Author Topic: Touhou 16 「東方天空璋 ~ Hidden Star in Four Seasons」 Report Completed!  (Read 78297 times)

Helepolis

  • Charisma!
  • *
  • O-ojousama!?
Yo, there's already a video with maxed-out score. Yes, it uses that character with that season.

Part one: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm31753276
Part two: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm31753527
Better quality on yt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdEvj5RFdFI&hd=1
Aya is truly living up to her name as being fastest Tengu reporter. I lost track of her a lot of times during the run. Very amusing and interesting at the same time.

Aeteas

  • Nonsensical
After listening a bit more carefully, I think the melody from Satono and Mai's theme is actually a variation on the melody from the stage 1 theme despite sounding completely different. Maybe that's why I found it instantly catchy. God knows how many times I listened to the stage 1 theme while resetting in the demo. Now I'm wondering how many other musical connections there are in this game.

Suspicious person

  • Just a humble wanderer
  • How suspicious~
May I say that this game's plot is quite possibly the most touhou-like touhou game plot in recent years ? Like, the incident is about the abnormal weather and some rampant fairies ... the big bad's motives is a freaking
Spoiler:
job interview and some showing off
. So yeah, you may turn off that "touhou is getting darker and edgier" alarm, gentlemen ... our silly motives are back :V ... for now ...

I doubt Okina will make an appearance in Antinomy of Common Flowers, as, after all, it's 15.5 and not 16.5, but if she will appear in a fighter someday I bet her story will be intriguing. She reminds me slightly of Yuuka and Yukari, which should make some interesting dialogues.
It would be pretty swell - but really, really, REALLY unlikely - if 15.5 won't be 15.5 but instead be 16.5, and some of the new characters get shoved in the game . EXTREMELY unlikely, but that'd be pretty cool and, hey, one can dream. If there's something new characters need, it's interaction, and the fighters managed to fulfill that pretty well. Otherwise, an Aya book could possibly manage that as well.

Regarding the new characters, personally I'm looking forward to the next SCoOW's interview section (if it's gonna be about HSiFS) and VFiS since its nature and lifeforce themes seems to be a pretty good fit with what happens in the incident this time. I'd be cool if Eternity somehow managed to sweep the rug from under Clownpiece, although pretty unlikely, haha.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2017, 09:29:14 PM by Suspicious person »

Y'know, after thinking a bit back on the game I've come to a pretty funny conclusion: If Reimu's accepted Eternity's help at stage 1, she'd've potentially gotten in the Door World right away, and the game would've end up having basically 3 stages. 


That being said, I wonder if Nemuno was affected by Okina's door-thing?  Sure the Youkai mountain was hit by it, but Nemuno seemed pretty calm despite everyone's going berserk, she only fought the protagonists because they were invading her territory. 

Tengukami

  • Breaking news. Any season.
  • *
  • I said, with a posed look.
Yo, there's already a video with maxed-out score. Yes, it uses that character with that season.

Part one: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm31753276
Part two: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm31753527
Better quality on yt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdEvj5RFdFI&hd=1

I will never tire of watching TAS runs.

"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."

Fumi

  • Dragon of Seven Colors
  • Disaster in Takamagahara
May I say that this game's plot is quite possibly the most touhou-like touhou game plot in recent years ?

Let's see, TD was about spirits appearing everywhere and everyone thinking it had to do with a ghost outbreak, in the end it was just an old saint waking up which isn't that dark.

DDC was about a youkai and tsukumogami rebellion to overthrow society which ultimately failed, it isn't dark but it's big.

LoLK was about the lunarians invading gensoko and ending life as we know there just because someone who is very mad wants revenge. Everyone suspected it would be edgy, it sorta was and also big.

So yeah, HSiFS felt more old Touhou like, with incidents more tied to nature and annoyances, this game kinda reminded me of PCB and PoFV.

