IntroductionDouble Dealing Character is the name for the 14th danmaku game our one-man-wonder ZUN has been working on. A pleasant surprise for Reitaisai10 visitors as they will be blessed with two Touhou games. As usual, the demo provides only 3 stages and revealing 3 bosses. The game is being sold (or was sold at this point of time) at Reitaisai for 300 Yen. Either way, let us quickly take a look at what ZUN has been working on in secret.
Our three selectable heroines. No extraordinary fashionable clothes here, unlike Marisa in UFO for example.The game impacts us with a surprise return from Sakuya. While I am sure many of you have already noted this from the CD photo, I will say it here again: Sakuya is playable. A long with Marisa and Reimu, our three girls seem to have head to fly through the stages, fire danmaku, hold spell card battles and then. . . who knows. It is a Demo! Bloody hell!
The girls have two shot types. You've all already heard of the "Dark Spark" or "corrupted weapons". The rebellion of the weapons themselves seem to be very visible when you're using your shottype or spell card. So you can decide: Fight with possessed and 'dark' weapons or stick to your faithful clean and divine weapons. The girls themselves don't change appearance themselves for the shottypes, so people who thought Marisa might be wearing some alternative clothing, sorry to disappoint you.
| Character | Non Focus | Focus | Spell Card |
| Reimu (corrupted) | Homing amulets | Target lock Gohei | Giant gohei, sweeping in front of Reimu |
| Reimu (clean) | Homing amulets | Straight needles | Fantasy Seal |
| Marisa (corrupted) | Laser and magic shots | Flame thrower | Dark Spark |
| Marisa (clean) | Laser and magic shots | Magic shots and exploding missile | Magic Bomb |
| Sakuya (corrupted) | Knives | Knives + delayed homing knives | ? ? ? ? ? |
| Sakuya (clean) | Knives | Knives + straight green knives | Invincibility and removal of bullets |
Above a quick overview of the girl's shot types. Reimu is pretty straight forward and always feels like the more easy to use characters in every game. Her corrupted gohei strongly resembles Imperishable Night, Border team where you summon Ran in Yukari mode who locks on the first target before moving to the next. Useful when the boss is forcing you away from her. Marisa's straight forward shot type makes it difficult to handle bosses if they force you to move. Though her corrupted hakkero's focus mode leaves a burning trail, which does some damage. So you're not always in a loss! And finally Sakuya has an interesting ability where just like Reimu, you summon several knives who lock on target then rush forward to deliver them pain.
Be aware that Reimu's corrupted spell card makes her immense slow. You need to be in front of the boss to deal damage. Reminds me of Youmu's slashing charge shot in 10D. Marisa's flame thrower hakkero has a pretty long range. Sitting at the bottom of the screen, you can keep hitting the boss easily.
Reimu's Gohei being out of control. Look at that beast! / Marisa's corrupted Hakkero, spitting deadly flames. / Dark Spark, the true corrupted form of her fierce magic. Oh my.The bosses are a fish/mermaid girl by the name 'Wakasagihime', A pretty creepy girl 'Sekibanki' and the howling girl 'Kagerou Imaizumi'. Again the electric guitar is the leading theme for these girls. Interestingly the stages you visit are quite familiar. Just play and see for yourself.
The three bosses from the demo. ------ Wait, did Sekibanki just DETACH her head? ----- We've already been in this place, don't you agree?As a demo, it is hard to gauge the overall impression of a game. So I will be holding my judgement until the full game appears. However, many things can be noted here. ZUN has adapted his graphics again. Small detail such as the spawning animation of bullets or the scattering/vanishing effect seem to be done using different textures. Bosses use a dark, evil looking "charge up" animation giving the game an interesting look. Even when a certain mid-boss appeared using that animation I was surprised. Electric guitars (if I am not mistaking) seem to be the leading instrument during theme songs. Especially fighting the third boss, the lead instrument is clearly an electric guitar. Feels quite energetic and yet another brave move from ZUN to sway from his traditional romantic trumpets. Though those always remain around so fear not.
The demo looks promising so far. ZUN seems to indeed have eliminated any complicated system such as the trance mode in 10D. Basically you're using power, bombs, graze and some other scoring mechanics to play through the game. I am sure the experts among us could explain this part better.
Again, for final judgement, please watch warmly as girls do their best to prepare for the full game.
--Helepolis
Helepolis, feel free to hijack this as necessary.
