Touhou Project 17.5 「東方剛欲異聞 ～ 水没した沈愁地獄 Submerged Hell of Sunken Sorrow.」

[KaiserKnuckle]

As revealed by Tasofro on Twitter, with an accompanying website, it's the 17.5th official game in the Touhou Project series... and it's a platforming game!

東方剛欲異聞　～ 水没した沈愁地獄
TŌHŌ GŌYOKU IBUN ~ SUIBATSUSHITA CHINSHŪ JIGOKU
(Eastern Strange Tale of Avarice ~ Submerged Hell of Sunken Sorrow)

地上に黒い水が吹き出していた。 その水は異臭を放ち、身体に付くと簡単には落とせなかった。 とても生活用水として使える代物では無かった。

その湧き出る黒い水を凶と見るもの、吉と見るもの、 神聖なものと見るもの、邪悪なものと見るもの、 天災と見るもの、経済的暁光だと見るもの、 様々な憶測が飛び交い、一部ではお祭り騒ぎにもなった。

しかしある出来事を境に、浮かれていたものの背筋を凍らせる事となる。 飲料用の湧き水に、美しい清流に、憩いの場である温泉に?? 黒い水は場所を選ばず、湧き出し始めたのである

Black water gushed out onto the surface. The water released an odd odour and was hard to get off once it's stuck to your body. It was not something that you could use as your everyday water.

Some saw the gushing water as misfortune, some as good fortune; some saw it as holy, while others as evil; some saw it as a natural disaster, some saw it as a business opportunity, various theories were tossed around. Some even started a festival and made a fuss.

But when the people thought it was over, it still floated above the water and put a strain on the people. Atop the drinking water, the beautiful streams, hot springs at rest spots...... Regardless of the location, the black water gushed out.

This "black water" (very clearly meant to be oil) seems to be a part of the gameplay, too, as seen with the water blobs on the right side of the second screenshot; it looks as if water physics will play an integral part in the game itself.

Considering that both Gouyoku and Jigoku are right there in the title, I wouldn't be suprised to see the unresolved plot threads from Wily Beast and Weakest Creature be explored here, especially in regards to Toutetsu and the Gouyoku Family, given that we have already seen the Kiketsu and Keiga Families and their seperate group dynamics thanks to Yachie and Saki.

It should also be noted that by the time you read this the trial version would've JUST come out at Autumn Reitaisai 6, so expect a whole boatload of information from several sources in a short while!!!

[Lebon14]

Now this is a game I'm willing to play. A good ol' platformer!
Looking forward to this.

[avrit]

HELLLL YEAH I CALLED IT

actually, i didn't, i was just hoping that the next game or manga would be related to toutetsu...

[Suspicious person]

I've always been a big Kogasa believer (kinda expected her to be in 14.5 tbh) and it is a pretty nice surprise for me to see her in this here game, especially with danmaku that make obvious what they're supposed to be.

Anyway, Tasofro fighting games plot had this little thing where they could afford to not only tell the story from the point of view of the baddies behind whatever incident, but also from the point of view of various miscellaneous characters as well. I hope this game is gonna have more than just Reimu as a playable character in light of that. I can see this game potentially being a point of entry for new fans cuz platformer. I hope Tasofro made a good job in introducing everybody to this game's mechanics and that there isn't going to be some sort of super important but hidden and not-necessarily-intuitive mechanism.

There seems to be stuff like spellcards, so I'm gonna assume we might potentially have stuff like spells breaking ? While I've seen lots of people mention the success of Touhou Luna Nights as an inspiration of sorts for this game, I'm kinda expecting it to take after Tenjou no Tempest tbh.

Regarding the artstyle, personally, I'm a bigger fan of the sprites from the new gen fighting games. A screenshot is just a screenshot and is completely immobile : I'm looking forward to see how the animation for the new sprites is gonna be.

And I hope we're still gonna get some character portraits for this one (especially for Tout- er, whichever newhu we're gonna get), cuz that Reimu-Marisa scene doesn't seem to have one ?! Hopefully it's just the case of screenshots not showing everything.

