Timing Every Stage in Touhou Games

Ever wonder just how long a Stage is before reaching the Boss? No? Well I did, and that's the whole point of this video. Join me as I go through all the Windows Games and figuring out just how long the Stages take to complete, as well as plenty of neat little aspects that I found while doing this.
EoSD 4 of a Kind!: • Touhou Project: EoSD's...
00:00 Intro
1:28 EoSD
6:08 PCB
10:47 IN
16:27 MoF
19:57 SA
23:05 UFO
25:57 TD
28:59 DDC
31:59 LOLK
35:00 HSiFS
37:38 WBaWC
39:46 UM
41:25 Final Results
Thumbnail by: / rakkidei
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[@SamuraiCaveman]

The weirdest realization I got from this is that stages actually advance with the background movement, I thought it was just coded to repeat until you hit certain enemy wave thresholds.

[@ElectricNox]

Well, they mostly advance with time. The backgrounds are like you said just looped, and timed events are walt makes things change. I assume you got the idea from EoSD stage 6 in this video, but even that isn't just a prerendered path that just plays out. (I'm pretty sure at least. And even if it was, it would be the outlier)

[@f.u.m.o.5669]

That's the first thing I noticed. The background is the only thing I can focus on while playing Touhou. Explains why I never beat PCB. (It's not a skill issue)

[@RaKKiDei]

I didn't notice just how long are stages in LoLK in average. Point Device mode makes one to lose track of time with all of those retries one probably has to do

[@kokodi01]

And then theres Stage 6, being the only Stage thats under 2 minutes for some reason. Like, it's the last Stage? Shouldn't it be longer that the others? Smh, c'mon ZUN (no hate)

[@fragmentedrose7401]

​@@kokodi01you're going to spend hours on it from Junko anyway so it makes sense

[@kokodi01]

@@fragmentedrose7401 what about the pros tho, atleast make lunatic longer

[@fragmentedrose7401]

@@kokodi01 well the whole point of that stage is that it's in the Sea of Tranquility and there's not much there. Would you like another minute and a half of the same two enemies with no mid boss?

[@kokodi01]

@@fragmentedrose7401 its not just LoLK tho

[@Nyuu3]

There's something really special about channels so dedicated to such a specific niche. I feel like this was what KZbin was supposed to be like a long time ago. That said, as a programmer, watching someone comb through 20 years of a guy's code and catalogue every dumb little quirk like which midbosses have hitboxes during dialogue is sending shivers down my spine. Thank god I don't work for you.

[@f.u.m.o.5669]

Now it's all about clicks.

[@BinglesP]

There's actually a pretty interesting reason why Stage 6 is usually one of the shorter stages, despite being at the end of the game. I learned this by reading ZUN's comments in the games' Music Room menus. ZUN stated in several of them that he purposefully makes Stage 6 short not for difficulty balancing, but for the sake of the story pacing. He says, usually, that he(and I paraphrase) "Doesn't want the final boss to seem like she's slacking". In other words, by my interpretation, the final bosses of each game are supposed to get to the point of the fight itself, as usually by the time you've beat Stage 5, you're almost always in the territory of the final boss already; since Stage 5 bosses are almost always a subordinate of their respective game's Stage 6 and-sometimes-Extra-Stage bosses(i.e. Sakuya and Youmu being servants of the Scarlet Sisters and Yuyuko respectively), and are thus guarding them when you're almost there.

[@L3va3_M3_Al0n3]

Feels like SA levels last for 5 minutes, not less than 2 minutes

[@kaiminus]

It seems long because it's pretty hard, but otherwise I'm not surprised since that level is synced with the music.

[@Kcboy225]

Whats sa

[@L3va3_M3_Al0n3]

@@Kcboy225 Touhou 11

[@Iceefunk]

Literally Me with touhou 17, especially stage 4

[@Iris_Descent]

It's a good thing this didn't go into PC-98 because hoo boy do I have gears to grind against Mystic Square's stage 1.

[@Dukstless]

What do you mean, do you not like having to wait 155 seconds for Stage 1 boss?

[@lunamagnoliid8984]

something about the dialogue: there actually is a skip button. On the keyboard you can hold crtl to advance the text as quickly as possible, and it does work if held before text starts. (at least in eosd where I tested to be sure)

[@Javifaa]

One should re-time the time-outs with that information. And then do the bosses.

