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 Gensou Ningyou Enbu (幻想人形演舞, lit. "Fantasy Puppet Dance Performance"), also known unofficially as Touhou Puppet Dance Performance, is a spiritual successor to the Pokémon FireRed hack Touhou Puppet Play, involving training and collecting puppets of various Touhou characters. The game was released at Comiket 87 on December 30th. The developer of the game is doujin circle FocasLens, which consists of HemoglobinA1C, the original developer of the Touhou Puppet Play ROM Hacks. Touhou Puppet Dance Performance, unlike the Touhou Puppet Play ROM Hacks, is an entirely stand alone game, built with its own engine and mechanics, which draw heavy inspiration from the 6th Generation of the Pokemon franchise. The game puts the player in the sealed realm of Gensokyo, where they travel around trying to figure out how to get home and, in the process, deal with an incident of these newfound Puppets which showed up in Gensokyo out of the blue. Now, it's worth mentioning that at Comiket 89, there was an expansion to this game called "Yume no Kakera" (Shard of Dreams), which is more of a redesign of the original game with new concepts and a redesigned gameflow. However, as of the time of this LP, the translation for that game only covers the menus and the essentials, with none of the storyline or anything like that done quite yet. And I'm kind of a sucker for all that, so I'll be playing the original game. Maybe when Shard of Dreams is done, I might LP that too, who knows  I'm also going into this game mostly blind, so the spoilers policy is going to be no spoilers. I'm not expecting this to have some kind of amazing storyline, but who knows! - - - Update 1 - Picking a Starter Update 2 - Selfi's Adventure begins with Mokou! Update 3 - Human Village Update 3.1 - Puppet Book! Update 4 - Onward to Kourindou Update 5 - Making Our Way to Eientei krisslanza fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Apr 19, 2017 |
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Apr 13, 2017 23:16
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 ... ???: Hey, could you wake up? ... ???: Shall we chat for a bit?  ???: Me? I am Yukari Yakumo. Nice to meet you, I suppose?  Yukari: Gensokyo is said to be the place things go when they are forgotten. A world where things that cannot continue to exist. Youkai and the like... Yukari: My, your face betrays your interest. Hehehe. I have some interest in you as well. Yukari: While we're here, might I ask a few things? First, could you tell me your gender?  For the purposes of this LP, we'll be playing a girl. Since, as we know, all the important people (and youkai) in Gensokyo are also girls, so we have to fit in! We're important now too!  Characters are limited to 10 characters, for now I'll pick a name, but feel free to suggest another one.  Yukari: ... What am I doing, asking you these things? Yukari: Don't they say it's better to be safe than sorry? Yukari: These are important parts of you. You must keep a close eye on them, you know?  Yukari: My, seems the time has come. Yukari: That concept called time always comes too quickly.    Judging by the fact we were just on a bus, and the modern-looking road and sidewalk, we're not in Gensokyo right now. The next bus won't arrive for three hours, and attempting to leave to the right or left, will simply have our character remind us that we have business at the Hakurei Shrine today. So nothing to do but head right up the stairs.  Seems we're not the only people here today. According to "Perfect Memento in a Strict Sense", one of the supplementary materials for Touhou, the Hakurei Shrine is unique in that it exists along the border between Gensokyo and the real world, meaning it exists in both locations at the same time; but it technically doesn't reside in either. However, as some quick looking around will reveal...     The Hakurei Shrine in the outside world is completely rundown and on the verge of collapse. It's quite clear it hasn't been used for worship or anything in a long, long time.   Behind the smaller building in the shrine are Renko Usami and Maribel Hearn though! While part of the Touhou Project universe, these two live in a 'near' future where science dominates the Outside World. The material on them suggests they're even ahead of our modern day technology by quite a bit, as there are trips to the moon that people can purchase. However, it also seems in their future, the world's environment has been heavily damaged and they're working to sustain it - Maribel makes mention that strawberries no longer exist, besides artificially grown ones. Maribel has the unique ability to perceive boundaries, and seems capable of interacting with them to some limited extent. She has actually traveled to Gensokyo via her dreams several times, and has even moved backwards in time during these trips. Renko meanwhile, has the ability to tell the time by looking at the stars, and finding out her exact location by looking at the moon. The two of them are the only known members of the Secret Sealing Club at their university, where Renko is a 'super unified physics major' and Maribel is a 'Relative Psychology major'.  NPC: What's Gensokyo? It's another world. Another world! Seems in the setting of TPDP, Gensokyo is known of in the outside world! This is really reinforced by this very important NPC...  He then proceeds to ask us to pick our favorite Touhou. When this game came out, there was 118 Touhou characters, as this game also includes a few of the PC-98 characters. Does this man's question actually matter? It does, actually! Rather then presenting us with 3 starters like a Pokemon game, we're allowed to select any of the 118 Touhou Puppets as our starting Puppet! I have a few favorites, but I'll leave it up to the audience on the final call. I'll post the full list at the end of this update, along with a few of my favorites if you don't have your own. It's worth noting your starting Puppet in this game starts with either A or A+ in all their stats (in the expansion, they start with an S instead). So readers, what is our favorite Touhou? Also, as this game is fundamentally like a Pokemon game, you can also select a nickname so feel free to suggest one. This also happens to be a complete list of every single Puppet in the game, so if you also want to suggest nicknames for ones we'll catch, you can do that as well.                  Favorites for me would be... Yuuka, Yukari, Koakuma, Kasen, Tenshi, Yorihime, Meira, or Mokou... if you need some ideas. krisslanza fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Apr 13, 2017 |
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Apr 13, 2017 23:17
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Removing that spoiler tag because I'm dumb and forget spoiler tag doesn't work on this forum like some other ones. I'm dumb.
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Apr 13, 2017 23:48
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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.
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Apr 14, 2017 18:03
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 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.    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.  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! 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)
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Apr 14, 2017 18:35
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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.
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Apr 14, 2017 19:00
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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.
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Apr 14, 2017 19:14
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CommissarMega posted:What I want to know is when we're meeting and fighting Alice, since she's definitely behind all this 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.
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Apr 14, 2017 20:29
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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.
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Apr 15, 2017 14:58
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 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...  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!  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.   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  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!   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 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!
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Apr 15, 2017 21:09
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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.
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Apr 16, 2017 04:39
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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. 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.  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.          
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Apr 16, 2017 05:33
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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. 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.
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Apr 16, 2017 05:53
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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.
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Apr 16, 2017 15:39
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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.  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. 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? 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. 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! 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.
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Apr 16, 2017 22:38
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Oops, forgot to update 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...  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.   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!  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.  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  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?    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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Apr 19, 2017 18:50
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Vauron posted: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. I saw that fork in the road, but I wasn't aware I could actually go that way. Hmmmm, maybe I'll backtrack and go capture all THOSE Puppets then as well... I guess I just figured that like the Forest of Magic situation, you can't really go divert from the plot path quite yet.
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Apr 19, 2017 20:01
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Ardeem posted:I'm liking this LP so far, but the Nazrin puppet never got a writup. Thank you! And ah, did I? Well, I'll give a little write-up now, and also show off a little thing.  I also found out I can resize the game window, so I might keep this size, or mess with it a bit more. Anyway, from the Edit menu you can Change Abilities on almost all Puppets, as they tend to have two different Abilities they could've spawned with. A few Puppets seem to only have one though, but the vast majority have two. It costs 20PP to do the switch, and you can't even check the option until then. Now then, Nazrin is a mouse youkai from Unidentified Fantastic Object as the stage 1 boss. As her Puppet Book entry mentions, Nazrin is really good at finding objects as that is her ability! The process by which she does is this is basically just like actual dowsing, although Nazrin is also capable of commanding mice to aid in her search. She's a helper to Shou, and as a result, is apparently actually associated with the war god, Bishamonten, giving her a pretty large ego. Naturally, as a mouse, she really likes cheese and has a pretty big appetite, along with all her mice minions. Nazrin resides at Muenzuka, and only is at the Myouren Temple when she's requested to show up. EDIT: Something I remembered. Nazrin's theme is titled "A Tiny, Tiny, Clever Commander". There so happens to be a quest in World of Warcraft named "A Tiny Clever Commander", with the objective to slay a kobold leader named Nazrim. Senerio posted:There is a very very good puppet you can get there, imo. Taking a look at it, some nice Puppets I want there anyway. I already did an update today, but I might just do a second one today for all this Myouren Temple shenanigans! krisslanza fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Apr 19, 2017 |
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Apr 19, 2017 21:01
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Falconer posted:One of the shops in the Human Village opens up around the time you're assigned the quest to visit Eientei, a tailor shop that lets you change the appearance of a puppet. Most of the outfits have minor changes (Daiyousei's alternate outfit has frills and lace, kind of like one of the SDM fairy maids) but some offer a noticeable change in appearance (Yuuka goes from her PoFV look to her LLS Stage 5 look and her attack animations are changed as well). Oh so that Tailor is open now? I was thinking, on what I was hearing is in the expansion, it was maybe only opened in that one as you can get Bridal outfits there. I guess that answers the question if this game has shinies or not. Probably a good thing it doesn't. Not that I have ever actually seen a shiny Pokemon in all my playing of Pokemon, but...
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Apr 19, 2017 21:41
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Clarste posted:The Tailor opens up after you deliver Alice's package. It's implied that Alcie is the one making all the doll clothes. The alt. costumes were released in the first major patch after the game was released. That makes sense. I've taken a peek at the shop inbetween my attempts to do an update on all these new Puppets in the Myouren Temple. I probably won't tackle Eientei until tomorrow still though. You know, one thing I sorta dislike, is being able to see the IV rank things. If only because then it makes me go, "Darn, why doesn't this Puppet have better ranks..." I don't know enough about the meta to know how much the ranks really mean, but I guess it just turns into a kind of visual thing for me.
