東方輝針城 ～ Double Dealing Character (C84)

[Formless God]

cleanup time



I tested it on a mediocre laptop and it ran like silk. Stage 4 has a variation for each weapon type and the first one will crash your ass (you shouldn't be playing anything that isn't Reimu B anyway.)

There is no Overdrive.
Maribara is partly fixed. The bomb still lasts pretty long, but it no longer cancels boss bullets into items.
Dying only makes you lose .50 power.
In the later stages, if you die during a boss attack THEN finish it while the 7 power items are still on screen, you can PoC all of them for a x2.0/a life piece.

Game was clearly designed with bombing in mind. I think the stages are gonna be just bomb>PoC>die>bomb>PoC>repeat. Resources are handed out like candies. This is the start of Stage 4 (I actually maxed out bombs since the Stage 3 boss.) I got to the Stage 5 boss on Lunatic just bombing the living shit out of everything. Good luck with actually capturing those boss attacks, though.

[fenyxofshadows]

So, basically we're going to hate clearing the game (thanks, stage 5), but we're going to love Spell Practice?

EDIT: I wonder if Overdrive is back?

second EDIT: It is not :c

[SuperSoaker360]

Stage 6 boss fourth spell has some retarded hitboxes for Marisa.

[Formless God]

Yeah, I tried touching a kunai with the thing's border and I exploded. Maybe you could try sticking to the wide path instead.
For being the first Stage 6 survival ever it's kind of a letdown, to be honest.

So, basically we're going to hate clearing the game (thanks, stage 5), but we're going to love Spell Practice?

If it's just clearing, 4 bombs will do the trick The game gives you about 200 of them.
Right now I'm hating Spell Practice because thanks to it we have another Hourai Jewel in this game.

[KAI]

So this game it's dope, retarded, full of random shit, a letdown, but also...good?

[Observer]

So if this has lolBombing in mind are we back to Mountain of Faith? Or is more like Garegga with bombing+suicide? Just by the screens I'm already feeling down...

Sorry, I think I may stick to Danmaku Unlimited 2. Touhou 13 (which had the bad luck of coming right next to Crimzon Clover) and UFO (power-up and item chase... yay) alienated me out of the series. I may give this a look later on though, depending on my mood. After being next to the likes of Siter Skain and Edelweiss, coming back to Touhou gets roooooough.

[SuperSoaker360]

I don't know much about the "proper/real" shot-types, but MarisaB scoring definitely feels like I'm playing some sort of Yagawa concoction.

[mauve]

have not played it myself, stage 5 boss will probably be ironed out once people stop being disoriented on it(play no-horiz, then no-vert, then no-looking-at-the-screen because the pattern is fully symmetric), stage 6 boss has way too many injokes/memes, extra looks surprisingly solid

i think i'll just end up going back and playing pcb/in again in the end, though.

[Aleksei]

Just finished 1ccing easy and normal, it was really fun The only ZUN game I've played was perfect cherry blossom and I have to say I enjoyed the quirkiness on this game (the gigantic hitbox and pseudo caravan/gigantic bullets); the inversions and flips were fun as well, thats where I had to bomb the most. With so many chances to extend and bomb collect opportunities, as well as the lunatic and extra stages, which I'll probably never attempt, I think ZUN did a good job of making a game anyone at any level can enjoy.

[Formless God]

So this game it's dope, retarded, full of random shit, a letdown

That's not what I said.

So if this has lolBombing in mind are we back to Mountain of Faith? Or is more like Garegga with bombing+suicide?

Bombing for survival, bombing + suicide for score.

stage 6 boss has way too many injokes/memes

All one of them?

[mauve]

stage 6 boss has way too many injokes/memes

All one of them?

two shingeki cards, as the wall card immediately after is a reference too. also depending on if you want to count the one that makes your character huge or not.

don't get me started on the bowl.

[Formless God]

Go ahead. You're already in that territory anyway.

[Lord Satori]

I hate how ZUN used the old Touhou title screen music in 3 different songs, (haven't heard extra songs so it might be more) but I enjoyed the stage 4 boss music having a pc-98 song reference in it (at least I'm pretty sure its pc-98)

I'm with you guys on the stage 5 boss, wtf was ZUN thinking? flipping the screen would've been interesting, but flipping the controls is just stupid. Actually, I hate the whole of stage 5. The music is alright, but once I reach stage 6, all of my complaints vanish. I'm quite literally in love with the stage 6 boss music.

