東方Project 第14弾の情報です - Double Dealing Character

[BT]

He didn't even have two years to make IN. (2004 IIRC?)
He had two years to make MoF and TD.

[Critz]

Eientei has the cast of 4, all of which have very defined personalities and interactions between each other (plus the Kaguya-Mokou animosity), yet their barely even appeared after their debut outside of the supplementary material. And the Moriyas are an exceptionally tight-knit group with very distinct personalities, a huge impact on plot and ties to the main characters (Sanae).
Their distinctiveness is propably the reason why both are some of the most prominent casts to appear in doujins, so it's not like SDM is special in that regard (in fact, in canon Flandre is all but absent and Meiling only appears for comedy, plus Sakuya has basically no weakness to apply to her "perfect and elegant" persona outside of the mention in her profiles that she's supposedly prone to absent-mindedness, which doesn't really show much, so she's kinda boring).

Yeah, ZUN please give Eientei the chance to shine AND have Byakuren's crew develop some internal ties and relations. This way both canon and fanon would enjoy more to choose from :3.

And yes, that screeenshot was fake, in case my shoddy copypaste, complete with the lack of option shot transparency and the comment below it didn't tip you off. What, a man can dream ;_;

[Tengukami]

Yeah, IN is my favorite of the shooters, by far. It combined some interesting little gimmicks that were enough to make the game a lot more interesting without obfuscating the gameplay. If TH14 ends up taking a similar approach, I will be one happy tengu.

[AnonymousPondScum]

UFO be my second-favorite game overall if it weren't so maddeningly hard.

SHOOOOOOUUUUUU!!! *shakes fist skyward*

[Imosa]

Yeah, IN is my favorite of the shooters, by far. It combined some interesting little gimmicks that were enough to make the game a lot more interesting without obfuscating the gameplay. If TH14 ends up taking a similar approach, I will be one happy tengu.

This. Touhou is hard (big surprise, I know), and it really benefits from rewards to entice players to keep playing.

[BT]

Not to rain on a parade somewhere, but IN's rewards never had a positive effect on me because it usually meant playing the same game with sometimes slightly different tools. If you happened to find the game boring, the reqs do nothing but tick you off.

Edit: Backtracked here because I'm being silly and objectively wrong. The reqs do show diversity. I think I just don't like IN so much.

[Kilgamayan]

Yeah, ZUN please give Eientei the chance to shine

He already did.

[Trim Sponsor]

- The name of the game, my god how horrible.

Gotta agree with you there, Touhou always had a thing with badass names, this ain't one.  :blush:

[AnonymousPondScum]

Gotta agree with you there, Touhou always had a thing with badass names, this ain't one.  :blush:

Says you. :V

[Avakyon]

Saying the name is silly is also very silly. After you say it to yourself enough times it will normalise itself, although, if you know what double dealing is it shouldn't seem weird at all in the first place.

And I'm not too sure about the badassery of Undefined Fantasic Object. I remember a lot of people laughing at that name for a little while but even they must have gotten over it after a while.

[BT]

Nope. Still think UFO's a dumb name.

[Suikama]

embodiment of scarlet devil

[AnonymousPondScum]

"Perfect Cherry Blossom" does not exactly inspire a surge of testosterone either, guys. :V

[Tengukami]

The names are great. They're poetic, relate to the story, and - with enough gameplay - can inspire the kind of adrenaline and excitement that forced-macho names try but fail to achieve.

[Validon98]

The names are great. They're poetic, relate to the story, and - with enough gameplay - can inspire the kind of adrenaline and excitement that forced-macho names try but fail to achieve.

Couldn't agree more. I also take into account the Japanese names for the games as well, which some people (not all, though) tend to overlook. Although the translations may not be as poetic as the English names (really, Eastern Scarlet Devil Land? Lacking the Perception of Eastern Natural Laws?), I still think they're important to the titles. Like, I really like SoEW's Japanese title (Record of the Sealing of an Oriental Demon sounds kind of badass, you know?), among others.

[qMyon]

Oh, yeah! Finally, something new to play. Wonder what type of creature the last boss is going to be this time.

[In case you didn't notice, I'm basically 4 days late. My newsreading is awful.]

[Imosa]

I generally like the titles too. I think I like them because they sound so rough. The words are too long, and don't sounds good together. I dunno, it's hard to explain. I wanna say they have no rhyme but honestly I don't know.

