Author Topic: 東方 神霊廟 ~ Touhou Ten Desires [TRIAL], an article full of desires and SPOILERS!  (Read 272911 times)

Helepolis

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Spoiler warning detected and approved by Shameimaru-san and Himekaidou-san. Please proceed at own risk. This means the users participating in this thread are not forced to use [/spoiler] tags.



Helelelelele it is your local bunbunmaru reporter and Scarlet Devil Mansion fanboy telling you something about this surprising Touhou 10D trial game.

東方 神霊廟 ~ Touhou Ten Desires (10D)

Background
There seems to be suddenly an outburst of spirits. The exact cause is unknown, but there are a lot of them. Four of our favourite girls, each with their own sense of reasoning, head out to investigate this incident.

Game and Playable characters
The game comes with standard options and ....................................... SFX_ZUN.WAV ! Spell card practise! It is almost Imperishable Night all over again.

There are four girls playable for this 13th version of Touhou. A lot of people will dislike it, some will love it. Either way, ZUN's law is law. Wait, or was it his word is law. Well ZUN's beer is surely law! Hakurei Reimu, Kirisame Marisa, Kochiya Sanae and Konpaku Youmu will be your four playable command girls for this game. Their outfits are fancy and their appearance looks actually more adult than the early games. Somehow I have the impression ZUN is becoming better and better.


ZUN grants you fanboys four girls to play with. Click for larger version

Each girl comes with its unique shot type and bombing ability. You can read about this more in detail in the impression section.

Mechanism and Spirits
The game uses the basic movement which we are all familiar with. Arrow keys for movement, SHIFT for focussing, X for bombing and Z for firing and the introduction again of the C-button See below for explanation. Focus mode in this game has an alternative shot type for all girls. Explaining them all would be boring, but for example: In focus mode, Marisa's lasers turn into magical bullets and she fires an additional magical imbued AA-missile (Marisa could easily join the army with this).

The game mechanism seems to be a fun twist from UFO. The life, bomb and point ufos have been turned into colourful spirits with an additional grey spirit. These spirits appear by killing either fairies or you receive them from other enemy spirits. Bosses seem to spawn/use them for several things as well. They are defined as follow:
  • A purple spirit will grant you a life piece
  • A green spirit will grant you a bomb piece
  • A blue spirit will increase your base point value
  • A grey spirit will fill up your 'Trance Meter'

Explaining Trance mode and C-button.
The 'Trance' Meter is a small skull image located at the left bottom corner of your game. This meter will fill up if you collect grey spirits. There are two ways this meter can be used: 1) By death or 2) When full, hitting C.

In both cases, you entire screen will turn fancy and flashy. Your girl will turn temporarily transparency, being in a trance. During this time, you have maximum power and are invulnerable to any damage. However, the meter will quickly deplete as the giant timer shows the remaining time.

Though there is a difference. If you die, your girl will be forced into trance and anything within the meter will deplete. The more it is filled, the more you will benefit. When the meter depleted, your character will go Pichuーn! and you will officially lose a life. On the other hand, to activate trance mode manually, you must fill the entire meter. You won't go Pichuーn at the end, as this is activated manually.

Enemies and Bosses
Your enemies are typically fairies as usual, however the setting of this game seems to be a cemetary/grave yard. The fairies are looking quite pale and those spirits from SA make their reappearance here. The bosses, heh. Typically the spoiler section for all the readers.

A few old girls make their appearance here, you will have to find out who they are. But the two new bosses, I will spoil for you: Kasodani Kyouko , a girl with a bamboo broom (does Marisa have a rival?!) & Miyako Yoshika a girl who seems to be a zombie? (Thriller Night Jichael Mackson?)


Is it me or are these girls quite fancy?

Either way, I have not much info on these girls, but their designs are fitting and funny at first glance. I only played it on Easy Mode, so I have no idea what their exact abilities are. From what I have seen, the bamboo broom girl has strange ability of creating dimensions which the bullets bounce within, making it quite tricky. It is hard to explain, but you can just go see for yourself!

Danmaku is all about power!
Kirisame Marisa knows when she talks about flashy attacks and bombs. But seems like the other girls won't get defeated by her. This game contains flashy bombs. Just look at them and tell me, don't you just want to get hit by Reimu's balls? or by Sanae's faith sign? You do right?


Angled master spark, yin yang balls of faith, 5-point star of faith, supreme slashing Myon.... oh my, I think I am going to faint.


