Welcome! I assume you just bought UDoALG and feel that it's kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I get you, you're not entirely wrong, but under the imbalanced exterior there's a fun and solid game that plays a lot better than it first appears. I promise!

All the information in this guide was gathered from personal observation and discussion with other players, and might not be accurate. Please point out any mistakes you see.

Up to date as of version 1.00a (initial release.)

Didn't I give this game a negative review? Yes, I did. Steam doesn't ask reviews to judge if a game is good or bad, it asks if you recommend it. To me, this means that if I had a friend who had some money to spend on a videogame and they were interested in spending it on this one, would I encourage or discourage them from doing it? I'd say that they should spend it on PoFV instead, which is a better game. If PoFV didn't already exist, my review would be positive.

UDoALG isn't a bad game though, it's still better than the majority of shmups out there. It's not a discount PoFV, it's not trying to be PoFV, and many of the differences between them are not inherently bad. If you're some kind of Touhou allplayer don't let me discourage you from playing it. If you are one, why are you looking at reviews anyway?


I will explain how the game works and how to use and abuse every resource and mechanic to maximize your chances at clearing the story mode with every character, even on Lunatic. Past PoFV experience is not required - I will compare the game to PoFV sometimes, but only to make sure that PoFV players aren't blindsided by the differences between the two games. They might look similar on surface level, but the core meta is entirely different.

The guide doesn't reiterate the manual, so don't skip past the basic sections. All explanations are accompanied by relevant strategies and invisible or non-obvious mechanics.

Don't follow my advice if you're interested in anything besides story mode, such as VS CPU or PVP. Story mode has a number of exclusive mechanics which fundamentally change how some characters are played, and by following the same strats in other modes you will play suboptimally.

I will also not explain elements which are best understood by simply putting a few hours in, such as the best approaches to destroy each type of fairy wave. The guide will speed up your improvement rate, but it can't replace training, and doesn't try to.

This guide doesn't talk about lore whatsoever, but it's not spoiler-friendly. If you consider things like which characters are in the game or who they fight to be a spoiler, don't read past this section. Clear the game once with everyone to see all the content, then you can come back to get good at it.

With all of this out of the way, let's get started! UDoALG is a versus shmup. Kind of. You only really need to care about the left side of the screen, the one you're on. It's weird like that.

There are 19 characters, each one with their own unique route consisting of 6 stages, and 4 difficulties. The game lets you continue forever with no penalty, but the universally understood definition of a successful run (a "1cc") is clearing all 6 stages without continues. Either way, finish a run and you get to see the ending sequence. The game will track that you completed the game with this character, regardless of difficulty or having used a continue.

At first only one character is available, but clearing the game with the characters you have will unlock more until you eventually have all of them. Just play the game once with everyone to unlock everything there is to unlock. Notably, clearing the game once with 4 different characters unlocks online multiplayer.

The format of the game suggests that what you're looking to do is to flood the enemy's playfield to force them to get hit and die, but just like in PoFV, story mode functions differently. Though, this time around there's no invisible survival timer! There are two possible win conditions, meet either one of them to clear a stage:

• Cause the enemy to lose all of their lives,
  
• Get through all of the stage's phases.

You will almost always clear a stage by meeting the phase requirement. More on phases below.

There are three kinds of phases: EX attack ("ex"), Nonspell ("non") and Spellcard ("spell.") There is an invisible meter which is filled up by you performing certain actions, and filling up the meter will trigger the next phase (more on this later.) Once the last phase ends, the enemy spontaneously explodes and the stage is cleared.

The phases are the same for each stage, no matter who you fight in it:

• Stage 1: ex ex non non
  
• Stage 2: ex ex non spell
  
• Stage 3: ex ex non ex spell
  
• Stage 4: ex ex non ex spell spell
  
• Stage 5: ex non ex ex spell ex non spell
  
• Stage 6: ex non non ex ex ex spell spell spell

• Stage 1: ex non spell
  
• Stage 2: ex ex non spell
  
• Stage 3: ex ex non ex non spell
  
• Stage 4: ex ex non ex spell non spell
  
• Stage 5: ex non ex ex spell ex non spell
  
• Stage 6: ex non non ex ex ex spell spell spell

• Stage 1: ex ex non spell
  
• Stage 2: ex ex non non spell
  
• Stage 3: ex ex non ex non spell
  
• Stage 4: ex ex non ex ex spell non spell
  
• Stage 5: ex non ex ex spell ex non spell
  
• Stage 6: ex non spell non ex non spell non ex spell spell spell

TODO

This order is set in stone, and you can rely on it to know what's coming next and how far along you are. It's a good idea to remember it, or at least have a rough idea of the number of non and spell phases in each stage. As long as you know that this is how it works and pay attention while playing, it'll come to you naturally with time. So don't study the above like it's a test, it's just reference.

