The start of ZUN's third (and current) Touhou generation is often debated, but Double Dealing Character is often considered to be it. Musically, though, I tend to group DDC and its sequel Legacy Of Lunatic Kingdom in with Ten Desires since they all share similar techno musical styles, which as I repeatedly said in my previous review is a style I'm very fond of. DDC's soundtrack doesn't go full-on trance like Ten Desires did, but it keeps a lot of the instrumentation strives that game made while spreading itself into a variety of genres that it manages to execute pretty strongly across the board.
Mysterious Purification Rod
Hands down the best title theme and it's not even close. While the Theme Of Eastern Story motif is there, it's mostly kept to the background allowing for a beautifully calming original melody to take the forefront. With some of the best acoustic guitar in the franchise as well as a fare share of woodwinds and piano, everything adds up to a wonderfully serene and peaceful title theme that's easy to get sucked into.
5/5 Stars
Mist Lake
Taking place at Mist Lake, it's only natural that this game's first stage theme would evoke Lunate Elf, with its calming melody, serene flutes, and icey-sounding background chimes. However, this is still a first stage theme after all, so it's also suitably fast-paced with a badass guitar riff, some driving percussion, and one hell of a high note to cap it off.
4/5 Stars
Mermaid From The Uncharted Land
Time to get into the elephant of the room, Double Dealing Character's lead instrument is the electric guitar. For some, this is a bad thing since ZUN's guitars are usually at their best in the background, but personally, I think he's grown enough as a composer that in DDC's case, the guitars sound pretty good. Mermaid From The Uncharted Land may not have the best riff ZUN's ever made, but it's still a suitably intense first boss with a catchy melody and some fun percussion to it. It's nothing amazing, but nowhere near as bad as its reputation may have suggest.
3/5 Stars
Humans And Youkai Coming And Going Into The Canal
Now this is just straight-up a Ten Desires track in all the best ways, with its tense and fast-paced electronic beat and insanely catchy ZUNpet melody. It's such an elegant track too, especially with its smooth piano bits. Definitely one of my favorite Stage 2 themes.
5/5 Stars
Dullahan Under The Willows
ZUN tries yet another spooky boss theme and personally, I like this one quite a bit more than Rigid Paradise. The main beat is super groovy, the pace is consistently brisk and fun, the choirs and eerie synths create a fun spooky vibe, and the electric guitars are a bit better utilized than in Wakasagihime's theme.
4/5 Stars
Bamboo Forest Of The Full Moon
This is where DDC's soundtrack officially becomes properly stellar, with an honest-to-goodness throwback to Retribution Of The Eternal Night, one of my favorite tracks in the series. It has that same fast-paced and frantic feel, while lending its own unique flavor with its gritty energetic guitars, haunting synths, brisk piano interludes, godly choirs, and head-banging chorus. It's not quite as perfect as its inspiration but it comes dangerously close.
5/5 Stars
Lonesome Werewolf
The boss themes continue to improve with Kagerou's theme, which takes the spooky vibes and heavy guitars of Sekibanki's theme and adds on a fantastic and lovely ZUNpet chorus making it slightly better.
4/5 Stars
Magical Storm
Believe it or not, this is my least favorite of the Stage 4 themes, not because it's bad but because pretty much all of them are fantastic at worst and godly at best. Magical Storm goes for more of a muted, atmospheric, and heavy vibe with its tense synths, dramatic woodwinds, and at times sparse percussion. It does a stellar job at capturing the feel of a raging storm.
4/5 Stars
Illusionary Joururi
As a whole, Double Dealing Character is an incredibly dramatic soundtrack and Illusionary Joururi feels especially so, with its booming power chords, tense opening riff, several Theme Of Eastern Story reprisals, and holy crap that chorus. The chorus really makes this track, with a powerful and impactful melody and a top-notch piano/ZUNpet swap.
5/5 Stars
The Shining Needle Castle Sinking In The Air
And here it is, my favorite track in the entire franchise. Solar Sect Of Mystic Wisdom and Fall Of Fall came close but ultimately, I've settled on this one. It's got everything I want from a Touhou song. The ominous and spacey synth riff that opens the track immediately hooks you right before the brisk percussion starts to build towards the song's first big drop. The verse is a calm and melancholic synth riff paired with some piano and acoustic guitar for good measure, before building to its second drop, which kicks off a dramatic, solemn, and powerful ZUNpet chorus. The instruments sound perfect, the composition is complex and striking, and best of all, it fits its stage and character so well. The swaying off-kilter melody perfectly captures the stage's shifting gravity, and the melancholic tone and spacey synth leads create a sense of intense loneliness, perfect for Seija.
