After being dunked on repeatedly by Little Miss Googly Eyes, I decided it was probably time to move on before
I started having nightmares about froggy danmaku. Tried all the team combinations and eventually settled on Reimu/Yukari. Marisa/Patchouli was too micromanagey, Marisa/Nitori was terrible at hitting things and Reimu/
Suika's projectiles just don't home enough.
Marisa/Alice and
Reimu/Aya are both out of the question entirely.
Rotary needles are pretty cool. Plus Yukari's
route also seems to have the most plot stuff, which is nice. This game actually has a pretty good story, which is unusual. None of the previous games topped decent. And the boundary teleportation is very useful especially against Parsee.
Fucking Parsee. Parsee is the hardest Stage 2 boss I've yet faced. That includes CIRNO, mistress of shotguns, high entropy spell signs and GODDAMN ICICLE FALL. The boundary teleportation helps, but not enough. ALL of her spell signs are very difficult to not time out, which is especially important since lives aren't linked to points at all anymore.
Still, after numerous attempts, I managed to get past Parsee. Stage 3 is OK. Not too hard, not absurdly easy. The boss is about the same, with one spell sign in particular that I couldn't lose to if a tried. Stage 4 is surprisingly tolerable, even with HELLFIRE KITTEH stopping in to harrass me every so often. The boss isn't too bad either, although I still lost a few lives to inexperience with her mechanics.
Stage 5 is literally Hell. Also symbolically Hell. Its long. CRAZY long. The
theme song loops fully two times before the end of the level. Still, I struggle to the end and the
final showdown with HELLFIRE KITTEH. Who turns out to be more then vaguely anthropomorphic when she's in the mood.
...
TL;DR: I got dunked on by a hellish catgirl's zombie fairy petsTouhou 11: Subterranean Animeism