Now, let's move on to discussing all the things you might encounter on your playfield. Knowing the enemy is half the battle.

Unsurprisingly, enemies shoot bullets. If a bullet overlaps your hitbox, you are damaged. There are two types of bullets:

• Weak bullet - a small white circle with a colored shade,
  
• Normal bullet - everything else. They can have a wild variety of shapes and behaviors, and even look like lasers or vines. It's all bullets though for the purposes of other mechanics.

When anything dies it creates a blast, visible as a brownish circle. The blast radius depends on the enemy type. A blast deals continuous damage to any enemy that overlaps it (but not to you!) until it disappears. Any weak bullet inside a blast is canceled.

Fairies are the basic enemies you shoot down throughout the entire stage. They spawn in waves, each wave following one from a number of possible approach patterns. The waves never stop spawning, not even during non and spell phases. Their HP is low enough that your standard shot can get rid of at least the majority of them, and they shoot no bullets - the only actual danger they pose is contact damage, but the real concern is them standing in the way of a boss you're trying to kill. Some fairies are larger and have more HP than the others. Normal fairies create a small blast on death, while bigger fairies create a much larger one.

Spirits are another type of enemy you can shoot down. They spawn spontaneously on the playfield once in a while. There are multiple increasingly dangerous tiers of spirit, from slow and helpless wisps to rapid eagles. If killed, a spirit will cause a large blast and reappear on the enemy's playfield, upgraded to the next tier. If both players are proficient at shooting down spirits, their numbers can increase quite rapidly. Spirits deal contact damage, which can be dangerous on higher and more agile tiers.

A spirit has a massive HP pool, but calming it with a scope (more on the scope below) causes it to freeze in place and cuts its HP drastically to a level lower than even a basic fairy. If not killed, a calmed spirit will eventually start floating upwards and disappear harmlessly.

Some enemies' exes create stronger versions of spirits on your screen. Their HP makes them impractical to destroy, and it's always best to avoid scoping them as it just prolongs their stay on your playfield.

Bosses
The enemy you're fighting can appear on your playfield as a boss. They will execute one of their bullet patterns until defeated. Outside of the final spell of stage 6 which is always the same, it's semi-random which exact spell will appear. They have a massive HP pool that is unfortunately not visible, and often requires a lot of effort to drain. A boss will appear together with a timer near the top of the screen, if the timer expires the boss will be defeated as well (known as "timing out" the attack.)

Shortly after a boss is dealt with, all bullets on the screen will be canceled and all fairies and spirits destroyed. Only one boss can be on a playfield at a time.

Some enemy ex attacks create things that don't belong to any of the above categories. Sometimes they're stationary, sometimes they're destructible, sometimes they fire bullets. What they all have in common though is that none of the standard mechanics apply to them. They can't be canceled by blasts or bombs, can't be grazed, etc. Always pay special attention to them because they don't go away easily.

Now that we know all the game objects, let's see how they interact. This is where the hidden mechanics really enter the stage.

The meat of every versus shmup is all the different spells you can cast. Each character has their own set of spells with different effects, but they follow a few basic rules. In UDoALG there are 4 spells you can cast, typically referred to as Lv1 through Lv4 as per PoFV tradition. Which one you cast depends on how long you charge up - as long as you have enough magic saved up.

• Lv1: A spell that costs no magic, so it can be cast at any time. Typically upgrades your basic shot for a short time. Don't be fooled by the fact that the Lv1 line on the spell bar is some distance away from the left edge - it is impossible to have less magic than this, and is only there to give it some cast time.
  
• Lv2: Costs a small amount of magic. Effect wildly varies - it can be a strong attack, a bullet cancel, an even stronger upgrade to the basic shot, or something else entirely. Casting it always cancels bullets around you in a very tiny radius.
  
