Leaderboard

This is true, regardless of how you feel about UFO in practice (and it seems like I'm actually in the minority with liking how it plays), it at the very least tried something new, which is commendable. This is fair, I personally like the SA system quite a bit and find score lives a little boring but I can see the appeal of both. Personally, I don't usually care that much about how I'm going about getting extra lives (UFO and DDC have my favorite takes on it, though), as for me it's more about how often I'm getting them in relation to the game's difficulty. Something like UFO, where you're constantly gaining and losing lives, is much more fun to me than, say, Ten Desires, where the actual bullet patterns are relatively easy, but extra lives are made more scarce. True, there's a lot I'd like to say about UM but I'll get to say all of it eventually once I get to actually covering that game in one of these posts, so I don't feel particularly inclined to do it now. Personally I disagree, I actually like how difficult they are to play around in this game. The way WBaWC handled it was also great, don't get me wrong, but I do very slightly prefer UFO's use of the mechanic for how it demands a bit more of the player than that game. I can absolutely see how someone wouldn't like the way UFOs work in this game, but I think outright saying ZUN did a "bad job" implementing them is a bit much.

I agree with all the Gameplay Shortcomings. UFO is even more punishing when you make mistakes (that the Ufos encourage you to do). In SA you don't need to take risks, just play well. take this situation: You are chasing the last Red Ufo to get an extra life, but it changed color at the last moment, and you got caught by a bullet that camouflaged with the background. Now, you lost 1Power, 1Life, Ufo lineup, and it was before Shou's boss battle. Did i mention you were playing as Reimu Homing (the character with likely the less amount of damage?). That makes me want to throw this game out the window, more than SA (that it's fair but really hard) even if every other aspect is among the BEST of the series. I totally agree with Juunimeta here. The Ufos are a good mechanic, but ZUN did a bad job at implementing them this time. Look at WBaWC, where it was so well done, the game is essentially the easiest if you know how to gather them. Character wise, i think it has one of (if not) the best group of characters. ZUN fixed the issues with Touhou Lore being hidden away in text files not included with the game. Some things i like about the characters: Byakuren has a point, she proved that if treated with respect, Youkai are great. I love the conflict it solves in Reimu, as she is in a moral corner to either go all out on Youkai Hunting to protect humans or let them run loose and threaten Gensokyo's balance. Byakuren can be the Youkai Protector and Reimu the Human Protector. Nazrin (Stage 1 Boss!) is the catalyst to the story, as Shou asked her to employ her Radiesthesia to locate both the missing pieces of the floating vault and the Bishamonten Pagoda. The protagonists also unwillingly help out the cause by taking Nazrin's job to collect the "treasure". I really like that Nazrin used the Pagoda without permission, it gives her a lot of personality. Kogasa is arguably the less memorable character, but she actually plays a role in the story. She is the golden example that "shot first, ask later" is a bad business model for the humans, as she (with Sekibanki) are among the least hostile Youkai, only needing to scare you to gather energy. Kogasa serves as the example that Byakuren is right with all the "Youkai forgiveness" (on other media, you can see Kogasa hang out with in Byakuren's temple). I enjoy Nue just pranking everybody. She even makes cameos as the "Glowing Ball" (remember, she can change how you perceive her appearance). Music wise, it has a great OST full of what now we can consider classics. My favorite tracks are Interdimentional Voyage of a Ghostly Passenger Ship (one of the few instances of the ZUNBass), Captain Murasa, Rural Makai City Esoteria and things like The Tiger-Patterned Bishamonten being among the most intimidating and epic tracks in all of Touhou. Fire of Hokkai is pretty meh, but it really shows that Byakuren awakened with the heart beat as a drum Extra things: Byakuren's spell card, Great Magic "Devil's Recitation" and the fairies in Makai make pretty clear references to Shinki. Makai is depicted as a desolate place compared to Mystic Square. It further solidifies my head-canon "Alice got the Grimoire out of control" theory. As you see a ruined Makai, with few traces that something once was there, probably the result of the destruction caused by the events in Mystic Square and the Extra Stage (where i think Alice in her egoism pushed the Grimoire too hard and unleashed some world breaking dangers). Reimu also remembers being in Makai, but she doesn't remember Alice or the other inhabitants of Makai, interesting. At this point i should structure the theory better and make a post in here. Another detail i enjoy is that the Bad endings are really BAD. You get stuck in Hokkai with no apparent way to get out, it really pushes you to complete the game. There also exists a Touhou virus/malware someone made called Rensenware (joking with the japanese title of UFO), where Murasa uses her ghostly abilities to encrypt your drive, challenging you to score 0.2 BILLION in LUNATIC to decrypt the drive. The funniest thing is that if the YouTube comments of the video are right, the author of the virus got himself and a lot of people infected and had to program a decryption tool to solve the incident.

It's what it says on the tin. For me personally I'd say Twewy/しばらしきこのせかい because it's a really unique game, I've never seen any JRPGs like it before, unfortunately the DS game is quite rare and quite costly so :(

I have a bit of a proposition as to how the versus-type gameplay will affect the latest Touhou game. Do you think that if this game catches on more than PoFV that we might be seeing Touhou tournaments popping up? I would really like to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Would you enter a Touhou tournament? Why or why not? I would personally enter one, since I like the idea of seeing how my dodging skills stack up against others. Although I am not the best, (I still have never done a normal mode 1cc yet...) I think it would be fun to give it a shot! I also wonder how these tournaments might be organized and ran. Would they be more likely to be in person at conventions or completely online? I'd like to see them in person, because it would be fun to see more community get togethers. :D

so basically I found this really nice girl these days and she looks like this: what do you mean she's "not real"