CrestedPeak9 · @CrestedPeak9
31st Dec 2019 from TwitLonger
A Look Back at Touhou Shmups and Fangames for 2019
It's been quite the year for Touhou fangames. 2019 was the year to follow up 2018, which many deemed to be the "Year of Fangames", when many were let down by the release of Violet Detector. Countless fangames were announced, demos released, and there was general sentiment that the quality of fangames, be they from Japan, China or the West, had started to surpass what ZUN managed to put out in recent years.
2019 ended up seeing almost every western fangame project have full releases delayed, or straight up die, unfortunately. That doesn't mean the fangame scene has collapsed, of course, as 2019 is still a strong year, but for me it didn't live up to the hype of 2018 after a string of high quality demos.
東方真珠島 ～ Hollow Song of Birds v1.00, released 28 January 2019
The next Kaisendo game was released, for the first time, on specialized game hosting site Freem, and quickly shot to the top downloaded charts for the release period. It's another excellent game, one that surpassed even BoSM for me, and was quite the game to kick off the year.
Once again, production quality is through the roof, but this time it came at the cost of performance for those who didn't have good enough PCs (or even worse, laptops). Such is the way of Danmakufu.
HSoB is quite special to me as I also spent almost half a year developing an unofficial Ultra patch for it, during which I received incredible help for playtesting from DarkPermafrost, va_amias, CreepyNinja_, PKWeegee, and most of all, om the nom who went above and beyond to balance out my insanity. Python was also an invaluable help for the project, incorporating his previously unreleased Rainbow shottype and modifying system codes which were too complex for my amateur self to comprehend.
東方幕華祭 春雪篇 ～ Fantastic Danmaku Festival Part II, released March 18 2019
I think basically nobody expected FDF to make an abrupt return some time in 2018 with the release of v1.04, which rebalanced almost the entire game and made it significantly more fair for lower difficulties. This was then quickly followed up by the sudden removal of the official v1.04 download link and the subsequent release of v1.05 on Steam (where it was being sold, and no longer a free product). I have some personal qualms with this, especially considering just how bad the English translation was, but I certainly didn't expect them to then announce the sequel to FDF was being developed.
FDF2 is without question the highest production value fangame released in 2019. Heck, this entire decade. Its graphics, effects, music and atmosphere are simply breathtaking, and while some will question the gameplay or the patterns, I find them to bring interesting and varied dodging throughout the course of the game.
This ended up being the first notable Touhou shmup fangame to be sold on Steam; for a niche genre and a niche market, it sold over ten thousand copies in two months. That's certainly nothing to sneeze at.
東方夢旧市 ～ Glory of Deep Skies, released March 29 2019
Team Alternative Ending ended up releasing after FDF2, which was certainly unfortunate timing. I'll admit that when the game first came out, I was incredibly critical of it. It was a three-stage game that you'd have to play through three times just to get to the hidden stage, and repeating the same first two stages over and over got really boring really quickly.
As time passed, though, (and after I made myself a 6-stage patch for the game), I can say with confidence that GoDS is a good game. While I find the earlygame to still be quite weak, all three Stage 3s and Stage 4 more than make up for it in every aspect. Even the system, which I didn't like much at first, grew on me over time. It's still not ideal, but it's something worth playing for sure.
Being blunt here, I consider this game to be the first worthy western fangame released. No offense to Team Dreamcatcher, considering TSS still had good gameplay, but with fangame projects, popularity will always stem from aesthetics.
东方雪莲华 ～ Abyss Soul Lotus Demo 2, released 1 May 2019
ASL had its first demo released in late 2018, so this doesn't really count. I just wanted to mention it. It is disappointing that the game didn't manage a 2019 release, but I wasn't expecting it to anyway.
東方鬼葬剣 ～ Infinite Blade Pavilion (demo), released 7 July 2019
IBP was released shortly after HSoB's Extra stage, which was unfortunately fairly unremarkable. IBP is supposedly not a Team Kaisendo project but has some of its members helping with the game. Len, the person behind the legendary 0.12m script Phantasmagoria Romance/Trues was the lead designer behind the game, and just from the demo alone, his design clearly shines through.
This game really highlighted something I never really considered previously. The FnC server was practically split in half over this demo. People who loved the arcade-style gameplay like Jaimers pronounced this the best fangame of the year, and there's certainly a lot of elements other fangames could learn from this, such as the unbelievably well-made Practice and Spell Practice modes. On the other hand, there were those like Popfan who absolutely despised the blind killer nature of such arcade-style gameplay.
Different people will naturally enjoy different kinds of gameplay in their games, but IBP really is a game that I must implore that people try more than just once. It quickly became infamous for being the most difficult fangame demo released yet, but there is much satisfaction and enjoyment to be had from conquering something so difficult after learning how best to abuse shottypes and how to dodge problematic boss patterns, which was made very easy thanks to the excellent Spell Practice mode.
