What did you think of UDoALG? Was there anything you felt could have been done better, in terms of story or gameplay? Was there anything you felt was done exceptionally well or exceptionally poorly in comparison to its predecessors?
>>48727229Complete and utter slop
>>48727229Following the trend he set with 2hu 18, it feels less like an official 2hu game and more like a fanmade game
Much inferior to it's older counterpart.And I have a feeling ZUN is never going to finish this arc
I like Zanmu and the game is fun despite the broken balance. I just wish I could play it with anons without lag.Did fans ever fix online multiplayer?
I think from the bottom of my heart that this is the worst game ZUN has ever penned, which is weird because This World Is Made Of Cuteness or whatever the official transcription people have gone with now is probably one of the, if not the, best song he's made in the past 9 years by quite a large margin. In fact barring the monk chanting I think most of the songs are fun, that one is just an extreme standout of early Windows-era ZUN musical composition skills. The new characters are fine enough, I don't think there's ever been a 2hu I outright dislike except maybe Sumireko, but those two things are about the only positive things I have to say on the game. I've been craving a new multiplayer danmaku 2hu for many many years so it only makes the failure of the game hit even harder. It's not interesting, it doesn't run well, and I'm not really invested in the story or this arc.
I've listened to the entire ost for about a dozen times by now and the only new track that catch my ear was Shangri-La. The others felt like a fake dud. There's not a lot of that "touhou vibe" it used to had. It's hard to describe it but this album just not for me. I don't think he had the spirit to make something like LoLK ever again.
There hasn't been a single good mainline entry since UFO.
>>48728009When you say "since X", that implies X is good. UFO is awful shitty trash.
>>48727349You have https://github.com/progre/junowenguess you could just post an offer ITT or something and challenge some anon to a no cards Ran only final destination.>>48727810>but this album just not for mekek, nice one. I think the songs are good Reimu's, Biten's, Hisami's and Chiyari's themes especially... But new songs live in the shadow of the older songs. Or at least I prefer the older style in music( and coloring too).
>>48728070UFO is the last game to have an engaging scoring system that made an attempt to properly balance risk and reward. It's not as good as PCB or IN of course, but everything TD onward has been irredeemable bullet eating/resource spamming nododge garbage.
>>48728323And UFO's "engaging scoring system" was a dumpster fire. The idea of having a mechanic you have to actively chase down for score attack purposes is interesting, but the implementation was shit. Adding a random juggling act to a SHMUP that focuses heavily on bullet patterns and learning them doesn't make you feel like you're mastering anything, it makes you feel like the schizophrenic clown that you rightfully are. It takes away from something from every layer of good there is about that game to some degree. Beginners will bumble their way through the mechanic without ever understanding it, those of an average skill level will try to engage with it and barely get any boons from it, people going for 1CC Lunatic clears are incentivized to engage with it as little as possible and people going for score attacks are going to have to suffer through a degree of randomness and lack of control that goes far and beyond simply missing a few grazes like in every other title. The UFO mechanic is for no one on any level after the first handful of playthroughs, and Touhou games are not meant to be one and done's.
UFO's mechanic is a masterpiece and so is DDC's.
>>48728009*HRtP
>>4872832316 was alright.
>>48727355I think it’s interesting how it can be so boring while at the same time being the game ZUN have put the most effort into ever>New illustration for all returning characters>Some of them even got new themes, and he remixes all the old theme for them anyway>New set of ability card altogether>New type of danmaku altogether for Zanmu and Hisami, with new movements and patterns>Animated character sprites
>>48727229I really enjoyed itLiked all the music as well
>>48727229Enoko's design is meh. I would still fuck her and impregnate her.
>>48727229>Was there anything you feltI felt like I set my hopes too high when I heard a new versus was finally happening.It's obvious the bomb mechanic was implemented as a result of saying "fuck it" over not being able to make Orin's or Chimata's spells more passable since it would technically be a cop out to make them easier in comparison to yamaxanadu, I guess.I also felt like excluding scores and replays hurt the replay value. That was a bad corner to cut.It's a really fun game. It's fun I promise really it is.
If not for lack of balance an buggy multiplayer gameplay, I would have said that this game is the best entry-level phantasmagoria game
It's extremely janky but I still had fun with it and it didn't make my fingers cramp like PoFV.
