Labyrinth of Touhou 9F

[Validon98]

I swear, I have to play this again. I just checked, and I'm at Reimu 64 (highest right now is Chen 66, but I don't use her much, whereas Reimu never left my original party). Still have to do Floor 16. And get Yuyuko and Orin. And Mokou. And beat Triomagen. And Great Stamp. And eventually Yukari. That'll be fun.  :V
So much to do...

[DarkAtma]

Defeated bloody papa and hibachi, also rumia and cirno V2, and finally completed boss rush, do need to beat maribel again for the "All item" star to register?  :V

[Parallaxal]

Yes, I believe some of the Stars may not register until after clearing the final boss again. Just as long as you're sure you have every item.

[Rukoto]

First 100 item star tends to not register until you beat up the final boss again, it happened for team Mino as well. Speaking of team Mino, I'm sitting at Mino 268 and I keep getting obliterated by Okuu;  she just won't stop using Uncontained Nuclear Reaction!

[qazmlpok]

Touhou Labyrinth 2 really-early-testing-build posted on his blog.

Mediafire mirror:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?858y476qaexmcsr

・1Fをうろつく事が出来ます。
 ・BGM、SEがまだありません。
 ・一部画像が仮のまんまです。
 ・未実装部分がちょいちょいあります


 皆さんのPCでちゃんと動くのかどうかの確認と、
 ガッツリと本編部分を作り始める前に「メニューのここはこうした方がいい」等の意見をお聞きしたくて
 動作確認版など出してみました。多分2時間弱で終わると思います。

 バグ報告やご意見ご感想等などお待ちしておりまうす

1F only, no sound, please submit any bug reports if you find problems, some stuff isn't implemented. That's what google is saying.

It's certainly a lot more polished looking than Laby1. I'd say it's pretty similar to Arcanum Knights, from what little I've seen of that. Which also means MENUS MENUS MENUS, none of which I can read. Starting party is Reimu, Marisa, Rinnosuke (clothed), and Keine.

I cheated and opened up img1.dxa. This is a list of characters that have portrait names. I doubt they're all in this demo (haven't checked):

Akyuu, Alice, Aya, Chen, Cirno,
Eiki, Eirin, Flandre, Hijiri,
Hina, Iku, Kaguya, Kanako, Kasen,
Keine, Kogasa, Komachi, Kourin, Maribel,
Marisa, Meirin, Minoriko, Mokou, Momiji,
Mystia, Nazrin, Nitori, Parsee, Patchouli,
Ran, Reimu, Reisen, Remilia, Renko, Rin,
Rumia, Sakuya, Sanae, Satori, Suika,
Suwako, Tensi, Utsuho, Wriggle, Youmu,
Yukari, Yuugi, Yuuka, Yuyuko

(Not all of these have actual portraits. Utsuho, for example, is an alphes image rip. Most are just the Reimu picture with the intended girl's name written on it, e.g. Remilia)

Additionally, that's 49 characters. The site had estimated 20 or so. I can't say for certain that they'll all appear in-game

[Validon98]

Well, I took a look at this, and this is what I could gleam so far:

Some of the locations are the same as before. The Hakurei Shrine does the same thing (though it appears it has additional leveling options). The Magic Library does the same thing (and actually shows you how much you gain in stats when you choose to level them). Kourindou replaces the SDM. Nitori's place is where you get your passives, I think. I don't know where you get actives. Keine's place... I have no clue. There's obviously the eponymous Heaven-Piercing Tree as the Another Space/dungeon for this game. And Akyu's house does the same thing. For any things that require buying, like the skills from Nitori, you use Skill Points like before. I don't think I missed anything in terms of that.

As for the dungeon, Reimu moves SLOWLY. That's kind of annoying. You have a mini-map at the top and all bosses and events are visible, but nothing else but what you've already explored. That's actually pretty nice, in my opinion. Encounter rate works the same, I think.

As for battles, you have the usual Attack and Magic. Form Change is, well, Switch. Concentrate is Focus. Escape is the same. There are five slots for enemies on the screen, which I believe is the same as Arcanum Knights (though I haven't played that, so I'm not sure). You can actually see the HP and MP of all of your enemies in addition to the ATB bar (I'm just going to call it that, considering I've played a lot of Final Fantasy ^^;), so that's nice. It seems the ATB bar has a value capping at 10000, with that meaning you have your turn. I guess that's how it worked in the last game, but I don't know.

Stats are mainly the same, except there's two new elements I don't know about and a LOT more status resistances. Also, Evasion actually works in this game. Keep that in mind.

