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Touhou 18.5 - 100th Black Market has been announced!

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Branneg Xy:
https://touhou-project.news/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/th185_dairy5.jpg
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I noticed through the " Entitled Ability Card Rows of (on the lower-left screen)",though it is not difficult, that in the   1st (Stage) Market we can see (4th Screenshot) Eternity Larva appearing after the 4th and during the 5th Wave is cleared,(3rd Screenshot) Black Market Ability-Item Shopping afer clearing the 2nd Wave which is the 3rd-to-last Wave before reaching Eternity's5 th one ,(2nd Screenshot) 3rd and 2nd-to-last wave reaching the before mentioned.

https://touhou-project.news/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/th185_dairy6.jpg
However on the 5th Screenshot we are still seeing the same 1st (Stage) Market ,but it is both a different playthrough  since the " Entitled Ability Card Rows of (on the lower-left screen)" , a different and not-shown-previously Wave(end of the 4th one) with Mike as different and not-shown-previously Boss Character at the end of it.

https://touhou-project.news/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/th185_dairy7.jpg
The last and 6th Screenshot displays the "Card Shop" whose Text-Option we can see on the 1st Screenshot which is also the Before-Gameplay Starting Screen.

Suspicious person:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2097720/_100th_Black_Market/

Steam black market page is up for Touhou 18.5

My main takeaways :
-The magic circle surrounding Marisa seems like it can be fired off to deal AOE damage. I believe the damage that magic circle deals is probably based of M. Atk, and the cooldown between its uses is what's affected by the M. Reload (unless M. Reload is about the active Card's CD)
-The magic circle thingy seems to stop (or massively slow down?) the clump of bullets that are inside of it, seems to interract pretty nicely with the Miracle Mallet for scoring and money grinding reasons
-The Marisa we have in the trailer seems to have the UM sprite, which means golden eye and a proper hair braid with a white ribbon, and non rainbow buttons, quite unlike the red eyed, braid lacking, rainbow buttons having Marisa in the title screen. Something suspicious is afoot, I daresay.
-Similarly, the Eternity featured in the Steam Black Market screenshot's eyes lack that red tinge, unlike the Eternity screenshot we see in the Touhou news site where we get to glean a hint of red, hmm.

On the scoring aspect of the game, aside from the dominance of the trifecta of UM's Mallet, bullet stacking, and potentially Miracle Mallet CD reduction (if any card reduce the mallet's CD like in UM), but the highlight this time's gotta be the small zone that's create whenever Marisa sends her magic circle : in the trailer, we get to see the player generate Bullet Money (which I assume the small purple collectibles are) spawn from the field created by the magic circle. To put it in an easy to relate example : all the bullets included in the space generated by the magic circle gets LoLK grazed and generate bullet money instead of graze items, so this promise to be interesting.

Anyway, going by Mike's nonspell and Eternity's spellcard's look, it seems pretty much certain to me that this game is sure to bear the Violet Detector Syndrome, by which I mean the reuse of patterns from previous titles, the relative simplicity of the design of the patterns (especially in the earlier stages).

Stage design this time seems more about pattern design, as in ZUN could have designed a number of patterns that belongs to a pool from which a limited number of those would get picked up and thrown at you during your playthroughs. Depending on whether these patterns have harder version of themselves or, better yet, could mix and mash with other patterns, the roguelike aspect of this game may prove quite wild, and scorerunning would require a much higher learning cap. The only question is to see whether some random cards are gonna be important for scoring, cuz that's gonna bring back RNG dependance from UM, which is quite no bueno

The wave's patterns are probably gonna be what's gonna devide whether this game is gonna flop or receive a warm welcome, since no matter how complicated a wave may be, once you learn it's pattern you won't have much issue with it going forward : what I'm most interesting in is whether the waves patterns are gonna have various level of difficulties and whether they are gonna get mixed and mashed with each other, somewhere down the line : Nightmare scenes from VD were not super popular because they were often dismissed as lazily and not creative, a bit understandable since there are only a few combinations of small kinds of patterns, but this game may manage to avoid that problem if it  gives a lot, and I mean A LOT, of types of patterns that could randomly mix and mash with other ones : a randomly mixed and mashed pattern honestly seems to me like it could be a good fit for the roguelike approach the Man seems to be going for this time.

