Author Topic: Touhou 15.5: 東方憑依華 (Eastern Blooms of Possession) ~ Antinomy of Common Flowers  (Read 520108 times)

ToyoRai

  • Head But No Tail
  • I am still here. Sometimes.
Or two brand new characters if we have another duo as the final bosses.

That is what I sort of meant with my statement.

So the roster size is 20. So that means five newcomers. And I am going to assume that two of them will be brand new characters.
where you getting the roster size?

Flandre5carlet

  • Sister of the Devil
  • "So all I have to do is 'kyuu', and..."
    • flan.moe
where you getting the roster size?

Just a couple posts before his own.
Anyway, I do hope Kaguya makes it in but I'm not holding my breath. Also hope the teams won't be obvious shipping fuel like Byakuren & Miko.

game2011

  • mineiptXD
    • Supreme ??asual Dating Verified Women
I'm actually more interested in the game ZUN is making himself (TH16?).  Still no info on that?

Drake

  • *
As always, there will likely be zero news until a few days before the demo releases. You'll probably have to wait until May. Tasofro's media strategy is totally different from ZUN's.

A Colorful Calculating Creative and Cuddly Crafty Callipygous Clever Commander
- original art by Aiけん | ウサホリ -

game2011

  • mineiptXD
    • Supreme ??asual Dating Verified Women
Did they specifically say there will be more than one brand new character?

Drake

  • *
Quote from: SC vol.3
初報の通り「深秘録」で動いているキャラは全員登場するということ。「全員」にはPS4版で追加された鈴仙も、もちろん含まれます。 [...] 今回新キャラを含めると20人クラスの大所帯なので、そうすると一人を選んで遊ぶゲームではキャラがもったいないんじゃないかなって。
- all characters from ULiL will appear, including reisen
- including new characters, it's a 20-character-class big family (how2translatelol)

I can't tell from context whether it means exactly 20 characters or "in the scope of" 20 characters. It's talking about how it's tag-team partially because it would be a bit of a waste to have so many characters with each individual person only ever playing one.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2017, 12:49:15 PM by Drake »

A Colorful Calculating Creative and Cuddly Crafty Callipygous Clever Commander
- original art by Aiけん | ウサホリ -

Marron

  • Ordinary crow
I don't really understand. Does that mean that we'll only see five new characters/returning characters for this game ?

Drake

  • *
That's what's implied, I guess? I just get the feeling that it could too early for them to say exactly how many characters there will be.

A Colorful Calculating Creative and Cuddly Crafty Callipygous Clever Commander
- original art by Aiけん | ウサホリ -

Serela

  • Moon Tiara Magic
  • VIA PIZZA SLINGING
"Only" 5 new characters is still as many as 12.3 added to SWR, and more than ULiL added to HM's cast (4; 5 if you count Reisen getting added to the PS4 edition). It's really a pretty reasonable amount to expect.
<mauvecow> see this is how evil works in reality, it just wears you down with bureaucracy until you don't care anymore

Marron

  • Ordinary crow
Since it seems like it's more a new game than an extension of HM/ULiL, I would have thought there would be more characters to be honest.

PapilLionesskort

  • "Perfectly Immoral Moral Person"
  • Pretty much just lurking innocently
It's always been five characters between each game. Even with Hisoutensoku. :) Although being an expansion, none of those five were newcomers. (Not counting Namazu, who is not playable.)
Write or fight, same thing. You might as well come out swinging either way.<3 Just not too hard, as that's no fun.

Marron

  • Ordinary crow
Well, what you say is a bit reassuring. I hope we'll get five returning characters(who were not playable in SWR/Hisou) + one or two bosses.(new characters)

Serela

  • Moon Tiara Magic
  • VIA PIZZA SLINGING
Oh wow, I didn't realize even IaMP to SWR only added 5 characters as well. I guess it really is the exact same for every game XD
<mauvecow> see this is how evil works in reality, it just wears you down with bureaucracy until you don't care anymore

Ummmmm... wow.

It's been, what, 3 days since the release of ULiL on PS4? That's pretty cold of Tasofro to people who bought it.
not as cold as making Resien story exclusive to PS4 and isolating one of there oldest player bases :|

before you ask yes i'm very salty over this


I really Really hope 15.5 is not PS4 exclusive T_T

did the new volume of strange creators mention anything on what system its for?
« Last Edit: March 16, 2017, 01:13:21 AM by hazerddex »

I really Really hope 15.5 is not PS4 exclusive T_T
Why would it be? Unless Sony is paying them big money I don't see how an official Touhou title would be PS4 exclusive.

