Author Topic: Touhou Project 17 「東方鬼形獣 ~ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature.」  (Read 182003 times)

R. P. Genocraft

  • Craftsman of absolute unpredictability
  • Boundary of productive and lazy
Spoiler:
Oh, and Clarste is defending this actions. Like there already were not enought evidence, that he is not a good person.
Spoiler:
Reminder that he literally said and I quote "Yachie sounds way more evil than Keiki though, overall." Meaning, in his eyes Keiki's actions aren't perfect, and we know she isn't, what with the whole destroying of nature and whatnot. Now find a single post where he defends the beasts' actions and I'll agree with you. But, no proof = didn't happen.

Edit:
Spoiler:
Right, he said "Also, I never said both sides were gray, I said both sides were bad."
« Last Edit: September 06, 2019, 10:19:02 PM by GenoCraft »

Spoiler:
Now find a single post where he defends the beasts' actions and I'll agree with you.
Spoiler:
There were one of his post (which is pretty easy to find), where in response of "We did a bad thing, we turned humans back into slaves!" he straight up saying "They were not humans, they were humans spirits, so they deserved it". Is this not enought?

R. P. Genocraft

  • Craftsman of absolute unpredictability
  • Boundary of productive and lazy
Spoiler:
There were one of his post (which is pretty easy to find), where in response of "We did a bad thing, we turned humans back into slaves!" he straight up saying "They were not humans, they were humans spirits, so they deserved it". Is this not enought?
Spoiler:
Once again, that's not what he said. He said that IF the land of beasts is supposed to be the animal realm in buddhist cosmology, AKA one of the realms where people with bad karma of their previous lives(meaning they were sinners) are reincarnated as punishment, then they probably deserve it. The distinction between humans and human spirits that Clarste made wasn't aimed at justifying their suffering, it was to show that there IS a distinction. He also never denied that turning people back into slaves is bad, he just said that the protagonists aren't sure about what they did, so, regardless of whether they did a bad thing or not, they didn't mean to.

Spoiler:
Again, as I quoted in my last post: "Also, I never said both sides were gray, I said both sides were bad." He literally confirms he believes they're evil, QED.

Marron

  • Ordinary crow
Hello everyone. Hope you're enjoying this game. As for me, aside from the beast system(ufo ptsd), I really like the game. Zun really did nice work with the spellcards of the boss, I think they are interesting and reflect well the characters who uses them. I also have to say that I really love the ost, it's probably my favorite from that regard with PoDD, MS, PCB and MoF. Also, I find the theme of the final boss really sad and beautiful at the same time, last time I felt that much intensity was from Byakuren. I used to say that the theme of Yuyuko was the most intense for me emotionally for final boss(yeah because Vanishing Dream of Kana is really my favorite) but...well with this game, things have changed.
And I absolutely LOVE the whole cast of this game !

Anyway, I came here with the hope that some of you may answers some questions I have:

Spoiler:
1. So, I get that this whole thing is kinda grey and that the "gangsta"(I say that for fun) sent animal spirits in Gensokyo seeking the help of our girls. We know which are the boss of those spirit, except for the eagle goast, right ?
2. I don't think I understand the part with Keiki. Was she summoned by the humans spirits to help them fight the animal spirits ? If that is the case then, does Keiki love humans or are they "tools" for her ? I mean, did she take the lead and decided to gather power for herself instead of helping humans ?
3. I've noticed that wether or not you take the wolf spirit, the girls will always "turn red" starting from boss 5 when they talk. Does that mean that the wolf spirit's always the one taking possession of the charaters whatever spirit you choose ? Or was this just Zun that didn't want to draw blue/green aura and eys for the characters ?
4. Saki is the boss of the wolf goast. Then why does the character can use the wolf spirit against Saki ? Does the animal spirits wants the character for a new master or... ?

Anyway, I've cleared the game in hard with Reimu Eagle and Kasen appeared at the hakurei shrine talking with Reimu. Cleared the game with Youmu wolf and Shiki Eiki talked with Youmu. I don't understand japanese so I don't know what they said, but, y'know, just sharing with you all.

In any case, I hope you're enjoying and for those who still didn't play it, I wish you all to have fun !
« Last Edit: August 13, 2019, 07:19:16 PM by Crow »

R. P. Genocraft

  • Craftsman of absolute unpredictability
  • Boundary of productive and lazy
Spoiler:
3. I've noticed that wether or not you take the wolf spirit, the girls will always "turn red" starting from boss 5 when they talk. Does that mean that the wolf spirit's always the one taking possession of the charaters whatever spirit you choose ? Or was this just Zun that didn't want to draw blue/green aura and eys for the characters ?
Spoiler:
I'd imagine it was done mostly aesthetically, red in this case doesn't really imply wolf, I think.

