Author Topic: Touhou 16 「東方天空璋(とうほうてんくうしょう) ~ Hidden Star in Four Seasons」 announced  (Read 294908 times)

Jimmy

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 :getdown: :getdown: :getdown:

I was already wondering whether ZUN was going to bring another main game this year or not, but oh boy, here it is! Playable Aya and TANNED Cirno? Have all my money.

But honestly, is it just me or did ZUN's artstyle change yet again? I kinda didn't immediately recognize his style on the screencaps, especially with that tanned Cirno. The HUD looks also sorta different from what we're used to from ZUN so far. Can't wait to see the first three stages and the game's mechanics, with the latter being season-based (from what I could take from the info so far) sounds fairly interesting to me. E: I can't read, goddamn. I'm fine with a MoF-like system though.

That's the third main game's release I'm going to witness up-close since I got into Touhou, first one being DDC. What exciting times  :toot:
« Last Edit: April 20, 2017, 08:45:54 PM by Jimmy »
Normal 1cc: EoSD, PCB, IN, PoFV, MoF, UFO, TD, DDC, LoLK Legacy, HSiFS, WBaWC
Hard 1cc: IN, DDC, HSiFS
Extra clears: MoF, DDC, HSiFS, WBaWC

Goals: Going Extra Hard!

Quote
Doing a 180 from the last work, I'm going for a really light and refreshing feeling, I guess?
So a less-gimmicky game? I can roll with that. It might also just mean "none of the IWBTG mechanics from LoLK."

First impressions:
  • Only a few screenshots and I'm liking this art-style already.
  • Playable Cirno. Nuff said.
  • Playable Aya. ZUN just keeps surprising us.

I'm looking forward to seeing demo videos (assuming the demo does get released) and of course listening to the soundtrack ZUN has cooked up this time around. Skipped LoLK because it didn't interest me; if this one looks good I'll likely be ordering a copy.

Oh, and as usual, prepare for a metric ton of fan content and speculation!

I'm all for a more relaxed game after LoLK with the serious tone and the weird difficulty. Not saying that I want it to be much easier but the difficulty in the last two games felt kinda off. LoLK went with the checkpoint system, which I can't, for the best of me, like at all seeing as lunatic is not that much harder than normal and DDC spiked it up with Sukuna, being one of the hardest stage 6 bosses in the series (for me at least).  That said, I'm pumped.

Aya and Cirno as playables.... man, that might even break my tradition of always starting with Marisa.
On a side note: Reimu looks kinda psychotic. Seems the whole moon affair left its marks.

Not sure if this was brought up, but is it possible that every character will have two shot types?
Four characters with two shot types each seems a bit much.
1CCs: EoSD (Normal, MarisaB)
Aiming for PCB Normal MarisaB next!

Wait, lemme just clarify a thing, was she just called Tanned Cirno in Zun's description or even in her character select page she's being called that?

Cuz that'd be pretty funny.

That being said I wonder what this one will be all about.

Since the game's about seasons and the title is "Eastern Sky Orb/Scepter" the first thing that came to mind was Oracle of Seasons.

Also on Aya's screenshot the fairy on the left has some weird pellets on top of her.  I wonder if those are a new kind of item, or just danmaku.

Either way this is so exciting!!

is it just me or does Aya's image looks like she used a bomb( the thing at her left)?

I really like how the HUD looks this time, very colorful, yet not as busy as LoLK's.
I have to say, I don't like seeing the 0/3 and 0/5 life/bomb pieces, but who knows, maybe we'll get something else from that now, probably related to that corner gauge. I wonder how the overall difficulty will turn out with going for a "simpler" game this time (but hey, Spell practice is back, that's something), though I really don't expect precision dodges to come back full force after Junko.

Cirno being the summer character is certainly an odd one, and she's brown now, so fanart is probablydefinitely exploding over that right now, I wonder how she will work now. And Aya is a really nice addition imo, gotta go fast. The secondary options thing looks interesting, and Marisa's layout reminded me of he DDC flamethrower, with her being winter-themed, maybe we will see Cold inferno again (a.k.a. the best shot Marisa's ever had).
Spoiler:
Maybe ZUN is making Marisa great again

Things I've done (and maybe will improve):
SA L6MNB | SA Lunatic 3b Scorerun | MoF LNB | PCB LNB |DDC LNB

Hello Purvis

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  • Hello Jerry
I really like Cirno's little sunflower bow =]

game2011

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One can only hope. I love TD's soundtrack to death, but the musical quality of the chosen sound fonts has been declining since SA.
LoLK wasn't bad, it's just not very memorable.
Pure Furies >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> everything, except Gensokyo the Gods Loved

Wait, lemme just clarify a thing, was she just called Tanned Cirno in Zun's description or even in her character select page she's being called that?
She's called Tanned Cirno in the screenshot too.
1CCs: EoSD (Normal, MarisaB)
Aiming for PCB Normal MarisaB next!

