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Newest Update: Undefined Fantastic Object Stage 3 Newest Bonus Update: Undefined Fantastic Object Stage 2 Scoring Newest Concealed the Conclusion Update: Concealed the Conclusion Phantasm Stage  Sign-ups for the Touhou 12.3 Hisoutensoku Tournament can be found here!  Touhou? The Touhou project is probably one of the more (in)famous things to spawn out of Japan, which is fairly impressive given how much stuff Japan seems to inundate the rest of the world in. The project itself is primarily composed of fairly tough shoot ‘em up (shmup) games, with a general emphasis on bullet density. This places them squarely within the realm of bullet hell, meaning that often times the screen is near completely covered with bullets that will all one shot you. The games themselves aren’t exactly the toughest shmups out there, but they do have a reputation among those familiar with the games as being decently tough. Aside from the core shmup games, there’s also a ton of other “official” stuff for the game, including as of this writing, three fighting games, two photography games, books, comics/mangas, and music CDs. This isn’t even including all of the “non-official” fan produced works, which at this point must have become essentially uncountable. Oh, did I mention that the vast majority of stuff in the official series (including music, programming, art, lore, etc) are all done by one person? One guy spawned all of this stuff? Yup that’s right. The games are produced by Team Shanghai Alice, but its only member is ZUN. Frankly it’s nothing short of incredible. Yeah, yeah, that’s nice and all, but why does anyone care about this thing? This question has been asked by many a person, and there really is no satisfactory answer as to why this series has blown up as much as it did. As for the games themselves, I can tell you that they have a very unique aesthetic that really can’t be compared with any other game. Aside from that, the games themselves are extremely fun, engaging, and offer a rather cohesive package of lore, wit, humor, and cultural references if you care for that stuff, and extremely tough gameplay, wonderful music and stage design, and of course the ability to easily and cheaply practice stages and compare results. That last one may not sound like much, but most popular shmups were actually made for the arcade, and you can’t save replays there to show your skills to friends, nor the ability to compete with other people on a grander scale. So there’s that. I’ll give a special nod to the music though. It’s catchy and thematic, and an absolutely huge number of people make remixes of the music because they like it. With a very heavy emphasis on “huge”. I’ll say! I just googled “Touhou fan works” and I’m completely overwhelmed and there’s so much stuff on Youtube and I’ve lost myself for days in TVTropes because the page is so big an- The whole thing is very intimidating to take in all at once, so you should just relax and take things one at a time. For all stuff related to Touhou, go ahead and check out the Touhou megathread in ADTRW or the useful/miscellaneous links at the bottom of this post. Or don’t. Whatever you like. Alright… So then what’s the deal with this LP? I will be starting from game 10, Mountain of Faith, and going through 11 (Subterranean Animism), 12 (Undefined Fantastic Object), and 13 (Ten Desires) as they make a sort of “thematic arc” in the series (well, not so much number 11, but it’s on the way and it’s pretty drat fun like all the games in the series so I’m doing it!). This will be a Hybrid LP, with videos of the stages and boss fights, and screenshot updates with the dialogue/plot/extras. I do rather like the setting and plot/fluff of the series, so while I’m not particularly well versed in Japanese culture, I’ll try to give explanations for the stuff that I do know. Fluff? Boring! I want to see you get wrecked instead! Well I’m not exactly the best at these games, but I’m good enough that I’ll be showing most stuff off at Lunatic (the hardest) difficulty, and I might go down in difficulty level to show some different stuff off or some card differences if people care enough about that. I think I’m good enough to show off a fair amount of stuff in the games, but while I have cleared all these games on Lunatic already, I won’t spend an inordinate amount of time or delay updates trying to do something crazy. So then what will the update schedule be like? Videos of the run itself will be posted on weekends (either Saturday or Sunday), and fluff updates like boss profiles and spell card names/references will be posted on Wednesdays. Any extra stuff will be posted whenever. There might be a few busy weeks when I take breaks though. So I found this neat fanart and music from those links! Can I post them? Seeing as how the series does get a ton of energy from its fans, go ahead and post stuff you find about any game we’ve seen in the thread. However, a few very important caveats:
