Touhou 14.3: Danmaku Amanojaku ~ Impossible Spell Card announced!

[Drake]

Something I just posted on my Tumblr that no one appears to have pointed out yet!

Is it possible that ZUN is still tweaking with the engine a bit, or did his PC have a real bad slowdown during the taking of those screens? (or the Melonbooks guy, whoever did them)  :V

When the FPS counter is blue it just means it was a short change. Vsync is probably enabled and so when the game slows down at all it drops to 30.

[Colticide]

Made me think of this.

If anything at 2:01, Murasa's attack fits ISC just fine.

[Formless God]

Where would you get the idea this would even be the case?

Pause the trailer at 0:11. It's the exact same as the Raiko screenshot.

Observe the trailer carefully, you'll see the "pallette" is an indicator of which stages you have unlocked.

You mean days? When the 3rd Day was shown on the trailer you can only see one light on the palette (there should be at least two lights since the 1st Day is unlocked by default).

P.S. I still don't know what the "Challenge" thing means. Never mind I'm dumb.
Now I'm curious about the "Clear" and the palette. If it shows which items you've cleared the scene with, it shouldn't be fully lit with just two clears.

[Tengukami]

If dialogues in this game consist of the boss firing a 6-ring for 5 seconds and stopping the game until the player finishes Ctrl-ing through all the text then I'd rather it wasn't there altogether.

Where would you get the idea this would even be the case?

Pause the trailer at 0:11. It's the exact same as the Raiko screenshot.

So your complaint is .... you will either have to withstand precious, precious seconds of dialogue or - heaven forbid - press Ctrl to speed your way through the talking?

I dunno, man, I know it's a time-honored tradition in the WTC to come up with reasons why the new game sucks before it's even released, but this sounds like a mountain out of a molehill. And a pretty strange complaint, too, considering Touhou is riddled with mid-stage dialogue.

On the other hand, you know what I think would be great? Boss fight voice acting! Like, if he got his wife to record herself as any number of the bosses pouring scorn and ridicule on you as you try to dodge, laughing at you (more obviously) when you fail to capture, and audibly sobbing when you've beaten them. I think that would own.

[Validon98]

I'm so used to Ctrling through text by now that really it's a non-issue. Kind of not a really concerning thing to me.

As for voice acting, well, I know that some fangames (like Uniting Barrage Action) and other shmups (like the eXceed series) have voice overs for during boss fights and such. That'd be interesting, though I honestly think it would feel weird if the games started involving that at one point or another, only if it's because none of the earlier games have that. ^^;

[Formless God]

So your complaint is ....

Dialogues typically require about 2 seconds to skip so that isn't an issue, but here I suddenly have to watch an arrowhead ring for no particular reason before I'm even allowed to Ctrl through the dialogue. I'm still hoping it only happens in the tutorial, though.

Boss fight voice acting!

No, just make it like the Miko fight.

[ふねん1]

Hmm, this seems interesting. I suppose if the "gimmick" is as glaringly obvious as it is here, then it'll be easier to accept the game as markedly different from the main shooters and thus held to somewhat different standards. But I could be wrong. Who knows when it comes to fanbases.

Based on what I've seen so far, I suspect that ISC will be very resource management-based. Some of the patterns are obviously not impossible, but they still look difficult, so I see myself treating the items more like I would bombs elsewhere. Count me among those who will try to survive everything that can be.

[Jq1790]

Re: voice acting

Suddenly reminded of Castle of Shikigami 3 and the first boss thereof.  "You suck!"  *boss dies*

[nintendonut888]

Honestly, the most logical thing that will happen is that there will be dialogue to start the fight when you first enter the scene, and the dialogue will be skipped on subsequent attempts. That's what I'm expecting, anyway.

[7TC7]

Or it will be like the Hatate/Aya dialogs in Double Spoiler. Kagerou and Raiko do have the except same pattern, so I'm kinda expecting them to just be short bullet attacks with a little dialog at the beginning of every day.

[Tengukami]

Either way, seems pretty trivial to have to look at the first couple seconds of an attack before Ctrling. But I guess we all have different thresholds for annoyance. I recommend less caffeine for those genuinely irked by this.

[Colticide]

The way I see it that if it's such a problem to have danmaku fired at your during dialog then that is normally bad, but this game the rules are all broken, everyone is cheating to punish Sejia so it makes sense for me anyway.

[Kimidori]

or, you know, the build tohomemory blog have might be bugged or incomplete, it could very well be a bug that slipped the radar and already fixed now.

[Formless God]

There are no bullets flying or being fired during dialogue. The game is paused at that point.

[Abraham Lincoln]

Judging by the cover art, we're probably not gonna see a new character in this game, which kinda made me feel a tad bit less excited for the release of this game.


Am I the only one wondering if Nitori's spell is supposed to go up or down?

[CyberAngel]

It looks like rockets leaving trails, so probably up.

[Failure McFailFace]

Saw this thread, never replied. So here's my two cents.

New puzzle game, probably won't complete it.

Since it's Impossible Spellcard, there's an even greater chance for me to not complete it.

As for the items, I find them rather useful. Since you have to use them in this game, it lowers the wonder factor a bit. Maybe the items could be with Seija in the next phantasmagoria?

That's my two cents.