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Apr 19, 2017 21:59
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 Myouren Temple So before we go through Eientei, lets go back and take a detour! I would've done this on the way to the Bamboo Forest, but I wasn't aware the game would actually let me. But everything here is as tough as the Puppets, and trainers, you'll fight on the way anyway, so lets do it now. Besides, that means more Puppets to get!  Notably, Buddhists aren't meant to be drinking and eating meat, I guess, but youkai do all of that. They just really all join the Myouren Temple, because they all really like Byakuren. She isn't in though, so we can't meet her personally. I imagine she'll be here, when we're meant to actually come here in the story, but she's out doing... stuff right now I guess.  NA MU SAN! Short for "Namu Sanbou", or roughly "Hail to the three treasures of Buddhism". It's meant to be said in a time of danger, and Byakuren's final spell card has the words Namusan! on it, and she also says it in the dialogue against the heroines. Anyway, let's come here to do what we really wanted at the Temple - catch new Puppets! The Myouren Temple area actually has three areas within it, so we have quite a few to get. There's some grass on the path to the Cemetery, so let's see what we can find!     Captain Motherfuckin' Minamitsu Murasa was the stage four boss of Undefined Fantastic Object, she's a ghost who died in a shipwreck long ago. Due to her death at sea, Murasa has the ability to cause ships to capsize, and by extension, can also drown people by being by any body of water - she can drown you in a bath, or cause you to drown in the river you're sitting by. In spite of this rather scary power, she's a pretty friendly ghost and probably wouldn't do that. Even if she did, she'd have a nice chat with her victims after they die. For those who have played, or seen, anything of Kantai Collection, the light cruiser Kiso might seem to look an awful lot like Murasa... which is entirely on purpose, as the artist for Kiso used to consider Murasa their waifu. Also, she's supposed to be wearing a skirt. Her original artwork does make it look a lot like shorts, but some later artwork (and I think ZUN mentioning it) confirms Murasa wears a short skirt.     Shou Toramaru is a tiger youkai and the avatar for the war god Bishamonten. While she serves as a high-ranking priest and disciple for Byakuren, as the Temple worships Bishamonten, Shou is technically being worshipped by the person she serves. Toramaru's ability to gather treasures to her, is one of the reasons humans visit the temple, to hopefully benefit from the wealth that follows her around. Shou can use these precious gems with her Jeweled Pagoda to fire lasers to burn things away, or if she fires the lasers at the ground, she can create more gems! When UFO came out, Shou was rather infamous for her lasers having strange hitboxes, and being rather curvy, making her a bit infamous for these reasons. In fandom, Shou is often protrayed as being very klutzy, and constantly losing things due to the fact Nazrin is the one who found her Pagoda, and despite her ability, none of the treasures they were looking for were found by her.     Ichirin Kumoi was a human, who became a youkai through her use of the nyuudou Unzan, the cloud thing she's riding on. Her use of Unzan is her only actual ability, and much of her attacks involve using him to do things, instead of doing things herself. I'm not entirely sure what a nyuudou is, but according to her backstory, nyuudous seem to usually decapitate the heads of their victims... Ichirin avoided this fate, by shouting out "The foreseeing nyuudou was foreseen!" repelling him, and earning the respect of Unzan, who has followed and protected her ever since. Somewhat ironically, this bonded with Unzan led to Ichirin's transformation into a youkai, and being shunned by humans.     Byakuren Hijiri was a nun, alongside her brother Myouren Hijiri. However, when her brother died, her fear of death caused her to find a way to cheat her own death, and she turned to the black arts to preserve her life and youth. Realizing that this power would only work so long as youkai existed, she would act as a great exterminator, while also honoring and protecting them... however, she eventually did come to actually respect the youkai, and sought a way to have humans and youkai co-exist in peace. The members of the Myouren Temple (Murasa, Nazrin, Shou, and Ichirin) were all youkai she personally had met and befriended - however, her act of sparing Murasa, instead of exterminating her as she was meant too, was noticed by humans. Calling her a demon in human form, they sealed Byakuren away into the depths of Makai for what she had done. With her backstory, the western fandom has compared her to a saint, and some fans like to call her "Youkai Jesus" as a result. Interestingly, her brother Myouren Hijiri, is an actual real life priest born in the Shinano Province, which happens to be ZUN's hometown. Byakuren's ability, by the way, is her use of the black arts that keep her youthful appearance, specifically she specializes in "buffing" magic, and is able to use these powers to grant herself superhuman abilities - including being fast enough to actually outrun Reimu's Fantasy Seal. So basically, she's the Muscle Wizard and casts Fist  But phew, that's all the new Puppets in the Temple proper. The Cemetery has its own collection of Puppets to get still though!     Kogasa Tatara is a karakasa obake, who only wants to surprise people. She isn't very good at this though, despite her best attempts to surprise people. She used to be a normal umbrella in the outside world, but was forgotten about and abandoned, due to her color being unpopular and she was eventually swept into Gensokyo. Kogasa, interestingly, is a pretty developed character despite being originally just a stage 2 boss/midboss. She suffers from self-esteem issues, being unable to truly find her place in the world, and also seems to act depressed in order to gain attention from people. Her issues likely stem from her existence as a discarded and forgotten object in the outside world, as she simply wants to find a use for herself and be useful to others. Unrelated here, Kogasa is the author avatar of a popular series known as "Hang in there Kogasa-chan!", with Sanae filling in the spot of the author's wife. This is also a bit of a call to the fandom, where Sanae and Kogasa are actually a fairly popular pairing.     Of the new puppets in this area, Yuyuko Saigyouji is the first we've met that isn't actually from UFO! Yuyuko was the final boss of Perfect Cherry Blossom, who was responsible for stealing the spring from Gensokyo to try and make the Saigyou Ayakashi bloom. This cherry tree is actually a youkai, and when it used to bloom, it would lure people to rest under it, so it could drain out their life and kill them. Unknown to Yuyuko during the events of PCB, the corpse buried near the tree is actually her own, with her death having sealed the tree, so it can never bloom again and claim the lives of innocents. Yuyuko now reigns as the princess of Hakugyokurou after her death. As a ghost, and in life, Yuyuko has one of the more powerful abilities in the series, as she is able to manipulate death itself, enabling her to end the life of anyone she wanted - with the exception of the Hourai Immortals. This ability, in life, caused her a great deal of stress and sadness, which likely led to her choice to commit suicide under the Saigyou Ayakashi. In life, Yuyuko and Yukari were friends, and this friendship lasted through her death; this little tidbit has made the pairing one of the more popular options for Yukari. In fandom, Yuyuko is also usually seen as a massive glutton, able to eat enough food to even make Goku of DBZ jealous.     Youmu Konpaku is the gardener of Hakugyokurou and also serves as the bodyguard and fencing instructor to Yuyuko. She inherited the positions from her father, Youki, who retired for... some reason that is never actually brought up. While Youmu appears human, she is actually half-human and half-ghost, with her ghostly half being known as Myon in the fandom. The only ability she has, is her swordsmanship and she is quite proficient in this regard. She wields two blades, the katana Roukanken - forged by youkai and said to be able to slay ten phantoms in one slice - and the wakizashi Hakurouken, which is able to slice through people's confusion, and is an heirloom of the Konpaku family. Despite being half-phantom, Youmu is actually afraid of ghost stories, and ghosts themselves. She isn't afraid of phantoms though, as she is half-phantom and used to them. Only ghosts. While serving as the bodyguard of the princess of the underworld, surrounded by ghosts.     Mima is a PC-98 character, an evil spirit that was sealed at the Hakurei Shrine, but regularly breaks out of her seal. In the PC-98 canon, she also seems to have been Marisa's teacher, while still being a reoccurring boss in that continuity. Fans have, for the longest time, been hoping and waiting for Mima to reappear in the Windows canon, but to this day has yet to ever reappear. It has become a bit of a joke now, to say Mima is definitely going to appear in whatever the newest Touhou game is, only for her not too.  Yoshika is the last new Puppet in the Cemetery, and we also have to fight her here in order to reach the Cemetery Cave, as she's in the way. All she uses are Puppets of herself. I didn't screencap any of that... but I did eventually manage to find her Puppet form instead! Despite her being the 2nd most common encounter here, it took me a while to find her.     While technically a zombie, her actual classification would be a Jiang Shi, revived by Seiga as her guardian. Yoshika has the ability to 'eat anything', in her boss fight in Ten Desires, this allowed her to suck in spirits to recover her HP and keep fighting. Also as a Jiang Shi, anyone she bites will also turn into a Jiang Shi. The original design of Yoshika was too similar to another Jiang Shi, Lei-Lei from Darkstalkers, so he changed her into a zombie with a rotting brain, and thus was really stupid, instead. Now let's go delving into a cave in a cemetery to round out the last new Puppets we have to add to our collection! Then we should probably go get hopelessly lost in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost.     Oh and look, the first Puppet I found here is relevant to the last one I found outside! Seiga Kaku is a "wicked" hermit, who is the one who taught Taoism to Toyosatomimi no Miko. Seiga is one of the more 'evil' characters in the series, as everything she does is to further her own goals, with little regard to what happens to others as a result. She's so evil, that using her ability to pass through walls, she once went around stealing people's Christmas presents, so she could sell them back to the original owners! Despite the wording on her ability to "pass" through walls, she doesn't actually become intangible and move through them, instead she uses her hairpin to cut physical holes in walls and move through them. Some walls are more difficult for her to move through then others though. Interestingly, in life Seiga married into the Kaku family so we're not sure on what her original family name was... this also makes Seiga one of the few characters in Touhou to have been married. Although she faked her death to become a hermit, so she clearly didn't care too much for her husband.     Soga no Tojiko is a vengeful spirit with the ability to cause thunder. While that is a common ability for vengeful spirits, Tojiko is quite powerful for one, and is able to create the full effect of loud, booming thunder. In life, Soga attempted to become a shikaisen, using a jar to contain her spirit... however, Futo replaced this jar with an unfired one, which decayed quickly, instead causing Tojiko to become a vengeful spirit as a result. Speaking of Futo...     Mononobe no Futo is a shikaisen, a sort of hermit, and practices Taoism. She has the ability to manipulate feng shui, but not too much is known about what she can do with this power as it was only mentioned in a note in Symposium of Post-mysticism. While Tojiko attempted to store her soul in a jar, Futo has her stored within a plate she keeps. Interestingly, despite Futo being directly responsible for Tojiko's failed bid for immortality, the two of them are actually friends, even if they bicker with one another.     Toyosatomimi no Miko is the leader of the Taoists in Gensokyo, and stands in direct opposition to the Myouren Temple, and Byakuren herself. As a follower of Taoism, she is an enemy of all those who follow Buddhism, finding it to be a sham of a religion. Miko also seems to be have an interest in possibly becoming the leader of the Human Village, a move that many youkai fear for its possible disruption of the status quo. Interestingly, we know a lot about Miko's background - as her actual identity is that of Prince Shoutoku, which is what her ability is based upon. Miko has the ability to "listen to ten people's conversations at a time", based upon the fact that in life Prince Shoutoku was able to listen to ten people and respond to all of their requests perfectly. This is why Miko wears earmuffs, as her ears are quite sensitive. The fact Miko is an actual historical figure, we actually know her exact birthday - February 7, 574, meaning we also know her exact age of 1443! Interestingly, its possible the dynamic between the Taoists and Buddhists is a shout out to Hokuto no Ken, with Miko being Raoh and Byakuren being Toki. Also in a less, "Well, maybe..." thing, one of the newest Touhou publications - Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia - has Aya writing articles about various events in Gensokyo, using outside world news as inspiration or... something. One of Miko's speeches is prefaced with "Make Humanity Great Again" and Aya writes about things Miko would do... all in the stylings of Trump's speeches. Like making a giant wall around the Human Village to keep youkai out, and making the youkai pay for it...  In actuality though, the speech was just about the dangers of candy or something. And phew. That's it. Every single Puppet in the Myouren Temple! Also in the cave, you can actually find a sealed gate that, supposedly, leads to Sendai where Miko resides, but the gate is locked and unopenable. Maybe in the expansion? Next time, we'll finally actually go and do what we're meant to do! Also let me know what you think of the sizes of the screen. I found out I can resize it now. Also if you really want me to use some particular Puppets, do let me know!