And finally, since it's pretty much expected that this game's gonna have some kind of water related gimmick, I'd love to see a bunch of familiar faces that are able to interact with water to a certain extent make a comeback : Wakasagihime, Murasa and Cirno would be pretty cool, but I'll have you agree that a Sanae that walks on water, turn it into something else and even split it would be pretty darn dope

Spoiler:

in other words unlikely lol

. Personally, I'm REALLY expecting Nitori to be in this game, cuz the part about people seeing some kind of financial opportunity in this crisis simply have to come from people with a reaaaaally Kappatalist mindset.

Anyway, I would love to be surprised in a pleasant manner. Freshness is something that this series really need, but there is always a risk associated with trying something (relatively) new. I hope this new game is gonna work out.

[not ZUNs wife]

i have nothing but love for this announcement.

[KaiserKnuckle]

Screenshots!! Only two for now because they're gyazo and reverse image search and poking around on Twitter (including the handle in the first pic) yielded nothing--

Spoiler:

YUUGI'S

Spoiler:

BACK

!!!

Also...

Spoiler:

IS THAT SUPER-STYLISH TOKIAME ART I SEE!?!?

E: I just snooped around and found the weibo account of that handle!! TITLE SCREEN

Spoiler:

...AND CHARACTER SELECT???

[/url]

I would translate what's in that second screenshot but I'm posting in my phone in the middle of the night, soooo :colonveeplusalpha:

E2: just found the art for

Spoiler:

Kogasa

, as well.

E#3: STREAM

Spoiler:

So apparently it's a boss-only game like the LION HEART games instead of being a full-fledged platformer? I feel like they're missing something by not doing fully structured stages, though I could imagine the extra time/risk/frustration in trying to establish a 'basic enemy' structure that could apply to Touhou in this specific way; not that I am trying to ignore fairy and yinyang enemies like in the main games, but if Tasofro would go down the path of if actual monstrous, non-humanoid youkai or other appairations would've appeared and therfore commonly exist in Gensokyo in that case.

The fact that the fight becomes scrolling since the bosses are flying around is absolutely fucking ingenious.

The "black water" DOES have significance as a gameplay mechanic; apparently you sweep it off the screen after it leaks out of bosses when you hit them? There also seems to be some bullet cancellation going on, almost like a "burst" in an ArcSys fighting game. You also have a Spirit Power gauge at the bottom showing how long you can fly.

[TresserT]

So... this basically the way this is playing out, it seems to be a standard fighter with lower quality art and no PvP. In exchange it seems like there might be a lot more characters than usual.

Slightly disappointed that this is more or less the same as usual, but the minimalist style in exchange for more players is alright in my book.

[avrit]

Hmmm, I wonder how many characters will be in it...
i wish there was a game with like, the entirety of the touhou cast, but no way they can fit over 100 characters in any genre...  :V

[PK]

It's totally possible the final game will have stages, or will look much better. They said this was going to be pretty rough since it's a beta.

I'll miss the nice sprites of the last three fighters though.

[NorwegianboyEE]

I?ve played a bunch of unofficial Touhou platforming games so it?s going to be interesting to see what an official one might look like.
Definitely more interested in this than just another fighter.

[Suspicious person]

Haven't gotten the demo and currently waiting for the pity release of an online demo by Tasofro (plz happen), but from what I've watched, this game honestly seems to be more of a side scroller than a platformer. I hope this demo being a boss rush of sorts is merely a decision to keep to the meat of the game (that is the boss fights) and that there is going to be some platforming / stage sections in the full game, complete with, dunno, some kind of water / oil puzzles and a bunch of mobs to wipe the floor with. 

Spoiler:

I'm tempted to believe that the vengeful spirits enjoying a dip in the stage 3 onsen are gonna be some kind of mob that we'll get to see during certain stage sections (if there is gonna be any)

The game would have quite a bit of substance if they added stage sections for the story mode, implemented a separate boss rush of sorts for the, well, bosses, put some challenges and the like and so on. The replay value of the integer games lie in them being challenging, while the fighters can always be played against someone else : they're gonna need to come up with something to make this game interesting to re-explore after completion imo.

