Len'en Project by JynX? (First 3 games updated)

[KaiserKnuckle]

Wouldn't it be able to be read if you download the album on Bandcamp in OGG Vorbis format? You can choose to download albums in many formats (Mp3, FLAC, etc.), so maybe doing so, then renaming the tracks if need be may help. Sorry if this has been previously explained before.

[Marron]

Technically it will work with ogg ones IF and only if you rename the files like TresserT said "Yume_##.ogg".

You also can do that with other songs you have in your computer ! For exemple, I you have and want to add to the game a soundtrack from JynX's LLS album, you have to convert it to ogg then rename your track "Yume_##.ogg". Let's say you don't want to hear Kotohime's theme, you replace it with the song from LLS and tada ! It works !(you will love to play dreamy pilot like the PoDD EX video of JynX )

By the way, I'm going to talk about a totally different topic now but, were you able to clear BPoHC extras ? When I'm in front of an extra boss I have 0 barier, 0 life, 0 bombs and I'm in big trouble...Which combinaisons of upgrade would you recommend me ?

[TresserT]

The three most important ones you'll want are Haiji's, Suzumi's, and Xeno's skills.

Shion/Tsubakura/Yabusame, Hooaka/Aoji/Kuroji, or Hooaka/Kuroji/Aoji are probably the best teams (in no particular order). Tsubakura/Shion/Yabusame is also pretty good, though the lack of range is sometimes noticeable.

For upgrades, I'd say Fumikado, Iyozane, Sukune, Hooaka, Jun, Kunimitsu, and Sanra are all good choices. If you're going with Shion/Tsubakura/Yabusame, Medias's upgrades are useful too.

For skills, you'll DEFINITELY want Xeno, Haiji, and Suzumi's. Also useful are Jun, Kunimitsu, Garaiya, and Mitori.
If you're playing as Shion/Tsubakura/Yabusame, get all of Shion's skills as well as Black Wings and Monochrome Ray Flash.
If you're playing as Tsubakura/Shion/Yabusame, get all of Shion's skills as well as Bird's Red Eye.
For the Hooaka teams, get Double Meaning, Aura Wind, First Rate Soul, and Insurance Bomb.

[Marron]

Ok thanks T !  I'll have to do some runs for unlocking all of that then.(I have upgraded and have skills of Hibaru)

The shitodo brother are fun to use so I play them. For the extra stage, at my current level I think it's a wise choice to stick with Hooaka as a main, when I'll be stronger more skills and upgrades I'll play Aoji.(or any other team for that matter, it's just that right now I'm focusing on this team)

[ZoomyTsugumi]

Re-thrill + Salami's flash gauge upgrade make an ahmazing duo, even pair it with the hitbox redux upgrade for extra wow. Comes in really handy in a pinch and proves immensely useful on any boss with a slightly dense pattern. If you abuse flashbombs it's one of the best things you can do.

[Marron]

Indeed, Salami's upgrade seems to have a considerable increase, I saw that when reading each upgrades of the cast and it's highly increasing the flash bomb gauge ! That way I would use less bombs.

Btw I really don't understand what thrill does . Could someone explain it to me please ? : )

[KaiserKnuckle]

Btw I really don't understand what thrill does . Could someone explain it to me please ? : )

It's just graze, really.

One good thing would be to get Yaorochi's skill for survival, since you get screen clears practically all of the time if you know what you are doing when grazing to fill up the flash bomb gauge. This is especially true if you use Medias' skill in tandem, as you can now get graze screen clears even faster when you can graze single bullets multiple times.

[ZoomyTsugumi]

I'd also make a suggestion to prioritize getting each level that you want to level 10 first and then filling the rest up all the way, as level 10 makes up half of the entire boost, and is much cheaper than levelling it all the way to start with.

[Marron]

Hmmm, so that's what is thrill and now I see the point of boosting Medias and Yaorochi then !

ZoomyTsugumi: that's what I thought too and that's what I've mostly done except with some skills I've bought(Like Jun's skill which is really useful btw).

Anyway, thank you everyone for your advices, I've still some upgrades to do, the most painful part will be buying skills since it costs some points but anyway I've accomplished at least half of the work now so eventually, I'll clear these extra !

EDIT: By the way ! I would like to ask you, which difficulty do you play these games ? Personnally I'm a hard player at touhou but in these games, I play normal mode. I'm not really good with the hard mode of Len'en. What about you ?