>>48729122>random juggling>randomness and lack of controlThe only meaningfully random part is the way UFOs can occasionally misbehave and fall off the top of the screen a second or two early, and that mostly just affects Extra and a few specific tight ones elsewhere. Otherwise, almost everything is in the player's control, even to the point of it being kind of a bad thing that you have to stick to routes so rigidly and it's not as fun to experiment with on a beginner or intermediate level. For me, the juggling and multitasking itself is fun and contributes to the risk/reward balance feeling good, unlike TD where the best course of action is to not dodge anything, or DDC where you can do a bunch of low risk bomb spam to gain more resources than you're spending on top of getting point items at max value anywhere on the screen.It's not amazing, but it's at least good, and it's still miles better than every game after it. The scoring system design drop off after UFO is ridiculous.>>48729372>release>instantly refilled>release>bomb to refill or just to make sure you kill everything on screen>suicide to get more bombs since you have a million lives anyway>release>instantly refilled
>>48728009I absolutely despise people like you, you are the cancer of this franchise.
>>48729520>being the game ZUN have put the most effort into everHe probably should have put some of that effort into the writing.
>>48731754Yeah that is the funny thing, all the effort went into all the wrong places
>>48727229PoFV is a broken as fuck game yet I consider it superior to UDoALG despite the latter having far better balance and better visuals. I can't really argue why, and I do think UDoALG is a good game too, I'd recommend it for newcomes for the Phantasmagoria games over PoDD and PoFV for example.
ZUN art was better in PoFV (especially the ones w/o Alphes' help)
Picrel will never be topped.
>>48732788PoDD has never been topped since, it's still the best thing ZUN ever made with the best story, best roster, best OST and best gameplay. God Kana and Ellen are so fun to use. PoDD gets my heart beating in a way that no other game ever could.
>>48733757Too bad PC-98 is not canon now, and ZUN don't care about its character
>>48727229>Was there anything you feltRight after it was announced, I felt my bones for the first time in over a decade.It was only after the game came out that I realized what I was feeling in them was pain and despair.
>>48735196Don't worry, the Reincarnation is real!
>>48735215Sorry, but I don't think so anon. All I can see is Complete Darkness.
>>48735196I don't think ZUN will make any old characters return in any mainline games given how the norm 99% of the time been to just introduce new characters (PCB and PoFV being the exception). There might be a way bigger chance in the .5 games though
Only played it for an hour or two, and I really wasn't impressed. The modern 2hu games feel like... well, games. Obvious, right?, But the older installments had a more esoteric, rough feel to them. They weren't overly polished with health rings and lots of animation, and that was FINE. Great, even. Imperishable Night felt like a storybook, if that makes sense.
>>48735765I think it’s just nostalgia bias, because whenever I actually think about how ZUN been improving, I also appreciate what he do with modern games
>>48735215This is not funny, never willThe crowd who keep spamming about Mima when CDS released feel like they are shitting on the franchise itself. Mizuchi is her own character
>>48727229I liked it a lot, actually.The idea of playing through the campaigns of each set of characters as the story slowly unravels is really nice.I enjoyed most of the OST/remixes. Kingdom of Nothingness was especially good, the trio theme was okay.I liked all of the new characters and felt it was a decent capstone to the entire hell arc.The gameplay was alright but I only ever played against bots. I understand the balance is off but it never felt egregious outside of Chiyari (and Reimu, to an extent)
>>48735977>Mizuchi is her own characterThis. She is her own character, far greater than Mima-stinker ever could be. In fact, I'll explain it for you. Now listen closely............... and that's who Mizuchi and what her story is.
>>48736320>The idea of playing through the campaigns of each set of characters as the story slowly unravels is really nice.It would have been nice if there had been much of a story to unravel. Outside of a few standout scenarios, it was just "this character, too, was in the palm of not!Buddha's hand".
>>48735966NTA and I'm far from saying that every change is for the worse, but I personally feel that later titles are more cluttered visually, which is rather unpleasant in this genre.
