Leaderboard

Yeah. I agree that the first time you reach each stage it feels more "earned" with the MoF continue system, but this only works on the first run (seeing a new stage always feels good). After replaying the game on harder difficulty, it gets old very quickly. I am currently clearing SA with all shot-types on Lunatic, and if I had to grind Stage 5 for every times I used my first continue there, I think I would have given up. Well, that's it for me on that topic.

The new continue system is definitely the worse change about the game. If I want to grind a stage over and over again until I am good enough, I'll just use practice mode. With this new continue system, you can get stuck for a good while on stage 5-6, while in previous game you would just use a continue on stage 5, then the rest on 6 and move on. I'd rather just finish my game than force myself to grind a stage on repeat. In SA and UFO, I managed to be far better at stage 6 than stage 5, since I was forced to restart instead of just moving on. Another bad thing with that is that it turns the game into a tedious die-n-retry loop, where you are trying to clear a stage, die to a boss, then retry the whole stage, die to the boss next attack since you don't know how to dodge it and you still need to improve in the rest of the stage, repeat till you get bored or finally beat the stage. Also, in this continue system, it is MUCH harder to unlock practice mode, since the game requires you to be able to beat the stage under 3 lives (or maybe 5 if you carried over some from previous stages). This also makes practice mode almost useless, since if I am able to beat it under 3 lives, why would I need to use practice mode that gives me 9 lives. This is very bad design because the game force you to be good RIGHT NOW, rather than giving you tools to improve, or allowing you to improve at your own pace. In other word, this is a big issue for player new to the game (whether they've beaten other Touhou or not), since it prevents them from enjoying the game first and then improving their run. You can't expect the player to just BE good (especially when there's tricky spell cards involved, like Orin's in SA). we all started somewhere. It took me a year to clear all game with all shot-types on Normal+Hard (and by the way, the continue system just become more annoying as the difficulty goes up, since it involve more resets). For practicing, I prefer to just do full runs of the game until I can clear it, or use Spell Practice/thprac for part that I have trouble with. I prefer having the choice on how I want to practice, rather than the game choosing for me. Yes, having a limit in the old continue system was a bit weird, since the moment you used a continue, you've already lost, so all that's left is practicing the rest of the game and see and how you improved compared to your previous run (first run, you might need 7 continue, then 5, then 2, then 1, then just one life, then congrats you won). In this case, having a limit is a bit meaningless. If the players want to just kill itself and use 80 continues to clear the game, let them. Those that want to improve can still focus and try their best to use less continues. Thankfully, there is a patch to change the continue system of MoF-SA-UFO back to the old one (except there's no limit, since it is hard to mod one into the game), you still get the bad ending, so no cheating (I used that patch for UFO's Hard and MoF-SA Lunatic). And if you feel like it's cheating to use a continue, then you are free to not use them. I never tried to reset a stage from TD-UM, but with that system you get to choose at least. As for Power bombs: I am somewhat glad they have been removed after SA, but they aren't as bad as you say. The basic shot is stronger in MoF and SA (well, more in SA), so having higher power is less important for dealing damage (there's still small difference, but just using 1 bomb won't halve your damage). The main issue with Power bombs is that you lose coverage by having less options, which can be important during stages. Power bombs have the advantage of being rechargeable. When you use a Power Bomb, you can continue the stage and collect power items to get it back. When you use a classic bomb, that's it, you can't get it back, and if that was you're last, then you are doomed to fail at the next "bomb section" of the game (we all have these depending on our skill), no matter how good you do. This means that with Power Bomb, the game discourage the player from using too many bombs in short succession (which is good since bomb should only be used in a pitch). In a boss fight, you need to survive about 2 spells to get the bomb back, so technically having Power bombs gives you more resources than if you were using classic bombs (unless you are playing DDC, where you can grid a ton of them). With classic bombs, you can spam bombs as long as you have them (or recharge by dying), making it feel like you are skipping some stages rather than actually clearing them (in HSiFS, I just bombed most of stage 5, since it is way harder than anything else in the game). The main advantage of classic bombs is that they are a no-brainer, you just use them and hope you won't need too much to clear the game. Simple and straight-forward.

