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) BackgroundThere 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 charactersThe 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 versionEach girl comes with its unique shot type and bombing ability. You can read about this more in detail in the impression section.
Mechanism and SpiritsThe 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 BossesYour 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 impressionIt 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.