Tengukami

  • Breaking news. Any season.
  • *
  • I said, with a posed look.
PCB distinguishes itself, for me, for having the most convoluted batshit explanation story of any of the other games. Even red mists and false moons are easier to get your head around. I love that HSiFS does return to Touhou's essence, in a way, of having a lighter and relatively more straightforward explanation story than the more recent games (although religious conflict and revolution are fine topics, too.)

"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."

Winter gets no love ;_;

I love winter tho
because I'm a Marisa player lol

Thoughts on how difficult the game is? Feels like it's easier than DDC due to the release mechanics.
1CCs:
Normal: IN (6A and 6B), TD, DDC, UFO, MoF, SA, EoSD, PCB, PoFV, LoLK (Pointdevice, Legacy), HSiFS, WBaWC
Extra: MoF, DDC, UFO, IN, SA, TD, LoLK, HSiFS, WBaWC

SMW Central Profile | MyAnimeList

Chill Observer

  • Aimless fanatic
  • haHAA
Retired Touhou player. Not involved with anything Touhou anymore.

I love winter tho
because I'm a Marisa player lol

Thoughts on how difficult the game is? Feels like it's easier than DDC due to the release mechanics.


Oh nice, same~

Yesterday I couldn't even finish the extra and today I finish it with 6 lives remaining. My ability to play touhou is so damn incosistent.  :V

Well, I got it with Marisa first so I have 3 others to finish it again. Some Spellcards were pretty hard due to me having difficulty keeping Okina in my line of fire. Should be easier with Reimu and her homing petals.
The extra shows me again how I keep struggeling with patterns in which projectiles keep coming from both sides or were I dodge bullets coming from behind.

Now I gotta calm down again. Getting that far got my heart rate up and my hands shaking.

Suspicious person

  • Just a humble wanderer
  • How suspicious~
Dat "but I refuse" line from Marisa

It only took a few decades but ZUN finally found a way to shove his favorite line from JJBA in touhou lol


Aya Reiko

  • Humans are scary!
It may be too soon to tell... But, is it me, or are the new characters just not resonating with anyone?

Tengukami

  • Breaking news. Any season.
  • *
  • I said, with a posed look.
I really don't get that impression. Seems to me people have plenty of things to say about Okina, for example, and are excited about the implications she brings.

"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."

Fulisha of Light

  • Also known as Felis-Licht
  • Light and Day Aeon ~C☆
It may be too soon to tell... But, is it me, or are the new characters just not resonating with anyone?

I kinda feel that way. I was kinda expecting to be surprised, but I don't feel very invested in any of them. Like, I expected something different because of the comment in the last thread that something would be off with the boss(es), but then all of a sudden it turns out to be a mistranslation/misinterpretation mentioned right after the game came out and I feel...disappointed I guess?  ???

Maybe it's because what the final boss ended up being was on the mark, but I don't really feel wowed by anything in this game. Narumi is cute though.

I'm actually really impressed by the new characters since I think they have the most story potential out of all the recent games so far. Okina's connection to the story is pretty obvious, what with her being a youkai sage. I'd be surprised if Larva didn't appear in the fairies manga, and Naruko can be added to Marisa and Alice to make a "Forest of Magic magicians" group, so something interesting could occur there. I'd say even Nemuno adds something to the mountain youkai society previously dominated by kappa and tengu (although I don't really expect much to come from it) and Aunn can easily appear at any shrine scene and it wouldn't be weird.

Compare that to the Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom characters, where most of the characters get shuttled back off to non-Gensokyo worlds and we never see them again. In particular I think Junko's the only final boss where the girls didn't sit down and have tea with her after everything was over, so she feels really distant compared to the other game bosses. And I don't think the Double Dealing Character characters have had manga appearances, either, except for I think Shinmyoumaru in Forbidden Scrollery (and I can't even remember what she was there for).