Still not sure about this new style of sprites tho, what's with those Sonic the hedgehog rollouts animations and the

Spoiler:

onsen goers that look like they still need to be unlocked)

, but I'm pretty okay with TOKIAME doing the portraits.

Spoiler:

Speaking of portraits, Yuugi spills her booze in one of hers ... she's so OP she can actually destroy memes

[not ZUNs wife]

i was mislead by the 'platforming game' marketing, i thought we'd get like a hippy hoppy exploration game, but it's just a fighting game on ground. :wat:

and as usual, i'm so bad at these that i can't get past the second fight.

[7TC7]

Okay, have my 10 cents.

I absolutely adore the presentation of this game. The CRT/arcade machine look, the music, the adorable sprites and TOKIAME's art.

It also plays smooth like butter. Took me a bit to get a grip of all the moves Reimu can do with just one button, but after mastering them it's so much fun to just zoom across the screen. Bringing back the red shield/blue shield mechanic from AoCF for guard breaks works really well (or, even better than in that game) and makes you look for openings in each pattern. The risk mechanic of tying bombs to your life energy and having to graze patterns to spawn black water to absorb to regain health/bombs also adds a lot to the game and with some things the final boss of the demo does, I can already see this going quite some places.

If future characters play as well and are as fun to play as Reimu, then I believe this will be a very fun game with lots of replay value - at least, I can't stop myself from restarting it over and over again right now.

Game crashes a lot, especially if you try to skip through dialogs, but also just randomly, but I guess that's what it means to be a beta. Definitely looking forward to what this game will look like in future iterations.

I also hope they will add some kind of stage portions. I'm sure they can figure something out, but even if they don't I think this concept works really well.
Now, time to go back to listening to the Stage 2 boss theme~

[R. P. Genocraft]

The game seems interesting, but it's a nightmare if you have a slow-ish pc.

Spoiler:

They did that thing where if the game detects it's going to lag, instead of slowing down like every other fighting game, it instead skips the frame. That wouldn't be that much of a problem if it weren't for the water system, it causes so much lag that you just CAN'T tell what's going on AT ALL. Seriously, it makes Yuugi so excruciatingly hard, I spent like 20 minutes trying to beat her and then the game crashed and I gave up. I hope to God they remove this, or at least let you toggle it.

Edit: Nevermind, apparently turning one of the settings that I had turned off(because it seemed to do nothing) back on severely reduced lag. Don't go around toggling things when you don't know what they do I guess.

[CyberAngel]

look ma i posted on the internet again

[TresserT]

Bye

[Aya Reiko]

All I can say is "Ugh, another Tasofro game."  I hope their skillset in all areas has improved since the last adventure, but I'm not optimistic.

edit-
Watched the stream (well, more like quickly browsed it)? Sorry, no thanks.  Just being Touhou no longer gets a free pass from me, not anymore (and not for a long while).  And I've seen indie devs do amazing things, meanwhile it feels like Tasofro has regressed. I don't get why ZUN sticks with these guys while there are probably plenty others who could probably do wonders with the IP.

[MrNoobomnenie]

look ma i posted on the internet again

Now I'm absolutely sure: this person IS a troll. Nothing else. Every his comment about everything related to Touhou canon is an intentional provocation and a direct insult to basically everyone. This is the pure definition of trolling and not an "opinion" in any way. Why is he not being banned yet?

[7TC7]

People sure are being negative on this game despite it clearly being in a super early production stage, what with it being in beta and all. I wonder what reasons you have? CyberAngel mentioned TOKIAME as a negative which I can't at all agree with but understand if they dislike them (thought, that's literally only one aspect of the game) and Aya Reiko mentioned ... nothing in particular.

