Well, it's Touhou time again. Touhou 8: Imperishable Night is a game that took me a while to really come around to loving, as it's not really the most accessible Touhou game out there. Briefly intended on being the final installment of the series, Touhou 8 instead almost feels like the franchise's Endgame, bringing together all the major characters from prior games, amping up the amount of content, and filling itself with a ton of mechanical complexities that require a few playthroughs to really get. Its ambition and distinct sense of style makes Imperishable Night one of the most strikingly memorable games in the series.
Like most Touhou games, Imperishable Night starts with a simple incident before gradually ballooning in stakes and scale as it goes on. The main premise is almost brilliant in its simplicity: The moon has been replaced by a fake. With a full moon festival on the horizon, not just Reimu and Marisa but the entire cast of the last two games partners up and races to bring the real moon back in time. The sheer concept of a fake moon is so silly and inventive, but what really elevates the game is that time aspect. Everything about Imperishable Night is built to convey this feeling of racing against time. The music is blisteringly fast-paced, the backgrounds whizz by faster than in most other Touhou games, and even the game's systems are built around saving as much time as possible until morning. And this is where Imperishable Night's gameplay really starts to get interesting.
From a control standpoint, Touhou 8 keeps most of the basics the same. You can move around, shoot, bomb, and focus, just as in every other Touhou game. The main gimmick, however, is the emphasis on time. See, unlike every other Touhou game and most shmups in general, there are no continues. Instead, there's a clock. The game starts at 11pm, and you have until 5am to beat the game. Time passes after you beat a stage, but how much time passes depends on how many Time Orbs you can collect through grazing, surviving spell cards, and killing enemies. If you pass the threshold for each stage, time only passes 30 minutes. If not, you lose an hour. Losing all your lives also makes time pass, so the better you do with collecting Time Orbs, the more "continues" you have. It's a weird system to get a grasp of without some sort of manual or guide, which is a totally valid criticism to lob at the game, but once you do understand it, you'll find that the Time Orb system is incredibly skill-based and rewarding, and thematically appropriate in how it structures the entire game around a race against time. The mechanic itself is brilliantly designed, and while I do really wish there was a bit more explanation of the countless weird scoring systems at play, it makes for a game with a super high skill ceiling akin to something like Battle Garegga.
Come on, I had to include this iconic quote (shame the new translation remove it)
The other major mechanic in Touhou 8 is the partner system. This is the only game in the series where you play as two characters at a time, one human and one youkai. Both characters have a different shot and you swap between them by holding down focus. From a gameplay standpoint, it's neat and does allow you to basically use two different weapons at once, but the partner system really shines when it comes to the story and dialogue. While most Touhou games keep the dialogue to your character and each boss, Imperishable Night is able to include banter between the two partners you choose to play as, and it's always a joy to read. It also helps that Touhou 8 has an impressive four pairings to pick from, leading to tons of fun and memorable character interactions.
As a matter of fact, another one of Touhou 8's strengths is just how much content and replayability it has to begin with. This is a pretty massive game by Touhou standards, not just including the requisite four difficulties, six stages, preset high scores, and extra stage, but also packing in four different campaigns, two different Stage 4 bosses depending on who you play as, a ton of different endings to get, and coolest of all, multiple final bosses. On every first playthrough, you have to fight Eirin, but after that, you get the chance to fight the other final boss, Kaguya, as long as you don't continue. And of course, there's also the brilliant Spell Practice Mode where you can practice and perfect your skills at individual spell cards, and even unlock brutally tough Last Word cards exclusive to this mode. Honestly, between the Time Orbs system, the game encouraging you to not continue, and the Spell Practice Mode, I think Touhou 8 is probably the best game if you want to learn how to pull off a 1cc run, which is funny considering all the flack I give it for not explaining its mechanics.