Spoiler:
As for the other questions, I think most routes are already translated on thpatch.net, and the character profiles are all translated in the wiki, they'll definitely answer them. This is very text-heavy game.

Marron

  • Ordinary crow
Ah, nice ! I wouldn't think it would be so fast for the translation ! Thank you very much ! It doesn't bother me at all to read.

Helepolis

  • Charisma!
  • *
  • O-ojousama!?
I've seen the character designs on the wiki and I am digging the designs. 5th boss look trouble.

ChronaSE

  • Doremy-rekt
I dig the OST, I heard parts of PC98 with a mix of ZUN's latest music albums.
Danmaku is getting creative again, it definitely was more fun than HSiFS at least, but the presentation with the graphics was a nice surprise.
Story is pretty heavy from what I've seen,
Spoiler:
What happened to the human spirit afterwards? do they end up being the beast slaves again?

Now if only someone could make a patch to reduce your Hyper shot visibility  :ohdear:
« Last Edit: August 14, 2019, 03:36:21 PM by ChronaSE »

Marron

  • Ordinary crow
I dig the OST, I heard parts of PC98 with a mix of ZUN's latest music albums.
Danmaku is getting creative again, it definitely was more fun than HSiFS at least, but the presentation with the graphics was a nice surprise.
Story is pretty heavy from what I've seen,
Spoiler:
What happened to the human spirit afterwards? do they end up being the beast slaves again?

Now if only someone could make a patch to reduce your Hyper shot visibility  :ohdear:

Ok, so:
Spoiler:
I just finished the game with Reimu wolf and, apparently we still don't know what they become but Keiki is now in Gensokyo and asks Reimu about human going in Gensokyo. Reimu tells Keiki that they should go to the netherworld, but they won't because the netherworld is already full of ghosts. So....I don't really know, the ending just evoked the possibility of spirits having a place in Gensokyo. Apparently they have to do something like work for exemple, if not, they will be too excited or something like that.

And yes, there is a patch. With thcrap, there is a "visuals"(that's the name of the patch) patch that makes the hyper mode shoots more transparent. I used it because it's clearly too bright, that and all those spirits that can sometimes be distracting, I've lost way more than one life that way because of distraction.

ふねん1

  • Scientific editor
  • If you're alive, you can always keep moving.
Review time wooooo.

I may have found the demo to be just all right, but holy crap the second half of the game is surprisingly solid. As expected, hypers are still completely OP, especially Otter hypers despite their nerfs, but I'm loving almost everything else about the game. The characters have cool designs, the music is absolutely banging, the stage backgrounds are stunning, and the danmaku, dear god the danmaku. I haven't seen a Touhou game with such consistently fun and interesting patterns in a long time. Just like with Stages 1-3 in the demo, there's a higher-than-average amount of strategy behind a bunch of attacks, yet knowing those strategies rarely, if ever, makes them trivial. Things like random boss movements actually help the quality of the attacks for once - a pattern might have a general approach to it, but where the boss moves can change how you execute it exactly, preventing you from completely committing a route to muscle memory or something. These are the kinds of attacks I crave: ones that make you strategize beforehand and adapt on the fly. And hell, even the visual designs of the danmaku are impressive, consistent with each character's theme yet varied in how their concepts are presented - the final boss is a particularly good example of this. Massive props to ZUN for making so many hits in the second half of the game. Me taking as long as I am trying to perfect Stages 5, 6, and Extra may be a blessing in disguise since it means I get to enjoy these great levels for longer. :V

I think the only other negative critique I have about this game is the story. I've already heard (and been a part of) plenty of discussion about it:
Spoiler:
from what I understand, Keiki made a bunch of clay idols to protect the human spirits in the Animal Realm from the various beast spirits, and the idols proved pretty much invincible against them. I've seen it suggested that one reason this was actually a problem, instead of something the heroines would and should support as fellow humans, is that it upsets the natural order of the underworld, related to the different karmic levels of Buddhism and such. However, whatever the circumstances and implications of this incident are, those aren't really what I have an issue with. What bugs me the most is that this whole thing feels so disconnected from the playable characters. What are we even trying to do, and more importantly, why should we care about what happens in the underworld? There's a mention or two about Keiki's assault driving the beast spirits to the surface, so I guess it's technically better than nothing, but it hardly feels satisfactory. The story as revealed in the second half of the game also feels a bit contradictory to the prologue, where it's mentioned the beast spirits are trying to "take over Gensokyo by force", yet that rather serious implication doesn't receive the weight it probably deserves in the full game in favor of the whole Keiki plot. It's like ZUN had a bunch of bigger-than-usual ideas but ended up not being able to mesh them together that well. It's telling how the three heroines repeatedly complain in both the main scenarios and their endings how they have no idea what's going on with the incident or whose side they're supposed to be on, and even ZUN himself in the afterword says we may not be able to understand the story even after reading all the scenarios. Meanwhile I'm sitting here like "if you know it's overly complicated then you can also do a better job explaining it" lol.