Hm? Hey wait a sec. The question above mentioned the links again, then I scrolled down and they’re not here! You forgot the miscellaneous links! Well I’m only human. I’m sure I’ll be making quite a few mistakes, so definitely feel free to call me out on those. Anyway, here you go: ------------ Links! ZUN’s official blog The English Touhou wiki. It’s where I get a lot of info and pictures. Touhou Megathread 5 in ADTRW Other Touhou LPs! Zorak’s archived LP of Touhous 1 through 6 Rising Grandpa’s LP of Touhous 7 through 9 (Requires Archives) ------------ Updates! The Dummy's Guide to Touhou and Shmups Mountain of Faith Mountain of Faith Introduction Mountain of Faith Stage 1 Mountain of Faith Stage 1 Boss Profile and Spell Cards Mountain of Faith Stage 2 Mountain of Faith Stage 2 Boss Profile and Spell Cards Mountain of Faith Stage 3 Mountain of Faith Stage 3 Boss Profile and Spell Cards Mountain of Faith Stage 4 Mountain of Faith Stage 4 Boss Profile and Spell Cards Mountain of Faith Marisa's Dialogue Stages 1 and 2 Mountain of Faith Stage 5 Mountain of Faith Stage 5 Boss Profile and Spell Cards Mountain of Faith Stage 6 Mountain of Faith Stage 6 Boss Profile and Spell Cards Mountain of Faith Reimu's Endings Mountain of Faith Marisa's Run Stages 3 and 4 Mountain of Faith Extra Stage Mountain of Faith Marisa's Run Stages 5 and 6 Mountain of Faith Extra Stage Boss Profile and Spell Cards Mountain of Faith Reimu's Extra Stage Mountain of Faith Marisa's Endings  Top-most image goes to the stage post with the video, stage thoughts, dialogue for MarisaA, and music. Middle image goes to exactly where it says. And the bottom 5 shot types go to the dialogue post for that shot type.                                                    Undefined Fantastic Object Undefined Fantastic Object Game Overview  Undefined Fantastic Object Stage 1 Boss Profile and Spell Cards Undefined Fantastic Object Stage 1 SanaeA Dialogue Undefined Fantastic Object Reimu's Shot Types Stage 1 Dialogue Undefined Fantastic Object Marisa's Shot Types Stage 1 Dialogue  Undefined Fantastic Object Stage 2 Boss Profile and Spell Cards Undefined Fantastic Object Stage 2 SanaeA Dialogue Undefined Fantastic Object Stage 2 Reimu's Dialogue Undefined Fantastic Object Stage 2 Marisa's Dialogue  Bonus Videos! Mountain of Faith Mountain of Faith Stage 1-3 Perfect Mountain of Faith Stage 4 "Perfect" Let's Fail Mountain of Faith Stage 4 Post Momiji Section Mountain of Faith Stage 5 Perfect Yeah Kanako's pretty much the easiest final boss in the series Mountain of Faith Stage 6 "Perfect" Video Subterranean Animism Stage 3 Perfect Stage 4 Perfect and Spell Cards "Perfect" SA Stage 5 Stage 6 Perfect Rin Rin Rin Rin~ Undefined Fantastic Object Undefined Fantastic Object Stage 1 Pacifist Perfect Undefined Fantastic Object Stage 2 Scoring BlitzBlast's Scarlet Weather Rhapsody LP Introduction Mechanics Youmu Konpaku - Gardener of Blue Skies      Yuyuko's Story Summary Suika's Story Summary Patchouli's Story Summary Aya's Story Summary Reimu Hakurei - Sunny Shrine Maiden      Remilia's Story Summary Sakuya's Story Summary Marisa's Story Summary Alice's Story Summary Yukari Yakumo - Illusion of Sun and Showers      Iku's Story Summary Komachi's Story Summary Reisen's Story Summary Tenshi's Story Summary GoldenBattler's Concealed the Conclusion Let's Play Introduction and Main Post Shot Types and Game Mechanics Stage 1C Stage 2C Stage 3C Stage 4 Stage 5 Stage 6 Extra Stage Phantasm Stage Stuff from other people! Kefit shows us how easy the final attack of Mountain of Faith is. Pffft. Not very difficult. Kefit shows off his Mountain of Faith No Bombs run. Crazy. Hey you know what's a good idea? A fighting game with voice clips that plays with every action! Tsym fucked around with this message at May 21, 2013 around 06:31 |
| # ? Jan 3, 2013 02:44 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 17:16 |
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The Dummy’s Guide to Touhou So there’s quite a bit of background and stuff to deal with before we can really begin. First off, the stages are short so I can’t really explain all this stuff as the game goes on, and secondly, the shmup isn’t exactly the most popular of video game genres, and there are no tutorials in the game, so I think a bit of basics will do. Gameplay Basics Allow me to point you to the helpful image in the manual, with some modifications:  Going in order:  This is the player character. Everything on the screen that isn’t an item (there are none on the screen right now) is a one hit kill. However, your entire sprite isn’t the hitbox. It’s the little red sphere that you see to the immediate left of the 1. I had to edit it on so it may not be precisely where the hitbox is, but that’s the general area. Also, the little yin-yang orbs to the left and right of the character are called options, and I’ll get into that in the power section.  This is the high score and your current score. Above the high score you can see the current difficulty of the game. The difficulty runs from Easy to Normal to Hard to Lunatic.  At the top are the player’s extra lives. If you get hit when you have no stars, that’s a game over and you get sent back to stage 1. Lives are awarded extra lives for collecting the 2 1up items and at certain point values. At the bottom is the player’s power. Again, I’ll explain the power system below.  This is the boss information. The red bar at the top is the boss’s health. Red health means it’s a spell card, while white health means it’s a non-spell. Spell cards are generally more interesting and special attacks when compared to the non-spells, and you get a point bonus if you can defeat a spell card without bombing or dying. Otherwise, there’s no difference between the two. Below the health you can see the boss’s name and a star. The star indicates how many more health bars the boss has. One star is one health bar, but note that a health bar can actually be any combination of things from 1 non-spell and one spell card to one non-spell and two spell cards or just one spell card. So it doesn’t say too much.  This is the faith meter. You don’t really need to care about it unless you’re playing for score, which I will not be doing, so it’s not really important for this LP.  This is the spell card information. At the top you can see its name, the point bonus amount if you defeat the boss without dying or bombing, and your history on getting the point bonus. The number 39 at the top indicates how much time is left in the spell card before you automatically fail it. Some spell cards are survival cards though, meaning that you have to let the time run out.  The yellow line is the Point of Collection, meaning that if you move your sprite past this line, you will auto collect all items on the screen. As you can see from the screen shot, this can be pretty dangerous to impossible to do at times.  Here I’ve spliced in the items in this game so you can see what my sprite can actually collide with on the screen without dying. From the left to right they are:
