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BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn


What's this?
Fantasy Maiden Wars I (aka Gensou Shoujo Wars Eternal) is the sequel to Fantasy Maiden Wars P. Because of that, a lot of people just call it FMW3. Anyway it's the third game in Sanbondo's planned quartet of Touhou-SRW mashups, and it is really drat good.

Touhou? SRW?
Touhou is a long series of indie bullet hell vertical shooters, and Super Robot Wars is an equally long series of turn-based strategy RPGs. You might wonder how those two could work together, and the answer turns out to be quite well! Rather than just slap the Touhou cast into SRW gameplay, the developers put a lot of effort into intertwining the two games. And while you'd think it'd be an oil and water situation, in fact the two concepts work together extremely well. I would definitely put FMW3 up there as one of the best SRW games to date.

So this is a translation LP?
Yes. Hokuto and Clarste will probably be handling most of the work on that front, so be sure to thank them.

Should I have read the previous LP?
Well it'd be kind of hard not to at the moment since this is the same thread as FMW2! But yeah, kind of. FMW3 is where a lot more of the hanging plot threads start getting addressed, so it can be hard to follow some bits without knowledge of FMW1 and 2. The game usually does its best to at least catch new players up, though.

How is this LP going to work?
There are posts and you read them.

So how long is this going to take?
FMW I has 24 unique chapters, plus an epilogue. I have no idea what the schedule is beyond "it'll be posted when it's done", but I dunno maybe a year?

Is there going to be viewer participation?
Yes, from the second chapter onwards.

I'm familiar with Touhou. What games does this installment cover?

IN and SA are the main stars this time, but characters from SoEW, LLS, EoSD, PCB, IaMP, PoFV, MoF, UFO, DS, and some of the sidestories are also around.

What's the spoiler policy?
Same as the last LP. You're free to talk about how Reimu and Marisa are going to beat the crap out of the casts of IN and SA, but anything FMW3 adds is a no.

Head's up!
I keep my computer audio's at about 40%, so all of the music links are really loud. I kind of wish somebody had told me about this when I started out instead of 39 chapters in, but oh well. Duck your audio before you read update I guess.

Alright, let's get started!

FMW1


Chapter 1R: Wonderful Shrine Maiden of Paradise
Chapter 1M: Departure
Chapter 2R: A Visitor to the Human Village
Chapter 2M: Magicians and Lies
Chapter 3: Silver Servant
Chapter 4R: Battle Amidst the Mist
Chapter 4M: Magicannon! Master Spark
Chapter 5R: Shameimaru, God of Wind
Chapter 5M: Daiyousei SOS
Chapter 6: Turmoil on the Lake Part 1
Chapter 7: Turmoil on the Lake Part 2
Chapter 8: Scarlet Boundary
Chapter 9: Trap in the Great Library
Chapter 10: Humans and Youkai
Chapter 11: Eternally Young Scarlet Moon
Chapter 12: The Summer Villa
Chapter 13: Sister of Scarlet + The Echoing Bell of the Wind God
Chapter 14: Into the Depths of Maddening Darkness
Chapter 15: Scarlets
Epilogue

FMW2


Chapter 16: Revisit
Chapter 17: The Mountain Where Gods Reside
Chapter 18M: Laying a Hand on the Scarlet Devil Mansion
Chapter 18R: Don't Lay a Hand on That Human
Chapter 19: Invasion! The Sacred Mountain of Autumn
Chapter 20M: The Other Shore of Friendship
Chapter 20R: Calamity of the Misfortune God
Chapter 21: The Visible Path
Chapter 22: Faith is From the Transient People
Chapter 23: Ah, Gods and Mortals on the Grounds of the Divine Lake
Chapter 24: Danmaku Chugfest
Source Material



Chapter 25M: Visitor in the Snow
Chapter 25R: A Winter for Young Maidens
Chapter 26: Spring Snow
Chapter 27: Yesterday's Enemies and Today's Enemies
Chapter 28M: Fantasy Cave
Chapter 28R: Seasonal Transition
Chapter 29M: Closed Runaway
Chapter 29R: Encounter
Chapter 30: Cherry Blossom Barrier Above the Clouds Part 1
Chapter 31: Cherry Blossom Barrier Above the Clouds Part 2
Chapter 32: Brink of Death on the White Jade Belvedere's Staircase
Chapter 33: Perfect Blackened Cherry Blossom
Chapter 34: Offering to the Falling Flowers
Epilogue
Source Material

FMW3


Chapter 35: Surfacing
Chapter 36: Fugitive
Chapter 37M: Fluttering Fireflies in the Night Sky
Chapter 37R: Tempting Singing Voice in the Black of Night
Chapter 38M: Rabbit of the Earth, Rabbit of the Moon
Chapter 38R: UNDEFINED
Chapter 39R: The Hakurei Barrier
Chapter 39M: Kirisame's Hakkero
Chapter 40: Showdown! Reimu VS Marisa
Chapter 41: The Engraver's History
Chapter 42: The Eternal Cage that Hides the Princess
Chapter 43: The Five Impossible Requests
Chapter 44: And Then, There Were None
Source Material



Chapter 45: A Glimpse at a Future Sky
Chapter 46: Setting Sail to a Sea of Stars
Chapter 47: Fantasy Maidens ON THE MOON
Chapter 48: Watatsuki's Spell Card
Chapter 49: G Free Shrine Maiden
Source Material
Chapter 50: The Rise of the Earth Spirits
Chapter 51: A Thread of Resentment Sinking into the Darkness
Chapter 52: A Bridge to the Surface
Chapter 53: Passing by the Palace of Earth Spirits
Chapter 54: Hell's Artificial Sun
Chapter 55: Twisted Tomorrow
Source Material
Epilogue

BlitzBlast fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Dec 8, 2015

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BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn
For easy access, here's the attack videos and character themes. Credit for all pictures goes to itomugi-kun.


Reimu Hakurei
All Attacks
Battle theme: Specter Buster (Mystic Oriental Love Consultation)
Fantasy Seal theme: Sealing Charm, Blessed Light (Witching Dream)
Trichromatic Lotus Butterfly theme: Trichromatic Danmaku Träumerei (Dichromatic Lotus Butterfly)


Marisa Kirisame
All Attacks
Battle theme: Be a Shooting Star (Casket of Stars, Time to Come)
Master Spark theme: The Moment Dreams Reach the Stars (Dimensional Dream)


Keine Kamishirasawa
All Attacks
Battle theme: Brain of Steel (Plain Asia, Trombe, Ice Man)
Headbutt theme: Theme of a Punishing Love (Nostalgic Blood of the East)


Alice Margatroid
All Attacks
Battle theme: Dancing Doll (Doll Judgement, "Shooting Star, Cut Through the Night Ver H", Ace Attacker)
Doll battle theme: Beloved Handmade Dolls (Dollmaker of Bucuresti)
Bonus theme: Dancing Marionette (Doll Judgement, Marionette Messiah)


Cirno
All Attacks
Battle theme: Flap & Frappe & Flapper (Tomboyish Girl in Love) or whatever it's called
Bonus theme: Heroic Fairy Duo Atop the Lake (Tomboyish Girl in Love, Lunate Elf)


The Aki Sisters
All Attacks
Minoriko battle theme: Heated Harvest Festival (Because Princess Inada is Scolding Me)
Shizuha battle theme: Silent Autumn Breeze (A God that Loves People)


Sakuya Izayoi
All Attacks
Boss theme: Distortion Dial (Luna Dial, Variable Formation)
Soul Sculpture theme: Crumbling Silver Knife (The Young Descendant of Tepes)
Battle theme: The Elegant Flower That Blooms at Night (Flowering Night)


Meiling Hong
All Attacks
Battle theme: Chinese Girl, Stand Guard! (Shanghai Teahouse, None Can Oppose Me)


Komachi Onozuka
All Attacks
Battle theme: Price of Life (Higan Retour, Beat and Beat)
Bonus theme: Price of Life (Ibiza Style)

Elly
All Attacks
Battle theme 1: Creeping Dreams (Perdition Crisis)
Battle theme 2: The Girl Guarding the Door of Dreams (Perdition Crisis, White Reflection)
Bonus theme: Creeping Dreams (cobu style)

Kurumi
All Attacks
Battle theme: Rise Above the Lake, Scarlet Phoneme (Scarlet Phoneme)
Bonus theme: Rise Above the Scarlet Lake, Scarlet Phoneme (long)


Daiyousei
All Attacks
Battle theme: Best Friends Atop the Silent Lake (Lunate Elf)


Rumia
All Attacks
Battle theme: Stalking the Night with a Cross (Apparitions Stalk the Night)
Demarcation theme: Fluttering Food in the Night Sky (A Soul as Red as a Ground Cherry)


Mokou Fujiwara
All Attacks
All Attacks (FMW I)
Battle theme: Eternally Blazing Heart (Reach for the Moon)
Bonus theme: How to Spend an Eternity (Extend Ash)


Nitori Kawashiro
All Attacks
FMW E battle theme: Water-to-Air Super Youkai Warhead Nitori (Candid Friend)
Boss theme: From the Bottom of the Valley and the River (Akutagawa Ryuunosuke's Kappa, From the Incompatible Land of Lakes and Marshes)
FMW P battle theme: A Sworn Friend's Bond (Candid Friend)

The Three Fairies of Light
All Attacks
All Attacks (Combined)
Sunny battle theme: Unrefracting Curiosity (Sunny Rutile Reflection)
Luna battle theme: Careless Though it's Spring (Sleepless Due to the Night)
Star battle theme: Trickster Girl (In Regards to Fairy Refulgence)
S-Formation theme: The Tiny Future Shines Brightly (Refrain of the Lovely Great War)
Combined battle theme: Our Hearts Still Shine Brightly (Year-Round Absorbed Curiosity, Soul of Steel)
Bonus theme: [Battle] Unrefracting Curiosity


Hina Kagiyama
All Attacks
Battle theme: Misery Go Round (Dark Side of Fate)
Pain Flow theme: A Certain Misfortune God's Song (The Road of the Misfortune God)


Momiji Inubashiri
All Attacks
Battle theme: Observe, White Wolf! (Fall of Fall)
Rabies Bite theme: The Dashing, Falling Fall (Fall of Fall, GunxSword [opening theme])


Aya Shameimaru
All Attacks
Boss theme: Black-Winged Wind God (Youkai Mountain, Battle God of Steel)
Battle theme: Gale Winds! Whirlwind! Shameimaru! (Wind God Girl, Endless Battle)
Bonus theme: Tearing Up the Only Moment (Shoot the Bullet)


