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

[Validon98]

So, after a few hours of beginning Persona 4 Golden, I actually remembered "Hey, I have an LP to do!" And thus I sat down, cracked my fingers, and got back into the game.

Second Stratum- Part 1: Moving on Down

So, we're going after the second stratum now. Which starts out in another Makai area, only this time it's blue. We've got Maple Wise as theme. Hey, I raged at Mystic Square earlier today for being an ass to me. What a coincidence.



Sleepless Night in the Eastern Country as a battle theme, huh? Well, it does get me pumped up for murdering things.
These guys are Laughing Tires (who are weak to Earth and use Hit-and-Run, which can inflict Stun) and Rabisus (who can use First Strike, I think).



A new area already?



Oh, the Netherworld? We'll be back here later. I want to take care of the Makai area first.



Akankaus are undead, weak to Fire and Light, and can use Explosion, which is a large AoE attack that hurts like hell. They're easy to take care of.



RECIPES. They'll be listed in the summary as usual.



The game says that this is Makai 2 now. Okay then. I'll keep going and see what happens. I'll go back and finish Makai 1 afterwards.



Oh crap, these puzzles. Essentially, you now have to push the stones into their slots before they can be activated. This is more annoying than anything, but I can push through.



Oh, Ran! Yukari's been looking for you. Too bad we have absolutely no idea where she is. I doubt we'll see her ever.



Yeah, we're kind of going after the Three Demonic Pillars. We need to kick ass and take names. We need to show them who's boss.



Ran has one question that she's been trying to investigate, though. Why are the Three Demonic Pillars trying to destroy Gensokyo? Do they have a true motive? Huh, I never thought about it that way. It seems like they're just doing it for the evulz, but the antagonist of a Touhou game usually has a reason for what they're doing. I mean, what would be the usefulness of a destroyed Gensokyo? Hmm... I guess we'll find out more about their true motive later. We don't exactly know it yet.



Regardless of what's going on, Meiling agrees to let Ran onboard. She's basically our first Light elemental shikigami, which means we now have a shikigami dedicated to each of the seven magical elements. She provides 25% resistance to Light and has Star Blaze and Shining Stars, the 30 power single target Light spell and the 20 power all-targeting Light spell respectively. She'll go on Sanae in place of Letty.



So, there's a Yakushi in the back. She can attack twice in one turn and hits pretty hard. She's technically a giant, but unlike most giants, she's not weak to Earth or Slash. I actually don't know what's she's weak to.



Look's like we finally got Patchy to use her Last Word. They've been rare ever since I switched from Free Fight to Twin Shield.





Philosopher's Stone, you never cease to amaze me. It's an all-targeting, 70 power spell that scales with level. It's actually Void elemental, which is an extremely rare element that cannot be resisted, just like in Genius of Sappheiros.



GODDAMN COCKATRICES! They are weak to Electric, but they can cast Petrification Breath. This can obviously Petrify you. Points to anyone who gets the reference.



Uhh...



That leads to a Clock Tower of the End. That means one of the Makai Assassins (what I call the demons that have attacked us before) is protecting the tower. Nope. No no no no no. Not yet.



The Maraika is the back is an angel-type enemy. Obviously, it is weak to Dark, resists Light, and uses Light attacks, as well as Earth attacks. Weird, it looks Middle-Eastern. Well, that can't possibly mean anything.



Dem's some weird flora.



A WILD PARSEE APPEARS!



So, what was the point of attacking us again?



...I refuse to dignify your crazed muttering with a response.



Nevertheless, she joins the party. She provides 50% resistance to Petrify, Paralysis, and Sleep, and she has Water Recovery as well as a spell I can't exactly translate. It's 丑の刻参り, which gives me gibberish in my translators. I think it has a Gravity-type effect (like the Final Fantasy spell), but I'm not exactly sure. She's being benched.



Take a good look at that mini-map.



Yeah, screen-wrapping. This is actually used quite often across the game. I have know idea how the Three Demonic Pillars made a torus-like area, but whatever.



Oh boy, I remember this guy from Genius of Sappheiros. He is a Shade, who has some land regen in Dark as well as the usual weakness to Light. He can act multiple times per turn, inflict Instant Death, and use Dark attacks. In other words, he's stronger than the average cannon fodder found around these parts.



More areas to go through.



It's Muenzuka! With a Poison Body~Forsaken Doll remix as a theme. I don't get why they didn't use Higan Retour like they used in Genius of Sappheiros, but I guess that's would sound too similar.



Who let Germans into Muenzuka? Nevertheless, these are Stormtroopers (actually they're whatever the German name is for them, but TheNewGuy said he's going to translate some of the German names into the English equivalent, so I'll do the same). They know Missile and Stun Grenade. Stun Grenade is especially annoying, as it can inflict Blind. So kill these guys off quickly. They're weak to Dark, like most warrior-type enemies.



Sanae learns Bone Crush, which can lower VIT. She seems to be learning most of the moves here. I wonder why. I think it's because she's a type 4 skill learner, and they learn some of the best skills. Patchy's another one, but I've got staves on her, so she can't learn Blunt skills.



I find some sort of food here. Like the suppository from before, this'll trigger a recruitment flag later.



Can't cross these flowers. Come on, they're only higanbana. They'll only poison you... on second thought let's not try to cross them. We'll have to find another way into the eastern half of this place.



And Engineers as well. They can use a Decoy effect to force you to target them and can buff attack and defense. Of course, they're weak to Dark.



The translator translates them as Thud, which I know is probably wrong but I'll go with it. They're basically Pus, including having the ever annoying Bug attack, which paralyzes your whole party. A group like this is a death sentence. They paralyzed everyone but Sanae. Yeah, I had to run like hell.



That's two recipe boxes in a row, huh? I'll list these later too.



Again, the translator gives me a weird translation for this guy, who is a Nurse Horn. He's weak to Electric. Kill him quickly or he'll mess you up badly.



Of course, Philosopher's Stone doesn't give a damn.



Another recipe box? Really?



Thisis way better than a recipe box. This is the hookshot! Now we can return to those areas back on the first stratum and loot the goodies within. Later, though.



It seems like we've explored a pretty good portion of the second stratum. There's one more place in Makai 1 that we missed, however. Let's quickly take care of that.




More caves. Wonderful.



And here's the Myouren Temple. Byakuren's not here, though. Strange. If we didn't get Sanae at the beginning, then we would have gotten her here. She would have been essentially seeking shelter from the monsters and stuff. Either that or when the World of Chaos was made, she ended up being spirited away to here, but not turned into shikigami form.
That's all for this update. Next time we'll go back to the first stratum to see what's in those hookshot places, and then we'll go to the Netherworld and hopefully get strong enough to deal with the guardian of that tower.