• Lv3: Costs a larger amount of magic. Has the same effect as Lv1, but additionally spawns an ex on the opposite playfield. Also has the same canceling effect as a Lv2.
  
• Lv4: Costs the entire bar worth of magic. Has the same effect as Lv1, but additionally spawns a boss on the opposite playfield. Also has the same canceling effect as a Lv2. Unlike in PoFV, you cannot "bounce" a boss back to the enemy.

Casting a Lv2-4 costs magic, subtracting it from your current magic amount. Any leftover is preserved. There can be only one boss on a playfield, so if you cast a Lv4 while there already is a boss on the enemy's side, you'll end up casting a Lv3, spending only a Lv3's worth of magic. If you get hit while charging a spell, the charge is completely canceled but no magic is lost.

Unlike in PoFV, not every character has a spell that cancels bullets in a respectable radius. Note how Lv3 and Lv4 don't help you at all, and only inconvenience the enemy - which is typically useless in story mode. They however have other effects not mentioned above, which will be explained as we get to further mechanics.

Lv3 and Lv4 spells have tiers from 1 to 8. They begin on tier 1, and each time you cast one of them the tier goes up by one for the next cast. Higher tier spells are more dangerous for the other player, progressively becoming more difficult to survive. Current tier can be seen under the spell bar as Lv1 to Lv8. Don't confuse this with the Lv1-Lv4 naming of the different spells, they're completely unrelated! Thanks for that, ZUN...

The CPU player's tiers also go up as they advance through phases. On Easy and Normal they begin on tier 1, but on Hard and Lunatic they begin on tier 5.

Both the player and the CPU start with 5 lives. When you lose your last life, you get a gameover and a chance to continue by restarting current stage with 5 lives again - however, your run won't count as a "1cc" anymore. Your lives don't restore between stages, and there's no way to regain them.

Each life begins with a shield. A shield protects you from one hit, giving you a brief invincibility period and canceling bullets in a decent radius. You can regain a lost shield by casting a Lv3 or Lv4. The power bar will helpfully flash yellow when this is possible. There is no invincibility period after that, so you're open to losing the regained shield immediately.

Each stage begins with 3 bombs. They do not carry over to the next stage, and are not restored by dying. A bomb is one or several large areas that cancel all bullets inside them (of any kind) and deal massive continuous damage. The only penalty for bombing is draining of your entire spell bar. There is a deathbomb window, but it's really small - way past human reaction time. Never rely on hitting it, it's just there to compensate for any input latency.

Of special note is that some characters have bombs made up of multiple areas that often overlap. Each area deals its own damage, so an enemy that's inside of two areas will get twice as much damage.

A magic item is a tiny semitransparent circle that can be collected to gain magic for the spell bar. It is spawned in one of several ways:

• Graze (position yourself nearby) a bullet to make that bullet emit one magic item. Each bullet can only be grazed once. This tends to be rather minor and can be ignored.
  
• Scope a bullet to make that bullet emit one magic item. Each bullet can only be scoped once. More on the scope below.
  
• Reaching a high enough chain spawns magic items, more of them the higher the chain. More on chaining below.

Similarly to power items in most Touhou games, going past the invisible collection line near the top of the playfield will cause you to pick up all the magic items on the screen. If your magic is already full, any further pickups are wasted.

While you're charging a spell, the character's scope comes out. The shape and behavior of it differs per character, but it always appears as a blueish semitransparent area. The scope has several effects:

• Any bullet inside the scope moves much slower, easing dodging,
  
• Any enemy inside the scope moves much slower, keeping them on the screen for longer,
  
• Any bullet inside the scope emits a magic item,
  
• Any spirit inside the scope is calmed,
  
• Shooting is disabled while the scope is out.

These effects are very powerful and shouldn't be underestimated. Oftentimes it's a good idea to start charging not to cast a spell but simply for the scope's effects. The loss of damage caused by being unable to shoot is usually more than compensated by the effect of the spell when the scope is released. Many characters should spam their Lv1 or Lv2 constantly to maximize their damage.

Killing many enemies in a short succession begins a chain, visible on the screen as "x hits" in top left. Chain resets back to 0 if there has been no kill for about a second. Unlike in PoFV it's not expected of you to keep your chain going for the entire stage, but it's still important to aim to full-chain each individual fairy wave, netting a chain of around 21-24. Past a certain value, around 5, each further hit in the chain will release some magic items, the amount increasing as chain goes up.