Moving on from what most consider "early Windows" Touhou, we have Mountain of Faith! After PoFV, Mountain of Faith was intended to be a kind of "soft reboot" for the Touhou series, keeping the same characters and continuity from before but going back to the very basics of what the series was to build up something new and different from that point, especially in the gameplay department. For the first time since EoSD, the game features Reimu and Marisa as the only two playable characters, each having three shot types, which unless I'm mistaken, is the highest number of shot types a single playable character has ever had in the series. Reimu's are generally fairly simple and easy to get the hang of, with her classic homing and forward focus shot types, and a third new type focusing on wide area coverage which as far as I'm aware has never reappeared since, but Marisa's are really weird and gimmicky, to varying results. her first one has a trail of orbs that follow her around and fire their own bullets, freezing in place relative to Marisa's position during focus, and her third has these strange magic circle thingies that shoot out blue fire and stay in the same position whenever you focus, flying back to Marisa once you unfocus. Her second is comparatively simple, playing similarly to previous Marisa shot types, but there's a glitch where if you're between 3.05 and 3.95 power, it deals 10 times the damage it's meant to, allowing you to beat every boss in the game in seconds. This glitch becomes significantly easier to abuse thanks to a new, and to be honest, really annoying change Mountain of Faith makes to the way bombs work; now, instead of having a separate, dedicated meter for bomb use, every bomb used consumes one full level of power, and they become unusable below 1.00 power. I'll be honest, this change is literally just annoying, without any possible benefits, and I don't understand what ZUN was thinking when he made it work like this. Thankfully, it's not nearly as bad here as it is in the next game, but I still hate it here. "Hmm yes, I would like to use a bomb when I think I might die if I don't, oh oops I don't deal any damage anymore" what on earth was this man thinking. Additionally, bombs themselves have also been nerfed; now, instead of each shot type having a unique bomb, they all just make a big circle fly out in front of the player that deletes bullets, and gets bigger the more power you have when you use it. Functionally, this isn't that different to how bombs are in the rest of the series, they're kind of just a thing you throw out when you're in trouble so you don't die, but I don't care, I like having multiple unique bomb types and I wish this game also had those. Despite my issues with the game's implementation of bombs, I actually think this game plays really well. There are no real gimmicks to speak of here, aside from the faith system which only impacts scoring, and the game has some overall really solid level and boss design. There's not really a whole lot to say here, it's just a generally solidly designed bullet hell. The environments here also look really nice; the previous games have definitely had good environment designs before (PCB's fifth stage and IN's fourth/sixth both particularly stand out to me), but there's a real sense of consistency here, both in terms of the quality of the environments and the general vibe that they go for. Stage 4's waterfall is a particularly great one, the enemies popping out from behind the water being a really nice detail, and Stage 6's pillars overlooking the lake is the perfect backdrop for a battle against the final boss, but my favorite stage here is easily Stage 3. I don't know, I just love the reveal of the river at the beginning combined with Gensokyo the Gods Loved playing in the background, it's a great combination. Speaking of which, the soundtrack here is great, as is to be expected by this point. There's the previously mentioned Gensokyo the Gods Loved, one which I really like and which definitely deserves its spot as a uniquely iconic song to the series, but it's far from the only great one here. Fall of Fall and A God that Loves People both also have a great sense of atmosphere to them, and Cemetery of Onbashira also does a great job at hyping you up for the final battle, contrasted immediately by the sense of overwhelming power and "oh fuck, I've just challenged an actual god to a fight" carried by Suwa Foughten Field. Also, Tomorrow Will Be Special, Yesterday Was Not and Faith is for the Transient People are just generally bangers. I don't have much to say about those ones, they just go really hard, and that first one with the comically long name in particular is by far my favorite song in this game. Anyway, onto the story, which I'm just realizing it's quite unusual for me not to have covered by now. This game also suffers somewhat from the Perfect Cherry Blossom issue of not really conveying its story through the in-game dialogue all that well, but from what I can gather, the Moriya Shrine, dedicated to the worship of the gods Kanako Yasaka and Suwako Moriya, is losing faith in the outside world, so Kanako transports it into Gensokyo on the top of the Youkai Mountain in hopes of gaining more faith there, annoying the local youkai and prompting Reimu to go and investigate. Six stages later, she reaches Kanako, who tries to persuade her to convert her own shrine to Kanako-ism, but Reimu refuses, choosing to keep her shrine true to itself as opposed to casting aside its previous god in exchange for the added faith and donations that Kanako promises her, and the two fight each other. After this, Reimu wins, and the local mountain youkai come to accept Kanako and Suwako as new local gods in exchange for Kanako not being as annoying about it as before. Later on, Reimu visits the Moriya shrine again, and Suwako shows up, apparently disappointed that she didn't get a chance to fight her like Sanae and Kanako did, so they fight too. Also Marisa is there and you can play as her instead if you want, but this is one of the few games where the story feels uniquely tailored to Reimu specifically and works way better if you pick her, so I've decided to just ignore Marisa's presence entirely. Despite this game being more than a little cryptic as to what exactly is going on in the early stages, I actually quite like this story. Kanako works really well here, being someone who's just annoying and pompous enough to work as a villain while not being so up her own ass as to be completely unable to get along with the locals, and like I previously mentioned, the story here feels uniquely tailored to Reimu specifically as a main character, something which is surprisingly rare in this series and which I really enjoy. A large part of why Reimu works as a main character is her versatility and how you can drop her into just about any incident and have her presence make sense, but it's still nice to occasionally get a story that's just as much about her as it is the shiny new villain ZUN's decided to introduce. It's a shame Marisa doesn't work nearly as well in this game's story, though, but I suppose it was an inevitable trade-off, so I'm willing to accept it here. The game's other characters are also quite good. Stage 4 features best girl Aya as a boss fight, which is always welcome, but the new characters have a lot to offer as well, although in my opinion they're not as good as some of the previous casts. There's the previously mentioned Kanako, who's great, but Hina and Suwako are also characters I really like, Hina being a "misfortune god" and yet also one of the most genuinely nice characters in the series, and Suwako just generally being a silly and enjoyable character to watch. Nitori is also introduced in this game, and while she doesn't really do anything for me here specifically, I quite like her in everything else she's in, so that's cool. This game also introduces Green Reimu, also known as Sanae Kochiya, priestess of the Moriya Shrine, and... I'll be honest, she's one of the few characters in this series I actively dislike. I can't think of a single trait I associate with her aside from being from the outside world originally, a concept which is done significantly better by Sumireko later on in the series and which is barely a factor in her more recent portrayals, and yet for some unfathomable reason ZUN insists on shoving her into every game he can possibly find an excuse to make her be playable in. She doesn't bother me at all in MoF specifically, and there's nothing I inherently dislike about her as a character, but at this point, I'm really just sick of her. Oh, this game also introduces Minoriko and Shizuha Aki. I have nothing to say about them, other than that they sure are characters who exist. Overall, while I do definitely have my issues with this game, its overall solid design and excellent music and environments still make it one I frequently enjoy coming back to, and even if in practice a lot of its changes feel bizarre and unwelcome, I can at the very least respect ZUN for making a genuine attempt at something new with this one. EDIT: Fuck I forgot to mention, this game also changes how continues work. This time, you have infinite continues, but whenever you use one, you go back to the start of the stage. Personally I actually really like this, continues always kinda feel like cheating to me in the other games, until you use up too many and the game goes "nah fuck you you're not allowed to play anymore", I much prefer having to be skilled enough to beat a level without them to clear it but in exchange being allowed to retry as many times as I want.

