[Let's Play] Touhou Gensoumaroku: The Devil of Decline~Matsuri!

[Validon98]

Hey there guys, this is Validon here with something I've been wanting to do for a while now, but haven't really had the time or patience to do.
I'm here to LP Devil of Decline, Strawberry Bose's second brutally difficult RPG, made in collaboration with Hachikuma (famous, or rather infamous for creating Defiant of Shrine Maiden) and AQUASTYLE (infamous once again for making Fushigi no Gensokyo).



This is the title screen, which shows off our four main protagonists as well as one cruel, cruel fact about this game.

The English patch for it, unlike Genius of Sappheiros, isn't complete.  Yeah.

Fortunately, I have text hookers and machine translators to help me out in the process (hey, they got me through my first playthrough, didn't they?).

Now before we start, there is voting to be done. Yes, voting! Only one of the four Touhous you see pictured above can become our main character! In terms of what each can do, well, here's a summary:

Reimu: Not really great when it comes to physical attacks or buffs/debuffs (she has terrible DEX), but she is a decent caster and boasts the second-highest POT in the game, which means she can take magical hits better than most. Her Last Word (read: FF6/8-style Limit Break) is Hakurei Healing Border, which heals everyone to full. She is the worst of the four in my opinion, and I really do not want to play the game again as her.

Yukari: The jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none type of character, although her combined stat total is the highest in the game IIRC. Her Last Word is Danmaku Barrier, which reduces damage on the turn it is used by 75% for all party members.

Byakuren: She's basically like she was in Genius of Sappheiros, with a high DEX and decent INT, making her amazing at buffs/debuffs and murdering things with magic. Her Last Word is Star Maelstrom, which is a powerful all-enemy light elemental attack that scales in power with level. Probably my prefered choice, but I'm leaving that to you.

Meiling: The warrior type, with the second-highest STR in the game and decent tanking ability. She also somehow has a higher AGI and INT than Yukari. Make of it what you will. Her Last Word is... uh... Rainbow Colored Tai-Chi? It deals large physical damage to one enemy and once again scales in level.

So there you go! I'll begin the LP proper when I get enough votes to come to a conclusion as to who you want to be the main character.

Note: The image looks squished because the aspect ratio for it is normally 841x480, but I have to abide by the 640x480 rule. That's unfortunately going to have to be the norm for this LP.

[Serela]

Some notes: Devil of Decline is, until the final dungeon, not hard, rather then "brutally difficult". It's kind of easy until then from what I've seen, really! The final dungeon is just -damn-, though. Expansion difficulty mostly comes from gimmicks, although if your level isn't high it's probably drastically harder; depends how much stuff you strive to get, so I guess that actually varies a good bit. Most people I see do a bunch of stuff in the final dungeon and go into expansion pretty powered up, but if you didn't, then...!

Yukari's Last Word also gives you 75% reduction in chance to get hit by status effects. She's also leaning a bit more towards tankiness and has a specialty of having pretty high MP and low AGI, apart from otherwise being a jack-of-all-trades.

Byakuren, while normally being someone I'd like, has a lot of REALLY WEIRD LOOKING SPRITES imo.

Meiling was balanced at first, but then in expansion, they significantly boosted several of her stats, especially her INT. Wut? She's almost definitely a developer favorite in this, considering her not being an obvious protag choice, the clear favoring of her stats, and the fact that they use like 7 remixes of her themes in the game, often for fairly notable things.

I'll vote for Yukari or Meiling!

Also... rather then squishing the images sideways, it'd be much, -much- better if you just shrank their overall size to keep them in proportion. XD

Edit:As an example of Meiling's stats; she beats out or matches ALL THE OTHER PROTAGS in all stats other then MP and POT, and Byakuren's DEX. So yes. In expansion they made her ridiculous.

[marukyuu]

This is going to be interesting.

My vote for the MC goes to Chuugoku.

A question: what's your text hooker of choice?

[theshirn]

Some notes: Devil of Decline is, until the final dungeon, not hard, rather then "brutally difficult". It's kind of easy until then from what I've seen, really!

