:37 Choice 18 (DS 10-7)
27:39 Choice 19 (DS 4-3)
28:56 Choice 20 (DS 12-8)
What I learned from TASing though would suggest to me that this would only be useful for the first photo for at least some RNG-based scenes, as the timing of the photo and the usage of Charge Speed will influence what happens next. So far this only seems useful for the first photo of certain scenes, like 4-7 and 9-7. The pattern changes midrun after taking the first photo.
In practice you'd basically have to make replays where you kill yourself as quick as possible and then test any replay to check whether they give you RNG you want.
CycloneFN seems to have discovered this in ISC originally: clips.twitch.tv/TolerantTemperedTildeSwiftRage-iMlMkhmHlrd22wl3
Shoot the Spoiler 3 is expected to be around the corner, so look forward to that. Two videos will be released that will showcase the scenes you can pick between, once again split up in 10 different categories. If there are any questions or possible suggestions you want to ask about, feel free to leave a comment or a private message. This upcoming tournament will be hosted by me this time around and I will likely not participate during it myself.
Twitch VOD: twitch.tv/videos/1075845245
Rerecord count: 14,427
After doing the segmented run, I've now gone ahead and done the first TAS for Lunatic, except with ReimuB since she's supposed to be better than MarisaA. The latter shot is simply the more popular pick. This score is within the 210-220m range I envisioned, but I did take noticable liberties. I also tried something a bit different with the suicide that's normally placed on Orange but was instead moved to Stage 2. That said, a few more millions could be achieved, though probably not enough to surpass 220m.
I learned in the Marisa fight that her timer varies. Her timer was a bit of a mystery until now. It's not that her timer is random. Rather that her timer is based on the number of attacks she does. In total she does either 50 or 52 attacks (have to re-count) and her orbs respawning is counted as one attack as well. This does mean the number of orb sets you can destroy is more finite than I'd hoped. In this case I destroyed 12, while my real-time runs aimed for destroying 9.
Spreadsheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19Lasy6b1kydcXy01TKbe0zkayaYV1i5Mq9Aoy1RZhfM/edit?usp=sharing
Replay: http://replay.lunarcast.net/replay/th10_ud4292.rpy
VOD: twitch.tv/videos/1567775379
On a whim I took a crack at TASing a scorerun of the earliest PCB Demo. As I was doing it, I realized a big difference:
Star Items are equal to your graze count in terms of score (rounded down). This is much more score than the full game. Coupled with the ability to get cancels at every 50,000 Cherry Points, allows you to get many cancels for Star Items. Since the Point Item Value also maxes out at 400,000 on Lunatic, this makes Point Items pretty irrelevant at some point.
This is just EoSD on steroids. Since I realized this big difference, I put a bit more effort into getting a big score, hoping to crack 1b. Stage 1 and the first half of Stage 2 ended up being a bit sloppy compared to the rest of the game. Overall though I didn't put real serious work into this. It took about a week to make this. Other differences I noticed that I didn't note in my LNN video are as follows:
★ Increasing the Spell Card Bonus by grazing increases it by alot less than in the full game. My best SCBs end up around 20m when the full game TAS gets bonuses of around up to 60m.
★ There's more spells that have reduced density than spells with increased density so there's slightly less graze to obtain.
★ Dying cuts your Cherry Point in half and using a bomb brings your Cherry Point down to roughly 70% of your current Cherry Point
★ Alice's second non is also 10 seconds shorter and her third non is 10 seconds longer (compared to fourth and third non respectively in the full game, since the non order is different).
★ There's a bug where if you kill Alice's penultimate in the last 1½ seconds or so, the final spell gets skipped, because the timer keeps going between the end of the penultimate and the beginning of the last spell. This bug almost ended the run prematurely when I was doing the TAS (clip linked below).
★ Not really a bug but still peculiar: if you use a bomb, your Cherry Point drains, but if you get a Star Item on the perfect frame, you can get a Cherry Cancel, as if you passed a 50k Cherry Point threshold. This happens once during the run, giving me the 100k Cherry message twice. This would likely also work if you got a Cherry Item during the bomb.
One more thing is that running this game in Windows 10 gives immense input delay. If you run this in Windows XP however (like I did to TAS this), the input delay is only 2 frames. The game is clearly designed with XP in mind, so it would actually be better to play this version on XP, given that there's no functional vpatch for this version.
Lunatic No Miss No Bomb (real-time): youtube.com/watch?v=ps1-p_IWJwQ
Replay: http://replay.lunarcast.net/replay/th7_ud4240.rpy
Alice Final Spell Skip Bug: streamable.com/k7ho30
Incredible progress has been made in my time PBs surviving the first round of Yumemi on Hard. This is mainly thanks to playing as Marisa. I can survive the longest with her. My PB I think was lying around 10 minutes (I never documented this specific round on Hard). I improved this to 12 minutes, 13:23 and now 16:23 with this run! Completely outlandish!
