Cruel Angel Theses

That’s right, ZUN updated his blog with relevant news at last. This is a translation by Aelya from this thread. Italicised comments in brackets [ ] aren’t mine, obviously. Via Maidens of the Kaleidoscope, who are finally back after their long downtime.

The 10th Touhou series game [Touhou Fuujinroku ~ Mountain of Faith] [Thanks to Solamarle for pointing out it would be Fuujinroku] is going to be released. In the summer.

So, I’ve decided to mention it.

Since a while ago bits and pieces have been revealed, but this time it’s really going back to the roots. From the three Koumakyou, Youyoumu and Eiyashou systems, the important portions have been kept and refined to form an even better new system.

Lately, when I go to game centers to play, my willpower to play exceeds the weakening of my arms, and it surprises me. Were one play shooting games really this intense and tiring? is how I feel, so investing one coin doesn’t become troublesome.

For that reason, the system [of th10?] isn’t too difficult, and the interface isn’t too difficult, or anything tedious like that. If anything, it’s just taking the older games’ faults and fixing their illnesses. [yes he uses the word illness as in sickness] That sickness is: as time goes on the number of “patients” increases… or so they say.

Anyway, I aimed for the game’s level to be something even I myself could enjoy. The result is something that diverges from being orthodox, but it’s something you shouldn’t have to worry about.

Well then, just a little bit of other game’s screenshots.

So? It’s gotten better from absolutely nothing changing, right?

During the Hakurei Shrine Reitaisai occurring May 20th, personal experience editions of Fuushinroku (demos?!) will be secretly handed out. If there are any interested individuals, debug and fine-tuning will be presented to the public (how horrible). [lol ZUN is sarcastic asking people if they wanna debug and fine-tune, what a horrific job... ;)]

By the way, the bit about “going back to the roots” was copying the Fuujinroku name from Fuumaroku. [Story of Eastern Wonderland, TH02] (The two don’t really have anything in common though.)

Ah, and of course the story is new material.

This time, Hakurei Shrine’s operations will be suspended, and Reimu will have to bear the weight of myriads (exaggerated) of gods. For some reason, Marisa too. Leisurely.

Simply gorgeous. This outclasses anything done so far — EoSD is looking its age, PCB was so-so, IN would’ve been better if it had been brighter, PoFV was ZUN being lazy by recycling backgrounds (not like there was anything wrong with it though), ditto for StB. Not going to say anything just yet, not going to pass judgement, not going to bother commenting significantly on it till the playable demo comes out, which is during the Hakurei Shrine Reitaisai. Seems pretty dumb to assume anything about it right now.

A random thought about the screenshots, though — the lack of a bomb count, as brought up in the thread, means harder gameplay. It could be that ZUN’s thinking of something along the lines of Giga Wing, e.g. a rechargeable shield, which would be awesome and a welcome change from the intense twitch reflexes required for counter-bombing (only in IN, barely in PCB, and you need to bomb before you’re hit in EoSD anyway). This would also mean that there’s more bullets to dodge, which means more challenging gameplay, which is win.

But it still looks gorgeous. Even if this goes down in history as the “worst Touhou ever for having no system” I’ll always think of it as the prettiest. Even if there isn’t much to be gotten out of the gameplay per se, well — there’s always the ongaku doujin and doujinshi to look forward to.

And it’s back to studying for me.