Okay, minor rant out of the way, a couple other things about the game. I greatly appreciate that ZUN went back on how much power you lose on death, returning to the 0.50 standard we've had since DDC. The new unique tokens continue the trend of needing special conditions to appear, and that plus achievements seemingly becoming standard in the main-series games makes me excited for what other gameplay ideas ZUN has in store in future titles. And maybe I'm missing something here, but it doesn't feel like life pieces are any more common than before, which was supposedly something ZUN mentioned as being a thing for the full release. The addition of three more stages was always going to add some more in general, but the actual number of lives and bombs you can get strikes a much better balance than in other recent games. Then again, you have tons and tons of hypers to use alongside them, so yeah.

Overall, WBaWC is a very pleasant surprise, with the solid second half of the game noticeably boosting it up in my eyes. The story issues and OP hyper system prevent this game from really challenging the top spots of my "favorite Touhou games" list, but I bet it can at least crack the top 5. I'm confident I'll continue to enjoy challenging myself with this game as well.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2019, 08:02:28 AM by ふねん1 »
"Science is more than a body of knowledge. It's a way of thinking." - Carl Sagan

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R. P. Genocraft

  • Craftsman of absolute unpredictability
  • Boundary of productive and lazy
Spoiler:
What bugs me the most is that this whole thing feels so disconnected from the playable characters. What are we even trying to do, and more importantly, why should we care about what happens in the underworld?
Spoiler:
I feel like that's the whole point, Reimu and co. thinking they're just solving an incident as usual but getting caught up in a conflict they don't understand. The protagonists are being manipulated from the start, and only in the extra stage do they actually do something independently.
Spoiler:
There's a mention or two about Keiki's assault driving the beast spirits to the surface, so I guess it's technically better than nothing, but it hardly feels satisfactory. The story as revealed in the second half of the game also feels a bit contradictory to the prologue, where it's mentioned the beast spirits are trying to "take over Gensokyo by force", yet that rather serious implication doesn't receive the weight it probably deserves in the full game in favor of the whole Keiki plot.
Spoiler:
The plan was never to actually take over Gensokyo, but to manipulate a human to defeat Keiki. Only in the extra stage Saki wants to take over the human world. Again, it's about a political conflict from an entirely different world(which isn't even close to Gensokyo at all, so they had to pass through hell), so it makes sense it's not connected to Gensokyo.

Jimmy

  • Shameless spender
  • gaining big pounds
There is something that has been itching me.

Spoiler:
In Stage 4, after being defeated, Yachie refers to their enemy, most probably Keiki, as "demon-shaped". Meanwhile, Keiki wears a suspiciously shaped headdress - notice the two pointy spots on the sides. I don't imagine that hair would protrude that much and in such a shape. Though her profile and the animal spirits state her as a goddess, I've grown curious as to whether she's hiding something under it like Kasen under her buns.
Normal 1cc: EoSD, PCB, IN, PoFV, MoF, UFO, TD, DDC, LoLK Legacy, HSiFS, WBaWC
Hard 1cc: IN, DDC, HSiFS
Extra clears: MoF, DDC, HSiFS, WBaWC

Goals: Going Extra Hard!

7TC7

  • In best company
Hey everyone, just a heads-up. Trying to click on achievements for bad ends won't let you view those bad ends but will instead bring you to weird and magical places in the game instead.
For example, achievement 11 will bring you to the extra boss, with the wrong name and no health, meaning she dies immediately letting you read the after battle dialogue.

Speaking of enemies dying instantly. So do all of the ex-midboss' spells in spell practice, if you don't give her a second to fetch the right health-bar.
< picture leads to my YouTube channel

Suspicious person

  • Just a humble wanderer
  • How suspicious~
Heya, so I got to take the game out for a spin and boy do I have a LOT to say about this game.

I actually managed to 1cc it on my first ever run with Youmu Wolf, before pulling another first time 1cc with Marisa Wolf as well as well. I've nearly managed to do so as well for the extra stage where I ended up in the final spell with 2 or 3 millimeters of healthbar remaing cuz brainfarts. So yeah, I'm kinda inclined to agree that this game is one of the easier entry of this series. I do play on Hard difficulty, but still this is a first for me. I gotta say, if you're going for a casual run, meaning one where you use bombs, hypers, and even die, you will quickly notice that the strategy where you collect the appropriate goasts while bombing is very, VERY strong strategy
Spoiler:
and potentially scummy like those foul playing dirtbags over there at the Kiketsu family but I digress
.