I don't really see the problem with it though (probably because I don't get the references)


Design wise, I love pretty much all of the characters in this game, which is a first for me. Though ZUN really missed an opportunity to bring back a pc-98 character, what with all these normally inactive youkai rebelling, and all.

edit: by the way, does anyone have any lunatic and/or extra replays I could download?

[Formless God]

I hate how ZUN used the old Touhou title screen music in 3 different songs, (haven't heard extra songs so it might be more) but I enjoyed the stage 4 boss music having a pc-98 song reference in it (at least I'm pretty sure its pc-98)

Hah, I noticed too, though I didn't mind it too much since the Stage 3 and 4 variations were both fast and fancy.
Boss? I thought the PC-98 bit was in the stage music.
Yeah, the Stage 6 stuff is nice. The final boss music has excellent tempo and flow for a battle theme, and it got a 'positive' tone which is what ZUN does best. I also approve of the application of trumpets in this one.
I thought the Extra boss theme was wasted potential, though. It had a great start (hi, Exdeath), it had blood-pumping drums and buildup sections, but this part just makes my brain shut the fuck down. What kind of half-assed melody is that?

I'm with you guys on the stage 5 boss, wtf was ZUN thinking? flipping the screen would've been interesting, but flipping the controls is just stupid.

After spending some more time with it, I've concluded that the first one is outright RNG garbage, the second one has to be done without moving vertically, and in the last one you don't actually have to do any difficult dodges when the screen flips.

edit: by the way, does anyone have any lunatic and/or extra replays I could download?

Jaimers has a Lunatic clear here

[brook4]

is it possible to bomb spam through lunatic using one of the broken characters with absolutely no skill or ability?

I heard rumors of this but i haven't seen a video or anything..?

[SuperSoaker360]

Boss? I thought the PC-98 bit was in the stage music.

I think he means this. It's fairly similar to the beginning of the Stage 4 boss music. What was the one you were hearing in the stage?

I do agree that the Extra boss' melody was pretty lame. I do love those drums though.

[CStarFlare]

is it possible to bomb spam through lunatic using one of the broken characters with absolutely no skill or ability?

I heard rumors of this but i haven't seen a video or anything..?

Kind of. Marisa B's bomb lasts forever and converts every bullet it cancels into a power item AND increases your point value. On Lunatic, there's enough bullets that you'll be able to spawn lots of items to collect bomb and life fragments.

It's fun, I kind of want to work on this which is unusual for Lunatic modes.

[mimiroru]

I'm with you guys on the stage 5 boss, wtf was ZUN thinking? flipping the screen would've been interesting, but flipping the controls is just stupid.

After spending some more time with it, I've concluded that the first one is outright RNG garbage, the second one has to be done without moving vertically, and in the last one you don't actually have to do any difficult dodges when the screen flips.

i must be doing something horribly wrong or the last spell is just utter BS with reimu B. 0/252 so far. 1/21 with reimu A.

[CStarFlare]

Spent some more time with this today. Easy is actually super fun; I've never played a Touhou on easy so I'm pleasantly surprised.

Marisa B makes Lunatic seem possible for someone at my level.

EDIT: Where does this game save replays and screenshots?

[Bananamatic]

its trash

touhou labyrinth 2 is the real new 2hu

[SuperSoaker360]

Where does this game save replays and screenshots?

Not sure about screenshots but the replays and save data for Touhou 14 are stored in the following directory:

XP/2000:
C:/Documents and Settings/[Username]/Application Data/ShanghaiAlice/th14

Vista/7:
C:/Users/[Username]/AppData/Roaming/ShanghaiAlice/th14

[Aisha]

It drives me up the wall when programs save their shit in AppData.

Touhou 14 is okay, but it didn't leave any particularly strong impressions on me. I found some of the gimmicks of the stages 5 and 6 bosses amusing, though. I imagine that playing the game at a high level will have you playing it almost like you would Battle Bakraid for score, so I'm not too fond of that.

[CStarFlare]

Thanks!

Is the stage 2 boss the only person who throws out defensive patterns when you get too close? You can get like 20k to your item value on her third card, but I can't find anything else that's exploitable like that.

There's no clear bonus for graze, right? So once you hit the value cap, grazing is just an unnecessary risk?

[Shimatora]

Yes, once you hit max PIV there's no reason to purposefully graze.

[Lord Satori]

So I saw a replay of the extra stage. The stage music is pretty cool, and the extra boss as a character is cool as well (I like her better than mami, that's for sure), but as for her theme... well, here's a thought stream:

"oh, this is cool, love the drums"

"eh, kinda generic but its alright I guess so far..."

