Subterranean Animism (Touhou 11)

[P_HAT]

http://kourindou.exblog.jp/7850454/

Oh crap, looks like system from MoF

[Kaspal]

i like it... lets just give the demo a whirl... i think i might like the full version.

[BulletMagnet]

Oh crap, looks like system from MoF

If that's true, then that's a bad start for me, since I didn't particularly like MoF...in any event, according to the chatter on the Shrinemaiden forum, there's some sort of partner/helper system at work here...maybe someone could translate the text on that page (or in future announcements) to clarify a bit.

[moozooh]

THE GRAZE COUNTER IS BACK!
Which means Touhou 11 is very likely better than Touhou 10.

Also, releasing a new game without fixing at least a couple of Very Serious Bugs™ in MoF is uncool. :(

[EDIT]

On the technical side, I’ve added the option of changing window sizes. If your computer is good enough, your window can be about twice as large as normal. In addition, you can also adjust input sensitivity and a host of other options.

That's certainly nice!

[lgb]

Oh boy...

Maybe this time civil war breaks out.

[shoe-sama]

lol touhou

[stanski]

This game sounds like they might throw in big fuzzy animals to rape the 12 year old girls so that touhou fanboys have more wacking off material.

[Domino]

Question: Which website you go to purchase the game on release? Actually which websites you go (in English) to purchase Doujin shmups in general (trying not to derail the thread, sorry for the n00b question)?

[moozooh]

Paletweb seems to be de-facto for many doujin games including Touhou. There's also Himeya.

[Enhasa]

No matter what the actual game is like, don't tell me this doesn't have the greatest name ever, hahaha.

[henry dark]

Good lord this guy is tapped for ideas.

[320x240]

Good lord this guy is tapped for ideas.

There's something to be said about constantly refining an idea. I don't know if this is the case here though.

[Enhasa]

To be fair, he already has one game that's more innovative than anything most devs will ever produce in their lifetimes. Also, he is more of a slave to Touhou fandom at this point. Western indie devs feel more like they are making games for themselves, while the Japanese attitude is more like they have to make games that the people want.

[Super Laydock]

Dunno what to think about this, but those double and crossed "bullet beams" look pretty awesome anyway. Also like the Gargoyle style enemies in this pic.

[moozooh]

What I would like to see:

1. More interesting in-level bullet- and enemy patterns. MoF pretty much didn't have "randomly" appearing enemies, all of them came in easy to remember patterns. Now to do the same with their shooting, and it will be perfect.

2a. Less forgiving life and bomb replenishing mechanics: 8 potential extends is way more than one needs to clear a game, 4-5 (of which no more than two should be granted in form of standalone items) would be just fine.
OR
2b. Some good way to spend the extra lives in order to score. PCB comes to mind, where lives are a primary source of bombs and max power bullet cancels used for cherry+ pumping and border manipulation. I don't have much hope for this with MoF's power system, though. :\

3. An Easy mode that is fun to score in, a Normal mode that is challenging, a Hard mode that is actually hard, a Lunatic mode that is really really hard. Particularly, I would like to see a harder final/extra boss (MoF's were a joke for the most part, on any difficulty), or some form of TLB.

4. An engaging, risk-rewarding scoring system close to that of PCB or IN, rather than EoSD or MoF. Chaining was fun for one game, no need for it any more. Relying on bombing for bullet-canceling as a primary element of high scoring is also stupid. I see the graze counter is back, though, so I guess there is hope for something good.

5. Less bugs than MoF had upon release. I can't believe it takes less time/effort/whatever to make a new game than to do a couple meager fixes to the current.

[FIL]

I believe those enemies are actually the usual large fairies but with updated, that is to say tightened up, graphics.

[Shion]

I didn't like Touhou 10, so I'm not holding my breath for this. Stupid bomb/powerup system :/
At least grazing is back

[Twiddle]

To be fair, he already has one game that's more innovative than anything most devs will ever produce in their lifetimes. Also, he is more of a slave to Touhou fandom at this point. Western indie devs feel more like they are making games for themselves, while the Japanese attitude is more like they have to make games that the people want.

Which makes it a bit amusing that he once said that he aimed to make only the games he enjoyed.

[Etrian]

Ugh.. ZUN really needs to make games NOT like Touhou 10.. seriously, the ability to bomb your way through stuff wastefully and do it "for score" is so.. oh, I don't know.. Ibara-esque, it makes me cringe. I liked his previous games, where scoring wasn't such a mess.

[moozooh]

Time to post impressions on the demo.

1. More interesting in-level bullet- and enemy patterns. MoF pretty much didn't have "randomly" appearing enemies, all of them came in easy to remember patterns. Now to do the same with their shooting, and it will be perfect.

Seems like the patterns are considerably more complex and variative than MoF's, which is a plus.

2a. Less forgiving life and bomb replenishing mechanics: 8 potential extends is way more than one needs to clear a game, 4-5 (of which no more than two should be granted in form of standalone items) would be just fine.
OR
2b. Some good way to spend the extra lives in order to score. PCB comes to mind, where lives are a primary source of bombs and max power bullet cancels used for cherry+ pumping and border manipulation. I don't have much hope for this with MoF's power system, though. :\

I don't have a deep understanding of the scoresystem yet, but it seems there is no way to die in order to increase score, quite the opposite (we'll have to no-miss it again).