Proper use of the Beast can be compared to a stronger PCB border, and the fact that
Spoiler:
the last 2 spells of Keiki fills the field with non-changing beast tokens make the last phase of her battle very, VERY trivial, provided you're not experiencing a sudden influx of stupidity or trying to be a little bit too brave without the appropriate skill. I think that design choice for these particular spells is ... interesting ? But for one, its something that put the final spells in a level that make them accessible to a casual player with an averege skill level while at the same time still being a spell that can be an actual challenge for survivalist kind of players who decide not to use the Hypers here .
Game is VERY cheesable, and I'm only speaking from a casual perspective here

Anyway, outside of these, game's got a lot of static patterns and the life-or-death-deciding RNG consists for the most part of movement RNG for the main game, and seems to me to be the 1st and 7th spellcards for the extra stage boss. It's more bearable and more reasonable compared a LOT of the recent entries for the main games, and arguably even some of the not so recent ones. And not only are the patterns not heavily dependent on RNG, but they're also colorful and pretty watchable (as in, not  too much purple, none of those old looking bubble bullets, ...). I found it pretty nice and even engaging.
Spoiler:
The final boss's nonspell, in particular, rally gave me the impression that I'm playing against more interesting versions of Junko's nonspells : you need to do VERY simple dodging, but the clutter of bullets that comes look pretty and got an undeniable amount of thought into designing them (ZUN could've literally brought back the old looking bubble bullets or any bullet of decently large size but guess what, he goes for this instead)
The game might take the not-so beloved parts of UFO and TD and make something very solid of off them, but personally, with how the aesthetic of the game and the design of the patterns are, I honestly got more of a PCB vibemoreso than UFO or TD (the part where you try to not die during  your Hyper to not only maximize the rewards it give you (shot boost and probably PIV for score runners but also additional beasts))

And speaking of aesthetics ... boy, HOO BOY does this game blow its predecessors out of the water :
Spoiler:
it's got far more stage background transitions than you would probably consider as necessary : stage 5 starts off dark, than you get to view the city, then you still get to view the city but up from above, with that delicious looking veil of mist, AND THEN you find yourself faced to that keyhole shaped garden. AND LEVEL 6 ! It's got something I've hardly ever considered for Touhou : that futuristic look. It honestly give a better vibe of a place with advanced tech than the Moon ... AND the Moon is the place with the best technology ... (disregarding their aesthetic choices but I digress) You get into this sci-fi futuristic looking place, then this, uh, glowy escalator-like road (?) thingy becomes obvious, then everything gets red and move in the other direction as you fight the boss, then you still get to see that BUT from a little bit ABOVE as the fight progress, THEN you get out of that place and in  front of the Garden but with a DIFFERENT VIEW compared to what you get in the stage 5 boss battle ... ZUN put far more work than usual in this game. Also I quite liked the general look of Hell. I personally expected there to be some kind of super windy Hell, and boy, do I find that cool. My game doesn't even lag when I bomb that stage with Marisa, which is an issue I got in HSiFS stage 4 when I Master spark my way out of trouble.

Now as for the music, I like it a lot too for this game. Since DDC, we had those ZUNtars riffs and, to be honest, those hardly ever managed to impress me whenever they're used as some random riffs that get thrown at you very very fast, and it is also no exception this game. Likewise for some high pitched tracks. For me, HSiFS had the best use for ZUNtars, particularly Aunn's theme, where it the previous instrument transitions smoothly into it in such a refined, elegant manner. But a soundtrack is not comprised of a single instrument, and personally, I generally liked how they work for this game. I was quite neutral for stage 4 ost's opening part (which sounded like a certain part of Cootaka's theme but with riff variety of ZUNtars, but I quite liked that fun bassline and how the feel of the song in general was. Tbh the main reason why I'm ok with this particular track is because it struck me as something that could fit NToJ tracks. Anyway, my favorites songs for this game are definitely in the later stage plus extra, specifically, stage 6 boss, extra boss, stage 5 and 6 and stage 5 boss, along with the coo-l little bonus of Cootaka's theme.

And as for the characters, I like how the cast turned out this time. The way I see it, there's 2 main things to consider in Touhou games characters : How workable are they by 1/themselves and 2/in relation with certain other characters. Say HSiFS for example : while I do not believe they're bad, they unfortunately work well at being what they're supposed to be : folks that you don't get to interact with and don't attract a lot of attention : they're isolated among themselves for there to be "families" of characters, and the only faction's got two characters whose main schitck is being with together (not an individuality friendly kind of thing, this is), while the most distinctive character is pure enigma with a very vague source material. Touhou 17's cast however does put a number of factions :
Spoiler:
the matriarch of Beast factions with different ideologies who are on a not-so-friendly term with each other (along with some factions with bosses we don't even encounter), and Keiki's faction, which involves Mayumi.
And even the early game's 3  girls's got thing going on for them and stuff that makes possible associations that can be made with other characters : Eika's got that stone stacking thing for her but also the fact that she was, uh, kinda cancelled before her time (which got her some associations with mommahus or ... Seiga ; Urumi who freaking runs a DINOSAUR SELLING FISHERY BY THE RIVER OF THE DEAD AND SHE'S SMUGGLES PEOPLE INTO THE AFTERLIFE AS A SIDE HUSTLE, and finally Cootaka, who aside from being one of the surprisingly popular avian type, got a MASCOT on her head, and is also on the Hell administration side.

