Eirin's drug shows you every potential future where you are killed, but you are forced to relive every single one until you get the one where you survive, in a groundhog day loop, except the loop happens roughly every minute. Against a very strong opponent, the possibility unfortunately exists of a situation where there are infinite futures where you die, and unlike players, the girls themselves don't get to take any breaks... so they get stuck in a limbo of endlessly failing and retrying the last minute of their lives, feeling as though they have been awake for days or weeks when it's been barely any time at all, and with no possibility of death to give them release.
This is reflected in the game mechanics, where you lose a bit of power every time you die. Clownpiece in particular can drain your power to the point of no coming back because her hardest spellcards are survival cards, which don't award power items. This makes each next attempt harder than the last, which means more loops.
Hell indeed.
Reimu looks the least beaten for good reason. Her small hitbox gives her the greatest chances of getting through each checkpoint. The other three aren't so lucky, particularly since their normal advantages (better shot types and bombs) are useless against Clownpiece, who has a bunch of survival cards where she can't be damaged.
Really? I thought EoSD was one of the more easier patterns to work with. Still haven't beaten boss though.
I gather EoSD isn't as hard as certain later games. It's not very friendly to new players (especially since the game ends on Stage 5 in Easy Mode), but relatively speaking, I think it falls somewhere in the middle in terms of overall difficulty.
I'm not a shoot'em up (or bullet hell) fan, yet I've only played EoSD, UFO and Double Spoiler. I can beat them fine on normal, but still I can't beat the EX bosses. I simply can't do Maze of Love without bombing.... in fact I think I could barely complete the games if I were willing to spam bombs rather than capturing spell cards.
One thing is for sure though, the more you play the latest games the easier the earlier ones become.
I think it's more that PCB and especially IN and PoFV were easier in comparison. (IN in particular had that super-nice practice mode plus the death bombing that makes it by far the easiest game to be the first on you actually beat on Normal.) Therefore, it gets remembered as the hardest by those who didn't yet have later games to compare it against.
EoSD also has the least special mechanics, meaning you need to charge the PoC, have no hit box indicator, and use bombs more strategically than the somewhat more forgiving bomb and "tension" mechanics in later games like SA, so it's harder to go back to. I should also mention that it was also a game that, on top of no hit box indicator, had some sneaky bullet types like Sakuya's knives that were actually larger than they appear on screen, adding to the "you need to memorize this game's quirks" factor.
That said, yeah, the bullet patterns themselves weren't insane, (except for a couple of Flan's, but EX bosses are a special case,) but that's not necessarily how people remember difficulty.
wheezeResultso why are they the ones who look beaten...?Get Ready!!.....I'm the one who lost,Hint:
Pointdevice ModeHuff huff, yeah yeah,
I lost, dammit.Lunatic Kingdom Stage 5
Moon Surface, Sea of Silence (Front)
VS ClownpieceWelp, I did the least I could...Time to retreat back to master's friend...Huh?
ZUUUUUUUUN
zehhh...Peeeace, peace, peace! I've been given the order to not hold back on anyone leaving the city!
