Managed to get the perfect Lunatic clear (no-damage, no-bomb). Check it out if you want to see some more of my thoughts on the game: th-cam.com/video/ytiRb8YOyW8/w-d-xo.html
If you're still confused, the boss sprites were drawn by Unabara Iruka 海原海豚 (one of the members of Twilight Frontier). The playable character sprites, animal spirit sprites and ability cards were drawn by Ki-san (ZUN's wife) It's mentioned on the omake text
@@magicyber909 Nah, he still draws the portraits, and they look better than ever. He tweeted a bit earlier this year about his eyesight getting a bit worse, so perhaps he just doesn't want to strain his eyes doing pixel art anymore.
I want to point out that ZUN has added brand-new boss sprites for all the playable characters. (Edit, I've been told ZUN didn't draw them, but that doesn't change the fact that they're new). This means that after almost TWENTY YEARS, Reimu and Marisa finally have new boss sprites!
6:17 I especially like her little victory pose at the end here. I think it might just be an attack animation, though, like how Aunn is doing in her own fight (3:41)
kinda wish zun kept the spell card declaration sound effect from touhou 9. the current sound effect kinda lacks "force". its fun hearing the the se at later stages where theres a ton of back-and-forth spell casts
Did you noticed how the animal spirits are now full animated enemies? Touhou 17 is going to be back confirmed! Also, Reimu's has her Touhou 17 outfit and Marisa's bow looks like bunny ears. Prediction: Either Yuuma, Saki or Yachie will be playable, maybe even the fourth leader of the animal realm? Other things I notcied: -If you activate a full spellcard, you risk to die if the ennemy captures it -there is a similar effect to Marisa's magic circle in 18.5
The way the otter runs looks so goofy to me and I love it. It doesn’t seem like there’s going to be boss themes though, but since this is just the demo, I’m hoping there will be in the final version. Marisa’s leaked theme by Consonances & Dissonances was just too good
afaik the beat-Spellcard-to-win things is only for the Campaign Mode (not a thing in VS matches). At certain points in the battle, the enemy will throw out an Extra Attack or a Boss Attack regardless if their meter is charged. Beating enough Boss Attacks instantly wins the match.
I really hope Yuuma is playable since it’s be nice to see her in a mainline game, though she did already get her playable spotlight in 17.5 ig guess, though Sumireko get her own story in 14.5 then got an entire game so it could go either way
Also I think the 4th animal realm boss is going to be the main villain and take the Yumemi and Eiki role in this game, I think this game is definitely going to explore that faction considering how the briefest mention of Yuuma in 17 lead to her being the main villain of a game, I don’t think that ZUN would just say “hey there’s a 4th beast faction but I’ll tell you who” and leave it at that
I'm not really sure why people associate the tanky enemies with ability cards, since enemies have been getting more and more HP ever since Double Dealing Character, and have been pretty close to their current state since Hidden Star in Four Seasons. The lack of scoring hurts this as a single-player game, but I think the mechanics will add some really nice dynamics to multiplayer that'll make it stand out from the Phantasmagoria games. Hopefully a netplay solution, whether official or fanmade, pops up for the full game.
Are you expecting Jaimers of all people to ever be constructive about a new Touhou game? He intentionally trash-talkes them every single time. This guy's entire hobby is to just mock and insult Touhou fans for no reason. His signature on ShrineMaidens forum is comparing Icicle Fall to some CAVE game with the mocking quotation "ToUhOu Is HaRdEr". He posted a Flowey video with the title "HARDEST BOSS EVER" to intentionally piss off Touhou fans. When LoLK demo changed the way of obtaining lifes from score to grazing, he ridiculed people for calling the game hard, saying that "Actually the game is now impossible to fail". In his 17.5 video he made absolutely baseless claim that it's "the last Tasofro game" just for the purpose of spreading misinformation This guy is a total asshole, and you should never treat him with any other feeling than disgust
While yeah, enemies did get more HP; Enemies' HP in UM, HBM and UDoALG is balanced around cards since you can get some sick combos with them The problem is: it seems they're ONLY balanced with cards in mind, making the base game VERY tedious. And since this is designed with cards in mind, it creates a sense of required replayability, since you have to grind to actually enjoy the game to its fullest I know rougelites/rougelikes are like this, but it wouldn't hurt to make the base game not be boring, y'know? And there is enough space in the UI for scoring, so why isn't it here in the first place? I'm not as excited for scoring as some, but it still bugs me how ZUN's games become more "casual" in a sense
I think that is fine for a main line game in which you can get more power and the game balances around it, but in PoFV enemies having low HP felt okay, in this one it does get annoying but I don't think it's the ability cards fault
@@aleph_d You don't have to unlock cards in this actually, so there's no grinding. I'd even say the cards that add damage (so stuff like the Marisa laser) aren't even helpful unless you're picking an already low-damage character (Aunn or Nazrin), and it doesn't help them that much anyway. They just have weak shots (and are bad characters in general, whoops). As Reimu, Marisa, and Seiran, plenty of the weak enemies go down just by flying through your focused shot (though a lot of the tankier fairies look pretty similar to the weak ones, lol). Plus there's not much reason to not use charge shots liberally anyway, but maybe I'm just used to using them because I love playing as Youmu in TD and WBaWC. You have the tools to deal damage (again, unless you're one of the two weaker characters in this demo; would love to see some buffs) and it's nothing to do with the cards. I don't think this particular game is "more casual" as much as the single-player is just kinda half-baked, almost like it was an afterthought. I like the idea of having a different win condition but since there's no way to properly approach it beyond just waiting until the bosses show up it ends up kinda just recreating the invisible "dodge timers" of PoDD and PoFV anyway.
@@CerealKiller the card system is unironically some of the best additions to touhou, i like these games but im gonna be honest when i say they became pretty boring after it being the same thing over and over, the cards give the game some much needed variety
The whole debacle of the new card system can be easily solved if you add an option to unlock them all at any time. If you want to earn them - go ahead. If you don't - there's an option for you too.If the cards aren't integrated into online play, that is...