The ⑨th Zentillion

  • The impeaches were delicious...
  • Now hungry for conviction!
    • Zentillion's Tumblr
Pretty sure it'll be released on Windows first just like practically everything else. Hell, 14.5 even being put on console was a fluke in itself, for the most part, so 15.5 winding up just on console? Asinine notion...
Did you bring a light?
...No...


Smash the Fash; The far right belongs in the TRASH.

Maple

  • Mukyuu!
Remember when people datamined ULiL's demo and revealed Mokou, Shinmyoumaru, and Hanako aka Sumireko?

https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,17762.msg1156734.html#msg1156734

Wasn't HM's cast also leaked (Nitori, Koishi, Mamizou, Boss aka Kokoro), first by a guy on facebook and then confirmed by Chinese dataminers? (may be remembering wrong)

I wasn't back then for SWR let alone IaMP, but did something similar happen then?

Who's gonna say that Tasofro messes up, again, and hides the cast on the demo (if we get a demo for AoCF)?

Serela

  • Moon Tiara Magic
  • VIA PIZZA SLINGING
It's possible, but you'll have to wait for a demo first.
<mauvecow> see this is how evil works in reality, it just wears you down with bureaucracy until you don't care anymore

nyttyn

  • Drill baby drill!
Disclaimer: I am not claiming this is a 100% certainty. It is entirely possible Tasfro may surprise us, but given their history it's pretty doubtful.

tl;dr probably even if it's not 100% because tasfro is a small company with shitty programmers.


I'd wager that the possibility of getting another leak like that is extremely high. As for why...it's not nessecairly a mess-up, but it's extremely likely for a number of reasons.

First of all, one has to understand why data mining is even a thing in the first place. Finding dummied out assets, hints of sequels, and even infamous cases like Sun and Moon's demo leaking all of the new mons - all of these things happen because coding is an absolute mess. One would think that it's as simple a matter as just removing the files in question, but then something seemingly unrelated breaks, or the game starts glitching in unexpected ways. This is because even with extremely good coding practices, programming is less like a straight road from A to B, and more like a Jenga tower. You never know what piece you remove is going to cause the whole thing to fall down.

This is, of course, a very simplified explanation of a very complicated topic, but the short version of it is that it's often preferred to simply build upon existing code, rather than trying to modify or remove existing code, and simply hide assets tied in with said code away from the player.

So what does this have to do with a demo of a game? Well, almost all demos (with a few notable exceptions, such as the Stanley Parable's demo) are based off a version of the already existing game. Preferably one later in the game's development cycle for the sake of stability and matching the full experience as much as possible. As a result, a bunch of stuff gets in the code - even for examples like the Sun and Moon Special Demo, where while technically being a unique experience from the game proper was completely based off of the existing code base and assets - and nintendo erred on the side of caution and playability, resulting in some assets making it through.

Nintendo is, by the way, a multi-million dollar company with a history of fairly stable games. Twilight Frontier, meanwhile, is a small company with a history of ...questionable programming quality at best. As a result, it's hardly surprising that they were unable to fully scrub any connections to the full cast in HM or ULiL - as they were presumably set in stone after a certain point. I have no idea and research into the matter didn't reveal if leaks had happened in hisou and prior games - but at this point people have gotten really good at data mining, so it's a whole different ballgame these days to begin with.


Of course, one may raise the question of "Why did the ULiL demo have Hanako listed instead of Sumireko?" The fact that Mokou and Shinmyoumaru were also in that datamine suggests that it wasn't because of an attempt to hide only Sumireko - surely, if the intent was to obscure info until launch, they'd go out of their way to hide the other two as well? Instead, this raises the interesting possibility (and this is only based on speculation from the evidence, unless we hear from ZUN himself we have no way of confirming this) that at some point a character named Hanako was intended to be the final boss of ULiL. This makes sense - Hanako is the name of a fairly big urban legend, and surely it would have made sense to tie in the Urban Legends into the culprit of the plot? I'm only making a wild stab in the dark here, but I'm assuming that ZUN changed his mind and shifted the plot's end focus away from the urban legends and implemented Sumireko instead as a hook for LoLK - presumably out of a desire to start a new meta plot, much like how MoF was the catalyst for SA, UFO, TD, SoPM, and HM. Combined with how Kokoro's entry in the HM demo was simply "boss," and it probably means that both HM and ULiL's demos were based off of considerably earlier builds than the final release - which, if the trend continues, means that we'll probably have to take any non-familiar name with a grain of salt (if we even get one and it's not just boss again). Not because Tasfro's attempting to hide anything, but because the demo will possibly have started being made from a fork that was early on enough that they hadn't fully implemented the final boss yet.


