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Showing content with the highest faith level on 06/06/2023 in all areas

  1. My favourite game is Tetris, but I enjoy playing Minecraft when I'm bored. I like to build houses and I always play in creative gamemode xd
    1 point
  2. GRAGAGAGAGA I LOVE UFO I LOVE UFO- As you can tell, I really like this game, and while it's not my absolute favorite in the series, it does come close, so I'm probably just going to spend this entire post gushing about how great it is. Starting with the gameplay, Undefined Fantastic Object finally gets rid of the godawful power bomb system introduced in MoF and returns to having a dedicated bomb gauge, as well as introducing a new UFO system, where certain enemies will drop colored UFOs that fly around on the screen for a while, and can be picked up by touching them. When you pick up a UFO, it's added to your collection at the bottom left corner of the screen, with a maximum of three slots to keep them in, and if you can get three UFOs all in the same color, a giant one will appear at the top of the screen, remaining there for exactly ten seconds. This big UFO will consume any power and point items dropped by enemies, and once it's consumed enough, it'll drop a resource of some kind (a fifth of an extra life if it's red, a bomb if it's green, and points if it's blue), and will also drop the same kind of resource if the player can shoot it down in time. Alright, here's why this mechanic absolutely slaps and I love it. It mainly comes down to the extra depth it adds to the game, as well as the extremely fast pace it creates; most UFOs change color every few seconds, going from red to blue to green and then back to red, so if a UFO is of the color you want, you need to get to it quickly, incentivizing the player to zoom across the entire screen at all times. Additionally, there's also a nice sense of player freedom in which UFOs you want to go for; I usually just go for the red ones, since I like having the game be extra challenging with a lot of chances to mess up as opposed to being easier but with more punishment for when you do get hit, but if you'd rather stockpile bombs, or go for a high score, you can do that as well. Admittedly, I do think the blue UFOs just giving you points was a missed opportunity, as high score only means anything to a select few players as opposed to lives and bombs which are going to be useful no matter who you are, but I'm not really sure what else they could have been, so it's not a huge issue. Mainline Touhou, for me, is at its most enjoyable when it's encouraging you to move fast, and giving you a lot of opportunities to grab extra lives (but still expecting you to go out of your way for them, as opposed to in some games where they're just a thing that happens) in exchange for extra-challenging bullet hell, and thanks to the UFO system, this game is the absolute peak of that. I think on a pure gameplay level, this is my absolute favorite game in the entire series, even if there is one game in particular that I haven't gotten to yet which just barely ranks higher than it for me overall. Anyway, moving on from gameplay, the story of the game revolves around the expedition by Murasa, Shou, Nazrin and Ichirin into Makai to free Byakuren Hijiri, a Buddhist nun who was sealed away by humans a thousand years ago for her kindness towards youkai, the previously mentioned four all being youkai she helped at some point; aside from Nazrin, she was just sent by the god Bishamonten to help Shou specifically. Noticing the youkai's strange flying ship in the sky, the player's chosen character, either Reimu, Marisa, or in her first playable appearance, Sanae, decides to go and give it a look, for one reason or another. Some stuff happens, and eventually, the main character ends up freeing Byakuren by themselves, and after this, Byakuren is allowed to return to Gensokyo alongside the youkai who went to save her after all this time, and creates the Myouren Buddhist temple. After the events of the main game, though, Reimu/Marisa/Sanae are still curious about just what those UFO things that seemed to be everywhere were, so they investigate and find that they were actually fragments of a flying vault that were disguised as UFOs by Nue Houjuu, a youkai who was sealed underground but later released thanks to Okuu's actions in Subterranean Animism (loving the continuity between games here), and then decided to get a little silly just for the fun of it and make everyone think the fragments of the flying vault were UFOs. I personally quite like this story. Having covered each mainline game one by one through this series, I've noticed that this seems to be the point where Touhou stories start to have a little more to them than before, with a few more characters actually getting to do things that are directly relevant to the story in some way; EoSD had 1, Remilia, PCB and IN had 2 each, Yuyuko/Yukari and Eirin/Kaguya, PoFV had 2, Komachi and Eiki, and MoF/SA had 1 each, Kanako and Utsuho. UFO, by comparison, has 4, those being Nazrin (found the jewelled pagoda necessary to free Byakuren), Murasa (captain of the flying ship that sailed into Makai), Shou (brought the jewelled pagoda into Makai) and Nue (disguised pieces of the flying vault as UFOs); you can argue it actually has 5 if you count Byakuren, given that she's the whole reason anything