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Apr 24, 2017 19:13
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Clarste posted:Use the Captain, obviously. Negative Aura is a nice skill for her too, since at least one of her evolutions (er... "Style Changes") is Nether type, so it negates a weakness to Dark. That plus Nether's innate immunity to Fighting makes her a really good switcher. In hindsight I'm not sure why I didn't nickname her Kiso. I guess because she's missing that eyepatch. I have to imagine I'm getting close-ish to the Style Changes by this point... Ardeem posted:I'd vote Mima, but then she'd never be the main character in this game either. Selfi already took that spot, alas. But at least Mima can appear in this game! The prophecy has come true! ... Sort of.
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Apr 25, 2017 08:02
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Clarste posted:That was explained incredibly poorly. The joke was that Miko gave an incredibly passionate speech about something boring that no one cared about. So to spice it up, Aya plagiarized an article about the outside world (ie: Trump) and changed a couple of words so it'd make more sense. So Miko has nothing to do with Trump, Aya was just trying to cash in on the controversy ratings. And then she later writes a correction before deciding not publish it at all. Yeah in hindsight, I probably did explain that whole thing poorly. I swore I read somewhere Miko is a pro-human person who does want to get rid of the youkai, but to be honest, I can't seem to find that anywhere so I may have just imagined it. Also, the Lunarians totally are xenophobic and full of assholes. Vauron posted:Seriously, don't worry about 100% completion. At the very least, feel free to skip 5% and 3% encounter rate tohous. I've had some pretty decent luck on the rare encounters so far, I hope I can keep it up. I was kind of fixing the EXP issues by swapping my whole party around to spread out the EXP so I don't make Mokou into a super death god... much.
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Apr 25, 2017 14:58
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KataraniSword posted:A bit late (since I just found this thread) but I can answer this one: at the end of Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, the final boss offers to grant a wish for whoever the player character was. Aaaah, I see. I guess that makes sense. Plus who doesn't like a nuclear-powered robot maid riding atop an ICBM?
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Apr 26, 2017 16:28
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 Bamboo Forest of the Lost Right then! Back to what we're meant to be doing to help out Keine, and get us the item we'll need to actually reach the Scarlet Devil Mansion.  R: Eh? Eientei...? R: I see, you're here in place of Keine! That's it, right?! R: If so, please hurry! Lady Yagokoro said it'd be a major problem if it kept up like this! R: I'll tell Lady Yagokoro you're coming, so I'm going on ahead! Not too long after we enter, a rabbit runs straight into us though. We can't follow the path she took though, I guess we can't squeeze in between the bamboo... Pretty sure that's just one of the many generic rabbits working at Eientei, because she was too nice and respectful to be Tewi  The trainers in the forest are all generic rabbit youkai like this one, but this one that we run into right away said she'll give us a hint! I like hints. I mean, this place is called the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, its probably not going to be as simple as just walking right or something.  Hmmm, the number of bamboo shoots, huh? There's 6 of them on this screen... but before we get into that, this is a new area. That means, new puppets!     New battle music for wild puppets, by the way Tewi is the leader of the earth rabbits, and is said to know every earth rabbit youkai that exists. She's at least 1600 years old, and likely more - possibly older then most of the characters, if she's actually the White Rabbit of Inaba. Tewi has lived in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost before Eientei was here, and in fact, before the forest was event called the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, as the old name was "The Tall Grass Cluster". Some few hundred years after Eirin and Kaguya started hiding here, she eventually revealed herself to them, and struck a deal. In exchange for Tewi and her rabbits protecting Eientei from humans, Eirin would spread her knowledge to the earth rabbit youkai. In spite of her being the de facto leader of an entire race, Tewi herself is a natural prankster often spending any of her freetime playing pranks on Reisen, or trying to scam people out of their money. As an aside, Tewi's name would be technically spelled as "Tei" in the modern days, as the "wi" in her name is an unused kana. With modern Japanese phonetics, it would be pronounced "Tei" instead of "Tewi".     Reisen Udongein Inaba is an... interesting character. Tewi may be the leader of all the earth rabbits, but Udgone is in fact, a moon rabbit. Back in 1969AD, there was a "Lunar War" between the Apollo 11 mission and the Lunarians who live on the moon. During this war, Reisen fled from the moon, seeking asylum in Gensokyo instead, ending up residing alongside the wanted Lunarian fugitives, Eirin and Kaguya. Reisen debuted in Imperishable Night as the Stage 5 Boss, and returned as a playable character in Phantasmagoria of Flower View, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom and the Playstation 4 game, Urban Legend in Limbo. As a moon rabbit, Udonge is capable of sending and receiving ESP waves to interact with her fellow moon rabbits. Her own actual ability is the "manipulation of insanity", this is done via her ability to manipulate brain waves through eye contact. The effectiveness of this power depends on the target's willpower, but its uses can vary from altering people's emotions to even manipulating light and sound waves, to give her the ability to have 'afterimages' or disguising her danmaku. Udonge is also often shown with her right hand in a gun shape, and its generally assumed she fires her danmaku off much like a gun in this way - many of her danmaku actually physically appear as bullets. Fandom also often shows her using actual handguns, and later in the series, its shown that all members of the Moon Defense Corps Rabbits (of which Reisen formerly was) are drilled in using rifles, so she probably is entirely capable of using a handgun as well.     We already talked about Kagerou, but we can capture our own here. This is the last new Puppet to capture for us... the last Puppet in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost encounters, is Mokou. Who we already have, so we don't need to capture another. Now then, remember how that one rabbit told us the number of bamboo shoots is the key? To navigate the Bamboo Forest, we need to solve this little puzzle. Its not as complicated as it sounds, because there are 4 numbers of bamboo shoots in each various screen - 3, 6, 9, or 12. There are only 4 paths you can take from each screen as well. Notice the pattern? The way to navigate the Forest, is to treat the paths as the "hands" on a clock, with the number of shoots telling you which hand to go for. So as we have 6 shoots on the first screen, we have to go south. Heading any other direction (besides left), will just loop us back to this same screen. Going left, towards the 9 o' clock position, will just have us leave. There are a few other places to visit in the Bamboo Forest besides Eientei, but for the moment, there's no real reason to visit them, so just follow the path given to you by the bamboo shoots! Also, don't forget that the Bamboo Forest is...  We can't stay here too long, its bunny country.  Eientei Reisen: I'll go ahead and tell Master. Tewi, take this person with you, okay?  What a trustworthy face. Tewi: ... So what're you really here for? I was told you were really strong, but is that actually true? It's fishy. Super fishy. Tewi: Therefore, have a match with me first. This'll prove if you're the real deal.  Despite blindsiding me with a completely unexpected fight, Tewi isn't too hard. But if you have arrived in Eientei in bad shape from random encounters (though almost all the grass is avoidable if you know how to navigate) or from marathoning all the bunny users in the forest, this could be a pretty bad situation since she doesn't even heal you. Tewi: Hmm. So you really are capable. Go on in then. Eirin's inside. Tewi: ...Eh? No one said I had to take you all the way there, right? Hey, hey, hurry up! You wanna make her mad? She's not very nice, is she? On the way in to Eientei, there's some grass here... but its a bit... different, like the grass we saw near Kourindou.  You can see it there on the left. Its different for a reason - there are two more Puppets to capture here! However, you might want to hold off on capturing them right away... you'll find out why in a moment. But before that, lets talk a little bit about Eientei. Eientei, as you can see, is an old-fashion style Japanese mansion. Eirin and Kaguya have hidden here ever since they fled the moon for their crimes. To almost everyone else, no one knows Kaguya and Eirin are actually Lunarians, with only Reisen ever proclaiming she's from the moon. Every month on the night of the full moon, the rabbits pound mochi, one of the main occupations of the earth rabbits. There are also at least two Lunar Expos every year held here, with various relics from the moon being shown off, these objects include: the American flag that was planted on the moon, moon rocks, and a lunar rover... to name a few. Interestingly, despite this being a place of refuge for Eirin and Kaguya, humans and youkai are freely allowed to enter to receive medical treatment from Eirin, with Fujiwara no Mokou often providing the escort.   Eirin: I am Eirin Yagokoro. I practice medicine here. Eirin: It's a bit sudden, but allow me to test you. This matter requires a capable Puppet user. I'll leave this to you Udonge. Remember how I said you shouldn't go capturing wild Puppets right away? Because you have another fight, and there isn't any healing in Eientei right now... if you had to rest up, you have to leave completely and come back.   Again, despite being blindsided, I didn't have too much of an issue. I think this might be because of my use of the same Puppets, and trying to complete the Puppet Book, I'm probably on a higher level then the game expects me to be. Reisen: Amazing... As expected of the one Keine turned to. You're quite capable. Eirin: Yes, you seem up to the task. Eirin: ...You should be fine. Please help us, Selfi. Eirin: What we want is for you to mediate a quarrel between our princess and a certain person. I have patients, so it would be a problem if they ran wild in the examination room. Eirin: If it was just the princess, I could come up with some way to stop her. But both at the same time, and using Puppets on top of that, it's just gotten out of hand... So we want you to stop one of them. Eirin: That said, I'm sure you have preparations to make, so I'll go on ahead. Now then, we're counting on you. With that, she leaves and Reisen stays behind. Reisen will heal our Puppets for us, so NOW we can go get those two new Puppets before we resolve this problem! Priorities!  