I get what you're saying, to some extent, it's just that none of this really changes my mind. When I beat MoF using continues for the first time, it still felt like I'd accomplished something, which isn't something I can really say about any other game in the series. Being 100% honest, I somehow managed to not notice the option on the menu of every game since TD to retry individual stages, so the knowledge that that exists does actually help, but I do still kinda prefer the MoF system. I don't think either one is "better" than the other, though, it's purely a personal preference for me.

Almost a month too late from my promised answer, but it is finally time to do it. I can no longer delay... Originally, I did not get the reference. It took me a bit until I saw your second reply and realized it's based on a quote from Symphony of the Night. Very clever The issue of unrealism is something I have addressed in another thread written around the same time as this one. I think we all people are attracted, or have the tendency to be attracted by perfection to some degree. About the comment regarding food, it happened to me a lot of times too, even if mostly when i was watching cooking shows. I would add more here, but I think some of the ideas will come the more I go through the replies... Indeed, the market is filed with materials from which to choose. Some might even call it (overly)saturated by it. But I guess that is the selling point it? After all, VNs/dating sims are still quite popular, even if they can be very shallow and copy tropes and formulas from one another. This one strikes close to home. I can't talk too much about myself, but from the perspective of someone who has never been in a relationship, I would say we might be a vulnerable target audience for waifu content. And I think that might even be the ultimate purpose of this kind of content? It's 4chan where it comes from after all. Some level of BS is always to be expected. Usually, I heard the term "cartoon crush" to be used for what would be the Western media equivalents of waifu/husbando. This one is quite fun. We are making so much fun of "Discord mods" and associate them wish stuff of the sorts, but it can happen to anyone of us at some given point. I like this perspective. It reminds me of a meme I have seen at one point in the past going along th lines of "Best girl this, best girl that / How about you become the best version of yourself to get the best girl irl?" (I hope I can also find it eventually). Perhaps it could work to use them as a motivation factor for self-improvement? Even if they do not exist, at least you can focus on how you could become a better person that could eventually get the guy/girl they like in real life. I agree on the idea no w/h can replace real love. The may get you feel better for a little bit of time, similarly to a drug, but when the effect goes, you will feel empty again. despite the fact I never really found myself declaring that I have a "waifu" (despite me liking a few characters in the way of "they are cool/pretty"), I know that feeling. It's not a pleasant one, that's all I can assure. To me, the confusing part comes from the fact my exposure to media containing waifu stuff has only been relatively recent. It started about 3 years ago, and was almost as if I was struck by a truck. I went from nothing of the sort to full-on stuff of the sort (especially after I picked Touhou), and it was a big change for me. I did not understand why I was liking the characters so much, as until then I was not the king of guy who would have a favorite character from a series (or even feel stuff similar to a crush for fictional content). Hello Cana! It's always good to have you in here. Now that you brought up that podcast, I grew curious and put it into my "Watch later" playlist. It reminds me of a brief episode from early 2021. At the time, I was still new into Touhou, and my favorite character was Youmu. And since I thought she was cool, just as you do with Patchouli (all my respect), I used an image of her as my profile picture. I t was brief, and it seems like I never came back to it (unless you count my current image of Sakamoto on Discord). This is the image I have used back then. It is part of a bigger art set made an artist called Hoshiringo. Basically, I like to call these "ZUN portraits, but RTX: ON". There are two big plates, one for EoSD and one for PC: Similarly to what I have told to Nekofire, I feel like characters we like form media can serve as inspiration to improve ourselves. Take a look at what you like/admire about that character, then look at how you can emulate them by yourself. Or maybe you can also look for someone who has some of these traits you prefer? I don't really know, I feel I am not the kind of person who should be talking about this... Sure, gacha does have that appeal element set as a selling point. A tool to drive sales if we are to call it as such. And I guess this actually works? Given the abundance of the industry, there will always be something that will fit for everyone (I would have originally compare this with throwing dung to a wall and see what sticks, but it might be more than that...). I agree that there is need for a critical point of view, and actually take a look at what makes a character to be a "waifu" for someone. Sometimes, I do not know if I actually like a character, or I just find their design/find the fanart to be very good/attractive. Therefore, I will try something I do not usually do, and actually talk a little bit about why I like one character or another (despite never having directly called them "mai waifu" or really thought of them as such): Hieda no Akyuu (Touhou): I really like bookworm characters (just as much as I like people of that kind in real life). It's something very cute about a character that works as an archivist-chronicles/historian, maybe also due to the fact I like history too. She is a dork, and I would say she is also adorkable. Bonus, I would say that reading Forbidden Scrollery made me find her even more interesting than before, even if many times she may act more like a living encyclopedia (side effect, FS also bumped Kosuzu all the way up into my top 5 2hus). Tanamachi Kaoru (Amagami): Amagami has been (and still is) a weird episode in my life. Normally, I would stay far from dating sims related media, but this one caught my attention mostly for this character. At first sight, there is nothing too special about Kaoru, but for me (and probably most people), what bring attention to her like a lighthouse is the messy, wavy hair. A lot of art pools add her into "gorgeous hair/haircut", which seems to be the selling point. Also after watching the series itself, I also like her more tomboy-ish nature and way to behave. Overall, I think this might be the first character I have ever been fanboy-ing over. Yamashiro (Kancolle): normally, I would stay far from games like this one. But I think from her on (if I am to even go to describe other characters mentioned), I would just end up saying that they are pretty. I just have a weakness for short(er) black hair, and I think the Miko outfit something I like (I like the red-white) contrast. Ironically, I have become more curious to learn about the real warship (IJN Yamashiro) that inspired this character, as well as the Fusou-class warships (Yamashiro and Fusou, her sister-ship, are part of this class). So just history stuff... Byleth (Fire Emblem): again, I just think she looks pretty. I am not familiar with the Fire Emblem series at all, and all I know is that the male version of Byleth was added in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Female Commander (GFL): again, I just like how she looks. Nothing else. She's the player's character, so I can't really add too much. Now you have really made me curious about the tastes of this friend of yours, especially if you say they might be similar to what I have listed... Interesting. I was not expecting for this to be something extreme even for weebs. I thought it was something associated with them in general... I have started watching Azumanga Daioh somewhere at the beginning of March, just after I finished with the first season of Amagami SS. The problem is that I have put it on an indefinite hiatus, and I am not sure when I will get back to it. But I really want to finish the series eventually. I am also familiar with Nichijou, and found a lot of clips from the series on YouTube. That series seems to be quite fun, and I really like some of the characters like Sakamoto (and explains why I am using him as my pfp on Discord nowadays). GyateGyate art is always cute. Apology accepted. Once I found out where it comes from, it became so much better. Therefore, why I pointed out so many times that usually I either find a character to be pretty looking or be interesting in the way in which they are built/depicted based on their actions and interests. Indeed, the problem of falling into obsession is a real thing, and we really do tend to stick with an idealized version of that individual. Doesn't that happen in real life as well though? I know that the breaking of the illusion has been something negative. Once the "phantasm" is lifted, they tend to either lose interest in that person, or just feel disappointed the partner was not exactly what they thought them to be. It did happen to me once, or better said I was the one someone had illusions about, yet when those broke, things went sour. But I do have a question: can the illusion related to waifus be broken? And if you manage to break it, would that mean a liberation from the phantasm and obsession? I think at some point all of us may have expectations of someone irl, and might feel a bit a bit disappointed when what you thought about them shatters. Therefore a question (taken from French Baguette Syndicate): do we actually fall in love with a person for who they are, or for the illusion we are projecting about that person? I will break this into two parts. First, isn't it something inheritably human to be afraid of change? A lot of people do not wish for change, and would like to maintain things the way they are at all costs. Which in turn risks to devolve into stagnation. Second, isn't the "fill-in-the-blanks with whatever you wish" one of the things that brought the Touhou community and fanon to life? people have always filled in the blanks with whatever they want/like about that character (which leads to what you mentioned later, in regards to Fusu for example). Again, pretty much what I have mentioned earlier about the birth of the fandom. Which I do feel like it was influenced to some degree about the rise of the "waifu" phenomenon at the time. I would talk more about Fusu, but I think I have expressed more than enough about him in a lot of previous threads of mine. Some people will always look for the easy way to obtain gratification/satisfaction. "The low hanging fruit" basically. Since a waifu does not change (unless the author of the series where said waifu comes from decides to continue the series and keep evolving the character), they just become timeless. And that is just something people will find easy to stick to. But yeah, people have to accept those around them with their good and bad points, since nothing is perfect in real life. Neither do I have anything that I would declare to be a "waifu", but just like you I do have characters that I like. I already explained a short version of what I like about Akyuu, so I will not go into further detail about that. Luckily, Akyuu has not really been turned into a waifu. She is still one of those side-characters some fans may not even know to exist. She did not escape the art of Fusu though (though I am not sure if he has any not-safe-for-work art of her outside one of the standard confessions). So I am not very sure if people focused on anything in order to turn her into a waifu, as she is a non-existent character for some. She is in the "you read the manga, you nerd" category. I would like to talk a bit about this, but I think the following image conveys much better everything I would have said. You know, "an image is worth a million words" or something like that... "You don't want a girlfriend, you want a toy"

i finally got time life is hell Eternal Melody - SYNCHRONICITY I forgot my stance against techno music, good thing i guess?? for disclosure i listened to the one Ken linked since it's better quality. Quite a high energy track, they did a nice job keeping it exciting maybe yeah a bit too long as ken says, i also not a big fan of repetition but it's alright. a bit funny how the end is a fade covered by choirs which never appear in other part. I will elaborate about the hard cut later. Vocals, love hate with the autotune, somehow it emphasis it being techno and yet at the same time doesn't feel very natural...well yess technology ain't natural but aeugh. The lyrics are ok, nothing too deep but not too shallow either, it's about revenge, how surprising. I actually quite enjoy this 8/10 About the abrupt end, the video length is matching with official information, so it's NOT a cut. I was right when i felt there's something off with the whole track, the mastering felt really amateurish. I'd assume the uploader had put their hand in this track mastering, and NORMALIZED ALL THE PEAKS. Basically making everything flat to a set decibel, the loud got toned down and the lows got louder. Does not work well with fade since it flatten the fade... which is no fade. Karasu - Moths to a Flame they do metal? I was quite impressed by the opening actually The sounds of vibraphones faintly in the background is quite nice, though the moment they introduce it as the focal point it kinda kills the tense they've been building. The transition to satori theme is also flawless, these two theme work together nicely. I do like the eerie screeching and moans at the middle, it does add to the feel. While the okuu climax is quite interesting, I can't help but feel the brighter guitar is confused. no i don't wanna talk about the satori climax The whole track felt a bit slow with the lower tempo and longer duration despite the intensity they give off. And slight problem with mastering, some instruments are significantly dominating the others. 