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1. KISIDA KYODAN & THE AKEBOSI ROCKETS - Beautiful Diver This song has been quite a nice way to open the tournament. It is rather rare to see an arrangement based on A World of Nightmares Never Seen Before (the only other one I know is Sadomasochism from Akatsuki Records), and this one is quite a welcome addition. The only nitpick I can come up with, in the lack of a musical culture, is one that basically should not really be addressed. I found it odd that a song associated with Hecatia had the background image containing Doremy Sweet. Is there something I am missing? Is the Extra stage of LoLK happening in the Dream World? No matter what, I will rate this song 8.5/10 2. Boga - The Doll Maker of București (EoSD Arrange) This one has been an interesting pick. Initially, I have listened to this song at the recommendation of @sodaodaoda last summer, and I quickly fell in love with it. I am not really the greatest fan of EoSD (don't get me wrong, I still like the game, but for me PCB creates a greater nostalgia as it was my first direct contact with the games), but I appreciate the direction of the music from that era. Therefore, combining the unique music approach of the EoSD/DiPP era with a theme from PCB, it sure felt like something I really wanted to share. Also, is it wrong that I may greatly prefer The Doll Maker of București over Doll Judgement? Like last time, I will not offer an official rate of my own upload in order to be devoid of bias. But if I have to give it a grade, I would give it a 9/10 purely on the feelings it creates for me. If a song can make you interested in a character, then it means the song has something special. 3. TATAMI STUGIWO - Dance of the Poisoned Candy I really appreciate the classical music opening. And then we are slowly getting into the Touhou section of the song... Personally, I am extremely unfamiliar with Medicine's theme (but to be honest, it is pretty much the same about most themes from PoFV besides Yuuka, Komachi and Eiki's themes). But is always nice to explore new things. And from what I see, the classic music (correct me if I am wrong, but is it from The Nutcracker?) combined very nicely with the PoFV theme. And now I am at the Flower Land part. Always nice to have a little bit of Yuuka thrown into the mix, yet had a little bit of a hard time identifying the River Styx and Sixty Years segments fragments Drunke_Flower was talking about. The ending is quite energetic though, very upbeats, and it will make sure you are awake if you fell asleep (it sure gave me some energy while writing this). Anyway, this is also a good song, so I will rate it 8.5/10

Alright, the time has come. News roundup before Christmas: News and updates There has been maintenance break today. Now let's see what it brought to us: Oh, boy... I will have to manually go though each of these. Where do we begin? 1) Events We have a sequel to the evet from last year. This time, Okina decided to take the mantle and become Gensokyo's version of Santa Claus. What is interesting this time around is the chance for a costume drop out of the first chapter (and only chapter-mission we got today). It can be farmed as it is just a 1 stage battle, but even with two costumes owned, the drop rate is still a little questionable. The mini-game has been announced to come to Global. From some opinions of people who played it already on the JP server, it seems to be rather lackluster. Like an insult towards more appreciated game such as DanKagu (timing for the announcement of this mode could not have been worse, just after the end of service for DanKagu). It remains to be seen how it will perform when it finally reaches Global though... Of course, it cannot be LostWord if we do not get some new or rerun bullshit EX stage. I am not even bothered to check them, as I never did after taking a look at the first ones that were released on Global. Like I have announced last time, Fantasy Rebirth is coming for Ultra Fes units. Time to create more glorified 14 SP bricks... Out of all these characters, I think only the Witch of Scarlet Dreams got a proper introduction and justification to become a character MC-chan can make use of in battle? Through the special WoSD stages we got long ago. That was a cool idea, yet it was never implemented afterwards for the rest of the Ultra Fes, Epic Fes or whatever special unit this gam has dumped in without any reason or connection to the story. Kourindou Rolette is back for the following 10 days New Ruins of Memory story coming. We all know the drill by now, get ready for another Relic Fes unit. Stage also comes with a shiny new card And the overall events for the following days, maybe couple weeks from now. 2) Characters and banners Maid Okuu and Orin are