Patchouli Knowledge
All Attacks
Battle theme: Magician of Aprisyra Metrosil (Locked Girl)


Koakuma
All Attacks
Battle theme: With an Eternally Innocent Heart ("Voile, the Magic Library")
Bonus theme: With an Eternally Innocent Heart (Howling Star edit)


Sanae Kochiya
All Attacks
Boss theme: Motherly Sea, One with the Wind (Faith is for the Transient People)
Summon Takeminakata theme: Proof of the Wind's Bond (Faith is for the Transient People)
Battle theme: Brand New Wind (The Primal Scene of Japan the Girl Saw, Realize)


Kanako Yasaka
All Attacks
Battle theme: The Restless Spirit and the Virtuous Wind (The Venerable Ancient Battlefield)
Bonus theme: The Wrath of the Most Cheerful God (The Venerable Ancient Battlefield)


Suwako Moriya
All Attacks
Battle theme: A God Plays with their Whole Heart and Soul (Native Faith)


Suika Ibuki
All Attacks
Battle theme: No Need for a Million Oni, Just One is an Army (Oni's Island in the Fairyland)
Bonus theme: Oni's Island (Broken Moon)


Letty Whiterock
All Attacks
Battle theme: Letty the Cool Lady (Crystallized Silver, Woman the Cool Spy)
FMW I battle theme: Thawy Days (Paradise, Destine)


Kisume and Yamame Kurodani
All Attacks
Kisume battle theme: Living in the Capital's Bucket (The Dark Blowhole)
Yamame battle theme: Upbeat Spider (The Sealed-Away Youkai)


Nazrin
All Attacks
Battle theme: A Simple but Unbreakable Family ("A Tiny, Tiny, Clever Commander")


Shou Toramaru
All Attacks
Battle theme: The Scorching Heat's Hungry Tiger (The Tiger-Patterned Bishamonten)


Chen
All Attacks
Battle theme: Orange Fancy (Withered Leaf)

Lily White
All Attacks
Battle theme 1: Song of an Unexpectedly Distant Spring (The Capital City of Flowers in the Sky)
Battle theme 2: The Snow White Angel of Spring (Liliaceae) (The Capital City of Flowers in the Sky, Silver Fallen Angel)


The Prismriver Sisters
All Attacks
Lunasa battle theme: luna crescente (Ghostly Band)
Merlin battle theme: Shiny Transblue (Ghostly Band)
Lyrica battle theme: Your Sparkling Sound (Ghostly Band)
Combined battle theme: The Netherworld's Prism Phantoms (Ghostly Band)


Ran Yakumo
All Attacks
Boss theme: Cyano Fantasia (Maiden's Illusionary Funeral, The Gate of Magus)
Battle theme: Accel Fox (Youkai Domination)


Youmu Konpaku
All Attacks
FMW E battle theme: Sword-Light-One-Flash (Ancient Temple)
Boss theme: As Decisive As a Battlefield (Hiroari Shoots a Strange Bird)
FMW P battle theme: Sword-Light-One-Flash [ver.P] (Ancient Temple)


Yuyuko Saigyoji
All Attacks
Boss theme: A Butterfly Amidst Scattering Petals ("Bloom Nobly, Blackened Cherry Blossoms")
Resurrection Butterfly theme: BORDER OF LIFE (Border of Life)
Battle theme: The Dancing, Blooming, Butterfly Person A!! (Ghost Lead, "Keep Going! Dance Battle All Night")


Yukari Yakumo
All Attacks
Boss theme 1: Lapsing into Sleep, the Boundary of Reminiscence (Necrofantasia)
Boss theme 2: The Final Banquet of Boundaries and Reminiscence (Necrofantasia)
Battle theme: Sage, Please Guide Me (Night Falls, Swift Battle)

------


Minamitsu Murasa and Ichirin Kumoi
All Attacks
Palaquin Ship theme: Ark of the Spring Sky (At the End of Spring)
Murasa's theme: Crossanchor Murasa (Captain Murasa, Crossbone Gundam)
Ichirin's theme: The Cloud's Fist (The Traditional Old Man and the Stylish Girl)


Hatate Himekaidou
All Attacks
Battle theme: Girl on the Tailwind of a Story (The Mystery in Your Town)
Bonus theme: Longing for that Wind that Tore Up the Moment (Double Spoiler)


Yuuka Kazami
All Attacks
Boss theme: Let's Make a Flower of Despair Bloom (Sleeping Terror)
Master Spark theme: The Beauty of Nature ("Gensokyo, Past and Present")
Player theme: The Flower that Marks the Changing Seasons [Ver. I] (Lovely Mound of Cherry Blossoms)
Bonus theme: The Flower that Marks the Changing Seasons

Mima
All Attacks
Battle theme 1: Enter the Aluren (Reincarnation, Time Diver)
Battle theme 2: Atop the Möbius Strip (Complete Darkness)


Wriggle Nightbug
All Attacks
Battle theme: -Fleeting Flame- Firefly Soul (Stirring an Autumn Moon, Illusionary Night, Get a Dream)
Wriggle Kick theme: -Fixed Star- Twinkling Rigel (Stirring an Autumn Moon, Illusionary Night, Wild Flug)


Mystia Lorelei
All Attacks
Battle theme: Grilled Lamprey Under the Moonlight (Song of the Night Sparrow, Deaf to All but the Song, Seventh Moon)
Song of the Night Sparrow theme: Open Human Cage (Deaf to All but the Song)
Mysterious Song theme: Bye Bye, Chicken Heart (Deaf to All but the Song, Empty Diamond Crevasse)
Howl of the Horned Owl theme: Anti-griddle of Anger (Song of the Night Sparrow)
Midnight Chorus Master theme: The Romantic Flavor of Westernization (Deaf to All but the Song, Song of the Night Sparrow, Interstellar Flight)
Bonus theme: The Romantic Flavor of Westernization LIVE at Youkai Mountain
Bonus theme 2: Love is Blind (Song of the Night Sparrow)


Tewi Inaba
All Attacks
Battle theme: Pounded Lies and Mochi in the Moonlit Night (White Flag of Usa Shrine)


Nue Houjuu
All Attacks
Battle theme: Heian Chimera Syndrome (Heian Alien)


Reisen Udongein Inaba
All Attacks
Battle theme: feel eyes on you (Lunatic Eyes)
Lunatic Red Eyes theme: UDON-ZAM (Lunatic Eyes, FIGHT)


Reimu Hakurei [Heavy Weapons System]
All Attacks
Battle theme: Dream Balancer [ver. Game] (Maiden's Capriccio, Dancing Blue)
Full battle theme: Dream Balancer
Fantasy Seal -Blink- theme: Sealing Charm, Blessed Light (Witching Dream)
Trichromatic Lotus Butterfly theme: Trichromatic Danmaku Träumerei (Dichromatic Lotus Butterfly)
Fantasy Nature theme: That Voice Won't Reach (Eternal Shrine Maiden, UNICORN)


Shin Marisa Kirisame
All Attacks
Battle theme: Stardust Hero [ver. Game] (Love-colored Master Spark)
Full battle theme: Stardust Hero
Final Spark theme: The Moment Dreams Reach the Stars (Dimensional Dream)


EX Keine Kamishirasawa
All Attacks
Battle theme: Now is the Full Moon (Extend Ash, Resolve of the Awakened One)


Remilia Scarlet
All Attacks
Battle theme: Emblazoned with an Eternally Young Scarlet (Septette for a Dead Princess, Dark Prison)


Eirin Yagokoro
All Attacks
Battle theme: Mind of Space (Gensokyo Millenium)
Astronomical Entombing theme: The Arrows and Bullets that Enshrouded the Night (Voyage 1969)


Kaguya Houraisan
All Attacks
Battle theme: An Exceedingly Proper Yet Arrogant Game (Lunatic Princess)
End of Imperishable Night theme: The Shining Moon Rises on the Absurd Night (Voyage 1970)


Flandre Scarlet
All Attacks
FMW E battle theme: Unbalanced Unknown (Centennial Festival for Magical Girls)
Boss theme: Frantic Destroyer (U.N. Owen)
FMW I battle theme: The Psychotic and Cute Guest [ver.I] (U.N. Owen, Violent Battle)
Bonus theme: The Psychotic and Cute Guest

Yorihime Watatsuki
All Attacks
Battle theme: Lunatic Guardian (Lunatic Blue, The Heavenly Diamond)


New/Changed Attacks
New Attacks 2 + Subterranean Animism


Yuugi Hoshiguma and Parsee Mizuhashi
Parsee battle theme: Resounding Wailing in the Hidden Heart (Green-Eyed Jealousy, The Bridge People No Longer Cross)
Yuugi battle theme: A Single Oni Strikes as Hard as a Thousand, No Help Needed (A Flower-Studded Sake Dish on Mt. Ooe, Walking the Streets of a Former Hell)


Satori Komeiji
Battle theme: the eyeline (Satori Maiden, Linebarrel)


Rin Kaenbyou
Battle theme: JAJAAAN ROCK!! (Corpse Voyage)


Utsuho Reiuji
All Attacks
All Attacks (Yatagarasu)
Battle theme: Skygazer (Hellfire Mantle)
Battle theme 2: The Crow that Swallowed the Sun (Nuclear Fusion)


Berserk Utsuho Reiuji
All Attacks
Battle theme: The Sun Fallen to Earth (Nuclear Fusion)
Battle theme 2: From Now On, We'll... (Lullaby of a Deserted Hell, GUNDAM)

BlitzBlast fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Dec 10, 2015

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn


Since I have FMW1 save data, the game gives me the option of continuing from it. The process isn't as cut and dry as you'd think, but that's a topic for a later day.



In the previous LP, the main save file was on Reimu's route, so I'm sure a lot of you are expecting me to continue her story.



The fact I brought that up means exactly what you think. This game is a lot more interesting on Marisa's path, so she's getting the spotlight this time. Sadly FMW2 does not let me change protagonists between games, so I had to beat FMW1 again to make a new save. For you previous LP veterans, yes, I got the Sunflower.

Music: Mystic Prelude

The song that actually plays here is a looped version of this track.



Opening crawls are a SRW tradition.

quote:

---Gensokyo---

A land far to the east that has existed since long ago. Humans and youkai live in this small, isolated realm and continue to spin new history.

There are two large barriers in Gensokyo. The "Boundary of Illusion and Substance" that calls in weakened youkai, and the divisor between Gensokyo and the outside world, between common sense and the lack of it, the "Great Hakurei Barrier".

Because of these barriers, communication between Gensokyo and the outside world was severed. So the humans and youkai living there formed their own peculiar culture.