While I like the storyline and character-relationship connections of most of them (not just Okina.  Pretty much all of them besides the backup dancers are connected to someone in some way) and am excited for the direction the overall Touhou storyline seems to be going in, the character designs of the individual characters themselves aren't particularly intriguing to me.  But then, that goes for most Touhou characters for me, really.  I do find Narumi appealing for some reason though even if her character design seems kinda plain.  Maybe it's just the pose and hairstyle *shrug*

After playing this game a bit more, I'm finding I really like playing as Cirno/Summer. Being able to breeze through stages, and constantly being able to shotgun spam level 5s and 6s on bosses is extremely useful. I'm not getting a low score either.
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

Marisa actually being good is probably my favorite thing about HSiFS. I really hope she keeps those awesome high-power lasers in future games.
1CC'd HSiFS Normal and Extra. Fall is overpowered but fun. Extra took a while due to silly deaths.
The music reminds me of his recent music CDs. The main melodies are as good as always, but imo the instruments aren't mixed well and blend together too much. This causes the tracks to occasionally feel like ambient chords and noise.
Characters are cool, looking forward to seeing them in future works.
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

AJS

  • Danmakufu Scripter
The music reminds me of his recent music CDs. The main melodies are as good as always, but imo the instruments aren't mixed well and blend together too much. This causes the tracks to occasionally feel like ambient chords and noise.
I absolutely love tracks like The Concealed Four Seasons, though I'm not a big fan of the instrumentation.  But this is why I'm really looking forward to when music circles get their hands on these songs.  We're gonna see some goooood arranges, I think~

Chill Observer

  • Aimless fanatic
  • haHAA
Marisa actually being good is probably my favorite thing about HSiFS. I really hope she keeps those awesome high-power lasers in future games.
She's good but there's a pretty obvious flaw in her shot. You know how all her lasers bunch together when focused? Well, her two outer lasers are slightly tilted, and that tilt is enough to make one or both of them unable to hit the boss at a distance. Meaning, you'll need to go up closer in order to hit with all four at once.

It's annoying and I wish something was done about this. I don't like only being able to hit things with 2-3 lasers from down below!
Retired Touhou player. Not involved with anything Touhou anymore.

She's good but there's a pretty obvious flaw in her shot. You know how all her lasers bunch together when focused? Well, her two outer lasers are slightly tilted, and that tilt is enough to make one or both of them unable to hit the boss at a distance. Meaning, you'll need to go up closer in order to hit with all four at once.

It's annoying and I wish something was done about this. I don't like only being able to hit things with 2-3 lasers from down below!
Huh, I never noticed that. Good to know, ty.
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

Serela

  • Moon Tiara Magic
  • VIA PIZZA SLINGING
Huh, the Marisa laser thing is.. actually true. At least the final boss' fat hitbox as usual gives you full power all the time. I did damage test, and... with all four lasers hitting, the power is pretty facemelting. Time for damage test #2. I realized if I pop summer I can consistently clear with zero movement without impacting damage at all, making the times 100% consistent and reliable; the kind of thing I'd put in a damage comparison thread. Still done on Stage 4 boss first card.

Marisa hitting with X lasers (Lower times are better aka kills card faster; I'm now using the numbers it displays at the end when you clear the card)
4: 13.36 to clear
3: 14.75
2: 15.53 (At bottom of the screen; the two outer lasers seem to partially hit)
2: 16.63 (At spawning point in spell practice; this is higher up, so why?? This is also the result for 2 laser unfocused; they're truly missing at this range when focused.)

If I move up/down slightly it goes between the two different numbers for 2. I can't tell you what's going on; the laser hitboxes seem to be weird. Use the laser color to tell if you're hitting your outer lasers properly or not; they will darken significantly when they're hitting. Once you get within roughly half a screen distance they -do- reliably hit for full damage; otherwise go for 3 lasers opposed to trying to fully center yourself.