Summary:

Treasures: Steel, Charming Photo Album, Ruby Guarder (Drop, Meiling), Broken Bracelet x2, Rock, Kite Shield (Mokou), Unsilent Throat, Youkai's Memories, Fur Armor (Meiling), War Axe (Sanae), Iron, Dual Saber (Nitori), Stardust Shard, Sleeping Lamb, Anti-Paralysis Needle, Comrade Sword (Mokou), High Magic Rod (Patchouli), Control Medal, Magic Source Stone, Pretty Mirror, White Robe, Stone Statue of Self-Protection, Tinbe, Aivi Guarder (Sanae), Spirit Stone, Hookshot

Skills: First Strike (Makes the person it is cast on move first, similar to Tengu Support from Genius of Sappheiros, Aya), Acid Storm (reduces physical defense in a column, Hina), Energy Hand (a physical attack that's Mystic element, Merlin), Earth Wall (buffs the party's physical defense, Lyrica), Bone Crush (Blunt skill that reduces VIT, Sanae), Butterfly Storm (attacks all enemies and inflicts a Permanent status effect of your choice, Wriggle)

Passives: Nishiki- 25% resist to Petrify, Sleep, and Paralysis

Recipes: Silver Shield, Great Wizard Robe, Rubber Suit, Mage Masher, Ron, Warhammer of Earthquakes

Synthesis Done: Great Wizard Robe (Patchouli)

TPKs: 0 this update, 1 overall
Frustration with this game: Not too bad. Granted, the Cockatrices and Thuds are a bit annoying, but I can handle the random encounters. For now.

I may update tomorrow, if I manage to do my Touhou livestream quickly enough (I'm shortening it from every integer game in the series to just five games) and get some schoolwork done (yes, even over vacation I have work for school). Damn reality wrecking my gaming.

And Merry Christmas! Yes, it's still barely Christmas where I live. Just barely.

[Serela]

Parsee's Dark attack is a multitarget Dark-elemental physical that scales with your level. However, it's power goes down if the user's HP is lower. (Percentage of total HP, so higher max hp doesn't make it stronger) It's not terribly strong, but as you level up, it's power increases, so it's not... terrible. Gives you another option against Dark-weak enemies, but not worth much else.

She later gets a healing magic mp reduction and whole-party status cure moves. Her special Dark skill isn't terribly good but, at least it's physical I guess, which scales better then magic. Ran, for example, becomes mostly useless eventually as her strongest light attacks aren't very strong; but she attempts to stay relevant by being the shikigami with the "Light Magic can critical hit" passive, and I guess she learns an AoE heal too.

[Ikari]

I haven't said a thing, since I don't know ANYTHING about this game, but I've been reading all of your updates! Nice Let's Play so far! Keep on going and stay strooooong!

...Aside from that, I'll be cheering on Nuke-Patche.

[marukyuu]

I haven't said a thing, since I don't know ANYTHING about this game, but I've been reading all of your updates! Nice Let's Play so far! Keep on going and stay strooooong!

Seconded. It's been an entertaining read so far, keep it up!

[Validon98]

Well, I'm glad you guys have found it entertaining so far. To be honest, doing an LP for the first time, especially with a game like this where knowing every little detail is harder than usual, is quite a bit of work, but if you guys like it, then I feel like I've done a good job so far.
Update won't be until later. I'm about to begin livestreaming Touhou stuff over an obscure screen-sharing program called join.me. The stream will be on Youtube later, if you're interested. Afterwards, I just need to take care of some other work and I'll be set for screenshotting.

[Serela]

Oh dear :/ If I remember right, that program is super low quality streaming material. Like... you get a couple frames per second, and the screen doesn't update evenly. It's okay for some stuff, but definitely not playing a game. If you want to stream, you should look into using XSplit with Twitch.tv or Livestream.com's stuff. There's some other good ways, but they aren't as easy to just pick up and do (Xsplit requires some minor setting tweaks to get it running optimally and the sound quality good, but it's pretty simple, and twitchchat is kind of iffy if you don't connect via IRC. Livestream is grab'n'go but awkward to sign up for)

Or maybe join.me got better, i'unno!

For that matter though, if you're uploading videos to youtube, you might consider adding the occasional video for the LP; like, for the really significant bosses, e.g. the three towers and the final boss.

[Validon98]

I was already going to upload videos for important bosses and stuff later. Also, the stream was a complete failure because of technical difficulties and whatnot. So nothing is going on Youtube after all. you're right, I need a better streaming program. Oh well. I'll get the update up later when I have time to screenshot it.

[Validon98]

And now I have the demon lolis themselves as my profile pic. If I didn't have a mission to slaughter them viciously, I'd say they're a bit cute. A bit.

Second Stratum- Part 2: Attack, Attack! Retreat, Retreat!



Now I can cross these guys. I somehow missed this one in my first playthrough, or just plain forgot about it.



Whee!



Enemies on the other side of hookshot areas are unique. They're all forms of bakebakes, kedamas, slimes, and fairies from the beginning of the game. These are the "High" forms of them. All of these monsters give fixed XP (read: not affected by the area's usual XP modifier) and have a good chance of dropping common materials, like Rocks, Irons, and the like. This is also where you can grind for Broken Treasures (from the slime-type enemies). Finally, they are Level 99 according to the bestiary, but for the skill learning formula, they all count as Level 1. Yeah, I almost got tricked by that. Thankfully that blog with all of the internal game mechanics told me the truth.



So... many... enemy symbols...



At first I had no idea what all these treasure chests were in a previous screenshot of this area (I was not here myself in my first playthrough), but it's all of the treasure chests from the Prologue. If you missed anything, you can pick it up here. The recipe chest has the "Material Set A." It allows you to trade in 10 Broken Treasures for some Rocks, Irons, Bamboos, Steels, and Pretty Mirrors.



This area was behind the shrine, but you can't move the rock unless you come in from the hookshot area in Chaos Plains 2.



Ah, there's the other two Fairies of Light. Makes sense they would be at their home, which is behind the Hakurei Shrine, naturally. I wonder if the Hakurei Barrier here is okay.




I think Nitori's accusing them of pulling some sort of prank, but I'm not sure.



Apparently they're not too keen on being asked to help with incident resolution.



Well, too bad. When Meiling double fist pumps or goes into her battle pose, you're as good as recruited. Luna Child is basically a darkness based shikigami who starts off with Silence and grants 50% resistance to Blind and Silence, while Star Sapphire is a Light-based shikigami who starts off with Dispel and grants 5 RES. I'm going to bench Luna but equip Star, mainly because Star gets Resurrection later on, which can be extremely useful.



And finally we have the hookshot area at Heaven's Falls.



MOAR CAVES!



Who's there?



Oh, Momiji. You were a pain in Genius of Sappheiros. So, how does it feel being a shikigami?





Really, three seperate occasions of the double fist pump in one cutscene? That has to be a new record.
Not pictured: The conversation regarding how all of Gensokyo seems to be uniting under the threat of the Three Demonic Pillars. Also, something about the tengu, though I'm not exactly sure what.



Can't argue with a battle pose.



And Momiji calls Meiling's battle pose and raises a badass-looking sword. Momiji's all about shield skills, starting off with Shield Wall (which, like Marionette Parrar from Genius of Sappheiros, protects a column with a shield). She also had Perry's Canaan Expedition, which is basically like Ancient Duper in that it has high power but crappy accuracy. She also grants +20% shield defense, which is pretty nice. She goes on Mokou. Goodbye, Wriggle. I hardly knew ye.



Yukkuri shitette ne! Metal Yukkuris and their later cousins are basically like Metal Slimes from the Dragon Quest series, in that they have a small bit of HP but huge physical defense and complete immunity to magic. If you do manage to kill them before they flee (which they can do very easily), they drop massive amounts of XP. Spray and pray is the only method for dealing with them right now. They can be easily farmed in the cave that had Momiji in it, and generally can be found in hookshot areas, although they can be found elsewhere. I do manage to kill this one!
Anyways, on to the Netherworld! It has Charming Domination as theme. That's a million times better than it's theme in Genius of Sappheiros, which I couldn't even tell from just listening to the song that it was Oriental Mystic Dream~Ancient Temple. I still can't tell that.
Anyways, back to Devil of Decline.