Easy it certainly isn't!  Several of the dungeons have some extremely nasty encounters (MINDFLAYERSSSSSSSS) and a lot of the boss fights, even optional ones, can rip you a new one.  It's definitely easier than Genius of Sappheiros, I'll grant, but the game is still reasonably tough.  I actually haven't played the expansion at all, but the simple fact that they brutally nerfed chasers - deserved, but still - would make even sweeping and some of the simpler bossfights a lot tougher.

The real reason to pick Reimu, to be honest, is that she has the best theme by a mile.  But I'm going to vote for Meiling because god damn the devs want you to play her.

I'm also going to agree that resizing the images is a much better idea than squashing them.

[Validon98]

Devil of Decline is, until the final dungeon, not hard, rather then "brutally difficult".

Okay, maybe I put a little too much emphasis on the difficulty. You're right, the game is nowhere near as hard as Genius of Sappheiros until the end, where the stats of the enemies leap up out of nowhere. And then the expansion is a bitch, which is why I stopped after beating the next-to-last boss, because my lack of leveling and impatience were enough for a rage quit. I'll see if I can't remedy that in this LP, because I want to finish it, but with someone who's not Reimu.

they use like 7 remixes of her themes in the game

I know, it's ridiculous, right? Then again, they did that with Innocent Treasures in Genius of Sappheiros, although that song's lesser known (I've never heard the original before, so...)
Maybe she's getting more screen time because she spent almost all of GoS unconscious at the gate. And then you kick her in the face a bunch just to get a formation.
She needed a little more love, but this is ridiculous.

Byakuren, while normally being someone I'd like, has a lot of REALLY WEIRD LOOKING SPRITES imo.

Holy crap can they get weird. What the hell does her hair do while she's running?

My vote for the MC goes to Chuugoku.

*checks Google* So Meiling, then? I'll keep that in mind.

A question: what's your text hooker of choice?

Originally it was AGTH, but then I switched to ITH when I realized it was easier to set up with the game. Neither one solves the text-caching issue which makes it impossible to reread things.

The real reason to pick Reimu, to be honest, is that she has the best theme by a mile.

That's the only saving grace she has other than Hakurei Healing Border and her Union Last Word, which I didn't cover because we don't start with those, obviously. And they're rare as hell. I've used it once. Only once.

I'm also going to agree that resizing the images is a much better idea than squashing them.

I'll do that, then.

[SuccinctAndPunchy]

I vote Byakuren.

I want to see the weird sprites now. You've all made me curious.

[Athrel]

I vote Meiling.

[AnonymousPondScum]

Voting Byakuren.

[Ikari]

Byakuren or Yukari plz.

[Hanzo K.]

I'm tossing my hand in with a Yukari-Vote as well.

[Validon98]

So as it stands right now...
Reimu- 0  :V
Yukari- 1
Byakuren- 2
Meiling- 3
- 2

Serela and Ikari, not to be OCD or anything, but a split vote isn't really helping the count, especially considering there isn't a whole lot of votes here. Your votes could determine the outcome. Or not, because Meiling is leading and based on your split votes, the best we'd get for anyone but Meiling winning is a tie. Not that I don't want to play Meiling's story, but split votes. Yeah.

EDIT:
Reimu- 0, Yukari- 2, Byakuren- 2, Meiling- 3, - 1
Okay, that means one more vote for either Yukari or Byakuren will tie it with Meiling (or three votes for Reimu, which is probably not going to happen). One more vote for Meiling, though, and I call it here. I do want to actually start screenshotting and stuff. Impatience, it kills me every time!

[Ikari]

Alright, sorry. I'll pick Yukari over Byakuren.

[Cadmas]

Advance Meiling.

[Dr.Strafe]

There aren't enough votes for Byakuren. +1 to her just because I can.

[Validon98]

Well, unless Serela votes on Byakuren, we're sticking with Meiling, then. I declare this vote called.