Chill Observer

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I'm fine if this game had 8 total shots. RSS had 9. IN with solos had like 12 lol.
Retired Touhou player. Not involved with anything Touhou anymore.

Tengukami

  • Breaking news. Any season.
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Quote from: Mero link=topic=20728.msg1334791#msg1334791
I don't like seeing the 0/3 and 0/5 life/bomb pieces, but who knows, maybe we'll get something else from that now, probably related to that corner gauge.

Ah, I missed that.

I'm kinda hoping as well that this game ties in with Alternative Facts somehow, if for no other reason than alt-right otaku are already incredibly butthurt at ZUN right now.

"Human history and growth are both linked closely to strife. Without conflict, humanity would have no impetus for growth. When humans are satisfied with their present condition, they may as well give up on life."

Flandre5carlet

  • Sister of the Devil
  • "So all I have to do is 'kyuu', and..."
    • flan.moe
I'm kinda hoping as well that this game ties in with Alternative Facts somehow, if for no other reason than alt-right otaku are already incredibly butthurt at ZUN right now.

Please no. I've had enough of american politics on the net being literally everywhere, I'd rather not have any more of it in Touhou.

game2011

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    • Supreme ??asual Dating Verified Women
Sweet, Cirno playable in a main. Wasn't expecting that.

Hoping the new characters' designs will be nice, I found the TH14 ones generally bland (especially the non-demo characters) and I'm not fond at all of most TH15 designs except Sagume and to a lesser extent Junko.
Same thing with the music actually, found the TH14 soundtrack overall fairly boring aside from Sukuna's theme growing on me, although TH15's was overall better.

Most importantly though, I hope the gameplay will be fun! Cirno having a GFW-like gimmick would be nice.
TH14 does have unique concepts for te series, though, like Wakasagihime not having legs, Sekibanki's head shenanigans, and Shinmyoumaru's size.

Flandre5carlet

  • Sister of the Devil
  • "So all I have to do is 'kyuu', and..."
    • flan.moe
TH14 does have unique concepts for te series, though, like Wakasagihime not having legs, Sekibanki's head shenanigans, and Shinmyoumaru's size.

That's true. The gameplay gimmicks on Seija and Shinmyoumaru were interesting also. I just wasn't really fond of the post-stage 3 cast.

Plubio

  • 宇宙少年
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I'm kinda hoping as well that this game ties in with Alternative Facts somehow, if for no other reason than alt-right otaku are already incredibly butthurt at ZUN right now.

Oh? Did I miss something?
I mean, everytime someone's mad at ZUN because he decides to write down stuff. I guess that's nothing new.

Maple

  • Mukyuu!
That's true. The gameplay gimmicks on Seija and Shinmyoumaru were interesting also. I just wasn't really fond of the post-stage 3 cast.

Wouldn't that be because two of these characters are the rather forgettable Tsukumo sisters, and another one was Raiko who's slightly less forgettable. Their character niche was already filled by the Prismreznors sisters. Seija and Shinmyoumaru are leagues above them, though.

Really nice to see more new protagonists in a mainline Touhou game. I look forward to seeing the gameplay this time around, especially with the new colored meters and all.

Edit: Also this is the first Touhou game with a five word subtitle: HSiFS. This will take some getting used to, lol.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2017, 11:31:05 PM by shockdude »
Playing Touhou since 18 March 2012. Playing video games since 19XX.
Normal 1CC: EoSD, PCB, IN, PoFV, MoF, SA, UFO, TD, DDC, HSiFS, CtC.
Extra 1CC: EoSD, PCB+Phantasm, IN, PoFV (K&S), MoF, SA, TD, HSiFS, CtC+Phantasm.
Hard 1CC: EoSD, PCB, IN, MoF, TD, CtC.
Lunatic 1CC: EoSD

Flandre5carlet

  • Sister of the Devil
  • "So all I have to do is 'kyuu', and..."
    • flan.moe
Wouldn't that be because two of these characters are the rather forgettable Tsukumo sisters, and another one was Raiko who's slightly less forgettable. Their character niche was already filled by the Prismreznors sisters. Seija and Shinmyoumaru are leagues above them, though.
I dunno, the cast as a whole felt kind of underwhelming to me. Some in terms of design, some for other reasons such as abilities. Usually you have these characters that have rather specific abilities, and here it was like... Kagerou, species werewolf. What's her power? "Can transform into a wolf on the night of the full moon." Oh uh, okay. I mean that's just what any werewolf does but sure. How about the Tsukumos then, they must have cool music or sound related powers? "Making sounds and performing on her own." ... ah.

