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Touhou n'est pas une série de jeux grand public ; elle est plutôt basée sur les jeux d'arcade classiques, qui ont été conçus pour être difficiles afin de vous faire dépenser beaucoup d'argent. Par conséquent, Touhou ne peut pas être joué avec le même état d'esprit et la même attitude qu'un jeu moderne grand public. Plus vous jouerez à Touhou, plus vous commencerez à voir les jeux vidéo d'une manière différente de celle que vous aviez auparavant. Voici un guide qui vous aidera à adopter la mentalité d'un joueur de shoot'em up (shmup), ainsi que quelques conseils généraux qui vous aideront à mieux esquiver les barrages de tirs que ces jeux déclenchent.

Conseils généraux

C'est normal de perdre !

Les jeux grand public disposent généralement d'un mode Facile destiné aux personnes qui n'aiment pas payer pour un jeu qui ne peut être terminé facilement. En tant que série de shmup, Touhou ne suit pas cette convention. Touhou est un jeu difficile, un jeu d'adresse, un jeu de dépassement de soi, un jeu où chaque joueur s'efforce constamment de s'améliorer. La difficulté peut être décourageante, mais cela ne signifie pas que les jeux sont imbattables : il suffit de regarder toutes les personnes qui peuvent terminer les Stage Extra ou les jeux principaux en difficulté Lunatic.

C'est pourquoi il n'y a absolument aucune honte à perdre toutes ses vies ; c'est une partie normale du jeu quotidien, et cela ne signifie pas que vous êtes nul au jeu. Cela signifie simplement que vous devez vous entraîner davantage, et si vous continuez à vous entraîner, un jour vous serez en mesure d'éliminer le jeu en une fois (1CC) dans la difficulté de votre choix. Alors ne paniquez pas si vous entendez votre protagoniste faire pichu~n à cause d'un projectile que vous n'avez même pas vue ; continuez à jouer, peu importe combien vous perdez, et finalement ces barrages qui semblaient au début impossibles à esquiver deviendront gérables, vous atteindrez finalement le boss final, et vous apprendrez à naviguer à travers les tirs denses comme si c'était une seconde nature.

Se concentrer uniquement sur le nettoyage au début

Vous verrez certains joueurs se vanter d'être bons en graze, dire que vous n'êtes pas censé utiliser de bombes, ou rejeter certains personnages comme étant en "mode facile". Ne les écoutez pas. Votre objectif, en tant que débutant, est de terminer les parties, purement et simplement, et rien de plus - si vous essayez de faire quelque chose qui dépasse vos capacités, gardez à l'esprit que vous risquez d'échouer encore et encore, mais vous ne devriez pas avoir peur de perdre, car sortir de votre zone de confort peut vous aider à vous améliorer à votre niveau de difficulté actuel ; après avoir joué au mode Lunatic pendant un certain temps, les modes Normal et Hard peuvent commencer à paraître faciles. Soyez pragmatique, et utilisez au maximum les ressources que le jeu met à votre disposition pour vous donner une meilleure chance de le terminer. Puisez autant de bombes que nécessaire, expérimentez différents types de tirs et demandez autour de vous quels types de tirs sont les plus efficaces pour terminer le jeu.

Utiliser les modes continu et pratique

Vous rencontrerez souvent une section de stage, un boss ou une spell card que, pour une raison ou une autre, vous trouverez particulièrement difficile ; peut-être est-ce parce que vous ne l'avez pas encore mémorisée, que vous n'arrivez pas à suivre les coups correctement ou que vous n'avez pas la capacité d'esquiver. C'est la raison pour laquelle le mode d'entraînement aux stage existe et aussi pourquoi certains jeux ont un mode d'entraînement aux spell cards. Non seulement cela permet de s'entraîner uniquement aux parties où vous perdez le plus de vies, mais cela vous permettra également de rester motivé en vous permettant de mesurer vos progrès en termes de métriques concrètes, comme le taux de capture sur un spell. De plus, le fait d'affûter un spell difficile peut également vous permettre de perfectionner cette compétence qui vous fait défaut, ce qui peut être très bénéfique pour votre gameplay global.

