Sorry about 'thread reviving', but... Touhou game idea~
東方魔霊伝 (Touhou Mareiden ~ Eastern Tale of Magical Spirit) ~ Second Aurora
Some strange things start to occur in Gensokyo, as always... This time, Youkai become more active, but not because of a revolution - but because of an influx of magical energy which began filling the air, which wasn't because of the miracle mallet. Seeing this, Marisa goes to investigate, not being able to overlook that her Mini-Hakkero had gone missing.
Special mechanic: Defeated enemies fill the screen with their collected magical energy. The more you move through the magic-filled parts, the more the 'special guage' fills up. On guage full: C button to use a 'Magical-Compressed' Bomb, which is stronger than the usual bomb (still uses a bomb and nullifies spell bonus as usual though) . On boss fights: When a spell card ends, a kind of a ring of the magical power appears around the boss. If you wait too long with magical energy on the screen, it just 'spreads in the air' again, much like disappearing divine spirits from Ten Desires.
The first three stages are in the Forest of Magic.
Stage 1:
Midboss: Nameless Masked Girl (Nopperabo, obviously affected by the incident, her portrait for her spell card for Hard/Lunatic shows that she actually does have a face beneath the mask, but the mask itself is the one which shows no facial features.) :X :X :X :X :X
Boss: Sukuna Shinmyoumaru Being mistaken for the mastermind, the poor inchling gets attacked on sight. However, because the Miracle Mallet is in its re-absorption phase, she can't just go and use it as she pleases like in DDC... (A decent reason for stage 6 boss dropping to stage 1 boss, unlike SOMEONE we know... I'm looking at you, Yuyuko.) .
Stage 2:
Midboss: Human Magician Another side effect of the incident, was that regular humans with enough affinity to magic, started to show signs of promise. . . and then sent out of the Human Village, if they didn't keep it a top secret. This one magician reached a level only a genius would reach in such a short time, going to the forest of magic to train... however it's still very weak, and against Marisa she stood no chance. Typical stage 2 midboss.
Boss: Alice Margatroid While not losing her mind like the other Youkai, she was hit by the incident too. She challenges Marisa, thinking that such an incident is too great a challenge to Marisa without her Mini-Hakkero... and holding back more than she did in PCB, thus stage 2 boss... could she be worrying about Marisa's safety as a fellow magician?
Stage 3:
Midboss(PCB Alice-style)&Boss: Okuri Inu ...Basicly does what an Okuri Inu does - appears multiple times around the stage as it's following Marisa directly, and the danmaku style focuses on getting the player towards the bottom of the screen, nonspells are sort of like Seamless Ceiling, but more forgiving, since it's just stage 3 boss.
Stage 4: Myouren Temple beneath the aurora-colored night sky
Midboss: Shou (More forgiving curvy lasers please... just this once, Shou... but yea, difficulty spike starts here)
Boss: Byakuren Byakuren Being knowledgable about Youkai, Marisa goes to her for directions.
Stage 5: (The skies of Gensokyo)
Midboss: Wanyudo (In the form of a girl with a wheel on her back (this is still Touhou) , the wheel starts spinning and burning when her spell card is activated)
Boss: Shikieiki Yamaxanadu
Marisa is on the right track, and she knows it. Shikieiki tells Marisa that in the place she's going there's an entity which commited lots of sins, without telling her who or what it is. The only thing she does tell Marisa, is that all the sins of that entity, is Marisa's fault. Imminent lecture. It's a must before going to face one's faults. *Suddenly reminded of Persona 4* ... Well in some worlds it's impossible to directly face one's faults, but in Gensokyo it's possible, alright? ^^'
Stage 6: The Artificial Miasma of Magical Power (The skies of Gensokyo)
The apparent style of danmaku for this stage is either sort of like Guze Flash if there was super super easy mode for it, or rings of bullets similar to EoSD's final stage, but rainbow-colored. At the last part of the stage, just before the boss, two fast lines of enemies come from both sides of the screen, then a death fairy comes, filling the whole screen with its large amount of absorbed magic if defeated in time.
Boss: Marisa's own Mini-Hakkero
It's finally revealed... the cause of the whole incident was Marisa's Mini-Hakkero itself, transformed into a Tsukumogami type of Youkai, and being as powerful a magical power source as it was, it caused a whole magical flooding of Gensokyo. Just imagine what could a fully transformed Tsukumogami Mini-Hakkero would be able to do, if not for Marisa controlling it to some extent. ... That was the result.
It turns out that Marisa's sins got carried over to the then-tsukumogami Mini-Hakkero, thus the Yama adressed it as 'sinful'. The magic of the Tsukumogami is the magic of its user, who will be able to stop the raging Mini-Hakkero, without Marisa's infamous Master Spark?? Well, she obviously has another bomb, but fitting for a stage 6 boss, one of the spell cards used against Marisa is the Master Spark, the action most engraved into the memory of the Mini-Hakkero.
Turns out that even after the victory, the Mini-Hakkero wouldn't return to its former carryable form, however the magical engine did learn her lesson, and agreed to return to Marisa's house. . . if Marisa would treat her a bit better and not forget her in some pile of... things, again. Not that it would be possible with that new Tsukumogami body of hers...
EXTRA: Sea of magic dyed in scarlet (( Half Inspired by
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17837968 , the other half is that Patchouli is a magician like Marisa Alice and Byakuren ))
Midboss: The Human Magician
The little prodigy has improved (from stage 2, remember her~?) , apparently taking her lessons from the great Marisa, she's in the Scarlet Mansion library for the magical grimoires. A duel between uninvited guests, but the true thief remains Marisa.
Boss: Patchouli Knowledge
Patchouli used the magical influx and the not-Marisa uninvited guest to heal her illnesses, thus being able to launch a full 10 spell card onslaught on the master thief Marisa, who just came in to take a look on how to reverse her Mini-Hakkero back to her original form.
It turned out that the magic which healed her only did its work temporarily, as being the unmoving great library with all the chemicals for potions and whatnot, those illnesses don't just go away. Strike the illness at its source next time... ... next incident, if it will ever happen. Temporarily is still something though.
*I didn't come up with names for original characters, and left them as their species name... Considering this is an idea I came up with now and I didn't want to go to sleep and lose it, I just typed it here without much checking... It still went quite nicely though, if you ask me.