History ThatOneAttack / TouhouProject

* '''''Oomukade "Dragon Eater"''''', used by the Extra stage boss, Momoyo Himemushi, is a very fast pattern that covers most of the screen in bullets. The recommended way to handle it is to misdirect the pattern and rush all the way across the screen -- but by the time you get there, she is already releasing the next wave and you have to rush back, ''through'' the remnants of the previous wave. And with having to go back and forth so much, good luck dealing any damage to Momoyo (especially if playing as the forward-focused Marisa). It gets so dense towards the end [[https://youtu.be/IBU67XMK1FA that not even a TAS can time it out without bombing or taking a hit]].

* Mima's attack where she fires a pattern of stars at your location, forcing you to move sideways to swerve between them. This requires exceptional timing to pull off, especially when it's time to change direction, and it's even harder for the Offensive Type due to its low movement speed. It says a lot when the common strategy on Lunatic is to abuse a quirk in how the pattern is coded and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrUcP7kOAPI&17m27s misdirect it to the side]], rather than actually bother micrododging the stars.

* Kikuri, the penultimate boss of the Hell route, is infamous for her opener consisting of dense, fast-paced danmaku. The pattern itself is rather simple, but the speed and precision it demands mean you're almost certain to get hit at least once, especially on Lunatic. There has only ever been one successful NoDamageRun of this game without bombs, and ''this attack alone'' is the main reason [[https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1584770211 that run was done in the otherwise harder Makai route]].

* Kikuri, the penultimate boss of the Hell route, is infamous for her opener consisting of dense, fast-paced danmaku. The pattern itself is rather simple, but the speed and precision it demands mean you're almost certain to get hit at least once, especially on Lunatic. There has only ever been one successful NoDamageRun of this game without bombs, and ''this attack alone'' is the main reason that run was done in the overall harder Makai route.

Some attacks can be made easier to practice efficiently through the use of Spell Practice mode, which lets you jump straight to practicing specific spellcards instead of having to run through the entire stage just to practice that particular attack. However, it doesn't let you practice non-spell attacks, and only a subset of games[[note]]''Imperishable Night'', ''Ten Desires'', ''Double Dealing Character'', and ''Hidden Star in Four Seasons''[[/note]] offer Spell Practice. For the rest of the games, you'll have to use good old fashioned Practice Start, which starts you at the beginning of the stage.

* '''''Oomukade "Dragon Eater"''''', used by the Extra stage boss, Momoyo Himemushi, is a very fast pattern that covers most of the screen in bullets. The recommended way to handle it is to misdirect the pattern and rush all the way across the screen -- but by the time you get there, she is already releasing the next wave and you have to rush back, ''through'' the remnants of the previous wave. And with having to go back and forth so much, good luck dealing any damage to Momoyo (especially if playing as the forward-focused Marisa). It gets so dense towards the end [[https://youtu.be/IBU67XMK1FA that not even a TAS can clear it without bombing or taking a hit]].

* '''''Oomukade "Dragon Eater"'''''. This Spell Card of the Extra Stage boss, Momoyo Himemushi, just straight-up stole the crown of the hardest pattern to ever time out in the '''entire series''', even beating out Gengetsu's 36 seconds of "Gengetsu Rape Time", being so hard especially towards the end [[https://youtu.be/IBU67XMK1FA that not even a TAS can be able to clear it without bombing or taking a hit]]. [[OhCrap And you know that if a TAS can't time this out, you bet your ass you couldn't, either.]] Even without trying to time this Spell out, especially as Marisa, this pattern is fiendishly difficult to get past, making it one of UM's hardest, if not the hardest, Spell Cards in the game.

** Hieda no Akyu, the [[BrutalBonusLevel Terminus stage]] midboss, has ''Heaven's Stream "Demise of the Thought Spirit World"''. Akyu shoots (thankfully harmless) pseudo-lasers to the bottom of the screen, where they hit a white boundary, become harmful, and bounce back ''up'' to hit you. If you think you can deal with lasers coming from the bottom of the screen, imagine dealing with those lasers while Akyu is directly shooting enormous bullet wheels downward. You're all but required to make wide movements to avoid the wheels, and good luck doing that while reading the lasers and not getting randomly walled. To cap it all, the pseudo-lasers Akyu shoots down still look nearly identical to the real ones from the bottom, making it easy to die because you mistook a death trap for a fake amongst all the chaos of this card.