[@crustacean78]

I think after th14 ? Or something, the skip dialogue button changes to Z,. Ctrl never worked on th18 or th17 etc for me

[@gooeyPhantasm]

@@crustacean78Yes, it changed to Z when the engine was rehauled for TH14 and above

[@elnkr2603]

​@@gooeyPhantasm It only *changed* to Z (exclusively) in Touhou 18. Up to 17, Ctrl still worked.

[@Dukstless]

Funny thing is that I actually did this myself. Take the times with a pinch of salt, they're kinda approximated. SoEW stage sections are roughly the same length (except ofc Stage 5, which is the final one). It takes from 2:30 to 2:40 these stage sections, give or take few seconds (it takes like half a minute to reach Mima in Stage 5). This is mega long for Stage 1 and 2, quite long for Stage 3... but short for Stage 4. LLS is the first game where stage sections vary in length. Stage is about 2 minutes, which is still quite long. Stage 2 roughly the same length. Stage 3 is about 2:20, which seems kinda in middle. Then Stage 4 is there with fucking 3:45, or 2nd longest stage section in the series, only behind PCB's own Stage 4. It's so long, the midboss appears TWICE. And then immediately you have Stage 5 that lasts only like 1:40; the shortest proper Stage 5 in the entire series (since SoEW's stage 5 is more like stage 6 in later games). Stage 6 in LLS is about 1:30, on longer side. It's also VERY generous (a bomb, a 1up, and a F power item just in case something went horribly wrong). Mystic Square has what I believe is the longest Stage 1 section in the series, where it takes just a little bit longer to reach Sara than Rika in SoEW. But this is Mystic Square, it plays more like a Touhou game with 6 stages, focus, deathbombs, health bars on bosses, all that good stuff. So SoEW notwithstanding, this Stage 1 is longer than anything else in the series, outdoing LoLK by like 20 seconds or so (or basically, something like 2:35 to reach Sara). It's so fucking long, that reaching Louise is way faster, at about two minutes. Then Stage 3 picks up the pace at being around as long LoLK stage 3. Followed by yet another really long Stage 4, which clocks at like 3:40! Then Stage is about 2:30... and Stage which lasts 42 seconds, or just a bit more than SoEW's stage 5. tl;dr = PC98 stage sections are at times surprisingly long. Even Mystic Square, which plays the most like Windows game, isn't safe from the weirdness. and no I didn't do EX stages.

[@CGerardito]

Something I noticed in UM stages but especially on stage 1 with Mike's non is that if you beat her "too quickly" or didn't time her out, the game loads a placeholder enemy in the form of yin-yang balls depending on how much time you have left before the game continues. The yin-yang ball amount varies too. It makes sure that there's something on your screen in case she goes down before the midboss segment of the music ends.

[@ImmacHn]

This happens with Shizuha as well.

[@winthelottery4685]

placeholder enemies after midbosses appear on multiple occasions throughout the series. can't remember them all rn, but off the top of my head sekibanki has that too with blue laser ying yangs after you kill the mid boss quickly.

[@BinglesP]

So much for rewarding the players, I guess. /s

[@GarryDumblowski]

@@BinglesP it is a reward though. The extra enemies drop more items, which can also mean more resources depending on the game. Hell, TD has some placeholder fairies in Stage 3 that actually spawn bomb parts.

[@johnathansfacew8528]

This is some information I'd never thought I'd ever hear about, but it was entertaining to see just how long some of these stages can get.

[@SuperChrim]

This video has proven to be very useful when it comes to making music mods for the games. I am currently working on one and it's nice to have these times.

[@Shyguymask]

I'm surprised Ten Desires is that long.

[@himkoto249]

It takes like 11 minutes to reach Yoshika in a normal run, makes the earlygame really annoying lol

[@star_elys]

Timing out stage portion is one of the best strategy to beat the game without bombing. If you beat mid boss th10 between 10-5 sec, you will skip the near impossible section especially on Lunatic

[@zackerhia914]

IN reimu fight is probably my favorite , i love how absurdly fast she is and shows after images, either that or its demonstrating her ability to float

[@ultimapower6950]

Just wanted to say I added up the total times of all games included in this experiment and they come out to this: Standard: 151 Minutes: 56 Seconds Timeout: 176 Minutes: 2 Seconds

[@Reimu_hakurei_vibing_i_r12345]

Old fact:in SA,you can basically cancel sanae's attack by using Marisa/patchouli or reimu/Aya and bomb her when talking.that would save some time

[@himkoto249]

it works for stage 6 Orin midboss as well

[@Reimu_hakurei_vibing_i_r12345]

@@himkoto249 this bomb is really glitchy as hell.