>>48736320I do think one of the few gripes I don't have with the game is the amount of character interactions. I'm pretty sure there's more writing in this game than the past three, though I'm not autistic enough to go line by line that was certainly the feeling I had.>>48736797Well that's not exactly uncommon for ZUN. Either a character is orchestrating everything from the start, it's a shithead causing trouble just because, or it's just a bundle of misunderstandings. Rarely do you ever get something deeper than that, with probably the most complex the story ever got was regretfully with Sumireko who stumbled upon one of the Occult Balls and decided to be a shitheel with it before someone much smarter than her tried to do more with it. The age old trope of a antagonist using an artifact only for it to do some magic backfiring bullshit or get stolen by someone with worse intent is an incredibly low narrative bar for ZUN to jump over, but that's basically as complex as a string of motives have ever gotten. Every story has a buncha stuff that just doesn't have anything to unravel, like how each team in IN could extend the night through a variety of means but it's never explained who did it canonically or how. Barrier Team and SDM were obvious, but how did the Magician's and Netherworld duo do it? That kinda stuff.Don't forget; this is the same man who brought back Makai only to ignore Makai, and is currently writing quite possibly one of the worst "mystery" manga known to man. At least the swerve into action is interesting.
>>48737026You're right that it's not uncommon for ZUN, but this is supposed to be the story that ties a few narrative threads from a handful of games together. It doesn't have to be super complex, but there should be something there. The fighting games manage this well enough, where some of the characters are working to piece things together over the scenarios while others are just dicking around, but UDoALG just completely drops the ball here.And it's so much less satisfying than the ones that can handle a lack of an overarching plot well, like PoFV. "There's nobody responsible for the incident, the Yama will lecture you now" at the very least gives the player something to chew on.
>>48728009None of the games are amazing, to be honest. Even something like IN is just good. Being a Boomer doesn't help at all, either.
>>48728009I hope ZUN includes more of the Nue section in Touhou. I like how I need to bet whether I should use my bomb in exchange for a 1up or play it safe, while also making lives more expensive. Also desu, touhou 18 would have been a decent game if the health and bomb cards didn’t exist
>>48732490Wish ZUN did the old coloring, or just did stuff in physical and scanned them, since those also look fine.>>48728070UFO is a mess so I guess since SA? No wait anons will get cat flashbacks.since MoF? Nah it's just bombspam until Kanako fucks you up.PoFV? Nah vs stgs aren't liked that much and some people really hate extraIN? maybe we can agree on that, or we could maybe keep going until HRtP like >>48729199 says.PCB? visibility issues and stage4 is too longEoSD? books difficulty spike, bs patterns, unpolished graphicsMS? cheetosLLS? 7.8 too much blondePoDD? Those sprites look bad and Lunatic YumemiSoEW? Hitbox shift and fingerkillingHRtP? Kino Coin and Ball Torture!
>>48728195>You have https://github.com/progre/junowenNice.I've made a reserved room with the room name 'jp' if someone wants to join.
Touhou games were never good
>>48728195>You have https://github.com/progre/junowendoes this work?
>>48737155I can't completely disagree with you there, but I do wanna stress that this isn't "the" story that ties other games together. The Occult Ball arc was a handful of games and a good chunk of chapters in it's concurrently running manga for example. I do think the overall story is boring though but the cast is quite fun.
>>48739615Got to go now.Might try again later.
>>48729520First two also apply to PoFV and the animation was done by someone else iirc so I wouldn't be sure if there was more effort than in PoFV.The special abilities for each character might have been some extra work and a "fun" idea, but it's a pity to see some really weak characters like Nazrin and as broken as Chiyari/Reimu.In PoFV the difference wasn't that jarring imo, maybe it's having to fight otters on steroids with a weak shot type added to broken characters that makes the difference.>>48729795>ChimataI guess you mean Chiyuri's ex attacks?Would be nice if bombs at least cleared them.Dunno in PoFV you could spam lvl2 to get many mini-bombs, and spam for a decent amount of time.Agree on the cut corners, PoDD and PoFV had already attacks tied to score already so that being left out feels really off.
>>48735553Too new
>>48732788Love the title theme
>>48742041lol
>>48735236Guess the Angel Legend was just a legend after all.
>>48727229>Toby Fox Dicksucking - The Game.No, thank you.
>>48737155PoFV also, despite the lack of an actual incident, revealed a lot of interesting backstories to some characters and the world itself>Revealed Reisen deserted and fled the Moon during a war>Technically fully established Cirno as a fairy when she used to be either an ice spirit or an ice youkai. Also gave her the personality she's known for nowadays.>Reintroduced Yuuka into the canon>Revealed that LLS is canon>Revealed the Ministry (although this was more elaborated upon in PMiSS)>Revealed the Sanzu River and Muenzuka, new Gensokyo locations>Introduced Youkai Mountain, Aya, and the TenguIt brought a lot of new world building and backstories for characters, while UDoALG just explores already existing concepts. Not to mention that PoFV's soundtrack is extremely memorable and iconic, it gave Sakuya Flowering Night for example. The problem is that compared to PoDD and PoFV, UDoALG feels more like a spin off 0.5 game than an actual mainline one. It explores some characters and ties stuff from Hell and the Animal Realm but doesn't do much more than that, nothing really new is added and it all in the end boils down to "Nothing Ever Happens: The Game". I'm not a Mimafag but adding her back into the canon with this game would've easily made the game stand out far more and would've been a pretty big thing too.