During its 118th summer, Gensokyo was struck by a scarlet mist and a mighty storm.

The scarlet mist that spread far throughout Gensokyo was poisonous to the human body and caused great torment. What would later be called the Scarlet Mist Incident was resolved by two humans.


The Hakurei Shrine Maiden who bears the duty of preserving the harmony of Gensokyo, Reimu Hakurei.


An ordinary girl intent on wielding the greatest of magics, Marisa Kirisame.


These two were the heart of a group of humans and youkai that crossed the species boundary and worked together to take down the cause of the incident, Remilia Scarlet.

At the same time, a new incident arose at Youkai Mountain. The goddesses of the Moriya Shrine had come from the outside world.


The Moriya goddesses disputed with the mountain youkai, and then ordered the Hakurei Shrine to cease business.


However, the conflict was left unresolved when Reimu Hakurei defended the Hakurei Shrine from Sanae Kochiya. Pulling back their hand, the Moriya Shrine gained Youkai Mountain's faith and quieted down.

Gensokyo saw a brief moment of calm. But the peace that group of humans and youkai earned would not last long.

And thus, Autumn came to Gensokyo.

With that over with, the game starts the way all good RPGs do.



With some cryptic foreshadowing.

Music: Faintly Colored Whispering

In case you didn't read the OP, in order to prevent this LP from becoming too much of an image landslide, all pre/post chapter conversations will be on the Test Poster. I'll post a link, and provide a summary for anyone who just wants to get to the game.

Full Text

quote:

I'm bored.

So am I.

Isn't Mountain of Faith about to happen?

Eh, I'll let Reimu handle it.


quote:

Chapter 16: Revisit
Smash cut to Reimu and co. Since the entire series is supposed to be a single game, FMW2 starts at Chapter 16.

Music: For the Gensokyo of Tomorrow


Cirno posted:

Are you all ready!? You'd better not slow us down!

Y-yeah!

Sheesh, you guys never learn. I don't have the time for this right now.

Well Cirno is just a fairy. What the heck are you guys up to today?

It's a donating game. The maid at the red house taught it to me.

Sakuya: kind of a dick.

Donating? What, are you gonna ring the shrine's bell then ditch?

Normally you ring a shrine's bell before you put a donation in the offering box.

Don't be so sure. Perhaps she wants to steal it.

...So few people came already, and now this happens. Is your shrine always like this?

Pretty much. I'm practically buried in annoying fairies and youkai.

I suppose everyone's had more free time since last summer's incident.

I'm pretty sure the only one of you with a real job is Keine.

Okay everyone, go for the donation box. We don't need it, but Reimu will be really mad if she doesn't have it! It'll be hilarious!

Ooh, they're going for the donation box. We'd better stop 'em, even if there's nothing good inside.

Nuh-uh, I put some pretty rocks in there for her once!

That was you?!

*sigh* It's just like a playground here. Visitors to the shrine should worship once in a while.

That's what I tell them.

Well whatever, if you're all bored then bring it on!


quote:

Victory: Defeat Cirno.
Defeat: All allies defeated.
Bonus: Cirno is the last enemy defeated.
All chapters start off with a information screen. Win/Loss conditions are self-explanatory, but the WP Bonus is new. To increase difficulty, SRW games often place special challenges on every map. Usually you get a prize for fulfilling as many as possible, but FMW2 changes things up a little.



So. The map. Since FMW1, Sanbondo's added in a ton of quality of life features like



being able to zoom in and out. Take a look at the enemy types; over on the left are fairies, and across from them are kedamas.


quote:

Youkai Buster: "Youkai" enemies take 10% more damage.
If you flip through the character menus for a bit, you'll notice Reimu has a skill that specifically increases damage to Youkai type enemies. Which kedamas fall under, but not fairies. For some reason.

Meanwhile Marisa has the same hit/evade rates on both enemy types, but kedamas hit much harder so it'd be better for her to take on fairies.




So if I want to get through this chapter as smoothly as possible, I want Reimu, Keine, Marisa, and Alice swap positions. It's kind of odd chapter 16 does this when every other chapter doesn't, but I guess Sanbondo wanted to see if the player would pay attention.

What's Reimu doing all the way up there? You'll see.




Battles in SRW are simple affairs. Both sides have a hit rate, and when you start the battle the dice are rolled. If the enemy is initiating the attack like here I can choose to forgo countering to instead defend (halve damage received) or evade (halve enemy hit rate), but that's not needed yet.

Music: Be a Shooting Star



Marisa isn't as dodgy as Reimu, but she can handle herself.



Like most SRPGs, SRW subscribes to the "godly player units, mobs of trash enemies" design. Most enemies shouldn't take more than two or three hits to kill.



Characters are awarded experience, Pilot Points, and Points after battle. You'll see what the last two do later.


Bar at the bottom posted:

Danmaku Defense 15%, Evasion 5%
This fairy did something special: she put up a danmaku field. Represented visually as a bunch of yellowish tiles (you can barely see them over the shrine's lawn), these inhibit your character's movement, and lowers their defense and evasion. The bar at the bottom of the screen lists the exact penalty rates. Overlapping danmaku fields will stack their effects, so even the best of characters can't charge recklessly into the middle of the enemy.



44% isn't that great of a hit rate, but as you'll come to see it's more than enough to hit me. Luckily Marisa scored a critical (x1.25 damage) in response. When enemies die, their danmaku goes with them.

Welp, they've busted out danmaku. They're pretty pumped considering there isn't an incident goin' on.

The second turn starts with a brief primer on danmaku, one of FMW2's bigger gameplay changes. I'll explain it myself, so I'll just skip this.



My first action of the turn is to move Reimu here. Just like in FMW1, every stage set at the Hakurei Shrine has a bonus conversation that plays only if you move Reimu over her lake.

I figured he wouldn't be here.

Something up?

I haven't seen the turtle around recently. I wonder where he went off to?

A turtle? Are you talking about the one you used to ride?

Yeah, now that I think about it you've seen him before. And he's been so lively lately too.

He helped out with all sorts of crazy stuff, maybe he finally decided to retire. I bet he'll come back to lend you a hand again someday.

FMW2 has significantly less bonus conversations than its predecessor, and they aren't counted on your final results either. I'm still going to show them off.
Also I'm pretty sure I hosed up the translation of the last line.


The next mechanic I want to cover is a broad one: hit/evade rate mods. Marisa's so far above this fairy she's always going to be seeing 100% hit rates, so let's just focus on her evasion.



At point blank, this fairy has a 38% chance of hitting Marisa. But if I moved her one panel to the right, that would drop to 30%. In order to prevent players from just sniping everything ever to death, accuracy (and damage!) drops the farther away you are. Trying to attack from more than 5 or so panels away in particular makes your damage plummet.



If this fairy had a brain, she'd be landed a tile to the left to take advantage of the terrain.



As a tangent, while flying characters will get a terrain's HP/MP regeneration, only landed characters can use the defense/evasion boosts. This can be a very important fact to keep in mind.



If Marisa stands here, three tiles away from the enemy (the game counts diagonal movement as two spaces), the fairy has a 27% chance to hit.



But if she stands next to Alice, the fairy's hit rate plummets to 17%. Certain pairs of characters have friendship bonuses that buff their hit/evade rates as long as they're standing right next to each other. Once again, note that diagonals are two spaces and thus don't count for friendships.

In FMW1's Marisa route, you could "optionally" (read: you were stupid as all get out if you didn't) establish a +10% friendship bonus between Marisa and Alice. If you carry that save over to FMW2 the bonus is maintained, otherwise it's just a 5%. 5% is basically useless while 10% is awesome so how useful Marisa can be in the first half of the game depends a lot on if you played FMW1.




Okay, let's skip to the boss.



Chapter 16 is a big warmup, so all that you missed was enemies attacking and me countering.



Since Reimu was too far away, Keine soloed the right half and got a level out of it; in SRW, characters gain levels every 500 XP. But the experience you get from battle scales to the level of your opponent, so no easy grinding.



Cirno takes the initiative and rushes the weakened Keine. I'm pretty sure Keine wouldn't die even if I didn't defend, but may as well be safe.

You're as lively as ever. I guess you don't think pranking humans is a bad thing, huh?

Don't worry. Lately I've only been messing with Reimu and Marisa.

Oh, that's alright then.

No it isn't.

Music: Flap & Frappe & Flapper



489 damage. Yeah, Keine would have been fine.



All bosses have gigantic danmaku fields that make getting to them annoying.



One way around them is to have my characters Focus; this drops their movement speed, but lets them ignore generic danmaku penalties and adds a flat 10% to their hit rate.



The other way is to use a Bomb. Dropped by specifically marked enemies (look for the green B), these things damage all enemies (and only enemies) and destroy all danmaku in their radius at the cost of 10 Power.



What's Power? To SRW fans, it's Will with a different name. To everyone else, it's a character-specific resource that steadily climbs from 100 to 150 as the chapter goes on. Various actions like hitting an enemy, dodging an attack, or letting an ally die can raise Power, and the exact numbers are determined by a character's personality. The higher Power is, the more/less damage the character will do/take. Stronger attacks and certain skills are also gated by specific Power thresholds.



Normally it'd be pretty hard for Marisa to hit Cirno, but between Proto Malice Cannon's +30% hit rate boost, Alice's friendship, and Focusing she can hit a perfect 100.

So did you come here just to kill time?

Hey, what about you? You're always playing here too.

What are you talking about, I'm hard at work. Crushing slackers is a really busy job.



Not that it means poo poo because Cirno triggered Random Dodge. :suicide:

If the character with Random Dodge has lower Skill than her opponent, she has a chance of automatically dodging the attack. I've never seen it activate before now, so I guess this LP is off to a great start.




At least Marisa dodged. When you're Focused, it's impossible to fully dodge attacks. Instead you'll just take (Original Damage * Enemy Hit Rate) graze damage. This can be incredibly inconvenient, to the point that some characters are safer Unfocused.



Alice is too far away for a "guaranteed" hit like Marisa, so she casts Focus. All characters have a stock of Spirit Points and unique Spirits to spend them on. Each Spirit provides a different buff, with Focus here buffing Hit/Evade rates by a flat 30%.

Why yes, it is kind of confusing have both a Focus spirit and a Focus mechanic. If it helps, in japanese the words are totally different.


That reminds me, what are those three up to?

Alice is referring to the Three Fairies of Light, who Cirno teamed up with back in chapter 12.

Huh? What are you talking about all of a sudden?

Well they've raided my house before, so I might as well be a little careful.