One little problem with this however, is Eientei has no Akyuu Doll. So you can't actually access your Puppet Box. So when I caught the new Puppets, I couldn't see the stats, but to spare you the wait, I'll just show the screencaps after I left Eientei.     Kaguya Houraisan is the mistress of Eientei, and a former princess of the Lunarians. She is also better known as Princess Kaguya from the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. When Kaguya lived on the moon, she one day convinced Eirin to help her create the Hourai Elixir, and consumed it, making her into a Hourai Immortal. However, this broke one of the laws of the Lunarians, and they sentenced her to execution for her crimes - however, as stated, she's now a Hourai Immortal. Despite executing her numerous times, she was completely incapable of dying due to her consumption of the Elixir. So instead, they exiled her to earth to live with the "filthy" humans as her punishment instead. This turned out to not be much of a punishment, as Kaguya grew to love the earth... but her inhuman beauty caused her to receive many suitors, and she gave them her Impossible Requests, and this probably caused a lot of them to die, or at the least, fail, when they sought her hand in marriage. Fujiwara no Mokou's father was among these, and this is the root of her hatred of Kaguya for causing her father to fail in these Requests, and embarrassing him and their family. By the way, her five Impossible Requests? They were five items she wanted - the stone begging bowl of Buddha, a jeweled branch from Mount Hourai, the legendary robe of the fire-rat, a colored jewel from a dragon's neck, and the legendary Cowry of the swallows. No one ever could do it. She also so happens to own all five of these items already. So its possible they were well, impossible, because she already had them. So, interpret that as you will. Anyway, eventually the moon sends emissaries to tell Kaguya that her exile has been served, and she's to return to the moon with them. Eirin happens to be one of these, who has always felt guilty for the fact that Kaguya was punished, and Eirin was not, despite her role in the crime. Eirin decides to betray the emissaries, and the two flee to what would become Gensokyo, residing in Eientei. Nothing too interesting happens until Reisen flees here, seeking asylum from the Lunar War on Earth, a result of the Apollo 11 landing. Its also around this time that Mokou finds Kaguya again, and the two enjoy their mutual immortality by murdering one another on a daily basis. Lastly, during the events of Imperishable Night, the Lunarian moon rabbits get into contact with Reisen (that ESP thing, remember?) with them demanding she return to the moon, as there is about to be another war with the humans on the moon. This whole incident involves Eirin replacing the moon with a fake one, but is ultimately proven useless, as the Great Hakurei Barrier is strong enough to keep the Lunarians from entering Gensokyo already. Phew. That's a lot of backstory. And we haven't even talked about Kaguya's ability! Which is listed as the "manipulation of eternity and the instantaneous". What this really means is... a bit beyond me, even reading the wiki article on it. While the eternity part seems to be simply the fact she can make things, well, eternal and never changing... the instantaneous part is far more confusing, and I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. Akyuu presents it as meaning "having parallel timelines at the same time", so it can be inferred to mean the manipulation of time as well? I'm not sure. It's complicated. Anyway, lets move onto our SECOND new Puppet! Which I'm sure you can already guess.     Eirin Yagokoro is a medical genius and one of the instrumental members in the forming of the Lunar society in the first place. Eirin has the ability to create any drug, the only notable exception being she needs Kaguya to make the Hourai Elixir, but is otherwise capable of making just about anything to cure just about anything. As mentioned about Eientei, Eirin sells her medicine to anyone who needs it, and doesn't seem too fussed about payment either, often being patient enough to wait for you to pay her. As mentioned in Kaguya's backstory, Eirin was one of the emissaries sent to retrieve Kaguya, but she instead murdered the other emissaries and fled with her. The other emissaries that were sent with her, were probably moon rabbits, and their killing seems to be an incredibly minor crime amongst the Lunarians, given it is never really brought up... the Lunarians seem to view the moon rabbits as rather disposable anyhow, and Eirin has said she has no problem with killing moon rabbits again if she has too. Interestingly, as an aside about Lunarians in relation to Eirin, one of ther spellcards is called "Apollo 13", with the title of "Curse of the Heavens", suggesting it wasn't mechanical failure, but Lunarian sabotage that prevented the Apollo 13 mission from succeeding. Anyway, there isn't nearly as much to say about Eirin, compared to Kaguya. She has a minor relation to two other Lunarians though... but we'll get to that later. Eirin and Kaguya Puppets have the same rarity, but it actually took me a long time to find Eirin. Anyway, lets go resolve the thing we're here to do, or whatever. It totally isn't going to involve Mokou. Nope.  Eirin: As I said before, I want you to intervene in this squabble. Eirin: I want you to stop the white-haired one. The name of our princess' natural enemy is Fujiwara no Mokou. (  )Eirin: She's quite formidable, but I'm sure that you'll be fine. Now, before the damage spreads. Let's go.  Mokou: But okay. I just have to get rid of anyone that gets in my way. I'll fight you holding nothing back.  I kicked her butt, naturally. I've actually got a few puppets at level 30.... which is when we unlock Style Changes. As mentioned, this is the closest thing to evolution in this game. I have no idea which Styles are "good" exactly, so I just kind of picked...  As you can see, there is no physical change for style changes. But it changes that "Normal" thing to whichever Style you selected. Each Puppet seems to have two Styles to pick, and once you select one, you can't change it back. At least, when I tried, it said I can't. Maybe you can later, I dunno. Either way, I made Kotohime an Assist Style. Because it had higher speed, and I like going first.  Mokou: Uh... guess I put you out a little. Mokou: Looks like I went a little too wild, so I'll leave it at this and head back to the Bamboo Forest. Mokou: Come see me if you ever need anything. I'd love to have another match with you.  Eirin: That's enough Princess. Kaguya: ... Eirin: Thanks for your help. We managed to settle the matter somehow. We are in your debt, Selfi. Hm... we need to reward you somehow. Eirin: ...Eh? You want to borrow what we bought from Kourindou? Yes, we're doing with it, so I don't mind.  So instead of HMs, we get items that fulfill the same purpose in this game, it seems! The Woodcutter Doll is our HM01, Cut. It'll cut down small trees in our way. We haven't actually seen any on the way I've been going. If we had gone towards the SDM right away, we would've been stopped by these trees. This little item is also a key to finding a few more Puppets in the Bamboo Forest...  Eirin: We'll take care of cleaning up here... Eirin: Selfi... I see, you're on a journey. So you're heading to the Scarlet Devil Mansion after this. Eirin: Then I'll tell one of the rabbits to escort you back through the Bamboo Forest. If you need it, talk to the rabbit outside. Eirin: Take care on your way. With that, we're done in Eientei! As Eirin mentioned, we basically have a instant shortcut to and from Eientei now, by just talking to a rabbit standing around. So let's get going! I have some new Puppets to get with this Woodcutter Doll and -  Is that Marisa I see? Let's go say hi!  Marisa: Givin' it your all in your own way, huh? I've been hearin' things. Marisa: Went to do somethin' at Eientei, right? ...Oh~. An errand for Keine, huh? Marisa: So she trusted you with that. That means you're stronger then before, huh?   Marisa is our Rival, isn't she? Now back when we first fought, it was just a tutorial fight, so Marisa only had, well, Marisa. She's got three Puppets now. An Alice, a Patchouli, and her Marisa. They're pretty decent levels too, 28, 28 and 30. Still, its nothing too interesting or hard -  That bitch.  Oh yeah, I made Mokou into Power type. This changed her typing to Fire/Fighting.  Marisa: Anyway, where ya' headed? The Scarlet Devil Mansion? I see, so Alice said that... Marisa: I'mma hurry on ahead then. This time I'm gonna get stronger so I don't keep losing to the likes of you! H-hey whats that supposed to mean... Marisa walks off and... then walks right back.  Marisa: If so, you might wanna drop by the school before ya' head to the SDM. Marisa: She's pretty straight-laced, so she might have somethin' for ya'. Marisa: This time I'm really goin'. Later. Okay she's gone for real now and - HEY WAIT, YOU DIDN'T REALLY STEAL MY RUBY HAIRPIN DID YOU!?  Oh okay, she didn't. Phew. (I'm way too high level for this game. :shh: ) ANYWAY! Before we do any of that... we have some MORE PUPPETS TO GET! I'm not sure how you're meant to find the alternate paths through the Bamboo Forest. One of them will take you to Mokou's house, where you can fight her again. She is a bit higher level then when we fought her at Eientei, but not by much, and there's nothing of any real note. Her Mokou in that fight is level 32 and still Normal-style though, oddly. But what we want, is the other alternate path that takes us to a spot blocked by some trees...  Which we can cut down now! Once inside, there's a lot of grass and an item...  Teehee, 69. Skill Card 69 teaches "Squall" which is, well, Whirlwind from Pokemon. It'll switch out the opposing Puppet, or in the case of a Wild Puppet, end the battle instantly. I'm sure this has some kind of PvP utility, but I'd never use it during normal play myself. But we're not here for this Skill Card. This little hidden area has three new Puppets to capture! Two of them have a low 5% rate though. But I'm pretty determined to fill out this Book, even if its kind of making me overleveled.     Wait what the gently caress is that ability  Uh right, anyway Gyokuto. This is, I believe, one of the many fanon names for a new moon rabbit that showed up in Silent Sinner in Blue. Her other fanon name is Rei'sen. Very little is known about her, other then she's the new moon rabbit pet of the Watatsuki sisters, and is presumably, the replacement for Reisen. And as you can clearly see in that Book, we so happen to have gotten those sisters!     