@BT: I get what you're saying though. If you hate the repetitive task the rewards might not entice you to continue doing it.

[danyun]

I've got a theory.

If you look at Marisa's weapon select, you see a very silly warped shadow.
The main title screen has a mirror with Reimu's reflection on it.
Plus, the title of the game, Double Dealing Character.
Might be stretching it, but there are stages over the water, and, you know, you can see your reflection in the water.

This could all be representing some sort of, like, Shadow-Reimu, Dark-Reimu, whatever you want to call it. Their dark-version selves would be the ones causing their weapons to malfunction. This would be very interesting, as Sakuya was chosen to be a playable character again. Sakuya, who has a rather shady past. Well, actually, I don't think anything (or at least not that much) of her past has been mentioned at all. So it is possible that this game could reveal some of Sakuya's past or secrets.

Reimu actually doesn't have much of past either (unless you count just fighting Yokai), and neither does Marisa.

So, in this game, is it is possible we are going to be able to find more about these characters.


Of course, this is mostly just wild guessing, especially the part about the character's past, but again this is just a theory. A stretched theory, but a theory.

[Sagus]

she's supposedly prone to absent-mindedness, which doesn't really show much, so she's kinda boring).

She opened a window while in space. Just imagine the kind of stuff she pulls at home.

I wonder if the "different weapons" represent entirely different acessories (Marisa could have a the Hakero, a wand and... somthing else) or if they are just different magical stuff coming out of their regular weapons.

Also, could be cool if the last boss was different for each girl; as in, the girls weapons would have each been possessed by a different youkai, and the last boss would be the youkai that's possessing the player character's weapon. Alternatively, the 5th stage would be the youkai possessing the weapon, and the 6th stage would be the three youkai together. With them also being responsible for starting the "youkai rebellion".

Or something.

[Piranha]

I wonder if the "different weapons" represent entirely different acessories (Marisa could have a the Hakero, a wand and... somthing else) or if they are just different magical stuff coming out of their regular weapons.

Also, could be cool if the last boss was different for each girl; as in, the girls weapons would have each been possessed by a different youkai, and the last boss would be the youkai that's possessing the player character's weapon. Alternatively, the 5th stage would be the youkai possessing the weapon, and the 6th stage would be the three youkai together. With them also being responsible for starting the "youkai rebellion".

Or something.

Well, "Youkai Rebellion" sounds like Mamizou to me, with her stage title, and how she appears in FS, aggregating the tsukomogami.
Also Mamizou's little hint about the sea at the end of Reimu's Extra. And then you have a lake in the screenshots.
So, Mamizou might very well have a hand in these incident (or someone from where she came from).
Just a thought.

EDIT:

The hint about the sea was part of a common saying, apparently.

Oh, ok, didn't know that.

[Imosa]

Also Mamizou's little hint about the sea at the end of Reimu's Extra.

The hint about the sea was part of a common saying, apparently.

[shadowbringer]

I was reminded today of this video (on nicovideo, though, not on youtube), what I can say is...

The wheel of fate is turning

Rebel 1

[lightdreamer]

Meh, I don't think Touhou titles are that great. They're bordering on pretentious sometimes, IMHO.

[BT]

@BT: I get what you're saying though. If you hate the repetitive task the rewards might not entice you to continue doing it.

That's obvious, though.

Though if you're someone like me you're often faced with the question of "why the hell aren't all these spells / characters unlocked to begin with", to which you get "play rest of game again pls". I don't deny the advantages of having unlockables but still. :V

[Mayson]

One thing about the SDM cast is that the SDM is huge. Out of all the "organizations" in Touhou, the SDM has the most named characters, an unnamed one, and a whole slew of generic employees. This gives the fandom a LOT to work with.  Between Remilia, Sakuya, Meiling, Patchouli, and Flandre, you pretty much have everything you need for a full cast, with enough range of personality, abilities, and even weaknesses to apply it to almost any plot you can think of, as well as a high chance of at least some of those personalities (be they the fandom version or the canon version) appealing to you. And any hole that's missing can be filled up with blank-slate Koakuma.

Their relationships TO each other are defined, too. We're not completely sure how Ichirin, Shou, and Muramasa interact with each other, but we do know that Remilia is everyones' boss, Flandre is Remilia's younger sister, Meiling works under Sakuya, Sakuya and Meiling and Koakuma work under Patchouli, etc. These relationships are defined just enough for people to have hooks to latch onto without being so restrictive that you have no freedom to play with. Or even if you don't make doujin and fanfic and fan-made stories, someone who simply likes following Touhou just for its canon plot will likely appreciate the fact that these characters have a generally defined canonical relationship to each other.

