How would you rank the extra stages in terms of difficulty?

[jankop]

(+Phantasm for Touhou 7)
I'm not good at touhou yet but I've managed to get 48% progression on Touhou 8's extra stage and thought about which are the easiest and hardest Extra Stages. I tried to search about it but in comparison to info about which GAME is the easiest and hardest I didn't manage to find anything helpful. I've heard that Suwako is pretty easy compared to other ones but other than that I don't know much. So, how would you rank Extra/Phantasm Stages in Touhou games?

[CyberAngel]

Scroll down to the Extra part of the first post.

Personally, my ranking would be:

7 Ex < 7 Ph < 14 < 8 < 10 < 13 < 6 < 11 < 12

Only managed to beat 7's Extra but easily got close in Phantasm. Did grind 8 a bit and got close too. Got to somewhere midway in 10 and 13 after minimal practice. In 11 and 12 never even got to the boss (though 11 looks fun enough to practice). Haven't played 6 much but got quite deep into the fight. Did get close to the end in 14 in just a few tries. Didn't play others much.

[moons1de_]

You assume I've been able to reach an extra stage...

In all seriousness though, just from watching most extra stages and basing it off of whether I would be able to do it, I would say SA's or UFO's extra stages.

[Mikuru]

16 for sure; it's the only one that feels close to Normal in difficulty, while most Extras are between Normal and Hard.

My ranking of the ones I've completed: 16 < 10 < 8 < 17 < 7 < 18.

I've got pretty far in 6 and 7Ph, so I'd put those as the next two.

I haven't unlocked 11 (SA) Ex, and I haven't played 12, 13, 14 or 15 at all.

[nintendonut888]

It's difficult for me to give an honest rating since I have played Touhou for long enough to be able to handle most extras fine, but I would say Suwako and Okina are probably the easiest extra bosses for a newer player, while Koishi, Evil Eye Sigma, Momoyo, and Hecatia are probably the hardest (Hecatia in particular is my vote for hardest extra boss in general, provided you've gotten used to SoEW's mechanics for Evil Eye Sigma).

However, Suwako is only the easiest once you learn her - she is the most trick-based extra boss in the series, and going in blind is likely to lead to a lot of game overs until you learn what those tricks are. Koishi is also like this on the opposite spectrum, being one of the hardest extra bosses to beat for the first time, but arguably one of the easiest to perfect in the long run. My recommendation, honestly, is to try them all and find one you gravitate towards, then focus on her until you can do it. That's how I got my first extra clear with Ran way back when. When you're starting out motivation is more important than subjective difficulty.

[williewillus]

It's been a while since I did all-clear (non including PC98), but I'd order it easiest to hardest as follows:

hsifs
mof
wbawc
in
td
um
pcb (both stages, they're not meaningfully different IMO)
ddc
ufo
sa
eosd
lolk

hsifs extra is the easiest in the series by far, which is kind of a shame given how good the theme is. I think with some practice even normal players can clear this extra.

lolk extra isn't especially hard from an absolute standpoint, but grazing enough for extends can be difficult since it's 5 pieces per life. The midboss and final end of stage death fairy also downgrade their item drops if you fail their attacks, which is annoying. Also, Hecatia's patterns aren't a pushover, attacks like Lunatic Impact are Lunatic-level difficulty spells. The stage and fight is also pretty long, which can be an endurance challenge.