>>48746933>It brought a lot of new world building and backstories for charactersThat, ultimately, is what I'm most sore about regarding UDoALG. Most of the characters get very little out of their appearances. They don't all have to be like Ran, but I would have preferred more like Seiran, where we at least learn about a goal or a trait.
>>48747702I mean in the first place, most of the character are there because ZUN want to give the game an animal theme, despite almost all of them would have nothing to do with Hell and whatever is going on there
>>48728195>https://github.com/progre/junowenIn case it wasn't clear:https://github.com/progre/junowen/releasesIt's the junowen-v1.1.0-beta.1.zip link and you just drop stuff into the th19 folder where the .exe is and then you just run the game normally.Maybe this weekend I can do shit. But I'm pretty bad at danmaku and haven't played 19 in a while.
>>48729520his effort with this game was totally unexpected, taking in mind how lazy is 18.5. Even my predictions were based in that principle.
>>48751148>despite almost all of them would have nothing to do with Hell and whatever is going on thereThis is positive. It's something no fanwork would think of or dare to explore, so all interactions and stories can feel fresh, possibly deepening established characters in a way that broadens, instead of narrowing down.The execution varies, but the premise isn't bad.
Monkey.
>>48727229/jp/ doesn't play the games
>>48757858There hasn't been a Touhou Gameplay thread since September
>>48758449Is there any reason for that? I was wondering where did they go.
>>48758471Not as far as I know outside of the board changing over time
>>48754952Clownpiece would've been a perfect fit for the game now that I think about it. I know the main focus was on the beast youkais but her inclusion would've been pretty interesting.
>>48757858Honestly I used to play the games and even beaten some of them but I got bored and I have been afraid to ask for inspiration or motivation to get hooked up into the franchise again. Even thought I do enjoy the bullet hell genre.>>48727229Honestly I think the franchise in general is very lazy, and I swear, I do not say it to be hateful, but I just do not see the appeal of anything. The plot does not lead to anything, the characters never change, a lot of characters that appear one time never appear again (together with concepts that could have been interesting) And in general this could have worked out if it had one spice of good storytelling but ZUN's writing skills are really that bad.One of the best things about a story is how is told. Just think about it, a concept like Touhou Project could have been a Tolkien-like masterpiece if put in the hands of an author that knows how to write an interesting story,
>>48759376I've been redoing it this year and I already went from EoSD to UFO.
>>48759389Good for you, what is your favorite game so far? Mine is LOLK
>>48759394DDC. I just love the item collecting system it makes me want play agressively even though I end up killing myself most of the time and losing all the bomb I got from it. Also the music is one of my favourites.
>>48759396I remember that my favorite was Reverse ideology and I got hooked into the Kuroneko Lounge house remix. It is simply that good.
>>48730071You only need to press the shoot button like twice per second to keep the autoshooting going, pressing it more quickly won't make it shoot faster.Now PoDD is a different matter, and you should keep your finger still and move your whole forearm instead so you can press much faster.
>>48758449It only died on early-mid november but yeah, it's about time to make a new one.
>>48757858I've gotten burned out on the games. Once in a while I might have a few attempts, but I just sorta find how they're designed obnoxious, for lack of a better word. Having a high difficulty curve is fine and all, but when the content is stretched so thin it just feels like the game is wasting your time.
>>48759564Can you explain it better? I am genuinely curious to know why do you think like this.
>>48759574Like I said, the content is stretched so thin. Most of the games have about an hour of game-play or so, but you're going to have to spend dozens of hours or more practicing just to get the privilege of beating it. It's like putting together a puzzle but every time you make some process someone comes in and sweeps it off the table and makes you do it over again. On the fifth and fiftieth attempt, you're still putting together the same puzzle and all that's changed is that you're slightly faster. It just gets annoying, to be honest. That's not to say games can't be challenging or expect you to master the systems, but I think most games just do it better.
>>48758471It's literally because >>48757858Barely anyone on JayPee plays the games.
