I updated the first post. I'll usually update my To-Do List and write some comments at the end of the post.
But since I'm at it, I'll also take this post to give some deeper explanation about the gameplay.
The game has two modes: Band and Battle. And it offers two options of gameplay: Story and Quickplay.
The Story Mode will be comprised of a Touhou-like narrative, it is, there'll be "Stages", each one starting with a Band play of a stage's song and then a Battle play against the boss of that stage. The player will also have a limited holster of Character he can choose during Story Mode.
The Story Mode will follow almost faithfully the original Touhou series' plot. It is, it'll be split into 14 Chapters, each Chapter being analogous to a Touhou game.
For example: Chapter One will be the Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil, and it'll have seven stages (six stage plus the Extra). In the first stage, the player will play in Band Mode
A Soul as Red as a Ground Cherry, with only Marisa, Reimu and Rin Satsuki as availble Characters, and then he will play
Apparitions Stalk the Night against Rumia in a Battle Mode play. And then he goes to Stage 2 where he will play
Lunate Elf in Band Mode and then
Beloved Tomboyish Girl against Cirno in Battle Mode. And so on...
At the beginning and end of each play, there'll be cutscenes showing the unfold of the plot. After the first encounter with each Character, a cutscene explaining her background will be unlocked and availble for player's view in the Story Mode's menu.
The Quickplay will allow the player to freely choose a song from the SetList (some songs are only availble in Story Mode, though), freely choose any Character of the game, freely choose a stage/venue for the Backdrop and freely choose the game's mode.
On Band Mode, up to 4 players (human or computer) can play a song cooperatively. The band members will share a colective Band Multiplier that is calculated from the median point of their individual Multipliers, and the score will be calculated colectively as well. Each member's Stats receive a bonus depending of the instrument used by the fellow members.
Unlike GH/RB titles, Guitar Maiden doesn't permit players that failed the songs to be revived by fellow band members.
At the end of the song, the game will award the players with Stars according to their performance. Up to six bronze-colored Stars will be awarded according to overall Note hit ratio, up to six silver-colored Stars will be awarded according to the biggest Streak, up to six golden-colored Stars will be awarded according to the final score, and extra Stars will be awarded according to the difficulty of the player that set the lowest difficulty for himself, summing up to a maximum of 22 Stars.
The Battle mode is much more complicated. On Battle Mode, the player (optionally allied with another) will engage on a fight against one or two enemies.
At the beginning of the Battle, each participant will start out with three (up to five depending on the difficulty) SpellCards. When a participant runs out of Health, it'll be a SpellBreak, his/her current SpellCard will be taken out of play and the next SpellCard will be set (also healing the Character to her full Health back). When a participant runs out of SpellCards, he/she loses the battle and is taken out of play.
During the Battle, the usual Chart-spawned scrolling Notes will still appear, but sometimes the game will randomly spawn crossing-swords-shaped Notes called Battle Notes, which will award the players with a BattleCard when hit. When a participant has a BattleCard, she can do their instrument's SoulCry procedures (see SoulCry on Powers section) to spend it and launch a Battle Power against their opponents.
There are many kinds of Battle Powers, each one inflicting a particular effect on it's victim.
The Battle Powers are just one way of damaging the enemies, the other ways are the SpellCards, Gimmicks and SkillCards. See more about them in the Powers section.
The winner of a Battle is the last team left standing or the one who made the biggest score (the score receives a bonus according to the remaining SpellCards).
One gameplay element that is present on both Battle and Band modes is the Solo. Solos are certain sections of a song on which a certain instrument will do a solo (I don't need to explain when a solo occurs on a song, do I?), and most songs will have a Guitar solo.
When a solo begins for a certain Instrument, the game will start counting the hit ratio of the Notes during this solo (much like how Rock Band does). On Band Mode, the solo will award a generous score bonus according to it's hit ratio and lenght. On Battle Mode, the solo will deal damage to the enemies according to a player's hit ratio opposed to a same-instrument enemy player's hit ratio on the same solo.
For example, we have two players facing each other on a Battle, both using Guitarrist Characters, and then goes a solo of 100 Notes. If player 1 hit 90 Notes (90%) and player 2 hit 80 Notes (80%), player 2 will take 10 Damage points.
If a solo occurs only to one Character and the enemies aren't same-instrument to that said Character, the enemies take a damage equal to the said Character's Power stat times two (see Character's section).
CharactersEach Character has a set of Stats that modify aspects of her performance in play:
Power: Determines the base score value of each Note that is hit.
Celerity: Determines how many Notes the Character must hit in a row to increase her Multiplier. The higher the Celerity, the faster she can get her Multiplier going.
Spirit: Determines the maximum Graze* amount the Character can accumulate.