LPers do their best and are preparing. Please watch warmly until they are ready.
People are subject to the Spiriting Away!
This is unprecedented serious affair!

[Validon98]

Let's actually get this LP started!

Prologue- Part 1: Spirited Away



I'm getting a major Persona 3 vibe from this.



Oh, it's a countdown. Joyous.





...Reimu...Reimu...Reimu!



Good morning, Reimu!



Reimu is pissed by the lens flare, because it's such a stock effect. Or it's hot. That works too.
Meanwhile she goes off to cool at the river. Have fun, Reimu.



Wow, you have a really big nose. That's kind of disturbing.



Apparently it's hot and peaceful. Sounds like a summer in Gensokyo alright.



Actually not everything is perfect in Gensokyo. Keine's been missing for two days. Bah, I'm sure that's not important.
However, the guy is saying there has been rumors of people and places being victims of "spiriting away" recently. I watched a Studio Ghibli film about that once. It was a pretty nice movie.



Meanwhile Ichirin and Nue worry about Byakuren.



Apparently Murasa and Nazrin have gone missing.



And Nue blames the "spiriting away." Bah, they probably just took the day off... wait, can you take a day off from temple duties?



And Yuyuko's missing too. Gee, there's quite a few missing people.



Whoops, a day's passed. Well, I'm sure nothing else will go wrong.



Oh yeah, more missing people! Also, that may look like a Kasen, but it ain't a Kasen. Sorry.



Minor Genius of Sappheiros reference: apparently Nobou has been spirited away. Nobou was a minor character in that game who befriended Biotopos at a bar. I assume it's the same guy.



...Uh, Sanae? I think you misplaced your shrine.



And the Palace of Earth Spirits crew is missing too, sans Utsuho. I thought surface youkai aren't allowed into the underground. Obviously whoever or whatever did this is ignoring that fact.

[Hinacle]

Ah, YAY! I love this game. Looking forward to more updates.

[Validon98]

Meiling apparently can't find the Scarlet sisters. I thought you were asleep at your post again.



Apparently she heard me.



Clock o' Doom keeps on a ticking.



Marisa misplaced her house too. Now she can't return those books to Patchy when she dies! 



Yukari had Chen looking for... Ran, I think. Though why Yukari would call Ran a child, I don't know.



Yukari, pay better attention to your shikigami while they're fading out of existence!



...Did it seriously take you one-and-a-half days to wash yourself at the river? Honestly, Reimu.



And that's why you shouldn't leave your shrine for one-and-a-half days.



Don't be pissed at me, you're the one who left it that way!



Apparently she's going to solve this "Spiriting Away Incident." Except she's not because she isn't the main character this time.



Because after the long, unskippable prologue cutscene we have to be reminded of the game's title.

[AnonymousPondScum]

THE PLOT THICKENS.

[Validon98]

You guys wanted Meiling, so here you go.



Apparently her search for the Scarlets hasn't gone particularly well. Or maybe she's just lost. The bamboo forest tends to do that to ya.



Wait a minute, could it be...?



Why yes, it's a Tewi! Damn bunny still owes me for the shit she gave me in Genius of Sappheiros.



What, did my foul language offend you?



Anyways, Meiling apparently wants to help the poor, rapidly fading away bunny. It's not like she did anything nice for you...



I'm sorry, when did you nab one of the Hakurei Yin-Yang Orbs? You can't use those, you know. Unless you're some lost descendant of the Hakurei clan?
Ahahaha, yeah right.





Apparently stuffing the poor rapidly fading rabbit into the yin-yang orb works. Sure, I'll go with it.
Not pictured: Meiling mentioning that this only had a 43% chance of success. Good thing Tewi is lucky by nature.



Newcomers have arrived!



Apparently Sanae and Mokou caught their own shikigami. So, about how many people have been spirited away like this? No clue, personally.



Double fist pumps mean apparently we're going to go incident resolving! And thus now we have Meiling, Sanae, and Mokou as "masters" and Tewi, Minoriko, and Rumia as "shikigami." Shikigami basically are a cross between Pokemon, materia, and Personas. You can equip three per master and they grant special abilities, both active and passive, along with stat boosts. Obviously there will be more later, but we've got three.