6/10 gosh i hate those vibraphones ShinRa-Bansho - Traveler of the Aurora I don't even need to listen to this, I listen it all the time. I'm very familiar with this I collect SWR arranges. iirc I've posted this in Musical Discovery but ok. I love this kind of fantasy-esque ethnic genre. Paired with Flawless Clothing of the Celestials it's a flawless combination. This kind of stuff feels so epic. Like a breath of the wild, a new perspective, an adventure. This is is what i expect from any media that delves into fantasy genre. 10/10 i got sucked into the world. Read 天子の旅 Tenco's Story from Sirakannnu, only 3 Chapters https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/22712774

"Nothing to quantify what you have lost"? Previous game had the status screen at the end of the game. It shows you how much continue you've used and how many lives you lost. For MoF-SA-UFO, you can tell how much continue you have used by looking at your score (the last digit is the number of continue). This is how you can tell how you are improving. "Not to mention that I just find getting booted out of a game once you die enough times to be an inherently annoying mechanic". I did say the limit was a bit weird, but this is to avoid, like you said, player just having infinite lives so they don't care anymore about dying. So choose: Either have infinite lives and work as hard as you can to improve, or have a hard limit that forces you to improve (kicking you out if you are not good enough). I'd prefer infinite continue, but since the current limit is pretty high (5 on hard), it isn't really an issue. Either way, nothing stopping you from taking the game seriously and avoid getting hit after using a continue. This is merely a tool for you to improve, without forcing you to improve NOW. When you have a busy schedule, a 30m Touhou game is easy to squeeze in, and the continue system will ensure that it won't last any longer. On the other hand, the MoF's system will make it so that it could take you 1h30, or more depending on how many reset you need. In the old continue system, I can choose whether I want to "skip" stage 5 and use Practice Mode later if I really struggle on it. For example, I am on Orin's last spell, and die. Do I really want to bother doing the stage all over again when I just made a silly mistake near the end? The answer is no. I know how to avoid that spell, I don't want to be force to grind it, I just want to move on to stage 6 (since I don't have too much time to game and want to keep the game to a short 30m). Yes, beating the game should feel rewarding, but the moment you use a continue (regardless of the continue system) you have already loss (you've still loss and the Bad Ending and the lack of Credits will remind you of it). The Bad Ending should be a punishment, not a reward for having reset 15 times a stage and finally got good enough to be stage 6. The reward is the good ending, where you have beaten the game as intended, regardless of the path you have gone through to improve. This is the same as Practice Mode. Yes, you could bomb-spam the whole stage (since you have 9 lives), but that would be pointless and you would not improve. You could use continues and turn the game into a "baby-easy-mode", but you would not improve. This is your choice to make, and I'll repeat myself, but I'd rather choose than being force into a single option (when in truth who cares about how I reached the Bad Ending for the Xth time). From TD onward, we both get to choose how we want our continue, so that's that. For MoF-SA-UFO, the choice is to use the continue patch or not.

Yeah, this is fair, I can see where you're coming from. Admittedly the system does annoy me way more in SA, and it never bothers me that much in MoF, so it's not the worst change. My issue with it is honestly with how it lays the groundwork for the SA bomb system already (doesn't help that SA is already one of the hardest games in the series as is). Eh, this is fair, I guess. I don't really agree at all, since I'd still rather be required to have the skill to beat a stage before moving onto the next, but I can see where you're coming from. Alright, but this is exactly the issue I have with them. With how the current continue system works, you're given a choice between a playthrough where you have so many lives that deaths barely feel like they matter, and for some insane reason you can't see how many continues you have left, so you can't even quantify what you've lost with a death, and just outright going for a 1cc, which is a fun challenge once you're better at the game, but still not one to expect a new player to go for. With the MoF/SA/UFO continue system, it turns just beating the game in and of itself into an actual challenge, even with continues, which I enjoy a lot more than continue runs being nothing more than an easy baby practice run of the game so you can eventually take on the "real" challenge of playing the game without them. Not to mention that I just find getting booted out of a game once you die enough times to be an inherently annoying mechanic, regardless of genre (unless I'm imposing it on myself through deciding to do a 1cc run, in which case I actually quite like it for some reason). I will agree that this is just annoying with no possible benefits though, I do not like the way practice mode works in these games. What exactly is the point of practicing a stage I've already beaten?

The continue system got so bad for me, i just don't want to go past Stage 4 in SA and UFO. I agree with you (i need to try the continue patch again, the first time it gave me trouble). I even prefer LotLK's point device mode that has a shorter die-n-retry loop with a save file to stop playing once you feel like it. Exactly, and as you get better and start dying less, you can spam more bombs due to having more Power available (instead of just keeping the power high). Thing is that in SA you might not lack power, but range (Reimu's homing is bad in this entry, so the easy way is out). Another thing with Classic bombs is that the game encourages you too much to use them, because a death means at least 3 bombs you lost without reward. This makes me start spamming bombs like a madman as soon as i hit Stage 5

As someone who can't get past Wrong Monday because Clownpiece, the chunk of the game I got to play was real fun.