"Its time for another duel.. first to pass out loses." Nice showcase of what's to come with the full game Also, now that we have Touhou 19.. Cant wait for any Touhou Fangame to mash 2hu with the entire 19XX lineup of Shmup xD
Wow this game really surprised me, the new sprites bosses and the sprite of Aunn, Seiran and Nazrin as playable characters are very cool, i hope who characters zun added on the finish game
As a more casual STG player the cards are the coolest/most fun gimmick ZUN has introduced in a while, I'm pretty surprised the more hardcore crowd is not into it. Though after thinking about it a bit longer, I can definitely understand why.
to be fair, the previous spin-off game didn't do a good job at making the cards gimmick appealing. It's kind of a similar situation to the 2nd generation of touhou fighting games.
The hardcore crowd isn't a monolith either, you'll only hear the vocal ones when there's something they don't like. In my opinion, 18 did ability cards just fine. 18.5's main points of dislike wasn't really related to ability cards either, and after having played the 19 demo I don't think it will be that big of an issue here either.
ZUN doesn't design his games around the LNNN players at all (makes sense since most shmups aren't made to be cleared like that). So the really hardcore players that only play for LNNN runs and nothing else usually hate it when a new mechanic ends up being really important to the game. For example WBaWC didn't have cards but LNNN players hated how tanky enemies were and how much the tokens obscured visibility, which is a non issue normally since other people will just pick up tokens and go into hypers when they can. Or in LoLK people hate on Pointdevice because ZUN wanted to make a harder than usual "repeat until you get it right" type of game, which made LoLK the hardest game to LNN by far. I can't really blame ZUN in this scenario though. Ever since Touhou 12 every game has had a special mechanic to make playing the game feel fresh and new, it's not really his fault if a section of the players actively ignore it and then don't find the game fun as a result. Also people are scaegoating cards for breaking replays but it is debatable, a lot of the cards take their effects from other games (like the gap in SA or ISC items) and those worked just fine. Some UM cards had desync bugs at first but every game has desync issues at random points. I think 18.5 didn't have replays because it was a rushed job and 19 doesn't have them because ZUN just didn't have time to playtest replays after remaking the Phantasmagoria system after like 15 years.
@@LushieTilde This is actually a great point. The Touhou community over-exalts LNN's and LNN players and as a result you get a bunch of people that strangely dislike a game when they can't clear it *with that game's mechanics*. Game mechanics are designed to be used! LNN's are fine as niche, specialty, super top-class runs, but players shouldn't expect a game to not be balanced around its mechanic.
Game looks good, new boss sprites are sick, music is obviously a banger but...honestly I'm getting a bit tired of ability cards lol I know that this is a continuation of the previous two stories and so they must be relevant plot-wise but I'd love to see a new gimmick. Other than that game looks fun of course
this is probably the last game for this gen of touhou games that started with th16. We’re most likely gonna see a new gimmick starting with the next game but yeah gonna have to deal with them for th19
i mean it's fine the Ability cards are used for this game mode so that it can standout more from TH9. Plus 19 playables with different ability cards? you could have a good amount of gameplay choices for just 1 girl and find the right build for another of the 18. But yeah am sure ZUN just wanted to really try out the ability card gimmick in however he can think of before he actually moves onto a new arc.
@@ajitae i mean technically speaking, Impossible Spell Card IS the beta of ability cards. its just she refers to them as Cheat items, which honestly made most of the spell cards almost impossible to dodge unless youre a lunatic graze master
The animal spirits returning to attack you and your opponent makes me really happy to see for some reason. I wonder if there's a lore reason to why they're back!
Still not sure what's the exact requirement for the enemy spell card to appear, but it's nice that story mode will be at least less RNG-based than previous versus titles. (as far as I'm aware, this doesn't happen in vs mode)
This game is looking amazing! Those boss attacks are getting me hyped! This game has to have online when it releases. I'll be playing this game forever if it does.
Because ZUN had to change crucial aspects of the games in a negative way just so the cards could be implemented, and also because they are not balanced at all. Here are some examples in Touhou 18: -Enemies were made WAY tankier so equipment cards could have a porpuse -Enemies drop way less P items so there could be a 1.0 Power card -Touhou 18 is the first game since 13 where you lose a full 1.0 Power from dying, again, just so Power recharging cards could have a use -Bullet canceling cards are just broken. Okina's completely destroy Chimata's entire fight -Remilia's card one-shots most spellcards Basically, "create problems and sell the solution" aka bad design
They dislike it, so it's "the worst mechanic". Worst of all, some of them pretend to be objective and talk like they're smarter than people who like the card system
@@爛帽子 _i was asking why they are disliking it though_ Well, damn... while I can understand the reason behind the hate (some comment in this thread clearly explained that), it feels like as if they don't want to give the ability cards a chance
@@thisrg7054 seems like you've played the series for a long time, huh....? Ok, I can see those problems (I also played the games too), but somehow I can't conclude that the game is bad (that, and I also attempted no cards, which is.... not bad? sure there ARE noticeable differences, but to me, it's just dodging bullets, as simple as that). Why is that?
I'm kind a disappointed that ZUN still didn't add widescreen support. Atleast he could add colorful wallpaper bars. 《Btw i wonder what if pofw or podd have 4 player support》
For those expecting a netplay feature, I'm having a better experience playing multiplayer Touhou on streaming, through Parsec or even Steam's Remote Play Together. Considering how from PoFV to ULiL you needed a manual setup for connecting on LAN and the only game to feature online lobby was AoCF, I couldn't expect less for decent online features.
ok so bad- i mean hot take, i still raise my eyebrow on zun's insistence of touhou 18's style, but i think these songs slap the the hardest of the three edit: no, like seriously this is the most STUCK IN MY HEAD zun's slapped in a while, even now zun still improves
@@CerealKiller Are they? Tasofro helped work on the game, and while some sprites are clearly ZUN's handywork, others like Cirno's and Tewi's are of frankly too high quality to be credited to him.