Man, and I haven't even talked about the level and boss design yet. It's amazing, definitely some of the best and most memorable in the series. As I said, Imperishable Night is an incredibly fast-paced and urgent game, and as a result, it's also very action-packed and filled with big and crazy setpieces, especially in the boss fight. There's a lot of memorable moments in Imperishable Night, from Mystia's tricky darkness fight, to Reisen's lunacy spell cards, to the number of brilliant music/stage syncs, to the more deliberate and puzzle-y final bosses, but I don't think anything really tops Stage 4, quite possibly my favorite non-extra stage in the franchise. Stage 4 features everything that makes Imperishable Night great. It's a blisteringly fast flight through a bamboo forest with urgent music and enemies zooming onto the frame, all culminating in a chill-inducing shot of the fake moon timed perfectly to the music. And the boss fight isn't just a dual boss against either Reimu or Marisa, a wonderful callback to Lotus Land Story on its own, but it's also interrupted halfway through by an honest to goodness chase sequence where the boss flies off and you pursue them at top speed, with the seemingly endless bamboo stalks whizzing by at unimaginable speeds for the series. It's a truly relentless shmup stage that absolutely ranks among the best in the genre, and kicks so much ass.
Oh, and did I not even talk about the new characters yet? Damn, this game had more to cover than I thought. Imperishable Night's new cast is overall pretty great, I particularly like Mystia Lorelei, especially when ZUN reveals she actually has multiple jobs. But what's really interesting about this game is just how intertwined much of the cast is, pretty much everyone from Stage 3 onwards. The central antagonist here are the ex-Lunarians who have made a home in Eientei, which include the literal princess Kaguya, the genius who gave Kaguya her immortality Eirin, and two moon rabbits named Reisen and Tewi who are refugees from a Lunar War. Meanwhile, there's also the extra boss, Mokou, an also immortal being who has an intense rivalry with Kaguya stemming from their shared past, and her friend and confidant Keine who doubles as guardian of the Human Village. There is so much fascinated lore packed into Touhou 8, and it's also wild to imagine just how much it introduces. The Human Village and the Lunarians in particular are massive parts of the franchise, and they started here. Soon after Touhou 8, we also got a multi-media project spanning two mangas and a book that really served to flesh out and delve deep into these characters specifically in ways that most other Touhou games never got. Kaguya and Mokou's rivalry is fascinating and complex, in a "can't live with each other, can't live without each other" sort of way. Reisen's trauma and PTSD from the Lunar War is a serious and compelling facet of her character. And Eirin's high intelligence leads to some incredibly engaging and fun mindgames whenever she's involved in a story. To sum it up, the Eientei gang make for fantastic additions to the franchise and it makes total sense that they're some of the series' most memorable, debated, and beloved characters.
I've touched on it quite a bit already since Touhou as a series is so intertwined with its visuals and music, but yeah, Imperishable Night's presentation is incredibly tight. Since the game takes place at night, Touhou 8's areas have a lot of interplay between light-and-dark, usually pitch black backgrounds lit up by a few super bright light sources like the moon or stars. There's also a really pleasing and distinct purple hue to everything that gives the game this unique sense of atmosphere, and the second half of the game pretty much looks consistently stunning the whole way through. Stage 6's space background in particular is up there with some of my favorites in the series, it's so pretty. And the music is easily some of the best in the franchise. I've already raved about it in my Touhou Music Reviews series, but Imperishable Night's heavy emphasis on piano and frantic vibe gives the soundtrack a cohesive feel, and the entire second half is comprised of tons of powerful, energetic, and brilliantly-composed tracks that rank among the best in the series. There are too many highlights to count, but if there were any I needed to single out, they'd be Voyage 1969, Reach For The Moon Immortal Smoke, Lunatic Eyes, Gensokyo Milennium, and my personal favorite, Retribution For The Eternal Night.
Shoot-em-ups are inherently pretty short experiences, so it says a lot about how much Imperishable Night offers that I was able to write so much about it. From its inventive stage and boss design, to its complex and rewarding scoring and continues system, to its stunning and thematically cohesive presentation, to its gargantuan amount of content, to the way its story balances a fun premise with entertaining character interactions and complex antagonists, Imperishable Night is easily one of the deepest, most intricate, and most artistic Touhou games ZUN has ever made. It's not a game I would recommend for newcomers despite its easy difficulty, but it is the game I would recommend if you really want to commit to delving into the rabbit hole that is the Touhou game.
No comments:
Post a Comment