IMPERISHABLE NIGHT IS SO PEAK AAAAAAA- Ok, calming down for a moment, I really like this game. I'm not sure if I'd call it my favorite game in the series, but it's by far my favorite of the early Windows games. Apparently, ZUN's plan was to end the series here, and given that this feels like a culmination of everything Windows Touhou has been up until this point, it's easy to see why he would choose this as an ending point. The game features 8 playable characters, split up into 4 teams of 2, and follows whichever team the player selects on a mission to find out what's going on with that strange fake moon in the sky; the playable teams are Reimu/Yukari, Marisa/Alice, Sakuya/Remilia, and Youmu/Yuyuko. But, how does it play? Well, that's kind of a hard question to answer, as this game features various bizarre gimmicks which it never makes any attempt to explain, but which only impact your score and nothing else, and as a result, can largely be ignored. I didn't actually understand how these gimmicks worked until I did some research for this post and was fully able to enjoy the game without them, and I can't imagine my newfound knowledge having any impact on future playthroughs, so I'm just going to speed through them. Time orbs! These are a thing you collect by doing Things™, and if you get enough, time doesn't advance as much once you clear a stage (the less time has advanced by the end of the game, the more you score). There's also a human/youkai gauge in the bottom left, which is influenced by a thing I'll go over later, and if it's below -80% or above 80%, collecting time orbs becomes easier. Additionally, if you collect enough time orbs by the end of a stage, the boss will activate their Last Word, an extra-powerful spellcard which you get one chance to dodge, and can't use bombs during. If you get hit, you don't lose any lives, and the Last Word simply ends and you move onto the next stage. These are kind of cool, admittedly. Beyond that, there is one new feature to this game which actually does impact the way you'll play it, and that's the team system. As mentioned earlier, you're technically playing as a team of two characters, and this manifests as your human character (Reimu/Marisa/Sakuya/Youmu) being used while you're unfocused, and switching out to the youkai character (Yukari/Alice/Remilia/Yuyuko) once you start holding the focus button. In the moment, this doesn't feel that different from how focused/unfocused shot types usually work, but depending on which character you're using, the gauge at the bottom left from earlier will move more towards either the human or youkai side, and the attention to detail with how each shot type corresponds to the character's personality is particularly nice. Reimu's homing shot fits her nicely as a no-nonsense youkai exterminator, while Yukari mostly just sits back and has Ran do all the work for her, and Marisa's (relatively) wide angle, lagging secondary shots and fast movement encourages the player to move as fast as possible and blow up everything in sight, a playstyle which suits her nicely and contrasts Alice's much more controlled, forward-facing laser shot. Additionally, Youmu's admittedly poor area coverage is balanced by her having potentially the most damaging shot type in the game, allowing her to easily cut through everything in front of her, while Yuyuko's beautiful yet dangerous all the same wide spread shot covers almost the entire screen, delivering an indiscriminate death to all of her enemies. I can't quite work out what Sakuya or Remilia's shot types have to do with their characters, though, those two are kind of the exception here. Your bombs will also be different depending on which character you're currently using, although with the exception of Youmu's straight slash being very effective during boss fights but largely not worth using anywhere else, this doesn't impact how you play the game too much. This game is also by far the hardest of the early Windows games, making it the first of many I'll be forced to admit that I've never been able to 1cc on normal, but it's also notable for being particularly creative with its bullet patterns at times. For one, there are now these strange glowy things I can't seem to find a name for anywhere which disappear when you switch to the youkai character but shoot bullets and can be destroyed by the human character, adding an extra layer of depth to many bosses' spellcards, as you need to decide between going straight for the boss but having to survive a much harder attack, or targeting the glowy things and lengthening the amount of time you spend on the spellcard but making it easier to survive. The balance between which of these options is better or worse varies between spellcards, too, ensuring that you consistently need to weigh up the options each time. Additionally, individual bosses also get quite creative here, in particular Mystia, who can darken the screen and make you unable to see far-away bullets, and Reisen, who does something very strange which I'm not quite sure how to describe but which is nonetheless really cool and makes her one of my favorite bosses to fight in the series. Other bosses in the game also vary the types of attacks they use greatly, ensuring a sense of variety between fights, and this type of creativity isn't 100% unique to Imperishable Night, but I felt it was worth calling attention to nonetheless. Additionally, this game's character writing is also excellent. Reimu being very tired but begrudgingly having to put up with Yukari's Yukari-ing anyway, Remilia being basically a child who's just here because she felt like it and Sakuya having to spend the whole game babysitting her while still sincerely caring about her, and Yuyuko just being consistently very very strange, much to Youmu's confusion, are all great dynamics, but my favorite pair by far here is Marisa and Alice. I love their dynamic of Marisa wanting to just go full unga bunga mode and blow up everything in front of her and Alice trying to be the responsible one and actually proceed with some amount of logic, while at the end of the day, they're still both friends who care about each other a lot, it's great. They're also the only pair in the game where both characters are on roughly equal standing with each other, which also gives their interactions a unique feel when compared to the rest of the game's cast, the others being teams of master/servant, master/servant, and whatever Reimu and Yukari's relationship is. That's not to say any of the other pairs aren't great too, though, I love all of them. The interactions with either Reimu or Marisa in stage 4 are also great, although I kind of wish there had been alternate Sakuya or Youmu fights during that stage for the other two teams, even if I understand why that wasn't done. Speaking of which, that whole fight is really great, it reminds me a lot of the Reimu/Marisa fight in LLS, only way cooler because of the banger chase sequence that happens halfway through. The new characters are a bit more of a mixed bag for me, though. I quite like Keine and especially Kaguya, and Tewi is just a mid-stage boss with no actual dialogue here, but I like her later PoFV characterization, but