Song of the Week! 9 July 2015

With the final pages of our Touhou Project Corner coming tomorrow, let's end the week in a classy way by spotlighting the Touhou-related arrangement that can arguably be considered the one whose links to Taiko lore are the deepest ones!

Touhou Corner: Subterranean Animism

Touhou Chireiden (lit. 'Earth Spirit Palace') ~ Subterranean Animism (東方地霊殿 ～ Subterranean Animism) is the Touhou Project's 11th official game, whose full version was released at Comiket 74 on August 16, 2008.

The story of this title starts during the Winter season, when a geyser erupted near the Hakurei Shrine with lots of earth spirits gathering around the area. While recurrent playable characters Reimu and Marisa think to take advantage of the situation by opening a spa, the youkai are worried and conjure the heroines to delve into the Underworld to find out the geyser's cause. The heroine chosen by the player is paired with one of three youkai and kept in contact to the surface thanks to a device by Yukari Yakumo. The investigations will ultimately lead to the Palace of Earth Spirits and its mistress Satori Komeiji, asking the heroine after a fight to look after her pets Orin and Okuu (nicknames of Rin Kaenbyou and Utsuko Reiuji), the former of which has acquired nuclear fusion powers by eating the divine crow Yatagarasu, ultimately resulting with Okuu causing the geyser steam to send youkai to prepare the grounds for her arrival to conquer Gensokyo.

Gameplay-wise, Subterranean Animism's main features are a couple of aspects which are from former Touhou Project shmups and updated to the 2nd Windows generation's engine, the first of which being the already-anticipated return of the partner system from Imperishable Night. In this game, Reimu and Marisa's upgrading shots/collectible satellites are depending on the youkai partner from the surface that is chosen to support the selected heroine; for Reimu there are the aforementioned Yukari, Suika and Aya, while Marisa can choose between Alice, Patchouli Knowledge (from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil) and Mountain of Faith's Nitori Kawashiro. the other big returning feature is the grazing system (term in shooter games indicating the movement of characters very close to the bullets), on which Subterranean Animism's item/scoring rules all gravitate around.

Touhou Corner: Mountain of Faith

Touhou Fuujinroku (lit. 'Wind God Chronicles') ~ Mountain of Faith (東方風神録 ～ Mountain of Faith) is the 10th main-line title in the Touhou series, as well as the first game in the so-called '2nd Windows Generation'. It was launched during Comiket 72 on August 17, 2007.

This game's story starts during the Autumn season, in a year where less and less faith to the Hakurei Shrine's goddess was pledged by all creatures. One day, a mysterious person threatens Reimu's safety to be in danger if she doesn't close the shrine, leading her to tell the event to Marisa. The day after, the heroine chosen by the player will go investigating the Youkai Mountain in order to find the threat's origins, up to discover a never-seen-before shrine on its top. As explained by Sanae Kochiya, its shrine maiden, the newly-placed Moriya Shrine was originally located in the real world but had to leave due to the humans' progressive lack of faith; Kanako Yasaka, its new protector god, has moved the shrine to Gensokyo in order to gather more faith from its inhabitants and it's up to the chosen heroine to restore the balance.

Mountain of Faith returns to the series' staple of having a small handful of selectable characters, with Reimu and Marisa having three different attack schemes each, with personalized satellite upgrades to be collected instead of personal bomb shots. The scoring system of the game is based on the Faith system, relying on a gauge that is drained after a set of time not hitting characters/collecting items and depletes the bonus scoring of the game if empty.

After the release of 2005's Shoot the Bullet spin-off, ZUN was uncertain about him continuing to make more games for the series and took an undefined period of hiatus. He waited a few seasons to see if the Touhou series' fandom would die out for the hiatus, but the continued support for the series made him working on the 10th main game under a new built-from-scratch engine. Due to Mountain of Faith's story and system being based on past/present relationships in Gensokyo and the Suwa mythology, its musical score was leaning more on the Japanesque side of the composing spectrum, as to evoke nostalgic feelings in the player (such as for the game itself!)