[Uwabami-Sama]

Uhhh where I download it? ^^'

[R. P. Genocraft]

I've downloaded the english patched version of BPoHC, but the game crashes when I start the tutorial. Yabusame appears, then the music starts playing and it crashes, help?

[saisengen]

GenoCraft, try to use Japanese locale despite the patch.

[R. P. Genocraft]

GenoCraft, try to use Japanese locale despite the patch.

Still doesn't work. Oh well, i can play the actual game just fine, so it's okay.

[Despatche]

Spoiler:

oh no it's chara from undertale

Spoiler:

i'm actually really disappointed it's not some bootleg aragumo team with... well, clause, who else?

Spoiler:

a garaiya team would be hilarious

Pretty worried about those Arcade and Challenge modes...

[TresserT]

So for those who weren't aware, the final(?) major update to BPoHC has been released. It features replays, an achievement system, and the fifth playable team. However, it seems the challenge and arcade mode have been scrapped, despite still being on the selection screen.

Here's a link to Jynx's twitter where you can download the game, as I forget this site's policy on linking to free games.

Spoilers on how to unlock the fifth team:

Spoiler:

you have to clear extra+a with every other team.

Spoiler:

It's Suzumi/Suzumi/Suzumi.

Achievements
1) Easy Mode Clear
2) Normal Mode Clear
3) Hard Mode Clear
4) Unreal Mode Clear
5) Extra Mode Clear
6) Absurdly Extra Mode Clear
7) Extra+α Mode Clear
8 ) Absurdly Extra+α Mode Clear
9) Staff Roll Clear
10) Defeat All Bosses
11) Capture all attacks on Hard, Unreal, Extra and ABEX (can be done in practice mode)
12) Complete all boss fights in practice mode on a difficulty other than Easy or Normal
13) Complete Routes 1, 2 and 3 with Shrine Team
14) Complete Routes 1, 2 and 3 with New Emperor Team
15) Complete Routes 1, 2 and 3 with Preschool Team
16) Complete Routes 1, 2 and 3 with Scoundrul Team
17) Complete Routes 1, 2 and 3 with

Spoiler:

Suzumi

Team
18) Complete Route 4 with all teams
19) LV0 Easy 1cc
20) LV0 Normal 1cc
21) LV50 Hard 1cc
22) LV300 Unreal 1cc
23) LV200 EX+α  1cc
24) LV700 ABEX+α  1cc
25) Instant Death Unreal Mode Clear
26) Instant Death ABEX+α Mode Clear
27) Purchase all skills
28) Have over 30,000,000 sake
29) Kill 100,000 enemies
30) Get All 29 other achievements

(courtesy of Bryce the otter or something)

[☆ Kana ☆]

Spoiler:

Gee Suzumi, how come JynX lets you have three different forms?

:V

I guess the challenge and arcade modes aren't going to be a thing after all...oh well... 

Looks like the new achievements system is gonna be replacing the completion stars system of older versions, yay~

[Shizzo]

Ohh how does exactly the 5th team work

Spoiler:

in terms of mechanics?  Is it really three different forms?

Post pictures!  I'm super curious!

[TresserT]

Spoiler:

I don't really know much about the story, but from what I understand it's something like this:
Suzumi's route takes place before BPoHC proper. Using their reality screw abilities, they're travelling around mugenri gathering information (presumably to cause the war and lure Tsubakura out).
They investigate one area, rewind time, investigate another, rewind time, etc.
Suzumi has split personalities, and the "team" is actually just Suzumi talking to them self.
However, because of time shenanigans you actually run into the Suzumi of the current timeline. You kill them to avoid paradoxes and stuff.
In Ex+a, one of the personalities decides they don't like the plan and rebels, only to get shot down by the other personalities. After winning, Suzumi goes to sleep until the war actually starts.

...Pretty interesting stuff. I'm excited for the full dialogue.

As for the shot itself, there's only one Suzumi shot type. While Suzumi shows up 3 times on the character select screen, it'll always be the same shot type no matter what order you choose them in.
The shot works kiiiind of like Patchouli from FDF. You hold the Z key to charge your shot, then release it for a super burst. Unfocused, knives shoot off in every direction. Focused, the knives will shoot straight forward one at a time. It's incredibly powerful.
Though unlike Patchouli, you actually get something while you're charging. The knives will actually circle around Suzumi until you release them, creating a sort of melee type shot. The more power you have, the more rings will appear, each with a larger radius. At max power it more or less covers the entire screen.
Plus you get little mini Suzumis which home in on enemies. It's pretty op.