Reimu:17.50 (no difference when unfocused)
Aya:18.33 (focus)
Aya:18.58 (unfocus 3/5 streams hitting)
Aya:14.73 (unfocus shotgun)

Cirno w/X icicles out of 12 (All icicles do identical damage- unfocus does not affect their damage either)
2: 22.18
4: 18.86
6: 15.53
9: 14.21
12: Possible on the final boss, and even realistic to use in actual play on a few of her attacks. Slightly weaker than 4 laser Marisa, but less easy to use.
You can do 12 on the extra boss too, but there's notably less safespace before death hugs occur. At high level season you should be side-shotting her instead for the back options.

2 option icicles are inside the base shot at max power, making it the minimum- I blast some summer releases at the start to minimize damage interference on shotguns. 9 was slightly messy to attempt- I did a ton of retries to make this mostly accurate, move away slightly when I have to release for survival to avoid hitting with it, etc, and a teeny bit of summer bullets were hitting.


Marisa with 4 lasers is LITERALLY about 37% stronger than Aya and 31% stronger than Reimu, which is actually pretty big. She's still a good chunk stronger without, but the 2 laser sweetspot is totally weird. As a curiosity- with Lv3 Winter the 4 laser cleartime goes to 12.96, which is only .4 seconds faster (Since lv6 winter exists though, as well as the thing where you fire all lasers upon gaining options 'til they vanish, well...) Cirno is painful when you have to sit at max distance but she's perfectly good at any other ranges (certainly better than MoF ReimuC), ontop of her great bomb (both for life scoring and survival) and good range she's a really solid shot... but there'll be those attacks where your damage is just gonna suck eggs and there's not a lot to do about it. She's amazing in Extra, though, and she can side shotgun with the extra season and do crazy damage.

Meanwhile Aya is the scoring utility shot. She does have some extra speed (making her slightly better with the crazy fall season!) and piercing but, man is she weak considering she's got no range. Piercing helps keep her from lagging behind too hard with stuff like the circles of ying-yangs that spawn mid-screen in a lot of stages and she can PoC slightly easier, but it doesn't -really- do much. At least she's more relevant for non-scoring play than DDC's SakuyaB.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2017, 03:49:27 PM by Serela »
<mauvecow> see this is how evil works in reality, it just wears you down with bureaucracy until you don't care anymore

game2011

  • mineiptXD
    • Supreme ??asual Dating Verified Women
It may be too soon to tell... But, is it me, or are the new characters just not resonating with anyone?
Mai is my waifu.  :* 
That's all you need to know.

Chill Observer

  • Aimless fanatic
  • haHAA
Mai is my waifu.  :* 
That's all you need to know.
Good taste.

By the way, for those who are not yet informed, zizi, a Chinese player, is the first to do a lunatic perfect (LNNN).

Surprised noone noticed...
Retired Touhou player. Not involved with anything Touhou anymore.

I always figured the Marisa laser thing was on purpose. I also figured "Naruko" was on purpose, as a minor joke. The Mai Spell Practice bugs probably exist because they depend on Satono's existence somehow. Remember that in Spell Practice, you're always defeating the boss. Likely, As far as I know, no other boss in the Windows games works like this (two distinct bosses, with bars that are linked to each other, fought at once), so I'm perfectly willing to give ZUN some slack here. Likely, it'll be fixed in an update, he usually fixes stuff like that.

Now:

The Lenen "community" is completely fucked, that is not up for debate. They're obsessive and there are far too many of them. Where do they keep coming from? That aside, pretty much everyone in the Touhou community was like Summers ten years ago, and I was there to see it for myself.

The game has overt Lenen jabs. I find it extremely difficult to believe that ZUN simply ignores the few high-profile Touhou-like fangames (as opposed to unassociated non-STGs that just happen to use Touhou characters), and I get the feeling he appreciates these games more than the unassociated kind (especially when they're being released for free or for print price instead of trying to gain some big profit). I have no idea why anyone would even hypothetically assign "some gaijin" (Drake) credit for an idea that has nothing to do with what we see in this game (SoD).

