Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 15F

[vetokend]

Alright I've been seeing this thread enough and decided I'll finally play the game. Does it matter if I skip Labyrinth 1 and go straight to 2? Is there any story I'll miss? Any gameplay elements that make one a better game than the other?

Story-wise, you can start with either one.  After playing both, I feel like LoT2 is more polished, but I still enjoyed LoT1 more for whatever reason.  There were so many boss battles in LoT1 where I won by a single turn (ie, one person left standing with nothing to do but attack), so the battles felt super balanced, at least for my play style.  Mechanics-wise, the games are very similar, with LoT2 throwing a job system into the mix.  Anyway, both games are very much worth playing, you'd be robbing yourself of fun by skipping either one.

[ZoomyTsugumi]

So since I'm nearing the end of my current run I am already thinking about next game's team.

So far I've got Rumia, Iku, Yuyuko, Mokou, Wriggle as people I definitely want. I might put Yukari in to serve as an offtank and try out a slot 1 Wriggle (lol). Might put Orin in there cos I need physical attackers, and Sakuya too. Could also do Cirno, since I never use her past like floor 7. Maybe Alice too. I want Aya cos not having a super speed attacker this playthrough is annoying, and Chen's too OP so Aya it is. And Ran, I think.

So Rumia, Iku, Yuyuko, Mokou, Wriggle, Yukari, Orin, Sakuya, Cirno, Alice, Aya, Ran.
Sounds good? It can work I think. Rumia as the only healer is kind of the gimmick, but the rest of the team seems surprisingly well balanced, actually, if a little on the low damage side maybe.

I want to use Renko sometime but I hear she breaks the maingame, so I probably won't.

[iori98]

Hey is there a way to make the game full screen?

[Shadowlupus]

So, I have been replaying the main game of LoT2 using Plus Disk Trial data. So far, I have found some bugs:

-Kasen's joining event will repeat infinitely, forcing you to use the normal version instead.
-Whenever an enemy uses an Escape command, the game automatically crashes. I have seen this twice on 6F Tenshi and Alluvial Kedama.

And also, one of the FOEs' behavior has changed a bit.

Spoiler:

The Giant Tree now regenerates 3040 HP each turn.

[Seraphic Shou]

Chen's too OP so Aya it is.

Wait... Chen is more OP than Aya? How?

Edit: Ohhh you meant in the original. That makes a LOT more sense.

[Serela]

So since I'm nearing the end of my current run I am already thinking about next game's team.

Which game are you talking about tho. It's kind of important, since, for example, trying to play through with that team in LoT1 I think you're gonna have... a problematic time XD About half the team members are either late bloomers (as in POSTGAME late, like Yuyuko, Rumia) or a little so-so overall (Sakuya, Mokou, Aya until postgame imo) and your party's main tanks are... Wriggle, Yukari, and Ran?? And no, Rumia's healing seriously does not work until postgame, so you effectively don't have a healer.

On the other hand for LoT2 you could be solid, but somehow I think you mean LoT1.

[ZoomyTsugumi]

I'm always talking about 1. I'm not gonna bother with 2 until full plus disk release I think.

It's not intended to be the easiest thing but I think considering I have a decent selection of each role except healer it should prove to be okay with some extra challenge at least. I didn't want to have people who are OP. In my current run I'm using kind of middling characters/plus disk high SP cost chars too and I'm still relatively okay cos I have decently durable people for both magic and physical attacks, decently powered attacks, a good healer and good buffers. This next run is kind of the same idea without the fantastic healers. The only thing kind of bad about my current team is that I've got so much Magic and not enough physical and it's making mid-end-game kind of a tough time. This new team's worst asset is a bad healer, everything else is okay I think, and at worst it's maybe slightly worse than what I have now (which has done me well up until 16F lol).

I just need to think about builds better, because I really need to narrow down how I'm going to build the people who can do both (Sakuya/Ran) I think instead of Ran as a main tank I can build her MAG focused and substitute her tanking role for defensive Alice (who i've done before and is fantastic for maingame imo.  One nice benefit of a set party run is its easier to build chars with SKP cos you can both focus on what you want better and spend the skillpoints over less people.

Basically I just want to remove as much OP-ness as I can without resorting to using Eirin lol.

Maingame LoT1 isn't that hard anyway, when you've done it enough times. It's nothing a few levels can't really fix until the very late game. Plus disk is another matter, cos between Mari and the huge level gap to the bonus floors things start to go wrong if you built wrongly and grinding can become more and more needed.