Zombie Dodo on the top (bird-type, yet has the usual undead weaknesses) and a Car on the bottom (spirit-type, so it's weak to light). I believe the Zombie Dodo can paralyze you with its normal attacks, so be careful.



I don't get the point of these dead ends.



There's a Succubus in the back. She's a demon who can use Shadow Bolt as well as Charm. She's weak to Light, so Meiling can abuse that with Star Hand. No, not that kind of abuse.



Kisume, is that you? Regardless of that, she's a miniboss, just like she was in Genius of Sappheiros. She hurts your party like hell. Simply put, run.



We've got a Scorpion in the back, who is weak to Ice, and a Natural Killer in the front, which is weak to Fire. I forget what they do.



Again with the dead ends...



I think those are Putrids. They are undead, so Meiling can one-shot them (a critical on Star Hand does over 800 damage, which is quite a bit of HP). They know Blood Drain, but that's about it.



Oh crap, Yuki-Onnas. Essentially, run from them. I forget what the thing up front is, but it doesn't matter right now. Yuki-Onnas know extremely high-powered Ice spells, so you want to get out. Immediately.



No just no.



Looks like the entrance to the next area. I swear there was something else here, so I'll head back.



And run into these guys. The big thing is a Kakurinorasu, andit knows Cold Breath. And can barely be scratched at this point. Yeah, run.



Or fail to run for three straight turns! That's our second TPK. Now I've got to go through the entire Netherworld, because I can't just warp back to the new exit.



More new enemies. The Seven Person Cape up front can be one-shotted by Meiling (go Star Hand!) and the Darknesses are similar. They know the usual Dark skills and have Dark land regen.



That exit leads here. Really, more Makai?



Harpies. They're weak to Electric, but can inflict Silence. Whee.



A new area already? That was fast.



On second thought, let's leave before Yuka finds out we're here. Even if she is chilling out at the shrine right now.



So, the Hiramonsuta in the back is weak to Ice. They can also use TailChop. That has so far failed to killed me.



Crap, a Large Makai Cactus. They can cast Porcupine, which is the same as 1000 Needles. Which means it can murder you like crazy.



And an Ogre Chief, which hits hard but is weak to the usual elements giants are weak to.



After tons of exploring, we come upon yet another new area.



Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...
Yeah, let's come back later. This place is essentially death.



We don't have much else to explore, so we'll go after the Garden of the Sun. Which has Gensokyo, Past and Present~Flower Land as a theme. It has an 80s alternative rock vibe to it. I like that.



Sunflower Fairy Mage. It can cast basic single-target spells and is weak to Dark. They can also cast Leaf Shield, which makes a target immune to the next-couple of attacks.



Of course we can't enter this one.I guess that this means this is the one that can be accessed on the third stratum. That's not until later, however.

Sunflower and Earths. The Earths are weak to Electric, but can inflict poison that does 60 damage a turn, and the Sunflower is weak to Fire, Slash, and Earth, for whatever reason. They can hit hard with some Mystic attacks.



Oh boy, Adamanmymys. They can be killed by a single Capture Web. Meiling, you truly are amazing.



And Serpents, who can inflict Poison and Paralysis. Ice murders them, however.



Another Yukkuri?



Maybe they're not immune to the Void element?



Shit. This one gets away.



This is a Special Izayoi Blend of tea. Yet another recruitment flag, but one we can actually find at this point! Later, though.



And this goes...?



Not here again...
We'll be back. There's a couple of things we need to do here.



Yamas. They can use Acid Breath, and are weak to Fire. Thus they need to die.



So many exits...



Eientei, eh? Again, not exploring here yet.



What a beautiful full moon. It reminds me of Keine. I wonder where she went? It's probably not important.



Off the cliff we goooooooooooo...



We survived the fall and found a new area. Again.



I THOUGHT I WAS DONE WITH BLOCK-PUSHING PUZZLES!



Well, it looks like we made some good progress. But we've been going for way too long. Next time we'll check out all of the things we've come across so far. And maybe we'll see how close we are to beating up Ansuitei and entering at least one of the towers.

Summary:

Treasure: Breastplate, Broken Bracelet, Sexy Underwear (Drop), Silver x2, Legacy of the Gods x2, Dark Shard, Iron, Mystic Shard x2, Berserk Charm, Poison Bottle, Sunglasses, Rock, Earth Shard, Quickwood, Water Shard, Black Robe, Steel x2, Stardust Shard, Ancient Purification Thing, Light Shard, Ring of the Thunderstorm, Bamboo, Pretty Mirror, Fire Shard, Log Armor (Meiling)

Skills Learned: Active Mental (increases magic attack for the whole party, Lyrica), Sunlight (40 power piercing healing spell, Ran), Physical Defense (reduces physical damage to one person by 95% for one turn, Momiji)

Passives: Hina- +5 Curse Success Rate

Recipes- Material Set A, Flaming Sword, Suteropesu, Ice Club, Half-Moon Shield, Raven Armor, Muscle Belt +, Magic Piercings +

TPKs: 1 this update, 2 overall
Frustration with the game: Rising. You missed the frustration I had trying to explore all of these areas. They are confusing in their layout, and I tend to miss way too many things while I'm trying to explore. I'll get better at it, but not by that much. We're not exactly at the worst of it, but this is one of the hardest sections to explore. I'll get through it.

[Serela]

You should probably go back to the first stratum tower and clear it out for exp; the boss should be beatable by now o: And the tower enemies likely become trivial if you wait much longer, which would mean little exp.

Star Sapphire has more useful moves then just resurrection; her specialty move Sapphire Shooting is actually amazingly powerful with the Light Land up to increase it's amount of hits, and it stands up to some of the strongest light spells accessible until the final expansion area; plus she gets Light mp cost reduction.

Luna Child learns some fairly useful stuff like AoE heal/darkspells and Dark mp cost reduction, but isn't especially notable, unlike Star. (Notice a pattern? MP cost reduction and delay reduction comes on low-end Touhou characters to try to make them not useless later in the game. Sometimes they aren't learned for awhile; Orin gets both, but you won't get delay reduction 'til expansion!)

[Validon98]

You should probably go back to the first stratum tower and clear it out for exp; the boss should be beatable by now o: And the tower enemies likely become trivial if you wait much longer, which would mean little exp.

I've been considering it. I might update again tonight, and if I do, then I'll take another shot at Ansuitei (after picking up a few characters). If he falls, it's Clock Tower time. If he doesn't, back to the rest of the Second Stratum.

Star Sapphire has more useful moves then just resurrection; her specialty move Sapphire Shooting is actually amazingly powerful with the Light Land up to increase it's amount of hits, and it stands up to some of the strongest light spells accessible until the final expansion area; plus she gets Light mp cost reduction.

You think I forgot about that and Starlight Web? Of course I have her on for the Light attacks too!  :V

Luna Child learns some fairly useful stuff like AoE heal/darkspells and Dark mp cost reduction, but isn't especially notable, unlike Star. (Notice a pattern? MP cost reduction and delay reduction comes on low-end Touhou characters to try to make them not useless later in the game. Sometimes they aren't learned for awhile; Orin gets both, but you won't get delay reduction 'til expansion!)

Yeah, I've noticed that. That and some shikigami might be outclassed by others later on in terms of skills, but are still technically useful for their stat boosts. I didn't exactly take that into account in my first runthrough, but I'm going to make better use of it this time.