here is even happening and creates the Myouren Temple at the end of the game, but during the main story she doesn't directly do anything by herself, so I didn't include her in the list. Regardless of if you count her or not, my point is that this is the first time more than 2 characters have had a direct role in the events of the game beyond simply helping someone else do stuff, like Sakuya or Reisen in previous games. Despite the game's relatively simple story, this still helps it feel like it has a bit more going on than previous games, a trend that continues to varying extents throughout future games, which I enjoy a lot. It's not particularly exceptional, but it's still on the upper end of Touhou stories for me, something which is definitely helped by its excellent cast of characters. I'm actually not sure which Touhou game has my favorite cast of characters, but this is definitely one I'd consider if I had to make that choice. Everyone here (except Ichirin) appeals to me on some level; Nazrin is admittedly a little carried by NYN memes for me, but I like her design, Kogasa is funny, Murasa and Shou just generally have really cool designs and I enjoy their vibes a lot, Byakuren is just eh here but I like her a lot in AoCF (I do love how she has a direct reference to one of Shinki's spellcards here though, that was a pleasant surprise when I first fought her), and Nue's design combined with her really just being a silly little gremlin creature who enjoys getting up to mischief makes her my favorite of this game's cast. Admittedly, I do kind of despise Ichirin, but that's more because she doesn't do anything for me personally and I'm annoyed she got the character slot in the more recent trilogy of fighting games instead of literally anyone else from this game, as opposed to it being down to any actually unlikeable traits she has herself, so I won't pretend she's poorly written or at all unlikeable by herself. While there's not a single character here that I'd personally consider a series favorite, or even a top 10, I like nearly everyone here enough that it's one of the most consistent casts in the series for me, and I don't think the fact there's only one single character introduced here that I don't actively enjoy to some extent is something that can be applied to any other game in the series, so credit where credit is due. This game also managed to give Sanae a personality, something which from what I've seen no other game in the series has managed to do, so I can appreciate its character writing for that as well. Lastly, I want to briefly talk about the game's soundtrack, or more accurately, one song in particular. The whole soundtrack is great, don't get me wrong (Captain Murasa is especially a banger), but there's not much I have to say about most of it... except for Fires of Hokkai. After the extremely chaotic but enjoyable stage 5, and the similarly hectic battle with Shou, stage 6 is comparatively easy, representing a slightly bizarre sense of calm as you finally reach the place where Byakuren has been sealed away for all this time, and Fires of Hokkai does an excellent job at enhancing the vibe stage 6 goes for, so I feel like that one in particular is worth mentioning by itself. Come to think of it, the dynamic between stage 5 and 6 here kind of reminds me of Mystic Square's fifth and sixth stages, which makes me wonder if it was partially an intentional reference to that game or if it's just a coincidence, but given the previously mentioned Shinki spellcard reference, I lean towards thinking it's the former. Overall, Undefined Fantastic Object is a great and extremely fun game, being by far my favorite of the second Windows era, and it's one of the ones I come back to the most of any game in this series. I honestly can't think of a single thing I don't like about it, which isn't something I can say of most of this series, and I think it's definitely worth playing if you somehow haven't already.
    1 point
  3. For all my life I've been playing a lot of Minecraft (easily 1200+ hours) but lately I'm not playing that often. This started with me getting into rythm games and touhou in the start of 2022. Now even I don't really know what videogames I like so I want to try different genres that that I haven't played a lot in the past.
    1 point
  4. I'm a racing game enthusiast, and my top 3 favorites are Gran Turismo 4, Need For Speed Underground 2 and Midnight Club 3.
    1 point
  5. My favorite game would be…Binding Of Issac: Repentance, on the Switch, Kirby games, Earthbound, and Ace Attorney, I’m currently on the second game.
    1 point
  6. UFO is my favorite game if we separate from the gameplay and don’t count side games. Its cast is memorable and really cool, with each character being meaningful eventually and having an excellent and interesting group dynamic. Furthermore, the story is simple and really good, being one of the times we actually visit makai. Finally, it has the best overall OST, where there’s really only one song I don’t listen to, and it’s stage 3. The general theme of the music is cohesive and fits each character really well, with no themes feeling out of place and all just making sense. Overall, UFO is amazing lore wise, character wise, and ost wise. Shame I don’t really love the gameplay, which drags it out of the top spot for me.
    1 point
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