Is it because it's not a fighting game and they are trying something different? Because Tasofro has made a good amount of decent not-fighting games before. They may not have been official Touhou games, but that doesn't change that they made good and fun games like New Super Marisa Land or Shoot Shoot Nitori.

Despite still being in it's early stages, this game already plays really well and I feel like it will be a great addition to the series.
I already mentioned most everything else I like about it in my previous message and am finding it hard to find any valid criticism about it on my own, so I'd like to be enlightened if I'm overlooking something.

If it's about criticizing Tasofro themselves, I'd mostly say their first venture into each type of game tends to be a bit of learning stage for them. I know that many people love IaMP and I also like EFZ more than most but SWR and SOKU are quite a bit more polished (if not necessarily better for everyone). The same happened with HM, which vastly improved with ULiL and even more so with AoCF and, if we are speaking non-offical, Super Marisa Land.

So, even if this game won't end up being as great as it seems to me right now, I'm quite certain they will improve on the concept even more in the future.

[Lebon14]

I really hope that it's more than "beat boss then go next boss". Because, from the small bit I caught of the stream, I'm really not interessed. I'm OK with a more beat'em up aspect but, at least, bring some platformer gameplay to the game too.

[avrit]

Hmmm... I do think it's a bit ehh for me, mostly because the keys and stuff are kind of hard to get used to and i can't focus on the fight :[
I do hope it's an actual platformer and has better moves cus i'm not able to get them right at all but i really wanna know the plot and stuff!!!!

[ZoomyTsugumi]

Honestly my only worry is how they're going to give this game longevity and replay value as someone else already pointed out. But for a single player experience? I'm super excited for this. Fighters in single player situations and especially story mode always felt like mindless playing but this game forces you to think a bit more and plan out your moves else you get hit, though it's still forgiving if you mess up. Although I would love for this game to be much harder overall.

Biggest problem with the game in its current incarnation (beyond the crashing and bugs) is that it's just not at all intuitive and you need to spend a decent amount of time figuring out how to play and some of the nitty gritty of the mechanics, but once you figure that all out its amazing and a lot of fun.

I don't think this game needs stages or platforming though, just dump even more bosses on us. If a regular fighter can have up to 6 stages or so then give us 7 maybe even 8. And give us lots of routes.

[Lightmaster]

Hmm... I'm not sure how to feel about this fangame. The gameart is nice, and the gameplay is kinda decent, but... another fighting game? If it's supposed to be a platformer or an action game, then yeah, but if it's a boss game... uhh... I'm not sure. I'll wait and see how things go.

Also... no controller support in this beta? That was quite a bummer. I was forced to use the keyboard, and for these type of games, I'd rather use a gamepad. Oh, well... I hope the final version includes it.

[aUsernameIsFineToo]

Also... no controller support in this beta? That was quite a bummer.

This will probably be of interest to you. With it you can map controller inputs to any keyboard key.

I'm loving the artstyle in this game. It's different, but also refreshing. Also this "early beta" seems more like a demo of their new engine, the actual game will certainly live up to the standards of an official numbered game.

[Branneg Xy]

Screenshots!! Only two for now because they're gyazo and reverse image search and poking around on Twitter (including the handle in the first pic) yielded nothing--

Spoiler:

YUUGI'S

Spoiler:

BACK

!!!

Also...

Spoiler:

IS THAT SUPER-STYLISH TOKIAME ART I SEE!?!?

E: I just snooped around and found the weibo account of that handle!! TITLE SCREEN

Spoiler:

...AND CHARACTER SELECT???

[/url]

I would translate what's in that second screenshot but I'm posting in my phone in the middle of the night, soooo :colonveeplusalpha:

E2: just found the art for

Spoiler:

Kogasa

, as well.

E#3: STREAM

Spoiler:

So apparently it's a boss-only game like the LION HEART games instead of being a full-fledged platformer? I feel like they're missing something by not doing fully structured stages, though I could imagine the extra time/risk/frustration in trying to establish a 'basic enemy' structure that could apply to Touhou in this specific way; not that I am trying to ignore fairy and yinyang enemies like in the main games, but if Tasofro would go down the path of if actual monstrous, non-humanoid youkai or other appairations would've appeared and therfore commonly exist in Gensokyo in that case.