[Serela]

Almost all the early shikigami don't have particularly notable stats, and rarely are moves notable apart from status effects or mp cost efficiency (Several shikigami learn -25% mp cost on their specialty move, such as Rumia for Moonlight Ray; and since she has Lick, several people do keep her around)

But generally it's the passives that try to keep them relevant. Even Minoriko gets an interesting heal passive (Any heal completely recovers the HP of who has Minoriko, iirc. Too bad Refresh makes that less exciting.). If only she got a delay reduction on her 25% Health Recovery move; at least they reduced the mp cost further!

I wonder if Merlin's multi-hit attack like Star Sapphire's is any good? She's extremely underwhelming if not; if I remember right, her INT boost is actually pretty nice, but her moveset is blegh and her Mystic-boost passive has ignorably low bonuses even thought it keeps getting higher for the entire game. Unfortunately, Merlin's can't get land bonuses, and it already has a lower base power. Whyyyyy?

I think multi-hit attacks in this game are interesting because they get more of a bonus from your elemental proficiency then other moves. I -think- they do, at least. I'm not sure. Basically, iirc when I looked at the calculation, the power bonus gets to apply to all hits instead of a single one, and adding 1 power onto 5 different hits is like adding 5 power to a single hit, which... it only would add 1 power to. The "ultimate" spear skill has a very unexciting formula, but hits numerous times... hrm.

...I'm ranting far too much :V Maybe I should have saved it and spread it out over multiple updates before I run out of things to say. AAHAHAH like that would happen, though :T I can always make a little summary for new shikigami recruited.

[Validon98]

...I'm ranting far too much :V Maybe I should have saved it and spread it out over multiple updates before I run out of things to say. AAHAHAH like that would happen, though :T I can always make a little summary for new shikigami recruited.

Go nuts. I don't mind. You probably know a hell of a lot more about all of the Touhou RPGs than I do. I mean, I have a basic grasp of GoS, DoD, and LoT, as well as a few advanced concepts, but I don't know every single formula. So this kind of stuff is actually interesting.
But enough of that, time for mini-update number one of hopefully two!

Second Stratum- Part 3: Wherein I Spend Most of It on the First Stratum

I'm going to go for Ansuitei. Again. Before I do that, however, there's two people I want to get now.



Remember that Izayoi tea blend (which is a reference to Genius of Sappheiros, by the way)? Guess where we need to go in order to get the character it unlocked?



Remilia! Well, Patchy did say you were out looking for Flandre and Sakuya.



I guess Meiling didn't get the memo.



Remy explains exactly what I already said.



When Meiling says she's demon hunting, Remy gets pissed, for obvious reasons. I think you might want to explain yourself fully, Meiling.



There you go. Yeah, we're after the Three Demonic Pillars, not you.



Even with that misunderstanding taken care of, Nitori again cannot learn to shut up and instead insults Remilia by saying that her staff is susceptible to spiriting away. In other words, she just got called weak.



...That wasn't the reaction I'd expect you to have. You could chew on your hat like you did in Genius of Sappheiros.
Not pictured: Her getting pissed off and agreeing to come with us. Remilia has the second-best AGI in the game, meaning she's pretty damn fast. She has some decent STR as well, as well as some okay POT. However, she can't take a hit, and her DEX leaves something to be desired. Her Last Word can change enemies into bakebakes or, more rarely, Yukkuri. The chances of the enemy becoming a Yukkuri becomes greater as she levels. Sadly, she is not going to be joining our active party. To the bench with ye.



Meanwhile, in the Netherworld...



Hatate? You've got to be kidding me...



Apparently Meiling wants her to come with us, though it's unusual to see her here of all places.



Nitori, shut up. You never help the situation. She called Hatate a shut-in, obviously because she doesn't need to leave her house to collect information. Spiritography, remember?



...I'm not going to dignify that pose with a response.
She wanted to seek out information on her own, but then she got spirited away and ended up here.





You ever hear of personal space, Hatate?! Nevertheless, she joins. She's another Electric shikigami who has Accurate Move (which raises Accuracy) and Lightning. She also raises Electric damage by 5%. Obviously she and Aya were meant to be together, so I replace Isohime with her. You've served well, Isohime, but it's time to retire.



Let's do this again.



Attempt 1: TPK. Blind is a bitch, the stunning attack is also still a bitch. I've got better buffs and debuffs, though, so hopefully next time I can land Melt Weapon and Acid Storm.



Attempt 2: Victory. Ansuitei here doesn't look too good. Makes sense when you just got the crap beaten out of you.



Not pictured: The screen shaking violently as Ansuitei screams himself out of existence.



Yeah, let's kick ass.



Not yet, though. Here's a quick preview of the first tower. I'll begin covering it in the next mini-update tonight.



We can't warp out of Clock Towers of the End. Back-tracking it is.



And a view from outside. Yep, this is Xia Zhuli's tower. Next time we'll storm the tower and see how Xia Zhuli is doing.

Summary:

Treasure: Stun Guard, Ring of Darkness, Ancient Purification Thing, Half Sword (Meiling)

Skills Learned: Thorn Bind (reduces Accuracy and Evasion, Hina)

Passives: Star Sapphire- +5 Accuracy

Recipes: Stardust Shard, Spirit Stone, Silver, Youkai's Memories, Rubber (So now I can craft the second tier of materials. What about the first tier?)

TPKs: 1 this update, 3 overall
Frustration: Lowering. I'm making some good progress. The fact that I'm finally tackling a Clock Tower of the End is proof of that.

[Validon98]

Clock Tower of the End- Part 1: Bloody Hell

So, it's time for the first Clock Tower of the End, huh? Can't believe we've made it this far. On another note, beating Ansuitei knocked another hour off of our time. I'm not really worried, we still have plenty of time, and we've explored more than half of the World of Chaos already.



...That's a lot of blood. Our theme for the dungeon here is a remix of OUT, titled appropriately Clock Tower of the End. OUT is a song composed by Hachikuma, who created Defiant of Shrine Maiden and helped out with Genius of Sappheiros, Devil of Decline, and Phantasmal Summoners. This theme is usually included somewhere in the games he's helped with.



...I'm not going into there.



The battle theme? It's titled The Devil Bares His Fangs. And it is the best damn battle theme in the game, bar none. Please click on the link. Please listen to it. You're missing out if you don't.
Anyways, these guys are Nekomatas. They can inflict Charm, but are weak to Fire. Patchy, they're all yours.



Okay, there's a Blob in the back. Weak to Fire. Murder it's face, Patchy.



...I don't like the look of these drains.



Damn it, there's a recipe chest up there. But how do we get up there?



Dark Eyes. They can inflict Blind, but they are weak to Pierce. Nitori therefore roughs them up pretty well.



The gimmick of this tower? These pumps. They'll raise and lower the amount of blood in the room. Don't think about that too hard.



Same room, now with extra blood.



I actually don't know what the cat-thing with the knives is called (it's 窮奇 for those who can translate). They can inflict instant-death with their normal attacks and know Samidare Slash (which hits multiple times and does some decent damage, Ansuitei had that too). They're weak to Light, I think.



We're actually going to go into the blood?



...Where the hell'd that raft come from? Well, we can ride on top of the blood with it.



Two-Headed Person. It's a giant, so whack at it with Slash and Earth. It knows Benevolence Wall, which has the same effect as Little Legion or Deva Stand did in Genius of Sappheiros (covers the entire party).



