Rate the Shot Types Thread II

[Miminena]

The original thread (https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php?topic=19213) never finished HSiFS, and a few more games have released since then, so I decided to remake the thread on the new forum to finish the job.

The rules and guidelines, slightly edited from the original:
1. Shot types for any games not covered but the original thread will be rated per week (the time span may be subject to change). I may redo games already covered by the original thread because the community's opinions might have changed in 8 years.

2. Shot types must be rated on a scale of 1 to 10. Intervals of 0.5 are accepted, anything not by 0.5 will not be accepted (For example: Good: 5.50/10, Bad: 7.12/10). Once the week is over, all the votes will be tallied up and averaged for each shot.

3. Keep things civil, everyone. This is a thing that's meant to be fun, so let's keep it as such!

4. Make sure your reasoning for the ratings are serious. Each rating should have some detail along with them. I will not accept just number ratings.

5. You are eligible to quote others' ratings if you agree with them.

6. Be sure to not miss out on a shot. So please include MoF!MarisaB, for example.

Ratings on HSiFS made on the original thread will be counted in the average.

Scores:
HSiFS
Characters:
Reimu: 9.00
Marisa: 8.88
Aya: 8.00
Cirno: 6.44
Sub-Seasons:
Autumn/Fall: 9.13
Winter: 8.56
Summer: 7.06
Spring: 4.13

[Miminena]

To kick things off, I'll submit my own ranking.

Reimu: 9/10
As usual, Reimu ends up being one of the better shots. Her homing alone is very useful for a game like HSiFS, and her bomb is very good at clearing the screen of bullets, which makes her a very good beginner shot, and also overall.

Cirno: 6/10
The spreadshot reaches a good amount of the screen, but the low damage cancels it out, although you can do decent damage while shotgunning. Her main attraction is her bomb, which covers a long area for a long amount of time, and is good for getting season items, especially when used in dense patterns like Okina's nons.

Aya: 9/10
A high power piercing shot, with a slight spread when unfocused, and a seemingly better shotgun than Cirno. Her bomb is very good for scoring, similar to Cirno's. She's also very fast, which can be useful during i-frames to zoom around and collect season items.

Marisa: 9/10
One of the few games where ZUN respects Marisa's position as deuteragonist, giving her very powerful lasers, sadly without any piercing. Master spark is very powerful as usual, but the slowed movement speed makes it annoying to work with.

Spring: 4/10
While in theory, having a release that can almost screen clear would be good, it doesn't last long enough to do much for survival or scoring. The homing also doesn't work very well, but it still does home, so it's not that bad for a beginner shot. On top of all of this, Okina's spring final is by far her hardest, and is probably one of the hardest spellcards in the series on lunatic.

Summer: 7/10
The options are meh, the spread isn't very dense, so it's not effective as the spread from Cirno. The release only uses just under 1 season level upon release, which is very useful for hard patterns where spamming releases is good. Okina's summer final, while easier than spring, is still very hard.

Autumn: 9/10
I might be missing something, but the options don't seem to do much of anything. The only reason why I ranked autumn so high is because the release is just that good, letting you control more directly which items you cancel with it. Okina's autumn final is a huge drop in difficulty from spring and summer, but takes a bit of routing.

Winter: 9.5/10
By far the season with the best options, so it's probably the best for pure survival. The release lasts for a long time and covers a fairly wide radius, which is good for dealing with patterns that come out of a single source. The release ends up being hard to position, though. Okina's winter final is definitely her easiest, which makes winter even better for pure survival.

[degradingwindow]

A bit late but here's my ranking

Hakurei Reimu: 8.5
Never been a personal fan of homing shots but this one is one of my favourites in the series as the homing looks much more aesthetically pleasing to me. Fantasy Seal (Cherry Blossom edition) is as good as always. Recommended for a beginner or if you just want to blast through stages without much thought but not my preferred one.

Cirno (with a tan) 5.5:
My least favourite in the game, the spread is just too wide and the close up just doesn't pay off as well as other spreads in the series. Her decent bomb is what's safeguarding her from reaching 4. The only reason I'd play her is just for seeing her dialogue.

Aya: 9
My second favourite, good spread, her fast movement is really good for macro dodging and I like going fast. I knocked it down to a 9 because the big size of the shots make it hard for me to see other bullets incoming (I have bad eyesight).

Marisa: 9.5
My favourite shot-type, powerful straight lasers are what I like. It also has the best visibility, the lasers don't interfere with the visibility of the enemy bullets. The only thing that stops it from reaching 10 is Master Spark's slow/hard to control movement.

Sub-Seasons
What HSiFS lacks in unique shots and bombs, it makes up with the sub-season mechanic. It was fun to mix and match shot types with sub-seasons to find out what was more my style, entertaining mechanicac overall.

Spring 7.5
If you don't want to play Reimu but still want the benefit of homing, this is your go-to. The release is easy to use but it doesn't have the same potential as the other ones.