Oh, well it's not like I'm always with them... but if you ask me, I think it's more fun to play pranks here.

I see. I suppose Reimu is easier to tease.



I didn't mention it last time, but Proto Malice Cannon is a combination attack. Both Marisa and Alice have to be in adjacent squares (diagonals count this time) and have sufficient Power to use it. Most combinations are usually super flashy finishing moves, but Proto Malice Cannon is just Marisa and Alice attacking at the same time. It's not as hilariously useful as it was in FMW1, but it's still really handy and the only way Marisa's going to hit dodgy bosses.



One hit and Cirno's almost dead. Alice has the highest Skill (the stat that governs criticals) in the game, so she's almost always getting crits.

I probably should show Cirno's stats, but eh. She's a wimp.




Keine could have finished off Cirno, but I decided to have her bomb a path for Reimu instead.



Reimu has two very handy spirits, Sense and Luck. Sense is both Strike (100% hit rate for a turn, bypasses all enemy skills) and Alert (100% evade rate for an attack, can override Strike) at once, and Luck doubles the amount of Points received from the next battle.

So today it's a donating game? What is Sakuya even teaching you?

She said it was a "primal, thrilling game for adults that can only be played at a shrine with a donation box."

What kind of nonsense is that? I've been getting nothing but trouble from the Scarlet Devil Mansion lately.


Reimu doesn't even need her finisher to wreck Cirno.

I was just going easy on you today!



As you'd expect, bosses drop quite the bounty. Being Focused cuts the amount of Points you get by the way, so you might want to stay Unfocused for deathblows.



Cirno also drops a Frozen Frog.



:toot:

Uwah, I'm done for.

There's no way I'd lose to fairies. Now scram.

If there are any living enemies, they'll take Reimu's advice.

Well that wasn't much of a workout. Let's just start on those sweet potatoes Keine brought over.

Oh, are you baking them? Can I have some?

Didn't I tell you to scram? Besides, it's been chilly enough lately without you around.

Now, now, feeding one more person is nothing to be concerned about.

That's right, I brought a lot so it's fine if Cirno wants to eat.

Ugh, fine. But at least help make them.

Now that that's over with, let's light up a fire. Cirno, gather up some leaves an- wait, somebody's coming.



A familiar face enters the scene.

! Reimu, that's...

It's been a while, Reimu.

Sanae Kochiya?



Every chapter ends with a results screen. Just like last time I intend to beat this game without save scumming, so I'll post the screen each time for proof.

------
Good evening! It's Thrilling * Dream Mansion Night!

Today's hosts are me, Kurumi, and...

Me, Yuuka Kazami.

Okay, right in front of the usual "Yuukarin! Please step on me!" corner is today's special guest!

...What did you call that corner? What a tasteless hobby.

Oh my, Alice. Do you also want me to step on you?

Of course not, just give me the postcard. Now then, today's problem is from Youkai Mountain's "Miracle S".

"Good evening, Yuuka. Lately, I've been worried about how I should scold my superiors. What would be a good way to tell them I want them to better themselves?"

Pah, being worried about something like that is absurd. If that's how you feel, then it's best just to tell them. And if they're humans, it wouldn't hurt to do it over a drink.

Wait, you have to keep the other person's position in mind. Though I guess for you, it's good that you put even a little thought into it.

I see, well if that's my precious guest's opinion I'll have to restrain myself. Well I suppose your superiors will listen to you if you put your feelings into your words.

Oh, that's Yuukarin for you! So easy to understand!

Okay then, see you all next week~!

...Why did I do this?

BlitzBlast fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Mar 25, 2015

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn

quote:

Hakurei Shrine

Music: Bizarre Smile

Full Text

quote:

Close down the shrine.

No.

Fine, I'm calling you out to Youkai Mountain.

Sure.

------
Music: Preparing for the Coming Game



And now the intermission, character upgrade central.



I can spend points to directly buff my characters' attributes (from top to bottom, HP, MP, Mobility, Armor and Weapons),



use Pilot Points to purchase skills,



and dump WP to buff the hell out of a selected character. A single WP level boosts all of a character's attributes by one (breaking the cap of 5 upgrades if needed) and increases their maximum Power by 5. This is very different from how WP was used back in FMW1, so Sanbondo was nice enough to refund all your WP. Hell they even assume you got the bonus on all 15 chapters, so you start with 225 WP.

You can choose to spread out WP levels or put them all into one or two characters. I normally put them all into the protagonist, but for this run I won't be using any WP at all. Marisa is somewhat of a flawed character, and you won't get to see any of that if she's maxed right out the gate.



First things first, I boost Reimu's Mobility to four upgrades. Back in FMW1 she only needed two to rock the entire game. Here she actually wants all five by the end, but four will be enough for the first half.



Weapon upgrades no longer cost an arm and a leg, so Reimu, Keine, Marisa, and Alice all pick one up. Marisa also grabbed another MP upgrade, maxing her out at 200 base MP.



Skills were rebalanced between games, and Unfocused Movement/Focused Movement in particular has completely changed in effect. Since those were the skills everyone wanted back in the first installment, Sanbondo was kind enough to refund everyone's PP as well. Another nice gesture is that all characters now start with a preset amount of PP and a couple skills, so there's never going to be a repeat of FMW1 Rumia (who was almost completely useless because she started with zero skills and zero PP).

Random trivia: the first edition of FMW2 had a bugged transfer process, so Reimu would always start with like 1200 PP. I thought it was incredibly fitting.



Reimu picked up her FMW1 standbys, Shotgunning (damage x1.2 if you attack from point blank with a move that could otherwise be used from further away) and P-Evade (Power +1 if you dodge an attack). This left her with 280 PP, and I honestly wasn't sure what to get because Reimu's so good she doesn't need anything else. Eventually I decided on Predict (Accuracy/Evasion +20 at 130 Power), but that still left me with 140. I ended up replacing Streaming (reduce Graze damage) with two levels of Range Up (increase Range stat by Skill Level * 5).

Note that since she already had it, Streaming level 1 is now free (and glowing blue). Theoretically this would allow me to more easily customize my characters, but in practice you're not going to shuffle skillsets often.



Marisa starts with P-Hit this time, so I just had to nab her MP Save (attacks cost 80% MP) and Predict. I could have started piling on Accuracy Up, but I wanted to save up for Support Attack (it's complicated, you'll see it later).



I also switch her Personal Skill from Danmaku Power (increase MP cost of the next attack to boost damage) to Hard Worker (+20% experience gained). Back in FMW1 you had to dump WP into characters to get these, but now they're learned through level up.

Yes they should technically be called WP Skills, but you can't make me. :colbert:



Keine also starts with one of her FMW1 dream skills, Belief (Skill/Defense +20 at 130 Power), so she grabs the other one, Support Defense (also complicated). If this were FMW1 I'd start stacking Berserk (Armor and Critical rate increase as HP decreases), but it's not so she gets MP Save to better use her natural Support Attack.



Alice's initial skills are P-Evade and MP Save, which are nice but not what she needs. Alice is the best Support Attacker in the game, so I get her two levels of it. You might think she'd want Combo Attack (all Support Attacks are critical hits) but her Skill is so high it's practically redundant.



I didn't use Cirno much back in FMW1, so she doesn't have enough PP to buy anything good. So I just set her PS to Freeze (the next enemy hit gets a -25% Evade debuff for the rest of the turn, can be used three times per chapter).



Finally, equipment! Characters can slap on the stuff they earn in battle for a variety of buffs. Reimu doesn't need anything so she just gets a Soul of Scarlet, which... does nothing. It signifies I carried over a FMW1 save, and lets me switch my characters' battle themes.

No point to dumping images most of you can't even understand, so here's a list of who got what:
    Marisa grabs the Sunflower (10% MP recovered every turn) and the N-Shooter (+15% Hit rate).
    Keine throws on the Tengu Clogs (+1 Move, +5 Mobility) and the Oni's Fang (+800 HP, +80 Armor). If this were Reimu's route I'd have a Tengu Fan (+1 Move), but alas.
    Alice gets the Grimoire (+70 MP) and the Frozen Frog (+5 Initial Power) I just got.
    Cirno just sifts through what I have left and pulls out random junk. Ginju Sake (Consumable that restores 2000 HP), a Rat Tail (+5 Mobility), and a Beer (consumable that restores 100 MP). Note that in FMW2, consumables are restored after the chapter you use them, so no need to stockpile.
------
Early FMW2 dumps old characters on you for the first few chapters, so I'll keep the analysis brief. These all assume you're familiar with SRW by the way.
Credit for all pictures goes to itomugi-kun


Reimu Hakurei
Personality: Resolute (Hit: +1, Miss: -1, Kill: +4, Get Hit: +2, Ally Killed: +2, Graze: +1)
Character Skill: Shrine Maiden (Hit/Evade rates + 5%*[Skill Level - 1])
Personal Skills: Youkai Buster (Increased damage to Youkai), Duplex Barrier (-500 damage barrier, costs 10 MP), Intuition (Critical Rate +20%, Hit Rate -10%)
Spirits: Sense, Focus, Luck, Fury (learned at level 22)

Reimu is still the outright best character in the game, but the lead isn't quite as dominating as it used to be. MP and Points are abundant now, so being a primarily ammo-based character who only needs minimal upgrades isn't as much of a showstopper. But Shrine Maiden is still completely absurd, to the point that only one enemy in the game has an actual chance of hitting Reimu, and Youkai Buster may as well have been called Boss Killer. Cheaper Weapon upgrades essentially erase her damage "problems" too, so now she doesn't even have to exploit multipliers to kill things quickly. I have literally soloed the game with Reimu before, so I'd say she's pretty great!
Incidentally, Reimu's status as a one-woman army kind of makes the plot of the first half hilarious, but we'll get to that.

All Attacks
Battle theme: Specter Buster (Mystic Oriental Love Consultation)
Fantasy Seal theme: Sealing Charm, Blessed Light (Witching Dream)


Marisa Kirisame
Personality: Strong-willed (Hit: +1, Kill: +4, Get Hit: +1, Ally Killed: +1, Graze: +1)
Character Skills: Magician (Damage and range of magic attacks increases with skill level), Magic Barrier (Laser attacks underneath a certain damage threshold are nullified)
Personal Skills: Danmaku Power (Increase MP cost and damage of next attack, limited uses), Hard Worker (+20% Experience), Magic Thruster (Boost Hit/Evasion rates at the cost of some MP, limited uses), Speed Star (Move +1, Evasion rate +15% while Unfocused), Enhanced Barrier (upgrades Magic Barrier)
Spirits: Gain, Accel, Alert, Valor (23), Strike (28)

Now that she's made it through the first game, Marisa's a lot easier to use. Starting with Proto Malice Cannon and immediate access to MP Save nullifies her prior MP woes, Magic Thruster and her friendship with Alice can somewhat account for her lack of the Focus spirit, and if you're really dedicated you can eventually get Strike to deal with her accuracy issues entirely. By the second half of the game, Marisa is undeniably the second best character. It's just too bad that for the first half she's drat near useless against anyone with a decent Evasion stat. She'll probably be the first to learn Valor at least, so if she does hit (or when, if you save scum) she'll hit hard.
As an amusing note, going by game mechanics Marisa and Alice have a better friendship than any other pair in the game.