6/5 Stars
Reverse Ideology
Speaking of perfectly fitting Seija, Reverse Ideology might be the best a Touhou theme has fit its boss to date. It's chaotic, gritty, intense, and many of its melodies are flipped so it sounds impressively similar when played backwards. But even on its own merits, it's a banger of a boss theme, super hard-hitting, has some of the best electric guitar in the game, and a great ZUNpet chorus.
5/5 Stars
The Exaggerated Castle Keep
The Exaggerated Castle Keep started a bit of a trend where the sixth stage themes would start to act as lite versions of the final boss themes, so I can't quite say much about this track that I won't already say for Sukuna's theme. Still, it's nice and tense and does a good job at hyping you up for the final battle.
4/5 Stars
Kobito Of The Shining Needle - Little Princess
Kobito Of The Shining Needle might be the most shamelessly dramatic piece of Touhou music ZUN has ever made, and it's all the better for it. The main melody is powerful, intense, and just flat-out epic, and the instrumentation runs the gamut from tense synths, to gritty guitars, to brisk pianos, to haunting choirs (especially the choirs, love that part), to powerful ZUNpets. It fits Sukuna's last stand oddly well, and stands tall as one of the finest final boss themes in the franchise.
5/5 Stars
Thunderclouds Of Magical Power
Similarly to Sukuna's themes, this extra stage theme uses Raiko's leitmotif, but I'd argue in a much more creative way. Thunderclouds Of Magical Power blends the atmosphere of Magical Storm and the power of Primordial Beat together making for a theme I think is better than both of them. I love how fast-paced it gets too, from that breezy ZUNpet chorus to the energetic piano bridge to that powerful climax. Easily one of the best extra stage themes, in my opinion.
5/5 Stars
Primordial Beat - Pristine Beat
This is a fun extra boss theme, if for anything because of how unique it is to have a Touhou song almost entirely centered around percussion. You got heavy bass drums, snare drums, taiko drums, drumstick smacks, and one truly legendary drum solo to cap off the track. There is also a bit of piano and the strong main melody is done almost exclusively through ZUNpet, but the drums are the real focus here and make for one of the more inventive tracks in the series. Man, is the second half of the DDC OST pure bliss.
5/5 Stars
Magical Power Of The Mallet
The ending theme is a slower and sparser version of Sukuna's theme, and it works pretty well. It helps that Sukuna's leitmotif is godly regardless, but the usage of the spacey LoLK synth and the way the piano and percussion slowly layers on the track make for a truly haunting track with a vibe all its own.
4/5 Stars
Strange, Strange Instruments
And to end the soundtrack on a high note, how about a triumphant ZUNpet reprisal of Mysterious Purification Rod? I don't have much else to say other than it's fantastic, and incredibly satisfying to hear upon beating the game.
5/5 Stars
But if you think I raved a lot about the music, just wait until you hear what I have to say about the characters. As I've repeatedly said, DDC has my favorite story of any mainline Touhou game, and a decent part of that is because of how absolutely stellar its character roster is. They're all so colorful, varied, and memorable, it could very well be my favorite cast of any entry in the franchise.
Wakasagihime
The Grassroots Youkai Network is one of my favorite subgroups in Touhou. Just the concept of a bunch of classic monsters forming a communication network/friend group is both super cool and kinda wholesome, and I like the plot point that they're usually dolice but were made aggressive by the Miracle Mallet's power. Wakasagihime is my personal favorite of the trio though solely because after all this time, we finally get a mermaid character. And she's just as pretty, elegant, cute, and kind as you'd expect from a character of her species.
5/5 Stars
Sekibanki
Sekibanki is a bit of a fan favorite and yeah, I can kind of see it. A rokurokubi/headless youkai was pretty much inevitable, and the capelet that covers her neck is such a cool design choice. Sekibanki's cynical personality plays off the other Grassroots Youkai pretty well, there really isn't much not to like here. Also obligatory BANG BANG BANKI BANKI.
