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Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.
Changing my vote to Mokou now because she actually has a chance.

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Herr Tog
Jun 18, 2011

Grimey Drawer
what's the tally!?

krisslanza
May 6, 2011

Herr Tog posted:

what's the tally!?

Mokou was winning when I last checked (7 votes for Mokou), and I've been working on the update, I should've mentioned that. Looking at it though, she'd still be leading anyway.
Expect the update to be up in uhm... a bit more. I'm working on typing it all up and getting the images hosted and all that. I didn't nickname anything though, and it seem we won't gain access to the nickname changer for a bit... so if anyone wanted nicknames, uhm, sorry. I'd have to restart to nickname Mokou and the Puppets I've caught so far. It wouldn't be a lot of work to do that though if people really had some nicknames in mind, I'm just lazy in most games and never think up funny nicknames to use.

krisslanza
May 6, 2011


Fujiwara no Mokou it is then!
Mokou's first appearance in Touhou Project was in the Extra stage of Imperishable Night, where she's fought as the last boss of that stage. Like Marisa and Reimu, Mokou is a human - technically. Mokou drank one of the Hourai Elixirs, and has become a true immortal as a result: she is incapable of aging, suffering from illness or dying. Her power is the manipulation and resistance to fire, but how she gained this isn't known, whenever its a result of her drinking the Elixir or some kind of innate ability she had even as a mortal. Also, she shares a family name with an actual, real world clan, known as the Fujiwara who used to hold a lot of political power alongside the Minamoto and Taira clans in old Japan.

Also Mokou really, really hates Kaguya. But we'll get into that whenever we either find a Kaguya puppet, or meet her in the story. Either way, Mokou is also about the only Touhou to wear pants and is usually depicated as a kind of masculine tomboy as a result. Although given the time period she was born in (around 700CE), pants would've been a very rare and expensive garment, so its also possible she wears pants to flaunt her noble status in a way.



Anyway, heading up the path past that man brings us to the Hakurei Mountain. Going a bit further up the path...



The mysterious figure doesn't make it too far, before we corner it at the shore though.





Well, somehow it disappeared in a flash of white light. Must've been a ninja Touhou. May as well head back to the Shrine though, we do have a bus to catch in maybe two hours or so to get back home...




Look, its a small, adorable little Mokou! As the little Mokou approaches us however...




Marisa: Listening? In front of you is a Puppet. They just appeared one day and run around doin' whatever they please.
Marisa: They jump out and attack from stuff like tall grass. If you have Puppets of your own, you can go against them, but... There's no way you would, huh?


The little Mokou-like is getting tired of Marisa explaining things to us though, so Marisa lends us one of her Puppets in order to show us how this all works.



Adorable, aren't they? :33: And that smug little smirk on Mokou.
Unlike Pokemon rather then doing a kind of over-the-shoulder viewpoint, TPDP does it all in a side-view. For now, as this is just a tutorial fight, so nothing to do but beat up on this wild Mokou. Marisa's Marisa has only two attacks - Yin Energy and Yang Energy - so there's nothing to do but attack.




:33:
I only wish the Puppets had another state for when they're low on HP, but they simply kind of slow down their idle swaying as their HP drops.



Excuse me Marisa, maybe if your own Marisa wasn't so low-level this would be easier. :colbert:




And like that, we get our little Mokou Puppet! Since I'm bad at nicknames, I'm just going to be using the default names for all the Puppets unless someone has a particular nickname they'd like to see used.


Marisa: That's weird. I've never heard of a normal Puppet not needing a Seal Thread...
Marisa: Is that Puppet special, or is it... you?
Marisa: Hmmm. Yeah, I dunno. Well, doesn't do me any good burnin' myself out thinkin' about things I dunno.
Marisa: For now, follow me to the Hakurei Shrine. I got a lotta things to teach ya'.




As we can see, we're certainly not where we used to be, as the Hakurei Shrine is looking to be in mighty good condition compared to when we last saw it. That and we have Marisa talking to us should've made that pretty obvious though. After a brief screen fade...


Sanae: In that case, leave the explanation to me!
Marisa: Yeah, I'm not good at explainin'. So it'll help out if ya' would. ...And I can take it easy.


Sanae: My name is Sanae Kochiya.
Sanae: This place is separated from where you live by a barrier. It's called Gensokyo...



Naturally, we already know all about Gensokyo. So this probably saves Sanae a lot of time trying to explain just what Gensokyo is to us.


Sanae: For some reason, Gensokyo is flooded with Puppets right now.
Sanae: We don't know the cause and their numbers are too great for us to deal with them all by ourselves.
Sanae: For now, we've been strengthening the barrier and keeping the effects from reaching the outside world, but...
Sanae: It's no coincidence if you got pulled in regardless.
Sanae: On top of this, while the barrier is strong, you probably won't be able to get back to where you were either.
Sanae: And the one in charge of the barrier, Reimu, left to resolve the incident herself as well...


Marisa: You just sit here and sip tea with Sanae!
Marisa: What, dissatisfied with house sittin'?
Marisa: Come on, just give it up. There's nothin' you can do...
Marisa: ...No, wait. In that case, lemme test ya'.


Since we didn't exactly get a Seal Thread for it, I'd assume it should be following us around. The expansion, Shard of Dreams, seems to allow you to have one of your Puppets follow you around like Pikachu did in Pokemon Yellow, so this would seem a bit more of a silly question for Marisa to ask.


Marisa: You can't run away, y'hear?

It's a pretty good thing Marisa lets you get ready first. Depending on your starting Puppet, you're going to need something to defeat Marisa... because Marisa's Marisa is probably going to be faster then your starter, and as it only has damage moves, it won't waste turns doing a debuff or anything. Meaning, you will lose the damage race, and Marisa will basically think you're pathetic. It won't stop you from continuing the game, but why would you want to lose the first real fight of the game, right? Anyway, before we fight Marisa, let's make sure we have insurance to ensure we'll win...



Fuji Rice Cookies are basically the Potions of TPDP, and will heal your Puppet for 20HP. You'll need this to win the damage race against Marisa, depending on your starting Puppet. Speaking of our starting Puppet...





Our starting Mokou is pretty solid. Friction Burn isn't too useful, but I've always preferred dealing raw damage then using a move that doesn't deal damage but inflicts a status effect. It's worth noting, that if you use Friction Burn while the enemy Puppet is already Burned, the Burn will become a Heavy Burn. I'm not sure on the damage values of these though, but I'd think its similar to how Poison and the Poison inflicted by Toxic in Pokemon would work. Yang Energy is basically our "Tackle", with the Dream type being TPDP's version of the Normal type. You might also notice that Yang Energy is highlighted in blue, this indicates its a "Spread" type attack and uses the Sp. Atk and Sp. Def stats for attack and defense, respectively. The other type of attacks are Focus attacks, and use the Fo. Atk and Fo. Def stats naturally. So luckily, our only attack move is also using Mokou's highest attack stat, so we should be okay even if Marisa's Marisa is faster then us.

Talking to Marisa again and letting her know we're ready will start our first Train- eeer, Puppet Master fight!


Battle! Marisa
Marisa uses a remix of her theme from TH8, "Love Coloured Master Spark", while also having a splash of the trainer battle theme from R/B/Y.

Still, our Mokou has a pretty high Spread attack, so even with a critical hit taken, we manage to win without even needing to eat our Cookie! For Puppets with a lower starting attack, you're going to need to eat that cookie though.

You'll notice we didn't gain any money from winning, and that's because you don't gain money from beating up other Masters. Well, not directly, you'll see we got some Mushroom Powder instead. Other Puppet users, and wild Puppets, will drop an item after battle, and some of these (like the Mushroom Powder) only exist to be sold to vendors to get money.


Consequently, losing the first fight has Marisa tell us we suck, and we should stay at the shrine with Sanae. :(
Marisa: Then I'mma head out and leave the rest to Sanae. I can't lose to Reimu after all!

Sanae: That a Puppet warmed up to you is really interesting. And you crossed over the strengthened barrier as well.
Sanae: I feel like there's something about you!
Sanae: I know! There should be someone in the village investigating the Puppets. You might figure something out if you go there.

