Touhou 12: Undefined Fantastic Object/Minamitsu Murasa

Non-Spell #1

Murasa's first nonspell on Easy.

Murasa's first nonspell is a static (non-random) wave of droplet bullets. While she does fire relatively often, the bullets are slow enough and the density is incredibly sparse, so this should not pose any significant threat.

Murasa's first nonspell on Normal.

Murasa's opener is more than three times as dense on Normal compared to Easy. It is still slow enough to sight-read, but this is not recommended, as there is a large area slightly right of Murasa's x-position where there are few bullets. As such, you should position yourself in this area, and allow her to come to you instead.

Murasa's first nonspell on Hard.

Hard slightly ups the bullet speed compared to Normal, but the bullet count barely differs. While the low-density zone is still preserved from the Normal version, this is less visually apparent due to the different bullet speeds.

Murasa's first nonspell on Lunatic.

On Lunatic, the bullet speed is greatly increased from the Hard mode version, but once again there are barely any more bullets. The increased bullet speed once again makes the low-density zone very apparent, and this is still the recommended strategy. The initial row of blue bullets may catch you off guard the first time you see this pattern, but once you get used to it, this non-spell ceases to be anything resembling a threat.

Spell Card #1

Capsize 「Dragging Anchor」:

Capsize "Dragging Anchor" on Easy.

Murasa throws an anchor at your position, which will slam into the edge of the screen, creating a splash of blue bullets that will drift for a short amount of time, then dissipate. The anchor itself also trails fireball bullets that expand outward from its path perpendicularly. While these bullets may be somewhat dense by Easy mode standards, they are also very orderly, and it is simple to find a path through them. After the anchor hits the edge of the screen, Murasa will recall the anchor to her position after a short delay, and throw it again.

This spell is very simple, and the quickest way to deal with it is by misdirecting the anchor well away from where you intend to position yourself while damaging Murasa.

Capsize 「Dragging Anchor」:

Capsize "Dragging Anchor" on Normal.

When compared to Easy, Normal makes it so that the bullet "splash" produced by the anchor slamming into the wall no longer dissipates. Additionally, the bullets coming from the anchor's path now form lanes 4 bullets long, although this does not really affect the difficulty of this spell card. The lingering bullets heavily incentivize misdirecting the anchor to a place where the bullets will not be in the way. However, this spell is still very easy to dodge.

Capsize 「Foundering Anchor」:

Capsize "Foundering Anchor"

In addition to the very minor change of lengthening the lanes to 5 bullets long, Hard now makes it so that whenever the anchor slams into a wall, it will throw up a spray of dark blue bullets along the entirety of that wall's length. These dark blue bullets will dissipate after about a wave, but they do incentivize continuously misdirecting the anchor to the two bottom corners. That said, the increase in difficulty is minimal compared to the Normal version.

Capsize 「Sinking Anchor」:

Capsize "Sinking Anchor"

Compared to the drastic changes made on the Normal and Hard iterations of this spell, all Lunatic does is lengthen the bullet lanes to 6 bullets long. This change is so trivial that it does not affect the difficulty of the spellcard in any way.

Non-Spell #2

Murasa's second nonspell on Easy.

For her second nonspell, Murasa fires two droplet spray waves in quick succession. Just like her first nonspell, this is also completely static relative to her position. On Easy, the speed is somewhat slow, and while bullets will fly off in all directions, nowhere on the screen is actually dense enough for the bullets to be threatening.

Murasa's second nonspell on Normal.

Normal massively ups the density while keeping the speed relatively similar to easy. Because of the increased density and static nature of the pattern, routing it is recommended to ensure consistency. A simple route is to position yourself directly below where Murasa is as the wave reaches you so that the initial dark blue bullets go around you, then wait until a bullet clump passes to the right of you, then move right of another bullet clump that's approaching from above. After this, get in position for the next wave, and repeat.

Because the bullets take a while to reach you, by the time you finish dodging a wave, Murasa has usually already finished shooting the next wave, making it somewhat awkward to keep track of her position. Because of this, try to look for easily-identifiable "landmarks" that allow you to keep track of your position relative to the pattern.

Murasa's second nonspell on Hard.

On Hard, the pattern starts to get dense enough to require a route. The simplest route for Hard is as follows:
-Position yourself below Murasa, on the Enemy marker.
-Stand still to enter the wave and look for a purple droplet heading directly downwards towards you. All other bullets will go around you.
-Tap left around this droplet, then tap back right immediately once it passes.

-Get into position for the next wave, and repeat.

Murasa's second nonspell on Lunatic.

The same route recommended for Hard mode will also work on Lunatic, with one minor addition; near the end of the wave, there may be some light blue droplets coming from above and to the left of you. If they get too close, tap left to avoid them.

Spell Card #2

Drowning Sign 「Deep Vortex」:

Drowning Sign "Deep Vortex" on Easy.

Deep Vortex has Murasa spawn a 16-armed swirl centered on the player, with a large empty gap in the middle for them to get their bearings. The whole pattern's "traveling angle" is where the player was relative to Murasa when each wave started spawning, and each bullet will accelerate in that direction a few seconds after it spawns. The arms of the swirl will increase in length with each successive wave. On Easy, the arms of the swirl are so short that it is possible to macrododge out of the pattern entirely before it starts moving. To properly exploit this, alternate waves between damaging Murasa and misdirecting to a corner; i.e. spawn light blue waves under Murasa for damage, and spawn dark blue waves in a corner so as to allow a light blue wave to clear out completely.

Alternatively, the pattern can be captured without needing to misdirect, although aggressive movement away from the center of the swirl before it starts moving is still recommended.