5/5 Stars
Kagerou Imaizumi
And once again, after all this time, we finally get a werewolf in Kagerou. While she's more well-known nowadays for Elon Musk falsely calling her a cat girl (a mistake I will never find absolutely hilarious), she is actually a pretty neat take on the werewolf concept. Where werewolfs are often associated with aggression and ferality, Kagerou is unique for instead being one of the calmest and chillest Touhou characters, even in her werewolf form. I'm sorry, I just love this trio so much.
5/5 Stars
Benben & Yatsuhashi Tsukumos
All things considered, the Tsukumos are technically just the Prismrivers again, though I personally actually like them a bit better. Their designs are more pleasing and I like the abstracted musical staffs they play, the fact that there's only two of them allows for a simple but effective hot and cool dynamic, and the whole Tsukumogami lore is pretty interesting.
4/5 Stars
Seija Kijin
It's only fitting that my favorite Touhou track belongs to my favorite Touhou character. Seija is endlessly fascinating, with so much to unpack about her. She's an amanojaku, meaning she's essentially an opposite day youkai. She hates things people like, and likes things people hate. Endless rebellious and counter-culture, and always trying to shake up the status quo, Seija is in-universe one of the most hated characters in the series. Hell, she spends all of DDC manipulating Sukuna into starting a rebellion and using her for her own means, that's borderline Seiga levels of cruel. Unlike Seiga though, Seija remains a very fun antagonist, with an awesomely edgy design, charismatic personality, and a penchant for plotting. She's also kind of an underdog, as her danmaku skills are relatively poor forcing her to cheat to stay alive, particularly in Impossible Spell Card where she flat-out becomes wanted for her actions. All that is already super fun, but I haven't even gotten to the truly interesting aspects of her character yet.
The moment that really solidifed Seija as my favorite character was the final moment of ISC, after Seija had lost all of her allies, with even Sukuna finally confronting her for all of the manipulation. Seija is alone, and yet the ending text says "You don't need to be sad. Amanojaku can never really make friends anyway." That one line changed everything because despite its insistence that I didn't have to, I did felt bad for Seija. I felt bad that because of her nature that she can't control, she has no idea what she's missing. Seija is fated to spend the rest of her life alone, neglected, hated, pushing everyone away because she's an amanojaku and that's what happens to them, right? But what's even more interesting is that that might not even be the case, because Who's Who reveals that over time, Seija has grown genuinely fond of Sukuna, and they even properly reunite in Grimoire Of Usami. Sukuna had an actual influence on Seija, even if was a small one. And that's why Seija is my favorite character. She's already a fun-as-hell villain with a cool design, badass personality, and creative gimmick, but it's the themes of loneliness, the complexities of an amanojaku's nature, the questions of how much of an influence one can have on another, and the underlying story of someone so misanthropic finding someone she genuinely enjoys spending time with, even if it's against her nature, that make her especially fascinating.
6/5 Stars
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna
Of course, I can't write two paragraphs about how cool I think Seija is without also praising the hell out of Sukuna too. Similarly to with the grassroots network, getting an inchling was a long time coming and the decision to make someone so small the final boss was a pretty bold move on ZUN's part. It works pretty well, though, because she is quite the complex character as well. Sukuna is a super pure and innocent character, a perfect foil for Seija. It makes her manipulation in DDC all the more tragic, her subsequent confrontation with Seija in ISC all the more impactful, and the fact that she somehow managed to get Seija to actually care for someone all the more heartwarming and impressive. But even outside of that dynamic, Sukuna is a bit of an interesting wild card. For the most part, she's a perfectly nice girl who's even super friendly with Reimu, but if an opportunity comes to gain some extra height or show off how powerful she can be, Sukuna goes into full ambitious schemer mode (that being all of Grimoire Of Usami) which is always a blast to watch.
5/5 Stars
Raiko Horikawa
Raiko is such a fun character, everything about her character exudes fun. Her boss fight is fun, her theme song is fun, her laid-back and carefree personality is fun, the sheer concept of a taiko drum-turned human is fun, and her iconic androgynous design is very cool. Between her and Choujuu Gigaku, I guess I'm just really partial to the musicians of the series. Also, am I the only one who finds it funny that Raiko ended up joining in a band with the Prismrivers rather than the Tsukumos from her own game. Talk about a betrayal.
5/5 Stars
No comments:
Post a Comment