Touhou 18: UM Demo - Sanae, Normal, No Shoplifting, 641,856,560
4Alright, it's Sanae's turn. Someone recently told me they got 570 million on Normal with Sanae, without using the shop glitch, so I decided to challenge that. And, after several tries, I got this run that scores 641 million.
Starting with the Miracle Mallet is pretty much mandatory for gathering additional gold in stage 1, and I decided to go with Kanako's Offerings for my other starting card, so that the autocollect line is lowered to about halfway down the screen. I tried other items as well, like Byakuren's Sutra for reducing the cooldown time on the mallet, but I really wanted to have an easier time autocollecting stuff.
It feels weird to stall out boss attack patterns when the purpose isn't farming graze (in fact, I don't think grazing bullets has any benefit in this game at all, just like with Mountain of Faith, even though it makes the "tick" sound effect). Instead, I was stalling to give my mallet more time to recharge.
I think stages 1 and 2 went alright here. At the end of stage 1, I bought Nazrin's Crystal for 50 more gold, since I was below 500 gold at the time, and I believe the gold point value maxes out at 500 on Normal difficulty. Then, after stage 2, I bought Nitori's open wallet (Miser's Advice), which increases my item collection range when I'm not above the autocollect line. I was really hoping to see better items offered after stage 2, like Byakuren's Sutra or Eirin's Elixir (the auto-bomb card) there, but unfortunately, RNG decided to not provide those items to me at that shop. (Looking back, perhaps I should've just bought an extra life instead.)
Honestly, the shop RNG doesn't feel right to me in this kind of game. Doesn't matter how well you play, you can't play at peak performance if the shops don't offer what you want when you would want it. Come on, Touhou isn't supposed to be like 100% Orange Juice. (And, of course, I see the items I want after clearing stage 3, when the game is already done.)
As for stage 3, that's when I start barfing with my gameplay. I suffer a couple of dumb deaths, and totally whiff with one of my mallet swings during the mid-boss battle. Feels really "great" to totally miss, get nothing, and have to wait nearly a minute before you can swing again.
Despite that messy performance, I still managed to hang in there and finish with a score of 641 million. I wonder if I could've gotten close to or above 700 million if not for those mistakes, and if the stage 2 shop offered stuff I really wanted...
Oh, and since I recorded this from a replay instead of while I was actually playing, you don't get to see the actual shopping this time, but after the stage transitions, you can see the effects of what I bought (+50 gold after stage 1, and the open wallet appearing after stage 2).
Feel free to comment, but just know that I dislike profanity. Any comments containing F-bombs and/or S-bombs will be red carded! (In other words, they'll be deleted.)
(Comments containing other types of inappropriate content may meet this fate as well.)
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