Sanae: I think you'll get lots of info there, so how about heading to the village for now? I'm sure it'll be helpful!

Talking to Sanae after this will just have her explain that Reimu is the one who is supposed to be living at the shrine, but she's out trying to solve the incident, so Sanae is watching it while she's out. From what I've read, in the Shard of Dreams expansion, Sanae is no longer shrine-sitting, and instead you'll meet Reimu here right away. We won't be meeting Reimu for a bit more ourselves. Anyway, before leaving the Shrine proper there's a few things we can stea- borrow, from Reimu's home...


The little Akyuu doll to the right functions as this game's PCs, but we don't have the key item we need to interact with them yet.

This is up behind the shrine, where we met Renko and Maribel in the Outside World there's a bit more of a path to get here. This serves as a Max Revive, restoring a Puppet from KO to full HP.

And inside this new building, that's north of the guy we met in the Outside who asked us about our favorite Touhou character, is a storage room of sorts with this in it. The Blinding Orb is a Hold item, which allows you to always flee from wild Puppet battles.


This is Genji! He's a PC-98 character, of sorts. His primary thing in the older games, was this is what allowed PC-98 Reimu to be able to fly around. Sadly, without something like Surf, we can't actually go out and say hi to him, since we can't swim. I mean, we'd get completely soaked and we didn't really bring a change of clothes did we? Anyway, when we try to leave the shrine...


Sanae: ...Glad I made it.
Sanae: Even with your Puppet, it'll still be tough to make it down the mountain path, so I found something useful for you!

Sanae: Using a Sealing Thread on a Puppet puts it into a "sealed state". Beat it in this state and it'll join your team!

Basically, instead of Pokeballs we get Sealing Threads. Just like Pokeballs, they won't work on Puppets owned by someone already, only Wild ones. However, unlike a Pokeball, we don't have to weaken a Puppet then use a Thread! All you have to do is use the Thread, and if it works, the Puppet is "Sealed" and all you have to do is KO it then to capture it. Which makes these Sealing Threads a lot cooler then Pokeballs already.



The Puppet Box allows us to use the Akyuu Puppets to move Puppets into the Box. It will also fully heal all your Puppets when you access it via an Akyuu, even though Sanae says you have to put them in, then out of the box, I haven't seen a need to do that to get the healing. But this might also be because the Akyuu Puppet we can access right now is our only healing point for the moment, so it might just skip the need to cycle them in and out of the box.



Route 1, where our adventure in Gensokyo begins proper! Just like Marisa mentioned, moving into tall grass has a chance for random Puppets to jump us, but we kind of need the EXP and the Puppets, so that's fine.




Seal Thread in action. Then just proceed to pummel the Puppet, and it'll join our team!




As you can see, random Puppets don't nearly have the ranks of our starting Mokou.
Now as for Daiyousei, she was a nameless midboss in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. Fans nicknamed her "Daiyousei", and ZUN has used the nickname as well, but she's technically a nameless character. In fanworks, she's usually portrayed as a sort of "older sister" fairy to the other fairy characters.





S rank is as high as the ranks go. Chen is the shikigami of Ran Rakumo, and first made an appearance in Perfect Cherry Blossom. She is specifically a bakeneko, and has some limited powers of sorcery when Ran is around. But she isn't that strong, and has a lot of the weaknesses of a normal cat - splashing her with water will dispel her shikigami possession, limiting her to physical attacks, and catnip will completely immobilize her.




Trainer Battle
Other Puppet Users use a remix of Alice's theme from TH7, "Doll Judgement ~ The Girl Who Played With People's Shapes". It's also bit of an infamous song that you might have heard from an IOSYS remix known as "Marisa Stole the Precious Thing".
He only has a level 4 Nazrin, another Puppet we can capture on Route 1, so he goes down pretty easily.



Still by this point in the game, the only healing point (aside from eating cookies), is to head all the way back to the Shrine and use the Akyuu Puppet so to be a bit careful. There's one more Puppet User you have to get passed before you reach the rest stop further down the road...





Sachie uses a Lily, which isn't a Puppet we can get ourselves right now.



After Sachie though we can reach this rest house. There's a Rice Cookie in that pot directly behind this sign.


The miko at the center desk will heal all your Puppets, just like Nurse Joy. The miko to left, sells healing items, where as the Akyuu Puppet does the same thing every other Akyuu Puppet does. That Peddler sells some goods, but more importantly, we want to talk to him (or the sweets-selling miko), because we need to have some money...


Our DS (or maybe its a 3DS?) is how we get our starting cash, since we don't have anytime to be playing with it while we're here in Gensokyo. The Mushroom Powder and Watch only exist to be sold, but the Magical Fragments actually have a post-game use, so you don't really want to sell those... admittedly, their use is only going to be for trying to create the ultimate Puppets for netplay, so if you don't really care to get into this game's version of Breeding, you're probably safe to just sell them all.


After capturing a Nazrin, you'll notice Mokou has the "New Skill!" pop up there. Unlike the normal game, Puppets don't gain moves from leveling up automatically. Instead...



In the Edit menu here, we can spend our PP to boost our Puppet's stats, teach it moves from leveling up, use a Skill Card (TMs) to teach it moves, switch its Ability for 20PP, or change its Style. However, our Mokou isn't high enough level to change Styles yet, as that's the closest thing to Evolution in this game.

So for level 7, Mokou gains access to the "Playing with Fire" skill. :woop: I'm not sure if STAB exists in this or not, but given its just as strong as Yang Energy, but has a small chance to burn and is actually super effective against certain types! Oh yeah, right about that Nazin we caught.



Anyway once you reach the Rest House, there isn't much further to reach the Village. Only two more trainers stand in our way... although, oddly this one doesn't seem to react to seeing you, but if you talk to him...




I forgot to screencap what he has, but I think it was just two Chens or something? Either way nothing special. There's one last trainer on the way to the Village, and like the Rascal, you could avoid him, but naturally, I'm going to beat up his Puppets instead.





However, now that we have Playing with Fire, his Aki sister Puppets don't stand a chance as we can "pierce their barrier". Basically, super effective moves will be listed as piercing the barrier, where as not very effective attacks, will fail to pierce the barrier.

Chen and Daiyousei have some new moves to learn now as a result! :woop: As you can notice, TPDP has an innate EXP Share so you don't have to worry about the old-fashioned methods of leveling up your other Puppets.



When we finally reach the Human Village...

Medicine: What're you doing? Watch where you're going!
Medicine: ...You have Puppets with you, don't you?
Medicine: Hmmm... Well, whatever.
Medicine: Come on, move, move! I'm busy. Pray we don't meet again!

And then she runs off towards the Shrine, I guess? Meh, whatever not our problem! We have to go to the Village and gather information anyway...


We'll be exploring that next, since well, this has been a rather lengthy update. I'm still trying to figure out a good text to image ratio and all that, so apologies if its a bit too image-heavy and not enough text! The only Puppet I couldn't capture on Route 1, was a Sukuna as she has a pretty rare encounter rate. There are some Puppets to capture in the Village though! We'll meet them next update. If you have nickname ideas, feel free to throw them out for anything I haven't caught yet. (Sukuna in Route 1, Keine, Sekibanki, Akyuu, Kosuzu and Kokoro in the Village)

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.
Everything works exactly like Pokemon except PP makes everything more convenient. So yes, STAB exists. Almost every puppet learns their first STAB move at level 7. Dream isn't actually like Normal, because almost no puppets are Dream type (actually, I think it might literally be no one until the the expansion, which introduces Doremy). So it's a purely neutral type that no one has a STAB advantage for. Yin and Yang Energy are pretty much its only attacks too, and just exist to have a low level Focus and Spread attack.