The bomb restarts the current cell or boss pattern. Once you buy their upgrade, it'll instead skip the current cell or pattern.
The flashbomb is "Armor Mode Lite". You'll stay invincible as long as you hold the flashbomb key. It doesn't require any charging up like Fumikado's armor mode, but you burn through it pretty quickly.

Some pictures of the shot.

[gilde]

Spoiler:

In Ex+a, one of the personalities decides they don't like the plan and rebels, only to get shot down by the other personalities. After winning, Suzumi goes to sleep until the war actually starts.

I've finished reading through the dialogues;

Spoiler:

they're collecting information from alternate timeline branches during the war, not prior to it. They want to get as much info for (potential) future use as possible.

W/r/t boss Suzumi,

Spoiler:

it's uhhhh apparently a regular thing, actually, for Suzumi to kill off any alternate selves they run into while timeline-hopping. The way they talk about it, it seems like the loser gets assimilated into the winner? Which might explain the creepy mini-Suzumi options.

Also a whole lot of (Slightly-Less-Vague-Than-Usual) Sci-Fi Plot Foreshadowing that I'll get around to translating, uhhh, eventually.

Spoiler:

Kurohebi was made by Tsubakura and Suzumi back when the two were on good terms confirmed, Kurohebi's assassin job is to assassinate *Tsubakura specifically* on Suzumi's orders confirmed, Hooaka has two minds in one body (although most people don't clue in) confirmed, Suzumi talks about the Dragonfly Castle like it's a spaceship confirmed, Aoji briefly mentions "Shiro" as a family member in addition to Kuro and Aka (??), Suzumi mentions that tons of Mugenri residents (Yaorochi and Saragimaru, for example) are parallel versions of people they knew in the outside world(?!) & Tsubakura dubbed this kind of alt-dimension counterpart "homoeologues" back in the day apparently.

Spoiler:

Wait that's how Kuroji guessed Saragimaru's name in EMS isn't it. they already met their OW counterpart. godddd

edit: also

Spoiler:

lmao Suzumi says in their Stage 6-P dialogue that the previous emperors had been using the big mirror's inversion powers to make the populace love them instead of despise them #mitorididnothingwrong2017

edit:

Spoiler:

wait there was that one ice cream guy. #mitorididalmostnothingwrong2017

[☆ Kana ☆]

...oh my god.

...ohhhhhh my god? ?? ??

I...I can barely word right now, aaaaaaaaaaaa... 

Wahahaha, so many big revelatiiiooooons, I can hardly sit still right now!!!  :getdown:

Spoiler:

...Guess I should start considering who in the OW my dear mokumokuren might be a parallel version of...~?

:3

EDIT: Also, worth mentioning that

Spoiler:

Clause knows Suzumi.

[Shizzo]

Gosh, so much plot!  Thanks for explaining guys! ♥  I'm definitely gonna look forward to the translations now!

@gilde 

Spoiler:

Executing someone who's overpricing ice cream is totally justifiable tho #mitorididitforthepeople2k17

[gilde]

EDIT: Also, worth mentioning that

Spoiler:

Clause knows Suzumi.

Oh my god yeah

Spoiler:

clause just casually says in the middle of their chunibyou babbling that they know basically everything about Suzumi's Deal and both suzumis look at the camera like they're on the office

e: Also, since it's something I think is neat, here's a list of all the Bird Name-havers. Most of this information is taken from Naoi Ikumo's speculation notes on Pixiv. (which were completely on the money about a bunch of stuff that was later confirmed by BPoHC, heyo.) thank you naoi ikumo

Yabusame: "Yabusame" is JP for the asian stubtail, plus 鳳 (phoenix) kanji
Tsubakura: 玄鳥 is more commonly read as "genchou," another name for swallows (tsubame)
Kurohebi: Has "bird" kanji in their name; melanistic shimahebi are called "karasu-hebi" ("crow snakes")
Aoji: "Shitodo" is an old term for fledgling meadow buntings (hoojiro). There's also a specific type of bunting related to the Shitodo-Maekawa Shrine that was called an "Aohito" because of the blue stripe on its back.
Hooaka:  Ditto Shitodo, plus "Hooaka" is JP for the chestnut-eared bunting.
Kuroji: Ditto again. Their given name also includes "巫鳥" (lit. "priestess bird"); this was another term for sacred buntings like those mentioned above, and the kanji for "shitodo" is simply those two kanji combined.
Clause: "Hisui" and "halcyon" are Japanese and Greek for "kingfisher," respectively.
Tsurubami: "Tsuru" = JP for "crane".
Hibaru: From "hibari," JP for the Eurasian skylark.