So much blood...



These recipes make materials. I'll list them in the summary.



This is the third level. That's right, there's enough blood to cover three levels. Where the hell did Xia get that much blood?



This is a Adoramereku. It's apparently a demon, so it's weak to Light. It knows Demon Shock, however, so be careful. One by itself is okay to handle.



Another room, still tons of blood.



And this leads...



To here. Right then. There's a shortcut back to the first room, which is good.



And Giant Crab. Weak to Electric, uses Drill and water attacks.



Another recipe chest. I'll grab it when I can.



More confusing rooms!



The Lesser Vampire in the back could actually be encountered back in Makai 3, but I was to busy running from the battles trying to get map completion. And getting to Ansuitei. They're weak to Light, but they have regen and can both use Blood Drain and Control Magic, which inflicts Control. That's very bad.



Damn, blocked by a small pile of rubble I could easily climb over!



Here we are, more materials I can now make.



Hah, not so tough are you, huh small pile of rubble?



Healing circle and boss room. Not quite yet.



And this pump...



...drains the blood in the first room, giving us a shortcut directly to the boss room. I'm not quite done yet, though. There's a recipe chest I missed.



This weird seal you see here? You can't open it until you get an item in the postgame. Each of the towers have one of these. From what I know, they're essentially superboss rooms. We're not going to open these up for a long time.



Here's that last chest, which allows me to make the elemental shards. Hurray!



Meiling learned Sonic Blade, which is quick and has Slayer against Spirits and Birds.



Here we go. Fingers crossed.



We immediately start off with this theme. Eerie.
Not pictured: Xia coming out of a portal of blood which dripped from out of the air. If that's not frigging creepy, I don't know what is.



And of course, Three Demonic Pillars starts playing. Because all good JRPG villains need their own theme music.



We're ready to take you on! Come here!
Not pictured: Her actually beginning to walk forward. Oh crap.




...Uh...
...Xia?
This is a new form of pathetic. Your awesome theme music even stopped playing.



No wait, it's back.



Not pictured: The party asking Xia about the true motive of the Three Demonic Pillars. She freaks out at the question, then gives us this as a response. Basically, the Three Demonic Pillars take joy in destruction. It's all fun and games to go around destroying places, at least to them.




She's trying to enforce the whole "we take joy in the slaughter and destruction of Gensokyo" thing. Seems more like you dodged the question. Your little freak out beforehand is too revealing. What's your real motive?



Guess we're going to have to beat the information out of her! With yet another version of Drifting Through the Fog of War playing! This one is a further upgrade to the second one, which means it is epic and kickass as hell.



Hey, Hsien-Ko, how's it going? Oh wait, you're Xia Zhuli. Never mind.
Also, yet another Shanghai Teahouse~Chinese Tea remix. That's five so far. Not that it detracts from being awesome, because it is very awesome.

I begin with trying to poison her (with the new poison move I got for Nishiki), but it misses. She goes and almost kills Mokou in response, then charges up.



You've got Spell Cards too? This could be very, very bad.





Holy shit that hurt! That was Large Whirlpool of Woe "Dancing Spray of Blood." It's a Water-elemental spell that hurts like hell and can cause instant-death while the land is shifted towards Water. At this point, it's pretty much instant death.



I'm surprised I managed to last that long.

Okay, time to admit something. Xia Zhuli is impossible to defeat first, unless you grind like crazy. And I had to grind just to get Nishiki's new poison move. So yeah, we can't defeat Xia. Not yet, at least. First we're going to have to go after the second tower, who's boss is much, much more manageable at a lower level. We could go after it now, if we wanted to, but I'd rather try to get at least a little more of the second stratum explored. So, next time, we're going to keep going through the second stratum. Afterwards, we're going to go after the second Clock Tower of the End.

Summary:

Treasure: Rock (drop), Light Shard, Steel (drop), Mystic Shard, Ancient Purification Thing, Dark Shard, Broken Treasure (drop)

Skills Learned: Accurate Move (Lyrica), Spell Enhance (single-target magic attack buff, Star), Strong Attack (a low accuracy, high-power physical attack, Lunasa), Sonic Blade (Meiling), Rapid Shot (2-5 weak physical attacks, Hatate), Dumpings over Flowers (the best damn poison spell in the game, Nishiki), Eruption (a single-target, 100 power Fire spell with a 2 turn cooldown)

Passives: Rumia- +5% Dark power

Recipes: Fire Shard, Water Shard, Electric Shard, Earth Shard, Light Shard, Dark Shard, Mystic Shard, Rock, Iron, Bamboo, Steel, Pretty Mirror, Legacy of the Gods, Fairy Remains, Ancient Purification Thing, Magic Source Stone, Quick Wood, Broken Bracelets

TPKs: 1 this update, 4 overall
Frustration: Medium. This dungeon is extremely annoying to navigate. If you missed anything, then expect a ton of backtracking. At least I won't have to deal with it when I return to take care of Xia later.

EDIT: Also, anyone knows where the extracted images of the Three Demonic Pillars's Spell Card portraits are? Because I can find the ones for the playable characters, but not for these guys. Took damn long enough time, but I found them on my own.

[Serela]

We could go after it now, if we wanted to, but I'd rather try to get at least a little more of the second stratum explored.

I'd say to go after it asap since

Spoiler:

otherwise if you want to get the monster shikigamis in the other areas you'd have to go back and fight them again afterwords

, but I don't even know if you're interested in any of the things that would encompass, so.

[Validon98]

...I guess you have a point. Well, after I stop playing Labyrinth of Touhou (I got to Floor 9, found all of the treasures, and need to grind up to fight Komachi's spirits, Nitori, and eventually Suwako and Reisen. Fun times.), I'll go after it.
Man, two Clock Towers in a row... and this one's even more annoying exploration-wise, from prior experience. Should be fun. 

[theshirn]

I completely bumrushed the second tower.  MINDFLAYERS

[Validon98]

The update has been entirely screenshotted. Even though it's a huge update, if I have time I might get even more done later.
Yeah, 70+ pictures. It's kind of ridiculous. But hey, Clock Towers of the End are larger than most dungeons. Plus I had a couple of boss fights and such. Please watch warmly while I make the actual update.

[Validon98]

Clock Tower of the End- Part 2: Don't Fear the Reaper



So, to the second Clock Tower of the End it is!



It's apparently Chloe Gripper's place. Is she going to slash me with her scythe or something?



As usual, a demon's guarding the place. How's it going?



He claims he is Demotorowa. To me, he's just a roadblock.



Sticking your sword into the ground is going to make it harder for you to fight.



You're one big ugly with one big sword. Obviously he's weak to Light, so copious amounts of Star Hand is the way to go, with the appropriate buffs and debuffs.



He can use a skill to shift the Land towards Dark. That means his Dark skills (which are the usual ones, at this point) will do more and Light does less. That could be bad.
Not pictured: The rest of the fight. He wasn't really that difficult, although he killed a couple of my guys.



You were easier to deal with than your friend up on the first stratum. Any last words?



Again with the screen shaking!



Well, time to find Chloe and show her what we're made of.



Same music as before, for both the dungeon and battle theme. Recycling them doesn't make them any less awesome, though.
Also, this tower looks very dark.



This door is a no-go.



Mind Flayers! And two of them! We're so screwed. They know Mind Blast, which is a party-wide Mystic attack with a good chance of inflicting Paralysis. Their normal attacks are weak, but have a chance of inflicting instant-death.