** [[PintSizedPowerhouse Nomi no Hanie]]'s spellcard, ''[[https://youtu.be/bA1Kc2RbYOE?t=1m44s "Jacob Wrestles the Angel"/"Dragon Sumo of Ten Men's Strength"]]'', ''definitely'' places her in the WakeUpCallBoss status; while what she shoots at you isn't dense, the main problem lies in the fact that you are basically being ''[[InterfaceScrew led towards the edges of the screen]]'', where a ring of bullets is placed to limit your play area. Coupled with the speed at which Hanie advances towards you, even on Normal, is equal to a ''huge'' bomb sink if you don't know what you are doing.
** ''"Sword-Captor Sukune"'', the final card used by [[ThatOneBoss Takenouchi no Tarumi]]. Magatama circling the screen constantly leaving bullets in their wake, giant anchors flying at the walls leaving bullets in ''their'' wake, giant fists flying directly at the player, fireballs coming down from the top of the screen, the boss shooting bubbles everywhere, while everything that hits the walls splashes bullets so you can't even dodge it from the bottom for a better read — the sheer number of things going on all at once has been known to trip up even the most experienced players, and this is just on Normal! On Lunatic, well...[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDQvorN9nPE see for yourself...]]

** An unexpected one comes in the form of the final ''nonspell'' of the [[BrutalBonusLevel Phantasm Stage]] boss, Abe no Kiyohime; while her previous nonspells revolved around getting past familiars that were more of a threat than her, ''this'' nonspell consists of rotating hexagonal rings of amulets that slow down at the end of each wave. Assuming you attempt to follow it as a lane, you also have to keep in mind of the next wave which is fired in the opposite direction. [[https://youtu.be/9rSwdpyKPig?t=10m1s One certain]] ChallengeGamer even states that it's quite the DifficultySpike when compared to Kiyohime's ''whole past repertoire''.

** Remilia has a move where she can lower your maximum power, in a game where power is easily the single hardest stat to raise mid-run. Few things are more demoralizing than struggling over hundreds of turns to get 1 or 2 points of maximum power, only for your max to get lowered by 3 points in a single turn. It's telling that the seal that prevents this one move, and does nothing else at all, is considered one of the most important defensive seals you can get.

* Mima's attack where she fires a pattern of stars at your location, forcing you to move sideways to swerve between them. This requires exceptional timing to pull off, especially when it's time to change direction, and it's even harder for the Offensive Type due to its low movement speed.

** And if you can beat that, there's another ThatOneAttack waiting for you, and this one's much worse: Genetics of the Subconscious. Take the circular wave patterns from Rorschach, and add movement throughout the screen making Koishi nigh-impossible to ''hit'', which essentially forces the player to time out all of it — almost ''two minutes'' of it. And the way the bullets spawn is merciless — to be more precise, they can spawn ''inside your hitbox'' if you're too close to Koishi, and some of them spawn off the screen where your bombs won't affect them and where you can't see them — leading to cases like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnxTVPTE1PQ#t=6m40s this]]. Combine all of that with the bomb immunity expected of a BonusBoss, and you have yourself one utter nightmare of a spellcard.

*** And if you think you're safe after getting through that one, ''immediately after'' beating Eternal Horizon, you face ''"Phantasm of Eternal Recurrence"'', which consists of endless waves of spinning lasers with tiny gaps coming at you from both sides. The gaps are extremely difficult to read because of the spinning, and even if you do manage to read them, you're almost certain to get walled a wave or two later — if not by the lasers, then by the pellets Yukari is throwing at you in the meantime. Oh, and when you gain MercyInvincibility from dying or bombing? '''Yukari does too''', a distinction only shared with the BonusBoss and the FinalBoss' final attack (neither of which Yukari is in this game). And this card has a ''lot'' of health.

** Meiling's non and ''Fluttering Petals and Falling Leaves''. '''That's right''', an unnamed attack is so awful it stands out. Both work in a similar way, where Meiling tries to kick; with the former being of shotgun-like spread in front and somewhat random on back, while the later is just random spread all around. This doesn't seem too bad until you realize that since Meiling follows you during both scenes, focus mode is effectively a death wish, forcing you to macrododge (or God forbid, micrododge) the sprays at ''[[SuperSpeed Aya's full speed]]'' long enough to take 5/6 photos of Meiling, with things only getting worse as you succesfully take each photo. These are effectively the first real blockade in the game and it is not unheard for the photo totals to clock into hundreds, while others so far would take at most a bit over one hundred.

** Meiling's non and ''Fluttering Petals and Falling Leaves''. '''That's right''', an unnamed attack is so awful it stands out. Both work in a similar way, where Meiling tries to kick; with the former being of shotgun-like spread in front and somewhat random on back, while the later is just random spread all around. This doesn't seem too bad until you realize that the density of these and the frequency of attack means that focus mode is effectively a death wish, forcing you to macrododge (or God forbid, micrododge) the sprays of small pellets at ''[[SuperSpeed Aya's full speed]]'' long enough to take 5/6 photos of Meiling, with things only getting worse as you succesfully take each photo. These are effectively the first real blockade in the game and it is not unheard for the photo totals to clock into hundreds, while others so far would take at most a bit over one hundred.