@@CerealKiller Barring Tewi who was a fucked up example, there's like 6 other characters including Cirno who's boss sprites are stylistically very similar to each other. Same proportions, same style of coloring etc. I figured someone from Tasofro did them since they also drew the ending artwork, but it could be someone else. My only source for this is my discerning eye.
The fact ZUN still uses the same engine since EOSD with the same resolution is uhh, impressive how long it lasted so far. But will there ever be a HD Touhou game someday that can finally increase the resolution a bit more than 480p?
Its still lacking the character's opinion of the situation to then make the enemy appear, but it seems like it follows the same mechanics as Touhou 9 Ita still a demo, we can still expect to even Mima to make her most awaited appearance
Marisa still has her Touhou 9 scope, which looks a lil too scuffy, even her bomb doesn't look completely finished since at the end you can see the leftover hitbox indicator of the beam
The new Marisa boss sprite reminds me so much of GFW, very swag looking on her face, it looks like one of Luna Nights sprites too a little bit, it moves smoothly, looks good, it has references here and there, her iconic broom finally looks like a broom and not a stick in form of a U
Her gigaenourmous hat is HILARIOUS, the back part of the broom looks so fluffly and big with a huge hole in the middle, which canonically makes sense since she does put her mini hakkero in there to reach higher speeds
@@CerealKiller The problem with Touhou 6 art is faces and bodies, not shading. That is why I said 6~11, because I love the shading of these games. Just say touhou8 would be too narrow
Do the characters not have their own theme music anymore? It sounded like nazrin and aunn were using the same song. That’s real disappointing, I would have preferred if they at least did new mixes of their old themes
Nazrins, Aunns, and Seirans theme don't really show up in the story mode, but they do have them. (Gotta use PVP mode for them to show up). I assume in the final game they will show up, with a dedicated background to match.
Huh, Marisa's L1 beam got quite the change, and Ex lasers are just Chiyuri and do not last long Why must we unlock the ability cards again, didn't we already have enough of those after 2 games dedicated to them?? It'd be fine if we started with access to them but why must you unlock the ability to actually play the game. Also, there is way too much room for broken shit to make it's way in for a game that will probably have netplay on full release
After playing the demo for hours, I can say I'm not entirely sure how will it turn out. The demos we usually get are the first 3 stages of the final game, being practically the same thing as the final product. The demo for touhou 19 definitely feels more like a demo overall. Demo as in "this isn't the finished game and needs few arrangements". Overall, I enjoyed it and I'm very hyped for the final product, but there are lots of things that, to me, need to be revisited: - Charging system: takes too long and has no sound cues like in PoFV. It's hard to stare at the bottom of the screen while avoiding bullets. In PoFV, we had sound cues and Charge level 1/4 above the character, something I think we need in this new chapter as well. The CPU also seem to have a neverending spellcard asset, while you human player, at best, can fire up two fully charged attacks in a 3-minutes gameplay. There's also no way to fully release the charged bar all at once like in PoFV, and releasing a lv2 or more attack won't clear the bullets around you, which really gives not much worth to non lv4 spellcards. - Bullets: too few, too easy to dodge, at least in vs mode. While story mode seems to be more balanced, vs mode against CPU is way too long: the screen never gets full of bullets and the CPU takes way too long to go down. It's just a matter of endurance which can get really tedious. I usually die crashing into suddenly spawning objects / enemies rather than into bullet barrages. - Animations: No player death animation, no disappearing hitbox, no player entrance animation, no stage transition animation. Story mode feels way too arcade-y, but I guess I would have said the same for PoFV demo. This one I'm pretty sure is going to be fixed for the final game. I'd also love it to have the PoFV setting where you can charge by pressing the fire button instead of the X button, I found that to be more suitable for me. Overall, looks very promising. Hope it'll get fixed and it'll have online access, this game could be our new Hisoutensoku tournaments buddy.
@@CerealKiller zun's always been into pixel art, it's just sometimes he does it and sometimes he doesn't. all it takes is going back and looking at his sprites across the games
Wait so this game ALSO has the cards? It's been like 3 games in a row, honestly that's kinda sad, I hope the game doesn't sacrifice things because of it
I know it's a demo, but kinda sad we're at the point of just calling attacks basic things like "EX Attack" instead of the old Fairy/Witch/Dragon Class names from PoFV, with the message of "You must defend against . Your life is in mortal peril" warning that came with it. Also, ZUN-san, please PLEASE take art classes and learn how to draw humans already it's been what 30 years?
I've seen a few character pictures in earlier titles and, to be honest, they look somewhat better than the current ones. Maybe it's because of them being "dirty" and rough? Newer character art looks clean, and this way the "cookie cutter" style in which characters are drawn looks much more prominent... Or maybe it's because all the faces are drawn similarly...
Touhou 2. ... Holy shit. Touhou has changed. SO MUCH. Ik ZUN's music has evolved, but... we all love Touhou game's ost ranging from 6 - 16. Unfortunately, I believe Zunpets are far rarer these days. ×-× alas, atleast fans can make old style touhou music. :)
I’ll just say this now I don’t care Unfinished Dreams of all Living Ghosts at all nor do I even plan on playing it even when it releases I’m just here out of curiosity more than anything but from what I’ve seen in this video (and i know this is a demo) it looks kinda mid. Now this isn’t to Disrespect ZUN or anything (even if It infuriates me how the Mainstream Touhou Fandom treats him like Gospel despite plenty of fan game creators being just as if not more talented than him.) I just wanted to throw out my two cents on the subject
I deeply respect this. The average response from fans nowadays is “it’s just not your type of game anymore, move on to something else” or “if you don’t like the game why are you here?” and the like. Many don’t seem understand you can not like the current iteration of a series yet still care for the series as a whole.
