Touhou 10.5 - Scarlet Weather Rhapsody

Overview

Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (known as Touhou Hisouten in Japan) is the 10.5th game in the Touhou Project, released for the Windows OS in the 29th of April, 2008. Chronologically, it takes place between the events of Mountain of Faith and Subterranean Animism.

Much like Immaterial and Missing Power, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody was produced as a collaboration between ZUN and Twilight Frontier, and features many similar aspects. However, the implementation of the new weather system, a 20 card deck and flight create a great difference between both game's gameplay.

Plot

Summer has arrived in Gensokyo, only to bring a series of strange phenomena with it: the Forest of Magic experiences undue rain and hail; Hakugyokurou is covered in blankets of snow; the Scarlet Devil Mansion is wrapped in cloudy, dense haze, and the Hakurei Shrine has been levelled by an earthquake. Due to these occurrences, the protagonists set out to investigate and deal with the source in order to restore order to Gensokyo.

Eventually, it is discovered that the culprit behind these occurrences is the celestial, Tenshi Hinanai. Claiming that her new life in Heaven was boring and dull, she decided to use her power to control the earth, as well as the divine Sword of Scarlet Thought (Hisou Tsuguri), to cause a catastrophe in Gensokyo due to her jealousy of its residents, who experienced new things each day.

Gameplay

Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, much like Immaterial and Missing Power, is unique within the fighting genre due to its heavy slant towards projectiles.

Basic Moves

All characters have a set of standard moves, ranging from fast melee attacks to the use of projectiles. These moves have different properties depending on how long the key is held down for.

Most of the basic moves have different versions when performed in mid-air, and they also vary depending on the distance between the player and the opponent.

Special Moves

All characters also have a set of special moves unique to them. These moves vary greatly depending on the character.

Flight

Flight can only be performed whilst the character is airborne, and during the period of flight, the character will also be put into a graze state. However, flight comes at the cost of the player's spirit bar. In order to enter flight mode, the D key and a direction key must be held down at the same time, and this can be maintained until either the D key is let go or the spirit bar is drained completely.

Most characters can only enter flight mode twice at any one time before landing. However, this number is shared with the dash ability, meaning that these characters can only fly once and dash once before landing, unless the weather timer is on Wind, which allows for an additional dash or flight.

Bombs

Bombs are activated through the use of System Card, and are generally used when attempting to bomb out of a neutral state. When the bomb is activated, the player will be invincible during the first frame of the activation until the bomb actually hits. Bombs will not affect an opponent who is using a move with invincibility frames, which leads to the player being open to attack.

The bomb's range is actually rather short (about a character's width), as opposed to the flash released when they are activated, which tends to trick people into believing that that is it's range.

Border Escape

Border Escaping allows the player to get into a more advantageous position. In order to perform a Border Escape, the D key must be double tapped whilst holding a directional key, allowing the player to escape in that direction at the cost of a spirit orb.

Spirit

The Spirit is a limited resource which is used up whenever a character performs certain actions, such as:

• Using projectiles
• Using special moves and spell cards
• Blocking projectiles
• Blocking in the air
• Invoking autoguard
• Flying

Unlike in Immaterial and Missing Power, the spirit bar has 5 blue orbs rather than a single bar. Spirit normally regenerates over time once the character has not consumed any Spirit for around a second.

If a player performs a Border Escape or is guard crushed, one of the spirit orbs will turn red and become unusable until it restores itself. The more spirit orbs that are crushed, the less of the aforementioned actions can be performed

Spell Cards

Scarlet Weather Rhapsody allowed the player to assemble a deck of 20 Cards, which become available for use as damage is dealt and/or received. The player can select which Cards they wish to use in the Player Profile. To activate a card, the player must hit the B and C keys at the same time, and cards can also be switched between through pressing the A and B keys at the same time. Actions such as defeating an opponent will earn the player new cards.

There are three categories that cards can be classed as: System, Skill and Spell .

• System Cards: These allow the player to activate bombs, change the weather and other miscellaneous things.
• Skill Cards: These allow the player to upgrade special attacks in order for them to do more damage, and they also grant alternate special attacks. There are times when both of these effects happen at the same time.
• Spell Cards: These are the character's signature moves (such as Reimu's Fantasy Seal) which are put into effect as soon as the card is used. The more powerful a Spell Card is, the more card on hand that are required. For example, some Spell Cards can be used if that's the only one on hand, others may require at least three cards on hand, whist others may require a full hand to use. The player will be able to to tell if a certain card is available for use or not when the border of the card's picture glows.