All Attacks
Battle theme: Be a Shooting Star (Casket of Stars, Time to Come)
Master Spark theme: The Moment Dreams Reach the Stars (Dimensional Dream)


Keine Kamishirasawa
Personality: Strong-willed (Hit: +1, Kill: +4, Get Hit: +1, Ally Killed: +1, Graze: +1)
Character Skill: Parry ([Skill Level/16] chance of negating attacks with a Solid property.)
Personal Skills: Teacher (Surrounding units gain more experience), Charge (+1 Focused Move), Meddler (Activates Keine's friendship with Mokou)
Spirits: Trust, Strike, Guard, Rouse (27), Valor (39?)

Keine is no longer the sole character with decent defensive stats, so she's not essential anymore. She's still a really great support character, and natural Support Attack along with a strong finisher is always handy. Access to Trust and Rouse is also pretty great. I don't remember the exact level she learns Valor, but I remember it being really, really late.
FMW3 should see some major upgrades for Keine, so that'll be nice to look forward too.

All Attacks
Battle theme: Brain of Steel (Plain Asia, Trombe, Ice Man)
Headbutt theme: Theme of a Punishing Love (Nostalgic Blood of the East)


Alice Margatroid
Personality: Calm (Hit: +2, Kill: +3, Evade: +2, Graze: +1)
Characters Skills: Magician, Magic Barrier
Personal Skills: Hourai Doll (for 25 MP, summons a Hourai Doll that knows Support Defense on an adjacent panel, limited uses), Shanghai Doll (for 40 MP, summons a Shanghai Doll that knows Support Attack on an adjacent panel, limited uses), Danmaku Brains (Critical hits do 10% more damage), Enhanced Barrier
Spirits: Focus, Mercy, Alert

Alice got practically zilch from FMW2. The buffed Shanghai and Hourai Dolls are kind of fun to play with, but Danmaku Brains is the overwhelmingly better option, and she didn't get any new spirits or new moves. The greater amount of PP in this game kind of dims her role as star Support Attacker, with Combo Attack in particular making her high Skill stat not as much of a big deal. She's still a mandatory character if you intend on using Marisa though, and it's not like she's bad.
The next game already seems jam-packed with content, but hopefully Mystic Square's plot finds its way in. Poor Alice is going to need her upgrade to keep up with whatever boost Marisa gets during Imperishable Night.

All Attacks
Battle theme: Dancing Doll (Doll Judgement, "Shooting Star, Cut Through the Night Ver H", Ace Attacker)
Doll battle theme: Beloved Handmade Dolls (Dollmaker of Bucuresti)
Bonus theme: Dancing Marionette (Doll Judgement, Marionette Messiah)

BlitzBlast fucked around with this message at 22:36 on May 3, 2015

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn
But that's not all! Midway through the last LP I started playing on the hardest possible difficulty to distinguish the two routes. Well this time I'm doing that from the start, and I'm not going to cheat! Well, if you don't count ridiculous New Game + bonuses as cheating. :v:



Unlike the first game, FMW2 lets you replay it. It follows the standard SRW NG+ policy of carrying over a percentage of your total funds and PP, and the more times you beat the game the higher this percentage climbs. Eventually you just get all of it. This file has seen ten game clears, so needless to say I'm rolling in dough.



More importantly it also lets me change my protagonist and difficulty level. I think FMW2's Lunatic was balanced on the idea that you'd be coming in on NG+, so being able to fully upgrade everyone doesn't affect the difficulty curve that much.



And it's especially useless in Chapter 16 (which is actually one of the harder Lunatic chapters) since I start with default units! NG+ doesn't let me carry over my FMW1 saves, which makes things harder on Marisa since she doesn't get Alice's full friendship bonus. That's another reason why I wanted Reimu to handle Lunatic.

Music: Danmaku Tactics



Enemies on Lunatic are far more aggressive, have more health, and boast harsher danmaku fields.



Marisa starts with a couple levels of Instinct Dodge (Hit/Evade rates increase as health goes down), so it's safe to let her get hit once. That fairy's Skill isn't nearly high enough for that critical to be non-bullshit though. :argh:



Reimu has an even higher level of Instinct Dodge, but Kedamas are deadly enough that it's best to just let her evade everything. And if she gets hit, well that just helps me.



On my turn everyone Focuses and casts spirits to even the odds. Reimu then stands directly next to Keine,



so she can use the latter's Support Attack. As long as the supporter in question is standing next to the attacker, they can chip into battles. Sure there's a slight damage penalty, but being able to attack multiple times per turn more than makes up for it.



Another annoying part about this difficulty is that enemies will now choose to defend or evade at critical health. Thankfully, Marisa won the coin flip.



Alice gets hit by a 29% for half her health. :geno:



This makes her (and Keine, who is also not doing too hot) a big target.



And ultimately, Keine just doesn't have the upgrades necessary to survive. If she hit 130 Power and triggered Belief maybe, but like that's happening on turn 2.

You better watch out at the next full moon!



A lucky fairy nails Reimu on a 24%. :argh:



I should restart this run since Keine was my main source of healing, but I'll just see how it goes.



Marisa and Alice move over to the right to hopefully draw fire from Reimu.



It doesn't take, and almost gets Marisa killed.



Reimu's evade rates are high enough that she takes like zero graze damage too.



Alice tried to take out a fairy, but somehow failed to crit. And dodge. :sigh:

Sorry, I have to withdraw.



Well plan B, turtle on the shrine. Reimu and Marisa have a 5% friendship, which isn't much but I'll take anything at this point.



There are different battle backgrounds when you're on the ground. Sometimes even altered attack animations, though nothing big.



All of the enemies who attacked Reimu had really low hit rates, but I didn't want to risk it and Evaded two out of three.



The goal was to take those two out the next turn, but Marisa missed.



Reimu didn't.



The remaining fairy is crazy lucky and dodges both Reimu and Marisa.



No seriously, stop doing that.



I end up killing it solely because it took so long to hit that Reimu regenerated most of her health. That bumped Marisa to the AI-favored target, and since she had Alert on she could counter with impunity.



Reimu can only survive two hits anyway, so I move the duo out before she hits full so she can kind of benefit from Instinct Dodge. Cirno proceeded to zoom in.



And hits an evading Reimu. Man, halving the enemy's hit rate isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Oh well. I'll go back and have some tea.



Oh well, Marisa should be able to handle it from here.



It takes some finangling, but I manage to bait Cirno back to the shrine. If Marisa survives the next turn she can land and start abusing the terrain.



So of course she doesn't.

Ah well, guess I lost. Gonna head back for a nap!



:smith:

And then the chapter restarts! If you fail a chapter in SRW, you get to try again with all of the Points and experience you got from the last run intact. You can't shoot for the bonus anymore though, and it's a blow right to the gamer pride.

So that was what happens if you try and play Chapter 16 Lunatic like it's Normal: you roll the dice until you win. Now let me show you how to do this chapter right.

Music: Specter Buster



The strategy: park everyone on the shrine, Focus, and stall to kingdom come.



Only Marisa and Alice should bother attacking on player phase since they have Alert.



Having said that, I tried to have Reimu and Keine take out a fairy anyway. The fairy hit back on a 14%. :geno:



At least I have Keine around for on the spot heals. Trust restores 2000 HP to any character on the field.



Speaking of Keine, she barely made it though enemy phase.



Another turn later and Proto Malice becomes available for use. It's accurate enough that Evading enemies aren't quite as annoying.



Once the top is clear, I send Marisa out to lure Cirno in again. She's the only one without a spirit that boosts her hit rate, so she's almost useless against Cirno. I can blow the rest of her SP on Alerts to ensure her safety too.

Note that if I wanted to get the Bonus, instead of just drawing Cirno's fire I'd aim for the entire bottom half. I'm already pushing my luck just making it past the first half without casualities though, so I'm not risking it.



Cirno has HP Regenerate, so I don't want to take her down until all of my characters are ready. I expect her to attack Reimu though, so I have her cast Sense.



She attacks Alice. :suicide:



Who manages to hit with her finisher, so I guess it's not a total wash.



I start the final phase by using Alice's initial PS, Hourai Doll. This summons exactly that to the field. It's useless on its own, but it gives Alice another 5% friendship, which is enough to make Proto Malice 100% accurate.



I was half expecting Random Dodge to go off.



Marisa bombs (they have a 100% hit rate),



and Reimu goes for the kill. Her finisher, Fantasy Seal, has the highest accuracy boost in the game. Combine that with the Focus spirit and being focused, as well as her own ridiculous accuracy, and Reimu actually has a 104% hit rate. Too bad Cirno is Evading.

Music: Sealing Charm, Blessed Light



Suck it, chapter 16.



I didn't get the WP bonus, but screw those for this run.



I am a gazillionare so I can max out everyone right away. This will make the coming chapters much smoother.



I also dump all of my WP into Reimu. You'll see why much later.



Thanks to NG+. everyone has more then enough PP to buy their dream skill lists now. Reimu in particular has enough to buy almost every single skill. Characters starting with a preset amount of PP is a huge blessing for this feature, since it means even if you didn't use that character they'll still stockpile PP.

For Lunatic, everyone wants to invest in Stat Up skills. I won't bore you with the details of what I got, just know that they're all ridiculous setups that you could never do on a normal playthrough.



As a final note, on a default save I start with an E-Shooter. It only boosts hit rates by 10%, which is still good.

------
The game has been paused. Please take a break.

...Autumn is in full swing at Youkai Mountain. This beautiful place is the home of the Eight Million Gods. At the foot of the mountain, the goddesses of autumn promptly greet all visitors.

Everyone, I hope you will enjoy the leaves changing color as much as I do.

Now then, please have fun playing Chapter 17 of Fantasy Maiden Wars P: "The Mountain Where Gods Reside"!