A big help with chaining is the fact that each fairy releases a blast when it dies, often causing a chain reaction that needs no further damage from you to kill an entire line of fairies. You can squeeze in a few extra hits by calming and killing spirits during or shortly after a chain reaction, but this typically won't be enough to cross the bridge between two fairy waves. You can achieve a huge chain, 50 or higher, by keeping many calmed spirits on screen, waiting for a fairy wave, at then clearing them all at once. Some characters' spells make this much easier to achieve.

Now, here are the things the game. never tells you about! Knowing how these work will help you rein in the chaos.

Certain high chain thresholds, starting around 40, will spawn a Lv3 or Lv4 for free - I'll be calling this a chain cast. This chain cast will not cost any magic, will have the tier as shown on your spell bar, and will not cause the tier to increase.

If you receive an ex from the CPU player that wasn't caused by a phase, it was caused by the CPU executing a chain cast. CPU players can chain cast a Lv4, but only if the next phase is a boss.

The invisible phase bar is filled up by your actions, advancing to the next phase if full. The actions are these:

• Each hit in a chain fills it up by a small amount, larger for higher chains,
  
• Casting a Lv3 or a Lv4 fills it up by a huge amount, usually advancing to the next phase immediately.

After the ex is finished casting, or after the boss dies, the phase bar resets, allowing you to begin filling it up for the next phase. This means that phases will never overlap. It is possible though to get a boss phase shortly after an ex finished casting but before the bullets/objects of the ex faded away or moved out of your playfield, overlapping their effects.

Phase advancement using a Lv3 or Lv4 seems like a punishment for restoring your shield, but doing it on purpose is not always a bad idea. If your playfield is relatively empty and safe, you might as well advance the stage to skip the wait. Who knows, you might've gotten hit during the time you would've spent waiting. You might not want to do that if you know that the next attack is one you want to save your magic charge for, though.

Now that the mechanics part is over with, let's discuss how they can be used to make the game far easier than it appears!

You, can use these with most characters.

If you've played the game for a while, you probably often ran into situations when you had to dodge a boss and an ex at the same time, or kami forbid multiple exes. On the higher difficulties this is usually extremely difficult to deal with, if not literally impossible. This can happen for two reasons:

• You triggered a non/spell phase immediately after an ex phase,
  
• The enemy performed a chain cast while you were fighting a boss.

Both of these can be avoided by simply... not shooting. If you're not casting or making chains, the phase bar stands perfectly still. It also massively reduces the number of chainable enemies on the CPU player's screen, making it unlikely for them to get a chain cast. If you're dodging a tough ex or a demanding boss pattern, stop firing to make sure that it won't get any harder. Of course, you can still cause a blast or two if you spot a curtain of weak bullets ahead.

The way bombs work dictates a very specific use of them as the most optimal. You get 3 bombs on each stage, and there is absolutely no disadvantage to using them all every time. You might want to use bombs to save yourself in a sticky situation, but that just drains all your magic, leaving you extremely susceptible to dying 2 seconds later. How are you supposed to bomb, then?

Well, did you see just how powerful they are when planted on top of a boss? Positioning the bomb area on top of a boss at the start of the spellcard will usually kill them before the bomb ends, skipping the entire phase! Even if your bomb has only one area, it will drain about 80% of the boss's health, letting you finish them off with your basic shot within the next few seconds. In this situation, it helps to fire the bomb at late as possible, but before the bullets force you to move back down and out of nuking range.

Make sure that the bomb is on the boss for the whole duration of it, because the damage is steadily dealt over the entire time the bomb is on screen. The final stage 6 spell has about 2.5x the HP of a standard spell, so if you have real trouble with it, you might want to make sure to save two bomb stocks to skip it. It can be even worth it to die intentionally earlier in the stage instead of digging into this stock - it's better to lose one life and skip a difficult phase, than to save yourself early and lose all 5 lives on a pattern you can't handle. Figure out which spells you suck at, and route your bomb skips accordingly.

In normal Touhou games, dying with a bomb is stock is a waste. In this game, using a bomb to survive rather than to skip a phase is a waste.