Spoiler:

When the Suzumis read Hibaru's memories in BPoHC they're both like "uhhh WHAT" bc hibaru is apparently A Super Plot Important Character for ~secret reasons~

Tsugumi: JP for the dusky thrush.
Medias: Doesn't have a Bird Name! Flightless birds don't get to join the club, sorry.
Mitori: The plover, probably? 壬鳥 (mitori) is one stroke different from 千鳥 (chidori), which is JP for plovers.

Spoiler:

Suzumi does mention that Mitori "still has a Bird Name even if it's rotten," so that might have something to do with it.

Suzumi: Contains the kanji for sparrows (suzume).

Birds birds birds birds birds birds birds birds

edit 2 (more bird talk): ...The kanji for "Hooaka" (both the character and the bird) mean "red-cheeked." The kanji for "Hoojiro" (which in Japanese is used for both the genus and species of meadow buntings, incidentally?) mean "white-cheeked."

Spoiler:

Red and white are often used as colors for opposing groups in Japan (sports teams, the NHK Kohaku singing competition, stuff like that). ...I bet "Shiro" is the person Hooaka's sharing a body with.

[Alphish]

Spoiler:

Red and white are often used as colors for opposing groups in Japan (sports teams, the NHK Kohaku singing competition, stuff like that). ...I bet "Shiro" is the person Hooaka's sharing a body with.

To add to that idea...

Spoiler:

In stage 4 of Evanescent Existence, the trees (?) are white before Hooaka midboss fight, and they turn red afterwards. So the first part could be "Shiro" stage.
Also, the Blue/Red/White/Black colours correspond to Four Symbols: Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, White Tiger and the Black Tortoise.
Not only that, they correspond to spring, summer, autumn and winter, respectively. It somewhat goes along with the age order, with Aoji being the youngest, Hooaka/Shiro being the middle, and Kuroji being the oldest of all. This part might have not been quite intentional, though.

Either way, I'm glad to have learnt that Red/White are often used as opposing colours, as I also had the idea "Shiro" might be the other aspect of Hooaka, but didn't have quite as solid cultural foundation for that.

[Popcioslav]

Okay, alright, thank you all who posted here lately, this really helped me put the entire story of Len'en into perspective.
And can I just point out

Spoiler:

that JynX played us like a tool? And I still respect them for how they did it?

Alright so after reading what Gilde posted I was really interested if anything about how the

Spoiler:

EE cast was actually foreshadowed in previous games would show up now.

First and foremost,

Spoiler:

Hooaka being both Aka and Shiro. I agree with Alphish that their stage seems like a pretty good nod, but there's even a better confirmation of that. Their own theme title. While the "Air Master!" part seems to be related to their battle, the "Soul Dualism" part was always pretty enigmatic to me. I've always believed it refered to Hooaka manipulating both ice and fire, but now it's much more obvious, isn't it? While I'm still not sure how Hooaka ended up sharing their body with "Shiro", it seems this is what JynX was building up to since the very first game.

On that note, let's talk about the character I thought isn't even relevant anymore and oh boy was I wrong.

Spoiler:

Taking everything we know about Kurohebi they seem to be most tragic out of all the characters in Len'en cast so far. I have no doubt what Gilde said is true since even BPoHC's Kurohebi's theme is foreshadowing this ("Made in Black ~ Double Snake" - as in made by two "black" personas), but isn't that a bit weird? If Suzumi wanted to turn Kurohebi into an assassin to kill Tsuba, why did it result in a failure? As you all might know, Kurohebi is currently the complete opposite of that, they're in fact some clumsy assassin that is in good relationships with Tsuba (and only reason why Kurohebi ever was a boss in EE is because they knew it's not Tsuba since Tsuba wouldn't insult them). Thing is... keep in mind Kurohebi, isn't a person. Although almost everybody in Mugenri is either human or have human counterpart in real world as it was pointed out, Kurohebi is either entirely artificial or artificial in some parts (though it's said they were originally just a human from Outside World, I might have some doubts now), and knowing JynX's obsession with sci-fi, it's likely that they're a subject to Asimov's Laws, also know as 'Three Laws of Robotics'. And here's the worst part about all of this. Tsuba doesn't care much about Kurohebi. Kurohebi's entire purpose was to kill Tsuba, but they can't do that. You can clearly see that despite acting like A.I. would, Kurohebi still wants to hang with Tsuba and is actually 'displeased' when Tsuba adopts Shion and dumps them. They are stuck in a limbo zone where they can't fullfil their purpose, but they also can't change who they are. I don't know, I'm probably looking too far into what is pretty much just a minor stage 1 boss, but for just a stage 1 boss? Man, Kurohebi is a perfect example of nihilism

