It ties in pretty well together from Mountain of Faith onward, though it is fairly disconnected from before. So you could actually say the game took a huge dive in a huge story arc after the events of Phantasmagoria of Flower View.
Mountain of Faith brought in Kanako, who more or less establishes herself as the new king of Gensokyo. She acts like she wants to just be a humble god looking to gather faith, but Subterranean Animism shows she's got some huge plans. She tries to industrialize Gensokyo by turning the unused furnace of old hell in to a nuclear reactor.
The fissures that are caused by the reactor created geysers that pushed out the Holy Palanquin ship that was buried long ago, which caused Murasa, Ichrin, and Shou to rise up and try to revive their leader Byakuren. As a result a huge Buddhist pro-youkai faction started up.
Byakuren getting revived and setting up her own territory does not make Miko very happy. Its even funnier because she actually erects the Myouren Temple right on top of Miko's mausoleum to prevent her from resurrecting. In response, her followers resurrect her. This is a huge threat to all youkai, so Nue calls in their anti-Miko measure Mamizou, which Reimu tramples on anyways.
6, 7, 8, and 9 were all separate and unconnected incidents, but 10, 11, 12, 13 all form one big arc.
We don't really know what the plot for 14 is supposed to be, but I'm actually kinda hoping it goes back to the incident roots. I liked it better when Gensokyo wasn't about a bunch of really old humans squabbling at each other.
Quote from Kingofrunes;1096168:
Well how do I do combo's then :/ I'm terrible at fighting games. I just try and button mash until something works :/
I'm more or less going to paraphrase what professional gamers have said on their stream.
When gaming, you can either play simply to enjoy, or play to learn and improve. Playing to learn and improve is very different from straight forward playing, in that you really have to strain yourself mentally as if you were learning a science or skill.
Learn what it means to 5aaa6x8c (this basic combo works on
most characters), take your time slowly to actually practice combo executions, and repeat it until you can do it without screwing up 10 times in a row. Then you'll be able to pull it out on demand in an actual game. Learn situational combos that chain from different positions, opponents, etc.
I'm talking mostly from my experience in hisouten, so a lot of it might not apply to HM. Frankly, I think HM is a significantly easier game with very simplified mechanics, so will probably be a much lower skill ceiling and an easier metagame. With directional input now simply being a one button command there really is no reason why you can't cast whatever you need whenever you want.