Seija and Shinmyoumaru I grew warmer to much later on but initially I wasn't that interested in either (or flat out disliked in Seija's case.)

Suspicious person

  • Just a humble wanderer
  • How suspicious~
is it just me or did ZUN's artstyle change yet again?
Seems pretty similar to how he drew DrLFR's cover art imo. So a wee bit different compared to ZUNart in the games in general, maybe ? Pretty fine though.

The ZUNart this time look pretty OK imo. I mean, look at that Marisa and compare her to LoLK's :leMarisaFace: : it's quite something. There's not a lot of ZUNart to see besides the 3 ones we have so far so I can't say for sure whether this games' art is gonna be better than the others but I must say I am quite pleased with the ones we see now. Heck, he even got the fingers' number right. I am curious to see how the rest of the cast are gonna look like

...Gonna miss the good times where we could laugh at the bad anatomy  :(

Kurzov

  • All good things must come to an end sometime.
Brace yourselves on another round of "Mima is Back" lmao

Yeah. I am totally ready.
"Better think awhile
Or I may never think again
If this were the last day of your life, my friend
Tell me, what do you think you would do then?"
~ Genesis (Undertow, 1978)

Jimmy

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Seems pretty similar to how he drew DrLFR's cover art imo. So a wee bit different compared to ZUNart in the games in general, maybe ? Pretty fine though.

The ZUNart this time look pretty OK imo. I mean, look at that Marisa and compare her to LoLK's :leMarisaFace: : it's quite something. There's not a lot of ZUNart to see besides the 3 ones we have so far so I can't say for sure whether this games' art is gonna be better than the others but I must say I am quite pleased with the ones we see now. Heck, he even got the fingers' number right. I am curious to see how the rest of the cast are gonna look like

...Gonna miss the good times where we could laugh at the bad anatomy  :(

ZUNart jokes were funny times indeed...

But honestly, I think that ZUN did improve his artstyle here from what we can see so far, to me at least, so that's why I didn't recognize the style immediately. Tanned Cirno is perhaps the most unusual turn he took, and I honestly like that quite a lot. It makes the whole plot more interesting, to which I'm really looking forward to know something about as well as the newcomers.

Also Clownpiece's missing right thumb is a thing too


Pure Furies >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> everything, except Gensokyo the Gods Loved

same here
but I like all of ZUN's OST tbh
« Last Edit: April 21, 2017, 12:11:11 AM by Jimmy »
Normal 1cc: EoSD, PCB, IN, PoFV, MoF, UFO, TD, DDC, LoLK Legacy, HSiFS, WBaWC
Hard 1cc: IN, DDC, HSiFS
Extra clears: MoF, DDC, HSiFS, WBaWC

Goals: Going Extra Hard!

Failure McFailFace

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wut i didn't see this before
why am i hyped
is this the easier game i've been wanting since impossible spell card came out

It looks like we're not going back to the BlueChip setup sadly.  They've been utterly meaningless since Mountain of Faith...
Here's some examples where they're useful since MoF:
  • UFO: Mixed with a Rainbow UFO, you get power. Parts of stage 2 come to mind specifically for farming power from point items and Rainbow UFOs. Also useful as filler for Green and Red UFOs.
  • DDC: Essential for getting 2.0 multiplier and life pieces. Parts of the game only spawn enemies that drop score items.