Damn... This game kinda looks ass. Don't me wrong I love the phantasmagoria series and I think it'll be fine but like, the sprites just don't fit together for me.
Here we go again, after the catasthrophe that was 18.5 here comes another mess of a game. This game doesn't have any type of scoring. Not a single number on upon, cancels, collecting items or clearing a stage. Wich just makes the gameplay really unsatisfying. No replay feature. What is this, PC-98? Even EoSD had it. No player data feature either This game doesn't even have a retry button!! Wich was introduced in PCB. At this point ZUN is just testing how much features he can remove while people still give him money for it... Also, Marisa's lasers are bugged. They just stop working randomly and you can't get them back. This applies even for her card. And since the enemies are super tanky, you won't be able to kill anything. And since this game doesn't have a retry button I have to use the "return to title", but everytime I pause during a boss and click on it the game just crashes🫠 Also, the the worst gimmick ZUN has ever made returns once again: the collectable cards. The only good thing are the new sprites wich seem to be made by the same person that did the ones for the early-fighting games. The game itself could be pretty good, but it needs to have a LOT of changes for that.
@@Jann75 Dude, I made a lot of valid points and that's what you have to say "oh this guy again"? What about you actually respond to the points I made? And the "it's just a demo" argument is invalid because those features were always present in the demos, even if they were grayed out. Here they literally aren't present. So by looking at the past of how the demo and full releases look there's no example of the full release making so many changes.
As ZUN mentioned, the card system and replay function are very incompatible and many bugs were found at UM. Therefore, I believe the replay function was removed. (Deepl)
Managed to get the perfect Lunatic clear (no-damage, no-bomb).
Check it out if you want to see some more of my thoughts on the game:
th-cam.com/video/ytiRb8YOyW8/w-d-xo.html
If you're still confused, the boss sprites were drawn by Unabara Iruka 海原海豚 (one of the members of Twilight Frontier). The playable character sprites, animal spirit sprites and ability cards were drawn by Ki-san (ZUN's wife)
It's mentioned on the omake text
so thats why the opponent sprites looks like a lite version of Touhou 10.5, which is rather surprising
Zun officially gives up on drawing characters.
@@magicyber909 so sad, because he was getting lots better for real
Cute
@@magicyber909 Nah, he still draws the portraits, and they look better than ever.
He tweeted a bit earlier this year about his eyesight getting a bit worse, so perhaps he just doesn't want to strain his eyes doing pixel art anymore.
I want to point out that ZUN has added brand-new boss sprites for all the playable characters.
(Edit, I've been told ZUN didn't draw them, but that doesn't change the fact that they're new).
This means that after almost TWENTY YEARS, Reimu and Marisa finally have new boss sprites!
Freaking finally
yay!!!
What about Marisa's Great Fairy Wars boss sprite?
@@crystaljon bruh that portrait isn't new, it wasn't drawn by Zun either
It's confirmed that sprite is not by ZUN, it's by another artist
2:48 that Marisa sprite is beautiful!
6:17 I especially like her little victory pose at the end here. I think it might just be an attack animation, though, like how Aunn is doing in her own fight (3:41)
@Kazmir Runik yeah she went into it before they died if you look closely, it's an attack sprite
Nazrin new picture is cute
its N A I D E S for u >:((
After ufo extra picture that was kind a disappoited me.
@@yabusamehoulen7636yeah, I liked all of the new character portraits but Nazrin's just looks so off
@@melamiyakumo Because nazrin's ufo extra Pic looks suggestive. So zun changed (banned) her Pic of UFO ex.
@@yabusamehoulen7636 what the hell are you talking about
kinda wish zun kept the spell card declaration sound effect from touhou 9. the current sound effect kinda lacks "force". its fun hearing the the se at later stages where theres a ton of back-and-forth spell casts
I think the spell card declaration sounds in PoFV were just the spell card sound and the enemy bullet shooting sound played at the same time
I really hope we’ll get functioning online for this, I’m hyped to see more
I swear to god that gohei is getting longer every single game
Nah
@@HyperVanilowell.........
Nah...The very first is the longest with 20 stages
That’s not the only thing that’s getting longer 😏
@@yokohama3p937
Your futadick?
Did you noticed how the animal spirits are now full animated enemies? Touhou 17 is going to be back confirmed! Also, Reimu's has her Touhou 17 outfit and Marisa's bow looks like bunny ears.
Prediction: Either Yuuma, Saki or Yachie will be playable, maybe even the fourth leader of the animal realm?
Other things I notcied:
-If you activate a full spellcard, you risk to die if the ennemy captures it
-there is a similar effect to Marisa's magic circle in 18.5
The way the otter runs looks so goofy to me and I love it. It doesn’t seem like there’s going to be boss themes though, but since this is just the demo, I’m hoping there will be in the final version. Marisa’s leaked theme by Consonances & Dissonances was just too good
I'm predicting that there will be at least four new characters. PoFV had five (Even though one of them was Yuuka, so it's more like four and a half).
afaik the beat-Spellcard-to-win things is only for the Campaign Mode (not a thing in VS matches). At certain points in the battle, the enemy will throw out an Extra Attack or a Boss Attack regardless if their meter is charged. Beating enough Boss Attacks instantly wins the match.
I really hope Yuuma is playable since it’s be nice to see her in a mainline game, though she did already get her playable spotlight in 17.5 ig guess, though Sumireko get her own story in 14.5 then got an entire game so it could go either way
Also I think the 4th animal realm boss is going to be the main villain and take the Yumemi and Eiki role in this game, I think this game is definitely going to explore that faction considering how the briefest mention of Yuuma in 17 lead to her being the main villain of a game, I don’t think that ZUN would just say “hey there’s a 4th beast faction but I’ll tell you who” and leave it at that
I like at this point the phantasmagoria's are the only games zun makes new sprites for
This looks unreal, everything is kinda new, very beautiful sprites can’t wait for the final product
I'm not really sure why people associate the tanky enemies with ability cards, since enemies have been getting more and more HP ever since Double Dealing Character, and have been pretty close to their current state since Hidden Star in Four Seasons.