"wtf? god, I'm not sure if I'll be able to stand watching this whole thing"

"and THIS is why you shouldn't improvise music off the top of your head"

"FINALLY!"


Anyway, I saw in the translated music comments that he initially wanted to make a percussion based song, but then he was all "oh but then it wouldn't be touhou!" and that's why we're left with this abomination. Change is good, don't scrap an idea just because it "wouldn't be touhou"

[Zengeku3]

Haven't noticed this thread before now but thought i'd follow it so here's a post to serve that purpose.

As for my own opinions, i'll make it brief.

Sexy ladies, i think i'm starting to like all the characters in the later stages because they are good looking and interesting. That is as long as Japan doesn't see fit to curse them all with enourmous disgusting breasts.

Gameplay is fun aside from certain awful things. The Stage 6 boss is a boring and frustratingly dumb final boss with annoying patterns, uninspired patterns or just otherwise boring patterns. Music in the game is quite good and it has some quite okay (for Touhou) stage portions.

Bit of a letdown, but still a decent game. Also, would like to kick loli butts at Lunatic mode too but my character of choice crashes the game on Lunatic for now so fuck you ZUN for charging money for an unfinished product. Hoping for a patch to be released soon.

[trap15]

That is as long as Japan doesn't see fit to curse them all with enourmous disgusting breasts.

I hope they all get tits that put the Dragon's Crown sorceress to shame

[Zengeku3]

Dragons Crown? That stuff is beyond gross, how dare you even mention it.

Most artists who go overboard like that are utterly horrible anyway. And this is not just because I don't like large breasts. It's a general trend i've been noticing that the quality of the artwork is seriously bad in most of those oppai images. Most of the good artists either leaves the characters without breasts at all or just not excessively big ones which I find easier to appreciate. General rule of thumb is that 9 to 11 is best but 11-14 can work too.

Is this hijack? I dunno lol. Ehmm... some on-topic things. Seija's gimmick is not too hard to use when you learn it. She also seems to be liking most things that normal people hate so I assume she'd be fine by being buttraped by half my resident IRC channels lolicons all at the same time. Cool character huh?!

[Formless God]

you talkin shit about my kamitani m8


Anyway since the hype wore off here are my opinions:

I like the mechanics. It's pretty similar to EoSD. Graze stuff, PoC + bomb for score and lives. I found myself zipping around the screen a lot and that's a great thing.
People say the characters are poorly balanced but I think they're just better at certain tasks than others (MarisaA: pointblank, MarisaB: power, SakuyaA: sturdy enemies, SakuyaB: PIV, ReimuAB: balance.)
The 1-ALL is disgustingly easy, but I don't think scoring is gonna be that simple. You need bombs to score so suiciding is required at some points, and you also need to not bomb or die during boss attacks (good luck with that.)


On the enemy design:

I'm mildly disappointed by the 4th stage. It didn't have nearly as much dodging as UFO's. The boss fights were all like "lol you thought the previous boss was bad, heheherngrngrng".

I don't like the 5th stage. I think it's too repetitive. The midboss was good and the screen flipping isn't terribly hard to get used to. Fuck the first one, though. While confirming the Alt+Tab trick I tried doing it with normal controls and died twice.

I like the 6th stage although it's weaker than the ones in EoSD, MoF and SA. The spams were pretty tough (although they seem to be static?) and the midboss is not that bad. The yellow spam is a tad bit too long.
I like the Stage 6 boss. The non-spells were only rivaled by Remilia and Byakuren and maybe Kanako's opener; the knife spell is tight and faaaaaaaaaaaaaast; the 1st, 5th and 6th were original. Obviously I don't like the ones where things get enlarged (2nd could've worked if it weren't static, and 4th is antifun for everybody.)

Not digging the Extra stage too much. There isn't a whole lot of dodging. Just follow a path and you're all set. The midboss is excellent. Extra boss is absolutely fantastic. All the attacks with drums were weak, but the rest is a blast to play against. Amazing non-spells too.

Like last time, I love how the majority of bullet patterns are in unusual shapes instead of the typical trig flowers.

I'm not sure if it's dethroned EoSD, SA and UFO yet, but I'm enjoying it more than PCB, IN, MoF and TD.


While we're at it, the new music:

I'm pleased with most of them. Stage 4 boss and Extra stage have pretty addictive choruses. I've opened up to the Stage 5 boss theme and I think it sounds quite catchy now. The Menu music, Stage 5 theme, Stage 6 boss theme and Ending theme were downright beautiful.
(btw, 12 seconds in is the part I thought sounded like PC-98 stuff)

[SuperSoaker360]

Stage 1's music is still ass.