The scope's effect on swarms of bullets is amazing, refilling your spell bar at lightning speed and slowing them down to a speed that's manageable for intense micrododging. But then you cast the spell you were charging up for, and the bullets speed back up, putting you in a challenging situation. The solution? Never stop charging! Of course you will never kill the boss that way, but sometimes it's far easier to survive an attack slowed down by the scope for 45 seconds than it is to kill the boss in 20 seconds.

This is obviously more useful with characters that have large, powerful scopes. You'll find that it's quite easy to recover if you get hit during this, since the scope will generate enough magic items to restore your shield very quickly - a practice known as shield juggling or shield abuse.

The most common final boss enemy is a big initial stumbling block for a lot of players. Her excan heavily inhibit your movement, resulting in your imminent death at the hand of any aimed bullet. She's also infamous for releasing an ungodly spam of random ♥♥♥♥ when you least expect it, leading you into impossible situations. Here's some tips for making this fight way easier.

• Follow the advice above to prolong the stage and spread out the ex attacks. Do nothing or keep charging during needles, do the same during every spell. Zanmu's bosses are easy to dodge on any difficulty, save your bombs for the finale if possible.
  
• The final spell is incredibly difficult and can easily end a promising run. If you have enough bombs you might be able to skip it, but with its huge HP pool even 3 bombs might not be enough:
  
  • 1-area bomb: 3 bombs + some shooting
    
  • 2-area bomb: 2 bombs + little shooting
  If you don't have enough resources, you might want to time it out instead. Fortunately, the bullets move slowly enough that shield juggling is viable here. Dodge near the bottom for as long as you can. If you lose your shield, move half a screen up as soon as you can and begin charging. Move down with the bullets until you reach the Lv3 threshold.
  
• If your character spawns super spirits with their Lv3, never use it against Zanmu! She will use her Lv2 to turn them all into calmed spirits instantly, getting a huge chain from it and flooding you with chain casted needles. If you're playing as one of these characters, use your Lv4 to restore your shield if possible, and hope that you don't need to do it twice within 30 seconds, when your boss is still around. Of course, try to avoid triggering your own chain casts as well.

We all die to Chiyari. She usually ends our runs. It sucks. To recap, Chiyari's ex causes purple balls to appear near you for some time. They chase after you if you're close enough to them. They shrink more slowly if they're standing still, and faster if giving chase. If inside a scope, their movement speed is reduced. They don't disappear if you bomb, or even if you die... so it's entirely possible to get hit multiple times by the same ball. Her Lv2, used extremely randomly by the CPU, spawns two extra balls and restores all balls on your screen to maximum size.

Here's some tips that might help you die slightly less often.

• Make use of the entire playfield. The balls will only appear near you, making other regions safe from them. Even if they're not all done spawning, it means they're now spread out more and their density is lower. Get out early, before the Lv2 seals your fate.
  
• Thankfully, Chiyari's spells are all relatively easy and it's not worth it to skip them. Disregard the advice on bombing when fighting her, and do use your bombs exclusively to save yourself if the balls trap you. It lets you get bad luck 3 times before your life stock is affected.
  
• Use your scope to its fullest. A ball trapped in the scope will effectively move half as far before it disappears, often not even getting to reach you. On Hard and below, standing still with a decently-sized scope means you're safe from any ball that doesn't outright spawn on top of your face. You don't want to be shooting while balls are a danger anyway, overlapping two exes is an instant gameover.
  
• Pay very close attention to the tells that a ball is about to appear. It's easy to miss them, so dedicate most of your focus to the task of spotting them. Avoid other mentally demanding tasks, or you'll find yourself spontaneously dying from a ball telefrag.

Every character is suited for a specific style of play, favoring the use of one mechanic over others. Let's break it down.

In this series, Reimu has always been The Mario. Average damage, beginner-friendly, no gimmicks. A good first clear while not too overpowered. The same is the case here - there's nothing really special about her, just enjoy the convenience of the homing shot while taking down the enemies at a comfortable pace.

Ahaha, sorry, just kidding. Pick Reimu if you want to steamroll the game while laughing maniacally the whole time. I could get in depth into her kit, but the Lv2 is the only thing that matters. It's a spammable bomb. It even looks like Reimu's classic bomb. Cancels bullets in a large area, deals enough damage to kill any boss in one or two goes. Go on, get your free Lunatic clear, you know you want to. Have fun.