Regarding character designs, my favorite definitely go to
Spoiler:
Mayumi.
She's so damn round and huggable. Easily one of ZUN's better art imo. I'm not so sold on that light blue thing on
Spoiler:
Saki
tbh, but neither am I for Utsuho and Hecatia's look, and I've seen a NUMBER of fanarts that made them look pretty dang good with their designs, like, good enough to make me like their original design by ZUN. I hope that's also gonna be the case for
Spoiler:
Saki
.

Story
Spoiler:
seems to be pretty similar to LoLK, except you get a big baddy who's already reached her goals to begin with and the plan that was made to counteract said baddy is a little bit more of a gamble (if compared to the fight against Junko, where the ultramarine orb guarantees your victory). For LoLK, Sagume's plan already was fairly solid cuz she already got something set up in Gensokyo plus the fact that Eirin was also there to understand and potentially cooperate, but for the spirit beasts, this is too big of a leap of faith imo. But eh, I guess they'll need their flesh and blood humans from somewhere, and if that if they just chose to settle in a little corner of Hell instead of this, it would've been a bit boring and uncharacteristic of the savages that they are or something.

Also, this is the first game in a LONG (and I mean LONG) while that didn't get released concurrently with a fighter game nor a manga in the running (VFiS doesn't count cuz its final chapter was already in the works), so it is quite the lonely release ... they're obviously getting in Strange Cow one of these days, but I'd like them be a bit more illustrated in a more visual manner than in an interview or a novel.

And finally, on various stuff :
-Pressing R for retry doesn't work (for me)
-Hyper shots, specifically all of Reimu's and Eagle Marisa, have some serious visibility issues : white bullets or clear bullets that lack a dark outline can get hidden very easily by the bullets you're sending during these hypers
-You can practice a particular spellcard of a particular difficulty with ANY characters, which  is cool (dunno if that's how it was as well for the previous games)
-
Spoiler:
Bombing during Saki's survival spell makes her vulnerable to shots
-Achievements !

All in all, I'm very satisfied with this release, and I hope that this kind of attention is gonna be brought to future Touhou games down the line. I'm no score runner nor a survivalist, so important points pertaining to those particular playstyles would obviously elude me, and I'm interested in the point of view of people who are into these  :)
« Last Edit: August 16, 2019, 06:57:20 PM by Suspicious person »

ChronaSE

  • Doremy-rekt
Spoiler:
A question that has been bugging me for a while, are the buildings in stage 5 Keiki's doing?

Helepolis

  • Charisma!
  • *
  • O-ojousama!?
As it has been a week already I think we can lift the generic spoiler mode for Touhou 17.

Marron

  • Ordinary crow
Oh ? Okay, then I'll answer without spoiler tags.

Well ChronaSE, I can't really answer your question...because I've yet to see all the ending of the game. Last time I played was Marisa Eagle and it wasn't translated yet.(Oh, it's not a blame at all, just explaining why I can't fully answer this question)

BUT, the title song of the 5th stage is "beast metropolis". Maybe it doesn't mean anything but you probably can conclude that it wasn't ONLY Keiki who did all the work. Yet, when you reach 6th stage, the animal spirits are offended about what the primate garden has become, stating that it was once a beautiful display of nature.(well, I say it with my words because I don't remember the expression exactly, but you see the point).
So......maybe that remark only concerns the garden, and the animals built those buildings. Nevertheless, it's not excluded that Keiki did take part of the lookout of the city, maybe modernizing the city that already existed. After all, she's a god who can create idols so she probably has some skills in creating modern things like building.

PS: I'm actually not english. I tend to do some mistakes in english because i'm not perfect in this language, not placing words in the right order, for exemple, but I hope you can understand what I'm saying.

R. P. Genocraft

  • Craftsman of absolute unpredictability
  • Boundary of productive and lazy
Spoiler:
A question that has been bugging me for a while, are the buildings in stage 5 Keiki's doing?
Yup.

nintendonut888

  • So those that live now, pledge on your fists and souls
  • Leave a sign of your life, no matter how small...
I'm pretty sure the intention is that those are meant to be skyscrapers, given stage 5 is called a "metropolis," and Youmu remarks on what a huge city it is. I think the only structure Keiki's responsible for is the giant kofun at the end of the stage.