Summer: 4.5
Same problem with Cirno but worse. The release has its uses but I'd rather use the other ones.

Fall: 8.5
My favourite release type, it's fun to use and works better than one would expect it to if you master it enough.

Winter: 8.5
solid 8.5. If you want some extra fire power, use this. the release is really good but as Miminena said, it's hard to position. I docked 0.5 points because I have confused its season item for actual bullets more times than I want to admit to 

Not in the rating but just for fun:
Least Favourite Combination:
Cirno + Summer

Favourite Combination:
Marisa + Fall

Id be interested in having an encore round of ratings of the 1st and 2nd era windows games as I do have to admit that aside from HSiFS and DDC, I haven't played any of the other third era games so I have little to nothing to say about them. And I don't see ratings for PoFV or the PC-98 games in the original thread so maybe we could do those.

[Miminena]

Id be interested in having an encore round of ratings of the 1st and 2nd era windows games as I do have to admit that aside from HSiFS and DDC, I haven't played any of the other third era games so I have little to nothing to say about them. And I don't see ratings for PoFV or the PC-98 games in the original thread so maybe we could do those.

I intend to do PoFV after WBaWC and UM, but with so many shot types I'm not sure how to do it yet.

Votes have been averaged and will be put in OP.

Reimu + Wolf: 8/10
Very solid shot type, but the needles don't do that much damage, so it's knocked down a few points. Still, this is probably the shot type I would recommend to a beginner.

Reimu + Otter: 9/10
Although the Otters don't power up any shots, the extra and better bombs well make up for it. Also, the increased length on the Otter hyper helps, because the best way to dodge is to avoid dodging.

Reimu + Eagle: 7.5/10
Very similar situation to ReimuW, but because you'll probably be focused more often than not in the late game, the unfocused power doesn't get much of a chance to shine.

Marisa + Wolf: 8.5/10
A more powerful version of ReimuW, but without the homing. I personally tend to do better with high power forward-focus than with medium power and homing, so I ranked her slightly higher.

Marisa + Otter: 9.5/10
As with ReimuO, the extra bombs make up for the lack of a powered shot, and this is especially relevant with Marisa because she uses master spark, which gets very powerful when used with Otter.

Marisa + Eagle: 7/10
Not a shot type i've found much use for, the lasers don't have wide enough of a spread or narrow enough of a forward focus for a power-up to benefit them, but the increased power still ends up helping on certain stage sections.

Youmu + Wolf: 10/10
The slash mechanic is already very strong, but it gets especially good with the wolf power-up, which makes YoumuW shred through bosses and stage sections alike. The slash can be hard to control, but it's fairly easy to learn imo and is very worth it if you do.

Youmu + Otter: 9.5/10
Similar benefits to the other Otter shot types, but this time also with the high power from the slash. The only thing stopping YoumuO from also being 10/10, which also applies to the other Otter shots, is that the main draw to her is her powerful bomb, so during pure survival, like an LNB, she has little use. Since LNB is a self-imposed restriction, I won't take much off for that.

Youmu + Eagle: 7/10
YoumuE has many interesting things about her, the most famous of which is her less powerful focused shot than even the Otter type, but only slightly less well known is her powerful shotgun in unfocused mode, but it's very hard to line up, so it all balances out.

WBaWC really does have good shot types all around.

[Miminena]

The deadline for WBaWC will be extended for 2 more weeks so that my vote isn't the only one in the averages.

[Miminena]

I completely forgot I was doing this (^^;

I'll move on to UM for now, but WBaWC votes will still be accepted.

Reimu: 8/10
In a game with a lot of scattered low health enemies, a homing shot ends up doing pretty well. Her damage is also very solid, both focused and unfocused. This is one of the best homing shots in the whole series imo.

Marisa: 5/10
She isn't a bad shot per se, but she gets way overshadowed by the other three. As usual she has very little spread, which can get very annoying in a game like UM. Her bomb doesn't cover the whole screen, only auto-collects at the beginning of the bomb, and, as always, slows down your movement speed way too much. She doesn't even have the highest power and her lasers don't pierce.

Sakuya: 10/10
By far the best shot. She can act like a wide shot, which is good for the same reason as Reimu's homing, and as a forward focused shot, which is very good against bosses, especially in survival runs. Being able to aim the knives is also really good, especially when there are 2 high health enemies on opposite sides of the screen, which UM like doing a lot for some reason. Her bomb also encompasses the whole screen, and is the best scoring bomb in the game.

Sanae: 7/10
Her homing is stronger than Reimu's, but it doesn't hit enemies below it so it ends up evening out. Her bomb is the best for survival, since it does high damage to all enemies on the screen. Her wide + splash shot is really useful, since it covers the whole screen, but it's a bit too sparse.



Should I do the phantasmagorias after this or rerun past votes from EoSD?