Autoguard

Autoguard is activated whenever a character is in a valid blocking state on the ground, but happen to be blocking at the wrong level (e.g, if an attack that hits high is blocked using a crouching block, Autoguard will kick in and the character will block high), although this comes at the cost of some Spirit.

Grazing

When a dash or super jump is performed, a character can graze bullets (although not all of them can be grazed). When a bullet is grazed, the character will pass through it without recieving any damage, and in some cases, the bullet will be destroyed.

Characters

All of the characters (with the exception of Hong Meiling) from Immaterial and Missing Power make a return in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, whilst three pre-existing characters and two new characters were added.

Reimu Hakurei

The shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine. She plans on finding out the culprit behind the strange occurrences in order to make them pay for destroying the shrine.

Marisa Kirisame

A magician who lives in the Forest of Magic. She is troubled by the constant rain that has struck the forest, and so she wishes to go somewhere dry.

Sakuya Izayoi

The head maid at the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She notices a strange energy emitting from her body, and so she decides to search for the cause.

Patchouli Knowledge

An avid bookworm who resides at the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She notices the change in temperaments and decides to investigate due to no one else realising what was going on.

Alice Margatroid

A magician skilled in the art of puppetry who lives in the Forest of Magic. She is convinced that the strange occurrences in Gensokyo are signs that an earthquake is coming, and so she decides to investigate.

Youmu Konpaku

A swordswo$man who is the gardener at Hakugyokoru. She notices that the number of ghosts at Hakugyokoru is decreasing, and so she decides to investigate.

Remilia Scarlet

The mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Due to the constant rain, which is one of her weaknesses as a vampire, she becomes bored, and so she decides to order her maid Sakuya to bring in likely suspects behind the occurrences.

Aya Shameimaru

A tengu newspaper journalist who lives on Youkai Mountain. If she isn't searching for potential news stories based on the strange occurrences, she's busy trying to prevent people from entering the mountain.

Reisen Udongein Inaba

A moon rabbit who now lives in Eientei. She warns people of earthquakes whilst investigating their aftermath by order of her master, Eirin Yagokoro.

Komachi Onozuka

The shinigami who is in charge of ferrying the souls of the dead to the other side. As usual, she's slacking off and wandering around.

Yuyuko Saigyouji

The mistress of Hakugyokoru. Despite being one of the first to notice the change in temperaments, she does not wish to put an end to the occurrences as they allow her to enjoy a cool summer.

Yukari Yakumo

A youkai who overlooks the borders of Gensokyo. She is infuriated by Tenshi's plan to turn the Hakurei Shrine into celestial property, and so she decides to destroy it in order to keep it under Reimu's jurisdiction.

Suika Ibuki

The last remaining Oni on Gensokyo's surface. She noticed that the temperaments were being gathered and, thinking only of making things more fun, she heads up to Heaven in order to turn Tenshi's prank into a more serious matter.

Iku Nagae

The messenger of the Dragon Palace. Her job is to take notice of any signs that indicate that an earthquake may occur and warn the people.

Tenshi Hinanai

A celestial who entered Heaven through no will of her own. She is the main cause behind the strange occurrences all around Gensokyo due to her jealousy of the residents.

Weather

A timer is displayed at the top of the screen throughout each match, along with a weather. Once the timer reaches 100, the weather changes to the displayed weather at the time when the number is reached. When the player or opponent is knocked down, crystals begin to spawn and any of their projectiles turn into red crystals which are autocollected. Each of these crystals increases the timer by 0.5. If the weather manipulation card is used while the timer is under 50, it will change the weather from Clear to the currently displayed weather when the timer reaches 50.

Clear Sky

Associated Character: None

Color: Grey

Effects: No effects till timer reaches 100.

Sunny

Associated Character: Reimu

Color: White

Effects: Flight cost is halved, flight speed is increased, free border escapes.

Drizzle

Associated Character: Marisa

Color: Blue

Effects: Any damage dealt by a Spell Card is increased

Cloudy

Associated Character: Sakuya

Color: White

Effects: Decreases Spell Card cost by 1, increases rate at which spirit gauge is recovered.

Azure Sky

Associated Character: Youmu

Color: White

Effects: Allows special attacks to cancel into each other.

Hail

Associated Character: Alice

Color: Blue

Effects: Doubles the speed of spirit orb recovery, increases damage dealt by bullet-type specials.

Spring Haze

Associated Character: Patchouli

Color: White

Effects: Disables all normal melee attacks, although special moves with melee properties are not disabled. Spirit orbs refill without any delay after firing bullets or using special moves.

Heavy Fog

Associated Character: Remilia

Color: Red

Effects: Causes Vampirism. Melee damage inflicted will be partially transferred to the attackers life bar. Blocked melee damage also causes vampirism.

