Touhou.

I saw a couple pieces of big news recently. First, it looks like Touhou is finally getting a Western release on playism-games.com. Touhou 14 already seems to be available for digital purchase on playism.jp, which I think is also a first for an official Touhou game, and should be available on the English site sooner or later. I don’t know if they are going to release the older games too, but even if it is just the new ones, it will make it a lot more convenient to buy them.

Then it seems ZUN has also announced Touhou 15: Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom (spoilers for playable characters in that link), which is a bit surprising since the numbering scheme suggested there would probably be a 14.8 before 15 came out. There is a surprise new playable character:

Reisen, which I guess makes sense given the Lunatic theme, but I think other than PoFV, where everyone was playable, and IN, where there were youkai-human teams, she is the first playable non-human in one of the main games since the PC-98 era.

picture

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Yeah it was really a pain to purchase the games over here in the states. I still hope to one day see them making their way on Steam even though it may be unlikely.

Also super excited for that new game. I’m sure a lot of people will be happy to see her making it as a playable character. I can already see there being some really cool mechanics for her.

In other news I finally got around to making some caps for my Kickside today.

Those Komeiji caps are really nice. It’s pretty clever to use that iconography for a cap design.

It’s nice having the physical discs, but it really is a pain to import them. Digital distribution will/would be much more convenient.

Yoyofoot should at least be happy with the new playable character, if I remember his character sort results right (I like her quite a bit too).

So…this somehow happened on national television:

Also, DDC is now available for digital purchase.  They’ve also added one fangame so far (Takkoman by illuCalab), and it’s kind of an interesting choice if you were just going to pick one.  Even by Touhou standards, it’s pretty bizarre.

Yeah I saw that! It’s hard to believe that Suika would make it on a sports report of all things.

So does DDC come translated from the start or does it need a patch of sorts? I really should pick this up this weekend when I get some more cash in my checking account.

I may think about Takkoman at some point as well. After watching some game play it looks like it could be a lot of fun.

I thought someone must have just photoshopped a still frame from the show when I first saw it. At least they picked a fighting game character for their segment on boxing.

I haven’t bought DDC yet since I’m still on my old laptop with broken arrow keys, but I’m pretty sure it is just the Japanese version. I assume the fanmade patches would work on it, though.

http://i.imgur.com/LnzbJO8.jpg
After a long road trip I finally got around to finishing this.

Did you ever get your keyboard fixed? If not you should consider getting a mechanical keyboard. They are a bit pricey, but the life span and the feel of the keystrokes I think makes it totally worth it.

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Looks so good. You into origami or just paper figures?

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Thanks. c=

So far I just do figures, but I’ve been meaning to get in to origami. It really seems like something I would like though, thinking back to how I used to fold up all the paper handouts I got back in school. :smiley:

That Yukari papercraft is awesome. The frills in the dress and parasol work really well. I imagine her having a white dress helped a lot with the colouring part of the process (come to think of it, it is a bit odd that almost everyone uses her white dress from IN in fanart instead of her purple one from PCB, though I do like the IN outfit more). You should try origami, you would probably be pretty good at it judging from your papercraft abilities.

I didn’t get the keyboard on my old laptop fixed, but I did replace the battery and hard drive on my other one, and it kind of works now. I need to reinstall Windows on it still, but I have been able to play some of the older games through Wine. I would probably consider getting a mechanical keyboard if I ever get a desktop, but I probably wouldn’t get enough use out of it to justify it for my laptop.

I haven’t tried DDC yet since I tend to have trouble running anything from MoF or newer through Wine, but I did end up buying it, so maybe that will give me a good enough reason to get Windows installed.

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You could try modules. They are easy (most of the time) but time comsuming. A good one to start out with is the isosohedron.

I just read a little about the game and I am intrigued. Could you guys recommend your favorite one. Thanks. By the way do the games have english versions? If not I know kanji but english might easier.

There are fan-made translation patches.  I would also recommend using the vsync patches, at least for Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Perfect Cherry Blossom, and Imperishable Night, because they can have some input lag on some computers and the vsync patch fixes that:


https://thpatch.net/wiki/Touhou_Patch_Center

If you don’t have much experience with shmups/danmaku games, I would recommend starting out with either Perfect Cherry Blossom or Imperishable Night, or maybe Ten Desires, because they tend to be more forgiving and less difficult than the other games.  I haven’t played Ten Desires, but of the other two, I would say I prefer the music and atmosphere of Imperishable Night, but Perfect Cherry Blossom is a bit easier to beat if you play on Normal mode or higher.  If you want some more detailed comparisons:

Perfect Cherry Blossom
-There is a shield mechanic where if you collect enough cherry points (by collecting pink cherry blossom items or shooting enemies), you get a temporary shield.  If you get hit or bomb with the shield active, you don’t lose a life (or bomb) and all the bullets get cleared off the screen.  Once the shield expires or you get hit/bomb, your cherry points reset and you start collecting points to get a new one.  It won’t help everywhere, but it can help escape tight spots without losing resources if you get a shield in the right place.

-Sakuya A is a really good beginner shot type:  she has homing damage with decent power when focused and a wide spread that covers most of the screen when unfocused; and she gets four bombs per life (three is typical for the series, and sometimes you only get two).