[Seraphic Shou]

Hey is there a way to make the game full screen?

The original yes, but for the sequel no, however you can stretch the screen. If that's not good enough then you just gotta  :dealwithit:

[ZoomyTsugumi]

Yukari was super easy to beat which is surprising considering I'm still struggling to reliably beat the 16F encounters.
Dreading 18F oh dear.

[Otaku]

Dreading 18F oh dear.

I've just recently beaten 18F, and oh boy, do not look forward to the boss  :ohdear:

[ZoomyTsugumi]

Ya i'm not sure how well my team will deal with this. They are not optimal defensive team nor are they optimal offensive. 18F trash is a pain and 17F trash is a pain and 16F trash is a pain so levels will be slow for now. My team is not a good trash team cos of high SP costs on their powerful moves, which they now have to use almost constantly cos things can take a beating. Rinnosuke can probably destroy me as well, considering I don't particularly have great elemental nukage and my chars overall are only slightly bulky by now. Might pool some SKP and grind a ton for defense boosting but idk.  shit will be hard. At least after that 20F will probably be not horrible to grind on so I can zippy zoom my way through the levels.

[Otaku]

Wait, I didn't realize you were talking about the first game, oops xD
I wish I could get the first game to work though, the screen just stays white in in the opening cutscene ;-;

[Serela]

I'm not really sure how you're supposed to beat the maingame with literally no healer, but, if you think you'll be fine I guess!

[RegalStar]

Yeah 16F suck. I'm also on a playthrough myself with Reimu, Patchy, Wriggle, Yuugi, Aya, Iku, Reisen, Mokou, Yuyuko, Rinnosuke, Mystia and Eiki. I don't even have an envisioned approach to 16F mobs  :V Especially those Mangadoroas with 56k HP and 188 SPD. (I mean sure I could take out a couple of encounters without any problems, but I have no idea how I can sustain.)

[ZoomyTsugumi]

I'm not really sure how you're supposed to beat the maingame with literally no healer, but, if you think you'll be fine I guess!

I'm not talking about that team, I'm still on my first team lol. That team is for after this run. This is just people I've basically never used before, and I happen to have kind of mediocre people and plus disk people (5 people from plus disk oops, and none of them are mystia, rip).
Using Remi, Keine, Yuugi, Shiki, Yuuka, Yukari, Suika, Minoriko, Sanae, Mari, Reisen and Okuu. And, yeah, my best (read: only) source of multi-target fire damage right now is Okuu and that is making 18F hellish despite the FIR weakness

[Shadowlupus]

More Plus Disk Trial run. Nothing really changes from the original version so far. I just beat Yukari with literally no efforts whatsoever. I didn't even switch out any other members at all.


And some bosses that I have fought:

Magatama: Even with the Library points of 20-30, the fight is still fair and fun if you have strong buffers and debuffers, Kasen and Aya. Otherwise, it is absolute hell, nuff said. I think the developer favors Kasen a little too much. She is the only character who can easily deal 20k to the Magatama, which is necessary considering its high HP and Speed buff. That's why she features in almost every video of that fight.

Tenshi 12F: I beat her without exploiting her AI. The fight is just a matters of degrading her buffs to around 20% and then inflict heavy or silence on her, you can easily dealt 10k with max buffed.

Yuyuko: Hina works really well with Aya, she gets to debuff Yuyuko twice before her first turn thus greatly reduces damage from Saigyouji Flawless Nirvana. Also, Alice is a freaking godsend. With Malice Cannon and max buffs, she can easily dealt 60k-80k with Artful Sacrifice.

Yukari: Yuugi dealt 80k - 100k with max buffed Supernatural Phenomenon on fully debuffed Yukari, trivializing the fight. Hina is too OP, lol.

[Ghaleon]

Well LoT1 throws certain enemies at you in certain areas of each floor, this is made particularly obvious on 10-12f as you frequently as @%@#% find eyes of twilights in certain areas of 11f, and seemingly never in other areas of the same floor. This is not simply because of the unique nature of how you explore certain segements between the 3 floors in a certain order. Other floors feature this too, but aren't made so obvious by the staircase locations between them.

My point is I find 16f trash to be not too terribly bad, and I suspect because I explore in a different order. I go bottom left, bottom right, top right, top left (for the unlock thingies). This makes it so I kinda level up along with the trash making them never too outrageous. If you try a different order, try mine and maybe that'll help.