En outre, si vous ne pouvez pas terminer le jeu en une seule fois, n'ayez pas peur d'utiliser vos continues. Ils vous donnent une chance supplémentaire de peaufiner vos performances à la fois dans le stage où vous avez perdu vos vies et dans les stage suivants. De cette façon, non seulement vous vous améliorerez dans le stage qui vous pose problème, mais vous débloquerez également le mode d'entraînement pour chaque stage, ce qui vous permettra de vous améliorer encore plus après votre course continue.

N'hésitez pas à vous référer aux replay ou aux vidéos.

There is a plethora of reference replays and videos on the Internet for every game, and referring to them for examples on how to do certain patterns, route efficiently, resource usage, and other gameplay quirks is a wonderful idea. There are some people who feel that watching reference material for these games is cheating, but they are entirely false. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with not wanting to watch a replay before you clear something so you can say that you did it all on your own, or finding a strategy for a pattern on your own instead of watching a replay for it, but there’s also nothing wrong with utilizing tools that are freely available. Replay sites such as RoyalFlare and LunarCast have hundreds of replays that you can download of all sorts of achievements.

Principes de base

Streaming

Streaming example : left, with / right, without

Streaming is the basic principle of controlling bullets in shoot ‘em up games. 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 stream, do a quick move away from it 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. This is called a restream (restreaming in verb form). Oftentimes this is done purely horizontally, but in some cases it may be advisable to restream diagonally to increase the size of the opening (e.g. when streaming from left to right, restream up+right to the right edge 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. Streaming is commonly used when moving left or right, but vertical streaming also exists, requiring you to restream vertically instead. You will generally want to restream when you're getting close to the edge of the screen you’re tapping towards, but keep in mind that the ideal timing depends on the width of the stream as well as how quickly the bullets adjust their aim.

The more experienced you get, the more calm and confident you will 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 restreams at the edges of the screen to be able to survive the bullet onslaught during the stages. In Touhou, the technique is also the key to getting many graze points from any streamable attack.

Acheminement

Routing means memorizing paths (routes) that will dodge one or more patterns, or otherwise anything that is planned to be done at certain points in the game, and is a primary skill required to become a serious shoot ‘em up player. It can also be used to refer to the entire game; if a player is said to have learned a route for a certain game, that means that they have plans for what to do for every section of the game from start to finish. Memorization itself is often referred to as memo, which is sometimes used interchangeably with routing depending on context.

At first, you can often get away with not having routes for patterns, and your routing will be limited to simply planning bombs to be used to skip attacks you find difficult or have not found a working route for. As the accomplishments you are going for become harder, however, routing becomes more and more of a necessity, culminating in score runs, where routing is absolutely essential for success, as you will need to have a planned route throughout the entire game, where you have memorized exactly what to do in every section; how to move, when to move, when to use certain resources, when to shoot, how much damage to deal, and so on.

As for survival, routing tends to be especially prevalent in Extra stages, where the bosses largely use “gimmicky” patterns that force the player to learn a specific strategy to dodge them. This is often a point where a player will start to learn of the necessity of routing and may become more experienced in learning, practicing and mastering routes.

It should also be noted that while some patterns are random, and therefore cannot be routed, there are also patterns that contain both random elements and consistent elements; a prime example of this is Yuyuko’s penultimate Spell Card from Perfect Cherry Blossom, in which the rice bullets are random, but the butterflies as well as Yuyuko’s movement can be routed.

Hitbox

The hitbox as seen in Undefined Fantastic Object .

One should keep in mind that hitboxes, the part of a sprite with which bullets can collide (and therefore, die), are almost always smaller than the actual sprite. This applies to both your character and the bullets. Experience will show you just how close you can get to a bullet without fear. It is important to learn the hitbox locations and sizes of different bullet types to improve your reading and dodging skills. Furthermore, it must be noted that in the older games, hitboxes are square-shaped, while from Double Spoiler onward, bullets have circle-shaped hitboxes instead.