FINALLY SAVE POINT!
Sorry, having to go through a lot of screenshotting and cutscenes takes a toll on my psyche. So save points are good.
Thankfully, actual gameplay will be much easier to screenshot. As in I don't have to screenshot every half a minute, meaning much less screenshots.
We're going to leave it at that for tonight. Tomorrow we'll discuss game mechanics, battles, and maybe find out about who's causing the incident. Or it can be like Genius of Sappheiros and actually not know until 2/3rds of the way through the game.

[Validon98]

The second update is fully screenshotted and coming. If I have enough time, I might even be able to screenshot and do the rest of the prologue today.
Please watch warmly...

[Validon98]

Prologue- Part 2: Accusations Everywhere

Being the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, we've got White Flag of Usa Shrine as the theme.



So here's our main menu. It's got our party and shikigami listed, with levels and amounts of experience needed to level right handily on there.
To the right you can also see the Clock o' Doom, which says we've got four hours until... whatever happens.



Equips and stats are here. As you can see, we've got nothing but a crappy weapon and a crappy armor. Fun times. Stats are STR, VIT, DEX, AGI, INT, and POT on the left-hand column, and on the right there's PATK, MATK, PDEF, ACC, MDEF, and EVA. I don't remember whether the fifth one on the right is MDEF or EVA. It's one of those two.
To the right of that we've got elemental affinities and levels. We'll go into those when it actually becomes important.



Our shikigami equip screen, which lists elemental affinities, active skills, passives skills, and stat bonuses. Tewi here knows Ancient Duper (a low accuracy high-powered attack that hits everything) and Front Teeth (single target physical attack that inflicts Blind). Her passive is +10% XP to the party. Useful.
Minoriko knows Autumn Sky (heals 1/4 of everyones HP, but has a massive cooldown) and Water Recovery (essentially a Cure spell), and recovery spells are boosted by 10% .
Rumia knows Shadow Bolt (single target Dark spell) and gives a 25% resist to Dark attacks. Handy.



Inventory screen. We don't have muchnow, but we'll have a huge amount later.



Formation screen. We only have Free Fight for now (which boosts Last Word activation chance), but we'll get more later.



Our bestiary, but it's empty for right now. We'll get it filled quickly enough.



And configuration. Except I have no idea what any of this stuff does. I'll leave it alone.

Anyways, onwards to battle mechanics!



Here, have a Bell of Avici~Infinite Nightmare remix as the battle theme.

The battle screen. Essentially we've got character stats on the bottom, the skill selection wheel right there, and the land meter and turn counter in the upper-right. I'll explain land when it actually figures into the battle.
We've got our master skills and our shikigami skills, which can be selected between using the trigger buttons (whatever you've assigned them to, I've got them assigned to "A" and "D"). We use those skills to whack things.



Like these guys. I'm not really going to explain many of the enemies at first. Just spam the attack button and you'll be fine.



As you can see, we don't get a lot of XP at first. This will change eventually, but for right now we're going to have to wait awhile before leveling up.



More guys. These are weak to Ice, but we've got no Ice spells. So whack away, team!



Unlike Genius of Sappherios, you can only move to other screens through these portal things. Blue denotes just a normal exit.



Bakebakes! Or Mr. Ghostlies, if you prefer that. Or Mr. Ghosties. Whichever. They're weak to light and fire.



Last Word! These are random chance skills that show up when you attack or are hit. I think being at a low amount of health makes them activate more frequently, but I don't know for sure. Let's see what it does!




Pretty fire. Anyways, this is Phoenix Rebirth. It revives all allies, and sticks the ones who are still alive with a Reraise effect. This could save the party in a tough battle.



Some time after the battle I find a chest with a robe in it. I give it Meiling. Woot, 4 Defense! That's four times better than what I had on her before.