[RegalStar]

Eh, when I actually started exploring 16F I found it to be easier than it seemed. Mandragora spend all their turns flinging powders off 1k ATK (so Patchy's the only one who actually takes damage, and then about 200 at that), so I can just outfit a few people for status immunity and turn them into SP regenerators, which helps Mystia/Aya/Rinnosuke's SP topped off for dealing with other things. The other monsters arne't so bad as long as I still have SP. The floor's design is really evil though, and trying to get anywhere tends to involve huge walks; not fun when I only have a few people capable of dealing with the monsters.

[Shadowlupus]

More Plus Disk Trial bug shenanigan. On 17F, Those Staring From the Gap is normally Level 68, but for some reason, this one (from Plus Disk dungeon) spawns instead.

What is this I don't even...I hope that these bugs will eventually be fixed in the full game.

[Seraphic Shou]

More Plus Disk Trial bug shenanigan. On 17F, Those Staring From the Gap is normally Level 68, but for some reason, this one (from Plus Disk dungeon) spawns instead.

What is this I don't even...I hope that these bugs will eventually be fixed in the full game.

Wait, do they actually have the stats of the plus disks ones or is it just the display? If it's the former thank god you have a speedster like Aya so you can escape.

[Shadowlupus]

Wait, do they actually have the stats of the plus disks ones or is it just the display? If it's the former thank god you have a speedster like Aya so you can escape.

Nope, they all have the stats of the plus disk and they are ridiculously fast! They each attack like 3-4 times before I get a turn. If you don't have Aya with her instant turn skill, you will probably die unless, of course, the team is built around evasion so most of the attacks miss.

Beating them is not worth the exp or money gained either.

[Seraphic Shou]

Exploring the seventeenth floor sounds extremely hellish. I imagine making progress must take awhile their now.

[ZoomyTsugumi]

Finally ended up getting to Rinno at Minoriko 89 (she's my highest) and tried, and promptly got massacred...

Yeah I think I'm gonna grind up to at least Yukari 90 before I try this (she only just hit level 80).
Nobody was really able to survive the first form in the slightest, buffs didn't help too much either. I'm really really worried about how this throw down is gonna go down, especially because on top of having second rate tanks I also have second rate magic damage dealers (my physical attackers except Remi all have relatively great nukes thank god) so Idk how easy it will be for me to power through things.

[Serela]

Rinnosuke's attacks aren't super strong (for a proper team at least) so if you just overlevel you'll be fine. And on the final boss, it's very easy to overlevel as much as you could possibly dream of (20f enemies are what people use to grind up until postgame, after all), so as long as you can beat Rinnosuke you should be home clear.

[ZoomyTsugumi]

Yeah that's whats keeping me going. I'm just waiting for the sweet sweet 20F grind to infinity. Even without WSMR I think I'll be okay initially even if I skip 19F entirely until I gain a ton of levels.
I'm not toooo worried about Mari anyway cos my team seems to be fairly good on the MND tankiness (Yukari/Minoriko/Suika and even Remi has a huge amount of MND, just to name a few).
I just hope I don't have to overlevel to like Yukari 90 cos that's gonna take a lot more time than I'm prepared to do right now.
I will just keep chipping away though... if I do a little bit at a time eventually I will get there. At least by now Utsuho can finally OHKO every non Guardian/Peta-Grain with a buffed Tokamak.
I guess I'm just having a bit of trouble deciding where to allocate my skillpoints right now. I'm thinking of just going hardcore defensive so my team will withstand his attacks better earlier, instead of spreading around like usual.

This will be soooo much better with my next team, I swear. It has much better trash clearers for the maingame.

EDIT:omgomgomgomgomg I tried after maybe 5 more level ups and I won.
Just managed to make it past his first phase (5 levels really made a heckton of a difference), his elemental forms were a relative breeze. Then I got into his final form, and I would not have won had I not been so lucky to have 3 SoHD's cast in a row before he actually used WSMR. After that buff he only had about <50k HP left so I attacked him with a few chars, then he used a SoHD and killed everyone but Remi, I swapped in Suika as a last ditch effort (was just her and Remi left) and managed to kill him with a Gungnir. oh man I'm soooooo happy I don't have to grind more on 18F. 20F grinds here I come.

[Serela]

Congrats! Rinno's first form really is the worst.