Speaking of Keiki, I'm still not sure quite how to read her. Having read the dialogues and endings, I don't sense she's necessarily a bad person or is lying about her intentions to help the human spirits, but her dialogue and the way she carries herself doesn't really give off the impression of someone acting out of genuine love for humans, either. The way she threatens to kill the heroines to make new idols out of them, stalls for time to prepare her techniques even on routes when the heroines are willing to hear her out, and how she specifically points to "intruding on her territory" as her reason for attacking all raise a bunch of red flags, in my opinion. Given how the series is with unusual moralities, she might be acting to help the human spirits, but with a very different idea of what that means compared to, say, Byakuren.
nintendonut888: Hey Baity. I beat the high score for Sanae B hard on the score.dat you sent me. X3
Baity: For a moment, I thought you broke 1.1billion. Upon looking at my score.dat, I can assume that you destroyed the score that is my failed (first!) 1cc attempt on my first day of playing. Congratulations.

[19:42] <Sapz> I think that's the only time I've ever seen a suicide bullet shoot its own suicide bullet

R. P. Genocraft

  • Craftsman of absolute unpredictability
  • Boundary of productive and lazy
I'm pretty sure the intention is that those are meant to be skyscrapers, given stage 5 is called a "metropolis," and Youmu remarks on what a huge city it is. I think the only structure Keiki's responsible for is the giant kofun at the end of the stage.
Maybe? I dunno, the animal spirits seem to very much hate technology, and that, along with the Haniwas(IE: robots), is very much Keiki's thing. Could be wrong tho.

Nimono

  • wat
Speaking of Keiki, I'm still not sure quite how to read her. Having read the dialogues and endings, I don't sense she's necessarily a bad person or is lying about her intentions to help the human spirits, but her dialogue and the way she carries herself doesn't really give off the impression of someone acting out of genuine love for humans, either. The way she threatens to kill the heroines to make new idols out of them, stalls for time to prepare her techniques even on routes when the heroines are willing to hear her out, and how she specifically points to "intruding on her territory" as her reason for attacking all raise a bunch of red flags, in my opinion. Given how the series is with unusual moralities, she might be acting to help the human spirits, but with a very different idea of what that means compared to, say, Byakuren.

From what I've read of all the dialogues and omakes that are translated, I think both sides are telling the truth. Keiki was summoned to protect the human spirits, she made the haniwa soldiers to assist in that, BUT she's also trying to take over the animal realm, and one of the omakes outright states the human spirits are in the exact same position as before- they traded one dictator for another. Instead of the animal spirits dominating them, it's now the haniwa doing so.

So the situation is basically Evil vs. Evil, like LoLK.

Marron

  • Ordinary crow
At this point...I think it would be nice if there could be a chapter in a book or something like that, where a human spirit would talk to the heroines or some other charcaters for that matter, explaining their point of view about all that's happened and how they felt about everything on the subject.
Because, for now, we have everything about both sides who ruled the animal realm, but not the side of the story coming from a citizen of the animal realm that has experienced it all.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2019, 08:40:43 AM by Crow »

CyberAngel

  • Retired
The infodump in one of the profiles answers that. They feel just as oppressed.

Lebon14

  • 椛ちゃん、助けてぇぇぇぇぇ!
Re: Touhou Project 17 「東方鬼形獣 ~ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature.」
« Reply #293 on: September 06, 2019, 10:01:44 PM »
Don't forget: WBaWC releases on Steam on September 9.
Handy Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079160/__Wily_Beast_and_Weakest_Creature/

CyberAngel

  • Retired
Re: Touhou Project 17 「東方鬼形獣 ~ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature.」
« Reply #294 on: September 09, 2019, 09:35:53 AM »
Okay, finally had a chance to have some hands-on experience with the game. And sorry but there's no other way to say it - it is complete and utter trash.

First off, the story. The flimsy nature of the conflict and the usual characters' involvement in it has been mentioned before and that impacts the story too much. A lot of stuff about it is left unexplained and unexplored. That's nothing unusual to the games, frankly, but in this case there's barely any connection to Gensokyo or existing characters at all, and as a result very few ways this story can have any further influence on things. The same could be said about stories of LoLK and HSiFS except they WERE strongly connected to existing lore. This one is only loosely connected to an outsider character that hinted at events that were used as a background distraction for the main point of the story.

Stage 4 serves as a perfect example of how little care was put into making a coherent story this time. Again, the game structure where you fool around for 3 stages and then get pointed in the right direction is nothing new. And stage 4 boss is pretty much another Sagume, as far as using-characters-as-story-devices goes. Except this time ZUN literally didn't even try giving the players any motivation to follow the story. It's just that the stage 4 boss has a power to "persuade" you to help her. While Sagume could actually convince characters to follow along with her plan without the need to explicitly invoke her stated power, here they are herded the way game needs them to go because """"MAGIC"""".