The usual result of running into these guys.



Here's Nidhogg, entwined around Yggdrasil. How that works I don't know. Anyways, he's weak to Light and does stuff I forget.



Epileptic Kick still works wonders.



Oh boy, a Fairy Maid. She knows she different spells, including some new ones like Starlight Whip and Dark Lure. She's weak to Dark, like most magicians.



And here's a Namahage. Weak to Slash and Earth, like most giants. He can inflict Silence, so be careful.



Nonononononono...



Damn!



This spell?



It's called Thunderclap. Aya recently learned it. It's a 80 power, all-targeting Electric spell with a 9 MP cost and 2 turn cooldown (reduced to 1 by Aya). It will be our most treasured random encounter clearer for a long time.



Can't go any further at this point. There's got to be a switch somewhere...



What about this one?



Oh, it opens a different door.



We'll have to find another way to get to this switch here.



After some exploring, I find a way to the switch and open up this door, which goes to the next part of the dungeon.



This guy is an Arch, probably meaning Archangel. He's a bit physically imposing as a heavy angel-type, but he's actually not too bad. Drain Touch on Meiling works wonders on him. Just beware of the Light attacks.



The puzzle of this dungeon? These colored switches. They'll open some doors and close others. By switching them around, you'll be able to find all of the treasure and the way out.



The ninja-looking guys are Genins. They can inflict Poison with their normal attack and inflict instant death with a skill that I think is called Decapitate. they can also use Flash to inflict Blind. They're weak to Light, which I have plenty of.
Not pictured: Me actually beating this encounter.



The lion-looking thing is a Shisa. It can use Roar to stun you and use a skill whose name I can't remember to protect the entire enemy party from attacks.



Much time spent flipping switches later, I come here.Don't flip this switch here in the middle if you don't want to be flooded by enemy encounters.



Use this switch in a nearby room instead.



After a ton of exploring, I find this switch.



It opens up that door, allowing for a shortcut to where I am now. In the same room is one of those expansion-only seals.



The boss room, finally.



I switch my formation in order to have Mokou tank. She has Dark resisting gear on that also grants Dark land regen.





Chloe Gripper! At last we meet. So, you ready to get your ass handed to you?



Or you could repeat you name. That's fine too.



Yeah, she's all about the whole chaos and destruction thing too. No shit, Sherlock.



Sunny notes that Chloe's scythe looks like Komachi's. Okay then.



Nitori pieces things together pretty quickly. Apparently Chloe is Death itself.



Chloe confirms this, and says that even if she was just a shinigami, she would find ferrying souls boring. Or something to that extent.



Whatever the case, you're going down, Chloe!



You look very ominous. No matter, we can take you on.



We use Hino Phantasm, a spell unique to Lyrica, to raise our resistance. Chloe can inflict Curse, Sleep, and Instant Death, so that would be useful.



Oh shit, here we go again.




That's would be Grand Conquest "Causer of Ruin." It's a column Spell Card with a chance of inflicting Instant Death. It one shots Mokou.



Later, this happens. Let's try again.



She can also used Sliced to Smithereens (or whatever the name of the attack is). It hits a lot of times, and it hurts. Badly.



This time we've got Phoenix Resurrection going.



Meiling criticals with Star Hand. You are so awesome, Meiling.



This is what happens when you combine the almighty deadly power of "Causer of Ruin" with the awesomeness of Momiji's Physical Defense skill. Big deadly physical attack just got tanked.



Doesn't stop her from hurting me even more with Magic Storm.




Meiling, you are truly amazing. She goes down after a couple more turns.



Well, how does it feel?



The incident apparently won't end until we beat up Xia and Otoha as well. Okay then, we were going after them anyways.



We've also lost more time. It's currently been four hours since we started. So that leaves eight left to get the other two. We've got this in th ebag. We've already explored the first stratum, a good deal of the second, and will soon be heading for the third one. We've got this incident handled.



After walking outside, we find Satori! So, you were affected too, huh? Damn shame.



After reading our minds and figuring out we just beat Chloe, she offers her help in the form of being able to calm down the youkai who have been attacking us. They're only attacking because they're scared and confused by the incident.



Using her powers on her own, she managed to capture a Kedama in this fashion.



Double fist pump means recruitment of both of them. Alright then!
Satori herself has abysmal stat boosts, but she makes up for it with a 95 power all-targeting Mystic spell (Energy Riot), and 90 power all-targeting Light and Dark spells (Starlight Web and Dark Web). She also has Water Pulse, which is a 40 power AoE healing spell. Her passive is +1% deflect against all attacks. I've yet to decide who to put her on or whether or not I'm even going to use her.
The Kedama, on the other hand, is so pathetic I'm not even going to bother with it. There are much more powerful monster shikigamis to recruit. Next time, I'll make another return to the first stratum to pick up a few monster shikigami, and then continue on with the second stratum.

Summary:

Treasure: Steel, Mystic Shard, Fire Shard, Water Shard, Rubber, Earth Shard, Silver, Electric Shard, Youkai's Memories, Stardust Shard, Light Shard, Iron, Dark Shard, Bamboo, Rock, Magic Source Stone, Pretty Mirror, Joint Ring (Mokou), Spirit Stone

Skills Learned: Hino Phantasm (raises the party's RES, Lyrica), Strong Attack (Melon-chan), Thunderclap (Aya), Resurrection (revives a party member with 1 HP, Star)

Passives: +2% Item Drop Rate (Melon-chan)

Recipes: Launch Goggles +, Gale Boots +, Necklace of Strength +, Protection Anklet +, Muffler of Evasion +, Keen Pendant +, Barrier Earrings +, Rosary of Fortitude +

Synthesis Done: Necklace of Strength + (Meiling), Keen Pendant + (Patchoulli)

TPKs: 3 this update, 7 overall
Frustration: Rising. I'm not happy about these confusing dungeon layouts, and I'm especially not happy about enemy encounters TPKing me so much, but I've gotten through a relatively tough area. The next couple of areas shouldn't be that difficult.

[Serela]

Hino Phantasm, a spell unique to Lyrica

You mean Fatsudori Meditation... or it's something like that, I didn't actually check the spelling of that first word. Hino Phantasm is Merlin's best skill, silly!

Now you can recruit tons of monster shikigami! Of course, it depends on what you want. Lemme think here. Rant tiiiime.

1st Stratum
-Mine Village:Fabulous, learns many useful defensive moves and is popularly to use for the rest of the game
-Computer chip thing Prescott: It learns Arithmetic Circuit or somesuch, increasing the damage you deal when hit a weakness by 20~25% (and more depending on your dex)
-The tutorial water monster for a reason I'm sure you know.
Lesser Vampire, the bird thing Moh Shovuu or somesuch, the flame candle, and the little ghost are also recruitable, but less super interesting. Lesser Vampire does learn a all-target Regen In Dark Land skill that is interesting, and Moh Shovuu gets a charm move equivalent to Sunny's last word, with a more notable status effect.

The kedama actually learns several nice healing moves such as Refresh and Resurrection, it's healing speed bonus passive is alright, and Sacrifice Bomb is a nice panic button to revive the party. It's a pretty usable shikigami, but there's plenty of options for healing shikigami and you don't exactly need a lot of them. As for Satori, her MP and POT growths are actually pretty high, but...