Snow

Associated Character: Yuyuko

Color: Blue

Effects: Blocking or being hit will drain the player's Spell Card gauge meter. If the meter for a slot is reduced past full the player will lose the currently selected/active card.

Sunshower

Associated Character: Yukari

Color: Red

Effects: Any melee attacks which have been blocked incorrectly will force an instant guard crush. Guard crushed orbs recover faster.

Sprinkle

Associated Character: Suika

Color: Blue

Effects: Causes all Skill Cards to be upgraded to level 4 for the duration of the weather.

Tempest

Associated Character: Aya

Color: Blue

Effects: The maximum number air dashes and flights allowed increases by one.

Mountain Vapor

Associated Character: Reisen

Color: White

Effects: Hides Spell Cards in your reserve (replacing the image with a "?").

River Mist

Associated Character: Komachi

Color: Blue

Effects: Forces the player and opponent to be at a set distance from each other. If too far apart. they will be pulled towards each other; if too close together, they will be repelled from each other.

Typhoon

Associated Character: Iku

Color: Blue

Effects: Characters gain super armor and will not flinch when hit, but they lose the ability to block

Aurora

Associated Character: Tenshi

Color: Red

Effects: Effect is based on a randomly selected weather.

Scarlet Weather Rhapsody

Associated Character: Tenshi (Story mode only)

Color:

Effects: None

Game Modes

Scarlet Weather Rhapsody features many game modes to choose from:

Story Mode

Story mode is the main mode for single player within Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. In story mode, the player selects a character , and then proceeds to fight between three and eight different opponents, depending on the character selected, in order to further advance the story. The characters fought depends on which character the player has chosen, and there is a fair bit of dialogue in between each fight

Arcade Mode

During arcade mode, the player will select a character and will then fight opponents in a semi-random order. Both the player and the opponent have two lives, and no continues are provided. No scores are recorded in arcade mode.

Vs Human

Vs Human allows two human players to fight against each other with one life each.

Vs Com

Vs Com is the same as vs Human, except the player fights against the AI instead of a human player.

Vs Network

Allows the player to fight with different players around the world.

Practice Mode

In practice mode, the player can test out various Spell Cards and strategies found in the game. During practice mode, the health bar will auto-heal.

Development

Much like in Immaterial and Missing Power, Twilight Frontier handled most of the game development. ZUN provided the storyline, new character designs, Spell Card names and three new music tracks whilst overseeing the development of the game.

A trial of the beta version of the game was first made publicly available during the fourth Reitaisai, which took place in 2007. Despite there being eight laptops set up for the game, it took over an hour of waiting in line for one to be able to play the game. On the 17th of August of the same year, a trial version went on sale at Comiket 72 for 100 Yen, and on the 29th of April, 2008, Twilight Frontier put up a free download for the new demo. The completed version of the game was released during the fifth Reitaisai on the 25th of May of the same year.

Merchandise

The game's soundtrack first went up for sale on the 16th of August, 2008, during Comiket 74, under the name "Zenjinrui no Tenrakuroku." Much like Immaterial and Missing Power, half of the songs on the soundtrack were remixes of previous Touhou music.

Twilight Frontier also created real life versions of the in-game Spell Cards, which were released on the 26th of April, 2009, during the COMIC1☆3 convention under the name "Hisouten Furoku ~WEATHER LIGHT~" Each deck contains 15 cards, one Spell Card for each character, which have all been designed by the artist of Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, alphes. These cards were created solely for collection purposes, as there is no card game associated with them.

Music

In Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, every stage has different music, with stages not related to the new character having music that is remixed from a certain stage or character's theme from previous Touhou games. The translated name of each theme is provided below the original version:

- Title Screen Theme

緋想天

Evening Sky

- Pre-battle Theme

日常坐臥

Usual Days

- Pre-battle Theme 2

甲論乙駁

Argue for and Against

- Pre-battle Theme 3

風光明媚

Beautiful Nature Sight

- Pre-battle Theme 4

以魚駆蠅

Swing a Fish to Drive Away Flies (Set a Fox to Keep Geese)

- Pre-battle Theme 5

放縦不羈

Free and Easy

- Pre-battle Theme 6

冷吟閑酔

Drunk as I Like

- Pre-battle Theme (Before facing Iku Nagae as a Boss)

雲外蒼天

Skies Beyond the Clouds

- Pre-battle Theme (Before facing Tenshi Hinanai as a Boss)

天衣無縫

Flawless Clothing of the Celestials

- Hakurei Shrine Theme (Reimu)

東方妖恋談

Mystic Oriental Love Consultation

- Ruined Hakurei Shrine Theme

地の色は黄色

The Ground's Color is Yellow

- Forest of Magic Theme (Marisa's House; Marisa)

