Author Topic: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.  (Read 347496 times)

Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #510 on: May 11, 2015, 04:06:10 PM »
The only possible thing I could come up with that would make sense is that the game feels more amateurish compared to older titles, or don't feel as 'authentic' as the older titles. The bullet patterns aren't as clever / memorable as they were back in the day or the stories don't feel like they matter at all and are just all made up on the spot with various references to history and folklore thrown in.

I don't know.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not saying it's amateurish or worse in any way. Cyber Angel hit the nail on the head- the patterns are less intricate and the music is much different than ZUN's older works. Compare "Flower Wither Away" to the blue bunny's last spell. We don't have any of that unnecessary curvy stuff. Or Mystia's "Poisonous Moth's Scale" to Sekibanki's "Multiplicative Head". Seiga is another example. The newer patterns aren't bad, though, they just don't seem like classic touhou.
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

Formless God

Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #511 on: May 11, 2015, 04:10:19 PM »
You probably haven't played anything before PCB.

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #512 on: May 11, 2015, 04:11:28 PM »
Hey, I'm just trying to figure out what was meant by that comment. Please don't assume I also feel that way.

Whoops, bad reading comprehension on my part.

Also posting in a touhou section after 2 years of not doing so! I don't know almost anyone

Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #513 on: May 11, 2015, 04:16:39 PM »
You probably haven't played anything before PCB.

Actually, now that I think about it, it does feel like a PC-98 game (which I do play). I want to emphasize that I'm not saying it's bad I'm just saying that since MoF the games have gradually removed the intricateness of the patterns. It's an observation, not a criticism.
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

nyttyn

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #514 on: May 11, 2015, 04:38:47 PM »
Personally, I think the new, less flashy patterns are probably for the better. They still have their gimmicks, still have their nuances to dodge, and imo they still look good, but now there's not as much random crap that can occasionally get a cheap KO on you.

Anyway, I wouldn't knee jerk to any conclusions on the story/characters based on the first three stages alone. Stages 1 through 3 are usually irrelevant throwaway characters, story wise - That's not to say they can't go on to be fan favorites (Mystia) or important to the story (Alice), and UFO was a huge exception in that every single character went on to be either relevant or at least notable in people's minds, but typically they're just random goons that get beaten up on the way to the real threats/memorable characters (stages 4-6, EX). Only real observation is that Ringo's about as notable as a stage 1, but otherwise Doremy seems pretty reasonable for a stage 3.

Keep in mind none of these characters have the benefit of an expanded fanon / mythos yet - Rumia, by herself, is pretty lame without a lot of her fanon/fan art, for example. I'd give them time - except Ringo, Ringo's p lame (though I think we have our new Wriggle, insofar as genderswap tier goes).

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #515 on: May 11, 2015, 04:54:16 PM »
I-I thought Ringo was pretty neat...
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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #516 on: May 11, 2015, 05:12:37 PM »
I-I thought Ringo was pretty neat...

I think so too) Plus, she is the first plot-relevant stage 2 boss XD (well, Chen's relevance is too loose). So, she will probaly be pretty popular as part of the team, like Nazrin is.

Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #517 on: May 11, 2015, 05:46:59 PM »
New guy here, registered since there's such an interesting discussion going on. Dunno how much new stuff I can contribute, but eh.

While I can kinda-sorta see where the crowd saying that the overall aesthetic of the game has deteriorated is coming, I can't but disagree.
In my opinion, this game represents a large step up from DDC, which while hardly bad or anything left me with a kind of vapid feeling when compared to the likes of SA. It seems to me that LoLK has far better of an idea what it's trying to be aesthetically - in truth, this is something rather different form much of the 6-onwards era Touhou and closer to PC-98 titles.

People have already discussed where this return resides in, effectively the points can be summarized as:
1) Patterns are simpler - I'd say this is far truer regarding the first two stages, as Doremy's patterns have a tad more nuance to them. This recalls the 98 games, where lest I'm mistaken this was partially due to technical limitations and partially due to ZUN's relative inexperience. If we are to take the current patterns as a return, I'd say it is a far more nuanced one. 
It seems that the relative simplicity is limited to the members of the Lunarian invasion force. From the story perspective this makes sense - as someone has pointed out many a page ago, this is
a) A military invasion with little respect for spellcard rules - thus the narrative need for the pointdevice mode
b) An invasion led by the Eagle Rabbits - a highrisk low-waged unit;
It seems sensible to me that these guys would be far more focused on sheer pragmatism than showing off. As has been already noted, from a functionalist point of view, the patterns are actually better, which strikes a wonderful union of story and gameplay.