The lack of scoring hurts this as a single-player game, but I think the mechanics will add some really nice dynamics to multiplayer that'll make it stand out from the Phantasmagoria games. Hopefully a netplay solution, whether official or fanmade, pops up for the full game.
Are you expecting Jaimers of all people to ever be constructive about a new Touhou game? He intentionally trash-talkes them every single time. This guy's entire hobby is to just mock and insult Touhou fans for no reason. His signature on ShrineMaidens forum is comparing Icicle Fall to some CAVE game with the mocking quotation "ToUhOu Is HaRdEr". He posted a Flowey video with the title "HARDEST BOSS EVER" to intentionally piss off Touhou fans. When LoLK demo changed the way of obtaining lifes from score to grazing, he ridiculed people for calling the game hard, saying that "Actually the game is now impossible to fail". In his 17.5 video he made absolutely baseless claim that it's "the last Tasofro game" just for the purpose of spreading misinformation
This guy is a total asshole, and you should never treat him with any other feeling than disgust
While yeah, enemies did get more HP; Enemies' HP in UM, HBM and UDoALG is balanced around cards since you can get some sick combos with them
The problem is: it seems they're ONLY balanced with cards in mind, making the base game VERY tedious. And since this is designed with cards in mind, it creates a sense of required replayability, since you have to grind to actually enjoy the game to its fullest
I know rougelites/rougelikes are like this, but it wouldn't hurt to make the base game not be boring, y'know?
And there is enough space in the UI for scoring, so why isn't it here in the first place? I'm not as excited for scoring as some, but it still bugs me how ZUN's games become more "casual" in a sense
I think that is fine for a main line game in which you can get more power and the game balances around it, but in PoFV enemies having low HP felt okay, in this one it does get annoying but I don't think it's the ability cards fault
@@MrNoobomneniewhich is super based, touhoomers deserve all the mockery they get
@@aleph_d You don't have to unlock cards in this actually, so there's no grinding. I'd even say the cards that add damage (so stuff like the Marisa laser) aren't even helpful unless you're picking an already low-damage character (Aunn or Nazrin), and it doesn't help them that much anyway. They just have weak shots (and are bad characters in general, whoops). As Reimu, Marisa, and Seiran, plenty of the weak enemies go down just by flying through your focused shot (though a lot of the tankier fairies look pretty similar to the weak ones, lol). Plus there's not much reason to not use charge shots liberally anyway, but maybe I'm just used to using them because I love playing as Youmu in TD and WBaWC. You have the tools to deal damage (again, unless you're one of the two weaker characters in this demo; would love to see some buffs) and it's nothing to do with the cards.
I don't think this particular game is "more casual" as much as the single-player is just kinda half-baked, almost like it was an afterthought. I like the idea of having a different win condition but since there's no way to properly approach it beyond just waiting until the bosses show up it ends up kinda just recreating the invisible "dodge timers" of PoDD and PoFV anyway.
marisa is the new chiyuri
Can't believe we finally have a game were many secondary characters are playable
I'm so hyped for Seiga , Shou and Rin being available!
At this point, ZUN can simply make his own TCG if he wants card battles.
id buy that in a heartbeat
@@CerealKiller the card system is unironically some of the best additions to touhou, i like these games but im gonna be honest when i say they became pretty boring after it being the same thing over and over, the cards give the game some much needed variety
@@czarnakoza9697 I agree! The card system is a very fun way to add variety to the games.
The whole debacle of the new card system can be easily solved if you add an option to unlock them all at any time. If you want to earn them - go ahead. If you don't - there's an option for you too.If the cards aren't integrated into online play, that is...
Theres already a fan TCG called Danmaku!!.
4:04 Apparently, Reimu's stick is really getting longer and longer with each new game.
as someone said on a comment of a cooment on some video,
*viagra*
i like to think it gets longer the more she kills shit with it
Reimu wanted a big witch hat every game, but since shrine maidens can't use one she's getting her stick bigger instead
@@czarnakoza9697 every yokai killed adds 10 millimeters 😂
It's gonna turn into a whip
The new sprites Really Cool
"Its time for another duel.. first to pass out loses."
Nice showcase of what's to come with the full game
Also, now that we have Touhou 19..
Cant wait for any Touhou Fangame to mash 2hu with the entire 19XX lineup of Shmup xD
Wow this game really surprised me, the new sprites bosses and the sprite of Aunn, Seiran and Nazrin as playable characters are very cool, i hope who characters zun added on the finish game
The new entry is looking epic, the music and graphics are excellent as always!
As a more casual STG player the cards are the coolest/most fun gimmick ZUN has introduced in a while, I'm pretty surprised the more hardcore crowd is not into it. Though after thinking about it a bit longer, I can definitely understand why.
to be fair, the previous spin-off game didn't do a good job at making the cards gimmick appealing.
It's kind of a similar situation to the 2nd generation of touhou fighting games.
The hardcore crowd isn't a monolith either, you'll only hear the vocal ones when there's something they don't like.
In my opinion, 18 did ability cards just fine. 18.5's main points of dislike wasn't really related to ability cards either, and after having played the 19 demo I don't think it will be that big of an issue here either.
ZUN doesn't design his games around the LNNN players at all (makes sense since most shmups aren't made to be cleared like that). So the really hardcore players that only play for LNNN runs and nothing else usually hate it when a new mechanic ends up being really important to the game.
For example WBaWC didn't have cards but LNNN players hated how tanky enemies were and how much the tokens obscured visibility, which is a non issue normally since other people will just pick up tokens and go into hypers when they can. Or in LoLK people hate on Pointdevice because ZUN wanted to make a harder than usual "repeat until you get it right" type of game, which made LoLK the hardest game to LNN by far.