Power and Bomb System The power in this game determines the number of “options” the player character has. The options in the picture above are the two orbs that you see surrounding the player character. They shoot your chosen shot type’s bullets. Every 1 power up to 4 is one option, though the other two are cut off the bottom of the screen in the above picture. However, the maximum power in this game is 5 because the power system is tied to the bomb system in this game. Bombs are an attack that the player can use to avoid difficult situations or a death. They render you invincible for the duration, deal damage to everything on screen, and cancel out all bullets that they touch. The catch is that each bomb costs one power to use. You get one free bomb at maximum power with no options loss, but every bomb used after that decreases your killing power by one level. The amount of power lost from options varies per shot type, but with some types you can end up halving your damage output. There are two bombs in this game, one for Reimu and one for Marisa. They’re pretty underwhelming, but we can get a good look at them in the shot types video. A Note on Patterns and Streaming Bullets are generally fired in patterns in shmups. The three main ways that bullets are fired by the enemy in shmups are: Static, aimed, and random. One big part of shmup games is figuring out how bullets in an attack are shot and responding accordingly. Static  Static patterns are fired the same way every time and can be memorized or just dodged on the fly. For example, if bullets are fired in a line formation down every fourth of the screen every single time the attack is fired, then that attack is static. Obviously actual static attacks usually aren’t that obvious about it, like the attack in the picture above. It can look random from the picture, but the bullets are actually fired in the same way every time you go through the attack. The bullets technically spawn from the midboss’s position, but she moves in the exact same way every time so the whole thing is static. Static based on the boss’s position  There are also patterns that are static based on the boss’s position. Bosses move around the screen, and sometimes the pattern itself is static, but is fired from the boss’s current position. Going back to the laser example above, an example of this pattern would be one where lasers are fired down the middle of the boss, and then every fourth of the screen away from the boss’s current location. So if the boss is two-thirds from the left side of the screen, lasers are fired at 1/6, 5/12, and 2/3 from the left side of the screen. The blue bullets in the picture above are fired in the exact same way every time from the boss’s position. Random  Random patterns are fired, well, randomly, and can only be dodged by reading the bullets. No tricks for this type of pattern. Aimed Bullets and Streaming Aimed patterns are fired directed at your sprite and can be simplified dramatically by slowly sidestepping the aimed bullets. This technique is called “streaming” because it leaves a “stream” of aimed bullets behind the character as you slowly sidestep the aimed bullets. The below picture shows how proper streaming looks:  And improper streaming for the same section makes it…  Much harder. So you really want to figure out what portions are aimed and stream those. Restreaming Because the game arena is limited, you’ll also have to “restream” bullets, where you do a quick dash so there’s a gap in the streamed bullets, and then reverse direction through the gap toward the other side. Here’s a set of pictures to illustrate:  The red bullets are the aimed ones. Everything else is irrelevant. Since the red bullets were aimed, you could see where I just was when the last set was fired. Now I’ve dashed up against the wall so I can redirect the next aimed set of bullets.  You can see the aftermath here. I have plenty of room to maneuver so I can keep moving in the opposite direction, and the red bullets will move off-screen before I’m completely trapped.  And here is the aftermath. Now I can stream the rest of these bullets by moving to the left. This is a relatively easy pattern to restream, but other patterns in the game aren’t so easy. You’ll see these techniques used a lot in these games, but keep this term in mind so you aren’t lost whenever I mention it in videos. Of course, different components of attacks can also be fired in different ways. As an example, the lasers in an attack might be static while bullets are fired in a random fashion. Much of the difficulty in the first few runs in the game is in determining how each component of a pattern is fired. Glossary There is some jargon involved with Touhou and shmups like… uh. Life. Just like terms such as “Macgyver” or the more arcane “THAC0” can’t really be understood unless experienced/explained, there are similar terms in Touhou. This part aims to explain those terms that aren’t explained above. I’ll try not to use some of them too extensively during the LP (like the abbreviations). Abbreviations STG – Shooting Game, another name for a shmup PoC – Point of Collection, explained above 1CC – 1 Credit Clear, referring to completing an STG without continues. The term originated from arcade games, thus the “credit” NM/NB/NUFO/NBB/NT/… - The ‘N’ in each is “no”, and the last letter refers to a specific condition placed upon a run. ‘M’ means “miss” or “death”, ‘B’ means “bomb”, and the latter terms are all game specific and I won’t go through all of