Final words and impression
It is looking good. I am personally always a fan of flashy things, so I share the opinion of Marisa. If it isn't flashy, it isn't danmaku. Though personally I am not really pleased by the UFO-ish mechanism for life and bombs. The spell card practise promises lots of fun, and I am wondering if we will be able to get tricky Last Words again.

There is one small funny thing noted now officially, ZUN seems to have made a mistake with the family name of Kyouko. Ingame, her family name reads: "Kasoya" , however Arashi and several members have confirmed her name is "Kasodani" as it is written in the omake and discussed on the wiki. I guess he was bit too drunk around that time?

All in all, be warned that you will most likely run into bullets trying to collect to spirits. Not because they float around as in UFO, but because the game contains high density of flashy effects such as sparks, particles, explosions, auras. Makes me wonder if ZUN has watched some of the Danmakufu scripters in RikaNitori section.

As usual, I won't be judging the music because I don't like that. My goal is to report you the game, not bore you with subjective opinions. We all know Sep-- ** brutally Yin-Yang balled by Hakurei Reimu ** Pichuーn!


A--- h---- guh*. . . cough* si... since...rly, you--r rep-- rep-- guh*

--Hele 



Credits:
Thanks people on IRC for helping me out with certain details.
Thanks to ArashiKurobara for pointing me out Kyouku's family name.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2011, 09:00:13 PM by Helepolis »

Infy♫

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first.
also, IT'S OVER 9000! (the thread number)

Tengukami

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Your Touhou write-ups always make this ol' tengu proud, Helepolis.

"Human history and growth are both linked closely to strife. Without conflict, humanity would have no impetus for growth. When humans are satisfied with their present condition, they may as well give up on life."

Helepolis

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I do my best. =3



People who participate in this thread: You can freely post names/game information. Thread title contains SPOILER, thus you don't need to use [/spoiler] tags.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2011, 08:48:37 PM by Helepolis »

Byaaakuren

  • Youkai Jesus, Queen of the Monks
    • Animu List
Anyone else surprised at the Kogasa appearance?

I thank my friend for the sig <3
My noob replays :V
Tumblr (I post NSFW stuff there)

Kips McKipzerson

  • I never did learn
Anyone else surprised at the Kogasa appearance?
Kogasa has seemed to
*sunglasses*
suprised you all.
YEAAAAAAAAAAAH

Kyouko and Miyako...

oh god ZUN has been watching Madoka and Hidamari

Helepolis

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日巫子

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Kyouko and Miyako...

oh god ZUN has been watching Madoka and Hidamari

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought of that.

☆ Check my profile for links to my sites! ☆
[21:12] <OneLoveOnePurvis> *Black as hell and bitter as love. That is coffee.*
[17:42] <Amra> Himiko's one of the people that's really cute but sometimes art shifts into like hard jojo-style
[17:42] <Amra> as she does something out of character

Garlyle

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Came so close to No Death/No Bomb clearing Normal D: Which is basically what I have to do because of crashing drivers when leaving spirit mode.

At least I got far enough to see all the new characters and YAY KOGASA YOUR BULLETS ARE SO PRETTY

ふとくていなねこじょおう

  • Cirno Kisaragi
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  • When Ice Cars completely miss the intended target
I totally called zombie Miyako-chan.  BV

Also, Kogasa did not surprise me at all, since everyone said that she was going to appear as a midboss.

So far, this game has had the most returning characters outside of a phantasmagoria.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2011, 08:57:10 PM by nekorandomnessqueen »
"I'm not sure about this anymore...Are you sure this is safe?"

"Absolutely! This is 100% safe! ...Not."

Kimchii

  • Perfect Freeze
When I first played and saw Yuyuko, I thought "6 stage boss to a first stage boss? That's kinda sad D:".

So it turns out that Kyouko can't seem to settle on her own family name. :V Portrait and omake.txt both say Kasodani, life bar says Kasoya.

Silent Harmony

  • Everybody needs the Pharmarcy
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Quote from: Touhou Wiki
Kogasa's omake text.
It's official, Kogasa is Touhou's buttmonkey. Isn't it sad Kogasa?

1CC List (all shmups)
League of Legends / Battle.net: Harmony11(#1694)

Youmu is so much fun to play as :D She almost seems borderline broken at times, though; her slash can clear almost half a screen's worth of stage enemies at once, and a lot of boss attacks allow her to just sit in front of the boss and spam it.