Clarste fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Apr 14, 2017

krisslanza
May 6, 2011

Clarste posted:

Everything works exactly like Pokemon except PP makes everything more convenient. So yes, STAB exists. Almost every puppet learns their first STAB move at level 7. Dream isn't actually like Normal, because almost no puppets are Dream type (actually, I think it might literally be no one until the the expansion, which introduces Doremy). So it's a purely neutral type that no one has a STAB advantage for. Yin and Yang Energy are pretty much its only attacks too, and just exist to have a low level Focus and Spread attack.

I guess that makes sense. Looking it up, Dream isn't even resisted or effective against anything, so its technically a bit better then Normal in a sense I guess. No STAB though is a thing.
I'm surprised at how tough Mokou is. My first test run was with Koakuma, and I didn't know about the Cookie, so Marisa beat the crap out of her.

rannum
Nov 3, 2012

When does the "emblem" and "Y:Lv. 50" listings in the stat screens become relevant

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

krisslanza posted:

I guess that makes sense. Looking it up, Dream isn't even resisted or effective against anything, so its technically a bit better then Normal in a sense I guess. No STAB though is a thing.
I'm surprised at how tough Mokou is. My first test run was with Koakuma, and I didn't know about the Cookie, so Marisa beat the crap out of her.

Not all Touhous are created equal, although there's another system in place to kind of balance that out. I wouldn't mind explaining more about it as it comes up, depending on how you feel about that as the LPer.

rannum posted:

When does the "emblem" and "Y:Lv. 50" listings in the stat screens become relevant

The "emblem" is basically their nature in Pokemon: it picks a stat for them to be 10% better at (the blue number on their stat screen). There's no negative stat though. The "Y:Lv. 50" just means you can press Y on the stat screen to see what their stats would be like at level 50, which is what it normalizes to in competitive battling, etc. Mostly it just lets you easily compare puppets of different levels.

Clarste fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Apr 14, 2017

krisslanza
May 6, 2011

Clarste posted:

Not all Touhous are created equal, although there's another system in place to kind of balance that out. I wouldn't mind explaining more about it as it comes up, depending on how you feel about that as the LPer.

Would that be related to Reincarnation? If it isn't, probably best to just save it for when it becomes relevant in the gameplay I suppose.
I get the feeling I should probably be using more of my PP for reinforcing my stats, instead of just always stockpiling it. But I'm not sure how expensive some later moves might get, and I might end up missing some sweet moves as I level up until I get some more PP.

quote:

The "emblem" is basically their nature in Pokemon: it picks a stat for them to be 10% better at. There's no negative stat though. The "Y:Lv. 50" just means you can press Y on the stat screen to see what their stats would be like at level 50, which is what it normalizes to in competitive battling, etc. Mostly it just lets you easily compare puppets of different levels.

Oh so that's what those meant.

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

krisslanza posted:

Would that be related to Reincarnation? If it isn't, probably best to just save it for when it becomes relevant in the gameplay I suppose.

It's not related to Reincarnation. I'll explain it when it first comes up then.

CommissarMega
Nov 18, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER
What I want to know is when we're meeting and fighting Alice, since she's definitely behind all this :colbert: Also when are we catching a Cirno?

krisslanza
May 6, 2011

CommissarMega posted:

What I want to know is when we're meeting and fighting Alice, since she's definitely behind all this :colbert: Also when are we catching a Cirno?

That made so much sense, I never even once thought about it. Darnit Alice, your quest to make a sentient Puppet has doomed us all to thralldom under Puppets!
Also Cirno Puppets would be at the Misty Lake, which looking at the level range, isn't too far into the game.

Toyotasomi no Miko
Oct 23, 2016
Yeah, the levels can go all over the place. I personally started with Orange because why is she so far in the game aaaaaaaa

Ahem. That aside, I'm not sure if this is going to be a 'Seal 'em all' run, but it looks like it might be? Good luck, regardless of if it is or not.

There's also a really rare encounter, being Sukuna, on Route 1, but I think you can also get her later.

Falconer
Dec 7, 2003

Did you know, I was THE MOON once!

Yes! You see, one night it turned out the moon had been STOLEN!

The animal people asked ME to take its place as I am so WISE and BRILLIANT!!

Toyotasomi no Miko posted:

There's also a really rare encounter, being Sukuna, on Route 1, but I think you can also get her later.

I must've lucked out because she ended up being the second puppet I encountered on Route 1 after a Daiyousei. That aside, I'm not very far in to the game but so far I'm enjoying bullying puppets with a mini Yuuka.

Vandar
Sep 14, 2007

Isn't That Right, Chairman?



If someone wanted to check this out theirself, is there a reason to start with the original or is it best to jump right to Shard of Dream?

This looks neat and I could stand to scratch a Pokemon itch.

senrath
Nov 4, 2009

Look Professor, a destruct switch!


Dexie posted:

If someone wanted to check this out theirself, is there a reason to start with the original or is it best to jump right to Shard of Dream?

This looks neat and I could stand to scratch a Pokemon itch.

As mentioned in the OP, Shard of Dreams isn't fully translated yet, so if you want to be able to read more than just the absolute essentials, stick with the original.

Unless you can read Japanese, in which case I'd guess just go straight to Shard of Dreams.

Vandar
Sep 14, 2007

Isn't That Right, Chairman?



Whoops. I overlooked that.

Thanks.

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.
Shard of Dreams is just a straight up upgrade. Kind of a remake, actually.

krisslanza
May 6, 2011

Falconer posted:

I must've lucked out because she ended up being the second puppet I encountered on Route 1 after a Daiyousei. That aside, I'm not very far in to the game but so far I'm enjoying bullying puppets with a mini Yuuka.

She seems to have a 5% encounter rate on Route 1. Which is one of the lowest encounter rates in the game, with only Flandre being lower (3.33%)

Clarste posted:

Shard of Dreams is just a straight up upgrade. Kind of a remake, actually.

Yeah it does look pretty neat. I've been listening to some of the tracks for the game, and one of the ones I liked is actually only in SoD, alas.

Vauron
Aug 7, 2016

Take your stance
I will give you one fair chance
So let's make this dance a bloody masquerade

krisslanza posted:

She seems to have a 5% encounter rate on Route 1. Which is one of the lowest encounter rates in the game, with only Flandre being lower (3.33%)

Not quite. Sariel is only available on the Victory Road equivalent and also is a 3.33%.

Any Kosuzu you seal should be named Recette, and any Kokoro should be named Persona.

someone awful.
Sep 7, 2007


So if this is like Pokemon, do status effects reduce stats too? E.g., if we burned someone would their Focus Attack stat drop a lot?

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

someone awful. posted:

So if this is like Pokemon, do status effects reduce stats too? E.g., if we burned someone would their Focus Attack stat drop a lot?

Yes and no. The status ailments are split up in a slightly odd way. It's kind of related to what Krisslanza mentioned about being "badly Burnt" but I don't think it's appropriate to got into detail about this yet.

krisslanza
May 6, 2011


The Human Village is exactly what its name implies: a village where humans live. As far as what we know of in canon lore, its the only place where humans live in fact. Officially, youkai aren't meant to come to the village, but many of them come here (or even live here) in human disguise anyway. It's mentioned the Human Village lacks a unified leader, and many youkai fear that if a leader ever rose in the village, it might disrupt the balance in Gensokyo. Outsiders who choose to remain in Gensokyo will end up living here in the village. The village has a few landmarks to visit, before we go where we're meant to go.



The Dragon God, before the arrival of the Moriya Shrine, was the only actual god mentioned in Touhou. He's never appeared in the series proper, and is only referenced in some things, but he had a hand in creating Gensokyo in the first place, alongside the Hakurei Shrine Maiden and the Youkai Sages. The statue is said to be able to predict the weather with about 70% accuracy, depending on the color of its eyes: white is sunny, cloudy is grey, rainy is blue, typhoon is purple, and red for when an incident is about to occur.