here. Each of them has a separate banner. Because LW devs are lazy with their designs, I will be just as lazy and copy-paste what I said about them last time: Vagabond Relic Fes Mokou is now a thing. Again, I am not very sure what I could say about her besides neat, I guess? And now the highlight skins for the current Christmas event. They have been released since last year, and now they are finally having a meaning. Back then, they were just some nice extras to have. And of course, the new line of winter outfits released with the event. All of them are cute, but I really wanted to get the Tenkyuu one. I like the Santa Claus vibe it has, and Tenkyuu is both one of my Top 10 2hus, a well as a character I use quite a lot in LW (she is surprisingly effective for farming, even if I use her at 10 SP farming). 3) JP server news Last character to be released this year is an alt for... I think this is supposed to be Ringo? "The last new SFes and character of the year. The next one(s) will probably be during New Years (probably be an EFes too). Rabbit 4 Ringo is a Tech unit. And it seems that Yuyuko and Byakuren are being added to the ritual pools. Also Fantasy Rebirth 2.0 for Daiyousei, Shizuha, Nitori, Hina, Yatsuhashi, and Benben. Fantasy Rebirth costumes for Koishi and Satori are next" (u/WWWWWWRRRRRYYYYY of the Bunbunmaru Newspaper) Community discussions and memes After more than 1 and a half/2 and a half years of its existence, people are discussing again about how worth is this game playing. Espcially after the last half a year and all the evolutions brought in by story and characters intoduced. "If you asked me 1 year ago, I'd say yes. However, the JP devs got way too greedy. They also stopped adding meaningful story updates or game modes. There's nothing to be excited for anymore. I still remember being so happy I rolled Saki because I finally had a good unit for fire extra. Now I would only get that feeling if I rolled the shiny new Efes or Relic fes, since all these trashy new jp extra stages basically require the new units to farm well. We have so many units that have potential, but we will never get good content like elemental extra stages or conflux because JP devs love fucking over their players. I wish global got some balls and said fuck jp devs' practices, like with how they made epic fes have 400 pity recently." (u/TraditionalCycle6279) "Touhou is my fav series ever, and unfortunately LW is just a gacha game with Touhou marketing to get it to sell. The only reason I'm playing is to get more retro units, since they actually hold true to the lore/ actual characterization of the Touhou girls without being their fanon personalities. But if I was being honest I would be pretty bummed if the servers went down, as it's pretty fun leveling the Touhou girls up to get their last words." (u/SnooRecipes9397) "In my opinion the game is very stale and the monetization is ridiculous. I mean sure i understand you gotta make money somehow, but again the constant unit spam is ridiculous. I personally play it cus it's touhou-related and sometimes stories have its cute or nice or funny moments. honestly, if it stays like this I don't think it will be alive for long. which is really sad cus I think it has the potential to be something good." (u/melon_prophet) "I love the Touhou series to death, it's a huge part of my weebdom, but I'm not the biggest fan of THLW. The gacha rates are horrible, the resources you get are pretty limited and the frequency with which UFES are pushed out is kind of insane and all but pushes you towards whaling if you're a collector..." (u/Aenigma66) "This exactly. I'm currently taking a break from LW, because at this point I don't know if im playing it for fun, or just for the sake of the daily grind. I remember the whole reason I started LW was because it was very generous with resources you would get for the amount of limited characters. It was reasonable for a dedicated player to get most of, the characters just by playing the game. And splurging a little here and there. No more then a couple cups of coffee worth. But now we constantly have back to back fes and UFES characters. and they even implemented the other limited one. LW has gone from a very forgiving gacha game to a typical one with one of the worst pity systems in gacha, since it actively punishes you for rolling on characters you can't hit pity on, if you don't get the char you want." (u/Drwankingstein) "I enjoy it for the stories and the characters. I'm not one to care about how strongly they're represented compared to their existing lore, especially considering most Touhou content is fan made, right? Hop on, do dailies, play through the new events - if I roll a new character, cool; if not, I'm not super bummed, they'll get a rerun eventually. I don't