That's about all I can tell. If you guys find anything out I missed (like what exactly you do at Keine's, for instance) don't forget to add it here.

[LadyScarlet]

I'll be doing a livestream of the first game in two minutes. Here's the link to my channel:
http://www.twitch.tv/heartfulremi

[RegalStar]

Assorted notes:

Town menu

Hakurei Shrine - Level up characters, distribute level-up points, use special items
Great Library - Spend money to buy parameter levels. You can also reset skill points (not parameter levels!) and level-up bonus.
Human Village - Change party members and unequip them. You can "register" party setups now, which can be handy I guess
Nitori's Shop - Buy equipments and sell stuffs
Keine's School - View bestiary and achievements. Achievements will give you rewards when you accomplish them.
Tree - Enter Dungeon
Akyu's House - Save/Load

Main Menu
Status - view status
Equipments - Equip stuff. There are two types of equipments it seems, "main equip" which you can equip one of and "support equip" which you can equip three of. You can only access this menu in town.
Items - View stuff. There are more things than equipments now; you can also find ingredients for whatever use they're supposed to have.
Return to Gensokyo - Self-explanatory.
Formation - Self-explanatory.
Skills - Learn skills. You can invest in passive skills as well as level up your spell cards, although in this trial version some passive skills are unavailable. You start with 3 skill points and get one on each level-up. Only accessible in town.
Rest - Expend TP to recover MP.
Options - Set options.

Elements:
FIR, CLD, WND, NTR, MYS, SPI, (Dark/Nether), (Physical?)

Status:
PSN, PAR, (Heavy?), (Shock - this one is an "instant status" like DTH, and damages ABP), (Fear), SIL, DTH, DBF

Spells and Skills:

Reimu

Skills
HP Boost
MP Boost
Magic Boost
Main Character - Reimu: When a party member is KO'd, (Slvl * 6)% chance to increase all stats. Can activate even when Reimu is in reserve.
Grand Incantation: After using Focus, next attack's damage will be multiplied by (1.6 + slvl * 0.4).
Hakurei Guardian: At the end of battle, (slvl * 33)% chance to restore 1 MP to all four active members.
Final Prayer: When character is KO'd, restore (slvl * 50)% HP to all other active members
Armored Yin-yang Orb: When skill holder is active, all active members receive less damage from SPI attacks.
Youkai Buster: When skill holder is active, all youkai-class enemies receive more damage. Multiple skill holders have cumulative effect.
Motivated Heart: Skill holder receives (slvl * 10)% more experience. Only takes effect when in party (active or reserve). Does not stack with "Hands-on experience", but does stack with all other modifying skills.
Hands-on Experience: Skill holder receives (slvl * 25)% more experience. Only takes effect when in active party at end of battle. Does not stack with "Motivating Heart", but does stack with all other modifying skills.

Spells
Yin-Yang Orb: Single-target SPI composite attack. Level up gives PAR effect.
Fantasy Seal: Multi-target SPI composite attack.
Exorcising Border: Multi-target healing.
Great Hakurei Border: Multi-target DEF/MND buff.

Marisa

Skills
MP Boost
Magic Boost
Agility Boost
Malice Cannon: Skill holder's SPD increases by (slvl * 15)% when Alice is active.
Main character - Marisa: When five characters are KO'd while Marisa is active, Every turn MP is recovered by (slvl) and ATK, DEF, MAG, MND, AGI increase by (slvl*10%).
(No idea what this means): When attacking, pierce enemy elemental affinity and status affinity.
(No idea what this means): Increase damage and damage variance.
(Something about guts?): Speeds up recovery from debuffs and statii.
Magic training: When skill holder is active, increase MYS damage output for all active members.
Motivated Heart: Skill holder receives (slvl * 10)% more experience. Only takes effect when in party (active or reserve). Does not stack with "Hands-on experience", but does stack with all other modifying skills.
Hands-on Experience: Skill holder receives (slvl * 25)% more experience. Only takes effect when in active party at end of battle.

Spells
Magic Missile: Single-target MYS magic attack.
Asteroid Belt: Multi-target MYS magic attack.
Master Spark: Multi-target MYS attack. Expend all MP to do huge damage.
Concentrate: Self-target MAG buff.