東方実在相 ～ Dream Logical World (demo), released 14 July 2019
Shortly after IBP's release, another western fangame demo was released. DLW is unique for its heavy emphasis on plot elements and an insanely wide cast of characters, but...
...how do I put this...
When it comes to Touhou fangames, people cling on to their first impressions a lot, as much as I despise this trend. DLW comes across as a game that's honestly lethargic to start, and its gameplay system removes the typical safety net of bombs. In the Chinese community, the game was actually quite poorly received because of the unusual system.
Behind it, however, lies a game whose gameplay was designed with scoring play in mind, something quite unique for fangames, and so it was liked by high-level players who were convinced to try the demo (mostly from personal connections, if I'll be honest). It begs the question of whether this is a worthwhile tradeoff, because it really does alienate most players on their first attempts. This is a game that also needs effort to learn, but since the difficulty doesn't come from the ridiculous difficulty of the game itself (IBP), there's much less motivation to do so, and it doesn't make for a particularly flashy experience.
東方鬼形獣 ～ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature, released August 12 2019
August, for whatever reason, became a really busy time for the fangame scene, starting off with the release of Touhou 17. I don't have much to say about it, but it is encouraging to see ZUN finally show glimpses of the game design in terms of patterns that drew so many people into playing Touhou in the first place.
東方逆妙乱 ~ Ephemeral Unnatural Balance, released August 16 2019
東方龍隱談 ~ Touhou Chaos of Black Loong, released August 16 2019
This is where I have to say I really, really feel awful for Ephemeral Entertainment. They say they didn't even realize that another game would clash with them for release, but by then it was already much too late to change anything.
Both games were sold on Steam, EUB being a western fangame and CoBL/CoBD being Chinese one. I have to say that I was actually kind of disappointed by CoBD, but I want to talk more about EUB and why it failed.
If you didn't know, EUB's system revolves around a Balance gauge filled by collecting the new Balance items to activate Discord mode, which would make the game more difficult in exchange for gaining life pieces for surviving in Discord mode for long enough. This runs contrary to countless systems in many Touhou games which would only benefit the player from using it, which once again, means that effort needs to be put in to master the game.
Unfortunately, this style of gameplay is an immediate turn-off for some players. Even I must admit that I wasn't expecting this system to end well after hearing tales of how ridiculous it used to be during development. While the plot of power being reversed allowed for niche characters to be brought out, which is a talking point, the game still didn't sell. I believe this to be a multi-faceted issue that isn't necessarily a problem with the game being bad, but...
- If you're selling a fangame, then the first impressions people get are really important
- The most important element to the common Touhou fan is unquestionably the aesthetics, which was perfectly mediocre in EUB
- The gameplay system doesn't feel great from the start
- There's next to no real fame behind Ephemeral Entertainment, so unless people really pay attention to the fangame scene, they'd probably miss the game to begin with
I don't want to sound all doom and gloom for the future of western fangames selling on Steam, but the last point is probably the biggest one. FDF2 was hyped up a lot because it was a sudden release of a sequel to one of the most well-known Chinese fangames internationally. EUB had... a demo released at Redditaisai. Unless your game gets people talking a lot, I doubt people would be particularly willing to spend money on fangames which had, with the exception of danmaq, been free, there just isn't much draw for people to buy them.
东方梦无垠 ~ The Unreachable Oneireborder (demo), released 17 August 2019
Chinese fangame. I'll be honest, I haven't played this one yet. (sorry PiDove) Should really get around to it. From what I hear, it's weird as hell but still good.
東方宝天京 ～ Treasure Castle Labyrinth (demo), released 24 November 2019
The last release of 2019 was a surprising one. The beloved album TCL was getting a game adaptation as a collaboration project between western team DOGSDAY and Japanese team Reverie Promenade. Of course, the music is absolutely incredible, and because of TCL's fame the game got off to a very strong start. The gameplay's also pretty good, so I'm really hoping the full game lives up to the hype.
I'd also take this time to mention that Team Dreamcatcher is looking for people to help them create a game adaptation of another beloved album, Heavenly Gathering of Cloud. I wish them all the best and hope to see something come out of this effort.
=========================================================================
Well, I've rambled on for long enough. I've probably missed something, but this is all I can remember from this year. If things go as planned, we should still see a ton of full game releases in 2020, such as UotAR, SP, ASL etc. While we've definitely seen some fangames flop in 2019, I sincerely hope that this scene will continue to go strong for the next decade, and hopefully we can find the secret to making Touhou shmup fangames succeed on Steam so that people can actually make somewhat of a living off their incredibly work.