Keine's School is also located in the village, and it serves as the Trainer School of the game, with the NPCs and the blackboard giving you some general tips about the game. Nothing too remarkable though. As I mentioned earlier, the two damage types are color-coded with blue being Spread and red being Focus.
Keine herself is one of the few "known" youkai who lives in the village, but she serves as the guardian of the village. In her normal human form, she has the ability to 'eat' history, allowing her to 'hide' history from other people. She used this ability in Imperishable Night to hide the Human Village from everyone else by 'eating' its history. However, Keine is a were-hakutaku and assumes her were-hakutaku form on the night of a full moon. In her hakutaku form, she is capable of creating history and is said to be able to see all of Gensokyo's history at this time. However, according to Akyuu any history written down by her clan is 'above' the history Keine can interfere with. So, really, like most Touhou characters the true scope of Keine's powers are kind of iffy and unclear.



The Suzunaan is a relatively new place featured in Gensokyo, having come about in Hopeless Masquerade or Forbidden Scrollery. It's essentially a book-lending shop, tended to be Kosuzu Motoori. Kosuzu is a special human, with the ability to read any book by simply touching then, and has learned to sense youkai auras around 'demon books', due to her prolonged exposure to them. A 'demon book' covers a few categories, including books penned by youkai, grimoires for witches or magicians or books written by a youkai to address humans. The most dangerous type of demon books, are those designed to keep a record of a youkai, so that it won't die from a lack of faith/belief. Usually its not a big problem, as no one is capable of reading these books, but Kosuzu is capable of doing so, and could inadvertently bring back to life a dangerous youkai by reading some of these.

Also Kosuzu owns a copy of First Kanji Manuscript of the Necronomicon Manuscript. So if we ever start seeing Cthulhu or some Old Ones in Touhou, its probably her fault.



While Marisa lives in the Forest of Magic, her father owns a shop in the village as shown here. This shop sells Sealing Thread, but also a variety of held items to increase the strength of moves while held! I'm not sure on the damage boost, but I did pick up a Ruby Hairpin for Mokou, as it increases the strength of her Fire moves.



Anyway, where we actually want to go is north of the resting house (the red building). Sanae never told us this specifically, or anyone else really, but the Hieda Mansion is the last place of note in the village so by process of elimination...



Akyuu: Ahem! ...Please excuse me.
Akyuu: Pleased to meet you. I serve as the master of this place. My name is Hieda no Akyuu.
Akyuu: There was an article about you in the tengu's extra edition. How you're adept at controlling Puppets...
Akyuu: I see. You came because Sanae told you about me. So you're investigating the incident and the Puppets to return to the outside world.

Uhh, actually Sanae only ever told us that "someone was looking into the puppets" or something like that, so... :colbert:



Akyuu: What I do know is that nothing affects the Puppets aside from a Puppet's power.
Akyuu: Luckily, using the sealing method, the village has been able to protect itself, but...
Akyuu: Could I ask you to wait and take a look around the village while I figure out something to tell you?
Akyuu: We're just a nameless village, but there may be some things a person from the outside world might find unusual.

But I did all my sight seeing before I came to your mansion! :gonk: Well nothing to do but leave...



Akyuu: I heard a rumor that there are some tricksters around the area of the village. Be careful, just in case.

Clearly, our only option now is to find these tricksters and beat them up to progress the plot! And as we leave the mansion, it just so happens...



Then Wriggle runs off to the east. Earlier while poking around the Human Village, you can see some conspicuous empty fields... well, that's where we have to go now! Just a quick hop and a skip to the east...



Cirno: Hmhm. I, the strongest, will beat them black and blue!
Daiyousei: Alright Cirno! You're so cool!!
Cirno: ...By the way, is that the human that discovered you Wriggle?


Alert!

We're not good at sneaking missions.
Wriggle: Wah! They're here already!
Rumia: If it's come to this, it can't be helped! We'll leave this to Cirno. The rest of us will run!



Then she declares war on us. And by that, I mean, she duels us of course.
Cirno is one of the more well-known Touhou characters, and I'd be surprised if you haven't seen her in some shape or form. Her first appearance was as the Stage 2 Boss in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, where she infamously got her nickname of "Nineball" because of the fact in the manual, she was designated with the 9 symbol, with the caption of "Baka". ZUN appears to have liked this a bit, as this comes up a few times more in the series. Cirno also likes to loudly proclaim herself as the "strongest" throughout the series. Interestingly, despite her childish antics, she's at least 60 years old and she remembers the first weakening of the Hakurei Barrier that was when World War 2 ended.
Cirno has the ability to manipulate ice, and is fond of freezing frogs and then hastily unfreezing them. The frog sometimes survives the process.


Battle against the Puppet Liberation Front

Sadly, Cirno doesn't get a unique theme song as this song is shared by almost everyone in the Liberation Front. This particular song is a remix of the stage 1 boss from Fairy Wars, one of the traditional danmaku games where you play as the Fairies.
Cirno only has two Puppets, a Rumia and a Cirno. Now, you might be thinking Mokou should have an easy time with an Ice Fairy Puppet like Cirno, right? Rumia isn't an issue.



Yeah, see, Ice isn't a type in TPDP. Cirno is a Water-type, and she'll thrash Mokou into next week. Luckily, I've been preparing for this fight and have actually leveled up my team, so I just use someone else to beat up Cirno. :eng101:



With Cirno defeated, we have more to do. Remember those empty fields? There were five locations. There's also five members of the Puppet Liberation Front... so we have to track them all down. The Village isn't too big, so its not that bad, and luckily you don't have to fight them back-to-back or this part would be pretty brutal as the Liberation Front all have level 9 or 10 Puppets with some pretty solid stats. Anyway, after Cirno finding the group again, will have them scatter, leaving Daiyousei behind to cover their retreat.



Daiyousei starts out with a Cirno, then uses a Daiyousei. A Daiyousei is easy for Mokou, as Nature is weak to Fire.



I feel like this was a goal of one of the Teams in Pokemon, but I can't quite remember off the top of my head...

Moving along, the Front has fled to the southeastern field in the village this time, leaving Wriggle behind to try and stop us while Mystia and Rumia flee.



Wriggle Nightbug made her debut in Imperishable Night, both as the first stage boss and midboss of the same stage. Due to her design, Wriggle is sometimes portrayed as being a tomboy, as she is one of the few Touhou characters to not wear a skirt. Also, she's likely influenced by Kamen Rider as she does have a Kamen Rider-style kick for some of her artwork, and her ability is to manipulate insects.
Wriggle is pretty easy for Mokou, since both Puppets she uses (Daiyousei and Wriggle) are Nature types. Now with three of the Front defeated, we only have two more to find... the next spot is in the northwestern part of the village, near the fields.



Mystia Lorelei also made her debut in Imperishable Night. As a Night Sparrow, she is able to inflict humans with night-blindness and her song can make humans go insane. It's suggested Mystia may not be aware that her songs cause insanity though. Also unlike Rumia, Mystia's night-blindness cannot be used during the day, as she can't actually create darkness. When she isn't causing trouble, Mystia actually runs a Grilled Lamprey Stand, which is part of a con she runs; grilled lampreys are rumored to cure night-blindness, so she inflicts travelers with night-blindness and then offers them grilled lamprey, slowly removing the night-blindness as they eat, and saying it was the grilled lamprey that cured them. In the fandom, she's often a target of Yuyuko's ravenous hunger, due to a comment in Imperishable Night on Yuyuko wondering how she'd taste.
Mystia uses a Wriggle and a Mystia, so she goes down pretty easy as well. I'm only really afraid of Cirno Puppets right now.



Good thing we're not Yuyuko or we might Mystia, we might.

Anyway, now its just Rumia! She's fled to the southwestern part of the village, near the gate leading to the Forest of Magic (which is inaccessible right now, due to an overturned cart).



Uh huh sure Rumia, I bet you only have two Puppets like everyone -


Battle against Puppet Liberation Front Admin

:stonk:
Uhh, well right. Rumia was the stage 1 boss in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, and has the ability to manipulate darkness. Rumia is often easy to spot, because she usually covers herself in a sphere of darkness as she moves about, because she dislikes light and heat. However, she can't actually see out of her own darkness, so its not uncommon for her to run into trees, or other objects while she does this. As a result, Rumia is usually portrayed as being very simple-minded and stupid. However, Rumia is also one of the few characters to make mention of the fact she really does like to eat humans, and finds them quite tasty. Despite what it might look like, that 'ribbon' in Rumia's hair is in fact, an ofunda that she can neither touch or remove.
In fandom, this ofunda has been used as the idea that Rumia is actually a very powerful youkai, but the ofunda keeps her true form and power sealed away. Removing the ofuna will cause her true form to be revealed as Ex-Rumia, often depicted as a mature Rumia, usually wielding a sword made of pure darkness.