beyond that, I don't have any characters here I'm all that fond of. Wriggle is just annoying, Mystia is barely a character, and Reisen here is just the same "stage 5 boss who's a dedicated servant to the stage 6 boss" trope we got in the last two games, without anything to really distinguish her from Sakuya or Youmu. I'm not super familiar with her characterization in other media, so maybe she's more interesting elsewhere, but she seems to be a very popular character, and I can't for the life of me understand why. The black coat thingy she has here does look really cool, though, I wish ZUN would let her wear it again. Eirin is also kind of just a whatever character for me, although I do really like the moment at the beginning of Final A where she explains exactly how she's successfully trapped the main characters, that was cool. Overall, this game's cast doesn't do nearly as much for me as PCB's, and while they are "better" than EoSD's in the sense that they actually have some amount of personality in their dialogue, EoSD still has a lot of characters like Cirno, Meiling or Remilia who would go on to be much more well-written than their first appearances, and who are more likeable to me than anyone introduced in Imperishable Night (ignoring Kaguya). Actually, while re-reading this, I'm noticing that I somehow managed to forget that Mokou, one of my favorite characters in the series, was introduced in this game, so I'm just going to add this little bit at the end to say that Mokou is great and I love her, 10/10 character. Lastly, I want to talk about the soundtrack. As you can generally expect from this series, the soundtrack is fantastic, and while there isn't any one song that jumps out at me as exceptionally outstanding like Border of Life did in Perfect Cherry Blossom, there's still a lot here to love, and the entire soundtrack has this really distinct vibe to it which I can't quite describe, but which sounds unlike anything else in the entire series. For specific examples, Illusionary Night immediately does a great job of establishing this game's whole feel and tone right out of the gate, and Deaf to All but the Song is this game's resident "goes far too hard for how early in the game it plays", and while I don't have a lot to say about Plain Asia, it's another one I really like. Maiden's Capriccio and Love-Colored Master Spark are also both great at selling that feeling of a battle between old rivals, and Cinderella Cage fits the feeling of finally having reached the source of the incident perfectly. Lunatic Eyes ~ Invisible Full Moon, on the other hand, isn't one I'd ever go out of my way to listen to, and to be honest I'm not a huge fan of it by itself, but I will admit that it works really well as a battle theme for Reisen, having a waving, uncertain quality to it, as if you can't quite understand what it is you're even fighting. Also... Voyage 1969. I really love Voyage 1969. I'm not sure how to describe why exactly, I just like it a lot. Overall, Imperishable Night is a great game, one of my favorites in the series, and while it does have things I don't really like all that much, like the bizarre time orb system or the 50/50 new characters, it definitely delivers on being a fun, engaging bullet hell with varied boss patterns, a banger soundtrack, and a wide variety of great returning characters, which is really what I, and I'd imagine most of you, are fans of this series in the first place for. This game, to me, more than possibly anything else in the series, embodies what Touhou is, and that's why I love it so much.

Imperishable Night is the third (and last) game i 1cc'd (currently im focusing in catching up with the later games, with continues, to be ready once 19 releases). This is probably the most replayable game in the series, considering the Stages 4 and 6 have two versions and once you 1cc the game with each character, you unlock playing with each character individually. The pairs work great, making the dialogs and gameplay much more entertaining, and it's a shame ZUN never repeated this outside Touhou 11. The time gimmick is something helpful to know once you start playing, because this game's continue system decreases your remaining time, meaning that if you don't manage your time correctly you will get a game over. This is the first bad gimmick, it doesn't help you in any way, and it locks you out from practicing Stage 6 (or 5 if you are bad at this). I had to play Stages 1 and 2 in a near perfect way to gather enough time (each stage in which you get the bonus, accounts for an extra 30 minutes, needing 1 hour to get a continue) just to reach Eirin. The best way to gather time is to: Play focused during stages (as each enemy you take down increases your points) and playing unfocused during bosses (it increases your time progressively) and switching just before the kill to focus mode. As you can see, it's problematic for every team except Youmu/Yuyuko and Sakuya/Remilia. Last Words are cool, but really hard to see. There's a bug with Marisa/Alice in this game, if you rapidly spam switching between focus and unfocused, you do even more damage than Youmu. Another bug is that when you switch to Youmu, her spirit points upwards, making it pretty easy to do a lot of damage quickly by just reseting it's position every time you find an opening. Sakuya's shot type is just a nerfed version of SakuyaA from 7. Remilia's shot type could mean her immaturity, as it's kinda cheap to cover 2 parts of the stage at one time, i don't know. ZUN just made Reimu stupidly hard (i'd say, even harder than Kaguya/Eirin) and Reisen is the first boss with "cheap" attacks (with "cheap" i mean that i had to look up how to dodge them do to them being unintuitive and even if you know how to dodge them, there's a big chance for you getting hit anyway.). Luckily, this game is pretty generous with resources if you can get high scores and if you use bombs. ZUN planned to have a fight with Youmu and Sakuya, but he ran out of time during development (this is why you can unlock some spellcards where you face them and even Remilia and Yuyuko in practice mode). Reisen's gimmick is due to her having powerful eyes (she can manipulate waves you can see and somehow induce "craziness" in you), idk why a rabbit has eye-releated powers??? Alice is responsible, until she suggests Marisa to call Reimu a Bitch (mistranslation, but still it's iconic) and on her good ending she fails to stop Marisa from telling Reisen her house is a museum she wants to steal from (lol). Yukari just acts like Reimu's mom for some reason? Yuyuko is strange, because she is doing the "im goofy haha" game but she drops some nuggets of information on her dialogs if you pay attention. Her dialogs are almost like a poem, you need to look trice to find meaning. These are the important ones: First, she reveals that Keine is a half-beast before the extra stage. Second, she reveals that there's a secret (Stage 6 B) in the Eientei with all the "dragon fish" nonsense (it's a word game in japanese that hints at Kaguya). Third, she correctly noticed that Reisen comes from space. Forth, she makes a right guess about Eirn being a criminal in the moon. Fifth, she is