Touhou 12.8: The Great Fairy Wars

I have recently received an e-mail coming from PaletWeb announcing some new games I might be interested in. For the information, PaletWeb is a webstore which mostly sells Japanese video games and accessories for all platforms. It is, in my opinion, the ultimate source for outsiders who wants a taste of Touhou but cannot make it to Anime conventions, knowing that most of these conventions will have Touhou products.

Anyway, just by seeing the e-mails subject, "Good news! Shanghai Alice new game listing!", I knew I was in for a new Touhou Project. Those who may have been reading my blogs for some time know that it is one of my favorite franchises and that Shanghai Alice is none other than a one-man army: ZUN, the creator of Touhou. Without waiting a single second, I opened up my browser and started seeking the new game, which was posted on the front page. Yes, PaletWeb will send e-mails for a single new video game.. if it is something new in the TH department, they will send e-mails. It isn't hard to see why, as their top 25 sold items are almost entirely related to Touhou.


The Great Fairy Wars

This marks the 12.8th (or 18th game to be released) game in the franchise and appears to be a continuation of a previously established story, namely the one of 'Strange and Bright Nature Deity' which I believe to be a series of books. I have never red them, nor will I read them since they are most likely in Japanese. It also marks the first game ever where ZUN did not draw the portraits himself, although this isn't so much of a problem after seeing some footage of the game. You would think that handing a task over in an ever growing franchise to a new person would be madness, but it seems to have turned out pretty well in my opinion.

The gameplay itself is referred to as a fusion between Phantasmagoria of Flower View and Shoot the Bullet games (just click the names to see a video of them), combined with what could be considered as the 'standard' Touhou gameplay, which means it plays in the original fashion of a avoiding bullets and defeating the enemies, or the fashionably cute girls. The user is now taking control of Cirno, who is often known as the stupidest character in the franchise, quite literally. She is often depicted as being a dummy and also known to go by the name ⑨. There is a whole lot of back story on this, as in the manual of Phantasmagoria of Flower View, in an explanation of the screen's layout, she is labeled as "9. Moron", indicating that ZUN himself started making fun of her.

Enough with the back story of Cirno, the Ice fairy as we know it. The player takes control of Cirno and in a similar way of erasing bullets when taking pictures (Shoot the Bullet, Double Spoiler), can freeze bullets in ice. In the same fashion as the two other games noted, you have a meter that fills up over time and unleashing the technique will freeze the first bullet it comes in contact with and thereafter, every similar bullets will freeze in a consecutive chain. They then get erased from the screen and awards you points and helps filling your meter faster for the next shot. The time span of the freeze shot will depend on the percentage of the meter at the time of activation.


Cirno, the great (and stupid) Ice fairy, also known as ⑨.

When freezing large amounts of bullets, you will, over time, be awarded with bombs as well as points. The bombs work in the same old fashion fashion way as the other games, but with a new twist. Instead of starting with a specific number of bombs, you start the game with none at all! As you gather points from freezing large amounts of bullets, this will fill a meter and once it is full, you are rewarded with a bomb. Unleashing this attack will freeze every single bullets in view instantly and erase them from the screen.

So you can shoot, freeze and bomb your way through the game. Fairy Wars contain full length stages and Cirno is the only playable character this time around. During a normal playthrough, there are only three playable stages rather than six as usual, but you also have the choice between six different routes (for example, one route consists of A1-1, A1-2, and A1-3. There are stages for A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2). There is also the 'Extra' stage, which is what it is called: An Extra stage. Once again I would expect this one to be quite difficult, as they have always been reputed for their immense difficulty. Not quite on par with the Lunatic's difficulty, but still.

Spell cards are there once again. For the first timers, a Spell Card are a special range of attacks executed by the boss of a stage. They are beautiful yet devastating attack patterns which you can capture. To begin with, a boss will have multiple life bars, each of which contain different attacks. Usually, when starting the fight, the boss will unleash regular patterns. After a certain amount of life has been removed from the health bar, they will switch to a Spell Card. Dealing enough damage to reduce the life bar significantly will stop the current attack and make place for a new one. Depending on the stage, boss and difficulty, a single life bar ca contain from 1 to several different attacks. In order to capture the so-called Spell Card, you must survive the specific attack without dying, without bombing, and in the case of Fairy Wars, without freezing any bullets as well. It then awards you a very large amount of points and also serves for bragging rights, as the Spell Cards tend to be death bringers.

The game was released on August 14th, 2010 at Comiket 78, but will be available for purchase on September 3rd through webstores. PaletWeb currently offers the game for pre-order, which as you may suspect, I will buy it. I did not pre-order it yet, simply due to the crazy amount of stuff I purchased this month, but once my bill comes in and clears out of the way, you can bet it is one of the first things I will buy in September. Now, since a blog regarding a new game isn't complete without it, I will share with you a video of the 12.8th Touhou Project: The Great Fairy Wars, taken from YouTube and some user. Unfortunately I do not have the game just yet, so I cannot make my own video of it, but you can be sure that I will do so once I get it.


Touhou 12.8: The Great Fairy Wars - Route A1 Lunatic