make it the only game I play, and that's probably why I don't feel as strongly negative towards it (and many other gacha games) as a lot of people here seem to. I've got Genshin, 2 Love Live games, Azur Lane, RuneScape - and that's only on mobile. [I am sorry for you, buddy - Count's notes] Also, If I'm feeling an itch to play Touhou in any variation, there's actually hundreds of Touhou fan games of almost every single game genre out there, but that doesn't compel me to just drop LW because I'm not feeling turn-based strategy ATM, lol. Constant updates, adding events, stories, categories - these really make it stand out from most fan games in the Touhou realm, as generally you finish them and there's no more content; both a curse in waiting for something new to drop, and a blessing in knowing that there's more to come." (u/LilyTwilight) "No. It was pretty interesting at first, but now there's nothing but bloat in the game with characters that are quite literally reskins. No, I'm not talking about the actual skins you can purchase which are way overpriced, I'm talking about the characters that are either "retro" or one of the numerous character in an outfit or one of the numerous recolors that somehow equals not only being completely original but somehow better than their original counterparts. I could understand Alterisa and Edgy Youmu due to their abilities not matching their original counterparts. But minus the Lunar War characters (which STILL feel halfassed) literally every other character is what I feel like should've been a buff for the characters in some capacity instead of generic reskin #1,943 and just made an NPC you could talk to instead of a throwaway unit with a select usage. I haven't touched the game in months so I don't remember which characters I have. Turned off notifications and just started doing other things. Haven't even bothered with any events that were happening, that's how much I've stopped caring. The last event I played before quitting was the one where Eirin suddenly stops being smart an becomes the generic doctor that spews on random nonsense and doesn't pay attention to what's happening until the last second." (u/MysteriousBirbNukes) "My gripes: EX/VS/Conflux stages are just too short, have too many unit checks, card drop rate sucks Standard event stages mats drop rate sucks, it should at least scale with owned event costumes, most of the cards are useless, I did not like Dark Nurse of News event, specially due the element check thing, if events like this became the norm new players who lack units will be really pissed off. Also, I did not fucking like the card stage with Yukari locking you out from boosting, that card, at least for me, wasn't that useless, Mai and Satono would have liked that card, but no, you needed at minimum 12sp Meiling with specific cards to farm it, otherwise you were SOL. The new Gensokyo Island EX stages also smell like finish them once, fetch rewards don't bother daily farming a specific stage for scroll/tiles cause past EX stages are easier and can be farmed with 8sp units I do miss the extra Sangetsusei daily stage, mostly because silver incense and gold mats Standard Rebirth: It's pointless, glorified 14SP brick, sure 14SP Kasen 4t? or 5turning 3-18-3 it's quite something, but I do have other units who can 3t it for cheap Rebirth 2.0: TOO EXPENSIVE, right now only Reimu received the upgrades, but I don't use her anymore, I'm planning to Rebirth Flandre and RE2.0 her just for shit and giggles, probably I'll RE2.0 Marisa too, but, -BUT- the amount and especially the type of mats needed it's too much Rebirth Costumes: I do not fancy waifu dresses, so I can't give you any kind of candy Anima: I would like to save those gold scrolls and coins for better stuff I can't say that much about one banner after another, I spent enough money to buy a more than decent hard tail, somehow ended up to scoring all retro units (plus 8 or so dupes), all FES units but 4, had to skip sparking or seriously pulling for past three months gen pool banners, nevertheless I got Mike and Eternity for cheap, but yeah, got at least 3 Meta UFES units and L80 Sakuya, but had to give up chasing Epic Units cause we don't have so many means to fetch enough dolls to MLB them, yes I can spend 43€ for a doll and stuff I'll probably need, but I'll be more than happy to shell out at MAX 10€ just for a doll and no extra" (u/Il_Diacono) In my absence, Remi and Patchy continued their Scarlet Talk series, with hilarity ensuing every time: 1) Scarlet Talk Episode 8: Year End Short Recap (18th December 2022) 2) Scarlet Talk Episode 8.5: Year End THOUGHTS (21st December 2022) [SOMEBODY SAVE THAT FUMO! - oh wait, she seems to be chill there] (I always love playing this in my head when I see the outro) 3) Scarlet Talk Episode 9: Obligatory Christmas Episode (22nd December 2022) Brief talk about the new manga thing: Honestly, they are one of the few things that still keep me playing this game. I have no other real reason to stay, as I already reached my personal endgame. But these cute comics are something I really wish to read every now and then, and it feels satisfying when unlocking new ones. Plus, the art style in the latest series has been so cute and squishy =0_0= (especially for the fairies grup; they did not look like being bigger than a football) Also this meme to end the day:

When Game of the Year soundtrack nominations were announced, I was somewhat disappointed; I could think of several soundtracks that seemed deserving of the recognition that weren't included, and the only represented option that I'd heard something about before (in the context of its music) was Xenoblade Chronicles 3. However, I hadn't actually heard music from any of them, so I determined to make an effort toward familiarizing myself with some of them, as to be able to make a more informed assessment. To start with, I had to prioritize, because time was limited (I wanted to be done by year's end). I hadn't heard anything about Metal: Hellsinger or A Plague's Tale: Requiem (I hadn't even known they existed), but I did remember hearing about Innocence back when it released. In what may be irony, it was my extremely limited knowledge of that game that discouraged me from prioritizing the sequel's soundtrack; I'd considered the original's story to be rather pretentious, and I hadn't heard anything about its music, so I decided to forgo it entirely. Hellsinger, on the other hand, seemed a reasonably sized soundtrack to start with, compared to the much larger soundtracks of the other entries. Unfortunately, it turned out to be almost entirely screamo/death metal, which is basically the only music I don't listen to at all. It wasn't bad quality (I believe it to have been well composed), but I wouldn't have been able to do a proper feature for it. That left me with the three games I'd actually heard of. I planned to listen through them one at a time and do a feature for each, but for some reason I ended up listening to all three simultaneously with differing levels of engagement according to my initial perceptions. I had high hopes for Xenoblade Chronicles 3, both because I'd heard good things about it from other sources, and because of the association with Yasunori Mitsuda. However, I discovered it to be heavily reliant on leitmotifs, to the point that lack of familiarity with the accompanying story and preceding entries made it impossible to appreciate properly. Unfortunately for me, I lack that familiarity. I'd like to maybe return to this series some day, but it would require quite the time investment. Elden Ring was an unfortunate circumstance of faulty expectations. The first few tracks in the OST (I would presume the title theme, menu theme and possibly a prologue cutscene theme) are standard VGM, with limited progression but a discernible melody; this set my expectations for the rest of the soundtrack. Unfortunately, the rest of the album's first half was entirely area themes. I respect that, for a game about a dying world, the music for said world should be depressing in nature; however, I was still expecting something recognizable. The area themes lack melody entirely, and have extremely limited progression, occasionally straying into the realm of true ambience. While the second half of the soundtrack seemed more promising, the first half had exhausted my patience for the dark style of the music, and with time growing shorter I chose to give up on it. I have wanted to look into the Dark Souls soundtracks for a while, so hopefully I'll get to that next year. With all that, we come to the final nomination. I've mentioned before my high regard for the story of God of War (2018), and I was exciting for the release of Ragnarök. I did not, however, expect anything too noteworthy for its soundtrack. Similar with the previous two titles, I had limited familiarity with the foundational entries, in this case the original God of War trilogy, so while I respected and appreciated the soundtrack of (2018), I didn't find it especially memorable. My experience with Ragnarök, on the other hand, has impressed me greatly. While heavily reliant upon ambience (as one would expect), the game employs strong melody and progression in its music. More importantly, its utilization of its leitmotifs is masterful, limited enough to be kept track of, but strong enough to bring cohesiveness to the soundtrack. Of all five nominations, this was the soundtrack that I enjoyed listening to the most; it still wouldn't have been among my first choices, but I'm glad it was brought to my attention.