overly cautious with Mokou (could she know they are distantly related?) as Yuyuko instantly tried to use her power on her and is visibly scared of her. Same. For me this is the worst part of the game (combined with it's replayability, it sucks). Wriggle and Mystia just don't matter, at all. Reisen gets a lot of development in LotLK (Touhou 15), that's why she gets a lot of love. Her dialogues in that game are among the best i read from ZUN. I find Eirin to have a god complex, her dialogues make you feel dumb and because she's immortal she just treats everybody as a tool (on 15, she keeps on with this, i really dislike her). Kaguya is similar, but she is a lot less egotistical, instead just treating everything like a game. Mokou is amazing! If you think about it, she is the opposite of Yuyuko (not being able to continue with life's cycle, but alive instead of being a ghost). And it's one of the few characters that wears pants! What a shame she's underutilized by ZUN. I find Keine to be pretty boring, i end up disliking her just because her attacks annoy me, as there's nothing interesting in her character. I love how well the more calm OST contrasts the time rush you are in. Nostalgic Blood of the East ~ Old World is inspired by Alice in Wonderland, i love the throwback as it's one of my favorite Touhou songs. Plain Asia also sounds like something out of PC98. Maiden's Capriccio is just too ear breaking for me, i prefer the LLS version. Lunatic Eyes ~ Invisible Full Moon is also pretty boring for me, it drags too long before the somewhat disappointing climax. Both Voyage songs make me feel like im in space and it's pretty cool. Cinderella Cage for me is the representative song from this game (or Mokou's theme) as it feels like a time rush where you have to take it easy (and the zunpets in this are among my all-time favorites, they actually sound real) Gensokyo Milenium ~ History of the Moon is one i also like a lot, it makes me feel like im in the wild west riding a horse, for some reason. It's pretty climatic for a final boss. Flight of the Bamboo Cutter ~ Lunatic Princess is very memorable for me, because i spent like a month to 1cc this game and the adrenaline i felt on the run was incredible. The song itself is a little noisy. Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke is a great song as it perfectly syncs with Mokou's revival every spell card you beat and the main melody is catchy but not boring. The song is just too long and repetitive to listen outside the game. Imperishable Night is one of my favorite games in the series, despite its flaws. I don't feel it embodies Touhou, as the mechanics and all the things you can unlock are too complex but as with everything, it's just a matter of taste. Oh, there's some hidden lore in the ultimate spells (last words) of each character, especially in Reimu's, that's crucial to her character. But as ZUN likes to do, that lore is pretty hidden, if it weren't for this video i wouldn't know.

22: Eternal Melody - SYNCHRONICITY A paradox. On initial listening, it seemed to me the piece was clipped at the end; there is no fadeout, neither is the last measure even finished. So I went looking to see if I could find another video, to determine if this was a mistake by the uploader or an issue with the arrangement itself. What I found was this video, which includes the album's preceding track as an intro into the focus piece, but does not do much to fix the ending. As of now, I still do not know if the cutoff is intentional. The piece itself has a good buildup, even without the extra lead-in, but suffers a little in its climax. It felt a bit longer than it maybe should have been; the progression structure supports it, but I suspect it has too many unnecessary parts in the middle to give its climax the necessary punch. It was also a bit difficult at times keeping track of the source motifs; at times I thought I heard elements of Maiden's Capriccio and Capital City of Flowers, but I believe this was unintentional. Of course, there's nothing wrong with an arrangement creatively straying away from its source material; I just thought I'd mention it. A solid arrangement, but with a few oddities. 7/10 23: Karasu - Moths to a Flame Casual intensity. Glad to see Karasu in a tournament, though I would have preferred a piano arrangement. As expected, this is a more experimental-type remix that doesn't quite fit its associated genre. Despite employing heavier instrumentation, there's a laid-back tone to the piece; it's not building up to anything, and even its climax holds back on anything forceful. While this is intriguing, it also doesn't seem to serve a purpose, and the finer thought process underlying the arrangement eludes my perception. Creative, but without direction. 6/10 24: ShinRa-Bansho - Traveler of the Aurora Cheating. Following up the previous two with this feels imbalanced, but mayhap that's my bias. However that may be, it's hard to sound fairly critical of this piece, since it obviously covers all the important points and also happens to be a favored style. As a high-energy piece, it jumps very quickly into itself, but somehow avoids stagnating. This may have something to do with the length; I initially thought it was too short, but I think this was more the previous entry feeling so long. It's well filled out and progresses quickly, so I'm now inclined to think its length is appropriate. Also impressive is the double lyrics, a method not unheard of but uncommonly employed. With perhaps biased favor, an invigorating ending. 8/10

A lot of time has passed since most of our hosted content went down; over a year in fact. Sorry about that, everyone. Throughout that time though we managed to get things back on track, hopefully. Torm made a dedicated seedbox, and I recovered every missing piece of official content; print works, OSTs, and music CDs. That doesn't seem like a big deal though, right? Anyone could've done that in less than a week if they were dedicated enough. Yeah, I realize I slacked a bit. I'm not too proud of it. But I wanna make it up to you; to not just fix the site, but improve it as a whole. As a result, I also added FLAC versions for almost all available music albums and OSTs, where applicable. When torrenting a file, you can select which folders you want to download from said file, so you can choose whether or not you want lossless versions of an OST (these files will be bulky, beware). In light of that feature, certain OSTs that had multiple pages (like Oriental Sacred Place) now have all volumes in one page, with all track lists in the description. Also also, on top of that, I uploaded two print works that were never on the site before; The Grimoire of Usami and Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia. I never knew these actually existed until my friend brought it to my attention and sent me the files herself; many thanks, Seija. I guess all I have left to say now is, keep working towards your goals. I know it sounds cliché, but it doesn't matter how slow you are going, so long as you do not stop. Know that you are valuable and that you matter. As always, let us know if you find any issues. Tomorrow will be sunny; yesterday was not.