Worst of all, the endings don't even add anything to the story anymore. They talk about surrounding circumstances and that's it. Not a single hint of the main conflict budging either way. Not a single stroke added to the bigger worldbuilding picture. Not even a single lesson to be learned from the events. Yes, you might be surprised, but older Touhou games used to have pretty interesting lessons in their endings. What's most disappointing is that this game COULD have that. I've seen people explore different interpretations of the story and what could be said with it. Except ZUN isn't even presenting any actual points behind the sides of the main conflict. Some events just happen in some other world and that's it. The story presentation feels very mechanical and soulless. Good groundwork for an actual story to be built upon but that's it. It's like he had an idea to make something different (and very non-Touhou-feeling) but that idea wasn't even fleshed out enough.

As for the other aspects, the soundtrack still feels horrible even after some time. It's generically boring at best and actively gets in the way of playing the game with any degree of enjoyment at its worst.

The gameplay itself is a huge mixed bag as well. There's barely any invincibility after hypers even though effects would make you expect otherwise. Hyper-powered shots and their effects cover the bullets. The patterns, while having some gems here and there, still have a lot of issues when they're not being carbon copies of the old stuff.

I guess I'm repeating a bunch of old complaints here but the point is that they didn't go away even after giving a full game a chance. So you know what, I say give this one a pass. If you're interested in gameplay just stick to UFO, you're not missing much. Unless you actually want to keep getting such bland uninspired experiences in future games, of course.

Suspicious person

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Re: Touhou Project 17 「東方鬼形獣 ~ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature.」
« Reply #295 on: September 09, 2019, 07:22:22 PM »
Eh, gotta say, there's a lot I disagree with in Cyber's take, especially on the UFO gameplay comparison, in part for reasons I've brought much, much earlier

Anyway, when it comes to the story, while I get the thing with the Beast World, a distant realm which essentially should have no interaction with Gensokyo, being relevant, it should be noted that it's Hell's neighbour of sorts ... and Hell has a pretty substantial place in Touhou, if the characters, the death-related lore, and the possibility for stuff that happens there to spill into Gensokyo (SA's plot, UFO's cast, some stuff from WaHH) are considered. AND, CURRENTLY, Hell is going through some kind of political trouble : if current Hell is a free-for-all and might makes right there (AFiEU), there's shouldn't be a reason why complete foreigners with some ambition and the strenghth to back it up can't partake in whatever is going on there. Anyway, my point here is that it's quite possible that the introduction of the Beast World, its denizens and even the political situation there,  aside from being ZUN's usual curveball, may also be a be a setup of sorts for another future work that will not only properly tackle whatever is going on in Hell, but also put a conclusion (?) to it.

I mean, say LoLK and its Dream World for example : the Dream World itself, as a PLACE, hasn't had any serious interaction with Gensokyo and its residents ... but it got to serve, much much later, a more substantial role in TH 15.5 and 16.5. The beast World might seem to lack peculiar quirks for now, but it is quite possible that it (or its residents) could play some kind of role in a future Hell-involving work. Like, just as the Dream World and Doremy got to have their limelight in TH 15.5 and 16.5, the Beast World and its denizens may play some kind of role towards Hell (a place with a certain relevance in Touhou) in a subsequent work. Future is incertain, so I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Beast World as a bad move regarding Touhou's worldbuilding as a whole ... In consideration of the expansive nature of this series' worldbuilding.

also

(...) Worst of all, the endings don't even add anything to the story anymore. They talk about surrounding circumstances and that's it. Not a single hint of the main conflict budging either way. Not a single stroke added to the bigger worldbuilding picture (...)
Eagle Reimu's ending kinda disagrees with this ...
Spoiler:
aside from that, Keiki popping up in Gensokyo plus Boss Kurokoma intending to visit Gensokyo contribute to make it evident that the interactions with the Beast World are VERY possible.
Consistent with the thing where all the previously encountered characters in the series can pop up in Gensokyo for whatever reason, like, say, in GoU's danmaku firework festival ...

And I also don't see the difference between the thing with Boss Kicchou and lady Sagume, considering the fact that the turns of events that lead the heroines to the Moon were literally due to ... Sagume using her power.



But anyway
-it is complete and utter trash.
-It's generically boring at best and actively gets in the way of playing the game with any degree of enjoyment at its worst.
-The gameplay itself is a huge mixed bag as well.
-(...) just stick to UFO, you're not missing much. Unless you actually want to keep getting such bland uninspired experiences in future games, of course.