Stratum 2:
You might want to go back and grab the Yuki-onna (A variety of useful ice moves that mostly inflict freeze, decent passives and good stats, and is notably the learner of the 250 power Ice-elemental attack!), Fairy Maid (notable for Land Manipulation skill), Sunflower Fairy (Alternative buffer shikigami with status resist passives and a status resisting skill), or Mind Flayers. There's some other you already did too (The tire, I think a debuff specialist, the Lesser Demon, and the cockatrice) but they're pretty boring. Apart from Kisume, of course, who has an interesting passive and Well Destructor is an interesting move.

[Validon98]

You mean Fatsudori Meditation... or it's something like that, I didn't actually check the spelling of that first word. Hino Phantasm is Merlin's best skill, silly!

Damn it, I can barely remember any of the Prismrivers' Spell Cards, let alone whose is whose!

I've already begun the process of recruiting shikigami. The update is going to be almost nothing but that, though if I have enough time, I'll get in some exploration.

I already had my eyes set on the Mining Village and the Bulbul (did you really think I would ignore that shikigami, of all of the ones I could get?) when it comes to the first stratum. On the second, I went for the Lesser Demon (which I never got in my first playthough) and the Fairy Maid. I'm not going for the Mind Flayer, because it's too much risk for not enough reward, in my opinion.
I'm also not going for the Lesser Vampire or the Moh Shovuu. I personally don't care enough for them.
I still need to get the Prescott, the Yuki-onna, and the SHINZO, and I think I'll be good for now. Wish me luck, because the RNG hates me when it comes to shikigami recruitment.

[theshirn]

oh god the SHINZO took me close to an hour

that bastard

[homing curvy laser]

and Moh Shovuu gets a charm move equivalent to Sunny's last word, with a more notable status effect.

With an amazing name as well!

FINAL NUDE
So basically she just teaches your characters how to strip. how lewd

Also dang, now I feel like replaying the game as well, without waiting for the English patch!

[Hanzo K.]

I get the feeling those three are doing it for attention or something, seein' as how they're not that competent.
Either that, or they're just minions. Xia sure isn't quite competent, given her little 'trip' she took. She's definitely powerful though.

[Validon98]

I get the feeling those three are doing it for attention or something, seein' as how they're not that competent.
Either that, or they're just minions. Xia sure isn't quite competent, given her little 'trip' she took. She's definitely powerful though.

Not that competent? They did rip Gensokyo into shreds, then somehow arranged them into the different layers. This is the worst incident in Gensokyo's history, and that's saying something, compared to PCB's incident. I'd say they're very competent.

Spoiler:

Although you are on the right track about the minion thing...

Of course Xia's powerful. She is a demon of Makai, after all. Think about all of the Mystic Square characters. I'd put the Three Demonic Pillars between the power levels of Yumeko and Shinki, just as a comparison.
Also, update screenshotted. It's another big one. Hopefully the next one is the last one for this stratum.

[Hanzo K.]

Well, that's something that takes power, I never said doing that meant they were smart.
I mean, look at the little freakouts. That pretty much tells you that while they are strong, some of them aren't terribly bright.

Either that, or it's just Xia being the typical dopey Jiang-Shi.

[Validon98]

Yeah, I guess that's true. It's hard to peg down personalities when I can't understand half of the text I'm getting, though.
According to her unofficial profile, she has a "mild personality," which makes it hard to believe she is actually a demon.
Also, about Chloe, I found out what she meant about being "Death" from her unofficial profile. She actually used to be a shinigami, but found the job boring. She somehow found her way into Makai and became a demon, and considering she was a shinigami before, she still kept her powers over death. She's not exactly interested in the destruction of Gensokyo, but more in the display of her power. These are not spoilers, by the way. These were all revealed in their cutscenes.

[Validon98]

Second Stratum- Part 4: Gotta Catch 'em All

Time to go shikigami hunting!



This is a Bulbul. The only reason I grabbed this shikigami is for one of its skills: Water Wall. It makes the party immune to Water attacks for a turn. Guess which boss fight this will make easier? Yeah, we're going to go after Xia. Not yet, though.



This is a Burabura. It's a fire-based shikigami I'm not going to use, yet. There's a particular boss in the expansion I'll be using this shikigami for, as it has Fire Wall, similarly to the Bulbul.



It's a Bakebake. Not using it ever.



Now a Mining Village I'm using! It starts out with Resisting Shield Wall, which grants extra RES to the whole party based on the shield being used by the user for one turn. It also grants 25% resistance to Pierce, so That'll be good. As Mokou's my tank, it's going on her.



This is what you get for trying to recruit Mind Flayers. They're not worth it, trust me.



Ah, a Fairy Maid. It starts off with Control Land, which shifts the Land towards an element of your choosing. It also learns some good elemental spells later, and provides a +5% casting speed boost to basic elemental spells. I haven't equipped her yet, but I'll probably put her on Patchy. Eventually.



Here's an enemy I didn't see when I came through earlier today. This is a Lesser Demon. Like the Arch, it's very powerful, except it's a demon, and thus knows such like Demon Shock and other dangerous Dark attacks. It's also recruitable!



Really? On the first try? With a 12.5% chance of being recruited?
...The RNG doesn't hate me! Not yet, at least. The Lesser Demon packs spells unique to the Demon series of enemies, such as Demon Shock, which it starts with. It also provides 50% resistance to Dark! That could be really useful later on.
Anyways, I head off to Bhava-agra to collect stuff. That place is much easier for me now that I've leveled a bit.
The theme is The Road of the Apotropaic God~Dark Road again. Why can't it be a song from Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, or something? Maybe it's because in Genius of Sappheiros, they already used all the good songs from that game. Oh well.



These are Thunders. They can inflict Silence, know Shock Hand, and are weak to Earth. That's about it.



WhatisthisIdon'teven...
Well, uh, this diaper is another recruitment flag, as well as a reference to Genius of Sappheiros. References are everywhere.



These are Angels. They are weak to Dark and boast some Light moves. They are also recruitable.



Sanae, what are you...?



Oh. you learned Explosion. It's a large AoE attack. I'm not equipping it on her.



Finally, got it. It starts off with Angel Wall, which raises the party's resistance to Light and Dark by one level (similar to Byakuren's Sacred Barrier from Genius of Sappheiros). as well as Shining Stars. It provides 25% resistance to Light. I haven't put her on anyone, mainly because I have Light attacks and I don't necessarily need them now.



Another new enemy: Otohime. No, not this Otohime. Otohimes are dragon-types, which makes them resistant to the basic elements. They also have powerful attacks of their own. They are pretty damn dangerous, especially at this point. They are also recruitable, but I don't care enough to grab them.




Okay then. This attack, which I can't translate for the life of me, has Large - power and also has a Dispelling effect. Interesting. I don't need it right now. Pole Swing and Flashing Pierce are serving me better.



Apparently we need a Long Hookshot to cross this. Why game?



Hey, let's check out Eientei... Reisen is that you? You were giving me shit earlier in Labyrinth of Touhou today. I'm going to have to grind for a while...
Sorry, got off track for a moment.



She's surprised to see us.



Apparently Eirin and Kaguya are missing. Huh, weird. We may have found Tewi, but if those two are nowhere to be seen... where'd they go?



Meiling agrees to look for them while going after the Three Demonic Pillars. Maybe they'll be helpful this time, unlike the last game, where they just attacked us and then gave us a crappy formation later on that I never really used.



Sanae? She's noticed that everything's getting kind of somber.



She apparently said something about the Eientei crew not coming back or something. This pissed Reisen off.