There are two ideas that are clearly taken from Lenen, behaving in very similar or near identical ways. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, too.

-The entire Release system is basically Flash Bombs, and to my knowledge no game in the STG sphere was doing anything like Flash Bombs before Mugenri and Tasouken appeared on the scene. Obviously, there are changes to make them unique, and they likely won't appear outside of this game (because ZUN doesn't really keep game systems around while JynX largely iterates). You even charge them with grazing! Grazing doesn't even do anything in this game except charge the releases. Even HellSinker doesn't have a Flash Bomb-type weapon anywhere as far as I know, and that game has just about everything you'd ever want in STG. The actual Releases themselves are modified Maiden Pits (admittedly, a small circle around your character is an obvious choice for a mechanic like this), and the Summer release is basically a stockable, slightly larger Maiden Pit. He even put in a final attack gimmick involving Releases (albeit in reverse), just like how Tasouken requires you to use Flash Bombs for the Tasouken card. This is significant because none of the other Touhou games do final boss/attack game system gimmicks except for Eiyashou night advancing (a huge stretch at best), and no other Touhou game does any other game system gimmick at all except Yoshika creating and eating spirits (which is a really bizarre idea and execution, and does not happen anywhere else in the game). Um, and I think Nue does something with the UFOs? I don't remember. Junko has different dialogue if you play Legacy or never retry. Look, I'm clearly grasping at straws here.
-Black Snowman works exactly like Kurohebi's Mugenri kuro bullets, and I'd be completely unsurprised if "kuro_bullet" appears in the code somewhere. I can't think of a single game that would even want to pull a trick like that, and I get the feeling ZUN toned it down because he felt the idea itself just went too far. It's even worse in Teneisenki, where Kurohebi becomes harder than a number of later bosses because reversing the effect is a hundred times more difficult.

I couldn't care less about "plot" crap. Tenkuushou plays out basically 0% like Mugenri, not sure where people are getting that idea. Matara did not impersonate anyone, nor did she suck anyone into a weird alternate dimension to play a silly game. The only similarity is in the "employment" bit, and Tsurubami deceived people into thinking it'd be a real prize, while Matara is using the employment bit itself as the real deceit. It'd also be exceptionally dumb to think that Matara is supposed to be a Suzumi reference, when it's much more so a reference to the "normal version" PC-98 games all featuring a character as the stage boss of two stages (because none of the other Windows games do that). By the way, where's (Windows) Yuka in Tenkuushou? Master of four seasons and all that? Seems weird to have Aya and Cirno but no Yuka. I guess this was covered months ago, but I never really played or followed the trial (because endless hype is boring). I guess ZUN wanted to avoid people getting the impression that Yuka might be in with the sages? But really, this glaring omission just leaves me with more questions...

You're not just asking me to believe that ZUN ignored the last four years of history and a number of high profile (by doujin standards) titles. You're also asking me to believe that ZUN ended up at multiple conclusions that a very recent Touhou-like game ended up at, conclusions that basically no other game was doing. Seriously, the only other Touhou-like game with a mechanic like that is Suishouguu, released just a few years ago, and it doesn't work like Flash Bombs/Releases at all.
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I don't really understand why anyone would be "underwhelmed" by this game outside of difficulty. It sounds to me like those people have no idea what they wanted. Reused boss? I get the feeling the PC-98 fetishists (of which there are too many) are saying that. Creepy mountain hermit? A koma inu??? A jizo turned magic-user, never mind her actually powerful ability, is just bizarre, even if she seems "plain". Crazy back dancers!!!! And then there's god-emperor Matara-jin on her throne, with her Smaug-ness. (I am MATARA! I kill when I wish!) Nearly all the characters are so totally fucked, only poor little Eternity Larva makes any "sense". Reading up on their unique situation tells me this is some "weird" take on a Kishinjou-type event. Then you have the doors, and... yeah. The soundtrack is so very different from even Kanjuuden somehow. ZUN said he wanted a curveball while also returning to his roots, and he actually completely delivered on both accounts, I think. Nothing "grimdark" about it, more Yukari/classic-style horror (very different things).