On another note: is it just me, or does custom.exe just plain out not work? I can change the settings around all I want, and they seem to save if I close the program and reopen it, but the changes I made don't seem to affect the actual game at all.

Also I somehow managed to crash the game by slashing Miyako just as she started to explode.

Kips McKipzerson

  • I never did learn
I totally called zombie Miyako-chan.  BV

Also, Kogasa did not surprise me at all, since everyone said that she was going to appear as a midboss.

So far, this game has had the most returning characters outside of a phantasmagoria.
Wasnt its gen who called it, and you who said that ZUN's known for doing weird shit like that?

Whatthe

  • Formerly known as "Only somewhat distracted"
  • Still distracted
Possibly-funny story: When I first saw Kyouko's portrait, on the wiki's Ten Desires characters page, I thought she was Kogasa with a new costume until I scrolled down a few seconds later :derp:

In my defense, I wasn't paying as much attention to the names, and they both start with K :V

Mr. Sacchi

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I played this and came so hard.

Youmu, I shall be maining you, not just because you're my favorite but you're so freaking fun to play with.

So, yeah, anyone here done a Lunatic 1cc already?

everfeather

  • Patron saint of ferrets
some info to add.

while in trance mode, green and purple spirits collect at double value, while blue spirits collect at 10 times value

every 10 graze = +10 to score max value.

edit: trance mode to get extra stock and bombs seems counter intuitive. bosses drop item to collect, you trance to collect them at double value, then you fail the spellcard afterwards.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2011, 09:28:57 PM by everfeather »

lol continues actually let you continue now

Kimchii

  • Perfect Freeze
Oh yeah and that nameless stage one midboss is totally Nue :V

nintendonut888

  • So those that live now, pledge on your fists and souls
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Kyaaa, I can't play this game until I get home. :( However, I'm listening to the music on Youtube, and it is excellent. ZUN always astounds me with how he can find a new music motif for each game.
nintendonut888: Hey Baity. I beat the high score for Sanae B hard on the score.dat you sent me. X3
Baity: For a moment, I thought you broke 1.1billion. Upon looking at my score.dat, I can assume that you destroyed the score that is my failed (first!) 1cc attempt on my first day of playing. Congratulations.

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

DX7.EP

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Played it through with oversized Marisa with a lousy 3cc on Normal. Didn't work as well as it did in some of the other games.

Overall, liking the game mechanics, character selections, etc. but this time I won't be sticking to Master Sparking my enemies to victory.

I hate how, due to the need to translate WIndows -> Unix -> Mac OS code in OS X's WINE, it was typically at about 30-40FPS with a few dips and highs here and there. Really slow danmaku barrages tend to trip me off far more often than fast ones.

lol continues actually let you continue now
It's a good thing for general players. Don't let the elites and perfectionists trick you. They're great for improving, but for the first few times, well, not so much.
C:DOS> ayayaya.mid
Bad command or file name

C:>_

ふとくていなねこじょおう

  • Cirno Kisaragi
  • *
  • When Ice Cars completely miss the intended target
Oh yeah and that nameless stage one midboss is totally Nue :V
"I'm not sure about this anymore...Are you sure this is safe?"

"Absolutely! This is 100% safe! ...Not."

Kimchii

  • Perfect Freeze
Miyako's ability, "Power to eat anything and everything". So I guess Yuyuko has a new friend?

Whatthe

  • Formerly known as "Only somewhat distracted"
  • Still distracted
Miyako's ability, "Power to eat anything and everything". So I guess Yuyuko has a new friend?
And/or a new predator :V

Oh wow ZUN actually combined every shottype. Like Reimu has homing unfocused and needle focused.

Kimchii

  • Perfect Freeze
Reimu has homing unfocused and needle focused.

I really like this shot-type. Or maybe it's because I haven't played as Marisa, Sanae or Youmu yet.  :derp:

ふとくていなねこじょおう

  • Cirno Kisaragi
  • *
  • When Ice Cars completely miss the intended target
In all honesty, I suck at every shot type that isn't homing amulet.  :fail:
"I'm not sure about this anymore...Are you sure this is safe?"

"Absolutely! This is 100% safe! ...Not."

Garlyle

  • I can't brain today
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    • Tormod Plays Games
God I could listen to this stage 1 theme for hours.  That percussion <3