Apparently Sanae took fashion advice from Reimu. I don't think she had detached sleeves before.



Anyways, that was Yasaka's Divine Wind, which does the exact same thing it did in Genius of Sappheiros: buff all of your party's stats. If Sanae had better than average DEX, it would be a pretty amazing buff.



Goddamn bats. They have decent EVA and can drain your health. They're weak to piercing. Except I don't have anyone with piercing. Whacking away at random it is!



Meiling, your hand over there is upside-down. That isn't normal.



Epileptic Kick!



That'll do, Meiling. That'll do.



A shield, specifically a buckler. They add a certain amount of defense to your base defense if they activate. That 50 there? That's it's activation rate. I forget if I gave it to Meiling or Sanae.



Red exits mean boss fights. Thankfully there's usually a healing circle right there for usage. Don't mind if I do.

[Validon98]

The "calm" music sounds so nice.



Oh hey there Nitori. I see you like catching bugs. Are you going to perform experiments on it?



Being serious now... Yadda yadda yadda, spiriting away, yadda yadda yadda, incident...



Okay Wriggle, no need to be pointing fingers. We didn't do anything.



Their contorted expressions say it all.
Also, the pre-boss theme that's playing? It sounds great.



A Decisive Magical Battle~Fight it out! remix as the boss theme? Don't mind if I do.

Also, your plan of attack is foolish, Nitori. It's two against six. The odds are not in your favor.





That sort of happened. The rest of the battle was uneventful.



Not pictured: Nitori and Wriggle passed out.
Pictured: Double fist pumps mean Nitori and Wriggle are joining my party! MOAR PARTY MEMBERS!

So what can Nitori do, you ask? She can do this:




This is Perfect Camouflage. It completely negates the next attack each party member takes. Amazing for weathering a blast of HOLYSHITWHATWASTHAT, which happens quite a lot in this game, especially later on.



Another shield, which I also forget who I gave it to.
Also we've lost an hour. Joyous.



Aha, Meiling's slash element leveled! Okay, now's a good time as any to explain element levels. If you use one of the ten elements in this game repeatedly, it levels up. You can only get element XP once per battle from using the element, so using multiple elements in the same battle with the same character will be better than repeatedly using the same element in the same battle. Also, the rate at which element XP is gained is based on the level of the enemies you're fighting. This means that elements are harder to level at this point, but characters who join in later will gain element levels quickly, which lets them catch up to the current party.



What is the point of this path again?



This is totally a fair fight, what are you talking about.



Wriggle, I forgot to mention, knows Hypnosis, which puts enemies in a column to sleep. She also grants 25% resistance to Variety status effects. For when you don't want to get debuffed.



Meiling's learned Falcon Slash now! Much like in Romancing Saga 3 (IIRC), your characters "spark" new abilities. These abilities are based on the type of weapon you have and have a random chance of being learned based on the element level of the weapon type you have. Most abilities can only be learned once you get a high enough element level, and are sparked by using normal attacks or other special attacks. Some special attacks have a higher chance to spark other special attacks than just the normal attack, and often they can spark new abilities at lower element levels than what is necessary while using a normal attack. I think Falcon Slash can spark something else, but I'd have to check the website I got all of that info off of to see.



Boss time!

[Serela]

GoS and DoD have a lot of inspiration from the Romancing Saga series, actually! But yes, that's totally where the element proficiencies and skill inspiration comes from. And formations and shields and there's plenty of skill references.

Sanae's Last Word is based on her level, rather then her dex. This is both a good and a bad thing; you don't have to worry about her DEX, but you can't pump it for more effect either. It's not really as good as the ALL buffs you can get later, but it's all-target and doesn't require equipping shikigamis you don't have much other reason to use, so it's still pretty good.

Mokou's last word is ridiculous though. Revival on all and Reraise on everyone already alive, holy crap.

Edit:Oh, by the way, new character stats. Sanae's are... overall a little below average, actually, but she has above-average INT and her specialty is high MP. Mokou is what you would expect from a warrior-type; e.g. pretty high STR VIT HP, low mp/int. Nitori has above average STR/VIT/HP, but very high DEX and POT, with low MP and INT.  Her stat layout is reallly nice, she got some significant buffs in the expansion.

