start date: 8/17/23
normal 1cc: 8/17/23
written: 8/17/23
the touhou train just keeps on rolling! we're close to pulling in to the station, just two more main series games left!
nina's thoughts on Touhou 17 - Wily Beast and Weakest Creature
much like how HSiFS seemed like a new take on PCB, Wily Beast and Weakest Creature also feels like its doing a new take on the mechanics of an older title, in this case the UFOs from, uh, UFO. also like UFO, this game did not offer very much resistance to schmoovement. in a new personal best for me, i beat WBaWC in only 3 runs! and i made it all the way to the final boss on my very first go. gonna give myself a pat on the back for that one :>
to start with the gameplay, im gonna do playable characters first since it makes it easier to introduce this games big mechanic. we have 3 characters here; Reimu, Marisa, and Youmu, with identical movesets to their Ten Desires appearances. similar to HSiFS, each character shares 3 sub-choices, being which animal spirit you 'choose' to possess your character. the Wolf spirit makes your focused shot stronger, the Eagle spirit makes your unfocused shot stronger, and the Otter spirit makes your bombs stronger and gives you 1 extra base bomb. i tried each character and spirit once in some way, doing Marisa+Eagle, Youmu+Wolf, and lastly Reimu+Otter where i got my 1cc. generally i feel the same way about these movesets as i did in TD, but Youmu's moveset is helped a lot by this game's mechanics so i like it a lot more.
speaking of, the new big mechanic of this game is the Animal Spirit system, an evolution of the ufos of UFO. defeating certain enemies will make Animal Spirits show up, coming in a variety of types. the three main types are Wolf, Otter, and Eagle spirits that bounce around and cycle between the 3 states much like ufos, although in this case all of them cycle types. the other type are Fish spirits, that contain items within them like points, power, Life pieces, and Bomb pieces. spirits bounce around on screen like UFOs did, but unlike those they never leave the screen except for when the stage ends. anytime you collect a spirit it goes into an inventory in the corner like the ufos, and when you've collected any 5 you go into a 'Roaring Mode' for a few seconds. if you get hit during Roaring Mode, it dissipates and clears the screen. if you dont get hit for the full duration, you get a bonus of 2 random main animal spirits appearing, letting you set up another one easily. also when Roaring Mode ends, any Fish spirits in your inventory pop out their items for you to collect.
if you activate Roaring Mode while you have 3 or more of the same type of non-fish spirit, you enter Berserk Roaring Mode and gain an extra effect based on the animal: Wolf turns your shots into powered up versions of your focus shot (whether youre focusing or not), Eagle does the same but with your unfocused shot, and Otter gives you 3 orbiting fireballs that erase enemy bullets they touch. If you have 4 or 5 of a kind, the effect lasts for longer, and if its the same kind of spirit as the one you selected initially the duration is further boosted.
also for some reason theres a secret fifth type of spirit that isnt mentioned in the manual, its a Jellyfish and i have no idea what it does. i saw it literally once, and after i picked it up the game gave me an achievement (which btw this game adds achievements) but i have no idea what caused it to show up or what bonuses if any it gave me.
Animal Spirits and Roaring Mode make the game into one of the easier ones so far imo. spirits show up pretty frequently, and because they always cycle and never leave the screen its really easy to manipulate them so you only ever get the kind youre looking for. a full 5-of-a-kind of an animal gives you some ridiculous firepower, and even if you can't manage that, any 5 spirits still gets you a free safety net until Roaring Mode wears off. throw that in with low-cost lives (only 3 pieces for a 1up) and plentiful bombs, especially if you pick otter, and you have tons of survivability.
as for the new characters, uhhh, i rushed through the game so quick i barely remember their names ^^; gimme a just a second here. [...one wiki visit later...] alrighty! the new characters!
Keiki is pretty neat, with her main skillset being that she's a clay sculptor who creates haniwa figures, which are then filled by faith and become active. because her figures are physical objects without a soul, the animal spirits in the animal realm cant defeat them, so Keiki quickly becomes the de facto ruler of the animal realm and subjugates the animal spirits below the human spirits, who were formerly at the bottom of the chain of command. because Keiki is helping the humans of the animal realm, she isn't really looking to fight Reimu or the others, but the animal spirits possessing them force a confrontation anyways, only to then make their human run away in fear, with Keiki's boss fight happening as she chases you down menacingly, threatening to destroy your body and remake you as a clay puppet. spooky.
The clan leaders are also both pretty cool characters. i like how the survival-of-the-fittest nature of the animal realm has basically led to like-minded spirits forming yakuza families, and Yachie and Saki are leaders of two rival organizations. Yachie seems to have some powerful magical charisma, pulling some sort of jedi mind trick to convince the heroines that they've actually heard of her Kiketsu family before, and that they should stop questioning things and join her cause against Keiki. She also just has a cool design, being based on a jidiao, a chinese dragon-turtle with cool horns and a scaly shell.
Saki on the other hand is a mob leader because of her physical abilities, having high strength as well as incredible speed. Saki is based on a black pegasus, with her design featuring black wings and a horse tail, while her outfit is reminiscent of a cowboy with a leather hat and boots and everything. when i saw art of Saki before i played this game i assumed she was another crow based on her design, not really noticing the tail (i think i assumed it was a cape and/or long hair) and i was really confused as to why this crow was a cowboy, the fact that she's a horse makes it make a lot more sense lol.
Wily Beast and Weakest Creature is pretty good, but i cant say it really leaves much of an impression. the writing of the main characters is strange because of the spirit possession business, and while its not new for the characters to sometimes just be along for the ride, its consistent among all the routes here and makes the plot kinda hard to feel invested in. the reuse of Ten Desires' character movesets in addition to the animal spirits acting similar to the UFOs leaves the gameplay feeling kinda like it lacks an identity. granted, some of these issues i have may just be because i'm 11 games deep and picking up the pace, they kinda start to blur together a bit more so newer ones really need to stand out more to be notable (like LoLK was, for better or worse).
ironically despite saying this game didn't leave much of an impression, this has been the second-longest write up of any game so far, but i think thats mostly just because of how much stuff there is to mention about the animal spirits. (for real though what is the deal with that jellyfish?) i doubt that the last couple games will top SA's word count, but who knows! tune in then to find out :>