However! The extend giving mechanism has indeed been changed for the better (arguably). There are no more 1up items (at least as far as I've seen), and point items don't grant extends like in th07-08. Instead, bosses and midbosses give you extend fragments (like bomb fragments in Raizing games) if you don't timeout their patterns; 5 fragments = extend get. Seems like a good idea.

3. An Easy mode that is fun to score in, a Normal mode that is challenging, a Hard mode that is actually hard, a Lunatic mode that is really really hard. Particularly, I would like to see a harder final/extra boss (MoF's were a joke for the most part, on any difficulty), or some form of TLB.

The game did become harder! On Hard mode, I wasn't able to no-miss/no-bomb the first stage like I do in MoF, and the second gives me a real trouble already! Lunatic is just so crazy it really is on par with many notorious arcade titles. The bombs are now different depending on the character type, and deal different amount of damage over different amount of time.

4. An engaging, risk-rewarding scoring system close to that of PCB or IN, rather than EoSD or MoF. Chaining was fun for one game, no need for it any more. Relying on bombing for bullet-canceling as a primary element of high scoring is also stupid. I see the graze counter is back, though, so I guess there is hope for something good.

Ok, there is now both chaining and grazing. Or rather, graze chaining, akin to Shikigami no Shiro series: there is a tension counter that fluctuates depending on the danger you put yourself in. If you graze a certain amount of bullets continuously, it goes all the way up to 1.00+, where you get more points for stuff and suck the freefalling items in automatically. This is definitely useful at high difficulties because the amount of stuff shot at you won't leave you much room to fly to the top of the screen and back. Point item value multiplication is still done via "faith" items, although the counter doesn't decrease over time anymore. Grazing doesn't give points per se, nor does it counter the spellcard countdown, which is disappointing.

The biggest shock was that now dying hurts score even more than in MoF, and this is something to think about, considering it is now much harder to survive. Overall, I'd say STA is on par with EoSD in terms of difficulty, and probably harder than IN if played for score. Which is… a good sign, I guess.

[P_HAT]

The Art is fail.
The Game is hard.

[moozooh]

Cleared Hard mode. It was actually hard! I no-missed up to stage 3 boss's 2nd spellcard, but after that it became just too demanding, this is definitely the way Touhou games should be like, difficulty-wise. Lunatic is basically unplayable, just as I wanted it to be, lol.

Replay here. I used some neat strats only accessible to Marisa-B (which will likely remain my character of choice for this game).

As for the characters.

Reimu and Marisa again, their mobility characteristics are pretty much identical to what they had in MoF.

• Reimu-A: powerful, has an ability to wrap around the screen if you double-tap against a wall without shooting. It may help survival, but not much (see stage 3). The bomb is rather long but doesn't deal any damage.
• Reimu-B: her shot and her bomb suck. Her ability is to suck all items up at any part of the screen if you let go of shot. Which also sucks since you have tension meter just for that purpose already. Useless.
• Reimu-C: Youmu-style option which shoots in both directions at power 2.0 and higher. Special ability is 2x moving speed when neither shot nor focus are held. Nice bomb. Incredibly versatile overall, will likely become pros' choice.

• Marisa-A: decent shot with 2x power gauge (0.0—8.0 instead of the usual 0.0—4.0), which also means twice the bomb carrying capacity. The bomb is powerful but very short, which decreases its usability.
• Marisa-B: can change option formation a-la Garegga. This provides incredible versatility (see replay above). The bomb is average.
• Marisa-C: the christmas tree shot. The bomb is interesting: it's almost entirely analogous to PCB's supernatural border (except this time you get like 15 seconds until it vanishes). You activate it and it turns into a one-hit shield. Might be useful for situations where you think you can hold up and don't want to spam bombs. Otherwise, she's crap.

Also, claiming a high score thread once the full game is released!

[Mischief Maker]

I take it this demo is not yet available to the general public?

[moozooh]

It was sold on CDs at Reitaisai-whatever (selling demos? Wtf). The usual piracy places already have it.

[P_HAT]

It was sold on CDs at Reitaisai-whatever (selling demos? Wtf). The usual piracy places already have it.

For like 100-300yen.
You pay for materials.

[moozooh]

That's understandable — what I don't understand is why ZUN didn't just let everyone download it from the site like any other demo so far. It's still not up there, fyi.

[P_HAT]

That's understandable — what I don't understand is why ZUN didn't just let everyone download it from the site like any other demo so far. It's still not up there, fyi.

Same was with MoF.
I think it's like "i show to my real fans, what i love them! OMFG, i need some beer!"

[pentarou]

That's understandable — what I don't understand is why ZUN didn't just let everyone download it from the site like any other demo so far. It's still not up there, fyi.

Traditionally (for touhou) it takes a few weeks to a month before the demo is released on the internet, and usually the online release comes with bugfixes. So if you don't want to search for the demo you could just wait until it is officially posted.

[moozooh]

Oh, bugfixes would be nice. So far he's managed to overlook a debug feature left in the STA demo: go into any corner of the screen and press against it diagonally.

I wish he was more attentive for that kind of stuff, MoF is still bug-ridden. :|

[Mischief Maker]

So is this slated for a fall release?