Rinnosuke

Skills
HP High Boost
MP High Boost
ATK High Boost
DEF High Boost
MAG High Boost
MND High Boost
Gensokyo's Item Shop Owner: Increase item drop rate by (slvl * 4)%.
Eagle-eyed Shop Owner's Saga: Increase money drop rate by (slvl * 2)%.
Effective Formation Change: When skill holder performs a formation change to swap a reserve member into active party, that member's ATB will be set at 7500 + slvl * 800.
Knowledge of Weird Creatures: When skill holder is active, increase damage to all strange enemies (it's a species) for all active members. Multiple active skill holders do not stack.
ATK Debuff when moving: When skill holder receives a turn, inflict (slvl * 4)% ATK debuff to all enemies.
MAG debuff when moving: When skill holder receives a turn, inflict (slvl * 4)% MAG debuff to all enemies.
Motivated Heart: Skill holder receives (slvl * 10)% more experience. Only takes effect when in party (active or reserve). Does not stack with "Hands-on experience", but does stack with all other modifying skills.
Hands-on Experience: Skill holder receives (slvl * 25)% more experience. Only takes effect when in active party at end of battle.

Spells:
First Aid: Single-target healing. Also removes PSN and Fear. Level up removes more statii.
Battle Command: Single-target all-stat buff.

Keine:

Skills:
MP Boost
LP Boost (actually TP)
Magic Boost
Together with Mokou: When Mokou is active, skill holder's ATK and MAG increase by (slvl * 15)%.
Organized Formation: When skill holder is active and a Formation command is performed, all characters involved (switcher and the two switched characters) will all recover 1 MP.
Firm Defense: When receiving damage form enemy, DEF and MND are buffed by (slvl * 5)%.
Teacher's Command: When skill holder receives a turn, all active members receive (slvl * 6)% MND buff.
Historian's Teaching Whip: All party members receive 8% more exp. Only takes effect if skill holder is in party of 12.
Motivated Heart: Skill holder receives (slvl * 10)% more experience. Only takes effect when in party (active or reserve). Does not stack with "Hands-on experience", but does stack with all other modifying skills.
Hands-on Experience: Skill holder receives (slvl * 25)% more experience. Only takes effect when in active party at end of battle.

Spells:
Old History: Multi-target DRK magic attack. Uses MAG and targets DEF.
New History: Multi-target SPI magic attack.
Three Treasures - Sword: Multi-target ATK/MAG buff.
Three Treasures - Mirror: Multi-target DEF/MND buff.

Momiji:

Skills:
HP Boost
ATK Boost
DEF Boost
Ability to sense thousand miles away: When skill holder is active, all active members' accuracy increase by (slvl * 25)%.
Tengu's Watchful Eye: When skill holder is active, all flying object enemies recieve more damage. Does not stack with other similar skills.
Accelerate: When skill holder receives a turn, skill holder receives
10% SPD buff.
Eye that perceives nature: When skill holder attacks or is attacked by an enemy with status buffs, damage is calculated as if enemy's buffs are non-existant.
Instant Attack: When skill holder performs Formation to swap a character from reserve to front row, that character's ATB is set to 10000.
Motivated Heart: Skill holder receives (slvl * 10)% more experience. Only takes effect when in party (active or reserve). Does not stack with "Hands-on experience", but does stack with all other modifying skills.
Hands-on Experience: Skill holder receives (slvl * 25)% more experience. Only takes effect when in active party at end of battle.

Spells:
Rabies Bite: Single-target PHY attack.
Expelee's Canaan: Multi-target WND attack.


Accomplishments:
#1: Win 100 battles (but this one gets activated for no reason for me anyways)
#2: Win 1000 battles
#3: Win 10000 battles
#4: Flee from 100 battles (This one is named "the secret of Joestar family". I'm going to assume that people who watch JoJo will find hilarity in it.)
#5: Get wiped out 1 times (this achievement specifically states that getting wiped out will only send your party back to gensokyo instead of delivering a game over)
#6: Get wiped out 12 times
#7: Playtime exceeds 3 hours
#8: Playtime exceeds 15 hours
#9: Playtime exceeds 50 hours
#10: Playtime exceeds 200 hours
#11: Collect 10 types of main equipments
#12: Collect 20 types of main equipments
#13: Collect 36 types of main equipments
#14: Collect 20 copies of an item
#15: Collect 99 copies of an item
#16: Possess over 50000 gold
#17: Possess over 300000 gold
#18: Possess over 3000000 gold
#19: Battle over 50 times in one dungeon trip
#20: Flee from over 50 battles in one dungeon trip
#21: Fully map out at least three floors
#22: Fully map out at least ten floors
#23: Level up parameters at least 255 times
#24: Level up parameters at least 5000 times
#25: Obtain "Awakening Stone"
#26: Obtain 15 "Awakening Stones"
#27: Defeat an FOE

There are nothing more after it.

[Raikaria]

Rinnosuke


Spells:
First Aid: Single-target healing. Also removes PSN and Fear. Level up removes more statii.
Battle Command: Single-target all-stat buff.