I can't really blame ZUN in this scenario though. Ever since Touhou 12 every game has had a special mechanic to make playing the game feel fresh and new, it's not really his fault if a section of the players actively ignore it and then don't find the game fun as a result.
Also people are scaegoating cards for breaking replays but it is debatable, a lot of the cards take their effects from other games (like the gap in SA or ISC items) and those worked just fine. Some UM cards had desync bugs at first but every game has desync issues at random points. I think 18.5 didn't have replays because it was a rushed job and 19 doesn't have them because ZUN just didn't have time to playtest replays after remaking the Phantasmagoria system after like 15 years.
imo Koishi's hat needs to become a permanent thing in all future Touhou games
@@LushieTilde This is actually a great point. The Touhou community over-exalts LNN's and LNN players and as a result you get a bunch of people that strangely dislike a game when they can't clear it *with that game's mechanics*. Game mechanics are designed to be used!
LNN's are fine as niche, specialty, super top-class runs, but players shouldn't expect a game to not be balanced around its mechanic.
Game looks good, new boss sprites are sick, music is obviously a banger but...honestly I'm getting a bit tired of ability cards lol I know that this is a continuation of the previous two stories and so they must be relevant plot-wise but I'd love to see a new gimmick. Other than that game looks fun of course
this is probably the last game for this gen of touhou games that started with th16. We’re most likely gonna see a new gimmick starting with the next game but yeah gonna have to deal with them for th19
i mean it's fine the Ability cards are used for this game mode so that it can standout more from TH9. Plus 19 playables with different ability cards? you could have a good amount of gameplay choices for just 1 girl and find the right build for another of the 18.
But yeah am sure ZUN just wanted to really try out the ability card gimmick in however he can think of before he actually moves onto a new arc.
@@Imonyaki We're still missing a Shoot the Bullet/Impossible Spell Card game with ability cards.
@@ajitae i mean technically speaking, Impossible Spell Card IS the beta of ability cards. its just she refers to them as Cheat items, which honestly made most of the spell cards almost impossible to dodge unless youre a lunatic graze master
The animal spirits returning to attack you and your opponent makes me really happy to see for some reason. I wonder if there's a lore reason to why they're back!
Wait... 1:12
So in this game if you kill the boss during their spell card attack you'll instantly win the round?
Interesting...
Probably a game mechanics.
Still not sure what's the exact requirement for the enemy spell card to appear, but it's nice that story mode will be at least less RNG-based than previous versus titles.
(as far as I'm aware, this doesn't happen in vs mode)
I think thats a story mode only thing.
Looks really neat tbh
Jaimers, try playing as Seiran, she feels really good and kills all the zakos very well
6:14 is that marisa’s win pose?
Maybe
It's her attack pose
This game is looking amazing! Those boss attacks are getting me hyped! This game has to have online when it releases. I'll be playing this game forever if it does.
the New Sprites tho Looks AWESOME
Also I love how this game broke the "Stage 1 bosses can't be playable" rule at full force
NO SCORE NO SOUL
Hopefully the full game doesn't live up to the "unfinished" part of the game title.
I FUCKING love cards I LOVE having to use cards to kill small enemies
I hope Kasen will be in this one. No real reason to, but who cares lmao
I don’t think she will. Her book series is over and she already had her time in the spotlight during ULIL and AOCF.
We all knew a Phantasmagoria game was bound to happen
This is the only touhou game I have managed to get my family to play with me and they are all enjoying it
Looks good... now time for me to try and scrape up enough money to buy the full game once it releases.
Wish me luck
Is this just Touhou PoFV 2?
Is it just me? Or Reimu Spell card attack is similar to Misumaru.
6:16 and now marisa summons the spirit bomb
the sprites look like they were taken from gouyoku ibun
I like just how (almost) everyone hates on ability cards for no reason other than "worst addition in the game"
like, why???
Because ZUN had to change crucial aspects of the games in a negative way just so the cards could be implemented, and also because they are not balanced at all. Here are some examples in Touhou 18:
-Enemies were made WAY tankier so equipment cards could have a porpuse
-Enemies drop way less P items so there could be a 1.0 Power card
-Touhou 18 is the first game since 13 where you lose a full 1.0 Power from dying, again, just so Power recharging cards could have a use
-Bullet canceling cards are just broken. Okina's completely destroy Chimata's entire fight
-Remilia's card one-shots most spellcards
Basically, "create problems and sell the solution" aka bad design
They dislike it, so it's "the worst mechanic". Worst of all, some of them pretend to be objective and talk like they're smarter than people who like the card system
@@爛帽子 _i was asking why they are disliking it though_
Well, damn... while I can understand the reason behind the hate (some comment in this thread clearly explained that), it feels like as if they don't want to give the ability cards a chance
@@_4y4m3_ch4n_ Oh, I see. I mean it's hard to change someone's mind so I guess all you can do is enjoy the game
@@thisrg7054 seems like you've played the series for a long time, huh....?
Ok, I can see those problems (I also played the games too), but somehow I can't conclude that the game is bad (that, and I also attempted no cards, which is.... not bad? sure there ARE noticeable differences, but to me, it's just dodging bullets, as simple as that). Why is that?