Like the normal theme against the Front, this song is also from Fairy Wars, but this one is a remix of the final boss theme from that game.
Rumia uses a Puppet of the entire Front, all at level 10, except for her last Puppet which is a level 13 Rumia. She also starts the battle with her Cirno, and I did manage to showcase what makes Cirno easily the most dangerous Puppet in the Front.


Stop is, basically, Frozen. Rumia's Cirno also hits really hard and is really fast, enabling her to go before you almost all the time. Still, I managed to win, even if I foolishly wasted my Hakurei Shinshu, because I was down to my last Puppet and didn't think Persona could take out Rumia on her own. Oops.



Rumia: Uuuh... What was I supposed to do now...?
Rumia: That's right! I've gotta report first!
Rumia: I'll let you off with this today! Remember that~!
I'm not going to lie, even though I knew this fight was coming, it still nearly wiped the floor with me. I probably need to start investing PP into increasing stats, instead of saving them up.


Akyuu: I heard the Liberation Front had appeared in the village, but... Selfi, did you really beat them?
Akyuu: That's amazing!! As I thought, you have a gift for using Puppets.
Akyuu: How about it? How about looking into the Puppets yourself, Selfi?
I'm just gonna pick Yes, because I don't really want to fight Rumia again to see what Akyuu says if we say no.
Akyuu: I think that's a great idea! I'd look into it myself, but I just don't have the time.
Akyuu: ...And on that note, I'd like to entrust you with this.


The Puppet Book is our Pokedex. So now we really gotta catch 'em all and fill it up! :toot:


Akyuu: The shopkeeper gathers many useful items and if you ask him, he may have something for your journey.
Akyuu: Head due west from the Human Village and you'll see the Forest of Magic. Kourindou is right before it.
Akyuu: Be careful on your way.

With the whole thing with the Liberation Front sorted out, the overturned cart at the southwest gate is now out of the way, so we can actually leave to new lands! New Puppets! New -

MYSTERIOUS THEME (A Remix of Maiden's Cappricio ~ Dream Battle from Touhou 8)


???: Frankly, it's a pain having a normal person wandering around aimlessly!
???: Just so you know, I'm a specialist at incident resolution. Haven't you heard of me? Reimu Hakurei. That's me.

Reimu: I'll beat you down, so bring it on.


Battle! Reimu
:stonk:
Reimu Hakurei is, arguably, the main character of the Touhou series. As the Hakurei Shrine Maiden, she is responsible for resolving incidents that crop up in Gensokyo, and keeping the peace between humans and youkai. Reimu's ability is "the power to float", which sounds pretty pitiful right? Well Reimu's ability to "float" is several steps beyond the average, enabling her to teleport short distances, or in its most powerful use, allow her to "float" beyond reality leaving her completely invulnerable to just about anyone. That particular ability is known as "Fantasy Nature" and is Reimu's most powerful spellcard, in addition, its also a shout out/homage to Fist of the North Star as the phrase is homophonous with Musou Tensei. In fact, activating that particular spellcard in Touhou Hisoutensoku (one of the fighters) in the third round, will cause a remix of "Eastern Mystical Love Consultation" that sounds a lot like "Ai wo Torimodose" from Fist of the North Star.

While Reimu has less Puppets then Rumia, having only an Aya, Suika and Reimu, she is significantly harder. Her Reimu Puppet, if you're using mostly Puppets from Route 1, will easily mop the floor with most of them as has learned "Metal Needle", a steel-type move that is super effective against Nature and Wind - which are what Chen and Daiyousei happen to be. That, and her Reimu is level 14 and is pretty strong. Puppet Reimu has the Void/Illusion typing, which only leaves her vulnerable to Sound, while giving her resistances to Light and Fighting, and grants her immunity to Void-type attacks. This is as far as I have played the game, so I was expecting this fight, and still barely managed to beat her.


Reimu: But don't let it get to your head. If you get into a pinch, no one'll save you, no matter how much you cry. That's how this place is.
Reimu: For now, could I ask you to stay out of my way? Otherwise you can do whatever you want. ...Then I'll be going.

Well, I'm gonna heal up and now time to make our way to Kourindou on Route 5!

Ashsaber
Oct 24, 2010

Deploying Swordbreakers!
College Slice
The Wriggle kick came about partly because of how some game mechanics worked in IN, namely you go to the top of the screen to collect all the stuff on screen, and Wriggle enters the stage pretty much unannounced after a big wave of enemies, so you go to the top to grab them and Wriggle slide casually into the screen to do contact damage before the midboss fight.

krisslanza
May 6, 2011

Ashsaber posted:

The Wriggle kick came about partly because of how some game mechanics worked in IN, namely you go to the top of the screen to collect all the stuff on screen, and Wriggle enters the stage pretty much unannounced after a big wave of enemies, so you go to the top to grab them and Wriggle slide casually into the screen to do contact damage before the midboss fight.

You know, that actually makes a ton of sense.
But I'm fairly sure its also still a homage to Kamen Rider, if only because, like any Japanese developer, ZUN does love shout outs.
That's a pretty good mechanic reason for the Wriggle Kick though.

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.
The leader of the Puppet Liberation Front should be obvious by now. Anyway, I was expecting you to have a screenshot of the Puppetdex. There's a stat there that's sort of relevant to what I wanted to say. Oh well.

In other news, I find it odd that you spend most of your time explaining who characters are and completely skim over revamping your entire party. Like, not even a stat page screenshot for the new girls. What Type is Akyu? The masses want to know, maybe.

krisslanza
May 6, 2011

Clarste posted:

The leader of the Puppet Liberation Front should be obvious by now. Anyway, I was expecting you to have a screenshot of the Puppetdex. There's a stat there that's sort of relevant to what I wanted to say. Oh well.

In other news, I find it odd that you spend most of your time explaining who characters are and completely skim over revamping your entire party. Like, not even a stat page screenshot for the new girls. What Type is Akyu? The masses want to know, maybe.

Oh. Right. That's a good point, I knew I forgot to do something on that last update. And the thing is, I even took screenshots of those things, then completely forgot to upload them. I'm not good at this. :ohdear:
I've gone ahead since the last update, but here is where the Touhoudex would've been back then... I could show off the party, though it's going to be a sliiightly different party set-up. I'll remember to include some info on the actual Puppets, instead of just infodumping about the character in the next update.










Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.
Anyway, what I wanted to point out is the Cost stat. In many ways it's just Weight from Pokemon, in that it interacts with a few specific moves, but it's also generally important to everything you do. Cost ranges from 80 to 130, and loosely corresponds to how powerful the character is in canon. Like, Yukari is 130 while people who can barely fight are 80. This also roughly corresponds to what stage you fight them in the shooting games, but there are plenty of exceptions.

Anyway, the main point of this is that characters with higher cost simply have better stats. Someone with 110 cost like Mokou will, at the same level, always be significantly stronger than someone like Daiyousei at 80. Yet weaker than powerhouses at 130. However, to balance this out, characters with low cost will level up way faster. To put that in perspective, an 80 cost puppet receiving half XP from the back row will level up faster than a 130 cost character who participates in every single battle. I've played this game plenty of times, often with gimmick teams, and I actually found an all-fairy team of 80 cost characters significantly easier than stacking my team with the "best" characters, because they end up 30 levels ahead by the end.

So that's why Mokou feels so much stronger than Koakuma at level 5.

Clarste fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Apr 16, 2017

krisslanza
May 6, 2011

Clarste posted:

Anyway, what I wanted to point out is the Cost stat. In many ways it's just Weight from Pokemon, in that it interacts with a few specific moves, but it's also generally important to everything you do. Cost ranges from 80 to 130, and loosely corresponds to how powerful the character is in canon. Like, Yukari is 130 while people who can barely fight are 80. This also roughly corresponds to what stage you fight them in the shooting games, but there are plenty of exceptions.