Watatsuki no Yorihime  She's a princess of the Lunarians and is one of the leaders of the Lunarian Defense Corps. Yorihime is the younger sister of Toyohime, and is incredibly proficient with her sword, while also being able to summon the Lunarian gods, much like how Reimu can (in theory) invoke earth gods due to her shrine maiden nature. Yorihime is, alongside her sister, one of the more... unpopular characters in the series, due to the way they were introduced. Yorihime was in Silent Sinner in Blue, showcasing her power by fighting Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya and Remilia, and defeating three of them without any trouble at all, with Reimu only causing her mild issues. This is despite the fact she had literally only just then been introduced and told about the Spell Card system, has earned her hate from some for easily trouncing very powerful characters in her introduction. She also shows up in Inaba of the Moon and the Inaba of the Earth, but no fighting happens in that one. The only person to actually defeat her was Tewi, who incapacitated her in Inaba of the Moon and the Inaba of the Earth, via pitfall. Udonge used to be the pet of Yorihime and her sister, and the two of them were quite fond of her, and are quite sad that she never returned to them. Yorihime is also technically related to Eirin via marriage... but we're not sure which. One of the sisters is married to Eirin's grandnephew and the other to the son of another grandnephew. This makes the sisters, alongside Seiga and one more character, to be among the canonically married characters. That being said, their husbands are never shown or mentioned, so we're not really sure on the status of these relationships. Also Yorihime is one of my favorite characters due to her design. She's just so cool and handsome and pretty. AND SHE HAS A SWORD.     Watatsuki no Toyohime is the older sister. She also is in command of the Lunarian Defense Corps alongside her sister. Before Eirin's self-imposed exile, Toyohime was her pupil. We know a little more about the powers and abilities of Toyohime compared to her younger sister. For one, Eirin states Toyohime has incredible good luck, to the point she's never faced trouble in her life. She is also capable of manipulating the boundary between the scientific and fantastic versions of the moon... what this means, is a bit iffy. It helps maintain the barrier around the moon, and she also used it once to kill one of Yukari's crow familiars by sending it out into the cold vacuum of space on the scientific side of the moon. Lastly, she has the ability to "link the sea and the mountains", which has the moon as the 'sea' and the earth as the 'mountains'. Functionally, this means Toyohime can go anywhere she pleases - even straight into Gensokyo, bypassing the Barrier entirely. Even Yukari is incapable of going to the Moon freely, requiring the lunar phases to align. Also that little fan of hers, is actually said to be an incredibly advanced Lunarian weapon, capable of generating such powerful gusts of winds that Eirin claims, she could obliterate the Bamboo Forest of the Lost down to the "atomic level". While her sister fought Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya and Remilia, Toyohime fought Yukari and Ran, successfully defeating and apprehending them during the events of Silent Sinner in Blue. This is all the Puppets we can get until we head to the SDM. But before that, Keine has a reward for us, so lets get our goodies.  Skill Card 78 teaches "Continue", which fully heals your Puppet, including status effects. But they become unable to act for two turns. So certainly not good if whatever you're fighting can kill you in two hits. Still, kinda neat. Lastly, to end this update... some have mentioned the Tailor is open. And it is! For the mere cost of 3000 yen, you can change your Puppets into a recolor of their default look, or alternatively, a special third costume. I have far, far too many Puppets to go and show you every single one, but for the sake of showcasing...   The third costume for Mokou is how she appeared before she drank the Hourai Elixir, by the way. I'd recommend looking up the TPDP wiki if you want to see every color and costume, because it'd take a looot of screenshots for me to show them all. I'm thinking of splurging some of my cash on trying some of these out. Just not quite sure which... but that's all for today's update. Next time, we're heading to the SDM! Which means more puppets!
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Apr 28, 2017 01:21
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serefin99 posted:I can honestly say I was not expecting an LP of this game to show up. Shaping up to be quite an interesting romp so far. Thanks! I remembered I had the game laying around, and no one else had done it... plus I've been following OFS' Uranium so I was kind of in the mood for something like this. Looking at the archives, seems there's been surprisingly few Touhou LPs around here. KataraniSword posted:Ah, yes. The "Moonbitch" discourse, as I remember it from the days when Silent Sinner in Blue was getting translated. Toyohime and Yorihime's hate is, depending on interpretation, pretty drat justified - they show up, effortlessly curbstomp the most popular characters in the franchise at the time (Yorihime basically beats down Remilia and Marisa without breaking a sweat, and then proceeds to out-shrine-maiden Reimu when she's Actually Serious; Yorihime manages to take on Yukari and Ran at the same time with no issues whatsoever) and then proceed to do little more than smug themselves around the entire rest of SSiB. Their hatedom was pretty much inevitable from that point forward. Cries of "Mary Sue" and "deus ex machina" were (and probably still are) rampant. Yeah, I kind of remember the hate going on about them as well. I haven't actually read SSiB, but I've always liked Yorihime's design. But I'm a sap for swordswomen. Probably little surprise I like Meira and Konngara from PC-98 for the same reasons of being swordswomen. Given the other info about Lunarians, I wonder if they might all be some level of actual deities. It would somewhat explain why the Lunarians we've seen (Kaguya, Eirin, Yorihime and Toyohime) are all so powerful. Although that also means Yorihime would be a deity that can invoke other deities within herself, so... maybe not. Though this also has to make me wonder how badass the humans are in Touhou's canon, given they've invaded the moon I think... twice? And Armstrong is some kind of war hero or something. I forget. Fuzzy on those details. KataraniSword posted:
Wouldn't be the first god to be living in Gensokyo. KataraniSword posted:In other words, it's Rest. It's a proud accomplishment to be able to 1CC Touhou. Even if I can only do that on Normal. I think I've gotten decently far in PCB or IN on Lunatic... but I can't 1CC them. I've gotten to Yukari before! Not that I can even beat like, two spellcards though.
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Apr 28, 2017 02:25
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Senerio posted:Another Fire/Fighting Starter Mokou is a way cooler starter then a kung-fu fire chicken though Clarste posted:The Watasukis act exactly like Yukari and other popular, powerful characters though, so I don't really see why being smug should be a mark against them. And, well, technically they're just defending themselves when we meet them. While there are plenty of reasons to hate Lunarians in general, if you go into all their beliefs and whatnot, I think the reason they're hated in the fandom is just pure tribalism. They beat the team people were rooting for and therefore they must be destroyed. Oddly, her Mokou is still Normal-style, even in the re-fight its only level 32 and still Normal. Maybe its a change in Shard of Dreams that they'll be Style Changed by now? I found it odd that Marisa has her Marisa at level 30 and its still Normal as well. There doesn't seem to be any reason to keep a Puppet at Normal, since they don't learn any new skills on Normal after level 30 anyway. I'll try to screenshot more of the battles in the future, but yeah, my main issue is I'm a bit overleveled... which is odd to say, because I'm only technically a level or two above some of them, but my Mokou is able to roll over anything that isn't resistant to Fire pretty quick with her Ruby Hairpin. It certainly feels like you should be trying to do these fights while under a few levels, like when I fought Reimu and she basically rolled my entire team despite me knowing the fight was coming I'm not sure I'll be able to really make the game seem challenging by this point, since my collection habit and my whole dislike of running from battles is really the issue. I'm kind of hoping Shard of Dreams gets fully translated sometime in the near future, so I can do that one and try some kind of challenges to keep myself from grossly overpowering myself for that one... Also Mokou's team in the first fight is just a Keine, Kagerou and Mokou I think. She had those three in the rematch at least, so I don't suspect she would've changed much.
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Apr 28, 2017 02:53
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Clarste posted:Shard of Dreams actually has an even worse level curve. Even while avoiding unnecessary battles, you'll still probably end up higher level than the bosses. Which you entire team. I did read it does rebalance the level curve, since it sends you straight to the SDM from Akyuu, instead to Kourindou. I might try the UI patch, just to get a feel for the game maybe. I kind of would like to try a hand at mixing a bit of narrative into this, so it isn't just infodumping, but its a bit too odd to slap it in suddenly now. So I might try that for the expansion. But then again, that's basically like writing Touhou fanfiction
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Apr 28, 2017 03:03
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Falconer posted:Mokou handed me my rear end on my first attempt because I didn't know that one of the skills that her puppet uses (Fire Wall) does increased damage if the target is holding an item. Yeah that Fire Wall packs a punch. I only have Pins on Mokou and Kotohime, but that Fire Wall still really can dish it out to them. EDIT: Also could try using the Blinding Orb thing. Think its called that. There's one right at the start of the game in the Hakurei Shrine's warehouse. Zore posted:I picked up this game to playthrough since I'm a sucker for pokemon-like stuff and I have to say, the level curve is atrocious. I'm maintaining two full teams and my puppets are still keeping parity with 'boss' encounters and outleveling the generic stuff by 5-10 levels. I noticed there is scaling EXP gains, but it seems pretty pointless since it only varies by about 2 points if your puppets are within 15 levels of each other which is nowhere near enough to make a difference. I also think the perma EXP-share function is a mistake. Using the wild Puppets as an example, I wonder if that's what they want you to be around for the 'boss' fights, meaning they kind of want you to be 5 levels or so under them. But then again, not really sure, as being near the boss' levels makes them kind of easy. On the other hand, you can spend PP to boost your stats, so even if you are 5-10 levels under a boss (in theory) you can probably compensate that way... but then again, you only get all that PP from the wild Puppets, which means you're gaining levels as well... Also the EXP scaling is because of the Cost of the Puppet. Lower Cost Puppets either have less EXP to level, or gain more from battles to compensate for their lower BST compared to higher Cost Puppets. But as this is still Pokemon, and an RPG by extension, the raw levels generally mean more then the lower stats. Which I think is still kind of important for the game, as it means you aren't really kinda screwed if you decide to only use certain Puppets.