them. Terms Perfect – Referring to doing something with no misses or bombs or any other game-specific condition Clip - Getting hit by a bullet. Usually used when you think that the bullet shouldn't have hit you, or just barely grazed your hitbox. Game Abbreviations EoSD – Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil, the 6th Touhou game PCB – Perfect Cherry Blossom, the 7th Touhou game IaMP – Immaterial and Missing Power, a very popular fan made fighting game made in collaboration with ZUN IN – Imperishable Night, the 8th Touhou game PoFV – Phantasmagoria of Flower View, the 9th Touhou game StB – Shoot the Bullet, a unique photography game, numbered as 9.5 MoF – Mountain of Faith, the 10th Touhou game SWR – Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, the sequel to IaMP. This is numbered 10.5. SA – Subterranean Animism, the 11th Touhou game UFO – Undefined Fantastic Object, the 12th Touhou game DS – Double Spoiler, the second photography game, numbered as 12.5 GFW or FW – Great Fairy Wars or Fairy Wars, somewhat of a “mini-shmup” in the series, numbered as 12.8. TD or 10D – Ten Desires, the 13th Touhou game ---------------- Now if you don’t care for fluff or plot, you can go ahead and skip past the rest of this post, but if you do and have no idea what you’re getting into, here’s a little primer on the world of Gensokyo, where the action of the games all take place. I’ll keep this short, short sweet, and non-tangent heavy so your eyes don’t glaze over while reading a bunch of romanized Japanese words that might be better off being put in English or something. Ah, and I won’t be going over the plot of the previous games in the series because each game is pretty much self-contained in terms of storyline and setting. You really don’t need to know much about them to get what’s going on in any game really. Setting As I mentioned before, the Touhou series takes place within the world of Gensokyo (幻想郷 – The kanji literally mean dream/illusion, idea, and village respectively), which is translated as the Land of Illusion. Now Gensokyo itself actually exists in the same place/time as “our” world, but it’s sealed off with a barrier known as the Hakurei Border. For all intents and purposes, Gensokyo is self-contained. Now the special thing about this place is that it’s essentially the stomping grounds of many supernatural creatures (mostly of Japanese origin), also known as Youkai (妖怪 – Literally meaning otherworldly and weird respectively). The reasoning behind this is that Gensokyo is essentially a refuge for all things in the outside world that people have ceased to remember or have ceased to believe in. The society in Gensokyo is pre-industrial revolution, though it mostly takes on the characteristics of a rural countryside as opposed to those of big cities like Tokyo or Kyoto. Gensokyo represents a tension between modern society and traditional beliefs. In fact, the main plot of the first game I’ll be playing, Mountain of Faith, is predicated on the idea that as humans have advanced in scientific and rational thinking, they’ve slowly lost their connections to the supernatural and the traditional elements of their culture. Even if we merely pay lip service to those elements (like Halloween in the US), we don’t truly believe in those things. In the Touhou world, belief plays a very important role. Those who have belief have power, while those who don’t have it have none. Characters For now, all you need to know are the two primary characters of the Touhou series. They are: Reimu Hakurei – The Shrine Maiden of Paradise  Reimu Hakurei (博麗 霊夢 – When the kanji are put together they’re interpreted as esteemed beauty for her last name and divine vision for her first name) is, fittingly enough, the Hakurei shrine maiden. She’s the descendent of the original Hakurei shrine maiden who established the Hakurei barrier, thus separating Gensokyo from the rest of the world. She’s generally easy-going and lazy, unless something happens to threaten her livelihood or everyday life, in which case she becomes uncharacteristically determined to solve the problem. So far, she’s solved four incidents in Gensokyo, which were the plots of the previous four games. When she’s not resolving incidents or exterminating youkai (and boy does she do that!), she leads a very, very lazy life. Her shrine is rarely visited by worshippers despite its importance, so she pretends to clean it and drinks tea on a fairly daily basis. And a small note about her costume, which I always found funny/interesting. Originally, she had a much more traditional shrine maiden outfit, which along the way turned into a very frilly and rather outrageous get up. Compare:  Game 6  Game 7, released the year after I’m not sure why she’s become more “anime-fied”, but it’s always been funny to see just how her costume feels unique now compared to what it was in the past. ZUN even acknowledges this, explaining away the difference (perhaps jokingly) as, “But, I think the first time you see her, she looks like a shrine maiden, doesn’t she? Maybe that’s the answer.” Marisa Kirisame – Just an Ordinary Magician  Marisa Kirisame (霧雨 魔理沙 – Meaning “drizzle” for her last name and, for her first name, being a bit liberal here, “girly magic user”) is a magician that lives in the Forest of Magic by herself. Her appearance is similar to that of a Western witch (save for the apron), and her design is often considered to be a mix between Eastern and Western folklore. She is blunt and condescending, and this is reflected in her fighting style, which essentially consists of blowing the opponent away using straight up firepower. She is also a thief, but in line with her personality, she foregoes stealth in favor of just taking stuff that she finds interesting and saying she’s just borrowing it for a while. She is friends with Reimu, and often goes to visit her at the shrine, though she also has a rivalry with her. Unlike Reimu, who doesn’t need to work for her powers, Marisa experiments a lot with her magic, always working to improve so she can beat Reimu one day in a fight. Artbook Art ZUN isn’t exactly the best at drawing, so I’ll include a little section down here for art from the official artbooks. Reimu:  Marisa: 