[Shadowlupus]

High God Magatama and Mirror beaten. Man, Yuugi's Supernatural Phenomenon wrecks just about anything weak to Nature. I dealt 100k to the Mirror per hit. rendering the fight a joke. I'm surprised that Yuugi's  Supernatural Phenomenon is way more overpowered than Knockout in Three Steps.

Yuugi is not useless against random encounter either. With a combo of Supernatural Phenomenon and Beat Down, she will never run out of MP thus Yuugi has become one of my favorite single-target sweeper of all time. It is glorious.

I have also tried using attacker Aya with a Magician subclass and it is definitely worth it. The problem with attacker Aya is that at first, she has very limited MP and limited skill points to invest in all of her key skills (Gensokyo's Fastest Lessons, Extra Steps, and the first two skill of Magician subclass.) However, at around Darkness-stratum, she has enough points to invest in all of them.

Aya can finish off away low-HP, heavily damaged enemies or use Peerless Wind God to get rid of tough and fast enemies, making some random encounters easier and still have enough MP to keep going due to her high speed and thus gaining MP very fast.

Monk Iku steamrolls every random encounters up to the fire stratum where beyond that point most enemies heavily resists Mystic or are way too fast. At least, her Wind spells are effective on Darkness-stratum.

Healer Momiji with full ATK build saves my party more times than I can remember. With Instant Attack, she can pretty much do anything; attack, tank or heal.

P.S. Some random things I have found:
-Sky Fairy's AI is now corrected. It can now use Deranging Aroma and Dangerous scent in addition to Calming Scent and Black Universe.
-It looks like Wriggle's Poison Touch activates even if she is hit with a magical attack.
-Massive Twilight Magicannon now concentrates only once before unleashing its nuke but it still never uses Attack command.

[Serela]

Healer Momiji is legitimately pretty neat, whether as a tank build or healing. I used Iku as a Sorceror moreso for single-target murder rampage, but Monk isn't a half bad idea either... for awhile. Just swap from Monk to Sorceror if it got too underwhelming. That normal attack even kicks butt on many boss fights, it's so fast!

Does Wriggle's Poison Touch still reset her timebar to 7000 each time? It was too annoying to use before because her turns would keep getting shoved back...

Probably a good change on Twilight Magicannon. Even as soon as you get to that floor, before any grinding happens, you should be able to take it out before it can concentrate twice AND get another turn...

[ZXNova]

Doesn't the skill passive Grand Incantation do more than just increase damage? I remember in the past when I had Reimu with Grand Incantation, when I used focus then used her heal the power of the heal would increase... Am I just mis-remembering?

[Shadowlupus]

Does Wriggle's Poison Touch still reset her timebar to 7000 each time? It was too annoying to use before because her turns would keep getting shoved back...

I have tested this with all characters with a counter-skill in the game on Plus Disk Trial: Wriggle, Iku, Yuugi and Komachi. Only Iku's Magic Counter puts her ATB at 7000. Other skills do not affect their timebar.

Honestly, those counter skills, except Komachi's might be bugged or something because they seems to be picky what is physical/magic or not. Most of the time, they won't activate even if they are attacked with the right attack. For example,

Daze/Crimson Lotus Fang: Single-target Fire Attack; Neither Wriggle's nor Yuugi's skill activates.
Spark Storm: Multi-target Fire Spell; Neither Wriggle's nor Iku's skill activates.

Magical Light: Single-target Mystic Spell; Both Wriggle's and Iku's skill activates.
Storm of Particle Light; Multi-target Spirit Spell: Both Wriggle's and Iku's skill activates. I don't know why this activates. It is just a Spirit version of Spark Storm.

But the strangest thing of all is...
Attack (by Puppet Top); Both Wriggle's and Yuugi's skill activates.
Attack (by 1F Kedama);  Neither Wriggle's nor Yuugi's skill activates....WTF!!!???

Doesn't the skill passive Grand Incantation do more than just increase damage? I remember in the past when I had Reimu with Grand Incantation, when I used focus then used her heal the power of the heal would increase... Am I just mis-remembering?

It still does. With Grand Incantation, Reimu's damage and healing is three times stronger.


P.S. I have found that in addition to its power increase, Yukari's Yakumo Ran + spell also lowers its delay by 500 for each if Ran/Chen is in the backline and by 1000 for each if they are on the front line.
So, If both are on the field, her ATB is set to 7500.