The fact that the fight becomes scrolling since the bosses are flying around is absolutely fucking ingenious.

The "black water" DOES have significance as a gameplay mechanic; apparently you sweep it off the screen after it leaks out of bosses when you hit them? There also seems to be some bullet cancellation going on, almost like a "burst" in an ArcSys fighting game. You also have a Spirit Power gauge at the bottom showing how long you can fly.

((( Note that would be mainly for the "BUG&GLITCH Board " ,but I am late for a " Game Board Play&Meet Association ": putting emoting in reduces the fontsize and style to  :wat: 8pt styleless in every lines or even paragraphs they are inputted  but puttiing in a 2nd[size=78%] emoticon and/or manually restoring the Font Size Fixes IT  BUT IF thFIXING Emoticon(s) are erased OR it present an " Erased Font-Reducing Emoticon",except while also Resizing Fonts BUT ONLY line by line  ,  then "minimal reduction again" , AND FINALLY without the person's prompt, the " Fixing emoticon(s) do reset&overwrite the Set Font Size(10 pt)  by MoTK or the User.
 
Most Important is The " [/size][size=78%] " HTML TAG keeps being wrote in whenever the emoticons are being used,even the erased ones...and  ONLY vieweable in preview mode,  live post and in Modify mode [/size]][size=78%] ))).



All 4    Thumbs up[/size][size=78%]  [/size]for the News ,Participation, Insights and "Tests " !


 NO SPOLIER NEEDED UNLESS FOR    " TOTAL SURPRISE ".  In addition and for Insight,or for useful underlighting if it is has been already mentioned and i have skipped it,the Translated Source of the article on the WIKI  en.touhouwiki.net for TH 17.5 SHoSS [size=78%]https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Touhou_Gouyoku_Ibun[/size][size=78%] .

[/size]In order of importance&priority.1.

Released Beta: October 6th, 2019[size=78%][/size] 2." The game is described as a "horizontal side-scrolling danmaku water action game" on the official website " .[size=78%][/color][/size][/color]3. 2 Dialogues about :(Middle Picture/3) "I've decided to go underground to look for the black water's origin ; (3/3 Picture Left-to-Right)" Rain Cave "Rainy Cave"[size=78%][/size]. " [/color]4.[size=78%][/size]Touhou Gouyoku Ibun ( [size=78%]https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Touhou_Gouyoku_Ibun[/size] ) [/size][size=78%][/color][/size][/size][/size][size=78%][/color][/size] is the second game to have no English words in its original title, after [/size][/size][size=78%][/color][/size][/size][size=78%][/color]Touhou Hisoutensoku[/size][/size][size=78%][/color] "[/size][/size]

[Kilgamayan]

Trolling post removed. Sorry for the delay.

[CyberAngel]

I was NOT trolling. Harsh and a bit exagerrating maybe, but I was just expressing my honest feelings. And I'm not the only one upset with it, you know.

@7TC7: "Beta" means that the engine is finalized and they're only filling up the content at this point. Which means the way it plays will stay that way.

About the possibility of stage portions, it'll probably be a bad idea. Why? Well, from the videos the game controls very much like the old fighting games. And here's where my comparison to Mortal Kombat Mythologies comes into play. If you wonder how making a platformer with fighting game controls can turn out then I suggest you look up some reviews of that.

But you know what, Kilgasshole, at this point I REQUEST a permanent ban or account deletion. Don't even want to have a temptation to set foot into this garbage pile of a forum again if you just gonna assume bad faith every time I post or listen to people who don't contribute anything to the place. I'd delete it myself but you lazy fools take literally forever to do your damn job and process such requests without a kick in the pants.

Adios, fuckers. Enjoy your uncreative bog of a once-amazing franchise.

[ZoomyTsugumi]

Bye

[MrNoobomnenie]

Bye

[Suwako Moriya]

Personal Text: Retired

lol