* When talking about impossible spell cards, nothing comes close to the photography game ''Shoot the Bullet'' (and by extension its sequel ''Double Spoiler''), which is basically a collection of these. The game uses a unique control scheme, which makes beating spell cards as much an exercise in [[PuzzleBoss puzzle solving]], as in bullet dodging. They start fairly easy, then get progressively harder, then reach the usual ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' difficulty level, then pass it and then they keep going until they're completely OffTheScale.
* However, even by this standard, Kaguya's ''Seamless Ceiling of Kinkaku-ji'' manages to stand out, what with its circular spinning bullets, lasting for ''seven'' photographs and getting harder with each one. If you don't know how to properly herd the creation of the bullet streams, the card becomes even more impossible than it already is. It's vastly considered the single hardest card in the game, even though it appears in stage 9 out of 11.

* Remilia's fourth spell card, ''Queen of Midnight''. Remilia moves extremely quickly around the screen and rarely is open to your attacks, while attacking you with spreads of bubbles and pellets from various angles. It can easily take a whole life even on Normal; the only saving grace is that unlike the other three spells here, not everyone who faces Remilia has to deal with it.
* Yukari's fourth spell card, ''Infinitely Ultrafast Flying Object''. It's less a spell card and more a stage hazard involving periodically appearing lasers that can't be blocked or grazed, only dodged. That are random. While Yukari is free to do whatever she wants. Even on Normal it is easy to get caught by a laser as you're trying to deplete her health, and it only gets worse on Hard/Lunatic where a ''third'' laser is added, causing them to sometimes line up in such a way that is impossible to dodge barring miraculously timed superjump. Since Yukari always shows up as Stage 6 boss for everyone but Suika, you're pretty much guaranteed to face this monstrosity.

* '''''Oomukade “Dragon Eater”'''''. This Spell Card of the Extra Stage boss, Momoyo Himemushi, just straight-up stole the crown of the hardest pattern to ever time out in the '''entire series''', even beating out Gengetsu’s 36 seconds of “Gengetsu Rape Time”. being so hard especially towards the end [[https://youtu.be/IBU67XMK1FA that not even a TAS can be able to clear it without bombing or taking a hit]]. [[OhCrap And you know that if a TAS can’t time this out, you bet your ass you couldn’t, either.]] Even without trying to time this Spell out, especially as Marisa, this pattern is fiendishly difficult to get past, making it one of UM’s hardest, if not the hardest, Spell Cards in the game.

* When talking about impossible spell cards, nothing comes close to the photography game ''Shoot the Bullet'' (and by extension its sequel ''Double Spoiler''), which is basically a collection of these. The game uses a unique control scheme, which makes beating spell cards as much an exercise in [[PuzzleBoss puzzle solving]], as in bullet dodging. They start fairly easy, then get progressively harder, then reach the usual ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' difficulty level, then pass it and then they keep going until they're completely OffTheScale. However, even by this standard, Kaguya's ''Seamless Ceiling of Kinkaku-ji'' manages to stand out, what with its circular spinning bullets, lasting for ''seven'' photographs and getting harder with each one. If you don't know how to properly herd the creation of the bullet streams, the card becomes even more impossible than it already is. It's vastly considered the single hardest card in the game, even though it appears in stage 9 out of 11.

* See the ''Seamless Ceiling of Kinkaku-ji'' example from the ''Shoot the Bullet'' section? ZUN, being a TrollingCreator, decided to bring it back for this game. And make it harder, turning it into ''Vague Recollection of Kinkaku-ji''. (Mercifully, however, you only have to take 3 photographs this time.) Fittingly, it's used by Satori Komeiji, whose main gimmick in ''Subterranean Animism'' was copying the most traumatic spell cards from the protagonist's past battles.

* When it comes to stupid spells, you can't look further than Misumaru Tamatsukuri, whether it'd be her first ("Rainbow Dragon Yin-Yang Orbs" / "Yin-Yang Divine Orbs", where she creates circular waves of varied-size orbs that bounce off of all edges of the screen but the bottom) or third ("Yin-Yang Suffocation", a [[DamageSponge very high HP one]] where she repeats what she did in her first spell but just for 'small' orbs, while an alternating patter of much larger orbs come down at you). Rarely the yin-yang orbs have been used as projectiles in this series, but Misumaru more than definitely ups the ante when she re-introduces them in her fight.