Anyway, the main point of this is that characters with higher cost simply have better stats. Someone with 110 cost like Mokou will, at the same level, always be significantly stronger than someone like Daiyousei at 80. Yet weaker than powerhouses at 130. However, to balance this out, character with low cost will level up way faster. To put that in perspective, an 80 cost puppet receiving half XP from the back row will level up faster than a 130 cost character who participates in every single battle. I've played this game plenty of times, often with gimmick teams, and I actually found an all-fairy team of 80 cost characters significantly easier than stacking my team with the "best characters", because they end up 30 levels ahead by the end.

So that's why Mokou feels so much stronger than Koakuma at level 5.

Aaah so that's what that Cost meant. I never heard of Weight in Pokemon, but the last one I actually really played was... X or Y, I think. The PokeFrance one.
That also does explain why when checking their stats at 50, some of these Cost 80 Touhous even with an S rank in their stat, had lower stats then Mokou did. The leveling curve thing is interesting though, and that being 'easier' makes some sense to me, if only because when I typically play Pokemon, I rely so heavily on my starter, that it usually ends up being in the 90's, if not 99, by the time I hit the E4 which makes the game a breeze from being massively overleveled.

I am trying to avoid overleveling in TPDP to keep the fights interesting though. I'm still surprised how badly Reimu thrashed me in that last update, even fully expecting the fight.

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

krisslanza posted:

Aaah so that's what that Cost meant. I never heard of Weight in Pokemon, but the last one I actually really played was... X or Y, I think. The PokeFrance one.
That also does explain why when checking their stats at 50, some of these Cost 80 Touhous even with an S rank in their stat, had lower stats then Mokou did. The leveling curve thing is interesting though, and that being 'easier' makes some sense to me, if only because when I typically play Pokemon, I rely so heavily on my starter, that it usually ends up being in the 90's, if not 99, by the time I hit the E4 which makes the game a breeze from being massively overleveled.

I am trying to avoid overleveling in TPDP to keep the fights interesting though. I'm still surprised how badly Reimu thrashed me in that last update, even fully expecting the fight.

Weight's always just been a meaningless stat in the Pokedex since the first game, but there are a couple of moves in Pokemon that interact with it (deal more damage with higher weight, etc). Cost is way more important in this game.

Like Clockwork
Feb 17, 2012

It's only the Final Battle once all the players are ready.

Yeah, from the explanation cost seems to be more analogous to base stats, although in a more simplified way. A pseudolegendary is going to be stronger than early game trash mons by default, after all.

Falconer
Dec 7, 2003

Did you know, I was THE MOON once!

Yes! You see, one night it turned out the moon had been STOLEN!

The animal people asked ME to take its place as I am so WISE and BRILLIANT!!
Something else that is nice is that on the info screen you can see at a glance what type(s) a puppet has even if you're looking at the stat or skill pages. Like, Kokoro's background has a pink half and an orange half so you know she's void/fighting while both of Chen's halves are light green so you know she's mono-wind.

Chilblain
Oct 20, 2012

"You used some rude language towards me."
For that reason alone, I'll drop you into hell.
A little thing to note is that in Puppet Dance Performance, a puppet's BST value isn't nearly as important as it is in Pokemon: TPDP is very much a game about beating up everybody else's favourites with your favourites, after all, and if some puppets could run roughshod over everyone else at the same level you'd have endless complaints about it. Instead, what tends to happen is that lower BST/Cost puppets will generally have very specialized stats and skill lists that make them excellent for a few things while higher BST/Cost puppets will be much more generalized and have the skills to show for that. FocasLens put a lot of effort into balancing the game and it shows, there's not really much of anything that could be classed as a "pseudolegendary" in the same vein as the Pokemon games.

krisslanza
May 6, 2011

Falconer posted:

Something else that is nice is that on the info screen you can see at a glance what type(s) a puppet has even if you're looking at the stat or skill pages. Like, Kokoro's background has a pink half and an orange half so you know she's void/fighting while both of Chen's halves are light green so you know she's mono-wind.

I never noticed this until you pointed it out.
I really need to start learning the type chart, I keep referencing the wiki since its hard to break myself into it since I'm so used to Pokemon typing.

Chilblain posted:

A little thing to note is that in Puppet Dance Performance, a puppet's BST value isn't nearly as important as it is in Pokemon: TPDP is very much a game about beating up everybody else's favourites with your favourites, after all, and if some puppets could run roughshod over everyone else at the same level you'd have endless complaints about it. Instead, what tends to happen is that lower BST/Cost puppets will generally have very specialized stats and skill lists that make them excellent for a few things while higher BST/Cost puppets will be much more generalized and have the skills to show for that. FocasLens put a lot of effort into balancing the game and it shows, there's not really much of anything that could be classed as a "pseudolegendary" in the same vein as the Pokemon games.

Yeah I'm noticing that. I mean, even with Rumia or Reimu thrashing me, I never felt like it was the game's fault or anything. I just messed up and made some poor choices.

Also how has the text to image ratio been? I've been trying to keep it... reasonable. Though I keep forgetting to screencap some of the more important things, and just keep infodumping non-game things.

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

krisslanza posted:

I never noticed this until you pointed it out.
I really need to start learning the type chart, I keep referencing the wiki since its hard to break myself into it since I'm so used to Pokemon typing.

You should probably just post a picture of the type chart here too, honestly.

krisslanza
May 6, 2011
Well with Reimu out of the way, time to start our trip down Route 5, to find Kourindou, which should be just outside the Forest of Magic. On the way there, we do run into a new type of Puppet User though, who is also using a new Puppet we haven't seen!



Yes, that is a Puppet riding on a missile. Ruukoto herself is a character from the PC-98 era, who appears to be a nuclear-powered maid that Reimu gets. The missile is called Mimi-chan, I think, but I'm not entirely sure on the backstory about all of that. There aren't any Ruukotos for us to catch on Route 5 though, so we'll leave that mystery for another day.

Further down the road, we spot a unique sprite, so I naturally go to talk to them. Which just gets me into a fight with Sekibanki.




Sekibanki first made her appearance in Double Dealing Character as the Stage 2 boss. For a while, fans assumed she was a Dullahan due to the fact she does have a detached head that can float around. But she is instead a rokurokubi, specifically a nukekubi variety. Sekibanki lives undercover in the village, as a youkai amongst humans. She doesn't use much of anything special, so I just thrash her and move on.



:gonk:
Despite saying we look hungry, she doesn't actually fight us. On the other side of the bridge, there is a Prismatic Candy, which serves as the Rare Candy of this game, allowing you to boost a Puppet's level by 1. I'm not sure I'll ever use this, because this ends up being like an Elixir in Final Fantasy to me. What if I really wanted it later?



Another new trainer type. She offers us mochi for beating her, but we don't take it for some reason. :(



Another new trainer type! None of these guys had anything worth showing though, so I only screencapped their artwork. However, past the Old Man, there's another unique sprite... and much like Sekibanki, speaking to her gets us into a fight with them as well.





Tokiko is much like Koakuma or Daiyousei, in she's an unnamed side character. But unlike those two, her only appearance was in the printed work Curiosities of Lotus Asia and in Forbidden Scrollery. Not too much is known about her as a character, beyond the fact she seems to like reading books. Her only claim to fame in that printed work, is she runs into Reimu, who beats her up and takes all her books, then sells them to Rinnosuke at the Kourindou. Then when she arrives there, Marisa beats her up as well. Life is suffering. :gonk:
Before we go to the Kourindou, there is a "hidden" item near Tokiko.



The Plain Doll is just an item to let you flee from any Wild Puppet encounter at 100% success. Which means I'll probably never use it.



