Fantasy Puppet Dance Performance

[Colticide]

Well I never thought I'd ever see another Touhoumon game... but it's not just another ROM hack, but a full CD release! The trial was released in physical form only at C86 and with a full version in Physical and Digital at C87 this winter. (if what I read is correct.)

The graphics and the development are done by Hemogurobin A1C, music by Shion, and the game is published by FocusLens. If they sound familiar that's because all three of them are responsible for Touhou Rhythm Carnival! (Which if you haven't you should totally buy!)

Picture of the title screen.
I'd say it's safe to assume PC-98 characters will appear, Kana here proves that.
This is the battle screen and it's very different from what the ROM hacks look like. Also DDC characters should make an appearance as well, hopefully more then just Sejia. (I need my stage 1-3 bosses!)
The trainer intros are similar to how Pokemon X & Y do it, also the portraits are just adorable!

Gameplay
While I haven't played the game myself but after watch the two videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw6Glgi9rFw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeqwchigZdk
You get the basics on how it works. While I know not what types are in the game (can't read Japanese very well) I do know types are still in the game and might be the normal typing and not the new Touhoumon typing. (Like soul and heart.) EDIT: I think it's the new typing actually, I watched a few different videos and the colors used might suggest the 1.8 touhoumou types.
A big difference is that attacks have been redone and are all animated to be more like danmaku, as seen here and in the video:


Also I should mention that the way you get exp is similar to how X & Y also distributes exp.

Story
... No idea. All I can figure out that a new incident occurred and these "Dolls" began appearing. Also you can pick between a boy or a girl and they look to be original characters but I don't have a picture of then unfortunately. For those that want the story you can try to figure out what it says:
?異変?
――それは、唐突に起こるもの。
桜が散り、農夫が田植えの準備に取り掛かり始めた時期のある日、
幻想郷にまた新しい異変が起こった。

突如として現れた、人・妖怪・妖精、どれにも当てはまらない存在。
それは見た目から?人形?と名付けられた。

人形はどこからともなく現れ、自由気ままに行動する。
幻想郷中に溢れた人形たちは、次第に悪さまでするようになった。
中には幻想郷を維持する、大結界に影響をおよぼす人形まで??。

人形には人形でしか対応できず、みな人形を持ち対処を始めたが、
それでも人形の増殖は収まらない。

博麗神社の巫女である博麗霊夢も人形で解決しようと動き始めていたが、
その糸口はなかなか見当たらなかった。

――――――――

季節は夏。

暇を持て余していた人間がひとり、
何かと噂の絶えない廃神社へと足を向けていた。

博麗神社というらしい、その神社に向かうバスの中で、
人間は不思議な夢を見る。

「――あなたは 幻想郷をご存知かしら？」
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So... I'm really freaking excited for this one! I tried to play one of the many touhoumon games but now that we are going to get a full release version I'm so willing to buy it. What do you all think? (trying to type this at night is so exhausting i had to finish it in the morning xP)

[Mеа]

"Abnormalities"
-- They appear suddenly.
It occurred in the season of falling cherry blossoms and of peasants beginning to plant their rice.
Another new abnormality surfaced in Gensokyo.

A new existence emerged; one that could not be categorized as 'human', 'youkai', or even 'fairy'.
By their appearance, they were named 'dolls'.

The dolls appeared from out of nowhere and acted as they pleased.
Gensokyo was flooded with these dolls and some even started to develop evil intentions.
Among them were a few that could even affect the Hakurei Barrier?that great barrier which preserved Gensokyo......

Dolls could only be managed by other dolls, so everyone began to carry some to deal with the issue.
However, the dolls continued to multiply unchecked.

Reimu Hakurei, shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine, also began to use dolls to resolve the issue.
The first clues are still far from her grasp however.

――――――――

It is summer time.

A single human is drowning in her leisure.
She makes her way towards a ruined shrine that never ceases to be the topic of rumors.

This shrine was apparently called the Hakurei Shrine.
Humans riding in the bus headed to this shrine dream curious dreams.

"――Have you heard of Gensokyo?"


edit: There's no gender pronoun associated with the Japanese text of the latter, present-tense half. Also, the last line is very feminine-y, and of more refined sorts. Which makes me think of Yukari.

[Colticide]

Thank you for the translation! I wonder if the Hakurei barrier will be a issue in the story?

[Clarste]

I played the demo and skimmed the text. Basically you're an outside world person gapped into Gensokyo by Yukari, who is indeed the person speaking that line. You meet Renko and Maribel at the ruined Hakurei Shrine beforehand so I guess you're also from the future? There's an Incident going on where a bunch of puppets are running around everywhere attacking people from tall grass, so Marisa and Sanae send you to the Human Village for your own protection (which is where the demo ends).  Reimu is off somewhere in Incident Resolution mode (she's also standing around in the forest behind the shrine, but not sure if that's just the demo). The Incident is preventing them from sending you back home through the barrier. But a mysterious Reimu puppet starts following you around without being Sealed like the other non-wild ones.

Gameplay-wise, every puppet in the battle gets full experience for the entire battle (this is not like how Pokemon X does it). However, they have to be alive at the end, no matter how many Puppets they defeated before dying. More like a standard RPG. Physical and Special attacks are replaced with Focus and Spread, but that's just cosmetic. To catch puppets, you have to use a Seal item on them first, and then kill them while they still have the debuff; very different from Pokemon. Types are revamped completely (again). You learn skills by spending PP on them after they're unlocked by level, so you can redo your skillset at any time as long as you have enough PP. You get 2 PP per puppet defeated, and it can also be spent as fully customizable EV (base stat increases, if you don't follow Pokemon).