(Translation Rough Draft)

BlitzBlast fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Jun 26, 2014

Ryza
Mar 15, 2012

Disco Thunder
Already cannot wait for the final lunatic chapter. :allears:

For anyone who has the game and wants to follow along with Blitz on lunatic(god why) or just steamroll the game with your favourite characters, I uploaded my NG+ save:

Have fun.

Bart Roberts III
Jun 28, 2008
I saw the last LP you did of this series and enjoyed it. It'll be neat to see what's going to happen here (though I know the general gist of it since I know the plots of the games in question).

a cartoon duck
Sep 5, 2011

I always knew you were gonna crack on your hard-rear end "I'll only LP this once a fan-translation comes out" stance.

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn
The only shame is that I couldn't convince Ryza to do the LP for me.

Also FMW3 is coming out in August, so preemptive warning that I'm totally gonna slack on this LP to play that.

KazigluBey
Oct 30, 2011

boner

Following the thread; will you be uploading attack reels like the LP of the first game did?

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn
Sanbondo redid all the sprites for FMW2, changed up some attack animations, and even added some new finisher songs so I guess I should, but to be honest I've got enough on my plate as is. If there's demand I'll find the time to whip something up, but otherwise I'll probably only do it for the new characters.

Blaze Dragon
Aug 28, 2013
LOWTAX'S SPINE FUND

Making all the animation videos is clearly the Bonus for this LP. LPing while translating is already Lunatic, so I don't blame you for not doing it.

I'm so glad you actually went and did this, I was really interested in this game since you showed some bits in the first game LP (itself really enjoyable, both game and LP). I'll definitely be following, the dialogue still cracks me up and the gameplay looks great (from a SRW fan who has never played a single Touhou game and all of his Touhou knowledge comes from LPs)

KazigluBey
Oct 30, 2011

boner

Chalk me up as a vote for the vids, they were one of my favorite features in the previous LP. Aren't there any full attack reels already up on YT you could use when relevant?

Dr Pepper
Feb 4, 2012

Don't like it? well...

Oh boy more jerks throwing pretty rainbows at each other. :allears:

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn
Alright, thanks to the amazing power of delegation the efforts of Ryza, attack videos are up. I've added links to the character analysis, as well as everybody's themes because why not.

Golden Battler
Sep 6, 2010

~Perfect and Elegant~
So when are you going to start that other thing?

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn
If we do decide to do some streams, it'll probably start next week.



Also Keine is very quickly becoming my least favorite character. Stop expositing drat it.

Shei-kun
Dec 2, 2011

Screw you, physics!
Oh man, I've been looking forward to this since the last one. This should be glorious :allears:

Glad to see Marisa's getting the spotlight for the main run this time.

SyntheticPolygon
Dec 20, 2013

I'm glad that I managed to finish reading the LP for the first game before this began. For a fangame this looks absolutely amazing. It's kind of astounding how much effort must have been put into this, if you remove the Touhou elements it almost looks like it could be an actual retail game. Which is not something that can be said for any other fan project that I have ever seen. Sanbondo even managed to make a pretty good story out of EOSD, which is not something I ever thought i'd say about a Touhou game. So, consider me excited for seeing where this is going.

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
Your FMW1 LP mentions a pastebin with a menu translation for this game - do you have that laying around anywhere? I'd be interested in playing along with you, but I'd need to know how to get through the menus. I've played enough SRW that I can figure most things out, but I wouldn't know the skills or such.

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?
FMW1 was cool, FMW2 is loads better. Looking forward to your LP almost as much as I'm looking forward to FMW3.

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn

Endorph posted:

Your FMW1 LP mentions a pastebin with a menu translation for this game - do you have that laying around anywhere?

Here. It has spoilers for future chapters, but I don't think that'll be much of an issue for you.

Sorry this took so long, I pretty much had to remake it and the forums went down just as I was about to post it. :sweatdrop:

EDIT: I am never going to stop finding minor grammar errors in this, huh.

BlitzBlast fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Jul 5, 2014

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn
"Man, Intensive Chinese sure lives up to its name. I've only got two days left to finish translating, how much do I still ha-"



:suicide:

Honestly if it weren't also the fourth of July weekend I could probably bang something out, but as is there's just no way. On Friday I'll just post a summary of the post-chapter dialogue and finish translating it later.

edit: For those curious, this chapter had around 340 lines or so. And I didn't even get all of the boss dialogue.

BlitzBlast fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Jul 3, 2014

a cartoon duck
Sep 5, 2011

I'm way down the rabbit hole and have no idea what the joke is, other than that Touhou fans are really creepy.

Also good job on setting the expectations low early on, people will now be impressed every time you update on time. Good strategy.

SyntheticPolygon
Dec 20, 2013

Look at it this way. You've already made more progress than any other translation project has.

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.
I tried playing this game when it first came out, but then I encountered a bug that corrupted my save and decided to wait for the translation. And I guess we all know how that turned out.

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn

quote:

Base of Youkai Mountain
Music: Border of Regular and Irregular Days

Full Text

quote:

(I still exist.)

Who wants some exposition?

quote:

The Mountain Where Gods Reside



Chapter 17 introduces us to FMW2's deployment system.



It's simple enough; every character has a Cost (main groups are 2.5, 2.0, and 1.5), and each chapter has a maximum Cost limit. A character's Cost roughly corresponds to how good they are, so you theoretically have to balance having all-star units with actually having a sizable army. In practice, though, the limit is incredibly forgiving. If you just pick whoever you want, you'll still end up with the same number of units as any other SRW.

FMW3 adds teams, which turned out to be just what the Cost mechanic needed to get some teeth. But that's another game.



Marisa posted:

So this is Youkai Mountain. The closer we get, the prettier it looks.

The scenery at the shrine can't even compare to this.

Eh, I like the shrine more. It has baked potatoes.

You'd be fine with anywhere as long as there's potatoes, huh. You wanna try digging for some here?

Hey, don't forget why we came. Sanae Kochiya invited us all here to... huh?

Something smells good. Are those potatoes?

Ooooh, they are. My wish came true!


??? posted:

Even though you're a fairy, you want to eat a god? How ridiculous! What insolence!

...Though now that I take a closer look, there's a lot more than fairies here.

I don't think there's an autumn festival going on... What kind of people are you?

That's our question, you sure came out of nowhere.

Don't pick a fight. Those two are the goddesses who govern autumn, the Aki sisters.

Goddesses? They smell like half-done potatoes, so are they potato goddesses?

How rude! I am the goddess of abundant harvests, Minoriko Aki. And this is my older sister.

Shizuha Aki, the goddess of autumn leaves.

I heard there were all sorts of gods residing in Youkai Mountain, but I didn't expect to run into some already.

The legions of gods and goddesses in the Shinto religion are often collecteively referred to as the Eight Million Gods. That isn't an exact count, it's just a really big number that sounded cool I guess.

Well in any case, I suppose you've all come to see a sign of good harvest?

Are you sure? To come all the way to Youkai Mountain, surely they must want to watch the leaves. Autumn is best enjoyed with your eyes after all, and nothing surpasses the beauty of autumn leaves.

Hoho, you're smart sis. But you can't catch those humans' hearts like that. Autumn is best enjoyed with your tongue after all, and the taste of potatoes can't be beat!

The leaves are the best!

No, the potatoes are!

...You know, I thought gods would be a little more dignified.

There are all sorts of gods. Anyway, should we pretend we didn't see them?

Wait a second, you all should show a little more reverence!

That's right, this is a mountain where gods reside. It's a dangerous place for strangers and humans.

We're aware of that, but we came to this mountain on a certain Moriya Shrine's request. It would be very much appreciated if you could tell us anything about them.

Hmph, I don't see why I should help disrespectful scum.

Even though you're a goddess, you sure are petty.

...I'd tell you not to provoke them, but at this point I don't think they'd listen to anything we have to say.

Ah, don't worry about it so hard. I've been waiting for something simple like this!

We are two of the Eight Million Gods. I suppose it's our responsibility to turn away careless humans like you all. This is rude to do to people we've just met, but allow us to grant you a brief lesson in pain!

Battle Conditions posted:

Victory: Defeat Minoriko.
Defeat: All allies defeated.
Bonus: Defeat Shizuha after Minoriko declares her Spellcard.


Another snooze of a map. The first two chapters of FMW2 are basically tutorials.



Speaking of those, I had Alice start off with an Artful Sacrifice. This attack requires her to be at 105 Power, but at the beginning of the chapter everyone starts at 100. What's the deal?



The Frozen Frog I put on her last chapter of course. But if she's using that,



Why is Marisa also at 105?



It's because she has the most amount of kills in my party, as indicated on the intermission screen. Note that when she (or anyone else) reaches 50 kills, she'll hit Ace status and get another +5 to initial Power.



Over on the right, Cirno casts Grit. This reduces the damage of the next attack that hits her to a measly 10 HP. It triggers even for graze damage, so Cirno's one of those characters I mentioned who wants to stay unfocused.



An enemy phase later and you can already see my usual three fronts. The Side On The Left, The Side On The Right, and Reimu.



Another quality of life feature added was a bunch of extra menus that let you track all sorts of statistics. I almost never use them, but I guess they help me show that I spent this player phase beating up grunts.



Most of my characters aren't at the point where they can nonchalantly murder everything on the player phase, so it's best to just weaken as many targets as possible. Then when they attack on enemy phase, I can kill them on the counter.



I didn't expect to get an example of Support Defend so early, but Cirno aimed to impress and "got hit" by a 36%. When the dice come up bad for a character standing next to someone with Support Defend, the latter will jump in and take the hit. It's very handy.



Up north, Minoriko targets Reimu. She doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of hitting, of course, but that's normal with Reimu.

You really do smell nice.

How many times are you all going to say that? Don't tell me you're going to eat me...

Not funny. I'm just giving you a compliment, sheesh. Though your scent is making me a little hungry.

Freshly-harvested sweet potatoes make up my perfume. Do you think I'm going to let a shrine maiden eat me!?

The particularly obsessed Touhou fans probably recognized that last line. Occasionally the script quotes directly from the games, which is really convenient since it means I can just quote from the existing translation. :v:

Music: Heated Harvest Festival



Minoriko attacks with sweet potatoes. It is very silly.



I'd like to grab Shizuha's bomb, but the bonus orders me to take down Minoriko first.



I give her another turn.



Incidentally, Minoriko has five levels of Berserk. This is probably the only reason Reimu hasn't already killed her.

So I get that you're a goddess of autumn, but what kind of blessings do you hand out?

I'm a harvest goddess, so whenever harvest time comes I make sure the yield is delicious.