2) The music has stopped being synthesizer-pretend-real instruments and has now shifted more towards synthesizer-being-synthesizer. The overall beat seems to remind me of the faster paced PC-98 tracks (though it is equally as well likely that the memory is simply fooling me). Where this was imposed by the 16 bit hardware, here it fits the overall theme - the technoish aspects reflect the extraterrestrial nature of the foe, while the faster beat the dire situation.

3) The graphics are a step back. ZUNart being ZUNart aside - and having recently played EoSD I can scarcely comment - the overall colour scheme seemed to evoke PC-98'ish style as well, appropriately enough this seems particularly true of stage 3. The overabundance of red-and-blue bullets seems to conform to this as well.

Overall, if I were to speculate as to why such similarities to 98 style (which in all fairness could be accidental and unintended), I'd say it has to do with the overall change in tone since we seem to be returning to the "external realm is invading Gensokyo and actually trying to kill the protagonists." Furthermore it could be an attempt to anchor the radical changes in gameplay to a more traditional background in hopes of not making it feel foreign to the series overall.
I can see how some mightn't like this, but I'd say ZUN has succeeded on both fronts - the aesthetic seems well integrated, something he's been moving towards increasingly since MoF and aside from a few kinks which will hopefully be ironed out, the gameplay changes seem well though out.  Of course, I am a tad biased seeing as this is the very first mainline game to have happened in my time, so take this with a grain of salt.

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #518 on: May 11, 2015, 06:11:28 PM »
From seeing Doremy's spell card's names (on the wiki), do the colors (in order: scarlet, indigo, ochre, azure, ultramarine) follow certain theme, or it is simple randomness?

Validon98

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #519 on: May 11, 2015, 06:26:57 PM »
The colors seem to be mostly variations of blue, with the exception of scarlet and ochre, which are a red and yellow-ish color respectively, so there might not be much in the way of a theme.
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Maple

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #520 on: May 11, 2015, 06:53:13 PM »
The colors seem to be mostly variations of blue, with the exception of scarlet and ochre, which are a red and yellow-ish color respectively, so there might not be much in the way of a theme.

Now that you say it, i made a day one headcanon (take with a grain of salt): these colors are a reference to red/blue/yellow, the primary colors used in painting (compare to red/green/blue used in tech and yellow/cyan/magenta/black used in printing). Now see Doremy's dress, it's all black and white (and grey as well, but some could interpret it as shades).

Red, blue, yellow, black, and white, out of these basic colors you can make the rest in paintings. Doremy's ability manages dreams, she is a painter of sorts.

Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #521 on: May 11, 2015, 07:00:38 PM »
Spoiler:
The dream of Kaian about the man and the ant hill was one of the main stories in Lafcadio's collection, and part of the Dreamt I was a Butterfly motif.

I wouldn't be too surprised if the madman causing a ruckus in the capital right now was Maribel.  Heck, with the final boss of ULiL, it seems ZUN might be on a real sealing club binge here...

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #522 on: May 11, 2015, 07:13:10 PM »
Somehow i found that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7G8Rh2T6b4 (Attention! Can cause Motion Sickness!)

Now my Head is spinning around too...

FlareDragon

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #523 on: May 11, 2015, 07:32:44 PM »
Somehow i found that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7G8Rh2T6b4 (Attention! Can cause Motion Sickness!)

Now my Head is spinning around too...
What's funny is that when I first saw it (which was actually when I was playing it), I thought it was Marisa trying to make a Master Spark/Non-Directional Laser combination XD (This thought evaporated quick enough when the laser spazzed out soon after)
Normal 1CC's: SoEW, LLS, MS, EoSD, PCB, IN, PoFV, MoF, SA, UFO, GFW, TD, HM, DDC, ULiL, LoLK(PD), CtC |IaMP|
Hard 1CC's: EoSD, PCB, MoF, IN(B), TD, LoLK(PD), |???|
Lunatic 1CC's: None
Extra 1CC's: SoEW, MS, EoSD, PCB, IN, PoFV, MoF(NB), SA, UFO, GFW, TD, DDC, CtC, LoLK, |???|

