~Hakurei Shrine~ > Help Me, Eirin!
[东方雪莲华] Touhou Abyss Soul Lotus (demo)
williewillus:
Early thoughts:
* Music-wise, stage 1, stage 3, and stage 3 boss stuck out to me as good tracks. Stage 2 tracks didn't seem that interesting.
* Gameplay forces you to use the scoring mechanics to get lives, which is a fresh idea. If you don't use the scoring mechanics, you can only earn lives from capturing spells
* Scoring mechanic has lots of layers to it, but doesn't seem like it'll be too hard to master. (I translated the manual so you can check it out here: https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Abyss_Soul_Lotus/Translation)
* Bunny is cute af
* Art style for Reimu/Yukari's portraits are very very similar to the Barrage Musical style, while the boss portraits are a bit closer to the SSS style
Shizzo:
Stage 1 and 3 Boss' are REALLY cool
Stage 2 boss is okay, but the OST is reeeally weak compared to the others.
It's interesting to have a game where you don't get a bomb stock. I personally couldn't figure out everything (even after reading the translation, mind you!) but still 1cc'd it on hard at the end. Pretty fun so far, one more amazing fangame to look forward to!!
gilde:
Yessss I'm so excited to see this game making progress, the devs are doing great so far. Thank u v.much for the manual translation willie!!!
--- Quote from: Shizzo on November 12, 2018, 08:43:50 AM ---It's interesting to have a game where you don't get a bomb stock. I personally couldn't figure out everything (even after reading the translation, mind you!) but still 1cc'd it on hard at the end. Pretty fun so far, one more amazing fangame to look forward to!!
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short-form summary:
--- Quote ---The whole flow of magic throughout Gensokyo has been FROZEN!! Therefore, no bombs! Barely any flight! The Hakurei Barrier is crumbling into pieces before our eyes!! --> But our heroes can pick up spare fragments of the barrier in order to protect themselves from the harsh cold, and also the harsh danmaku. Can they solve things within 24 hours before the barrier is destroyed?!?!?!?
* Bullet cancels from shooting down enemies give you red/purple fragments, depending on which team member you're using. These increase the Border gauge. (The bar in the lower-right shows the fragment multiplier for the team member that's not currently in use; collecting fragments with the current member increases this multiplier, and the gauge will drain shortly after switching to the member that the multiplier applies to.)
* The Border Protection gauge has three levels (100%, 200%, 300%); when you get hit, you lose one level of shielding and get a brief bullet clear+invincibility frames. Getting hit with less than 100% gauge costs you a life, though whatever small amount of gauge you did have isn't lost. (Also, border fragments fill the gauge less with each shield layer you obtain. I guess the fragment multiplier can be used to offset that? don't quote me on that though)
* Getting up to 100%, 200% and 300% Border will give you a life piece each time. ...But only once per level. To reset the count and receive more life pieces, you have to press X to pop a Border Release. (only possible w/ a full 3 layers)
* --> This creates a field (large expanding circle in Reimu & Yukari's case) that converts bullets into point-value items (little snowflakes), and starts the Border Sustain timer. During the timer's 25-second span, point items will be autocollected just like fragment items. Then, either by pressing X or by letting the timer run out, you trigger a Border Reflux that turns all bullets into grey fragment items to refill your gauge. (Note that the Reflux cancel moves from the outside of the screen inward, and you're not invincible during it, so it's not very effective as a panic button.)
* *The Sustain timer stops during conversations and Spell Cards, and capturing a card will instantly refill your barrier layers based on how much timer was left. The timer doesn't disappear when this happens, though, so between getting timer rewards and collecting more fragment items, it's easily possible to prime another Border Release within the timer's span and activate it at the same time as the Reflux. The resulting fragments bump up a score value multiplier in addition to refilling the gauge like the ones from a regular Reflux.
* *Getting hit during Spell Cards also fails the card, regardless of whether or not you had a border shield up.
* All fragment items (both from shooting enemies and from Border Refluxes) will slow down the Hakurei Barrier Destruction Timer (TM) on the right-hand side. If the timer ends, it's game over!! So obviously it's important to collect a bunch of fragments. (i'm guessing the timer is, like, 24 minutes irl time?)
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im Not fluent in chinese so this is just general gist from google translate, but:
* Stage 1 boss is Shekle, a snowflake fairy and one of the few surviving fairies in the frozen wasteland that is Gensokyo rn. She has no idea what's going on and is playing pretend on the frozen Misty Lake like she's Hans Christen Andersen's The Snow Queen.
* Stage 2 boss: Miyaka Yamika, a heavenly yaksha (yaksha whomst is good at flying) from one of Hell's elite mercenary units. Her squad is here to deal with the situation and bring down the long arm of the law on "a sinner", but she underestimates the protagonists' capabilities and gets dunked on.
* Stage 3 boss: Lepus Timidys Snowy (--> so, Snowy Lepus Timidys? Snowy's her first name? I guess), a snow rabbit youkai who uses her camouflage skills to rob people and pawn off whatever magic goods she finds at Kourindou. Being kind of an outcast, she was one of the first to wander into the lotus-filled snowfield that's sprung up. after fighting the protagonists and trying to steal their gear, she points them in the direction of The Plot (TM)
Shizzo:
Ahh I see now! Thank you very much gilde for the translations as always; I get it now!
And thank you willie for translating the manual nonetheless, that was really nice too!
CrestedPeak9:
Some details of the system aren't mentioned yet, so I'll go over them.
1) The bottom right gauge is filled by collecting colored crystals, and it acts as a fill multiplier (for the bottom left Border gauge) for the crystal of the other color. This basically encourages you to press C and swap characters when you're about to collect a large amount of crystals when the gauge is at high values, up to x3. This effect doesn't last very long at all, so you'll have to time it well.
2) Switching characters with the Reimu-Yukari combo (Border shottype) will cause Ran to stay for a while when switching from Yukari to Reimu. Switching characters with the Yukari-Reimu combo (Demon Sealing/Binding shottype) will make your shots more powerful for a short while, depending on how much the bottom right gauge multiplier is, up to a max of x2.5. This is kind of useful to quickly shoot down a problematic spell, for instance.
Your multiplier won't carry through stages, so try to make use of them during the boss fight.
Additionally, there's one more tip I can share: The Spell Card Bonus won't void if you Border Release before the spell display animation is done; in other words, you can still cap a spell if you Border Release before the SCB is displayed. This allows you to carry the Border Release effect into the first second or two of a spell, and then gives you a 25 second Border Sustain timer that won't count down. If you capture the spell, the 25s timer remaining will effectively refill all 3 levels of your Border gauge, making this trick highly abusable.
One last thing: graze doesn't increase PiV; instead, each graze gives 1000 points.