As a side note I fully expect Sagume to be in AoCF. She's gotten a number of cameos recently, she's a stage 5 boss (historically speaking they tend to find themselves in major or playable roles), she was name dropped in Reisen's campaign, featured in the tease for Alt Facts, and seems to have been established as a connection between Lunar Society and Gensokyo, which I'm speculating due to various plot developments and what I assume are bids at foreshadowing will continue to be at the forefront of future events.

Maple

  • Mukyuu!
As a side note I fully expect Sagume to be in AoCF. She's gotten a number of cameos recently, she's a stage 5 boss (historically speaking they tend to find themselves in major or playable roles)

Ayy

But, i wonder how Sagume could fit in a game where the playable characters go to a variety of locations, with "muh purity" and Earth being an impure place. I remember when Toyohime went to the Bamboo Forest. I can't see them being a prolonged time outside the Lunar Capital (and Dream World), with the risk of a combat they can't end with a single attack.

If they had a representative from LoLK, i'd expect literally anyone but Sagume, given that they are more comfortable with staying on Earth (or Hell). But it could be like Remilia with night stages on IaMP or indoor stages on Soku with some power up to allow her to be elsewhere.
« Last Edit: March 16, 2017, 11:55:06 PM by Maple »

game2011

  • mineiptXD
    • Supreme ??asual Dating Verified Women
Disclaimer: I am not claiming this is a 100% certainty. It is entirely possible Tasfro may surprise us, but given their history it's pretty doubtful.

tl;dr probably even if it's not 100% because tasfro is a small company with shitty programmers.


I'd wager that the possibility of getting another leak like that is extremely high. As for why...it's not nessecairly a mess-up, but it's extremely likely for a number of reasons.

First of all, one has to understand why data mining is even a thing in the first place. Finding dummied out assets, hints of sequels, and even infamous cases like Sun and Moon's demo leaking all of the new mons - all of these things happen because coding is an absolute mess. One would think that it's as simple a matter as just removing the files in question, but then something seemingly unrelated breaks, or the game starts glitching in unexpected ways. This is because even with extremely good coding practices, programming is less like a straight road from A to B, and more like a Jenga tower. You never know what piece you remove is going to cause the whole thing to fall down.

This is, of course, a very simplified explanation of a very complicated topic, but the short version of it is that it's often preferred to simply build upon existing code, rather than trying to modify or remove existing code, and simply hide assets tied in with said code away from the player.

So what does this have to do with a demo of a game? Well, almost all demos (with a few notable exceptions, such as the Stanley Parable's demo) are based off a version of the already existing game. Preferably one later in the game's development cycle for the sake of stability and matching the full experience as much as possible. As a result, a bunch of stuff gets in the code - even for examples like the Sun and Moon Special Demo, where while technically being a unique experience from the game proper was completely based off of the existing code base and assets - and nintendo erred on the side of caution and playability, resulting in some assets making it through.

Nintendo is, by the way, a multi-million dollar company with a history of fairly stable games. Twilight Frontier, meanwhile, is a small company with a history of ...questionable programming quality at best. As a result, it's hardly surprising that they were unable to fully scrub any connections to the full cast in HM or ULiL - as they were presumably set in stone after a certain point. I have no idea and research into the matter didn't reveal if leaks had happened in hisou and prior games - but at this point people have gotten really good at data mining, so it's a whole different ballgame these days to begin with.