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Apr 28, 2017 15:59
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Clarste posted:I said a while ago that I'd discuss status ailments when they become relevant, but at this rate I don't think they'll ever become relevant, so: Ah thanks for that. I've run into some of those aliments, but I wasn't really sure... I mean, I knew what Burn, Poison or Paralysis did. But Weakness or Fear I wasn't so sure. Sorry I haven't been really showing the battles well
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Apr 30, 2017 03:54
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rannum posted:I know you're going blind so you don't necessarily want to reference the wiki, but maybe you could point out/showcase any new moves or abilities or such? I've been mostly just using the wiki to make sure I catch all the Puppets. But I'll see about that actually, I've been showing off the stat pages for the new Puppets to show the Abilities for that reason, but I should at least mention their alternative. And the moves is a good point, I should've done that like in OFS' Uranium... Clarste posted:I honestly have no idea who's even in your party other than Mokou, and you haven't told us what moves she has or anything. And did her ability change when she changed Styles? They often do. I'll go ahead and show off the current party, as of the end of last update, for the next then. Mokou's Ability didn't actually change for this one.
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Apr 30, 2017 22:35
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Clarste posted:Enemies never use the costumes. My guess is that they probably considered having different sprites for the different styles, but ultimately decided to just make costumes instead (since that's exactly as much work for them, and more customization for the player). And since the sprites are animated, it's a bit more work than it was back in the romhack days. Yeah Hemogoblin1AC or something? He did the FireRed hack, I think. rannum posted:I get wanting to make the game their own and "styles" are probably more interesting gameplay wise especially since every puppet gets one, but it is a shame they didn't do what the old gba romhacks did and make them "evolutions" with different sprites and such. Do any of the enemies in this game use the costume function? Evolutions may have been neat, but I guess for how the game's 'setting' works, the Puppets don't really evolve. Touhoumon was just taking Pokemon and changing the Pokemon into Touhous, so the evolutions were kind of needed. I don't think having like, Chibi Puppets, normal Puppets, and some having Extra Puppets would make as much sense. TPDP seems to try its best to ensure all Puppets are equal-ish and viable. Making evolutions would kind of unbalance it a bit, I think, as not all Puppets would have an Extra form.
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May 1, 2017 20:57
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Clarste posted:To be fair, "Normal" Style is super weak and one of the main reasons all trainers are chumps for a while after you hit 30. So that's no different from evolving. True. At least every Puppet has them, even if they don't all have the same Style options naturally. FractalSandwich posted:Please tell the nice people at home about Devil of Decline. Dare I ask?
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May 2, 2017 07:08
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 So before we head off to the Misty Lake, here's the party I'm running at the moment. Kotohime and Seija's Style Change didn't actually change anything on them - besides boosting their stats - but I was actually incorrect on what I said about Mokou's Style Change.   As mentioned, she did become Fire/Fighting, but I was incorrect on saying her Ability didn't change, as it did! At the start, Normal Mokou Puppet starts with "Emergency Cure", which cures any status aliment on switch out. Changing to Power, changed this to Reckless. Not really an Ability I like much myself, to be honest. The other Ability that Mokou can use is called "Hate Incarnate", which damages the enemy Puppet if Mokou is KO'd by them, using an attack of 90 BP or higher. Which, really, doesn't sound that great to me either, but I guess it has some kind of meta or PvP element to it I guess, since I'd imagine people would want to be using the strongest attacks constantly, so... anyway, we have to go to the Scarlet Devil Mansion, but before that, we need to go through the Misty Lake.  The Misty Lake is back towards the Forest of Magic, but instead of going west on the route, we take the first fork north... had we gone this way back then, these little trees would've completely stopped us, and there's no way we could possibly just climb over that stump! But thanks to the Woodcutter Doll, we can just chop these trees down and continue on our way.  Oh look, blue grass! That means there's some new Puppets to capture on this Route still!     Orange is a PC-98 character, from Lotus Land Story. Aaaand, that's about it. She was a boss, you beat her up and that's all we know. She does have some resemblance to Hong Meiling, so I guess she might be seen as the inspiration/prototype design for her.     And here's the Rinnosuke Puppet, whom we already covered when we met the actual Rinnosuke back at the Kourindou. These are the only new Puppets on this particular route, so now we can go to the Misty Lake, and then the SDM! Which I'm sure will be full of even more Puppets to capture.   Misty Lake The Misty Lake is covered in a perpetual fog in the game. In the actual lore of Gensokyo, this fog - or rather a strange mist, hence the name - only happens at around noon for an unknown reason. The Misty Lake is fed by a river that leads to the Youkai Mountain, and the Scarlet Devil Mansion is located on a ridge near the lake itself. Fairies and youkai like to gather here, particularly in the summertime, and its also a prime location to go fishing, with fish ranging in 2 to 5 fathoms, with a possible exaggrated tale of some fish as large as 10 fathoms live here. There was an offhand comment about a "Master of the Lake", but they supposedly live in a house at the bottom of the lake, so only "fish and mermaids" could actually go and see them. According to Akyuu, the Misty Lake is about 3.1 miles in circumference, and one could walk around the whole thing in about an hour. This area also features a special background! And new Puppets! Naturally there is also a number of Puppet Users around, mostly of the generic variety, but there is one special one... but before that, time for Puppets.     THE STRONGEST lives here, naturally. As of the time of this update, Cirno is actually one of the playable characters in the newest Touhou game - Hidden Star in Four Seasons - where she actually seems to be representing summer, and has gotten a pretty good tan, that has caused a pretty big surge in her popularity. As I'm looking for the last new Puppet here, I do find that one special Puppet User I was talking about.  Wakasagihime lives at the Misty Lake, as one might expect! So let's do the only sensible thing, and beat her up.   Oddly, despite the Misty Lake being unavailable until you clear Eientei, all the Wild Puppets and Puppet Users at the Misty Lake, are a lot lower leveled then the mandatory fights we just had to do to reach here. This, regrettably means, Wakasagihime is kind of a pushover, as she's significantly below the level of most of my group.  Her group consists of characters that showed up in the same game as she did, as you might expect. Kagerou and Wakasagihime, in particular, are generally shown as being on pretty good terms in fandom, and sometimes portrayed as lovers. Sekibanki in one particular artist's fandom, is the odd 'third wheel', who is usually in the comics for comic relief as a 'straight man' type being unphased by the lovey-dovey nature of Kagerou and Wakasagihime.  As is common for the named Trainers, her strongest Puppet is herself. Yorihime is a poor match up to both Kagerou and Sekibanki (although she one-shot Kagerou due to Steel), but Captain can mop up Sekibanki and Wakasagi pretty well. All in all, not a hard fight. It's still odd why the Puppet Users here are so low level, when Eientei ends with some level 30ish fights, and everything here is in the low 20's.     There we go! The last new Puppet here is of Meiling... the gatekeeper of the Scarlet Devil Mansion that we so happen need to be going to. In fact...   Meiling and Marisa doing what they do best! Meiling is often shown sleeping on the job, and Marisa is always easily able to overpower her if she's awake anyway. Despite this, its suggested Hong Meiling is still a pretty powerful gatekeeper who can keep most intruders out, but it is a bit hard to keep a main character out. While we don't know her exact background her name, her practicing of Tai Chi, references to Chinese things, and having the power of Qi, its generally assumed Hong Meiling is from China. She's a very well-rounded youkai with no particular outstanding powers or abilities, she's also a pretty laid-back and friendly individual so long as you don't try to trespass. She is also known to have a pretty great love of manga, and even her mistress Remilia seems to share some of her tastes, as they read some of the same things. Maybe the most infamous thing about her, is in Hisoutensoku, her scenario culminates in a climatic showdown with a giant catfish, serving as the avatar of her sworn enemy Taisui Xingjun. But given her whole scenario is just her sleeping, and dreaming, on the job after reading manga, its hard to say how much of this is actually her own thoughts, and maybe not the fact she was just reading a manga about fighting a giant catfish. Anyway lets go ahead and trespass, if Marisa can do it, so can we right?   Scarlet Devil Mansion Well that was ea- oh.  