[Savory]

I enjoyed the demo immensely. Hoping this ends up getting a translation patch in the future.

[game2011]

Yukari being responsible for "gapping business" again...  She really has been reduced to nothing but a plot device character by the fandom...

[Clarste]

Yukari being responsible for "gapping business" again...  She really has been reduced to nothing but a plot device character by the fandom...

Technically it was a Yukari puppet that led you through the barrier, but you talked to actual Yukari in a dream beforehand. She fills the "Professor Oak" role where she asks your name and gender. I think the "spiriting away" was handled somewhat elegantly this time: you chase it into a forest and when you turn around to go home everything has changed.

The thing that most amused me in the plot was that Medicine seemed awfully cheerful about the situation.

[Colticide]

Thank you Clarste for the explanation, felt a bit bad for even starting a topic on a game I have yet to play. The game sounds like its pretty different on how pokemon mechanics work, a very smart move since this is a stand alone game and not a ROM hack.

[qazmlpok]

I enjoyed the demo immensely. Hoping this ends up getting a translation patch in the future.

People are working on it already, yes.

[Espadas]

Looks really promising! Any possible mix between Pokemon and Touhou gets an istant thumb-up from me!

P.S. Am i the only one that look at that title screen and think "HINAMIZAWA" ?  :*

[Karisa]

It might be good to note in the thread title that this is not a hack? Considering how many hacks there are out there that are already referred to as "Touhoumon".

[Colticide]

Good idea not everyone will read the OP. I added Non hack next to touhoumon, is there a better way to do it?

[Ryason55]

For the record, the game's name (幻想人形演舞) actually translates to "Fantasy Puppet Dance Performance"; There is no mention of Touhou in the title.

[Colticide]

Thank you Ryason, fixed the title. I was going off of what the video had called it, should have recognized that kanji.

[Phoenix-P]

judging by the images i can tell the characters themselves have movement  and attacking animations now, that's a nice touch but i think that its main feature is the addition of the DCC characters, so its like... capturing 6 characters more comparing it to the hacked rom. not a big addition in my opinion. of course the whole game is gonna be new so anyways it looks really promising, now waiting for translation 

[Leon゠Helsing]

http://www.fo-lens.net/gn_enbu/elements.html
Element table in case anyone needs it.

[Colticide]

I can only see: Fire, Water, Dream, Phantom (pretty sure 幻 mean phantom), that's all I can tell so far.

[Mew seeker]

Nothing, fire, water, nature, land, steel, wind, thunder, light, dark, dark (B), poison, fighting, phantom, sound, dream.
Someone will have to give details between the two "dark" element but the second one (冥) can be seen in "meikai" (冥界) which is the world of the dead.
Also "gen" (幻) is as far as I remember the same "gen" from "Gensokyo".
Left column is attack, right row is defense.

[Unknownl]

This game is awesome, one of the best touhou games ever. This is only a trail right? Does anyone know when it ends? And does anyone know what to do after defeating Rumia?

[Colticide]

From what I seen the very last thing to do in the demo is beat Reimus lvl 20 team. After that I don't know very much.

Maybe the two elements are just dark and dead. There are a few characters that are "dead" but they could also fall into the phantom type.

[Smokey]

闇 = Evil/Chaos
冥 = Dark
They're both different types of "Dark". At least, that's what I thought. Maybe I'm dumb

[Yookie]

闇 = Evil/Chaos
冥 = Dark
They're both different types of "Dark". At least, that's what I thought. Maybe I'm dumb

That's interesting, since I've seen 闇 being associated with Rumia several times which would make it stand for "literal darkness", as in the absence of light.

One of the two would most likely be that and the other one would then be "mental/psychic/moral darkness", the latter one being something rather sinister/evil since darkness as just absence of light isn't considered to be that.

[Sungho]

Trying to link dark with evil is quite a 'western' thing to do.
I'm quite sure both 闇 and 冥 has no connotation to anything evil.
冥 is, as other people have already said, connected to the world of the dead.
Seeing that it is weak to itself and completely nullifies damage from fighting moves, it just might be Ghost.

Just translate 幻 to Illusion.

[Colticide]

That makes a bit more sense then. 幻 does mean both phantom and illusion but the phantom part doesn't have to mean ghost like it does in English. I'm fine with illusion, but for the other one would you all prefer dead or ghost type? I'm planning on editing the type chart to English.

[Smokey]

I'm still pretty sure 闇 can mean illegal activities such as black marketing, especially in this case since there is no other meaning for 冥, which is literally just dark, and I've never seen it mean anything else. Chaos just sounds better than Rogue, which is what I was gonna say first.

[Juno Arieiv]

Actually, since 闇 is both weak to light and strong against it, it's pretty clear that it's literal darkness. That other one would be more along the lines of "Necro", or "Nether".

[Leon゠Helsing]

You know, I'm curious if someone will be able to make a randomizer for this game after it's out. Randomized Pokemon games tend to be hilarious, after all.

[Colticide]

Update time! Decided to check on this game again and saw they have a demo and a patch for the physical demo so the game is now 1.01.

You can download it here: http://www.fo-lens.net/gn_enbu/download.html

The first half is for the digital demo and the second half is for the patch.

Finally glad to be playing this and love how the title screen has Demystify feast playing. The game runs great, feels way faster then the old pokemon games.

In case there are new players the controls from what I know go like this:
Z = Accept
X = Cancel
S = Menu
A/D = Scroll tabs left or right
Double clicking the screen changes the window size as well but I believe you have a preset set of options.

C87 can't come soon enough, I want this game more now... as well as a English patch