[Validon98]

When I was actually playing the game earlier while screenshotting, I turned off the game and ended back at the room right after where I fought Nitori. Everything was saved, it's just I had to run through the stretch of dungeon again. Whatever the case, I got some sort of armor. I believe I put it on Mokou.



Wait, Sanae, what are you...?



Not pictured: Crackles of electricity spurting out of the blow Sanae did to the bat.
Oh, you learned Stun Blow. Carry on then.



Back to the story... what the hell is with that magic circle thing?



WHERETHEHELLDIDYOUCOMEFROM!?
Also, I guess this is the pre-battle-with-demon theme.



Okay, apparently this is his magic circle, and he wants to kill us for touching it. Great job there, team.



You are really ugly looking. Apparently his name is Buyo. I'll go with that.



Buyo here knows Dark Hand, Shadow Bolt, and couple of other Dark elemental stuff. Thankfully Mokou won't take much damage because of Rumia.



Oh, he has land regen. That's not too big an issue though. Though what is a big issue is "What is land regen?" Well, it has to do with that land gauge on the top-right hand corner. Using elemental attacks will shift the land towards that element, kind of like with Chrono Cross, except instead of replacing previously cast elements, it works on a sliding scale. Genius of Sappheiros also had a land meter that worked the same way. There are three intensities of land, each of which makes that element stronger and the opposing one weaker. Because the land is currently at the first level of Dark, Buyo here is regenerating his HP. Certain abilities can only be used under certain amounts of land, and knowing how to manipulate land is an important skill for boss fights.

Buyo goes down after a few turns. Not  really that difficult.



So, your plan of killing us didn't work. What do you have to say for yourself?
Besides this theme.



Whoa, stop shaking the screen, Buyo. We understand that you're upset you lost. Not our fault you attacked us.
At least he's gone now.





Seems like we broke it. You can still sort of see the imprint on the ground. Bah, I'm sure that doesn't mean anything.



Yeah, let's go find those other magic circles and break them!



Oh boy, finally out of the Bamboo Forest of the Lost and into the Fantasy Plains.
The Fantasy Plains comes with a complementary "A Soul as Red as a Ground Cherry" remix.

Yellow exits, by the way, mean a transition point between two areas of the game. You can fast travel to these areas, making traveling around Gensokyo much less annoying.



Snakes. I hate snakes. They are weak to ice.
Not pictured: Mokou also learning Falcon Slash.



Slimes are pretty annoying too. They take a small amount of damage from any physical element but slashing. They are extremely weak to fire and ice, though, so that helps. Or not, because I still don't have fire or ice stuff. Shadow Bolt's going to have to do.



And Nitori just learned Leg Sweep, which inflicts Stumble on an enemy! There are a lot of Stun type effects in the game, but this one is specifically Stumble.



Not the caterpillars. They are extremely hardy and can cast Earth Wall, which raises physical defense.
Not pictured: The godawful fight with them that barely turned out well.



Meanwhile, we get a rod, which boosts magic damage a bit. I hold onto it for later. It might be good on a caster, and I haven't really set up anyone to be the caster.

Also, the fight with Buyo took off another hour. Two hours until the Clock o' Doom rings.



So who're going to fight now? It can't possibly be easier than the Buyo fight...



I stand corrected.



Apparently they too have been investigating stuff. And the other two Fairies of Light were spirited away. Now they can't pull pranks as a group!



Sunny isn't exactly sure if Letty's accusations of us being the incident-causers is true. Whatever the case, we fight!



So what you're saying is it's a carbon copy of the Nitori and Wriggle fight with the exception of enemy abilities.
 :fail:



Letty can debuff our defense, but that's about it.
They go down quickly enough.



This is what happens to people who accuse me of doing shit I haven't.



Nevertheless, they join.