Actually, IMHO that's kinda a big failing of the characters from UFO and TD, in that we don't know much about how they interact with each other (heck, Seiga is practically the opposite of interacting with the rest of her group, if she's even still a part of it). Meanwhile, MoF and SA suffer from overly small related casts (MoF just has Suwako + Sanae + Kanako for 3, and in SA only the Satori sisters and their two pets are really related to each other).

Even their home is the most developed building in all of Touhou. It has a library, a basement, a bell tower, a garden, a gate, is ridiculously large on the inside with lots of dark corners per Perfect Memento, is near/on a lake, etc.  Again, just like the SDM cast, you pretty much can do almost anything with this setting alone, too.

They also seem to have a good deal of interactions outside the SDM, too. Although the fact that the entire friggin' SDM named cast besides Flandre have been in the previous two fighting games helped that.

Wouldn't that just mean that the doujin community isn't all that creative? I mean, if a cast is lacking characters, the creator of the story could always fill in or write his own character. There is enough material to work with as long as one doesn't go overboard. A character could be a random fairy or a youkai, that wasn't used yet. Or maybe another youkai of the same kind that is already known (another kappa / tengu), it could be a ghost and or a character from the outside world, maybe someone from the past (most of TDs cast is compromised of characters from the past), etc.

Saying the name is silly is also very silly. After you say it to yourself enough times it will normalise itself, although, if you know what double dealing is it shouldn't seem weird at all in the first place.

And I'm not too sure about the badassery of Undefined Fantasic Object. I remember a lot of people laughing at that name for a little while but even they must have gotten over it after a while.

Nope. Still think UFO's a dumb name.

In my opinion a title just has two functions:
1) To hint at a theme, important plot part or a central idea of a story / article / video game / movie / picture
2) To make it possible to distinguish this work from another

As such the names of Touhou games are fulfilling their purpose in my opinion. The idea that a name or title has to be cool, edgy or badass is already pretty silly and comes from our modern media that is strongly compromised of advertisements and hyperboles. Abandoning all titles and names that are not badass enough would be as silly as abandoning a part of language or neglecting it because it doesn't sound cool enough. That is not what it exists for or was made for. It exists so we can describe everything, so if someone is only picking the "badass" words out of a language all the time then he us misusing language severe and has not really understood its purpose.

[game2011]

One thing about the SDM cast is that the SDM is huge. Out of all the "organizations" in Touhou, the SDM has the most named characters, an unnamed one, and a whole slew of generic employees. This gives the fandom a LOT to work with.

The Myouren crew has more named characters, actually.

SDM: Remilia, Flandre, Sakuya, Meiling, Patchouli
Myouren: Byakuren, Shou, Nazrin, Ichirin, Unzan, Nue, Minamitsu, Kyouko, Mamizou

[Tengukami]

Meh, I don't think Touhou titles are that great. They're bordering on pretentious sometimes, IMHO.

Huh, that's interesting. Pretentious, how? What are they pretending to be?

The idea that a name or title has to be cool, edgy or badass is already pretty silly and comes from our modern media that is strongly compromised of advertisements and hyperboles.

Case in point: "Melty Blood". First, "melty" ain't even a word. Second, it tries to sound badass and ends up sounding pretty silly.

"Double Dealing Character" is a little clumsy, but likely references the whole story of the game. And, as we've totally established, ZUN's anxieties about marriage and growing older.

[Mayson]

Case in point: "Melty Blood". First, "melty" ain't even a word. Second, it tries to sound badass and ends up sounding pretty silly.

"Double Dealing Character" is a little clumsy, but likely references the whole story of the game. And, as we've totally established, ZUN's anxieties about marriage and growing older.

ZUN's anxiety, of course. But is Melty Blood even a title made by ZUN or is it a translation? Is it even a game made by ZUN? D:

[Tengukami]

AFAIK, no, he wasn't involved with Melty Blood. Just an example of a trying-to-be-badass name that falls flat.

[Mayson]

AFAIK, no, he wasn't involved with Melty Blood. Just an example of a trying-to-be-badass name that falls flat.

I'm so dumb.^^ Sorry.