As for my thoughts, I like it a bit more than Kishinjou or Kanjuuden (let's not talk about Shinreibyou). Per above, Matara is a grade-A badass, and we really needed a tough old final boss who's super chill, because we haven't had one in a pretty long time (returning to his roots!). Even Yukari doesn't sit on a throne like some god-emperor (she'd probably find it stuffy, wouldn't she?).

This is the best soundtrack he has ever done. EVER. Oh my GOD, this is phenomenal. I was largely meh about the last few soundtracks (barring a specific few songs), and then here comes this.

Having selectable seasons will always be a really big mistake. The seasons should have been each character's unique abilities, and could have even tied into normal firepower similar to Hujinroku/Chireiden; since they're separate from regular bombs, this makes much more sense.

Matara could have had a different outfit for Extra, but that's not a big deal. The Full season really should have had a different graphic for the shot though, it just reuses the Magic Missile graphic. I mean, he drew new bullets for Reimu and Marisa and all, why not here...?
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Bonus points for Matara's first theme clearly being based on Necro-Fantasy/-Fantasia; I like to call it Back-Fantasia. Then I read up on the translation, and found that she's a sage, a buddy of Yukari's, and a very Yukari-like character in general. I thought it was just cool, but it's probably intentional! However, her second theme is totally different, it doesn't sound like Necro at all. It has a bit meant to resemble a bit from her main theme, but that's it.

I get the feeling she's actually a youkai that became a god. Like Yukari, her entire existence is mostly made of mysteries. Her relationship with Yukari is probably a bit like Marisa and Alice's (the canon one, not the silly fanon one), or something; different existences, but pretty similar lives, and they probably bicker like old frenemies.

Her ability is clearly more "permanent". Yukari creates and destroys gaps as she pleases. We never hear about a "dimension of random gaps", but here is a dimension of random doors. Actual physical doors right on people's backs? Yukari would probably find that too grotesque.
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Finally, regarding something from the end of the previous thread: people need to be careful of how they view "elitism" so. It's one thing to appreciate new fans, but it's another to act like you know so much about the series when you simply don't. It's always been a BIG problem with Touhou in particular, especially when it comes to anything even remotely gameplay related. A lot of the actual honest-to-goodness elitists accuse me of this all the time, yeesh.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2017, 11:39:41 AM by Despatche »

I read a handful of the Thcrap translations and man.  What a read!

Spoiler:
part of me can't help but feel upset for the stage 5 bosses though?  It feels like Okina treats them quite poorly, uses them as tools and, even if the whole idea of getting new servants was a lie, it's still kind of  sucky she'd just casually toss them away for others.

... Oh god, it's like DDC's plot all over again! 

This is over a week old, but am I the only one who never got the impression that Okina was lying about her motivations? She had other motivations too, sure, but that doesn't mean that her stated ones were lies. She was simply trying to kill 2 (3?) birds with one stone. Heck, her profile specifically talks about how the truth behind her many faces is that she's all of them at once. She has no hidden "true" self, she just has a bunch of different selves that combine together in chaotic harmony. She's supposed to be "the hidden god who hides nothing," so why is everyone assuming that she was lying about anything?

I also got the impression that she genuinely wants to free her servants out of pity, but it isn't her topmost priority, and either way she needs to find a suitable replacement first.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2017, 06:25:03 AM by Clarste »

It's been a while since I wrote that post, but I recall reading somewhere (not sure if during her Extra dialogue or one of her profiles) that she was just pretending to be looking for servants.

Granted, I also remember her being quite serious and insistant about having Cirno (and iirc Marisa too) becoming one of her new servants.  So yeah, it's a bit ambiguous but I can quite certainly agree on you that she was probably trying to accomplish a few goals at once.