Oho! So if I start worshipping you, does that mean the squash back at my place's garden wi-

You're way too late for that! If you wanted my blessing, you should have prayed while you were tilling the soil!



Now that I think about it, I've seen your face before at the harvest festivals.

Oh, you're that magician who put on plays with puppets!

Indeed. Perhaps I should have been more inconspicuous... out of curiosity, why did you remember me?

How could I not? I'd never forget how you stole all of the children's attention away from me!

...



Couldn't save her from the MariAri double team though.



As soon as Minoriko's health bar hits zero, it automatically refills. It's because she declared her Spellcard.



Note I still get full rewards from the battle.

Guh, I'm not done yet!

Minoriko, are you all right!?

Don't worry about me. I refuse to die until I've burned the power of autumn into their eyes!

All of you! Prepare yourselves for a savage harvest!


quote:

Baked Sweet Potato "Sweet Potato Room"


Whenever they declare a spell, bosses gain new attacks and start spawning special fields of danmaku.



Besides the usual evasion/defense/move debuffs, spellcard danmaku always carries a status effect of some sort. Sweet Potato Room here subtracts 5 Power from anyone Minoriko attacks.

See that timer on the top-right? If I take more than three turns to clear this spell... it automatically ends, and the game proceeds as if I depleted Minoriko's health. This is known as Timing Out a spell, and while it doesn't give me any rewards it'll let me progress. The timer should never be a problem if you're actually trying to beat the boss (aka Capture the spell), so this exists mostly as a failsafe. There are some spells that don't have timers though, so you can't just snooze through the entire game.


Goddess of autumn leaves, huh? Sounds important.

Indeed, I suppose you grasp the beauty of autumn.

Well the view's nice at my shrine this time of the year. It'd be nice if I could get more worshippers to come though...

Oh, I know. How about you work at my shrine? You can be the temporary goddess during autumn.

...If that's the attitude of the shrine maiden, I feel sorry for your shrine's god.

Music: Silent Autumn Breeze



Time to murder Shizuha.



If Keine had enough Power to use Amaterasu, I probably could have taken her down in two hits. Alas.

I thought I was prepared for anything when we set off, but I never expected a danmaku battle with a goddess...

We warned you earlier. If you had just withdrawn then this wouldn't be happening.

Don't be so presumptive! If you continue to be so arrogant just because you're goddesses, then the day may come where the people lose all faith in you!

...!?

I apologize, that was rude of me. It's a habit of mine to lecture people.

...



Shizuha attacks with leaves. It's pretty.

Looks like she's spicing things up with a spellcard. Figures she's stronger than the other youkai around these parts.

The party has another chat discussing Spellcards. Skipping it.



Bosses regenerate their danmaku at the beginning of every turn, and even sometimes change patterns. This means bombs only provide a single turn of sanctity.



Not really sure how well Cirno will do, but hey why not.

You don't smell very tasty.

I govern the autumn leaves. My role pleases the eyes, not the tongue.

Hmph, I like things that smell good more. Ah whatever, I'll just have fun freezing all of the leaves before they hit the ground!



An even match. That's kind of sad considering Cirno is 3 levels lower than Shizuha. Or 2 now, since she got a level afterwards.

A good chunk of my characters have been leveling up during this chapter actually, I just haven't mentioned it because nobody got anything of note.




RIP Shizuha.

Kyaah!

Shizuha!?

Sorry, Minoriko... teach those girls the true... splendor of autumn...

I'm almost certain this is a Gunbuster reference.

A-are you serious? Shizuha...

Shizuha goes splat.

Shizuha!!

They're pretty overdramatic. If they're always this noisy, they must be a hassle to everyone around them.

No, I think the autumn harvest has just inspired a particularly energetic performance.

I hope there won't be an encore.

Sheesh, you've all made us look like fools... now I'm really angry! Witness the power of autumn!



Minoriko casts Spirit, which increases her Power by 10.

Yes, there's a spirit called Spirit. Not really sure what Atlus was thinking when they did that one, it's supposed to be Yell.




:toot:



Aside from a bomb, Reimu picks up a Five-colored Shell. This item changes a character's weapons' Water terrain ranks to A, which is a convoluted way of saying it makes them less useless underwater. The game is going to throw these things at me, and for very good reason.



Hey Minoriko, sorry about your sister but



get



out.



Hm, maybe I should have kept Danmaku Power.



Minoriko's spell is hilarious.



She literally crushes her target with a giant sweet potato.



I don't even know how the dodge animation is supposed to work, you're still inside the thing!



Alice was here too.



And then she attacks again with her turn. drat it Alice, your Skill stat is almost 30 points higher than Minoriko's. Get a crit already!



As amusing as it would be to give Reimu the kill after all that, this is Marisa's route.



So Reimu just gave a love tap.



On the final turn Marisa casts Gain then stands next to Keine. I'm not that sure how experience boosts stack, but I do know Gain just doubles the final amount.



Boom. I don't use Stardust Reverie often since it runs off the wrong attack stat and leaves Marisa in close range, but it's a neat finisher.

Ugh, I'm done for.

Well that wasn't too bad. It was a nice warm-up.

Now then, let's see what Sanae has to say for herself!

Since we came all the way out here, we oughta grab some veggies too. You're a harvest goddess right? I bet you got a ton saved up.

Hey, don't be so harsh. There won't be a harvest festival next year if you take everything now.

To raise your hand against a goddess, and then make such rude demands! You'd better not complain about any divine retribution!

You started it. You're all talk!

Sh-shush! Now, as much as it pains me to do this, I shall allow you all to proceed!



Minoriko leaves. Marisa didn't get a level, but she did get an Oni's Nail. It boosts HP by 500 and Armor by 50.

She got away! And fast, too.

After all that bragging I was expecting a little more. Well whatever, let's get a move on.

Like I said earlier, there are all kinds of gods.

In any case, it's a shame we couldn't have a discussion with that goddess. I imagine that at this point we're intruders.

Sheesh, you've been worrying this whole trip. If anyone gets in our way, I'll take them out!

Well there's a plan with your name all over it. Anyway, let's hurry u-

...!

Wait, I can feel a presence... no, multiple ones!

Music: Reinforcements - Theme of the Detestable Youkai



A poo poo ton of enemies spawn at the north side of the map.

Whoa, a ton of tengu came!

Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame... Just as we were told.

I warned you not to get involved in the mountain's affairs you know.

That's the tengu from before... I guess I should have expected a sudden greeting!

The kappa came too. I wonder if Nitori's around?


Nitori posted:

Marisa...

She is.

There's no way such a large crowd could assemble so suddenly. I knew it was a trap!

Yes, and the only person who could have organized this is...

Thank you for coming.



Sanae makes her dramatic entrance at the head of the pack.

Sanae!

Please take a look. This is the power at our disposal.

What's that supposed to mean?

Youkai Mountain and the Moriya Shrine have formed a bond based on faith. We are now in a mutually beneficial relationship.

How so?

Forget that, did you really grab all these tengu just to make a trap? Pretty rude of you.

Not at all, I invited everyone to come here to prove the difference in power between our shrines. From where you are standing, you should be able to see the faith we have gathered from the mountain. I'm sure you can understand the implications.

...

Yeah, well so what? This doesn't scare us!

Marisa rushes forward,

Freeze!

but Nitori moves to intercept.

Tch!?

Nitori, what are you doing? Out of the way!

I won't move. I can't let you go through everyone.

Besides, how can you even ask that when you've made the mountain youkai your enemies?!

Nitori!?

Isn't it a shame, Marisa Kirisame? You could smash through a single person, but in the face of all of us you are powerless.

I guess Momiji is still kind of touchy about getting turned into light.

Though you're welcomed to try.

...

Tch... It seems we're up against all of Youkai Mountain!

We've been dealt a poor hand. That shrine maiden wasn't alone and the tengu have surrounded us.

I see you understand. Now that Lady Yasaka has become this mountain's goddess, the Moriya Shrine has regained its might. And as you now know, the harsh truth of the matter is that we possess far more faith than the Hakurei Shrine.

Lady Yasaka? Is that the name of your goddess!?

Indeed. And if Lady Yasaka were to become the enshrined goddess of the Hakurei Shrine, the shrine would easily regain its faith.

...It's true that my shrine doesn't have many worshippers.

But do you really think I'm just going to stand here and listen to this!?

Reimu, stop! Don't just ignore the situation and mouth off!

No, it's fine. Nobody up there can even hit her.

...Oh wait, I haven't dumped all of my WP into her this run.


I will ask once more. Reimu, for the sake of Gensokyo's faith, will you please relinquish the Hakurei Shrine? The results would greatly benefit Gensokyo.

Sanae is talking right out of her rear end here, incidentally.

...

Stand down, Reimu. We don't have a chance.

...I know. Let's go back to the shrine.



------
Oh, the game's stopped. Thanks for the hard work!

Don't strain yourself, just relax until the next time you play.

Y-yes. Please relax now...

...

Hm, what is it?

Um, how to put this... When you two come near me, I feel like I'm going to be sandwiched.

Now, now, don't say things like that.

Yeah, now get ready!

U-uh, this is kind of tight... A-anyway, everyone, thank you for the hard work!

If you didn't get the joke, congratulations, you're not down the Touhou rabbit hole yet.

BlitzBlast fucked around with this message at 15:37 on May 30, 2015

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn

quote:

Youkai Mountain
Music: Bizarre Smile

Full Text

quote:

Thanks for the help.

Just doing my job.

They're going to come back with more people you know.

Good point. Can you do something, Momiji?

I'll send out scouts.

Thanks. See you.

This whole situation is fishy.

Yup.


quote:

Hakurei Shrine
Music: What's the Strategy?

Full Text

quote:

So now what?

Maybe I should just give in.

Don't.

Then what should I do?

What you did last game.

I'll get the three fairies.

Alice and I'll check with the SDM.

I have a friend who could help too.



After that cutscene, the party temporarily splits up. For convenience, the game asks if I want to remove the leaving characters' equipment.

------



Not much to do here. Marisa learns Support Attack and changes her PS to Magic Thruster. Oh, and she hit Ace status.

------

Cirno hasn't actually joined yet, but I'll post her analysis anyway.


Cirno
Personality: Resolute (Hit: +1, Miss: -1, Kill: +4, Get Hit: +2, Ally Killed: +2, Graze: +1)
Character Skills: HP Regenerate (S) (Recover 10% HP at the beginning of every turn), Ice Barrier (Nullifies all damage under 1800. Doesn't work on Lasers.)
Personal Skills: Freeze (next attack inflicts a -25% evasion debuff, limited uses), Dual Fairies (activates Cirno's friendship with Daiyousei), Ice Power (changes Ice Barrier to Ice Barrier +, which reduces all non-Laser damage by 1300 + [Skill Level * 200]), Burning Ice (ignores Size damage penalties)
Spirits: Grit, Guts, Assail (16), Valor (25)

Cirno is hilarious to me because it took me ages to figure out what her Ice Barrier actually does. As in, I literally only just realized while typing out this update. :downs: Guess I should update the pastebin again.