Rinnosuke: ...Oh, you're that kid the rumors in the newspaper were going on about. Did you come to get something you needed?
Rinnosuke: ...Aah. So you started traveling around to investigate the Puppets. Sounds pretty rough.
Rinnosuke: I know! I'll let you have this cutting edge bicycle! I'm sure it'll come in handy on your adventure.
And it won't cost us 1,000,000 Yen!?
Rinnosuke: ...Well, if you'll do me a little favor, that is.
We never get a free bicycle with no strings attached, do we? :colbert:
Rinnosuke: There's a girl named Alice in the forest up ahead. I want you to take a package to her. Should take about as much time as it'll take for me to tune up the bicycle. Should be a decent time killer.
Rinnosuke: Also... Alice is the best person to talk to when it comes to Puppets. So this is a really good deal for you all around.



Rinnosuke Morichika is one of the, if not the, most unique Touhou character in the series!
Because he's the first named, semi-important male character in the entire series. There is one other, the Fortuneteller, but his only claim to fame is that Reimu actually murders him for trying to turn into a youkai. Rinnosuke made his first appearance in the Curiousities of Lotus Asia, and he is the owner of the Kourindou, a shop that specializes in selling a lot of random junk he manages to find. He has the ability to "know the name and utility" of items, but it doesn't give him the understanding or the knowledge of how to use it. This has caused him to mistaken a Game Boy as a 'doomsday device'. The biggest claim to fame Rinnosuke has, most likely, is he is the one who created Marisa's mini-hakkero that she uses for her magic, and her Master Spark. He does seem to have a pretty high level of knowledge of magic, and crafting, as he was then able to further improve her mini-hakkero by refining it with Hihiirokane.

Anyway, with the package, we can now head to the Forest of Magic which is just to the west outside the shop. We couldn't go there right away, as the cart driver from the village has somehow flipped his cart over again, but he's cleared out by the time we talk to Rinnosuke.



The Forest of Magic has some new Puppets in it, which I'll showcase at the end of this update, because I've already done all this and forgot to screencap every new Puppet as I ran into it. Sorry. :ohdear: The Forest does have one new trainer type in it though.



As you might expect, they use Fairies. Which means Mokou can burn most of them to a crisp without a problem. I did some wandering around the Forest, and actually stumbled onto Alice's house, so I may have missed some things in the process, but probably nothing too important.




Alice: ...Something for me?
Alice: It's finally here! I was waiting for this! Thanks. You really saved me.
Alice: ...Eh? About Puppets? Oh, right. You're that child from that article in the newspaper. Hmm... So your name's Selfi.
Alice: Unfortunately, I don't have very much information on them myself. Sorry I couldn't be more help.
B-but your entire thing is dolls, which are basically Puppets! How do you not know anything!?
Before sending us on our way, Alice does invite us to stay over and rest, so we can get a full heal before making our way out of the Forest.



Alice: There's a witch in the library of a place called the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She may be involved. How about paying her a visit?
Alice: There're vampires there too, so make sure you don't get eaten.

Well, Alice insists she doesn't know anything, and we can't interrogate her further, so I guess that's our only lead. At the least, we should get a free, sweet bike from Rinnosuke now!



We didn't take that long a break at Alice's, did we? Jerk.

Rinnosuke: ...Hm? The Scarlet Devil Mansion? I see. You heard about it from Alice.
Rinnosuke: However, to get there you'll need something to cut down the trees in your way...
But we haven't got HM01 yet! Or our first League Badge! :gonk:
Rinnosuke: I had a way to deal with them before, but I sold it to the youkai at Eientei.
RInnosuke: They should be done with it soon, so why don't you ask them about lending it to you?
Rinnosuke: If you're going to Eientei, ask the half-youkai teacher in the village. She should know about its surroundings. Well, good luck with your adventure. I'll be rooting for you.

Oh. Huh. Seems we get Items to get past things instead in this game. I have heard this is a thing that exists in the newer Pokemon games, but I haven't played those, so I was still expecting some kind of HM-esque thing, honestly. So it seems instead of going right to the Scarlet Devil Mansion, we have to detour to Eientei to get a way past trees first. But! Until we do that, it has been brought to my attention, I have neglected to actually show off Puppets. So! Here's my party of Puppets, and everything new I've caught!








There's a few other Puppets on Route 5...





There are four new Puppets in the Forest of Magic as well!






And lastly for this infodump, their respective Puppet Book entries and Cost.












Phew. Ooooone last thing, actually, because the typing in TPDP is different from Pokemon.

Clarste posted:

You should probably just post a picture of the type chart here too, honestly.

[img]https://lpix.org/2771876/CropperCapture[105].jpg[/img]

There! Sorry about how kind of... ramshackle this update is. I had actually played all of this last night, due to the old, "Weeelll... maybe just a little more playing won't hurt..." and kind of didn't screencap as much as I should've. I'll go ahead and in the next update, as we return to the Village to learn about Eientei, to more properly introduce new Puppets as I get them, instead of just dumping them all at the end.

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.
"Void" is a bit of a mistranslation that bugs me a bit about this patch. I'd say the intent is much closer to "Null Type" or "Typeless". It's basically Normal, which you can also see in the type chart. Steel also has a slightly different connotation than it does in Pokemon, since it basically means "uses swords".

Chilblain
Oct 20, 2012

"You used some rude language towards me."
For that reason alone, I'll drop you into hell.

Clarste posted:

"Void" is a bit of a mistranslation that bugs me a bit about this patch. I'd say the intent is much closer to "Null Type" or "Typeless". It's basically Normal, which you can also see in the type chart. Steel also has a slightly different connotation than it does in Pokemon, since it basically means "uses swords".

I wouldn't quite 100% agree regarding steel, there are puppets that are Steel type that don't necessarily use swords (like Nazrin, Patchouli, Yuugi, and Rika) and not every Steel-type attack involves swords (Full Metal Crash, for example). It does tend to correlate with puppets of characters that tend to use man-made tools or other such technology, though.

krisslanza
May 6, 2011
Oops, forgot to update :haw:

So anyway, before we return to the Human Village and ask Keine about Eientei, its worth showing off Rinnosuke's wares which seem to all be a bunch of special Hold items.





He has quite a few. I didn't screenshot it, because I forgot, but most of these items only show up after you deliver the package to Alice. Specifically, all the really expensive ones. Anyway, let's ride our sweet new bike to the Village!



Beyond the trees near the Kourindou, you may notice some unusual blue grass. I'm not sure when we'll mess with it, but from what I see, blue grass has its own encounter tables so there's still Puppets to get on this route... later. There isn't anyway to reach those patches of grass yet as far as I can find. The bike seems to move about as fast, maybe faster, then our normal running speed but you don't have to hold down the run button anymore. Although, pressing the run button will make you move slowly on your bike if you have any reason to do so.



Well sounds like we have something to go find out! Only this one student says anything different. All the other students just say the same things, so I guess they don't pay attention very well. Or Keine has headbutted all their brains into mush by this point, who knows.



Akyuu: Oh, Selfi. You're back.
Akyuu: I know! How about we ask Selfi? This person may be willing to help.



Keine: Getting to the point, I'd like to talk with you for a bit. It seems something troubling is occurring at Eientei right now.
I guess it won't be as simple as just walking up and asking to borrow their tree cutting tool then... :sigh:
Keine: Originally they asked me to help, but I think it's a little over my head...
Keine: I'm well aware of how selfish a request this is, but could you please go to Eientei and resolve this issue?
Akyuu: What do you say? By resolving a small matter like this, I think it's a natural first step toward resolving the incident. Won't you accept?

Eh, sure why not. I mean, we're already heading that way, and I'm sure we'll have to help them out to borrow their tree cutting tool. Besides, we're the protagonist! Everyone's problems become our problem. :v:



Akyuu: Follow the path south of the village and you'll see the Bamboo Forest. Eientei is inside.
Akyuu: If you tell the gatekeeper south of the village that you have my permission, he should let let you through. Give it your all.
I think you're using one too many 'let' there, Akyuu. Unlike the western or eastern gates, there is a gatekeeper at the southern one. Trying to go there earlier at any point, will cause him to warn you about dangerous youkai, and prevent you from leaving. Before we leave, let's see if Keine can't tell us a little more about what's going on...