Drowning Sign 「Deep Vortex」:

Drowning Sign "Deep Vortex" on Normal.

On Normal, Deep Vortex is very similar to the Easy version, save for the fact that the arms of the swirl start out at twice the length on Easy. This change means that it is no longer feasible to macrododge out of the swirl before it begins to move. Dodging inside the swirl focuses mainly on macrododging individual bullet clusters. Never try to dodge between any two bullets that are close together. Micrododging in between parts of an arm that have become separated from each other is recommended in order to stay in position. On Normal and higher, it is required to have a plan to work around where each of the swirls will be "placed". There are two general strategies: one that places the swirls near the bottom in order to minimize the effects of Murasa's movement, and one that places the swirls high up in order to better react to Murasa's movement and ensure that they always travel directly downwards. On Normal, the bottom strategy is recommended, due to the slow-moving bullets.

For the bottom strategy, start out by placing the swirl at the very bottom of the screen. Gradually move up with your swirl placements to give minimal overlap. If Murasa moves away, place the next swirl at the bottom of the screen again, and repeat.

Capturing this spell is by no means easy, and bombing it is highly recommended if you ever think you might be overwhelmed.

Drowning Sign 「Sinkable Vortex」:

Drowning Sign "Sinkable Vortex" on Hard.

Hard mode again greatly lengthens the arms of the swirl, to the point where even on early waves, overlaps are routine. While the strategy for capturing this is similar to the Normal mode strategy, the likelihood of being forced into a bad situation is much greater, and thus you should have your bomb reflex much more ready.

Drowning Sign 「Sinkable Vortex」:

Drowning Sign "Sinkable Vortex" on Lunatic.

Lunatic continues the trend of exponential growth, by having the arms nearly double in length. With the arms this long, 3 waves can overlap even near the very start of the pattern. This outright requires planning in advance for how you want to position yourself to minimize deadly overlaps between fast, slow, and stationary bullets. Speedkilling this pattern is of the utmost importance due to how quickly it can get out of hand. If you want to improve at this pattern, one of the best ways to do so is to enable time lock in THprac. As this pattern gets more intense as time goes on and is completely unbounded, after long enough the bullets will move at superspeed.

Low Strategy

[1]

Start off at the bottom of the screen, while moving up slightly to dodge the swirls before they start to accelerate. Try to guide Murasa to the right at first while alternating directions on every wave. Even though there is a 1/3 chance for Murasa to move away, it is still worth it to gamble on her following you, as a semi-diagonal wave, while awkward to dodge, allows you to reset the height at which you place the swirls. Additionally, chasing down Murasa when she runs away can be very risky. As usual, try to focus on macrododging instead of micrododging, although you will likely end up forced to micrododge at some point. Reading ahead to spot good gaps and fast bullets before they reach you helps greatly.

High Strategy

(TODO: WRITE THIS SECTION UP)

Dealing with leftovers

Due to how long the arms of this pattern get and how far off the screen they can spawn, the bullet cancel from finishing off Vortex may fail to catch some newly-spawned bullets. These leftover bullets will then continue traveling and eventually interfere with the first wave of the nonspell after. While there usually aren't many leftovers, if any of them happen to be where you are while dodging non 3, you will very likely take a hit. There are multiple different ways to approach this. One way is to simply not care about the leftovers and just shoot down Murasa as quickly as possible. The leftovers are usually non-consequential unless you shoot down Murasa with very bad timing, and this approach trades a potentially risky non 3 for a guarantee that you will survive Vortex now.

The other strategy involves timing the cancel so that as few bullets as possible are outside the cancel radius, effectively guaranteeing minimal leftovers. (TODO: describe cancel timing and good cues for it) SOC's blog also has a description of this timed-cancel strategy.

[2]

Non-Spell #3

Murasa's third nonspell on Easy.

TODO: strategy and description

Murasa's third nonspell on Normal.

TODO: strategy and description

Murasa's third nonspell on Hard.

TODO: strategy and explanation

Murasa's third nonspell on Lunatic.

TODO: add more elaborate description

Murasa's third non adds a third swipe of droplets. Like all of Murasa's other nonspells, this is completely static. While this may look like an absolute mess to dodge, there is a very simple and easy-to-memorize route that is demonstrated below.

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The easiest way to memorize this nonspell.

Spell Card #3

Harbor Sign 「Phantom Ship Harbor」:

Easy content here

Harbor Sign 「Phantom Ship Harbor」:

Normal content here

Harbor Sign 「Phantom Ship's Port」:

Hard content here

Harbor Sign 「Eternally Anchored Phantom Ship」:

First, induce it to form an inverted V shape. It can be derived like [3]or like [4]

Basically, you can easily defeat Murasa by attacking her while guiding her right-right-left-right.

If Murasa does not move in the direction instructed, it will follow Murasa and continue to attack.

There is only one way to die here.

When Murasa comes down.

First Strategy

When Murasa came down, You can avoid it by climbing straight ahead.

Second Strategy

When Murasa comes down, it runs away in the opposite direction of Murasa.

[5] Reimu B in this video is a very good example.

Spell Card #4

This spell card does not exist on Easy. Murasa will instead be defeated after the previous Spell Card.

Phantom 「Sinker Ghost」:

Normal content here

Phantom 「Dipper Creeping Close」:

Hard content here

Phantom 「Dipper Creeping Close」:

[6]

Please refer to this for four corners.

It doesn't matter if the four corners are broken. Since it's easy anyway, I focus on avoiding it.

If there's a tip, it's to be in a position where you can run straight to Murasa as soon as she approaches. It's good for maintaining the four corners.

However, it is more important not to fit than to maintain the four corners.