Died a little inside now Rinno's become nothing but a dedicated healer and a buffer.

What happened to MANosuke?

[RegalStar]

I'm pretty sure that someone mentioned that you can learn more skills in this game.

Also Rinnosuke had his Ama-no-whatever stolen apparently, so understandably he can't use that.

[Rukoto]

I think I cleared out what I can of 1F. I noticed that the 1F randoms started off much stronger than in the first game, although by the time I had this floor mapped out they were much less threatening. Thoughts on characters and bosses as follows:

Characters:
Reimu: She seems to be a lot like she was in the first game. Not much to really say here other than her support spells are as useful, and expensive (so far), as ever.

Marisa: Like Reimu, Marisa doesn't seem too different than before; she's the same black mage as before.

Rinnousuke: He's modestly bulky, and his heal spell is weak but has a much lower delay than Reimu's.  I didn't really use his single-target buff much since I needed him to keep healing against boss fights.

Keine: Physically bulkiest member of your starting four, her to attack spells are nice for clearing randoms, and her party buffs are useful in boss battles. She seems pretty solid so far.

Spoiler:

Momiji: Definitely the physical tank of the team so far, with a single target attack that does respectable damage. Her multi-target WND attack is nice for killing weak enemies as well.

Kogasa: From what I can tell she appears to be a physical attacker, with a multi-target, a single target, and a row attack in her arsenal. Her single target attack is that dark/nether element (same type as Keine's Old History), and does nice damage while possibly inflicting a stat down. As an attacker, she's got much better HP and DEF than Marisa, but has a lower MND stat (although I haven't seen any of the bosses use magic on me). Didn't really use her other two attacks but iirc one of them is CLD and the other is NTR.

Youmu: Another physical attacker like Kogasa, she's got more HP/ATK/DEF but has less MND. She's got two single target attacks and two multi-target attacks (probably the same ones from the last game, as she has one multi-target that is WND and the other is NTR). Didn't really get to use her since I recruited her after the last boss I could fight in this floor.

Bosses:

Spoiler:

Chen: You don't actually fight her here, but rather a group of 5 random enemies you can find on this floor. Easy battle.

Squirrel with Kogasa's Umbrella (don't know it's actual name): The boss often starts off by summoning a full party of those 2F squirrels while instantly maxing out their ATB gauges. If you kill off its minions it can just resummon them again with full ATB gaugues if it wants to. Otherwise, it can attack one person for solid damage and potentially inflict stun. With stun draining the HP and ATB guauge of its target, I found this boss somewhat difficult to survive, although it wasn't very durable itself.

Youmu: She's a higher level than the last two boss fights, but I didn't find her to be the toughest. She has both single and multi-target physical attacks, although none of them seem to carry any additional effects with them. She does have one party-wide nuke that she focuses for, but it hasn't one-shotted anyone in my party (it might if you don't make use of defense buffs).

Overall was pretty fun. One thing I did notice was that I was able to heal a character over their max HP (not sure if this is intentional),

Spoiler:

and that you can talk with a floating kanji on 1F (I think that's supposed to be Aya)

. Hitting the 2F stairs seems to lead to a credits screen, which will then take you back to the title screen.

On another note, in LoT1, I finally took out Utsuho at Mino 281. Aside from the odd chance that Sword of Rapture actually worked, Utsuho basically stayed above 40% MAG the entire fight :| I also felled Kedamagrammaton at Mino 280 without issue, Marisa and Kourin were my only real sources of damage, and weathering its Rankain is really easy with SPI affinity, as well as Tenshi (who only takes 4 digit damage with MND buffs). Also explored all of 28F and 29F as well. Sitting at Mino 312 and debating if I should continue further past the other V2 bosses on the 21F, or go back to team Wriggle right now.

[Shin Rokuren]

Glad to see that there's a more diverse stat system. But I really did wished that Keine would be different, as in having more than the usual 2 multi hitters and buffs, from the first game. Ahh wells.

[Fishin]

Joining at the very start instead of halfway through the expansion when she's entirely outclassed is a pretty big difference, and I wonder if she might get more spells later (she only has two of the three treasures, but then again it doesn't seem like anyone has over 4 spells right now).  Either way she's already mountains more useful than she was in the original labyrinth.

Not really sure what would be the best translation for 真 as an element, my first thought was vacuum or null.  Speaking of which, Reimu's spells are listed as Spirit elemental, but there's no spirit element on the elemental resistances page, where it used to be was replaced with the kanji for heaven.  Not sure what's going on there.