Ever get the feeling this Liberation Front is going to be our Team Rocket, huh? Well I guess we'll just beat them up again, no problem. Let's get going, while Akyuu makes it sound like the Bamboo Forest of the Lost isn't too far, its at least two routes away, which means we have a lot of ground to cover, AND a lot of new Puppets to add to our collection! :eng101:


Lunate Elf

It occurred to me, I haven't really been showcasing much of the music beyond the trainer battles, my apologies. Route 3 and 4 share the same track, Lunate Elf, which is the Stage 2 track from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. A bit odd, given we're heading towards Eientei as the Misty Lake and Scarlet Devil Mansion are to the north. But now it's time to capture all the new Puppets on this route! Behold!



Oh that's right, something I have forgotten to point out is, Seal Threads are not 100% success! They can fail to be applied. They're still a lot better then Pokeballs regardless though, as I've only had a Seal Thread fail to apply like... three times in the run so far.




Kotohime was a playable character in the PC-98 Touhou title, Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream. She is, apparently, a princess but also styles herself as a police officer. If you play as her, and win, in her ending she ends up locking Reimu in a jail cell. For reasons. :shrug:
I haven't seen much of her, but her design is actually kind of cute. Her Void-typing also means she isn't weak against anything, although she also isn't going to be super effective against anything while still getting a STAB.





Yatsuhashi Tsukomo is a Stage 4 Boss from Double Dealing Character, and is a tsukumogami - basically, a formerly normal object that has turned into a living creature on its 100th anniversary. The behavior of a tsukumogami depends on how it was treated in life, and its stated that modern electrical objects cannot become a tsukumogami. Yatsuhashi used to be a koto instrument, who was given life when Sukuna's Miracle Mallet was used during Seija's attempted rebellion.





Kyouko Kasodani is the stage 2 midboss, and boss, of Ten Desires. She's a yamabiko, with the ability to reflect sound. She used to live in the outside world, but when people realized that mountain echoes weren't caused by yamabikos, she eventually moves to Gensokyo. Kyouko eventually ends up joining the Myouren Temple as as priest-in-training, but due to being bored she forms a punk rock band with Mystia, named Choujuu Gigaku - Byakuren isn't too amused with this, by the way.
Also no, that's totally not a joke. See?







Benben Tsukomo is also the stage 4 boss of Double Dealing Character, and is considered Yatsuhashi's "sister", due to both being born at the same time. In the game, which one you fight depends on which shot type you select for your protagonist. Unlike Yatsuhashi, Benben is a biwa instrument instead of a koto.





Before I talk about Nue, you may notice in the first screenshot that my Seal wore off. That happens as well. I think the Sealed state tends to last about 2 or 3 turns? So don't think you can just throw a Seal Thread at the start of the battle and have all day to finish the fight. Nue Honjuu is, well, a nue. She showed up in stage 4 and 6 of Unidentified Fantastic Object, but her true form wasn't shown until her appearance as the Extra stage boss. As a Nue, she has the ability to make objects unidentifiable, in the course of UFO this caused the fragments of the Flying Vault to appear as, well, little UFOs to the player character.

Her ability basically makes it so you can't percieve the true form of any object, and so instead, your brain fills in the blank spot with something else instead. As a Nue is a very rare youkai species, its possible she may be the last (or only) of her kind.

That's the last Puppet to capture on Route 3. Nue is the rarest one, with only a 5% encounter rate.




Touch fluffy tail :wiggle:
Sadly, despite her making the offer, we don't actually get to touch her fluffy tail.



Route 4 is the next leg of our trip towards Eientei, which is still hidden within the Bamboo Forest of the Lost... but a new Route also means we have even MORE Puppets to capture before I'm going to make my way to Eientei.





Seija Kijin is a old character as the Stage 5 Boss of Double Dealing Character and wasn't behind the main plot of the game. Seija is not an amanojaku with the ability to turn over anything.
If you didn't get the gimmick, Seija's power is also how she acts - she means the opposite of whatever she says. During Double Dealing Character, she attempted to start a rebellion in Gensokyo and cause the weak to rule over the strong, but was foiled by the protagonist. I didn't screencap it in my first run in with a Seija Puppet, but she has an attack called Booing which causes you to switch to your reserve Puppet - but in wild battles, this seems to just make you run away instantly. So capturing her can be kind of a pain if she opens up with Booing, or uses it at anytime. She's also the rarest Puppet on Route 4, but its a generous 10% encounter compared to the usual 5%.





Mamizou Futatsuiwa first appeared as the Extra boss of Ten Desires, called in by her friend Nue from the island of Sado in the Outside World, in order to serve as a kind of 'trump card' against the newly arrived Taoists who don't particularly like the Myouren Temple. She is a bake-danuki, otherwise known as a tanuki, and has the ability to disguise things. While her ability is similar to Honjuu's, it's different in the way it works. Nue's ability hides the appearance of something, and how it appears to others depends on the individual viewer, where as Mamizou's gets to disguise things as she wants them to appear. She also happens to be the highest Cost Puppet we've found so far!





Elly is a PC-98 character and is the stage 3 boss of Lotus Land Story. She serves as the gatekeeper of the Mugenkan. Not a lot else to say about her, since like all PC-98 characters, her canon status is up in the air. Particularly as the owner of the Mugenkan was Yuuka, but in Lotus Land Story Yuuka seemed to live in some kind of dream world, compared to the powerful flower youkai she is now in the actual series. Elly does have a cool scythe though, and a nice hat.





Kurumi is yet another PC-98 character, also from Lotus Land Story. She serves as the guardian of the Lake of Blood, which leads to the Mugenkan. Supposedly in Lotus Land Story, no one has defeated Kurumi until Reimu or Marisa shows up, and Elly blames her lack of strength on the fact she's been out of practice for so long, suggesting Kurumi has defeated all trespassers up to that point. Kurumi also happens to be a vampire.

That's all the new Puppets on Route 4. You can find Mystia here again, if you didn't capture one earlier, or you were wanting to capture her at a higher level.
Route 4 is a lot longer then Route 3, and has a decent number of trainers in the way. In fact, we can find another named character along the way... you can bypass her by going around the long way (which also nets you a Burn Charm), but why not get the Charm AND fight her? :eng101:





She also uses a Sekibanki and a Kagerou, naturally. Waggy is the only new Puppet we haven't seen yet.



Kagerou Imaizumi is a werewolf, specifically a were-Honshu wolf, a type of wolf that is extinct in the Outside World. Like Keine, she transforms on the night of a full moon, but she turns into an actual werewolf and a result, dislikes meeting anyone on this nights. Because she hates being hairy like that.

It doesn't come across in the screenshots, but there isn't any free healing I've found on Route 3 or 4 yet, so you're missing a lot of my bike trips all the way back to the Human Village to heal up. It isn't too bad, honestly, but I guess its my punishment for relying too much on Mokou.
Of course, after I say this, past Kagerou is a Maid to fight, who helpfully points out there's a Rest House right nearby.




Of note, the Peddler here sells some new things. Besides the second tier of Sealing Thread, which I would assume has a higher chance to work and perhaps lasts longer, he also sells Skill Cards. Skill Cards are the TMs of this game, but function more HMs in that they are not consumed when used. You still need PP to learn the move off a Skill Card. Just to the east of this Resting House is the Bamboo Forest of the Lost... Eientei lies somewhere within... but that'll be next time, as I think this update has gone on quite a bit.

I think I'll try to use Mokou less and level up some other Puppets, otherwise we're just going to see me starting to oneshot everything I run into when I massively overlevel her or something.


Bamboo Forest of the Lost
Remix of the Bamboo Forest of the Full Moon from TH14!

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Vauron
Aug 7, 2016

Take your stance
I will give you one fair chance
So let's make this dance a bloody masquerade
What, not gonna visit the Myouren Temple? Sure, you don't have a reason to yet, but the trainers on the path have levels appropriate to the current time. Additionally, the encounter table in the temple is roughly the same level as Route 3.

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