Anyway using Cirno is a boring grind until she hits level 22. See, Cirno's attacks are actually surprisingly strong. But thanks to her Small size, she's constantly running into damage penalties (and taking a ton of damage, which makes Ice Barrier a lot less useful than it sounds). Burning Ice gets around that, and quickly shoots her up into one of your stronger attackers. Too bad she can't hit for beans. Other then that, Cirno is no longer the only character with Grit, but she's probably the only one you'll have for a while so she's still got that going for her. I really don't know what else to say, she's certainly not the worst character in the game like I said she was last LP, but she's not setting the world on fire either. She's alright if you grind her up, passable enemy bait if you don't. :shrug:
Cirno has the cheapest Valor in the game at only 40 SP. Burning Ice is also literally Hot Blooded Ice, I just couldn't think of a pithy way to say that kept the joke. Ryza suggested :iceburn: but I have standards drat it. :colbert:

All Attacks
Battle theme: Flap & Frappe & Flapper (Tomboyish Girl in Love) or whatever it's called


Shizuha and Minoriko Aki The Aki Sisters

All Attacks

BlitzBlast fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Jul 26, 2014

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn


For the most part, enemies are identical between difficulties. There are occasional changes in placement though, like how Shizuha spawns next to Minoriko this time. Not only does the terrain she's standing on make her harder to take down, she's in range for Minoriko to use her Support Attack.

So with all of my characters maxed, chapters should be a breeze right?



I wish. Even if their attributes have been pumped, all of my characters are lower in level than their Normal mode counterparts. Hell, with the exception of Reimu all the enemies here are higher-leveled than my team.



Until my team gets up to speed, I'm better off crowding everyone around Keine.



With her taking the blows, the crew can safely counter without burning SP to stay afloat.



The Plan, which you will be seeing a lot of, is for Reimu to solo one half of the map while the rest take care of the other.



One of Marisa's bigger issues is her abysmal Focused movement. The danmaku here is just too thick for her to safely fight in, but she can't even get in range to attack if she focuses.



Keine's presence makes it safe for her to just spam Alert and rush right in at least.



Enemy AI is surprisingly decent. If Alice didn't cast Focus, she'd have a 69% chance of hitting. That was safe enough for the AI to prioritize countering, but now that the rate's climbed to 99% it chose to Evade instead. This results in the Focus spirit turning into more of a defensive spirit than an offensive one; what's the point of getting more accurate if the enemy just halves your hit rate after all.



Alice hit anyways. :smug:



On the other side, Reimu is so overpowered the AI won't even bother moving to attack her (though they'll still attack if they don't have to move, no SRW J problems here). She's getting closer and closer to one-shotting them, so no biggie.



And back over here this fairy just dodged both Alice and Marisa. :negative:

Alright, skipping to the boss.



I'm pretty sure Minoriko's Owotoshi Harvester has a different animation on Lunatic. Instead of a straight line of potatoes it's a shotgun salvo ending with a larger "bullet".

Before I end my turn, I have Marisa cast Alert then not attack. Why? Because she's currently the most appealing target.



And on Lunatic, bosses can cast Spirits.



Sure Keine could have just taken both hits anyway, but it never hurts to plan ahead.



...Oh, right, Support Defend can't trigger on an enemy Support Attack. :downs:



Shizuha has Trust too, which is actually helpful in my case since it lowers the potency of Minoriko's Berserk.

Random behind the scene interlude posted:

At this point Fraps broke. Since Game Maker black screens as soon as it detects something hooking onto it, this meant restarting the chapter. But just for kicks, while I was on the title screen I reopened Fraps. The game didn't black screen. :psyduck:

After that I decided gently caress caring about the save/load counter on this run. Which helps a lot in the long run since now I don't have to play every chapter twice to record all the boss attacks! :downs:
Don't worry, I'm still not going to save scum.


Most of my army being long range attackers makes it unfortunately impractical for Keine to break formation and drop her finisher. For now, at least.



It's important that I kill Minoriko immediately, because she has Guts (refill all of your HP). I'm personally not a fan of activating a spellcard without at least half of my characters ready, but healing spirits can throw a wrench in any strategy. So it's always a good idea to check the boss' status screen.



And speaking of that, here's Minoriko's. Her spirit pool is Guts, Strike, and Grit, and her skills are Berserk level 5 and P-Danmaku (increase Power by 2 when you start a turn standing in danmaku).



Shizuha's too for good measure. She has Alert, Trust, and Focus.



Since Support Attack can't trigger off of combination attacks, it's better for Marisa to use the less accurate Narrow Spark. If she hits, great. If she doesn't, Keine will.



She hit.



With the spell out, Keine's free to take out Shizuh-



oh god drat it.


Lunatic adjusts spellcard danmaku effects as well. Aside from having harsher generic penalties, Sweet Potato Room slices off 9 Power instead of 5.
Well this is pretty much worst case scenario. Keine can't take more than a single hit, and Shizuha and her Support Attack are still around.



So good thing the AI went full stupid and targeted Reimu! Minoriko didn't even cast Strike, what the hell.



No sense looking in a gift horse's mouth I guess.



Shizuha was less stupid and cast Alert. Now I have to choose between risking Keine's death to strip it off, or letting Shizuha keep her free dodge.



Except not really because everyone has Support Attack so who cares if one attack misses.



Cirno's a perfect turn to sacrifice too. Girl can't hit a drat thing, but Grit lets her safely start off Support Attacks.



Too bad the game's damage calculations don't account for misses. See, another one of the quality of life improvements FMW2 added was dynamic counter selection. Instead of just picking the strongest available attack your character has, when someone gets attacked the game calculates which attacks will do just enough damage to kill on the counter and then picks that. This goes for Support Attacks as well, so Keine used her much weaker First Pyramid instead of Amaterasu. What to do now?



Throw Reimu at the problem.



Should have seen that coming.



Oh whatever, Keine can clean up her own mess. She's in range for Headbutt now too.



Though Minoriko's going to have to survive Magic Team first. Alice summons a Hourai to use the bomb Shizuha just dropped,



then fires a Shanghai Doll.



Ideally Marisa would have been standing in range for Support Attack so I could use Master Spark + Shanghai Doll.



Then Minoriko would have actually died.



But nope, jerk casts Guts and made all of that pointless. :negative:



Minoriko is still really dumb though and keeps trying to hit Reimu.



Who responds with Fantasy Seal + Headbutt on player phase.



Berserk level 5 is a hell of a drug though.



So then I just threw everyone else at her. Marisa missed, Alice missed, Hourai missed,

quote:

Thank you for your hard work at the harvest festival a few days ago.

Uh, I don't think this is the right time for that.

Well it's rare that I get an opportunity to meet you, so I thought... was I being rude?

...I can't tell if you're making fun of me or if you're just an airhead.


Keine missed,



and now it's all up to Cirno. She has the lowest hit rate here so I guess I'm scre-



Are you loving kidding me?



Well whatever, that's that. If you're curious how it took 7 loads to record five attacks, I forgot to press record once. :downs:

------
The game has stopped. Thank you for your efforts.

...The Scarlet Devil Mansion, the home of the vampire Remilia Scarlet and her attendants. In hopes of enlisting their aid, Marisa makes a visit.

These people were the ones behind last summer's tumultuous incident. I wonder how well this will turn out?

In any case, let's meet again in Chapter 18 of Fantasy Maiden Wars P: "Laying a Hand on the Scarlet Devil Mansion".

(Translation Rough Draft)

BlitzBlast fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Jul 19, 2014

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry
Now you have to try to finish off all the bosses with Cirno. Ice fairy supremacy!

Ardeem
Sep 16, 2010

There is no problem that cannot be solved through sufficient application of lasers and friendship.
Cirno really should get a massive bonus for having the most kills. "Eye am the strongest."

SyntheticPolygon
Dec 20, 2013

I was wondering what they were going to do for the Aki sisters since there's not much too them and they ended up giving them potato bullets. That's perfect. :allears:

KnoxZone
Jan 27, 2007

If I die before I Wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.
I have seen a rough translation of this, but I am still super glad you are playing through it. I was so bummed out when the translation project failed miserably.

gnome7
Oct 21, 2010

Who's this Little
Spaghetti?? ??

KnoxZone posted:

I have seen a rough translation of this, but I am still super glad you are playing through it. I was so bummed out when the translation project failed miserably.

Yeah, me too. I really want to play this, but my Japanese is nowhere near up to snuff.

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
With the menu translation patch and knowledge of the first game/SRW in general, it's honestly really easy to figure out what's what. It won't help in regards to the plot, but the menus aren't super complex.

Seyser Koze
Dec 15, 2013

Mucho Mucho
Nap Ghost

BlitzBlast posted:



She literally crushes her target with a giant sweet potato.

These enemies from Gunbuster actually used to give me nightmares for some reason.


quote:

U-uh, this is kind of tight... A-anyway, everyone, thank you for the hard work!

If you didn't get the joke, congratulations, you're not down the Touhou rabbit hole yet.

You say that as if SRW geeks hadn't run the "symmetrical docking" joke into the ground years ago...

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.
...does anyone else find it weird that the plot of MoF is stuck into this game named after PCB?

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

Clarste posted:

...does anyone else find it weird that the plot of MoF is stuck into this game named after PCB?
Not really. It's a touhou SRW clone. Since, Marisa/Reimu aside, every touhou plot is fairly independent from one another and has its own cast of characters, it's doing what SRW games do - mashing together unrelated plots and characters into one coherent story.

Seyser Koze
Dec 15, 2013

Mucho Mucho
Nap Ghost

Clarste posted:

...does anyone else find it weird that the plot of MoF is stuck into this game named after PCB?

Keep in mind that it's "supposed" to be all one game and that this is just Sanae making good on her threat from half a dozen missions back.

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gnome7
Oct 21, 2010

Who's this Little
Spaghetti?? ??

Endorph posted:

With the menu translation patch and knowledge of the first game/SRW in general, it's honestly really easy to figure out what's what. It won't help in regards to the plot, but the menus aren't super complex.

Where could I find this menu translation patch? I'm interested in giving this a go, and googling only seems to find me the translation patch for the first game.

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