While the PC-98 games as well as Embodiment of Scarlet Devil have no indicator for your character's hitbox, the rest of the games have cut down on the guessing a bit: they have a white dot that appears when holding the slow/focus key to indicate your hitbox. Even when the actual hitbox isn't visible (either in older games or during unfocused movement), there are usually visual clues on the character's sprite that can give you a good estimate of the location of the hitbox.

Utiliser de l'ensemble de l'écran

There is a tendency for new players to hug the bottom of the screen to try and get as much response time as possible. The problem with this is that you restrict yourself to only one dimension, namely left and right. Many advanced patterns require the use of the second dimension to successfully escape, and the only way you'll figure these out is if you are comfortable with the idea of using the whole screen. It's generally better to leave some space at the bottom of the screen to fall back to when things get difficult, whereas if you stay at the very bottom, you will have no means of escape.

The point of collection helps erase this tendency, but you should still make an effort to stay off the bottom during bosses, too.

Lire

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; this process is generally known as reading. As a rule of thumb, the faster bullets move, the further away from you they must be read, since you have to give yourself enough time to dodge them accordingly.

Combined with effective use of streaming, you can safely observe the whole screen and act accordingly. Looking at your shot can help you determine the horizontal position of your character without directly looking at them.

Règles de conduite de la communauté

Joining a community, where you could end up being around skilled players, and most importantly, players that are better than you are, is an excellent way to learn and to receive feedback about your skills. It 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 people with this 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 better than you. So if you brag about having cleared IN on Normal, chances are you'll get an ego-crushing retort like "Well, I've cleared it on Lunatic without bombing!".
  • 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 his lack of skills in his face. Even if you can clear SA 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 community, even if you’ve never played a shmup before and can barely even clear, and even if you have to resort to calling yourself the group's resident newbie, if you show serious intent to become a better player, you will be respected, even from the cream of the crop of the group – probably more than a self-centered expert!
  • In communities consisting of very skilled players, you will often see people discuss the levels of difficulty of different patterns they face in their games. What they mean by difficulty, though, is not how long it takes to dodge the pattern once, but how consistently it can be performed. So if you feel like a bad player because a Spell Card you took a long time to capture for the first time is called easy, don’t panic, as it does not concern how hard the spell is to learn, but rather the consistency of players whose goal is to capture it regularly.
  • Also concerning difficulty, do not think that you are entitled to judge the difficulty of a pattern when you are still new to the game it’s in. Experienced players will probably love to inform you of how wrong you are, assuming you were indeed wrong. With more experience in the game, the relative difficulty of its patterns compared to each other becomes much clearer, and your judgements will likely start to align more with active players of said game.

Conseils divers

  • The final golden rule of Touhou, and all video games 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 matter 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 use to play absolutely everything on Easy out of fear of losing? Welcome aboard. What you used to do does not matter, the only thing that matters is where you stand here and now.
  • 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 score 2 billion in UFO, there will be someone who can score 2.5 billion. 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 of on-and-off play to clear Imperishable Night on Normal, it's the effort that counts.
  • If you're bad at the games, don't quit! Every player will have been a newbie for some time; no one is immediately good when they start (prior shmup experience exempt).
  • Some players might say that you “get worse” if you stop playing Touhou for some period of time; this is a myth which should not be taken seriously. Skill decay takes a long time and at worst you would be a bit “rusty” when you come back, which typically goes away with one or two runs to get used to the game again. Furthermore, the more skilled you are, the longer it will take to lose said skills. Think of it this way: if you have learned how to ride a bicycle, you will not forget how to do so.
  • For most people, starting on Lunatic right off the bat is a bad idea. It can work for certain people who have the right mindset and patience for it, but generally this approach is not recommended, as most people will simply suffer from having to struggle for so long and instead prefer to see steps of improvement.
  • Most players opt to start off on Normal as it is the default difficulty, but be sure to remember that there is nothing wrong with starting off on Easy or getting your first clears on that difficulty. The myth that Easy stunts skill growth is completely false and there are a good number of players who have achieved their first 1CCs on Easy and have worked their ways up to consistent Lunatic play. The most important thing to consider when starting off is understanding your initial capability. If you started off on Normal but find it to be too overwhelming at first, there is no shame in dropping down to Easy and leaving Normal for later.