Oh man, I was wondering when/if someone would make a thread for this game. I have a huge soft spot for games that mimic the visual style of the official series, so I loved this one since I first saw it last year. I've played through the whole game (albeit with the help of cheat tools, because it gets
seriously hard towards the end) and had a lot of fun with it, so I can elaborate on just about anything regarding it if anyone wants?
- First off, here's the game manual in English: http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Avant-Garde_Discerning_Paralleler/Translation/Manual. The scoring system is kind of complicated, and it's absolutely necessary to take advantage of it to unlock the later stages in Lap 2. (In the full version, at least. The demo is a bit more lenient with the score requirements.) The most important thing (in my experience) is grazing to maintain the Connect Bonus up until the boss fight, which will then massively inflate the Spell Card bonuses.
- A lot of the stage and boss design is experimental. Both the stage portions and bosses are full of gimmick danmaku, especially in the later stages, and scoring high enough to unlock Lap 2 stages basically means wall-to-wall memorization. For me, the creativity of the patterns was a larger draw than the actual challenge of dodging them, so I didn't mind too much, but be aware that there's a LOT of trial and error involved. A LOT. The level design and game progression isn't set up like a regular Touhou game, nor is it intended to be; I think approaching the game with this already in mind should make for a better experience.
- One of the developers' main goals in making the game was to include something for both amateur and veteran players, which is why the first few stages are intentionally very easy. The later levels on Lap 1 are closer to the Normal/Hard difficulty of an official game; score runs notwithstanding, a casual player should be able to reach the end without too much difficulty. Lap 2 is tailored to hardcore score-runners. (Of course, since I'm not a hardcore score-runner, I can't really say whether or not they succeeded in that regard... but *I* found it interesting, at least?)
The full version of the game is about $8 USD, which (IMO) is really cheap for something that I got so much enjoyment out of. If you've got money to spare and you like either
A. visual flair and inventive danmaku, or
B. a challenging scoring experience, I'd seriously recommend getting it. (If you're looking for difficult gameplay
without heavy memorization, though, you should probably look elsewhere...)
There's also a bonus patch planned for release this very month! It'll include a boss rush mode with unique danmaku and scoring systems, which I'm seriously looking forward to.