Sunny, by the way, is the worst character in the game IMO. As soon as I can I'm ditching her and leaving her to rot.



All paths lead to the Forest of Magic. No, really. Doesn't matter who you start with, you end up here last.

[Validon98]

@Serela: Oh yeah, I made stat summary lists myself in terms of the ranking of each person's stats. I'll add them in from now on.

Meiling-
HP-3
MP-15
STR-2
VIT-3
DEX-10
AGI-11
INT-10
POT-15

Sanae-
HP-15
MP-5
STR-13
VIT-15
DEX-11
AGI-12
INT-8
POT-18

Mokou-
HP-4
MP-17
STR-4
VIT-2
DEX-13
AGI-15
INT-16
POT-11

Nitori-
HP-8
MP-16
STR-9
VIT-8
DEX-2
AGI-13
INT-15
POT-3

Sunny Milk-
HP-19
MP-10
STR-20
VIT-19
DEX-6
AGI-7
INT-11
POT-5

Those are positions, not actual final stats, of course.

[Serela]

Thing is, positions aren't that good- they can differ by only a few points in comparison to someone else, yet be far lower or higher on a list because of it. Just a quick summary of how good their stats are comparatively is more useful, heheh. I edited that into my previous post.

Sunny has quite low HP/STR, with only above average INT and MP. Her DEX and AGI are pretty great though, and she has high POT. Her stats are a bit eh as you can see (Her good stats are the generally less praised ones), and her LW tends to not work on stuff you want it to (It doesn't ignore flat resistance to the Stun status), so really, the reason people use her is because of the most powerful, and hidden stat.

Moe.

Actual stats don't generally matter a whooole lot in this game; it's actually not a big deal if you have Patchouli as a physical smasher even though her base stats don't favor it at all, for example, and I saw someone who did that and did more hp then the final expansion boss HAD with a single attack from her. Sanae's pretty bad overall stat-wise for that matter, as she's below average across the chart and only has a slightly better then average-y INT, although you could perhaps value her last word, and she attempts to make up for it with MP.

[Validon98]

So what can Sunny do for a Last Word?



ICAN'TSEEI'VEGONEBLIND!!!



It inflicts Stun. Which does have a chance to fail. Of course it does.



In terms of enemies, we have the incredibly hardy beetles, the tree-girls, who can buff attack and magic attack and inflict blind and silence, both of which are not good, and the fairy warriors from Genius of Sappheiros. They come in sword, spear, axe, and wand varieties, and can use special abilities associated with those weapons. Like Falcon Slash. Joyous.



Found this short sword lying around. It looked lonely, so I gave it to Meiling.
One hour remains.



And Meiling learned Whirlwind Slash. Our first column attack!



And Sanae learns Shock Burst in the same battle! Our first AoE attack!



Why is this here? To mock me? Well, I'm sure we'll find the other side of that rock eventually.
Stupid Waist-High Insurmountable Fence...
EDIT: Oh, I already pushed that rock. Well it was a Waist-High Insurmountable Fence earlier.



Rumia learned Shadow Burst, our first multi-target spell!



Similarly, Minoriko learned Clearance, which heals Permanent status effects. We might as well call it Esuna.



And a shiny new spear for Nitori!



And a ...shovel. That goes to Sanae. To bury folks with.



Looks like there's another boss ahead. But that's the rest of the screenshots I've taken so far. Next time we'll finish up the prologue and see what happens when Clock o' Doom strikes midnight. Or noon. Or whatever time it's supposed to be.

[Validon98]

Moe.

Everyone has that in this game. I don't think the demons really care.

Actual stats don't generally matter a whooole lot in this game; it's actually not a big deal if you have Patchouli as a physical smasher even though her base stats don't favor it at all, for example, and I saw someone who did that and did more hp then the final expansion boss HAD with a single attack from her. Sanae's pretty bad overall stat-wise for that matter, as she's below average across the chart and only has a slightly better then average-y INT, although you could perhaps value her last word, and she attempts to make up for it with MP.