Guts: Determines the maximum Health** amount the Character can accumulate, and also how fast the Character can regenerate Health. The higher the Guts, the more Health she can have but the slower she can regenerate.
*Graze is the "MP" of the Characters. Graze is usually gained from hitting Notes in a row, and it is required for the Character to unleash her SpellCards and SoulCries.
**Health is the "HP" of the Characters. Health is usually gained from hitting (Health / 10) Notes in a row and is usually lost from missing Notes or Strumming on the wrong time.
POWERSEach Character has also particular powers that help her on her performances and battles. There are four kinds of these powers:
Gimmick, SkillCard, SpellCard and SoulCry.
Gimmicks are powers that the Character always have regardless of anything. Each Character has a unique Gimmick, with unique effects that can help or alter the flavor of her gamplay.
Examples:
Marisa's Gimmick: Witch Drive
Marisa must hit her Celerity amount in Chart-spawned Notes in a row to activate a Witch Drive. While Witch Drive is active, she gets Multiplier and Graze twice as faster. The Witch Drive will wear off if she misses a Note.
Reimu's Gimmick: Hakurei Orb - Concentrate
Reimu must spend a total of 45 seconds in Frets On Fire (see SoulCry) not necessarily in a row to charge up a Hakurei Orb. If Reimu Wimps Out (runs out of Health or loses from Score disadvantge) while she has a fully charged Hakurei Orb, she'll revive and get 20% of her Guts in Health, 20% of her Spirit in Graze and get (her Multiplier * her Power * 20) score points. Only one Hakurei Orb can be charged at a time.
SkillCards are something like the SpellCards that the player must choose for his selected Character on Touhou games (for example: Reimu's Homing Amulet and Needles of Persuasion on EoSD). All Characters have three SkillCards for the player to choose before playing a song. All SkillCards fall under three categories: Attack, Defense and Tactical. The SkillPicks' effects will be unleashed whenever the Character gains a Multiplier, and the effects get more intense as higher the Multiplier is.
Example: Marisa's SkillCards
Magic Missile: Spawns a shotgun blast of Notes shaped like missiles against the enemy.
Illusion Laser: Spawns streams of Laser Notes (which are Sustained Notes that can move on any direction) against the enemy.
Magic Potion: Marisa gains an amount of Graze points.
SpellCards are the good old Danmaku generators we are all used to. SpellCards are only usable on Battle mode and, when unleashed, will spawn a barrage Notes in a patterned way against the enemy. Each single SpellCard has a certain cost in Graze to be unleashed, some will spawn more Notes than others and some will spawn Notes in a more complex and difficult pattern than others. Each use of a SpellCard will unleash a single patterned barrage of Notes that will not change according to anything else than the game's set difficulty. Naturally, Characters that have higher Spirit values will be able to launch SpellCards more often. To unleash a SpellCard, the player must do the SoulCry (see below) procedures according to his instrument.
SoulCry is a power that is specific to the Character's intrument:
Guitar: Tilt the guitar controller to unleash SoulCry (like unleashing Star Power/Overdrive in GH/RB games). It will activate an Adrenaline Rush, which will make the Character get Multiplier thrice as faster, regenerate Health 50% faster and lose only 1x Multiplier on Note misses (see Instruments). The Adrenaline Rush will consume 5 Graze points per second and will wear off as soon as the Character runs out of Graze.
Bass: Tilt the guitar controller to unleash SoulCry (like unleashing Star Power/Overdrive in GH/RB games). It will activate a Majesty, which will temporarily increase the Character's Multiplier by twice it's current value. The Majesty will consume 3 Graze points per second and 3 Graze points each time a Note is hit while it is in effect and will wear off as soon as the Character runs out of Graze.
Vocal: Press the Caps Lock button on the Keyboard (or press the central button of the Dancemat) to enable a Scarlet Scream. While Scarlet Scream is activated, any key/button stroke will be computed as the proper right key for hitting Dance Notes and singing Vocal Sections (for example: the Up Arrow button will hit any Dance Note even if they aren't facing Up). Scarlet Scream will consume 10 points of Character's Momentum per second and 3 Graze points each time a Note is hit, and will wear off as soon as the Character runs out of Momentum. The Scarlet Scream can be cancelled by pressing Caps Lock button again and can only be activated if the Character has at least 50 Momentum points.
Drums: Drummer Characters have the Last Stand power, which is automatically activated if the character has very low Health and deactivated if they have at least 33% of their Health. While active, the Last Stand will make Health regeneration slower but will make Multiplier building and Graze gaining much, MUCH faster. Most players will often have their ass whooped by the Last Stand power, specially if it's against Drummer Characters that have Gimmicks that complements it's effect, such as Chen and Yamame. Of course the Last Stand isn't broken, there is many good ways of besting it, so don't go Tourneyfag against Drummers!