I have no problem with people criticizing and even hating on the new game, but I completely disagree when you conflate the obvious [personnal dislike] with [matter-of-fact suckiness] ... especially when the general reception of the various stuff you claim to be factually sucky is quite positive ...
« Last Edit: September 09, 2019, 07:58:18 PM by Suspicious person »

Nusp

Re: Touhou Project 17 「東方鬼形獣 ~ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature.」
« Reply #296 on: September 10, 2019, 02:20:18 AM »
I have no problem with people criticizing and even hating on the new game, but I completely disagree when you conflate the obvious [personnal dislike] with [matter-of-fact suckiness] ... especially when the general reception of the various stuff you claim to be factually sucky is quite positive ...
I think it can be taken for granted that it was all an opinion, not a declaration of fact, regardless of how it's written. I know that it can be hard to read someone's intent on the internet but I also find silly the notion that you'd need to clarify "this is just my opinion" on everything you write. It seems like arguing over semantics.

CyberAngel

  • Retired
Re: Touhou Project 17 「東方鬼形獣 ~ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature.」
« Reply #297 on: September 10, 2019, 09:32:43 AM »
I have no problem with people criticizing and even hating on the new game, but I completely disagree when you conflate the obvious [personnal dislike] with [matter-of-fact suckiness] ... especially when the general reception of the various stuff you claim to be factually sucky is quite positive ...

I apologize if my post comes across that way, but yes, that's all just my opinion. I'm not claiming that those who think otherwise are wrong or anything. Those are the problems I personally have with this game but I'd be interested to see detailed arguments that would support otherwise. They won't change my opinion but I'd love to understand why other people would think differently.

That said, I do realize there might be a possibility for this to be a setup for something in the future, but it all feels way too sketchy for that. Hell's events still remain mostly in the background (I don't think it will be explored even in the upcoming fairy manga chapter), Animal Realm has been skimmed over in a way that reminds me oh how Makai was handled, and cowboy girl might as well become another Flandre. The main characters were used in the conflict even though they have no stakes in it and were mostly left in the dark even at the end. In previous games you could tell that something else was coming but I'm not getting such vibes here.

Re: Touhou Project 17 「東方鬼形獣 ~ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature.」
« Reply #298 on: September 10, 2019, 04:59:40 PM »
Yeah, I agree that this game didn't flesh out its world or its connection to Gensokyo whatsoever. However, the events that happened were "important" enough to get a full game devoted to them. DDC had its events fleshed out in the manga and a later game, LoLK had three entire games devoted to its worldbuilding (plus VD and AoCF fleshing out the dream world and its workings), and Okina and her role has been elaborated upon prettt heavilt in the manga.

To me this game does feel like it's barely grazing the surface, but I 100% expect things to get fleshed out in the manga or later games.
My name is Tres. It sounds like "Tray". Tressert is "Tray-zurt"; like Tres dessert.
I've cleared every touhou game on Lunatic, and beaten every extra except SoEW.
NMNB: MoF Hard, SA Extra, UFO Extra

Re: Touhou Project 17 「東方鬼形獣 ~ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature.」
« Reply #299 on: September 14, 2019, 12:55:39 AM »
As I've already said, the statment "There's no good music in WBaWC" is rediculous. "Beast Metropolis" is beautiful and "Idolatrize World" is very powerful. Actually, a lot of Touhou themes need to be relestened several times before you start understanding how good they are.

Gameplay... I personally don't care about it that much - I'm a lore-nerd.

And now the story. It's very strange to hear the statements like "The game gives nothing to a Touhou world". At first, it's expands the universe lore, which is already good. At second, the game is very new - it's too early to say, that it's plot is "pointless". For an example SWR was a very pointless game before AoCF and it's Tenshi's comeback in terms of story. What does this game tell us? That Heaven and celestials exist? We've already knew that from Memento. Did Iku and Tenshi did at least something between SWR and AoCF (almost 10 years!)? No, they did nothing! Actually, you can still delete Iku from the Touhou universe and absolutely nothing will change with exception of only SWR.
If you prefer shmups, what about SA? The only not pointless character is Koishi, and she has nothing to do with the plot. You can literally replace the entire game with just one manga chapter, where Kanako awakes the underground geysers and Koishi appears. Satori can easily be just a backstory character like Youki Konpaku. All other SA characters can just not exist entirely - nothing will change. Palace of the Earth Spirits is not even close to something like SDM, Hakugyokurou, Eientei, Moriya Shrine, Myoren Temple and Divine Spirit Mausoleum. Actually, the entire place of the Former Hell has so little influence to the Touhou universe, that it could just be listed in Memento or Symposium instead of appearing in the game. And SA came out 11 years ago! But no one is complaining about it's complete irrelevance to the story (for some reason). So the similar complains about the game that came out a month ago have no sense what so ever.