[Raikaria]

Also, just watch people try and beat these 'impossible' spellcards without 'cheating' to find which ones really are 'impossible'.

Akin to Gold challenges on GFW.

[Imosa]

Something that I'm not sure has been brought up. Since this is 14.3 should we expect another 1 or 2 games? Any idea what those will be?

[Colticide]

Well looking at the game list a .3 line up has only happened once and can't get a pattern from that, but I doubt it'll be another DS or fighting game. It's hard to say really.

[TheTeff007]

I guess so. It's too early to say that any .3 game will be followed by a .5 and a .8, but it could be...

What he said above  :V

[Tengukami]

Something that I'm not sure has been brought up. Since this is 14.3 should we expect another 1 or 2 games? Any idea what those will be?

Yeah, this was discussed, somewhere in the middle of the thread, so it's not surprising this was missed:

For the 12.x games, the numbers 12.3 and 12.8 stands for 12.25 and 12.75, rounded up. There are three games between 12 and 13, so they are No. 12 & 1/4, 12 & 1/2 and 12 & 3/4.

Also see SWR, which was numbered 9.8 when first announced, standing for 9.75, i.e. between 9.5 and 10.

In this way, 14.3 can stand for either 14 & 1/4 or 14 & 1/3, and the next game may be either 14.5 or 14.7 (standing for 14 & 2/3). I'd say a HM expansion is basically guaranteed at this point, so it may very well be 14.8 or 14.7.

As far as what those games will be, no one knows. I guess. Hopefully, another Phantasmagoria or photog game. Hopefully not another fightan game.

[Aya Reiko]

Something that I'm not sure has been brought up. Since this is 14.3 should we expect another 1 or 2 games? Any idea what those will be?

The most probable is an expansion to HM.  Anything else is anyone's guess.

[notext]

I'd be surprised if the interim game was a Phantasmagoria, as the previous two both occupy a whole number in the series. Impossible Spell Card looks to be a continuation of the Shoot the Bullet style as well, so I'd be surprised if a direct STB sequel was being made.

A Hopeless Masquerade expansion seems very likely (I seem to remember talk about character name data being found in the Hopeless Masquerade files, suggesting that an expansion was being planned before its release), a completely new fighting game less so. Which potentially leaves a third game set before TH15 (if not necessarily released before it). Aside from the Shoot the Bullet games, previous decimal entries in the series were deliberately marked as such due to being collaborations; for that reason, I'd speculate either:

- Another Touhou game spun off from a Touhou Manga, similarly to Fairy Wars, with art by the manga artist (a Wild and Horned Hermit game?)
- A collaboration with another doujin game group, either Tasofro or a different group entirely.

All speculation, but hey, speculation is fun. Of course there could well just be the one interim game before TH15, assuming TH15 happens. Hopefully it will. It would be weird for the series to end on a 14.8.

[Colticide]

At first I didn't think a new fighting game would work as it only came out last year... but looking at Soku it was also a year ahead of SWR so it's very possible.

[Tiamat]

I imagine one's probably a fighting game.  After all, it's not thaaaat much work to crank out a new fighting game based off of the gameplay of the previous "edition" (RELATIVELY speaking, that is).  Making a new fighting game off of Hopeless Masquerade's engine and sprites would be a lot easier than an all new fighting game.  And I imagine at least one of those games is Tasofro (and thus likely an HM sequel/expansion) because otherwise that'd mean ZUN would be willing to make 3 games in between the next Touhou by himself, and that's a lot!

I'd be surprised if one were a Phantasmagora game, cause as pointed out, the two so far have been main integer games, not sub decimal-number games.  But eh, it's not like ZUN is forced to abide by his precedent.

[Gpop]

Just curious but how long was SWR out before the soku expansion was released? I still feel like it's a bit too early but you never know

[TresserT]

Just curious but how long was SWR out before the soku expansion was released? I still feel like it's a bit too early but you never know

Hisoutensoku was released just a little over a year after SWR. But HM wasn't really finished when the "full version" was released (Kokoro wasn't playable, Mamizou wasn't finished, there were tons of bugs) so they released a lot of major updates. Even though HM was released about a year ago the final update wasn't released until months after the "full version", so HM feels a lot newer than it actually is.

[cuc]

Like last year, the D-STAGE website has the largest image of the jacket art.
http://d-stage.com/shop/detail.php?seq=60070

AKIBA HOBBY has the screenshots in 800*600.
http://ec.akbh.jp/category/select/pid/16508

Judging from the better screenshot, Cirno's spell card seems to be 氷符「パーフェクトグレーシャリスト」 Ice Sign "Perfect Glacialist".

"Glacialist" appears to be a term with largely historical significance. It can refer to a researcher of glaciers, but today we mostly use the word "glaciologist". It also refers to scientists who believed glaciers to be the explanation for certain geological phenomena, back when it was a debated topic in 19th century.

Provided the spell card name is correct, what matters is that whether ZUN knows the nuance of this word. As far as I can tell, from normal Japanese sources he'll only know the word to mean "researcher of glacier", and probably notice it's a fairly obscure word. The chances are not good.

[nintendonut888]

Frankly, it could just be another example of Cirno using big words she doesn't really understand but thinks sound good enough for her spell card. Kind of like her StB spell card "Minus K" describing a phenomenon which by definition is impossible but sounds hella cool.