Remilia: I am the mistress of this manor. And I can see the flow of fate. ...You have quite the fascinating destiny. Remilia: Ah, so you have business in the library. And I thought for sure that you had come to see me... Remilia: How about it? Once you're done with your business with Patchy, come pay me a visit. Remilia: I'm sure I could guide you on the next step of your fate? Remilia: That's assuming you can reach my room, of course. Well then, take your time... How hard could it be to reach her room? As she stated, Remilia Scarlet is the mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Remilia is one of the few characters that we have a pretty exact idea of her age, as her birth year is known as being 1503, making her 514 years old as of the time of this writing. Remilia, and the SDM by extension, are not native to Gensokyo, the entire mansion and its staff appearing during the events of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, where in Remilia unleashed a red mist to block out the sun, allowing her to traverse freely if she desired - as Remilia is a vampire, and doesn't do well out in the sunlight. During the events of EoSD, Remilia claims to be related to Dracula himself, although there isn't anything to prove it. Her title of being known as the "Scarlet Devil" stems from her white dress and her messy eating habits, as its said after feeding on someone, she often is covered in their blood, earning her that nickname. Remilia's power is one of the more powerful sounding, yet not really well defined abilities, listed as the "manipulation of fate". By the wording, this ability suggests Remilia could manipulate the fate of anyone she interacts with, including those she fights; however as she has been defeated before, it seems unlikely her power is quite capable of this, although on the other hand, Remilia's childish personality leaves her prone to picking the more "interesting" options, even if they are not a good result for her. Its generally more assumed that Remilia is able to passively manipulate the fate of individuals around her, overtime, allowing her to change their fate. But in the end, we're not really sure the extent or usage of Remilia's powers... not that she really needs it, to be entirely honest. While she is technically a youkai, vampires are classified as one of the most powerful type of youkai in the setting, said to have both the power of oni and the speed of tengu. As a vampire she is said to also be capable of controlling a horde of devils, and could regenerate from even her entire body being destroyed, so long as her head remains intact. Many youkai and humans respect and fear Remilia as a result of this. Still, while she acts refined and elegant, she is still much a child, prone to doing whatever she wants to stave off boredom, but she's still a genuinely kind person. As one last random aside, EoSD is the 6th game in the series, Remilia is the Stage 6 boss, and her stage includes a total of 6 spell cards. Let's go see Patchy!  Let's also loot the place while we're here. The SDM is actually a fairly large structure - bigger on the inside then it is on the outside in fact. Most of the staff are fairy maids. Skill Card 66 contains the move "Confine", a non-damaging Void move that inflicts Paralysis. In this same room is another goodie that is new...  Guess it makes sense Remilia would have something like this laying around, given her whole fate motif. This Oath Thread I guess is our Ultra Ball equivalent, but again, I'm still not really sure why you'd need anything but a Seal Thread, as the success rate on them still seems very high.  Judging by the books and the fact Marisa is here, I'd say we found the library. While there is no name listed, the library within the SDM is called the Voile I believe. It's Patchouli Knowledge's personal library, and contains a pretty high volume of books that she has collected over her life. She spends almost all her time in this library, reading her collection. It takes pretty unusual circumstances for her to actually ever leave the library, or the SDM.  You're blocking the way though Marisa! You jerk.  I spy one of my favorite Touhou characters! Quick, let's go say hi and get an autograph!    O-oh or we can fight, I guess... Still, just like out in the Misty Lake, the levels of Koakuma's Puppets are really unusually low.  The Tokiko knows a move "Changeling", which is a pretty useful move in this game as its set to Shift. While it inflicts damage, it also allows you to then swap out the active Puppet with a new one, in this case, Koakuma switched Tokiko out for Daiyousei.  Yorihime can deal with Daiyousei and Tokiko easily though, and even Koakuma's namesake Puppet isn't much higher level.  Koakuma, whose name literally means "little devil", is the devil familiar of Patchouli. While she is a devil, Koakuma's "name" is actually the sort of devil she is - a little one, meaning she is actually quite weak, as devils are actually a very powerful type of youkai. It isn't clear for how long Koakuma has been in Patchouli's service, or if she's actually a singular character, or a generic type like the fairy maids. Fandom generally assumes Koakuma is a singular entity though, although a few have multiple. In canon, ZUN has stated Koakuma is an impish and mischievous individual, but as this information was revealed a while later, it conflicts with the earlier fan interpretation that Koakuma is Patchouli's dutiful, loyal servant. Much like Daiyousei, Koakuma is a fanon created name, that ZUN has adopted as the 'canon' name, but unlike Daiyousei, Koakuma hasn't really shown up or been used in anything since her appearance as a nameless midboss in EoSD. In spite of this, Koakuma is a pretty popular character and features pretty heavily alongside members of the SDM. Some fans and fanworks, have used the fact that she's a devil to imply she's actually a succubus. She's also one of my favorite characters in the series. Well let's go talk to Patchouli, she isn't too far away...  Patchouli: Puppets move through magic? And so it follows that I'm suspicious? Patchouli: Sorry, but that's different from my technique. Patchouli: And even if it was related, I have no obligation to tell you about it. Well. Darn. That didn't give us any answers at all huh? Guess we should just go -    O-or we could fight, I guess. The level scale in the SDM is pretty weird, I guess I can see why they adjusted the flow of events in the expansion, since everyone we fight here is weaker then the mandatory story fights we just had to go through. So before we pound her face in, lets talk a bit about Patchouli. Patchouli is known as the "Great Unmoving Library" due to her hermit habits of never leaving her vast Voile library. While she is a magician, like Alice, she was born one, instead of being born a human and becoming a magician like Alice. Patchouli is somewhere in the range of over 100 years old and is an immensely powerful magical user with control of the five elements (Fire, Water, Wood, Metal and Earth), in addition to the Sun and Moon elements; she is known as the "One-Week Girl" as she has a habit of liking to focus on the particular element that fits the day. However, despite all this, Patchouli suffers from asthma, anemia and an overall poor constitution, greatly restricting her ability to actually effectively use her magic. Remilia and her are considered to be very good friends, as Remilia often calls her "Pache" or "Patchy". How the two met and became friends isn't known however.  Not much to say about this fight, so I just busted out Mokou.  Patchouli: ...Me being unrelated to the Puppets is true. If you don't believe me, ask that thief over there. Patchouli: Now. Remi called for you, right? Patchouli: How do I know that? Patchouli: I knew because a little while ago, the newspaper said you'd be coming here. You looked so nervous. You're so easy to read. This newspaper always seems to be one step ahead of us huh? Yet we've never seen anyone following us around, hmm...  Patchouli: Even if you ask whether it matters to me what happens, it's not like I can stop it. Patchouli: But that's true. Getting this far must have been a hassle, so I can at least restore your Puppets. If you have need of it, please let me know. Well why would we need healing to go find Remi?  Oh look, an Akyuu Doll! The SDM is already way better then Eientei for offering me this. Anyway, let's go talk to that 'thief' to confirm Patchouli's story.  She then leaves, so she isn't blocking our way anymore. Going to the left would just take us back where we came from, so we want to go right to try and find Remilia... which will be next time. Because the SDM has a new host of Puppets to capture! It at least has an easy to access Akyuu Doll, so I can look at them easily.
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May 8, 2017 21:39
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Vauron posted:My assumption as to the puppeteers after EIentei being weaker was that Kaguya and Mokou were basically Gym Leaders, As boss characters, they are stronger than the mooks in the area right after them. Although, the size of the level difference is odd. Seems reasonable for the normal Users, but its weird that the mandatory fights - Koakuma and Patchouli - aren't any tougher. Given they're mandatory, you'd figure they should at least keep the scaling levels going upwards, since you had to go through Mokou and Marisa to get here, and they're both tougher. The level scaling in the game does seem a bit odd. Falconer posted:Something to note is that if you talk to Meiling once, you find out that she's fast asleep. If you talk to her again though she mumbles something about knives*, wakes up, notices you're there, then starts a fight with you. She's about as hard as Koakuma is though and once you beat her she lets you enter the SDM then says something about how Remilia is going to scold her again. Oh right I did forget to talk to her, I just waltzed past and kind of expected her to wake up Sakuya and Meiling have an interesting relationship in both canon and many fanon works. I'll probably babble about it when we inevitably run into and capture a Sakuya Puppet. Maybe. I have been trying to avoid bringing up too many of my own personal viewpoints into the complex world of Touhou shipping...
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May 8, 2017 23:21
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serefin99 posted:I've never played any Touhou games so my knowledge of the series is limited, but I do know Patchouli is my favorite character. She's cute, hates going outside as much as I do, and is a powerful mage, which is like a dream combination. Patchouli is a popular character. The Touhou Wikia is out of date, but some time back she was technically the 3rd most shown character, being in like 9 of the 13 games in some form. KataraniSword posted:Yeah, in canon the scolding is never elaborated on, but since Sakuya is basically Maidio Brando, skillset-wise, the knives are the obvious assumption everyone goes with. True the playable demo did just come out yesterday-ish, I think. On the other hand, Cirno giving herself an entirely new name because she got tanned, sounds like something she would do.
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May 9, 2017 01:56
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theGrooseofLegend posted:I checked out some PvP videos on Youtube to get a better look at the gameplay and got to see Punk-Rock Mystia set up and sweep a team. They're a popular couple in the fandom for a reason. Though part of it boils down to they're actually immortal, so they're also the only ones who'll be around during the heat death of the universe... which is actually a series someone in Japan made, and is pretty sweet.