Also a few additionnal gameplay takeaways :
-The Aunn card most certainly reduces the M. Reload by 33%
-The Sutra Scroll card seems to increase the M. Size (which I presume is the size of the zone created by Marisa's magic circle)  by 33% (it can stack), so it's functionnally different from how it was in UM but may still prove to be very useful scoring wise
-Waves functions like some sort of mini-stage sections ; and you seem to have about 30 second per wave and a little over 1 minute for bosses, so no UM grindfest this time
-Mike didn't have any stars under her name, but her, uhhh, life circle seems to have the blue marker for spellcards

All in all, this game's got potential, but should lean heavily towardds Violet Detector, design philosophy wise. Scoring system seems to be straighforward enough for a bozo like me to deduct from the trailer, while random patterns are justied by the approach towards a more roguelike genre. Unless ZUN decides to make the magic circle system to be as clunky as VD's teleport, this game should turn alright.



Just please don't make us double tap shift, I get that the C button is probably already reserved for the active, but use D or even B or something else please just not double tap shift

williewillus:

--- Quote from: Suspicious person on August 09, 2022, 10:58:19 AM ----The magic circle surrounding Marisa seems like it can be fired off to deal AOE damage. I believe the damage that magic circle deals is probably based of M. Atk, and the cooldown between its uses is what's affected by the M. Reload (unless M. Reload is about the active Card's CD)

--- End quote ---

Given that all the other "M" things are about the magic circle, I doubt M. Reload is about the mallet. Also it seems like the starting item can be changed, so wonder what else would go there besides the mallet.

Also, I'm curious what the real money (not bullet money) will be used for.

The title music is really nice. It's like a mix of UM and Independent Simulacrum with just a smidge of SHoSS Toutetsu.

Suspicious person:

--- Quote from: williewillus on August 10, 2022, 01:43:59 AM ---Also, I'm curious what the real money (not bullet money) will be used for.

--- End quote ---
There's a Card Shop on the market selection screen, and you even get to see the number of your gold items there (1st screenshot from the official 2hu news site), so that's probably where you use your normal money. It seems like you'll have a selection of 5 cards to buy (going by the last screenshot from the official 2hu news site), could be more, could be less as we go on.

Basically, here's how it'll go :
-Bullet money is created by using Marisa's magic attack thingy on enemy bullets
-You use the bullet money you have to buy cards at the black market
-Money (gold items) randomly drop from killed enemies and can also be generated by other means such as the miracle mallet
-You use the real money to buy cards at the item shop

Speaking of cards, the Eternity item card featured in the screenshot seems to have 0/1 written on it. Maybe there's some extra condition to fulfill in order to properly unlock cards or something.

Gilde:
(    ・O・)つ I come bearing translated tidbits as usual

-The "0/1", "0/2", "0/3" indicators show how many copies of a given card you can have equipped at once. The equipment cards shown so far are all non-stackable, meaning you can't outfit yourself with tons of the same option. (tragic)

-Larva's card: sprays butterfly scales in every direction around the player, at very short range.
-Nitori and Reimu's cards: same as in UM.

-Nazrin's card: immediately gives you between 50 to 100 bullet money for 0 cost, in exchange for not being able to buy any other cards from the current shop menu (so that you can't grab the free money and then grab free cards with it, lol).

-Futo's card ("plates + yin-yang" art): extends the duration of your magic circle attack by 33%. Stackable up to 3x for 200% duration at max.
-Aya's card: increases your movement speed by, quote, "1 level" (= 20%, as Suspicious person psoted above). Stackable up to 5x for 200% speed at max.
-Flandre's card: makes your magic circle delete some bullets rather than just slowing them down. Stackable; can't see the cap in the video, but 1 card grants 25% to your M.Break stat, as pointed out above.

-There's also a couple frames in the trailer showing that you can still buy individual 1up cards, which explains those hearts in the lower corner.

-Larva's eyes turning red is just part of her attack animation; it's been there since HSiFS. Marisa, though... ZUN said on the latest Nikenme Radio that the title screen art does have plot relevance... hmmmMMmmmMMMmm

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