[@GensouChronicle]

Now that's a topic you wouldn't expect to see.

[@jibolbasbrother8098]

the line at 19:14 was raw

[@Ihavenoname248]

UFO Stage 5 is actually labeled incorrectly here (for subtle reasons), which I know from looking into the best approach for clearing on lunatic. The stage does not advance during Nazrin's dialogue, but does advance during the fight. Timing down the nonspell (or Greatest Treasure, if you're insane) can skip some of the fairies afterwards - my strategy used to involve trying to skip those fairies because they're quite hard to manage. I found that stalling the dialogue and bombing both attacks didn't skip any of them, while stalling the nonspell would: even when I stalled for less time on the non than on the dialogue! As shown, the stage picks up at the red fireball fairies which skips something like 6 waves of UFO dropping fairies that match the stage opener. On the same note, Stage 2 also has a skippable portion if Kogasa isn't shot down quickly, this time with lots of yinyangs that drop point items - unsure if there's a similar "latest pickup point" in that stage, but I definitely ran into issues filling my planned UFO summon before the next UFO fairies if Kogasa kept running away from me. In short: dialogue stalling doesn't matter there, while pattern stalling does: I wonder if there are other places like this? Yay for obscure trivia!

[@raikaria3090]

"Incredibly unsurprising; which is right on brand for the poor girl" - Poor Kogasa... but she gets her revenge!

[@Hijiri_MIRACHION]

I wonder why ZUN doesn't want midbosses affecting the stage anymore? Out of the past few games, only Nemuno's appears to be intentional. Interesting how Seiga won't let you breeze past her that easily like the other stage four bosses.

[@TheMitchellKeeler]

The answer is very simple, by preventing the player from affecting the duration of the stage you ensure that the gameplay and music always syncs up properly

[@samikaze1862]

man, I wish Rakkidei posted the thumbnail art alongside their other art, some of these thumbnails are awesome

[@都将为大家死呢0371]

I needed that, because I am programming a touhoy like game

[@LyteArken]

So...about timing them bosses? I kid, I kid.

[@untipocualquiera6551]

bruh, everytime i check for a new video i found something i didn't know i need but i watch anyways So, gotta say gud video

[@sakarain]

This was something I was curious about and I considered timing PCB (the touhou game I’m most familiar with) in comparison to other bullet hells.

[@andosaka8916]

Thank you for putting in the work to do this! I was wondering about this, but I never bothered to time it for myself

[@ludicrousfps]

31:19 I'm pretty sure that the midbosses only pause the stage up to a certain point, since nuking all 3 patterns with bombs lets you fight extended spawns of some filler enemies (which give multiple lives worth of PoC bonuses, so it's actually optimal to use bombs on them, at least with reimu A) Also I could've sword that EoSD stage 1 was like 2+ minutes but maybe that's just me dying of boredom lol

[@LushieTilde]

I like how PCB stage 4 is almost 1/3 and 1/4 of the length of all PCB stages. Despite it's time not increasing at all in timeout runs even! LoLK Extra really is longer than most extra stages by 2 entire minutes but has absolutely nothing of value in it and tons of reused stage sections, not to mention being significantly easier than the boss... I wonder if this Extra would feel significantly less awful if it was 2 minutes shorter. (IMO it's the worst extra and most people I know share that opinion)

[@blockeontheleafeon]

I like this video. Stuff like this is really cool to see.

[@CerealKiller]

Touhou

[@noesunyoutuber7680]

It's funny to think about how short these games are. Like, EOSD has about 12 minutes of gameplay minus bosses. It came out the same year as GTA Vice City, which has a campaign that lasts about 17 _hours._

[@Brew_co]

Good video with epic dedication quality

[@smollilnub3644]

Another high effort post from you. Great video!

[@euphony5552]

The thumbnail is honestly incredible, the prismriver sisters are so cute.

[@johnshriver8416]

19:13 damn Jokes aside this is a really cool video

[@reginsyafajar2304]

I never knew that skipping a spellcard is a thing..