Somehow marisa's non spell look very similar to sakuya's non spell
Playable Nazrin and Seiran I will finally die happy
I'm kind a disappointed that ZUN still didn't add widescreen support. Atleast he could add colorful wallpaper bars. 《Btw i wonder what if pofw or podd have 4 player support》
Game’s looking interesting but man I really hope you don’t have to spam z to shoot non stop like in Touhou 9
You don't have to 👍it's hold to shoot
Let’s go! I’m so glad they changed it
For those expecting a netplay feature, I'm having a better experience playing multiplayer Touhou on streaming, through Parsec or even Steam's Remote Play Together. Considering how from PoFV to ULiL you needed a manual setup for connecting on LAN and the only game to feature online lobby was AoCF, I couldn't expect less for decent online features.
ok so bad- i mean hot take, i still raise my eyebrow on zun's insistence of touhou 18's style, but i think these songs slap the the hardest of the three
edit: no, like seriously this is the most STUCK IN MY HEAD zun's slapped in a while, even now zun still improves
Those pixel sprites look like they were made by someone else, not ZUN
No wonder
@@CerealKiller It's the sprite artist from the fighting games, same as PoFV
@@CerealKiller Are they? Tasofro helped work on the game, and while some sprites are clearly ZUN's handywork, others like Cirno's and Tewi's are of frankly too high quality to be credited to him.
@@derpsire53 Tasofro only helps drawing for spinoff games. All main games characters were drawn by ZUN. Except this game my mistake
@@CerealKiller Barring Tewi who was a fucked up example, there's like 6 other characters including Cirno who's boss sprites are stylistically very similar to each other. Same proportions, same style of coloring etc. I figured someone from Tasofro did them since they also drew the ending artwork, but it could be someone else. My only source for this is my discerning eye.
Quickly 1cc lunatic
Never thought I would hear those three words together
The fact ZUN still uses the same engine since EOSD with the same resolution is uhh, impressive how long it lasted so far. But will there ever be a HD Touhou game someday that can finally increase the resolution a bit more than 480p?
nah from eosd to pofv they used the same engine and around stb to nowadays it's a different one
The new sprites are cool as fuck, I wish they set a president for the future
My god the sprites look amazing
So if you beat the boss on your side
It will automatically kill the enemy on their side? A bit strange
I don't mean to ask, but does anyone have a download to this file? I looked on Moriya Shrine but it's just a torrent file.
Moriya Shrine got taken down by Zun a while back. They aren’t allowed to share the official games anymore.
Hooooold up.
If you send over a boss sprite, and it gets defeated, YOU die??
NO WAY ITS OUT NOW???!?!?!?!?
Its still lacking the character's opinion of the situation to then make the enemy appear, but it seems like it follows the same mechanics as Touhou 9
Ita still a demo, we can still expect to even Mima to make her most awaited appearance
Marisa still has her Touhou 9 scope, which looks a lil too scuffy, even her bomb doesn't look completely finished since at the end you can see the leftover hitbox indicator of the beam
The new Marisa boss sprite reminds me so much of GFW, very swag looking on her face, it looks like one of Luna Nights sprites too a little bit, it moves smoothly, looks good, it has references here and there, her iconic broom finally looks like a broom and not a stick in form of a U
Her gigaenourmous hat is HILARIOUS, the back part of the broom looks so fluffly and big with a huge hole in the middle, which canonically makes sense since she does put her mini hakkero in there to reach higher speeds
It also reminds of Kyotokei... That's quite... The coincidence...
Oh, Reimu's sprite looks absolutely BEAUTIFUL
Marisa stops shooting laser after a while when you play as her. Is this a glitch?
why do the games look virtually the same since TD
Player character reusing.
Ancient nippon tradition of reusing assets, prease undahstandu
Yuyuko should be here since its about "ghost"
the portrait mouths all look very weird
been a quirk since 18 tbh. pretty weird
@@Jann75 Besides Mima's return, I also wish Zun would go back to the 6~11 style with all the shading on the characters.
@@CerealKiller That's why I said 6~11, the best is of course th8
@@CerealKiller The problem with Touhou 6 art is faces and bodies, not shading. That is why I said 6~11, because I love the shading of these games. Just say touhou8 would be too narrow
god i wanna play this game but i wasnt at reitaisai :(
I'm surprised nobody pointed this out yet, but....
WTH IS THAT IN REIMU FIGHT!?
Ok i was not expecting that marisa front sprite wtf
Omg silly bunny seiran looks so funny and qt
Do the characters not have their own theme music anymore? It sounded like nazrin and aunn were using the same song. That’s real disappointing, I would have preferred if they at least did new mixes of their old themes
I think there are still new themes, but with subtle changes to fit more with the Phantasmagoria-style. Meh, I want a total rework more ngl
Nazrins, Aunns, and Seirans theme don't really show up in the story mode, but they do have them. (Gotta use PVP mode for them to show up).
I assume in the final game they will show up, with a dedicated background to match.
I'm completely out of the loop on this series, is this entry a vs STG, like Twinkle Star Sprites?
how do i download it?
Its on steam right now
So reimu is the new meta for the game? 😅
Huh, Marisa's L1 beam got quite the change, and Ex lasers are just Chiyuri and do not last long
Why must we unlock the ability cards again, didn't we already have enough of those after 2 games dedicated to them?? It'd be fine if we started with access to them but why must you unlock the ability to actually play the game.
Also, there is way too much room for broken shit to make it's way in for a game that will probably have netplay on full release
After playing the demo for hours, I can say I'm not entirely sure how will it turn out.
The demos we usually get are the first 3 stages of the final game, being practically the same thing as the final product. The demo for touhou 19 definitely feels more like a demo overall. Demo as in "this isn't the finished game and needs few arrangements".
Overall, I enjoyed it and I'm very hyped for the final product, but there are lots of things that, to me, need to be revisited:
- Charging system: takes too long and has no sound cues like in PoFV. It's hard to stare at the bottom of the screen while avoiding bullets. In PoFV, we had sound cues and Charge level 1/4 above the character, something I think we need in this new chapter as well. The CPU also seem to have a neverending spellcard asset, while you human player, at best, can fire up two fully charged attacks in a 3-minutes gameplay. There's also no way to fully release the charged bar all at once like in PoFV, and releasing a lv2 or more attack won't clear the bullets around you, which really gives not much worth to non lv4 spellcards.