In a scoring aspect, they're very important. In the survival aspect I can see why it's near useless to you for score items to exist. But you can't just say that they're "useless" when it's almost impossible to get resources in UFO and DDC from just using power items. By your logic, ZUN should just remove power items and keep you at 4.00 power because they give little score and do nothing but increment a number on the side of the screen and make bosses die slightly faster.
1cc Easy: DDC (all) | 1cc Normal: UFO (SanA autobomb),  DDC (ReiA, SakA) , LoLK (Sanae PD)| EX clears: DDC (MarB Ultra) | Puzzle Games: StB: 10-X, DS: Hatate unlock, ISC: All clear

By your logic, ZUN should just remove power items and keep you at 4.00 power because they give little score and do nothing but increment a number on the side of the screen and make bosses die slightly faster.
Well, why not? I know I'm not the first to say this, but the power system is a great example of something that's in the games because it's always been there, and maybe it's time to reconsider. It makes the early game more annoying and luck-based (especially in EoSD / PCB where you can't PoC below max power, but thankfully that's been left behind), and it makes deaths unnecessarily costly (especially in UFO).

Flandre5carlet

  • Sister of the Devil
  • "So all I have to do is 'kyuu', and..."
    • flan.moe
Well, why not? I know I'm not the first to say this, but the power system is a great example of something that's in the games because it's always been there, and maybe it's time to reconsider. It makes the early game more annoying and luck-based (especially in EoSD / PCB where you can't PoC below max power, but thankfully that's been left behind), and it makes deaths unnecessarily costly (especially in UFO).

A gradual power system is pretty much a staple of the shmup genre and there's honestly very little reason to do away with it. It makes the game more of a gradual curve of difficulty with milder early levels - and the power level that goes with it.

cuc

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  • Probably won't respond 'til this mess is sorted o?
Yeah that stage looks glorious.

Ah, so the seasons are difficulty levels then? This is getting more interesting.
As I understand it, they are confusingly two unrelated things. The difficulties are named after seasons, while the four characters also each correspond to a season.
Touhou Fantasy News: twitter

ZoomyTsugumi

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Well, why not? I know I'm not the first to say this, but the power system is a great example of something that's in the games because it's always been there, and maybe it's time to reconsider. It makes the early game more annoying and luck-based (especially in EoSD / PCB where you can't PoC below max power, but thankfully that's been left behind), and it makes deaths unnecessarily costly (especially in UFO).
EoSD especially also sucked with the gradual power in the earlygame because on top of not being able to PoC without max power, the way the enemy bullets were shot made it much harder to fly around collecting everything. Most of the stage 1s after that in the series were significantly more streaming based or wider in their patterns which made it overall easier to collect everything anyway. Not to mention the fact that EoSD and PCB literally had luck based drops and were never guaranteed to drop power items on certain enemies.
But yeah the loss of power hindering you is honestly an incentive to play better especially later game. And besides, outside of UFO it almost feels like the difference between 3-4 power is getting more negligible as the games go by, but maybe thats just me.

Back to something more on topic. I want the return of a score based life system tbh, but I can make do with a fragmented system again. I just hope there's something involved in the system that can give some cool multipliers or something. DDC's score system was kinda lame imo so I want something cooler.

A gradual power system is pretty much a staple of the shmup genre and there's honestly very little reason to do away with it. It makes the game more of a gradual curve of difficulty with milder early levels - and the power level that goes with it.
Eh to be fair there are a bunch of shmups that already did away with powerups. Crimzon Clover is a notable example.

Imo the power system is good in the sense that it forces a little variation in gameplay strategy as a result of deaths, and it also does a decent job of separating out high scores in games where power items turn into other items at max power.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2017, 12:53:33 AM by shockdude »
Playing Touhou since 18 March 2012. Playing video games since 19XX.
Normal 1CC: EoSD, PCB, IN, PoFV, MoF, SA, UFO, TD, DDC, HSiFS, CtC.
Extra 1CC: EoSD, PCB+Phantasm, IN, PoFV (K&S), MoF, SA, TD, HSiFS, CtC+Phantasm.
Hard 1CC: EoSD, PCB, IN, MoF, TD, CtC.
Lunatic 1CC: EoSD

N-Forza

  • Information Superhighway Robbery
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  • I said it was a steal, but not for whom
As I understand it, they are confusingly two unrelated things. The difficulties are named after seasons, while the four characters also each correspond to a season.
I get the feeling the difficulties are going to take more after types of precipitation.

cuc

  • *
  • Probably won't respond 'til this mess is sorted o?
I get the feeling the difficulties are going to take more after types of precipitation.
I think winds are also on the table. For example, it can be Cool Spring Breeze (Suzukaze), Summer Evening Shower (Yuudachi), Grass-dividing Autumn Typhoon (Nowaki), Winter Snow Storm (Fubuki)... I can imagine some fans see the climate theme as practically an open invitation for KanColle puns.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2017, 03:16:11 AM by cuc »
Touhou Fantasy News: twitter