[@the24thcolossusjustchillin39]

Now you do

[@JosephHk743]

Now do it for the PC-98 era. Jokes aside, it’s interesting to look at game length of each Windows game.

[@cardanawandra8402]

LOLK and IN i think it's best because of they are both about lunarians, one is the second easiest, the other is second hardest

[@ImmacHn]

I can beat 17.5 very quickly.

[@kirestary]

How tho

[@nazumi012]

@@kirestary its probably a joke on how 17.5 doesn't have "stages", only bosses

[@kirestary]

@@nazumi012 yeah. But you can tell the time on... Ah... Yeah you cannot be sitting there on 17.5 my bad

[@ImmacHn]

@@kirestary It's was a joke on me speedrunning the game. Worked better in my head.

[@kirestary]

@@ImmacHn no problem

[@yogsothoth915]

Not all heroes wear capes

[@kuskus_th13]

I haven't even noticed how long PCB stage 4 is until this video. I have over 180 hours of playtime in the game, btw...

[@ailingstar8856]

Kogasa's ability comes in clutch once again!!!

[@PseudoWounds]

That's some serious effort

[@gruntpepe]

You are mad man? You are Hank J Wimbledon?

[@Vito025]

Hey! Good video! Also talk about the Touhou official Mangas! Sorry if you already did one

[@simunator]

you're 2hu's nomad colossus

[@Xudmud]

I'm genuinely surprised, I thought PCB's stage 4 would be the longest overall of the non-extra stages (though I think it is on the standard runs). I guess the fact that it's a single loop through the stage track threw me off.

[@jambon2730]

I'm surprised touhou 6 stage 4 is only 3 minutes, it feels like ages

[@ssjcrafter8842]

27:22 pretty sure it'll be a ~3 second difference going by the timers...

[@awildcommenter7240]

Is the art in the thumbnails done by you or someone else because I love the artwork (Edit read the description)

[@markvd1008]

27:47 You just read my mind about noticing how much repetition this is.

[@sleeper6548]

Idk why I thought after 8th there will be PoFV

[@kokodi01]

Are the times in IGT or RT tho? And what about the times in ALL difficulty-settings? AND what abou the PC-'98 games?

[@earlmckenna9219]

What is the song playing in the background at 44:17? Thank you.

[@ltxr9973]

You sometimes make it sound like we're not going to get long videos anymore but thankfully that doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe you should put the results on the wiki or something.

[@lecone2220]

time to ask an silly question how can one play the touhou games. are they on steam? or is there another way to download them?

[@ImmacHn]

Touhou 10 and up, barring some of the spinoffs are available on stram.

[@toasterwaffleowen4709]

MoriyaShrine has them all

[@CerealKiller]

Some of them are on Steam and the rest you can get off of MoriyaShrine

[@myrmyxo]

Aren't you unable to download the touhou games from moriyashrine now ? It has been like that from around one year, unless it's been changed recently and I did not know that

[@toasterwaffleowen4709]

@@myrmyxo They're still on there, just as torrents instead of straight downloads

[@sakarain]

now i'm starting to wonder what decides the level pacing. Like why and when should levels be shorter

[@IvanBaAl961]

Music decides everything.

[@owencmyk]

I think it's really interesting how the only thing really separating just shapes and beats from Touhou in terms of being a rhythm game, is just the level design. If Touhou just... had levels that were designed with music sync in mind, it would be every bit as much a rhythm game as JSAB is. Strange to think about

[@NeoAya]

Aya moment

[@jacobdelacruz558]

Are you gonna make a vid for 19

[@drdca8263]

What’s that word you keep using? “Non”? “Nan”? “Nod”? The thing that some of the mid bosses have one of and some have 2, and which can sometimes be skipped

[@OkamiKai6980]

Nonspells are basically normal attacks from the midbosses and bosses. They're also known as cooldowns as they appears between and before spellcards.

[@drdca8263]

@@OkamiKai6980 Thanks!

[@OkamiKai6980]

@@drdca8263 you're welcome

[@alcatraz2981]

Where do you get the images in the thumbnail from?

[@ariesunderground5936]

He links the thumbnail artist in the description.

[@Brew_co]

IMMM FIRSSTTTT

[@koishikomeiji1735]

the

[@cokedib]

chosen

[@worm4877]

one

[@Brew_co]

Thank u guys u believed in me now I'm in peace

[@IkuNagaeoarfish]

​@@Brew_coHappy elder sis!