Tsym fucked around with this message at Jan 8, 2013 around 01:21 |
| # ? Jan 3, 2013 02:44 |
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Mountain of Faith Overview Mountain of Faith  Actual Name: Touhou Fuujinroku ~ Mountain of Faith (東方風神録 ～ Mountain of Faith) Released: August 17, 2007 at Comiket 72 General Information Mountain of Faith is number 10 in the series, and is the first single player shmup to use a completely new engine. This was overall a net positive for the series, as it creates a new aesthetic that separates itself from the previous Windows games. Of course a new engine is not without risks, and this engine introduced a minor replay desync bug that continues to plague the series up to the most recent entry. Aside from the new engine, the score system was changed again, and there are a large number of gameplay changes from the previous single player entry, Imperishable Night. Video of Shot Types I have made a video of the Mountain of Faith shot types as I feel words and pictures don’t properly convey how they work. So here you go. Shot Types Video Prologue This is all taken from the manual. The Hakurei Shrine. A dilapidated shrine on the eastern border of Gensokyo. It's always bustling with non-human activity, as if it were a shelter for itinerant youkai. Naturally, humans do not visit a shrine with so many youkai, and with the people's declining belief, the patron god of the shrine was worried. And so, the shrine reached a turning point. Reimu Hakurei, the shrine maiden, was worried. Reimu: "How can I kick these youkai out...? How can I gather faith...?" ???: "Oho. Those dumplings look really good." Reimu: "Ah, Marisa. Yeah." Marisa: "Something on your mind?" Reimu: "A strange visitor came by a little while ago." Marisa: "That's all this shrine ever gets, anyway." A god's power stems from people's faith in it. The seldom-visited Hakurei Shrine god's power had steadily diminished, until its opinion was completely ignored in conference by its myriad colleagues. Even though it was said Gensokyo could only have one shrine, compared to the numerous gods of the outside world, belief in the Hakurei Shrine's god was on the decline, and its status was falling. Reimu: "Youkai are strange visitors, too. But this time, it was a strange human." Marisa: "What, a human visitor? Those are really rare." Reimu: "To suddenly order me to shut down the shrine...!" Marisa: "Huh, you mean the shrine's been open...?" Aside from its role as a dwelling for its patron god, the Hakurei Shrine serves an important purpose for Gensokyo. So, no matter how much faith its devotees lose, Reimu knew that it couldn't be allowed to close down. That important purpose is to watch over the boundary that separates Gensokyo from the outside world, but... Marisa: "Close down the shrine... what a weird thing to say. What would happen to it after that?" Reimu: "It'd get torn down, or the god on the top of the mountain would take it over." Marisa: "Hmm. That's even weirder." Reimu: "I don't know what kind of people would come then, but... No matter how you look at it, isn't that a weird thing for a god to say?" Marisa: "Yeah... Well the god would care who came, but... What are you going to do about it? You aren't gonna take them at their word and turn the shrine over to this mystery god, are you?" Reimu: "If the god on the mountain could gather more faith, maybe that could really happen. They could chase out the youkai, and it'd feel more like a shrine, right?" Marisa: "Hmm. Even if you change out the god in the shrine, I think you'd still have about as much influence." Reimu: "But, you know, this is just too suspicious. Chasing out the shrine's original god and then taking it over is just weird. That human seemed pretty powerful, but... I've never seen her before. It must have been a youkai in some kind of disguise, or some sort of evil god!" Deeply troubled, Reimu decided to go meet with the god that was said to live atop the mountain. Reimu had originally been avoiding ascending the mountain, but as she thought about the declining belief in the shrine, she decided to earnestly tackle the problem. She never thought that this would lead to a battle. Light courses through the heavens. The sound of machinery echoes in the distance. Perhaps the tengu's factories have awoken. This is a world the humans from the village could never enter. A building constructed of wood. The out-of-season call of a frog. The cast-off skins of countless snakes. She was there. She had always been there. There, with a single human. Tsym fucked around with this message at Feb 19, 2013 around 00:36 |
| # ? Jan 3, 2013 02:44 |