She's really not terrible! Slightly delayed scope, but gets pretty large if you wait it out. Basic shot is decent, though gets sidetracked by enemies easily. Lv1 is worthless. Lv2 deals very good damage that can destroy even upgraded spirits in one go, and feels so good to shotgun bosses with. Pretty chill route, too. One annoying thing, though - the bomb does not move alongside you, so if you want to skip a phase, you gotta move up to the boss's face before you bomb.

So - spam Lv2 if you want everything around you to die, shotgun bosses if you can or just spam Lv2 from a distance if you can't, and when things get tough or you need to calm down the playfield, enjoy the sizeable scope. Just keep in mind to stop your spamming once in a while because all the spirits you're sending over will come back to you. On Zanmu, just time out every spell as usual. Overall, even though she's not anywhere near top tier, she's definitely nowhere close to the hardest clear in the game.

A mostly straightforward character, and of medium difficulty. Her basic shot is pretty powerful, and in fact spamming the Lv1 lowers your DPS, so don't use it at all unless you really need to hit something to the side. Bomb is absolutely terrible with its wild spinning. Sure, it clears bullets, but it'll spend most of its time not dealing damage to a boss.

The Lv2 is somewhat interesting- it's a Lv1 but with an additional effect of canceling all weak bullets in a large area. Weak bullets tend to be spawned as part of a spell's pattern, as well as revenge bullets from the opponent killing fairies on their screen. It can make dodging in some situations a lot easier, but it's pretty situational. Still, any cancel skill in this game is invaluable.

The scope is pretty bad, extending mostly to the sides. You can catch spirits with it easily, but it's dangerous during heavy bullet patterns - it's going to sandwich layers of bullets into a single thick line that you can't get through. Try not to use it during dense, screen-filling patterns. All in all, playing as her you'll end up just positioning yourself below the boss and shooting until they're dead, sometimes casting a Lv2 if the situation calls for it.

She cancels bullets. That's her job, and she's damn good at it. And, considering that in UDoALG all you have to do to win is not die, that immediately makes her a high tier character. Yuuma is just plain fun to use, and showcases this game at the peak of its potential. She does fight Chiyari, but it's on stage 1 so whatever.

The Lv1 and Lv2 are both straightforward cancels in a circle around her, with the Lv2 circle being obviously larger - though not as large as the ridiculous and admittedly kind of ugly sprite suggests. They also deal some damage, enough to kill fairies instantly, and if you manage to fire off Lv2s close to the boss consistently, you might even kill them instead of timing out. Completing the kit is the scope, which starts out as a tiny circle but gets absolutely massive if you hold it for long enough.

The real beauty of her moveset is how well it all synergizes. The scope gets big enough by the time a Lv2 can be cast that you always get tons of magic items, enough to immediately cast another one. If you think you'd rather micrododge, you can just hold the scope out to cover the entire screen, making many patterns a lot easier (at the cost of making bullets somewhat shaky-looking.) Spam the Lv1/Lv2 or hold the scope out, it's up to you. Her bomb is pretty short and single-area, so it's not very good at skipping phases - using just one will take a lot of extra shooting.

Yuuma's Lv3 sends super spirits, so DO NOT SEND Lv3s TO ZANMU if you can help it.

You'd expect the final boss of most routes to be quite powerful, and she's actually not bad! One of the easier chars to clear with, all things considered.

Her shot is somewhat inverted - goes straight up normally, and gets weaker but wider for a bit via her Lv1. Her scope is a respectably large star shape with no gimmicks. The real star of the show though is the Lv2, which turns all fairies and spirits into calmed spirits, in a huge radius! This is how you achieve absolutely massive chains that restore your entire spell bar, clear the whole screen from weak bullets, and the resulting blasts can cause a good amount of damage to a boss. It's like Orin's Lv2, except good.

This means the optimal way to play as her is to abuse the Lv2 as much as you can to get fast clears and lower the danger level. It'll all come back to you though, and things can quickly spin out of control if you don't wait it out once in a while. And, if an attack is tough to dodge even if there's no fairies or weak bullets, she doesn't really have any tools to deal with - her bomb is average as well with large size but only one area. Her route is mostly pretty chill, and made almost entirely of characters that spawn stronger versions of spirits, which are just fuel to her Lv2. She pays it all back in stage 6 though - Reimu is a real tough final boss, with dense orb spam and two 99-second spells. I recommend saving one bomb for the penultimate spell, and two bombs for the final one.