Touhou Review: TH05 (Mystic Square)

TH05 (Mystic Square)

Hi people. Sorry for the delay in posting this blog. Today is a hectic week for me and finally I have some time to actually write this blog. I need to catch up big time since it is only a few days left for me to post the next review. Phew. Alright, here comes the fifth installment and the final touhou game that was platformed for PC-98. This game has new mechanics which is dream point which stacks by collecting point items, grazing which enables the point item to give even more points when the bar is fulfilled. However, using bombs and dying will cause the player to lose a chunk from the dream point bar. It has exactly the same button mapping for controls.

The story starts with vast amount of demons and evil spirit from Makai suddenly enters Gensokyo (the realms that the heroines living in). Now it is time for Reimu to deal with it with her youkai extermination power. Marisa knew about the situation decides to tag along while Mima (from Touhou 2) and Yuuka (from Touhou 4) also available as playable character for this game.

Below are some screenshots and video of the game play

Alice Margatroid, she will be one of the important characters in the future series so stay put.

Homing lasers because... why not?

Final boss battle. That is some crazy bullet hell >_<

Stage 4 will be slight different since the player will be fighting against 2 bosses at one time which are 2 witches Mai and Yuki. Trust me, It is hard. the player can choose to defeat which ones first, leading to second battle against the remaining boss. As for me, I would choose to beat Yuki (the black witch) first since the next battle is much easier  rather than the other one. I'll post video of the battle for each boss and witness the difference in the difficulty between Mai and Yuki

The easy one (Mai) *I love her battle OST*

The hard one (Yuki). Just by seeing the video length is enough to know which one is harder

Stage 6 boss battle. No joke. this is a hard battle despite it is on normal difficulty. Compared to all the previous games I mean

 Extra stage game play. This is a fail run though. Try to compare the difficulty level with Touhou 4. I found that this is very hard. Oh ya... it is a rematch against Alice but now she possesses the "Grimoire of Alice" where it can still be seen in future games

I guess for the ones who are new to Touhou project, this game is a bit unfair because it is very difficult compared to the previous games. Practice hard, improve fundamental danmaku maneuvering skills and it should be no problem. Sooner or later I will try to show one of the basic movement skills in danmaku games.

Links to the emulator: (clicking it downloads the file directly)

http://www.zophar.net/download_file/2143

Link to the game: (moriya shrine)

https://mega.co.nz/#!mZNwQAIa!Axo2wEboKudZdRK7XYFvD2FpqJhjVZqAScI24nFWYII

I guess that is all for Touhou project review for the PC-98 platform. Next week will be Touhou 6, the first Touhou game on windows platform. see ya!

Touhou Review: TH04 (Lotus Land Story)

TH04 (Lotus Land Story)

Touhou 4, the fourth instalment of the series. Like the previous ones, it is on PC-98 but  the mechanics makes it easier for most player to be able to learn danmaku games since it is considered passable (relatively). It is basically the improved version of touhou 2. Believe it or not, touhou games nowadays still share most  of its features from this games. 

The story has different start point based on each playable characters; Reimu and Marisa. On Reimu's side, once again, she founds out that ghosts and evil spirits were coming towards the shrine while Marisa sensed a large magical force coming from the same location Reimu was heading and they both met eventually. Later, either Reimu or Marisa will continue on the journey (since they had a battle) and met the culprit of the whole event , Kazami Yuuka. Batting Yuuka is quite long since the player need to fight her in both stage 5 and 6. Similar to touhou 2, after beating the game (without continues) will unlock the extra stage which is.... kinda hard but it should be passable with higher effort and practice.

For the controls, the button mapping is the same where "z" is for shoot, "x" is for bomb and the directional button for movement. The only new feature is the usage of shift button which is to slow down the player's movement for much precise control to dodge extreme barrages. Player will be awarded a bomb upon clearing a stage and extra life after reaching certain point. The other mechanics that was introduced in the game is the graze system. Players will also able to collect points just by staying near bullets. Remember, this will also makes players to get risky and die easily. Just prioritize on survival since player can get bombs easily. Grazing bullets comes next. 

Below are some screenshots and the videos of the game play.

 

Kazami Yuuka in her PJ's

For those who wondering about the the song BAD APPLE and its relation to touhou, the original song is from the BGM of the third stage.

Stage 6 (final) and Boss battle against Kazami Yuuka. Notice the signature skill Master Spark.

Extra stage battle (just to show the difference of difficulty between the normal stages)

So far, among all touhou games in this platform, I like this one the most because it is challenging but not unfair. Not only that, the BGM are also very good for an old game.

Links to the emulator: (clicking it downloads the file directly)

http://www.zophar.net/download_file/2143

Link to the game: (moriya shrine)

https://mega.co.nz/#!O5tGTQ6A!9OgPld1kan2xox3KCILk9OqLCme5J-twN7y8rKK18fw

That was it. Review on touhou 5 will come up next week. See ya!

Touhou Review: TH03 (Phantasmagoria of Dimensional Dream)

TH03 (Phantasmagoria of Dimensional Dream)

Touhou 3.... How should I put it.... It  is still a danmaku game but different from the previous game. It is a versus danmaku game. Honestly, I still have no idea on how to play this properly because..... it might use RNG as well for this game because you will be fighting a real time AI in a danmaku battle.. First things first, the player can now choose up to 9 characters in this game  (note that only 7 characters that are story related since the other 2 characters are the preboss and the boss of the game). Let's get to the story.  There is a ruin discovered near the Hakurei shrine gate and there are rewards for the one who went inside it. However, there should only one person that is allowed to enter the ruin at a time. So, the battle begins.

As for the gameplay, the game will have 2 vertical scrolling screens. The player will be controlling the one on the left while the one on the right will be controlled by the AI, which will be the current opponent of the stage. There will be some monsters or spirits that will appear on the screen like most touhou games where the player will need to shoot down. However, there will be blue and red orb that will appear where you can also shoot it down. After completing some requirements (which I'm still wondering what it is), the player can sabotage the opponent screen by sending special skill which varies with each character. Not only that, the player can also activate even more barrage where the sprite of the player's character will invade the opponent screen and throws massive barrage towards the opponent. Be careful since the opponent can do the same. As usual, there will be bombs to help escape from tight situations. 

Control is similar to touhou 2 but  with extra function of the fire button "z" where the player need to press rapidly for normal fire and hold for charge attacks. Charge attack will have 4 bars where players can fill the gauge and activate skills depending on how many bars was charged. Below are the screenshot and a video of the gameplay

This is the video gameplay of the final stage

In my opinion, I didn't really know how the mechanics really works for this game. I only know that as long as I shoot and also dodge all the bullets, the enemy will eventually mess up and die (hopefully, since it is random for the enemy to hit the bullets and die). To me, the bullet density is and speed is not as many as most touhou games. The only thing that makes the game difficult is that the enemy moves perfectly and dodges like no human can (well, it is an AI).

Links to the emulator: (clicking it downloads the file directly)

http://www.zophar.net/download_file/2143

Link to the game: (moriya shrine)

https://mega.co.nz/#!ft8kHRAL!mzURXZgw-e1haEJY6DaqkJnDxcz6i0Ga5cDkH0r5bF4

That was it. Review on touhou 4 will come up next week. See ya!

Weekly anime montage (15.7.2015)

A little late behind the schedule, but here's the last batch for Spring 2015 anime montages. I'll be posting the new season anime montages next, so stay tuned!