Of course, one may raise the question of "Why did the ULiL demo have Hanako listed instead of Sumireko?" The fact that Mokou and Shinmyoumaru were also in that datamine suggests that it wasn't because of an attempt to hide only Sumireko - surely, if the intent was to obscure info until launch, they'd go out of their way to hide the other two as well? Instead, this raises the interesting possibility (and this is only based on speculation from the evidence, unless we hear from ZUN himself we have no way of confirming this) that at some point a character named Hanako was intended to be the final boss of ULiL. This makes sense - Hanako is the name of a fairly big urban legend, and surely it would have made sense to tie in the Urban Legends into the culprit of the plot? I'm only making a wild stab in the dark here, but I'm assuming that ZUN changed his mind and shifted the plot's end focus away from the urban legends and implemented Sumireko instead as a hook for LoLK - presumably out of a desire to start a new meta plot, much like how MoF was the catalyst for SA, UFO, TD, SoPM, and HM. Combined with how Kokoro's entry in the HM demo was simply "boss," and it probably means that both HM and ULiL's demos were based off of considerably earlier builds than the final release - which, if the trend continues, means that we'll probably have to take any non-familiar name with a grain of salt (if we even get one and it's not just boss again). Not because Tasfro's attempting to hide anything, but because the demo will possibly have started being made from a fork that was early on enough that they hadn't fully implemented the final boss yet.


As a side note I fully expect Sagume to be in AoCF. She's gotten a number of cameos recently, she's a stage 5 boss (historically speaking they tend to find themselves in major or playable roles), she was name dropped in Reisen's campaign, featured in the tease for Alt Facts, and seems to have been established as a connection between Lunar Society and Gensokyo, which I'm speculating due to various plot developments and what I assume are bids at foreshadowing will continue to be at the forefront of future events.
Sumireko was likely called Hanako because the front part of her name is a type of flower, and "hana" means flower, so Hanako was likely a placeholder name.

And Sagume is a stage 4 boss.

Of course, one may raise the question of "Why did the ULiL demo have Hanako listed instead of Sumireko?" The fact that Mokou and Shinmyoumaru were also in that datamine suggests that it wasn't because of an attempt to hide only Sumireko - surely, if the intent was to obscure info until launch, they'd go out of their way to hide the other two as well? Instead, this raises the interesting possibility (and this is only based on speculation from the evidence, unless we hear from ZUN himself we have no way of confirming this) that at some point a character named Hanako was intended to be the final boss of ULiL. This makes sense - Hanako is the name of a fairly big urban legend, and surely it would have made sense to tie in the Urban Legends into the culprit of the plot? I'm only making a wild stab in the dark here, but I'm assuming that ZUN changed his mind and shifted the plot's end focus away from the urban legends and implemented Sumireko instead as a hook for LoLK - presumably out of a desire to start a new meta plot, much like how MoF was the catalyst for SA, UFO, TD, SoPM, and HM. Combined with how Kokoro's entry in the HM demo was simply "boss," and it probably means that both HM and ULiL's demos were based off of considerably earlier builds than the final release - which, if the trend continues, means that we'll probably have to take any non-familiar name with a grain of salt (if we even get one and it's not just boss again). Not because Tasfro's attempting to hide anything, but because the demo will possibly have started being made from a fork that was early on enough that they hadn't fully implemented the final boss yet.

Or maybe the character wasn't completely finalized yet and they had Hanako as a placeholder name

It might have just been speculation and I'm remembering wrong, but I remember hearing somewhere that tasofro wasn't going to release a demo for this game, and that ULiL Extra was meant to be a preview of the system (minus the double player part).
My name is Tres. It sounds like "Tray". Tressert is "Tray-zurt"; like Tres dessert.
I've cleared every touhou game on Lunatic, and beaten every extra except SoEW.
NMNB: MoF Hard, SA Extra, UFO Extra

Prime32

  • Munch-Munch Demon
Sumireko was likely called Hanako because the front part of her name is a type of flower, and "hana" means flower, so Hanako was likely a placeholder name.
The first part of Renko is also a type of flower. If ZUN was trying to connect them by repeating the "flower child" naming scheme, then he would have almost certainly thought of her as just "flower child" for a while before he settled on a specific flower.

Remember when people datamined ULiL's demo and revealed Mokou, Shinmyoumaru, and Hanako aka Sumireko?

I wasn't back then for SWR let alone IaMP, but did something similar happen then?
hi i disassembled the swr demo because i was super super hype for a game that eventually disappointed me. also, the demo had more fun mechanics than the final version did.

swr demo had slots in the data for 20 characters, but the only ones that were named were the characters from iamp. i don't recall if meiling was in the list or not. not checking again.

it's probable that swr was planned to be a much bigger game than it ended up being, and they had to make good on that with the expansion.