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ReimuA Stage 1 Myriads of Autumn Gods – At the Foot of the Youkai Mountain  Stage 1 Video Extra Thoughts I already explained why I don’t particularly like this stage in the video, but because ZUN wanted to do a sort of reboot of the series with this game, I’m inclined to give him a pass here. At least the stage is easy and short enough that it can’t really screw you over as you try to get to the rest of the game. Dialogue  I can't really see through all the falling leaves... Can I really make it all the way to the mountain like this?  Huh?I smell something tasty...  Even though you're a shrine maiden, you want to eat a god? How ridiculous! What insolence!  Who said I was going to eat you?But is that delicious smell coming from you?  Gods always put a great deal of care into their odor.Oh, by the way, I'm the harvest god.  Mmmm, so that's why you smell like half-baked sweet potatoes. Freshly-harvested sweet potatoes make up my perfume.Do you think I'm going to let a shrine maiden eat me!? After the Battle  That was pretty weak, for a god. I wonder if my shrine's god is any stronger? Well, this is no time for baking sweet potatoes. Better hurry on ahead. Stage theme: A God That Misses People ~ Romantic Fall ZUN’s Comment posted:This is the first stage theme. My Comments: Ah a nice relaxing stage 1 theme. The “drop in tempo” is at roughly 41 seconds in, and corresponds with Shizuha’s entrance. I love the way the trumpets just completely give way once Shizuha comes in, and the rest of the track is just a nice and relaxing melody. A rather simple theme, but I think that’s what ZUN was going for. Boss theme: Because Princess Inada is Scolding Me ZUN’s Comment posted:This is Minoriko Aki's theme. My Comments: Yup this song is rather short. A double loop of the song only goes for about a minute thirty, but it is nonetheless a very upbeat and strong opening boss piece. Rather boring, but it has a strong piano introduction and imparts the forcefulness and bluntness that characterizes harvest festivals. And also thanks to Pureauthor for asking about this, since I didn't notice it. "Princess Inada" in the song name is actually a pun. "Princess Inada" in Japanese is 稲田姫様. 稲 means "rice plant", 田 means "rice paddy", and 姫様 means "princess". "Inada", which is how 稲田 is pronounced, is also a surname in Japanese (not sure how common it is though). So a completely literal translation of the song title would be "The Rice Field Princess Is Scolding Me". Since Minoriko is the harvest goddess... You get the idea. Tsym fucked around with this message at Jan 3, 2013 around 22:01 |
| # ? Jan 3, 2013 02:45 |
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Oh boy, time for more touhou, and this time on lunatic! I've only 1cc'd one touhou game on normal, so I'll just be staring in awe all the time.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 03:11 |
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Alright, it's started! I'll be following this thread very closely. On a less white noise note, holy crap Lunatic. You say it's easy but I don't think I could ever do that. EDIT: ^ God drat it Argona give my post back. 
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 03:12 |
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Oh cool, more Touhou stuff. I am always very impressed by these. I keep trying to get into the series but i can barely even survive past the 1st or 2nd stage in most of them  Time to continuously suspect you of witchcraft for somehow not dying on these
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 03:39 |
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I'm looking forward to this LP, it's always great to hear Lunatic strategy in Touhou games. Ironically the game portion of Touhou is possibly the least important part of the fandom but the music coupled with good gameplay is always a treat to see.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 03:53 |
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So do you use a controller or a keyboard for this.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 03:56 |
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With all the fangame LPs it's nice to see somebody going back to the original works of a drunken madman.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 03:57 |
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Volt Catfish posted:So do you use a controller or a keyboard for this. The more important question: am I the only person who uses the numpad? Great OP and a good start to a hopefully good thread. Mountain of Faith isn't too exciting to start, but once you get past the first few levels it picks up decently.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 04:03 |
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Good start to the LP. Here's my encouragement that you don't get burned out 
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 04:10 |
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I never got into MoF as much as the others for some reason. I think I just didn't really like any of the shot types. Also goddamn, Lunatic. I've only ever managed to 1cc IN and TD on easy. I can't imagine how many times you would have to play this before you memorised it all.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 04:17 |
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Really nice commentary. And having portraits for each of the different emotions is great. That's something I wanted to do for my thread but I ended up just saying "gently caress it." I admire the amount of effort you put into this. Anyway I guess I sort of agree with you about this stage being somewhat boring, but I don't mind it so much. I love the music and the stage is very pretty. Really, this whole game is very pretty. I know a lot of people knock Mountain of Faith for being sort of weak mechanically and in terms of shot types, having no spellcard bombs, giving you way too many bombs, and for just generally feeling sort of rushed. But I like it. The aesthetics are pretty much the reason I started playing Touhou in the first place, and this game certainly excels on that front.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 04:44 |
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Tsym posted:[*]Full power up – Gives you 5 power. I’m not sure when this is used in this game. Full Power items get dropped whenever you lose your second-to-last life, so you at least have a fighting chance when you're about to die and not have to plink away at the Stage 5 or 6 boss with no upgrades. Also, echoing the sentiment of "holy poo poo, Lunatic". I'm definitely looking forward to more!