- Bullets: too few, too easy to dodge, at least in vs mode. While story mode seems to be more balanced, vs mode against CPU is way too long: the screen never gets full of bullets and the CPU takes way too long to go down. It's just a matter of endurance which can get really tedious. I usually die crashing into suddenly spawning objects / enemies rather than into bullet barrages.
- Animations: No player death animation, no disappearing hitbox, no player entrance animation, no stage transition animation. Story mode feels way too arcade-y, but I guess I would have said the same for PoFV demo. This one I'm pretty sure is going to be fixed for the final game.
I'd also love it to have the PoFV setting where you can charge by pressing the fire button instead of the X button, I found that to be more suitable for me.
Overall, looks very promising. Hope it'll get fixed and it'll have online access, this game could be our new Hisoutensoku tournaments buddy.
hey guys, where can i get the demo?? plz help
Edit: follow the guy above me I was wrong
Holy shit, that was short XD
Ahh yes… Piano swings!
BRUUUH YESSSSS NEW VERSUS TOUHOU FINALLYYYYYYY
do the beast spirits do something if you touch them?
Yes, they kill you.
@@Dukstless like everything in the game
Where can I get the demo? Cant find it on steam
i think this would've been the perfect game for some better player sprites, but it looks great
I just notice they can do little victory poses!✨️✨️
6:18 is kinda cute
zun finally got into pixel art.
@@CerealKiller o
@@CerealKiller zun's always been into pixel art, it's just sometimes he does it and sometimes he doesn't. all it takes is going back and looking at his sprites across the games
Wait so this game ALSO has the cards? It's been like 3 games in a row, honestly that's kinda sad, I hope the game doesn't sacrifice things because of it
LEZGOOOO
Pass of demo pls
Nice touhou 19 👍
good shit
ZUN will take my money
Never understood what's phantasmagoria about
Auun be cute
Marisa is extremely buggy in this game, gg
Marisa is buggy AGAIN!? What is it with that girl? Lmao.
@@lpfan4491 Her lasers just straight up randomly stop working at times, kinda like Aya's crows in HSIFS 1.00a
I know it's a demo, but kinda sad we're at the point of just calling attacks basic things like "EX Attack" instead of the old Fairy/Witch/Dragon Class names from PoFV, with the message of "You must defend against . Your life is in mortal peril" warning that came with it. Also, ZUN-san, please PLEASE take art classes and learn how to draw humans already it's been what 30 years?
I've seen a few character pictures in earlier titles and, to be honest, they look somewhat better than the current ones. Maybe it's because of them being "dirty" and rough? Newer character art looks clean, and this way the "cookie cutter" style in which characters are drawn looks much more prominent...
Or maybe it's because all the faces are drawn similarly...
Nazrin.
not seeing the new character kinda disappointing me
Touhou 2. ... Holy shit. Touhou has changed. SO MUCH. Ik ZUN's music has evolved, but... we all love Touhou game's ost ranging from 6 - 16. Unfortunately, I believe Zunpets are far rarer these days. ×-× alas, atleast fans can make old style touhou music. :)
ZUN doesn't actually like Marisa. He includes her in every game as a joke, that's why she's always the weakest playable option.
eh marisa is ok imho
@@CerealKiller no sane person would ever play Touhou tho
Lol
I’ll just say this now I don’t care Unfinished Dreams of all Living Ghosts at all nor do I even plan on playing it even when it releases I’m just here out of curiosity more than anything but from what I’ve seen in this video (and i know this is a demo) it looks kinda mid. Now this isn’t to Disrespect ZUN or anything (even if It infuriates me how the Mainstream Touhou Fandom treats him like Gospel despite plenty of fan game creators being just as if not more talented than him.) I just wanted to throw out my two cents on the subject
I deeply respect this.
The average response from fans nowadays is “it’s just not your type of game anymore, move on to something else” or “if you don’t like the game why are you here?” and the like. Many don’t seem understand you can not like the current iteration of a series yet still care for the series as a whole.
Damn... This game kinda looks ass. Don't me wrong I love the phantasmagoria series and I think it'll be fine but like, the sprites just don't fit together for me.
the sprites looks good and it's better than using a almost 20 year old sprites
@@vitorhenriquefarias8916 It's not the sprites themselves its just how incoherent the art design feels
Here we go again, after the catasthrophe that was 18.5 here comes another mess of a game.
This game doesn't have any type of scoring. Not a single number on upon, cancels, collecting items or clearing a stage. Wich just makes the gameplay really unsatisfying.
No replay feature. What is this, PC-98? Even EoSD had it.
No player data feature either
This game doesn't even have a retry button!! Wich was introduced in PCB. At this point ZUN is just testing how much features he can remove while people still give him money for it...
Also, Marisa's lasers are bugged. They just stop working randomly and you can't get them back. This applies even for her card. And since the enemies are super tanky, you won't be able to kill anything.
And since this game doesn't have a retry button I have to use the "return to title", but everytime I pause during a boss and click on it the game just crashes🫠
Also, the the worst gimmick ZUN has ever made returns once again: the collectable cards.
The only good thing are the new sprites wich seem to be made by the same person that did the ones for the early-fighting games. The game itself could be pretty good, but it needs to have a LOT of changes for that.
oh this guy again? normally i don't like using this argument but my man it's a demo
@@Jann75 Dude, I made a lot of valid points and that's what you have to say "oh this guy again"? What about you actually respond to the points I made?
And the "it's just a demo" argument is invalid because those features were always present in the demos, even if they were grayed out. Here they literally aren't present. So by looking at the past of how the demo and full releases look there's no example of the full release making so many changes.
His wife (ZUN's) and someone from Twilight Frontier did most of the sprites aside from reused ones. But otherwise valid complaints imo
@@hopedream11 Wish they keep making the sprites from now on. They look really cool and fluid.
As ZUN mentioned, the card system and replay function are very incompatible and many bugs were found at UM. Therefore, I believe the replay function was removed. (Deepl)