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May 10, 2017 03:39
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I thought it had only been like, 4 days since I last updated. Ho boy was I wrong  Well, how hard could it be to find Remilia in the Scarlet Devil Mansion? It isn't like the Mansion is crawling with a legion of fairy maids or wild Puppets, hahaha -  Did I just run into the rarest encounter in the Mansion right off the bat? Flandre has only a 3.33%, so I wasn't really expecting this to happen right away. But anyway, naturally the Mansion is now crawling with Puppets to capture. At least it means I can capture my own Koakuma    Flandre Scarlet is the younger sister of Remilia Scarlet, born in 1508, 5 years after her older sister. Flandre's theme, "U.N. Owen was Her?" is quite popular, and has been reused in a number of music parodies. Compared to her sister, Flandre's power is a lot easier to describe and talk about. Because she has the power to "destroy absolutely anything". As Flandre herself describes it, every single thing has an "eye", which seems to represent wherever the tension is highest in the object. She can then move this 'eye' to the palm of her hand, flow her energy into it and then squeeze it... and boom. The object is completely destroyed. This ability doesn't even require her to physically touch the object, as once a meteor was heading towards Gensokyo, which Flandre was able to destroy from the surface by taking the 'eye' of the meteor into her hand and crushing it. Compared to Remilia, Flandre is usually very quiet and reserved... but her mind is a bit unhinged, making her also unpredictable. She does act much more like her physical appearance would suggest though. Her mental instability likely is a result of her own power and Remilia's decision to lock her younger sister up in the basement of the SDM to protect her sister from herself and others who might seek her power. But as it turns out, locking your sister in a basement with minimal contact with anyone - including her sister and any of the servants of the SDM - for about 495 years doesn't do much to give one a good upbringing or mental state. Of many of the characters in the series she has some of the lowest 'friendliness' towards humans, given her complete lack of contact with any of them (aside as a cooked meal) for almost all of her life. She also has a bad habit of being unable to control her power, meaning there is a high chance she might accidentally obliterate anyone who tried to play with her. Also as for the odd thing she's holding, is thought to be Laevateinn, judging by its use in one of her spell cards called "Taboo Sign - Laevateinn". Fitting, given Remilia has a spellcard named for Gungnir. Another of her famous spellcards is "Four of a Kind", which creates 3 clones of herself - each capable of independent movement and thought, so if you thought one Flandre was strong enough, imagine four! Way better then that Multi-Form Technique in DBZ. Flandre's unusual wings are a source of much speculation as they don't resemble any kind of normal wings, or vampire wings. I think the most common theory about them is she somehow lost, or had her original wings destroy, and these were replacements created by either herself, or perhaps Patchouli. But we really don't have any clue.  But Remilia told us to find her, we're not an intruder! Earlier some of the fairy maids we could see were friendly, but the ones in these halls will now attack us on sight.  The fairy maids make up a pretty large portion of the SDM's staff, and are (in theory) responsible for its upkeep and cleaning. In actuality though, most of the fairy maids are borderline useless, as fairies are not exactly hard workers, and are very prone to slacking off. Sakuya is probably responsible for cleaning 99% of the SDM on her own.  Also for some reason, Star Sapphire can learn Atomic Energy which heals her.  Case in point on the whole laziness of fairy maids.     Waifu Puppet obtained I don't normally showcase too many of the attacks in this game, as honestly, there is a ton of them and I wouldn't even know where to begin. But Koakuma has one particular move here that synergies very well with the Healing Power ability... Very useful in Puppet User battles for taking advantage of Healing Power, especially if you go first.  Hmm, you know, I'm noticing a pattern with the Fairy Maid names so far. Can you guess what it might be?     As it turns out, Void is weak to Dark, so Koakuma has a pretty good advantage over her master. Immovable is as pretty appropriate ability for Patchouli, given she's known as the "Immovable Library" due to her whole hermit lifestyle of never leaving her library.     I'm sure we'll meet the actual Sakuya somewhere in this mansion, but for now... Sakuya Izayoi is the head maid of SDM, and a devoted servant of Remilia Scarlet. Her past is shrouded in mystery, and Sakuya Izayoi is not actually her name, it is instead the name given to her by her mistress. The common fan theory is Sakuya was a vampire hunter that sought Remilia's life, but was defeated and swore her fealty to Remilia as a result. She is also the only human that lives and works in the mansion. Now, if you couldn't tell by my completely original nickname, Sakuya's power is the "manipulation of time". What this actually entails, was often assumed to be similar to the time-stopping powers of Dio Brando's Stand, "The World", but with the latest manga, Sakuya has clarified her own power a bit more. Sakuya has said she is actually incapable of stopping time for other people - but she still seems capable of accelerating or decelerating the flow of time for herself, or objects - and what is seen as 'stopping time' by others, is actually her moving at extremely high speed without mass. With the manipulation of time, she also has the power to manipulate space, and is responsible for the fact the SDM is much larger on the inside then it is on the outside. Despite being a human, Sakuya has very little friendliness towards humans, her power is assumed to be the reason as it would make many fear and hate her, and as a result, she has little care for other human beings.     Look, we have a complete collection of SDM Puppets now!  Also in this little Puppet battle, the wild Remilia did showcase something that I haven't really (big surprise, huh?)  There are weather moves. I've never really bothered to learn them though, as I've just always been a fan of using that move to defeat my opponent instead. I'm sure its something much more useful in PvP battles, but I've just never seen the point in using anything in Pokemon that isn't an attack that'll oneshot your opponent  Yayoi, huh? Noticing the pattern yet?   Captain hit level 30 after that fight, gaining her access to her Styles! I'm actually going to take Defense-style, as her Negative Aura makes her immune to Dark-type attacks, negating the weakness she'd gain to them with Nether-type. This might be a bad choice, but I'm bad at this anyway.   Oh. Well, Ayaha breaks my theory on the naming scheme. The other three so far, at least, were all the names of Japanese Destroyers at least. Also the ICBM can fire a massive laser  So let's just go past these pots...  B-but this was in the north passage I thought. Darn you non-Elucidian passages!  Back to the IJN Destroyer names I see. Shrubbery thread!   No you aren't meant to clean me New fairy maid appearance though.  How did we react to Flandre running down the hallway in an entirely different hallway. But I suspect if we follow Flandre, we might find out way out of this horror! HOW DID SHE GET BEHIND US.  I have no idea how I ended up here. But I think this might be the door?!  SON OF A -  How.   This maid is named Uzuki, continuing the trend. Also, around this time, I left the SDM entirely too restock items and get some Rosary and Tailsmen. Otherwise I'm going to be like level 40 before I find my way through here I think. I also pimped out my Puppets!   This seems like one of the things useful in some gimmick builds. Some fairy probably left it laying around, slackers.  Hrm. Well. That's different. Going through the wrong door will spit us back out into a door behind us, so it isn't too hard to figure this out.  Well this looks promising!   This is a Sakuya reference, pretty sure. Sakuya is very skilled with her knives, and is also the only cook in the mansion, and is very good at it.   So I learned checking the Skill Card in my bag, will actually not only tell you the move, but let you see the stats of the move. Handy. 27 has Changeling though, that very useful move Koakuma learns that synergies great with the healing ability.  This room is a lot more plain then I was expecting.  Uhhh Remilia, is there something you want to tell us?  Oh phew, its just peaches from Heaven.   We're in new parts of the mansion, we have to be closer! Also I think this fairy is dreaming about the Great Fairy War, one of the Touhou games. She's also doing something I often used to believe for dreams, that if I went back to sleep quickly, I could 'continue' it...  Okay THIS looks promising, for real!  Uh oh      Well, at least your levels are... decent. Still lower then what we had at Eientei I think.  One down  Fitting for Sakuya to use a Ruukoto I guess, given her job as a maid. But Remilia, why are you letting your servants carry around ICBMs?  Every single Ruukoto in this Mansion has been using that. It's basically Self-Destruct, so it makes it easy to get through them at least.   OUR FIRST STYLE CHANGED ENEMY!?  Too bad Mokou is way stronger. And well, Sakuya is weak to Fire. Still, things are looking up for maybe finding some tougher Users!    But we did have an appointment, odd that Remilia didn't mention it... then again, she probably found this more amusing. She is a perpetually bored, spoiled noblewoman after all.  Did you really expect otherwise?  Remilia: I am a descendant of vampires, those that feed on the blood of humans to live. Remilia: Did you enjoy the path to this place? Hehe, you look tired. But I'll have you accompany me a bit longer. Remilia: I've been looking forward to playing with you myself. Even if you say no, you will face me. Remilia: Now! Come at me for real! Otherwise...  Couldn't just let me use that Akyuu Doll on your desk first, huh?  Well, how bad could she be compared to Sakuya, who we just fought before walking in -  Uhhhh. Well. That's a sizable jump in power. A CHALLENGE  I can't find Remilia's actual theme right now, but supposedly, this was meant to be it, but for some reason, it isn't used. So I think she might be using a generic boss track that I just can't find at the moment, sorry. Remilia's Unused Theme  Remilia's Sakuya really tore into my Mokou though, even with Type advantage it took me two hits to take her down, when she can shave off nearly half my health with a non-super effective move.  Ow. It doesn't help Remilia's Puppets are all faster then mine, I'm really glad I bought some healing items before this...  Oh sweet merciful Dragon. You know, maybe having ended up taking all those wild Puppet battles to grind myself up would've been okay. That and I should start spending all this PP on stats, but I honestly have no clue where I want to stick it all. But I really should maybe just dump it all into Speed, because going second is really limiting my strategic options. I think by the name, you can tell how effective that was on poor Captain.  Then she just crit oneshot my best Puppet. And I don't have any Revive-types, because I don't think anything sells those still. I think I'm gonna be eaten alive.    She just oneshot me without even a super effective or crit. Selfi's fate is too gruesome and graphic to show. I'm gonna need to take a bit to get my Puppets up some levels... and probably just max out all their speed or something... 
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May 15, 2017 18:46
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Clarste posted:Oh, huh. I kind of remember Remilia's difficulty spike being fixed in a patch. I guess not. It shouldn't be too hard for your team though, since Remilia takes 4x damage from Steel, and Sakuya learns a priority Steel move at level 30, no matter which style you choose. Pretty sure I'm on the latest patch... Just need to grab a feew levels and I'll be fine. Really surprised she pulled off a one-hit crit KO on Mokou though. That was just rough. At least now I thiiiink I remember the way back to her room, so I won't get lost for an hour wandering the hallways.
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May 15, 2017 21:15
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 18:40 |
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Clarste posted:I meant in terms of strategy, not strength. For example, Kosuzu can learn a skill that gives priority to all Status moves, which she can use to paralyze or blind Remilia. That sort of thing. You're much strategic then me. My way of playing Pokemon has just always been to go first, and punch everyone in the face until they stop moving. Which is proving effective until moments like this. Not that I dislike it, and as mentioned, its really just a matter of not having a good Steel user set up to steamroll Remilia down (maybe). I just wasn't honestly expecting Remilia to be that big a spike, otherwise I would've probably at least gotten all my active Puppets to at least 30 for the Style Change, and a few more levels. I was worried with Mokou she was going to be able to solo Remilia already. Then she sure showed me. I need to really spend my PP on my stats too. I just worry I'll overinvest in Speed, but I guess it isn't the worst... I mean, going first is (almost) never bad.
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May 16, 2017 01:41
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