>>48759812I mean they are basically arcade games so they don't have much play time. They follow the same pattern as fighting games with 7 stages and a hyperdifficult boss made so you spend coins for continues. If you don't really like this then these games aren't for you but I personally enjoy them.
>>48760312I think that's the issue. The arcade style of games were made to be played quickly so other people don't have to wait too long and to be unfairly difficult so players keep putting coins in. ZUN just copied it, and I don't think he really understood why they were made this way, or how the gaming scene has changed since then.
>>48757858Lore discussion is easier because i don't have to endure gameplay in a format I didn't grow up with, where i'm punished (even if just a little) for mistakes I make, and then forced to redo the whole game instead of having checkpoints, unlike other arupeegee games i grew up playing
>>48759812>>48760357>the content is stretched so thinKind of funny hearing how arcade fans say that gameplay outside of arcade games is diluted as fuck, but I guess differences in opinion always exist as to what adds to the game and what dilutes it whenever it's about difficulty, farming, backtracking, exploration, cutscenes...But each one has their preferences in games, whenever it's grinding hours to get le amazing skills or for the player character to become op via leveling up.>or how the gaming scene has changed since then.I wanted to say that it feels fitting for 2hu to have gameplay similar to old games refusing to move on, but stuff like ability cards is pretty modern-ish (wonder if he picked inspiration of the games his kids are playing for such).>>48760991I guess stuff like spinoffs then would be better, or extra stages since those are short. But yeah if you don't like the way the game plays little can be done.
>>48761188>>the content is stretched so thin>Kind of funny hearing how arcade fans say that gameplay outside of arcade games is diluted as fuckBoth opinions can coexist, the key point being that content isn't the same as gameplay.Arcade games are pure gameplay but they're short so you need to repeat them many times, which keeps the high concentration of gameplay intact but dilutes the "content", which is also unchanging, over several hours of play.Other more modern games tend to have a similar amount of gameplay but they dilute it with long cutscenes, menu management and other stuff like minigames which can all be considered content and keep the concentration of content high over the course of the playtime, but dilute the core gameplay in turn.
>>48758471The reason is that it’s been 2 years without a new game, the fuck are they supposed to discuss?
>>48759376Idk how to tell you this but ZUN purposefully left the story full of hole to left room for the fan to fill in. He say this repeatedly in his interviews, he just want people to get creative
>>48763894Gee I wonder. What could you possibly talk about in a GAMEPLAY thread
>>48761188>I wanted to say that it feels fitting for 2hu to have gameplay similar to old games refusing to move on, but stuff like ability cards is pretty modern-ish I can't speak for the man himself, but the introduction of mechanics like ability cards or the point device system is him starting to pick up what might have worked in the arcades before the internet era might not work today. ZUN's been making games for decades , but the scene has changed so much since then. There's thousands of games at your fingertips, all competing for you time and money. Indie games can become massive successes that print money. Children that played games are now adults, with more income but less free time and are (hopefully) more picky with what they spend their precious time and money on.This probably applies to kids as well. The boomer days of a kid saving up coins to play games at the arcade because there's not much else are long gone. Asking twenty bucks for a game with less content then games half the price that's made so only small fraction of players can even beat it is simply ridiculous. ( And yes, I know that the whole gameplay to price ratio is a whole other bag of worms), I'm glad that Touhou became big despite the games, but I can't see them growing in popularity at all, especially considering who many children are getting into the franchise now. >>48763189It's definitively a bad thing in the other direction. Take Graveyard Keeper for example. It's much more forgiving, and there's a lot more there then the Touhou games, but its so padded out with grinding that I just got bored with it when I hit a major roadblock.
>>48728009SA was the highpoint of the seriesIt's just a decline from there. So the next few games were pretty good, just not as good
>>48767603This but PCB.
>>48746933>and it all in the end boils down to "Nothing Ever Happens: The Game"I agree with thisThe PC-98 games had an "intensity" that's hard to describe and just isn't present in the modern games PoDD especially, and it's a shame no other game had cutscenes like it did, for they really added to the feel of the game.That's one of the reasons I like SA so much. It had a similar intensity and vibe that hasn't been touched since the earliest games. Something about the backgrounds too, very surreal and "non definite" like in the earlier games.
>>48761188I'm just joking, lmao>But yeah if you don't like the way the game plays little can be done.Hope more people can just accept this instead of whining about game design
>>48754547Made a reserved room with the room name 'jp'.My weekend was a bit more messed up that I expected
>>48775842Closed the room
