So it's been a while since I posted any video, which is what I will do in this blog. The video in question comes in 2 parts since it was too big (about 50MB over the limit) to be uploaded in a single video. The video is of me trying to beat Flandre Scarlet: the Extra stage boss in The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, which is the 6th Touhou Project game.

Before jumping right away to the videos though, I'll just make a small breakdown of what the game is in terms of HUD, if you want. You can always skip that part if you don't feel like knowing it, but I thought I'd do it since I expect Roll to be the only one who does knows how the game works, but I could always be surprised :] Let's not take the chance though.

Look at this small picture I made with the 4 primary points to be aware of when playing Touhou, each of the 4 points are explained below the picture:

-1: The yellow bar (which can be white or red) indicates the health of the boss. The number beside that bar indicates the number of remaining health bars the boss has as well (usually it's around 3-4, but in Flandre's case it is 10). The text that is right below the health bar are called Spell Cards. You see, the bosses have two different attacks: Regular attacks and Spell Cards. Only the Spell Cards have specific names displayed on screen. What's the difference, though? If you can make it through a Spell Card without dying or bombing, you capture that card and you earn extra points, as well as being able to say you captured it (each game has over 100 Spell Cards). Of course, due to this, the Spell Cards are usually much more brutal than regular ones.

-2: This simply indicates the number of lives (red star) and the number of bombs (green star) at your disposal. In a normal game, you also have up to 3 continues, but not in the Extra stage.

-3: The Power bar will increase your attack range in width and it's power, of course. You increase it by collecting the red tokens marked with a P on them when defeating enemies. The "Graze" number is a small tactic where you graze, or fly near bullets and pellets. It doesn't serve much purpose other than increase your score and make a small noise when grazing, definitely something to be aware of when going for the high scores. The last line are blue tokens which increase your score.

-4: That's me, or you if you play. The white dot I made on the back of Reimu (my character) is her hitbox: If a bullet or a pellet hits me there, I die. In later games this specific hitbox is visible, but in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil it is not, so you have to be aware of what your hitbox dimension is. Bullets and pellets will have varying hitbox sizes (you'll see that sometimes I might appear to fly right through one without taking a hit), you need to learn them on the go.

That's all you need to know about the game to know how to play it properly. When you see the two red circles around me go in front of my character, it's because I use some focus, which allows me to make smaller movements and concentrate the attack (mostly in later games) for a more powerful hit.

Oh and be gentle, it's only the third time I even reach Flandre and I didn't beat her, she's got one hell of a reputation too. Considering that I didn't know any of her attacks further than Cranberry Trap (it's her first Spell Card and second attack), I see this as a really good run for a third time only. Since I didn't know her patterns it was pretty hard even making it this far, but I'll learn them eventually, and at that time I'll definitely capture this. I did look kinda confused at one point during the fight against her, and I've gotten plenty of stupid deaths and bombing that could of easily been avoided, but it's part of learning the stage. Enjoy ;p

Part 1:
[video=IHFilmat5bIEuTfc]

Part 2:
[video=JnVnwjL45bIEuTfd]