[Ikari]

Played the demo, and I'm seriously wondering; Is there no markers on the maps for events you found but are still there? That's pretty much the scariest thing to me; I'll have to use my MEMORY. NOOOOOOOOO.

Aside from that, the game is pretty nice, especially with the gorgeous new graphics.

Man, Rinnosuke is useless.

[Rukoto]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the whole events not being marked on the map, it'd be nice to have those locations marked out on the map. As for Keine, she's already a lot better with her two ATK and MAG buffs consolidated into one spell, and her DEF buff from before now buffing MND as well. The latter spell was very handy for the boss battles. As for Rinnousuke, for me he at least doesn't keel over to two physical attacks like Reimu, and his healing spell is really short in delay (post-use gauge is like 7000), so he can stay on the field for longer periods of time than she can. Although, it is true that his heal doesn't heal a very large portion of HP in one cast, perhaps the low delay will help it scale nicely as the game progresses (like Rumia's Demarcation in LoT1). Another nice thing about boss battles is that if you lose to a boss, you can choose to refight it immediately, or just get sent back to Gensokyo (which doesn't appear to wipe your progress).

I also decided to head back to Team Wriggle on LoT1, I've found the R/G/B switches to turn on for the Iron Maze, I next have to get myself to the 12F checkpoint.

[Pesco]

Rinnosuke is the new Meiling-with-nerfs?

[Serela]

Seems about right, Pesco. His passives all look very nice for the job, though. And I imagine his High Boost stat increase passives help him fill into the Meiling role.

[Raikaria]

Rinnosuke is the new Meiling-with-nerfs?

Seems like it, except he has a single-target buff, no attacks at all, and no self-heal.

Although for all we know he might find his thingy again at a point in the game and go back to being MANosuke.

Makes me wonder why he's coming along when he was considered dead weight before he revealed his MAN mode before in LoT1, if he's lost it now.

[Ghaleon]

About that, maybe lot 2 isnt actually a sequel story-wise? Sooo, maybe nobody ever called him dead weight in lot2's universe.

Also, about evasion working, do some attacks have multiple hits now? Or is it just a flat 100% hit or 100% miss situation (please gawd no).

And achievements that reward you! Nice. I hate pointless achievements but i love ones that actually have value.

[Pesco]

From experience in AK, multi hit attacks have separate hits/miss for each one.

[Sakurei]

the fact that evasion works now already makes the game unplayable. lot1 was only good because strong moves like nitori's gun didn't miss the whole fucking time. now you will have to wither away with low damage high accuracy moves and hope the boss doesn't just wipe you out in 3 hits.

[Ghaleon]

Oh please, evasion systems when normalized via multi hit or hit severity systems work great. If anything they even add depth to strategy. Evasion/accuracy is only dumb when things only have 1 chance to hit (though 2-3 hits can be bad too if thats standard).

Anyway, im curious, qaz, have you been/are you interested in maybe eventually working on patching AK? I suspect not until lot2 if lot2 is planned but just curious. If not i wont bish =p

[Pesco]

You're also forgetting that you benefit from evasion too. Chen would have been harder to hit and her attacks miss more often to balance it out.

I had volunteered to try do a functional translation of skill and item names in AK but real life hasn't been kind to me in terms of free time. Sorry to say but I don't think I can deliver when I've just gotten myself a new job (among other things).

[Ghaleon]

You can hax games too pesco? I asked qaz since hes the only guy i know of who has successfully hacked various games =p.
Or did you just mean paper translate.

[Pesco]

I paper translate and he hax. Qaz said if someone would do the translation he'd patch it in.

[Ghaleon]

I paper translate and he hax. Qaz said if someone would do the translation he'd patch it in.

Ahh cool thanks.

[Serela]

About "QQ Evasion Works", they took it out in LoT1 on purpose because it was bad. They've made another game like this since LoT1 that did have it and they're putting it in again, they probably have it balanced in a way where it isn't something terrible.

Tons of RPGs have evasion and it works out fine.

[Ghaleon]

FF1 had it, and that game is adored, and in pretty sure its not cuz of the 4 magical orb storyline, orchestral music, or eye popping visuals.

[Raikaria]

About "QQ Evasion Works", they took it out in LoT1 on purpose because it was bad. They've made another game like this since LoT1 that did have it and they're putting it in again, they probably have it balanced in a way where it isn't something terrible.

Tons of RPGs have evasion and it works out fine.

Didn't they take it out because it was broken and bugged as well?

[Serela]

They broke it themselves, and that's the extent to which they "took it out". They never did any more then that because it's still there, you can still waste levelups and SKP bonuses and equipment and buffs/debuffs on it.