INSTRUMENTSUnlike Guitar Hero and Rock Band games, each Character is bound to an instrument. It is, if a Character is a Guitarrist, you'll never ever have the option of playing with Character on Bass, Drums or Vocal.
Like Rock Band, each instrument has a particular gameplay style. I'll assume the Guitar and Bass gameplays should go without saying.
Guitar: Guitarrists have the Quickfoot power, which makes them gain Multiplier twice as faster than other instruments but they lose 2 Multiplier levels if they miss a Note. Guitarrists also have the handiest power of all instruments: the Frets On Fire.
Frets On Fire is the Guitar Maiden's version of the GH/RB games' Hammer-On/Pull-Off (HOPO): whenever you hit a Note, a bar below the Frets will glow for a brief time. As long as that bar is glowing, you are not required to pull or push the Strum Bar to hit the Notes: simply pressing the correspondent Fret button will do. Characters will high Celerity have bigger Frets On Fire time, giving them an edge on tricky solos.
Bass: Bassists have the Reverse Hex power, which can shield them from dangers. The Reverse Hex power is automatically used when the Bassist misses a Note while he is tilting his guitar controller. When the Reverse Hex is used, it converts all Health damage and penalty caused from missing Notes into Graze damage. In Battle mode, the Reverse Hex can also wear off Battle Powers in effect, for a Graze cost. On Band mode, the band's Multiplier receives a boost from every Bassist in play, improving the score gain on most situations.
Vocal: The Vocal gameplay in Guitar Maiden is very different of GH/RB games'.
The Vocalists' highways are comprised of scrolling Dance notes, that work in a way much alike Dance Simulation games such as Pump It Up and DanceDance Revolution. The Frets are substituted for golden arrows pointing to north, south, east and west, and their symbols match with the Notes that scroll down from the screen's top. Hitting the Dance notes will not only give score points, Graze points and build up Multiplier, but also fill up a bar below the arrow buttons called Momentum. The Momentum bar is scaled from 0 to 100, and each hit Note will fill it up for the amount of the Character's current Multiplier in Momentum points. The Momentum Bar will usually be emptied from missing Notes or using Scarlet Scream.The Vocalist will also get a steady Graze gain from how filled the Momentum Bar is and will also regenerate Health faster.
The Momentum is required for unleashing Scarlet Scream, which is the SoulCry power of the Vocal instrument.
The Vocalist not only has to dance, but also has to sing. Below the Momentum Bar will eventually appear rectangular boxes with Lyrics written on them, called Sing Sections. Depending on the difficulty, a certain number of the letters of the Lyrics will be highlighted, and the player is required to type on the keyboard the highlighted letters on the order they are on in order to hit the Sing Section. If the player mistypes a letter, it will be tinted red and will apply damage and penalty to the Character. There is a time limit for all the highlighted letters to be typed, indicated by a transparent line traveling from the Sing Section's left side to it's right side: if the player doesn't type all the highlighted letters by the time the line reaches the right end of the rectangle, a heavy damage and penalty will be applied to the Character. Using the Scarlet Scream power helps a lot on singing because it reverts the penalties of mistypings.
When a Vocalist is struck by a SpellCard, the Dance highway will be flooded by fake Notes that will heavily hinder the true Notes' visibility, and a Sing Section will be spawned with Lyrics equal to the SpellCard's name.
I hope you guys are very fast when typing "Master Spark"!If a Human player is controlling a Vocalist Character with a dancemat instead of keyboard, the player will be exempted from having to type the Lyrics: the Sing Sections will be automatically sang, but with a cost in Momentum, which means the dancing player will have to dance VERY WELL (by "VERY WELL" in mean not dying on songs
like this one) if they don't want to have their ass whooped.
Drums: The Drums gameplay on Guitar Maiden mixes up the Drums gameplays of Guitar Hero and Rock Band together.
Guitar Maiden uses Rock Band's four-button scheme (Guitar Hero drums are still supported, but the Orange cymbal will be left unused). If the player wishes to unleash the Character's SpellCard, he must hit the Yellow and Blue cymbals at the same time to summon up a Power Fill, which is a group of four vertical lanes lined on a row that will scroll down from the highway's top until the Frets. When the Power Fill is passing through the Frets, the player must hit any button (including the Kick pedal) a certain amount of times to make the Power Fill spawn a big glowing green Note, which will activate the SpellCard if used. Also, Notes that were hit while the Power Fill lanes were touching the Frets will be worth twice of their score value but will not build up Multiplier and neither give Graze, and missing a Note during the Power Fill will erase the lane corresponding the Fret to which the missed Note was aligned: if all the four lanes are erased, the Character will take heavy damage and penalty. Sometimes the Chart will automatically spawn a Power Fill, like in Rock Band.
Well... I think that's all. If there's something you don't understand, feel free to ask a question.