Imperishable Night
-Touhou games have a deathbomb mechanic where you have a handful of frames after getting hit to press the bomb button, and if you are fast enough (and have a bomb in stock), you use the bomb and save yourself from losing a life.  Typically the window to deathbomb is too short to wait until after you realize you’ve been hit to bomb, and you still have to anticipate that you will get hit to react fast enough, but IN is the one exception to this.  IN has a unique bombing system where deathbombs cost two bombs instead of one, but in return you get a significantly bigger window to deathbomb.  It is still a good idea to anticipate getting hit and bomb sooner rather than later, but you get noticeably more leeway in IN than in any other game.

-IN also has a great beginner shot type with the Border team (Reimu/Yukari).  They have a slightly smaller hitbox than the other teams, have a slower movement speed which makes precision dodging a bit easier, and they also have homing damage with decent power.  The one caveat with the homing is that if you focus, you have to start underneath the target so that your homing damage locks onto the target before it works.

-IN has spell practice mode.  Normally you can practice any single stage after you have gotten through it in the game, but IN lets you practice any individual boss spell card that you have seen in the game by itself.  This makes learning how to beat spell cards much easier.

-If you want to ease into the games as gently as possible, IN has by far the easiest easy mode of any game in the series.

Ten Desires
I haven’t actually played Ten Desires, so I don’t know that much about its gameplay, but it has a reputation for being one of the easier ones.  You get a chargeable trance mode that makes you invincible for several seconds and greatly increases your power, so you can essentially skip difficult sections of the game if you plan your trance mode usage.  It takes a while to charge, though, so you have to pick and choose when to use it.  This game also has spell practice mode.  The game (and in general any game from Mountain of Faith onward) is more visually polished than the earlier games.  One downside is that collecting extra lives is more complicated in this game than in PCB or IN, so until you learn what you are doing, you might end up with fewer resources.

Other games
Some people think Mountain of Faith is actually the easiest game in the series, but that is because you can stock up and use a ton of bombs.  Learning how to use your bombs properly is actually a fairly difficult skill, so the game’s difficulty being tied to how well you can use your bombs isn’t necessarily the most beginner friendly.  If you’re using all your bombs in other games but finding you just don’t have enough resources to get through the game, you might give MoF a try.

Subterranean Animism is a lot of people’s favourite, but it is also one of the hardest games.  If you are already familiar with shmups or arcade difficulty, SA might be more your thing.

Trace will probably suggest Embodiment of Scarlet Devil since it’s the first Windows game and there’s something to be said for starting at the beginning, especially if you eventually plan to work your way through the whole series.  It definitely has the least polish of any game in the Windows era of the series, though.

If you prefer other types of games, there are fan-games in virtually every genre, but they tend to be on the difficult side.  My personal favourites are Fantasy Explorer Nitroid (an exploration Metroidvania style puzzle platformer) and Marisa and Alice’s Trap Tower (a puzzle platformer), both by a group called Desunoya.  They both get really demanding toward the end, especially in the “extra” stages, but the earlier stages aren’t that bad.

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Yeah the white dress made it a lot easier since I had less to colour. I agree that the IN looks better.

Good to hear you got a working setup for touhou. I’ve not really tried any of the newer games in WINE, but I could see it being problematic. I can also see not wanting to get a mechanical keyboard if you don’t have your laptop at a desk all the time.

I took a look at those modules and they reminded me of something I saw when I went to the Fushimi Inari Shrine.


It’s just a simple crane stacked but I think it looks really cool.

^^Yep, it looks pretty cool. Thousand cranes bring good luck or was it wish come true? Can’t remember.
Yosarian thanks! Do you need to buy the games though? Because that might be the only thing that will prevent me from playing it.

Those stacks of cranes look really cool. I counseled at a camp once that did that, where they had the kids folding cranes throughout the week to try to get to 1,000, and then at the end of the week they strung them up like that. Probably not as cool as seeing them in a Japanese shrine, but there is something about seeing so many of them stacked together that is pretty nice.


The games aren’t freeware, though the demos are available as legally free downloads if you want to try them out. I think the demos typically have the first three stages (out of six total, not counting the extra stage), and if I recall correctly some of them might have not have the final versions of all graphics/music tracks, but it is generally pretty close. There are links to the demos buried a ways back in this thread.

Actually, I should have mentioned Double Dealing Character as a recommendation just because it’s by far the easiest to legally buy since it’s available as a download purchase and doesn’t have to be physically ordered from Japan. There is also a new game scheduled for release later this month that might end up also being released as a download purchase eventually, but I haven’t heard anything specific about that. Some of the fan-games can also be found as digital download purchases on Japanese sites (I got the Desunoya games from a site called Melonbooks, for example).

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Built this one a while ago when school was first starting up, but I couldn’t find my camera charger.
http://i.imgur.com/WwWNslq.jpg
I’m going to have to make smaller figurines or slow down 'cause I’m running low on places to put them. =P

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Nice. It goes well with the Mokou one. Keine’s actually grown on me quite a bit since I was practicing IN a lot a while back, and one of my favourite Touhou arrangements is of her stage theme.

This ended up somehow being not that far off from one of the characters in the new game.

Where do you get the teplates for this stuff? I what to make some awsomeness, too. :smiley: :wink:


artist:6

Yeah I quite enjoy Clownpiece. Hopefully there’s a papercraft template for her coming out soon. (Fingers crossed)

You can actually find tons of different templates. Though you sort of have to hunt around since every website has different templates

Here’s the sites I find myself using most of the time.
papercraftsquare
papercraftparadise
paperkraft

The particular templates I’m using are made by Lili.

One more thing note worthy. If you come across a .pdo file you’ll need Pepakura Viewer to open it. You can get it here.

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