Originally I was trying to do a route where I forced myself to win the first round of Yumemi by getting there with no lives left. I thought this might make PBing more consistent, however I was having some trouble. For this specific attempt I switched to a route where I basically just replace the life on Stage 7 to Stage 9, so I have a spare life. The first round I ended up getting, would've given me around the same score had I won this round, compared to what I ended up getting. Let this be an indicator how incredibly difficult it is to make winning the first round worth it score-wise on Hard. With this 16-minute round I was teetering on the edge of winning Round 1 being worth more, or less.
My luck was great enough that since grinding a week or more ago, I've never seen a 10m Clear Bonus. This run gets two of them in a row. That was certainly more than enough to make up for the shitty first Yumemi round. That is now the third 100m on Hard.
Former Shottype Record: 20/07/2022
Feels so bad
The first Chiyuri/Yumemi round weren't great, but this is sufficient. I've played Kotohime a little over a week, so on to another character
Former Shottype Record: 08/07/2022
Besides the first round of Chiyuri, nothing was really outstanding about this run. I will try for more for a little longer.
Former Shottype Record: 02/07/2022
My Stage 7 and 8 weren't very good in this run, but Stage 9 was solid. I could go for 100m in this category, but that may prove difficult. I will at least try to get 95m for now.
TASVideos publication: tasvideos.org/4738M
This has been my biggest TAS project by far. I started working on this since October 2021, but didn't truly get started until November, so this TAS has been about 6-7 months in the making.
The improvements are much more significant than I anticipated. The big improvement here is the random enemy sections, where I was able to manipulate where enemies spawn. This I can do by killing an enemy that's already on screen on a certain frame. I can't be perfect in this however, especially in Stage 2 where some enemies spawn at twice the rate. In any case, this did allow me to make major improvements to the item count and reached my main goal with this TAS (700 items). This run even managed to not drop a single Point Item that any enemy dropped.
Other improvements include optimized extend cancels, phase cancels, cancel bonuses, killing more enemies to advance the item cycle more and tick point optimizations.
Spreadsheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TjH-pkLybfzcZCoX6y9xQb4TP-tjWWlDJV5sihvg9ec/edit?usp=sharing
Timestamps
0:00 Stage 1
3:02 Stage 1 Boss: Sara
4:33 Stage 2
6:39 Stage 2 Boss: Louise
7:48 Stage 3
10:48 Stage 3 Boss: Alice
14:55 Stage 4
18:36 Stage 4 Boss: Yuki & Mai
19:56 Stage 4 Boss: Mai
25:53 Stage 5
28:31 Stage 5 Boss: Yumeko
30:41 Stage 6
31:25 Stage 6 Boss: Shinki
34:37 End
This route does not take into account any deaths, but you can die to Elly technically. You can also opt to have this extra Stage 6 bomb to use on the rings in Stage 5, as that's the hardest part to survive. The things done in this video should work with ReimuB as well, except for the Kurumi midboss graze, where you would technically have to spend more time having to stay down and possibly spend less time graze-milking. The spawn grazing of the yellow bullets on Hikariko is irrelevant, given how easily you reach the graze limit in Stage 4. I chose to play MarisaA simply because most players pick her and for survival she's definitely the best pick. ReimuB should in theory score a little more but on the whole, all shots in this game are pretty balanced in terms of score potential.
Safe route: youtube.com/watch?v=cjkPWLquSXM
The result without taking Clear Bonus into account is 13,727,530 for the opener suicide 13,956,470 for the final pattern suicide.When also taking away the two extra items from the final pattern suicide route, assume 20k for each item reduced from the score = 13,916,470. There's also one bullet extra in the final cancel (16k cancel bonus), so that puts the final suicide route to about 170k gain, give or take.
The downside to doing this however is that you have to put more effort into grazing to 999 for this better route to profit from it. I think if you end up getting 979 graze or less, you will have lost 170k or more score from losing that 20 or more graze (Direct score = 20g x 5,000 = 100,000) + (Clear Bonus = [(20g x 50) x 50 items) x 1.4] = 70,000).
This score is pretty good. It would've been great had I not died to the survival phase at the end. I may've gotten about 136m without the death. With my save-state practice, my score is 139m.
This run adds some extra grazing in Stage 2 on both Kurumi main and midboss. Turns out pointblank grazing the 26-way rings isn't as hard as I thought. In the past I always opted out of even trying it in practice because it looked too scary. Doing this graze is probably alot scarier on Hard and Lunatic though. The bullets go quite a bit faster so the timing must be tighter to not die. On S5 Yuuka I also found an improvement on the cancel to allow for about 4.1m. This cancel was mistimed but the nice thing is that the moment I time the cancel now, is more lenient.
Shottype Record: 14/02/2022
Sure is fun doing that Reimu fight again after like 7 years. My old overall PB is also close to 6 years old, hence I could beat my ReimuB score. Alot of my cancels were bad though. Also sorry Chirpy.