Not pictured: The actually sound of bullets being fired at Sanae. Sanae claims that it's just a joke to lighten the mood. And then she says something about suppositories.



Uh, Reisen? I think you killed her. Reisen joins soon after. She's all about inflicting Berserk, starting out with Lunatic Voice. She also offers 50% resistance to Berserk, Charm, and Control. However, I don't really care for her, even if she gets Hyper Decrease... at level 71. Yeah, not worth it.



Over here we've got a seal. We don't have the item that destroys this barrier yet, but we'll get it soon enough.



And the Prescott. It has Arithmetic Circuit, which increases the amount of damage done when a weakness is hit, and Discharge, which deals Electric damage to all enemies based on your current HP. It's going on Nitori, for now, just to make hitting weakness that much better.



And a Yuki-onna on the first try! It starts with Cold Breath and learns a bunch of Water attacks later on. It increases Water spell casting speed by 5%. She's going on Sanae in place of Ran (sorry Ran, you were useful for the short amount of time I had you on).



Oh yeah, I forgot to show these Netherworld Wells off earlier. I forget what's so special about them.



Is that who I think it is up there?



It is! It's Youmu!



Youmu somehow made Nitori angry. I don't remember why.



Apparently Youmu wants to find Yuyuko, plus she is fine with coming with us.



Yeah, double fist pumps for recruitment.



Then she made the mistake of saying swords are better than fists. Oh, Meiling would beg to differ.



Then Nitori joins in on the argument, saying her inventions are the best.




...You can't be serious, right? Anyways, Youmu joins us. She boasts some good HP, STR, VIT, DEX, and AGI, but she has crappy MP and INT and POT. Her Last Word isa series of six attacks, all at half damage. I was not going to use her from the beginning, so off to the bench you go.
Meanwhile I return to Makai 4.



A new area already?



Youkai Mountain, huh? I'll come back sometime later.



Three new enemies. the Wyvern (a dragon type enemy with some breath attacks), the Snake Queen (I forget what she's all about, but she is recruitable) and... I'm just going to call it a Preying Mantis. It knows Paralysis Zapper, which is pretty damn dangerous. I think they're weak to Water.




Breath attacks sure are fun, huh?



A Mercenary. He knows Stun Blow. It inflicts paralysis. Kill him.



Behind exit number two is...



The other side of Muenzuka. We'll be back later.



In a minute, just let me finish up other things.



Daiyousei, is that you? She knows some Water spells and can cast Teleportation on herself to negate some physical attacks. She goes down after an unseen struggle.



She's also recruitable, with a 100% recruitment rate. She knows Teleportation, Water Recovery, Water Chase (chasers suck nowadays, unlike pre-expansion, where they were awesome), and Cold Hand. She boosts healing by 5%. To the bennnnnnnnnnnnnch.



We totally needed to see Xia's tower from here.



Let's take care of you now, shall we?



Shikieiki? What are you doing here?



Apparently she caught wind of the incident from Higan and has been going at it alone.



Even if she isn't a natural resident of Gensokyo, she still wants to protect it. Well, we could use the help.



However, she wants to test our strength to see if we can deal with the Three Demonic Pillars ourselves. Uh, you must have missed me kicking Chloe's ass, then.



Hey, no need for violence!



Apparently need for violence.



I manage to poison her first turn. She has 3000 HP. This kind of poison is really damn good, then.
Not pictured: Basically the entire fight. She uses different elemental spells, based on the power of the Land. At higher Land levels she uses stuff like Dark Web, which can hurt. A lot. She can also charge up for using "The Last judgment," which inflicts a flat 666 damage. That's basically a TPK. Thankfully, the poison manages to kill her off the turn she charges up.



So, uh, you okay, Enma-sama?



She congratulates us on our strength. Aww, you're making me blush.



She agrees to come with us too! Alright then!



There was some conversation about them complaining about her (as a Yama) coming with us. She threatens to put us down for hell, which prompts this reaction and a quick "Just kidding!" Eiki has a very high MP pool, DEX, and INT. While her physical stats are average, she's a good all-around caster with a buffer/debuffer slant. She also has The Last Judgment as a Last Word, which deals 666 flat damage to all enemies. She's going to actually join our party, replacing Sanae. It was nice knowing you, Sanae.



We've got seven hours left. We've got this handled.



Oh boy, more Makai. Except this is the third stratum.



See?



Looks like we're almost done with the second stratum too. However, that's all for this update. Next time we finish up the second stratum, and maybe see if we're prepared enough for Xia. Probably not, though.

Summary:

Treasure: Light Shard, Electric Shard, Spirit Stone, Pretty Mirror, Death Jewel, Silver, Boundary Amulet (drop), Bamboo, Earth Shard, Quick Wood, Tower Shield (Mokou), Magic Source Stone, Ring of the Earth's Crust

Skills: Bad Fortune (reduces all of the enemy party's stats, Hina), Starlight Whip (a 70 power single-target Light spell that can inflict Paralysis, Ran), Explosion (Sanae), Spider Net (AoE attack that reduces AGI and DEX, Yamame), Whatever the name of that spear skill is (Nitori), Tunder Pierce (55 power Electric spell with piercing range, Prescott), Thunderclap (Hatate)

Passives: +5 EVA (Aya), 25% Blind and Silence Resist (Nishiki), Shield Evasion +1? (Momiji), 25% resistance to all Permanents (Minoriko)

TPKs: 1 this update, 8 overall
Frustration: Lowering. Getting shikigami can be annoying, but there could be worse things.

[Serela]

as well as a reference to Genius of Sappheiros

oh god suddenly that item makes sense @_@

Just a reminder not to forget about that side of Muenzuka you didn't explore in this update! Also, Kisume has a passive that increases the duration of capacity changes. I'm not sure if it affects all beneficial ones too or not, but, there's some normally-1-turn capacity changes for various kinds of damage reduction that become very strong if they can last another turn... (I don't think you have any of those shikigami yet, but; Aegis Defense, Pendulum Guard, and Little Legion! Not sure if both of the latter are capacity change or quick though. Or if this trick even works.)

And yeah, it's hard to peg down personalities in japanese. However, only Xia is explicitly dopey. Then again, being a Jiang-shi... mmmn, if only the final of these bosses wasn't a pushover.

(In unrelated news, I played a lot of Romancing Saga 3 today. Playing it makes me realize even more things DoD pulls from it that aren't as obvious; even the three demonic pillars and how they are in-game is fairly similar to the Abyss Gates. Also how I just got curbstomped by the boss from the Gate of Earth, the easiest one to get to @_@;;;)

[Validon98]

oh god suddenly that item makes sense @_@

Yeah. It's one of those "blink and you miss it" types of things in Genius of Sappheiros too. Maybe if I LP that I'll point it out. Big "if," though.

I'm not forgetting the other side of Muenzuka. I'm in the midst of screenshotting, and I already took care of it. Didn't get the SHINZO, though. 
It does look like I'm finishing the rest of the second stratum in this update, though. Tomorrow I head to the rest of the third stratum, I guess. That was fast.

[Serela]

The game isn't very long, really; and the fact that the LP skips over exploration apart from "This is a new area" and "these are the monsters" takes out most of what there is :V Not that that's a bad thing, of course; it's just how a screenshot LP goes.

What levels are you at, by the way? The only ways I have of telling are "Oh, a shikigami learned ____, so he must be at least level..." You can wait on answering until you actually update though, it's not a pressing matter, heheh.