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #524 on: May 11, 2015, 07:34:36 PM »
Alright, I think I'll toss my two cents in this discussion :

Am I the only one that feels that ZUN's works are growing more and more fanmade-ish as time progresses?
I'd say ZUN only put newly acquired experience that he didn't have around the time he made the older game into use : the newer games's style differs quite a bit when compared to the older ones, and that's about it. Obviously, the older games's instruments had their own charm with them, and since these mainly gave image of Touhou, it's understandable that slightly getting away from it might seem like not fitting into what is usually thought that makes Touhou games Touhou like. Remember that ZUN is an experiment maniac love experimenting with his games, regardless of what we'll think ; and if I may say, this game's pointdevice gimmick is quite an evolution compared to the older works (heck, the way he expressed this made me think he'd quit the traditional format of the games)

And about the fanmade-ish-ness of the newer games : I have to disagree with this because of reasons that have already been stated by other people. I'll just say that in general, the fangames are the ones trying to copy the style of ZUN's work: did you like a certain fangame's music more than a main game's music ? Then that has nothing to do with quality, only personnal preferences, nothing else.
If you compare the newer games's patterns with some fangames's patterns like, say, Riverbed Soul Saver's stage 5 boss's two last spells (and pretty much all of the phantasm boss's spells), the pattern start in a way, then it spreads, then it breaks and you get all kinds of bullets with more color than necessary: it doesn't have structure (I like RSS btw, I don't mean to insult it but seriously, some patterns are absurd) ; but the newer games have structure : the boss throw two to three different waves, rince and repeat, the color and patterns are not modern art level of ridiculous and, for the ones that rely on gimmicks, the gimmicks are pretty easy to figure out right on the go *cough*screen flip*cough*. There are actually more straightforward spells who are pretty simple but nevertheless entertaining (Doremy's spiral spells seems fun to me)

And what of the character design ? Well, IMO, some fangames try to make the character design TOO elaborate to be remembered or textbook touhou OC (trust me, they are easily recognisable) : design are nice and all, but settings ARE even more : anyone can give a character they make a backstory of some sort, but settings are not the biggest part of a character. Heck, just look at Cirno. Alright, so how is, say, LoLK in this regard ? Well, we have two rabbits with very PLAIN clothing but actual relevances to the plot. The end. There is more to characters than just frills, hats and drama.

And the music ? Well, like I said, fanworks try to be like official works when it comes to recreating Touhou's atmosphere, BUT then again, ZUN makes sure the music fits the game's atmosphere : is techno-ish untouhou-like ? Well, if the guy thinks it fits the atmosphere better, then that's it. Fangames do this too, but they copy the older touhou games's style IMO.



 Anyway, to sum this up, IMO the problem is pretty much "how the series used to be" VS "what the series has become", nothing else. It's not getting fanmade-ish, rather the fanmade stuff became better at copying the official things. Besides, I think it's contradictory that the games's quality'll go down at the same time where ZUN's ability as a creator go up.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2015, 07:40:28 PM by Suspicious person »

Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #525 on: May 11, 2015, 07:46:36 PM »
ZUN makes sure the music fits the game's atmosphere : is techno-ish untouhou-like ? Well, if the guy thinks it fits the atmosphere better, then that's it.

I can even say he makes sure the atmosphere fits the music)

Thank you for long explanation, btw. Totally agree.

Komeiji11

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #526 on: May 11, 2015, 08:34:52 PM »
I've noticed that you can graze a bullet more than once and there is some sort of graze bonus for either grazing one bullet a certain number of times (3x?) or grazing a ton of bullets really fast, either way the graze mechanics seem to be a huge part of the game.

Tengukami

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #527 on: May 11, 2015, 08:39:01 PM »
And the music ? Well, like I said, fanworks try to be like official works when it comes to recreating Touhou's atmosphere, BUT then again, ZUN makes sure the music fits the game's atmosphere : is techno-ish untouhou-like ? Well, if the guy thinks it fits the atmosphere better, then that's it. Fangames do this too, but they copy the older touhou games's style IMO.

And if anything, it's the game that fits the music - as we saw on that recent news blurb on Touhou, he makes the music first, then the rest of the game.

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #528 on: May 11, 2015, 09:06:49 PM »
And if anything, it's the game that fits the music - as we saw on that recent news blurb on Touhou, he makes the music first, then the rest of the game.