Touhou Corner: Shoot the Bullet

Touhou Bunkachou (lit. 'Word Flower Album') ~ Shoot the Bullet (東方文花帖 ～ Shoot the Bullet) is Team Shanghai Alice's second spin-off in the series, being classed as a 'photography danmaku' and the '9.5th' Touhou Project game. This game was released on December 30, 2005 for the 69th Comiket and is the last official title in the series to run under the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil engine.

Unlike the regular shmups in the series, the player is in control of a character which can't shoot... with ammunition, as the main objective is to take as many quality photos of the series' many bosses as possible with their bullet-dispelling camera. The points in the game are calculated under many factors between the subject (pose, correct framing) and the number/type of projectiles in the snapshots.

The basic concept of this game's mechanics was already conceived by ZUN during the production of EoSD, but got scrapped time and time again due to its creator not being satisfied with the results achieved. In occasion of Phantasmagoria of Flower View, one of that game's brand new characters was the photography-driven crow tengu Aya Shameimaru, which later on appeared in Ichijinsha's first official Touhou book (Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red) as the interviewer of many recurrent characters in the Touhou lore. This feature led ZUN return on his photography danmaku project once again in order to be featured as the Touhou book's minigame in the enclosed CD; however, it ended up being its own series entry instead.

Touhou Corner: Phantasmagoria of Flower View

Touhou Kaeidzuka (lit. 'Flower Viewing Mound') ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View (東方花映塚 ～ Phantasmagoria of Flower View) is the 9th main-line title in the Touhou Project series, launched in occasion of the 68th Comiket on August 14, 2005.

This danmaku shoot-em-up entry in the series features one of the widest playable character rosters in the series, as 16 different heroines from Gensokyo are driven to find out the cause of the land's latest incident, this time involving the Spring's return with an unusually-higher flower bloom ratio (even for non-Spring flowers!) and an extra abundance of faeries. Regardless by the character chosen, by battling her way through the other characters the chosen heroine will eventually meet the cause of the troubling situation in the fields of Muenzuka (無縁塚, lit. 'Mound of the Unnamed'), where the slackery of shinigami Komachi Onozuka has caused the many dead souls to possess the surrounding flowers in their wait to reach the enlightenment of the afterlife on Komachi's ferry rides.

This game's English subtitle is based on the one from the third PC-98 game of the series, Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream; this is not the only link between those two games, as both are structured to be 1-vs-1 competitive vertical shooters. On each stage, two players indirectly battle one another by charging and releasing charge attacks and Spell Cards upon the other player, until one of the two's life gauge drops to 0. The peculiar gameplay structure makes this game one of the few in the main-line series which features both a single-player Story and a Versus mode against the AI or other players, enhanced from the PC-98 title with the addition of online multiplayer through the later-released netplay patch for both LAN and Internet matches.

Phantasmagoria of Flower View's soundtrack ranges from brand new pieces to new versions of older tracks, while also featuring selected extra tracks from soundtrack albums and unusued music in the former games. This game is also the last one in the main line of Touhou Project games to be performing under the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil's engine.

Namco Taiko Blog 2 (7 July 2016) - Red Version Launch Details, Part 2

Right after the Taiko Team delivered the very last White Version-related details, another blog entry makes us aware about some of Red Version's other new features.

Believe it or not, it's not a news rehash like last time!

Namco Taiko Blog (7 July 2016) - The Road to Red Version

The last time we ever see a modern arcade's banner for a Taiko Blog entry report is for the usual list of content that will and won't be carried over to its successor, and White Version's no exception.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the involved parameters are always the same ones of the last few transitions, making us comfortable enough to just copy/paste the same three points from the past while adapting them to the current context:

• All takeover data from the Banapassport accounts are referring to all the data recorded up until White Version's last official operating day (Jul 13th);
• All the data concerning the Taiko Avatar (appearance), played songs (crowns, performance details for each not-removed songs) and rewards (unlockables, shopping points) will be carried over, as well as most of the Donder Plaza's user profiles and related settings;
• Everything about the removed songs (and the related crowns), Don Points, Donder Plaza's Challenge/My News History log and White Version's Dojo Ranking mode (Kigurumi outfit, ranking history, removed songs as favourite tracks) won't be carried over.

See you in a week with Red Version!

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