Yeah, I've heard of a physical Patchy before. I might go for it, but I'm not really one of those "play against type" sort of people.
And yeah, I'm going to dump Sanae eventually too. Her stats are somewhat okay, but I'd rather let a certain Yama take her place. 

[Validon98]

Prologue- Final Part: It's the End of the World as We Know It.



Oh look, another demon and another magic circle. Looks like we've got stuff to break.
Also, ominous music. That's never good.



"You can't stop us, it's too late," blah, blah, blah. I've heard it a million times already.



Somehow it manages to surprise Meiling.



Double fist pumps for incident ending time! And Drifting in the Fog of War, because it's an awesome pre-boss song!



You can't kill us, this is Gensokyo. There is no death, only spell cards.



This is Negro. Much like Buyo, he's a demon with Dark land regen and some Dark abilities.
Like Shadow Burst. It hurts a lot (I was too slow to catch the numbers, but it hurt).



Try to hit me now!



Try to kill me now!



Epileptic Kick for the win!



It doesn't show the numbers, but he just used Dark Zapper. Thankfully I had Perfect Camouflage up.




And again!
Also, thankfully I had Reraise going too, or Nitori would have died to an offscreen Shadow Burst.



He goes down after a turn or two more. Wriggle here learns Mute, which inflicts Silence in a column.



Hurray, we did it! Incident resolved, right?
Then he says we haven't won yet.
Then more ominous music.



Shit.



So, uh, what is that magic circle going to do?



Apparently, it didn't matter if we shattered the magic circles we did (assuming we smashed some more offscreen), they only needed to be placed to begin the time limit.



Not pictured: The screen shaking like Marisa just set off a Master Spark.



Hey random people.



Uh... why do you have a random statue of Keine? The dialogue implies some sort of perverted intent behind it. Okay then...



The ground apparently wants your statue. Or it just wanted to stop your perverted fantasies.



Okay, it's happening everywhere.



The netherworld too?!



And the Underground too.



Earthquakes must be contagious or something.



Oh hey, another map of Gensokyo. Too bad it's not canon. Not that there is a canon map.



Alright, who removed the keystone from the Hakurei Shrine?




What is this I don't even.



And we've ended up at the Hakurei Shrine. Apparently we've just been moved.

And the ground starts shaking. AGAIN.
And this music starts playing. Crap.



It's just a hole. So?



Uh... what?



So, towers. And they're forming the Clock o' Doom at the top. Are they supposed to be like elevators or something between the layers?



"Clock Towers of the End?" Okay then. I can see the clock part, and the tower part, but what do you mean by the end?



Suddenly shouting from out of nowhere.



Who the hell are you!? And why is your theme hard rock?
Demons from Makai? How'd you get here then?



The one with the scythe introduces herself as Chloe Gripper, of the "Three Demonic Pillars." I am not joking, that's how their title is translated. Anyone have a better translation, then let me know. Otherwise, they're the Three Demonic Pillars.



Ms. Blood-and-Jiang-Shi-Outift is Xia Zhuli. Or Sha Jurii. Depends if you want the Chinese or the Japanese.



Ms. Wind and Rags is Shijuukara Otoha.



So, this is all their fault, Zhuli is pretty happy they've sliced up Gensokyo like this, and Otoha is basically saying, "Don't do anything regrettable."
Why is this?
When the Clock o' Doom circles around again, Gensokyo will be destroyed. Completely and utterly.
I wonder how that'll affect the Outside World.



Okay, why are your happy sprites so weird looking?



And Negro says we're all screwed before vanishing. Gee, thanks Negro!



Yep, we've got only twelve hours, Sunny. I'm surprised fairies can do math. Well, I guess the Fairies of Light are a minor exception.



Though things look pretty grim, Meiling's double fist pump says it's time to solve this incident for real! I guess we're headed to the Clock Towers of the End.

Not now, though. This was a combination of a couple of hours of gameplay, and I'm tired at this point. Next time we start exploring this messed up Gensokyo and save it from the Three Demonic Pillars of Makai.