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 04:59 |
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I am terrible at these shooting games but really love watching them. Its neat to watch the bullet patterns and backgrounds/music, which you can't really paying attention to when too busy dodging while playing. looking forward to more updates, good luck with lunatic.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 05:01 |
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Volt Catfish posted:So do you use a controller or a keyboard for this. SirPhoebos posted:Good start to the LP. Here's my encouragement that you don't get burned out  I think I should be good for a while  .a cartoon duck posted:Full Power items get dropped whenever you lose your second-to-last life, so you at least have a fighting chance when you're about to die and not have to plink away at the Stage 5 or 6 boss with no upgrades.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 05:15 |
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Rising-Grandpa posted:Anyway I guess I sort of agree with you about this stage being somewhat boring, but I don't mind it so much. Stages 1 and 2 of MoF really start to drag the sixth time in a row you're playing through them. I'd kill for an option to start from Stage 3 in any of the Touhou games, to be honest. Rising-Grandpa posted:I know a lot of people knock Mountain of Faith for being sort of weak mechanically and in terms of shot types Wait people complain about this when SA exists? 
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 05:17 |
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I'm definitely watching this thread. I kind of agree with Rising-Grandpa, I think MoF gets a little more hate than it deserves. Though Stage 1 is pretty boring. I feel like Th13 in particular is a lot more 'rushed' and 'lazy', especially with regards to the bosses. Some of the patterns in MoF rock.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 05:35 |
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Honestly Stage 1 is boring in every single Touhou game. It kind of comes with the genre.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 05:39 |
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Great thread, I love the depth! Simply fantastic. The fact it's a lunatic run is just a cherry on top of the sundae. Will be watching.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 05:42 |
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Saw this in the sandcastle and really enjoyed the videos. Can't wait to see more.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 05:45 |
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Tsym posted:I just double checked this, and this isn't the case. This is true in the next game, but not in this one. Well, huh. I just checked the last fairy on stage six and the three yellow fairies at the end of the extra stage, and none of them drop a Full Power item either. I can't think of any other point where a Full Power would drop anyway, maybe it was dummied out for some reason?
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 06:23 |
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Maybe ZUN thought it would be overkill. You already get like 3.00 Power every time you die, like half the enemies can drop Power, and your damage maxes out at 4.00 anyways.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 06:41 |
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I love Touhou LPs! I was hoping someone would do the more recent ones since I have not seen them yet. On lunatic no less! Well, please keep it up. Keep telling me how this stuff is easy and boring because while the level itself looked that way the bosses never look easy to me. Then again, I've never played a Touhou game so maybe the wall of bullets is less threatening than I would assume from playing other games. I know about the small hitboxes and bullets looking larger than their own hitboxes and all but my brain just responds to the pretty walls of death with a prompt  although my favorite part of Touhou is when you can easily see that the entire player hitbox is covered by bullet outlines but they are still safe because the hitbox for the shot is so much smaller.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 07:30 |
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Does anyone know what the name for the Aki Sisters' boss theme references? The closest I've found was about a dude who killed a dragon to save a princess by the same name but I don't think that really applies here.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 08:03 |
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Well, 11 and 12 drop the Full Powers on your second-to-last life, as stated, and the earlier games would drop them if you game-overed (since continuing pre-MoF was instant, instead of starting you off back at the beginning of the stage). It's entirely possible that their existence in Mountain of Faith's code/sprites is just a remnant of the engine, since the Point/Power/1Up items are completely unchanged. Hell, there might even be a Bomb powerup nestled in the game sprites; that'd be your conclusive evidence right there.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 08:07 |
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Pureauthor posted:Does anyone know what the name for the Aki Sisters' boss theme references? The closest I've found was about a dude who killed a dragon to save a princess by the same name but I don't think that really applies here. It probably is referencing that, actually. Nonsensical song names are kind of par for the course.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 08:17 |
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Well we've gotten past all the good touhou games but it's good to see an attempt at finishing the series. Good luck, and congratulations on picking the objective best character. E: This post is not an opportunity to talk about who you think the real best touhou is. Namtab fucked around with this message at Jan 3, 2013 around 09:36 |
| # ? Jan 3, 2013 08:30 |
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Namtab posted:Well we've gotten past all the good touhou games but it's good to see an attempt at finishing the series. Meiling isn't in this game.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 09:34 |
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Are you planning to do every game on Hard or Lunatic? What about the other fighting/decimal games? I'm asking this mostly because I want to see the Ten Desires special endings, and I've vowed to never touch a Touhou game ever again after beating it on Normal. It's like hitting yourself with a board because it feels so good when you stop...