We are being spoiled this Christmas. New PV from Akatsuki Records dropped just an hour ago, and they use the same pattern of 2 PVs, we will get one more on Christmas morning. And this time, they finally made an official PV for Psycho Lily (Junko-related song)

Alright here we go 1. KISIDA KYODAN & THE AKEBOSI ROCKETS - Beautiful Diver Kishida is I think one of the first music groups I found, completely by accident. Still love them, really big fan of the tone they go for with the drums and guitars, and ofc ichigo's vocals are so damn good. I think they really shine in more laid back songs like this. Also A never before seen world of nightmares is a favorite of mine so this was an easy pick. ONSEN PROJECT has an acoustic version of this, also sung by ichigo (sneaks in a 4th entry) Anyways, 9/10 2. Boga - The Doll Maker of Bucuresti (EoSD Arrange) Oh shit Boga. Always loved the EoSD/DiPP style with the detuned instruments, I wish ZUN had done more of it. But this dude really nails that style so I guess it's as close as we'll get. Though there's really not much more to this one than what the original already brings, and it doesn't help that The Doll Maker of Bucuresti always gets overshadowed by Alice's actual theme for me I'm sorry. 7/10 3. TATAMI STUGIWO - Dance of the Poisoned Candy mmhm, interesting combo. I saw the name and the "christmas" in the title and expected it to be just Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, and then Medicine's theme kicks in and I'm like "oh shit here we go". It's neat, I don't know what else to say about it. Mixing in the melodies of Yuuka and Komachi's theme in there is interesting, reminded me I need to go re-read PoFV stuff at some point. Had to turn down the volume for that last part, I don't know if it's Youtube compression or if it's actually compressed to shit but, ow. 7/10

oh quite a strong start KISIDA KYODAN & THE AKEBOSI ROCKETS - Beautiful Diver Talk about the original music for a moment. A World of Nightmares Never Seen Before is quite underrated, i quite happy there's some attention to it. The melody is.. yeah quite generic in Touhou really, it's easily memorable but doesn't stand as much. The star of the track is that short bassline and it's the best throughout the franchise. Now about the arrangement. Love the band rock feeling, not super polished nor perfect digital sound, knowing them it is recorded together (i assume). The vocal reminds me of ONSEN PROJECT, I'm sorry i haven't put much attention to these 2 bands, but they are on the list. Contrary to the previous comment, i feel the mastering is perfectly fine. None of the instruments are fighting each other, though i do feel the vocal is quiet at some parts especially when she needed to scream, but mostly it's fine~. My favorite this round 9/10 would repeat a lot Boga - The Doll Maker of Bucuresti (EoSD Arrange) Ok i need to say that EoSD instruments choices aren't the best, the strings are very muddy, it lacks contrast. I would recommend if you want to make music from the same era, try DiPP, it's almost the same but with better piano and strings, perhaps the mastering as well? and even more it should've fit better for Alice. There's nothing wrong with the arrangement, i mean it's a carbon copy with different instruments. if you looking for faults in the context of this tournament it's the lack of re-arrangement. wait.... don't say they use the midi file from the game.... I'm... gonna assume it's not. sus yes there was a midi support for older games. 6/10 nice above average TATAMI STUGIWO - Dance of the Poisoned Candy Dance of Sugar Plum Fairy is one of my favorite classical music, can confidently say it's in the top 10. I also like Poison Body, it is a really special arrange, everything it arranges to always came out as malicious song even if you use cheerful tones, the more cheerful you want to make it the more uneasy it will be. And combined with Sugar Plum Fairy that depicted as serene and curiosity, it emphasized the malicious feeling, the fear of malicious child. (i may or may not have fear of porcelain dolls) At first i thought the track is just two songs played in succession, since the first minute is just pure Sugar Plum Fairy and then the minute after is Poison Body. But finally at the later half of the video they started to mix them together. And as i said before it does emphasize Poison Body potential, who could've guessed sugar made poison more potent. Slightly mixed feeling with the slow part with Flower Land, i feel something is missing during the transition i can't point out why. The addition of River Styx and Sixty Years is quite nice, doesn't leave that as much impact as Flower Land but nice addition. If you see it from story perspective it does makes quite a solid piece. As for quality, it peaks at some part, quite ear grating. Idk if that's compression issue or instrument choice or mastering issue. i'd rate this 8.5/10 would willingly choose to listen from start till the end but won't repeat indefinitely.