I feel like if people made games like this, the games would be a lot more immersive. Making a game for the music rather than making music for the game really puts emphasis on the soundtrack, but I hope it doesn't make the game dull ^^;



Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #529 on: May 11, 2015, 09:55:51 PM »
huh doesn't feel PC-98 at all to me IDK I always felt pc-98 games focused on much faster bullets.  LOLK so far I feel has dense as hell patterns.

The only windows games that I felt was pc-98 was EOSD and that makes sense though.
Touhou games 1cced(sadly on easy mode) MOF,DDC,IN,TD,POFV,UFO,EOSD,SA

Tengukami

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #530 on: May 12, 2015, 12:19:31 AM »
I always thought the best thing about EoSD is how the bullet patterns go from PC-98 like to something else over the course of the game. Could be imagining it, but it plays that way to me. LoLK is very much a late ZUN game as far as the patterns go, imo. Although Doremy does a great homage to Eirin with those familiar bacterial bullets.

"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."

Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #531 on: May 12, 2015, 01:56:01 AM »
Doremy does a great homage to Eirin with those familiar bacterial bullets.

I had PTSD flashbacks when I saw those.

Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #532 on: May 12, 2015, 02:06:18 AM »
I had PTSD flashbacks when I saw those.
Seconded. Once the webdemo comes out I'll be torturing myself with it :colonveeplusalpha:

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #533 on: May 12, 2015, 02:36:49 AM »
Although Doremy does a great homage to Eirin with those familiar bacterial bullets.
I call them Seija bullets, mostly because they're EVERYWHERE in Seija's non-spells.
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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #534 on: May 12, 2015, 03:06:48 AM »
I forsee a lot of Beatles jokes about Ringo in the near future.

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #535 on: May 12, 2015, 03:25:50 AM »
Somehow i found that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7G8Rh2T6b4 (Attention! Can cause Motion Sickness!)

Now my Head is spinning around too...
my mind immediately shouted GET DOWN

Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #536 on: May 12, 2015, 03:36:42 AM »
This came to mind, among many other things.

Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #537 on: May 12, 2015, 04:09:42 AM »
i thought DDC's danmaku was really dull looking personally, but didn't ZUN say he wanted to focus more on gameplay anyway? would make sense if the cards in are more attack-y rather than just being dumb gimmicks. UFO was really pretty to look at but shit to play (disclaimer: normal mode player opinion). not sure about this since i only watched videos and not much stuck with me, but keep in mind you're judging off the first three stages anyway. i'm really into the dream-esque space aesthetic, it's a neat departure from the typical touhou fare...

EDIT - also: spell card aesthetics become 100x more enjoyable when you view them as a personal expression of the user. seiga's about function over aesthetic, gotta get this bitch out of the way quick so she can go back to harassing humans and whatever else actual sociopaths do in gensokyo. thousands of kunai might not look pretty but if you're a braindead zombie trying to keep people away from a gate they're pretty appealing. shinmyoumaru's like a kid so it's easier for her to hit one big target with few bullets than one small one with a lot. IN has the most beautiful danmaku because being from the moon inherently makes you better at everything (basically canon)
« Last Edit: May 12, 2015, 04:48:52 AM by huh what »

Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #538 on: May 12, 2015, 07:34:24 AM »
So from looking at videos and recent developments in Touhou lore... Holy moley. I want to say that ZUN is setting up something really big, or it feels like that to me... I already fell on my ass when I saw the last boss of ULiL and what led to it. LoLK has this sense of urgency and desperation so far that can be felt in the music and what I've read in what has been already translated from character dialogues, particularly Reisen's path. This isn't your everyday incident in Gensokyo. Perhaps, in typical ZUN fashion, it will be as always and everyone will end up being friends and blahblah, but this time it really does feel like there's something extremely shady and dangerous going on. I have absolutely no idea where all of this is going, all I have to say is that I'm impressed and maybe a bit too hyped.

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Re: 東方Project 15 東方紺珠伝 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
« Reply #539 on: May 12, 2015, 10:19:55 AM »

I'm also too hyped. None of the games before gave me intense feelings like this time.
Spoiler:
Reading the translation of the backstory in the manual, shit is getting real for good. It really feels like an apocalyptic thing going on. The fact that youkai can't interfere with this, makes it look even weirder and otherworldy.
I mean, there's this mechanical spider that is destroying/killing everything in its path, creating a "lifeless world", and tengu are NOT paying attention to it?  It gives me chills just imagining it.