OrbOrigin

  • "The galaxy of light is calling me!"
If they had a representative from LoLK, i'd expect literally anyone but Sagume, given that they are more comfortable with staying on Earth (or Hell). But it could be like Remilia with night stages on IaMP or indoor stages on Soku with some power up to allow her to be elsewhere.

Considering that she's responsible for ULiL (during Reimu's final scenario in particular), Sagume will involved in AoCF, whether she like it or not. When we talking about IaMP, SWR and Soku, I would like to see the return of ground combat in AoCF. Or better yet, a mix between aerial and ground combat.

Considering that she's responsible for ULiL (during Reimu's final scenario in particular), Sagume will involved in AoCF, whether she like it or not. When we talking about IaMP, SWR and Soku, I would like to see the return of ground combat in AoCF. Or better yet, a mix between aerial and ground combat.

The plot show that the moon isn't going to get involve in this directly though (Moon rabbits are a different case, as they're as concern with the lunarian side just as much as Reisen is: professionally). Also, another problem is that Sagume is too strong for a character, and ZUN doesn't put OP foreigner into the game. Also, assuming if Sagume is in the game, who would she be parring with? Since she isn't the type for the theme of this game (tag-team for the misguided strongest duo).

Edit: Also, if there's any involment, it's mainly going to be off-screen, and she would likely sent someone else to clean up the mess (someone that's convieniently on Gensokyo right now, and is partly under her command, like Seiran and Ringo)
« Last Edit: March 18, 2017, 04:35:48 PM by andykhang »

nyttyn

  • Drill baby drill!
Ground combat isn't happening. It's still on the ULiL engine, which wasn't made for that sort of thing. Maybe in the next fighting game cycle. Presumably it's been selling reasonably enough for them to continue making faster spin-offs using the engine, rather than taking the time to make another Hisou-style engine.

As for Sagume being too strong - that's not a problem if she's playing by the spell card rules, since it's already established she has no qualms about holding back. It's not a problem like it is in, say, Flandre's case where she can't hold back that well, or in Kaguya + Mokou's case where they weren't in for Hisou due to being well above the power level meant for that expansion. As for who - the most likely outcomes are probably Reisen (already has a link to her, Reisen seems to hold respect), or one of the other four new characters. (The muh purity argument...well, evidently that's not an issue either since the moon bitches have visited Gensokyo in the past without issue. Presumably it doesn't hurt their agelessness if they only visit.)

Speaking of which, I expect the pairings to be, assuming ZUN & Tasofro didn't decide to go with a 'man let's just throw them together for the sake of clashing and thus humorous dialogue' approach - Ichirin * Byakuren, Futo * Miko, Either Kokoro * Mamizou or Koishi, Mokou * Sumireko, Reimu * Kasen or Shinmyoumaru, and Marisa * Nitori. Just wild shots in the dark here, but since we already know that nobody from the Hisou era will be making a showing, that somewhat dilutes the potential pool for partners for the odd ones out, and gives me speculation that we might possibly see Shinmyoumaru * Seija, Kasen * Yuugi, Mamizou * Nue, Reisen * Sagume, Reisen * Kaguya.

And if at least one of Seija, Yuugi, Nue, Sagume, or Kaguya aren't the newcomers in the cast I will be very sad that I got all my guesses wrong and probably add a dunce cap to my avatar or something for writing all that up.

Also yeah, entirely possible it was just a placeholder name for Sumireko too. I hope one day we get a confirmation one way or another, learning more about games in-dev is always so fascinating.

I'm not up to date with the manga which might have clarified things, but from ULiL extra and the promotional stuff, I was under the impression that each person only bodyswaps with one other, specific person. If that's how it is, wouldn't Reimu/Mokou be a pair? And if that's the case, pairing people by their relationships might not work out too well.

Also, do we know if the urban legends will be making a reappearance in this game, or is that over and done with?
My name is Tres. It sounds like "Tray". Tressert is "Tray-zurt"; like Tres dessert.
I've cleared every touhou game on Lunatic, and beaten every extra except SoEW.
NMNB: MoF Hard, SA Extra, UFO Extra