Well that's mostly all for now, still researching and I don't want to tackle

Spoiler:

Suzumi yet, until I will see most of their new dialogues with my own eyes. However, there's one thing I've noticed that seems to be an on going theme of Len'en. If Touhou is a representation of dreams and stuff like that and how it effects our culture (and vice versa), than Len'en is representation of history, past, memories (or lack there of) and how it affects us, other beings as well as how we can handle history, either by ignoring it, erasing it or learning from it. Suzumi seems to be the opposite of that. Whatever you see them as a blatant villain or not, it's easy to see that their manipulation of history and memories resulting in a neverending conflict. Even between Suzumi themselves. Twisting history, trying to cover up or erase things, it will always result in just more of that. At least that's my take from it and if it was intentional than I believe it's a really strong message.

EDIT: All Len'en 1-3 games were updated in a pretty big way. I recommend you all to look into that if you haven't already https://twitter.com/mugen_Jinx/status/919133920410529792

[TresserT]

So for those who were unaware, Jynx has updated Evanescent Existence, Earthen Miraculous Sword, and Reactivate Majestical Imperial. It's mostly minor bug fixes and balance tweaking and a new playable character in each of them.

Here
are
the links.

[gilde]

a new playable character

UH OH

"Suzumi was with us when we came to Mugenri, right?"
"What? No they weren't."
"...I feel like they were?"
"Yeah, they totally were."

UH OH!!!!

[Validon98]

Doing some file digging, wild guess who was added retroactively to each game?

Spoiler:

It's fairly obvious but uh, yeah, Suzumi is unlockable in each game. So uh... what were they doing the whole time? And heck on top of that, just what is in their dialogue, going back through the last three games?

Also went back through Evanescent Existence, looks like flashbombs were added to that, and otherwise the game feels about as tough as it usually does, AKA "tough at stage 2 and kinda stage 3 but otherwise a joke past that".

EDIT: Also, looks like the UI looks a bit cleaned up? EMS's UI background looks a lot darker and... I guess almost prettier? I think the same goes for the others. Some of the background textures look a bit better too, dunno if it's my imagination.

[TresserT]

Going back and playing them, EE seems a bit easier than originally (bullets are all around slower now) but RMI seems a bit harder (bullets are all around slower, but now they tend to clog up the screen).

Spoiler:

In EE, Suzumi fights Tsubakura on stage 3 and uses Tsubakura's extra stage theme. In RMI, Suzumi fights Yaorochi/Sukune on stage 4. So the new content is just the Suzumi player.

Also, from what I understand, this isn't a case of "Suzumi was there all along", it's Suzumi using their time travel abilities to go back and gather more information.

[Validon98]

Just replayed EMS, and uh, the requirements on the bonus Taosouken thingy seem to have been relaxed a bit. I was able to access the fight with only four petals on the flower gauge, plus it seems like flower gauge loss has been reduced from the original version, I think? Still screwed it up near the end since I've never faced Taosouken up to now and the whole "you need to flash bomb" part screwed me up. :'D

...This was also a good chance for me to finally 1cc with Kuroji, who isn't really that bad actually. Maybe they got buffed a bit? Not sure.

[gilde]

ok now that i've read all the dialogue:

Spoiler:

it's still ambiguous as to when Suzumi wound up in Mugenri; EE and EMS's Suzumi scenarios are actually post-BPoHC Suzumi reviewing the events of those games. (Femme Suzumi is apparently on their own while memory-diving.) Suzumi's scenario in RMI actually does take place at the time (ie. preceding BPoHC), and judging by the Suzumis' conversations in the first few stages, they weren't around during EMS. shrug

Spoiler:

Suzumi mentions someone named アルディ ("Aldie"?) in EE's ending and EX dialogue. Based on context clues, that's probably what Rowdy Suzumi's actual name is?

& lmao god

Spoiler:

in suzumi's post-tenkai fight dialogue they use the spell card rules to order tenkai to say their favorite food after every sentence. tenkai is forced to start saying 'melon' like they're a pokemon