星の器　～ Casket of Star

Vessel of Stars ~ Casket of Star

- Clock Tower of Scarlet Devil Mansion Theme (Sakuya)

フラワリングナイト

Flowering Night

- Forest of Magic Theme 2 (Alice's House; Alice)

ブクレシュティの人形師

The Doll Maker of Bucuresti

- Forest of Magic Theme 3

香る樹葉花

Fragrant Plants

- Great Library in Scarlet Devil Mansion Theme (Patchouli)

ラクトガール　～ 少女密室

Locked Girl ~ Girl's Secret Room

- Graveyard Standing a Big Tree Theme (Youmu)

広有射怪鳥事 ～ Till When？

Hiroari Shoots a Strange Bird ~ Till When?

- Lobby in Scarlet Devil Mansion Theme (Remilia)

亡き王女の為のセプテット

Septette for the Dead Princess

- Hakugyokurou Theme (Yuyuko)

幽雅に咲かせ、墨染の桜　～ Border of Life

Bloom nobly, cherry blossoms of Sumizome ~ Border of Life

- Forest of Magic Alternate Theme (Yukari)

夜が降りてくる

Night Falls ~ Evening Star

- Ruined Hakurei Shrine Alternate Theme (Suika)

砕月

Broken Moon

- Bamboo Forest Theme (Reisen's Theme)

狂気の瞳　～ Invisible Full Moon

Lunatic Eyes ~ Invisible Full Moon

- Youkai Mountain Theme

嘲りの遊戯

Ridiculous Game

- Youkai Mountain Alternate Theme (Aya)

風神少女

Wind God Girl

- Sanzu River Theme

踊る水飛沫

Dancing Water Spray

- Sanzu River Alternate Theme (Komachi)

彼岸帰航　～ Riverside View

Higan Retour ~ Riverside View

- Within the Clouds Theme (Iku's Theme)

黒い海に紅く　～ Legendary Fish

Crimson in the Black Sea ~ Legendary Fish

ZUN note:

This is a pretty old story, but I saw an oarfish mummy in an aquarium once.

I'd seen pictures before, but seeing it in person leaves a totally

different impact. It's a flat and unusually long fish.

It's hard to believe it's something from this world.

This is the theme song for that sort of Iku.

- Moutain Peak Theme (Tenshi's Theme)

有頂天変　～ Wonderful Heaven

Catastrophe in Bhava-agra ~ Wonderful Heaven

The key image is of a very willful and self-centered character.

She's as self-centered as Remilia is.

Heaven is really full of enlightened persons of character, but even

among them there are inferior ones like her.

Still, that gives her an almost human feel. Turning it around, you might

say she's an oasis within Heaven.

Not that this has anything to do with the song, really.

- Tenshi's Last Spell Theme

幼心地の有頂天

Bhava-agra As Seen Through a Child's Mind

I made "Catastrophe in Bhava-agra" to sound space-like in my own way.

Pipe organs are very space-like, aren't they?

- Ending Theme

暮色蒼然

Darkening Dusk

- Credits

東方緋想天

Oriental Evening Sky

Secrets & Unlockables

Scarlet Weather Rhapsody features a number of unlockables, however, there are not as many secrets as in previous Touhou games:

Alternate Character Colours

In order to switch to alternate character colours, the player must hold A whilst selecting the desired character.

Unlocking Characters in Story Mode

Certain characters must be used in order to unlock others' story modes:

Youmu Konpaku

Beat story mode using Reimu Hakurei.

Patchouli Knowledge

Beat story mode using Sakuya Izayoi and Reimu Hakurei.

Remilia Scarlet

Beat story mode using Sakuya Izayoi and Marisa Kirisame.

Yukari Yakumo

Beat story mode using Youmu Konpaku.

Komachi Onozuka

Beat story mode using Youmu Konpaku.

Reisen Udongein Inaba

Beat story mode using Alice Margatroid and Reimu Hakurei.

Yuyuko Saigyouji

Beat story mode using Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, Sakuya Izayoi and Patchouli Knowledge.

Aya Shameimaru

Beat story mode using Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, Sakuya Izayoi and Patchouli Knowledge.

Suika Ibuki

Beat story mode using Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, Sakuya Izayoi and Patchouli Knowledge.

Iku Nagae

Beat story mode using all characters other than Iku and Tenshi.

Tenshi Hinanai

Beat story mode using Iku Nagae.

Unlocking Tenshi and Iku for VS and Practice Modes

Beat story mode as any character.

Unlocking All Stages for VS and Practice Modes

Beat Tenshi Hinanai's story mode.