super: I guess I realize I didn't do a post on it, but I did return to Triangle Strategy a few months ago, beat it, and then played ~5 maps in to a NG+. Should do a detailed writeup sometime. I do agree it's good that they added the story missions as grindable in a patch - it's particularly important in that the story missions drop healing items. You could potentially hard lock yourself out of healing items in the OG patch, which was dumb, so there is at least a very slow way to get more in the event of disaster now.
In other news...
Touhou Luna NightsBeaten. I played Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth which was made by the same Team Ladybug indie group and enjoyed it, and saw the 9/9 silly Cirno sprites, so sure, what the hell.
Anyway, it's a pretty good Metroidvania. The platforming & combat are really fun, most importantly. I'm not a fan of top-down shooters, but the Graze mechanic makes for high-stakes and rewarding gameplay in a platformer where you want to
just barely dodge enemy shots. Since our heroine can stop time, there are some pretty tricksy patterns that come at you fast, but if you dodge them in real time, you get rewarded. (And you get minorly rewarded for "dodging" them while time is stopped.) It makes things nice and exciting. The boss fights are all great. I basically did a daggers-only using the subweapons very little, which I found out later was not optimal from checking speedruns, but hell, it's optimal on fun because it makes you learn the enemy patterns, which are all very rude but just barely fair when time isn't stopped. Unusually, it's also a game that gets the difficulty curve exactly right - the game is very gentle and training wheels early, and it gets tougher and tougher linearly. Lots of games have inverted difficulty curves because they're feeding you so many goodies & power-ups that they're not sure if you have late game, but no, beating up the final bosses feels much more challenging and rewarding than the earlier ones.
Similar to Deedlit, it's not very much on the exploration aspects - the gradual unlocking mechanic is incredibly basic-ass, along the lines of "beat boss to get the green key, there is a green door in exactly one spot that opens the way to the next area." So don't go expecting much special there. Similarly, the level design is on the cramped side - there aren't really any big rooms, it's all narrow corridor maneuvering. Oh well.
Also, the music is great? (
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL62MUJgPtF56ufLQ26qVIrRNumtoDpJc1 ) I listened to some Touhou stuff way back when and acknowledged it as pretty good (if famously, er, synthy in instrumentation). The remixes are all great, better than the originals IMO. Like, take "The Maid and the Pocket Watch of Blood" - honestly not that impressive in its original form, but dang if the Luna Nights version isn't fantastic. Pretty much wasn't a single track I disliked.
Okay, that leaves TOUHOU PLOT, or more specifically fangame plot. This one wasn't so strong, although I suppose it works better than Deedlit. Deedlit's nothingburger of a setup didn't work well, but Touhou at least adapts better to "cozy" plots of not much happening. Something odd is that the writer seems to think Sakuya is both A) Extremely powerful (there's a number of lines about "oh no my power has been sealed here" and others having lines from bosses like "haha I'll stand a chance because your powers are sealed" - Translator's note, they're sealed for like literally a minute of gameplay time, the very first thing that happens is unlocking the ability to stop time again, WTF), yet also B) Kinda naive / dumb. (I'm sure it's in character, but the main antagonist mocks Sakuya as being naive for not noticing her, which given that the player has already been given ample clues as to who the antagonist is... she has a point.) Weird combo; I'm used to slightly "underpowered" but clever main characters. Anyway, getting back to the plot, the Received Wisdom in writing is that you're supposed to have some sort of "inciting incident" in a story where something interesting happens that drives events forward. It doesn't have to be at the VERY start, but it should be early-ish - Gandalf coming to the Shire and recruiting hobbits, say. Or for other Touhou games, EoSD involves the sun being blotted out by mist, and PCB involves "someone stole spring." But the initial plot of Luna Nights is just the Touhou girls horsing around for fun, with put-upon Sakuya dealing with her boss's silly whims. Very cozy, but sure I guess, given that most of these people seem to get along well. The plot actually starts at the end of Stage 4... of a 5 stage game. I dunno, I'd liked there to have been some sort of stakes earlier? Also, in ANTAGONIST SPOILERS (??),
is this just going to be a fan sendup of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil with all the bosses from that game back exactly, or go anywhere new? Well asking the question answers it, of course it's going to just mimic EoSD exactly rather than be creative. Boo hiss, I'd have actually been more down for Nitori having some sort of evil plan than for it to be Flandre, Again as the final boss.While I said "beaten", what I mean is the main game was beaten. I did the extra stage, cleared the first extra boss, and hahaha nope'd out of final extra boss. Well I did just praise the game above for having a rewardingly constantly increasing difficulty level, but yeah that boss is for people better at the game than me. I got to her second phase and will call it a draw.
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