Touhou II: Story of an Eastern Thread

[AlterForm]

I'm angling for my last two 1cc-Normals, SA and EoSD. Current target is the nuclear hell raven, but I need some help on Orin.

I can (barring really stupid mistakes) perfect clear up to Orin's boss fight in stage 5, but then she just wrecks me hard. What I've got so far:

I use Marisa-A (Alice).

Nonspell 1, Fairy ring and sweeping lines outward: Not a big deal. Just need to practice unfocused dodging here to avoid blowing up the fairies. (I'm supposed to avoid doing that, right?)

Spell 1, Cursed Sprite "Zombie Fairy": I cut left and up, herding the zombie fairies into the corner. I then quickly cut around down the right side so I can put some damage on Orin, before repeating the motion. Is there a better tactic?

Nonspell 2, Suicide sprites and sweeping lines outward: Not sure what I'm supposed to do here. If I fire on Orin, I tag the spirits who mess up the stream. If I stream properly, I can't fire on Orin effectively. It feels like maybe I should just treat this as a survival pattern?
[Edit]: Just tried it as a survival pattern. Went pretty well. I'll have to practice some more to figure out which "lanes" I need to get in to avoid being boxed in.
[Edit2]: Yeah, I was just baiting the sprites wrong. The pattern is Jump to Mid -> Cancel a Few Bullets¹ -> Wait for the sprites to die -> Move to avoid sprite shots -> Micro-adjust to avoid the sweep. I might be able to do it at full speed with shooting and speed the process up a bit.

Spell 2, Malicious Spirit "Spleen Eater": Not a big deal. I just have to not screw up my movements too much and I'm fine.

Nonspell 3, 6 omnidirectional shot sprites: Really no idea what I'm supposed to do here. The pattern doesn't seem streamable, but it is static; it's also hella dense for the bullet speed involved. I think Orin's movements are random?

Spell 3, Atonement "Needle Mountain of a Former Hell": How in the nine hells are you supposed to read this card? The contrast on the wheels isn't nearly high enough! I take it you're supposed to pseudo-stream them in a back/forth pattern, but I can't tell how they're aimed. Does anyone know? My current tactic is to bomb spam through, which is a problem because A) my bomb kind of sucks and B) I run out of power going into ...

Spell 4, "Rekindling of Dead Ashes": This is the big one that I need a mechanics check on. I think I get (more)/(more aggressive) zombie fairies here if I kill them during pattern 1 and maybe spell 1 as well. I treat it effectively the same as spell 1, herding left, circling right, and shotgunning Orin as best I can. Do I need to do anything else?

Once I can through Orin spending only 1, maybe 2 lives plus change in power (I currently spend 3-6 lives), I'll be pretty well set up for Utsuho. Thanks in advance for any help you guys can give me.



¹: Come to think of it, what are the rules on bullet canceling? It seems like any time non-mobile bullets are spawn into a pattern they won't appear on top of (or very near) the player, but when I've tried abusing this I usually wind up dead.

[Edit3]: So, with a bit more practice time, I found a good strat for the zombie cards. Herd, curve around to below Orin, shoot everything in front of me, micrododge LIKE A BAWSS. Managed to come out ahead of where I started in practice mode. Still want to figure out how to do nonspell 3 and Needle Mountain without resorting to bombspam.