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 15:23 |
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Namtab posted:This post is not an opportunity to talk about who you think the real best touhou is. Yeah, Cirno's got enough screen time in the fandom anyway  BlitzBlast posted:Maybe ZUN thought it would be overkill. You already get like 3.00 Power every time you die, like half the enemies can drop Power, and your damage maxes out at 4.00 anyways. Didn't ZUN say that he focused more on making the patterns pretty rather than actually challenging? I could swear I read that somewhere.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 16:09 |
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CommissarMega posted:Didn't ZUN say that he focused more on making the patterns pretty rather than actually challenging? I could swear I read that somewhere. That might explain poo poo like Virtue of the Wind God being harder on Easy than it is on Normal.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 16:20 |
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I'm incredibly weak to solid long lasers like the ones in Minoriko's last card. Every time they crop up, I can usually assume I'm going to gently caress up royally. This made a later Touhou boss pretty goddamn obnoxious.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 16:33 |
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Pureauthor posted:Does anyone know what the name for the Aki Sisters' boss theme references? The closest I've found was about a dude who killed a dragon to save a princess by the same name but I don't think that really applies here. BlitzBlast posted:It probably is referencing that, actually. Nonsensical song names are kind of par for the course. KataraniSword posted:Well, 11 and 12 drop the Full Powers on your second-to-last life, as stated, and the earlier games would drop them if you game-overed (since continuing pre-MoF was instant, instead of starting you off back at the beginning of the stage). It's entirely possible that their existence in Mountain of Faith's code/sprites is just a remnant of the engine, since the Point/Power/1Up items are completely unchanged. Namtab posted:Well we've gotten past all the good touhou games but it's good to see an attempt at finishing the series. And funny story about my choice of character. While I was first recording the videos, I at first wanted to use ReimuB/MarisaB (without the glitch of course), but I found out that the resulting stage 1 video was so short that I couldn't explain the patterns in time before they cleared. So I had to switch to ReimuA since she's the only other shot type that's in pretty much every game, and I wanted to start off with something non-gimmicky. I think I'll totally put up a vote as to shot type choice for the Extra stage though. Decoy Badger posted:Are you planning to do every game on Hard or Lunatic? What about the other fighting/decimal games?
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 17:08 |
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Tsym posted:We still have yet to get to the best one! UFO! It's my favorite! I thought trying a touhou LP on lunatic was bad enough but this!? You're insane!
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 17:17 |
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Let's see if you have the mettle to finish what Zorak started and Rising Grandpa continued. Mostly looking forward to you doing SA, as that is the one game that just kicks my rear end over and over again. On normal.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 19:29 |
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KnoxZone posted:Mostly looking forward to you doing SA, as that is the one game that just kicks my rear end over and over again. On normal. Interestingly, as far as Lunatic goes, SA is all bark and no bite. Most of the difficulty is in the steep difficulty curve; if you can 1CC Lunatic in other games with no problem, SA isn't going to do much to faze you. No, the intimidating game on this difficulty is UFO.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 19:57 |
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Stelas posted:I'm incredibly weak to solid long lasers like the ones in Minoriko's last card. Every time they crop up, I can usually assume I'm going to gently caress up royally. This made a later Touhou boss pretty goddamn obnoxious. To be honest, I think Minoriko's last spell is actually easier on Hard/Lunatic that Easy/Normal. I find the solid long lasers much more predictable, so even though there's less space to maneuver I never have any trouble with it. EDIT: For anyone not familiar with Touhou, quite a few spellcards completely change between Easy/Normal and Hard/Lunatic. Minoriko's last card, for instance, looks like this on E/N:   Instead of lasers just appearing, they shoot out at you. I find it tougher because I'm terrible at this kind of card in general (except in TD for some reason). Tsym posted:it's a kanji pun Kanji puns, the bane of anyone trying to play a japanese game. Tsym posted:I won't be doing the fighting games because I just don't like playing those I'd like to offer to do SWR like I did IaMP in RG's thread then. I'm still terrible at the fighting games, but SWR is so easy I think even I can do it. BlitzBlast fucked around with this message at Jan 3, 2013 around 20:55 |
| # ? Jan 3, 2013 20:48 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 17:16 |
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BlitzBlast posted:I find the solid long lasers much more predictable, so even though there's less space to maneuver I never have any trouble with it. It's really not even whether they're predictable or not, if there's long lasers rather than bullets I just manage to completely miss them in the spam. It's also why I can't do Keine's last couple cards worth a drat in 8.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 20:54 |
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