Touhou 12 - Unidentified Fantastic Object. I think it's like the Megaman's role of 2, every other game is good in this series, so we're overdue for a playable game. Then again Touhou 10 is only playable due to a bug (Marisa B's godslayer laser), so it looks like Touhou 12's playability also hinges on the overpowered character known as Sanae Kotiya type B. Sanae B has a standard straight shot and a spread shot option, except all her attacks do fully charged laser-level damage. Her bombs seem to have the longest invulnerability frame and you can basically take out an entire lifebar (the last boss has 5 lifebars) in one bomb if you just move on top of the boss while you're bomb sequence started so that all your spread shots hit the boss. It's sort of like playing Imperishable Night as either Yukari or Yuyuko and you think you suddenly become way better at the game, and then you go back to a normal powered characters and game over at stage 3 and realized it wasn't your skill after all.
Playing as Reimu would probably be an exercise in futilty, while Marisa is always reserved for those who are fond of pain. But at least it's not like some of the other Touhous where the entire game is an exercise in futility if you're not some kind of shooter god.
The regular stages are really hard compared to normal, but there are more bullet clearing mechanisms in TH12 so I guess it balances out. The game's character suffers from the Suikoden True Rune syndrone. That is, if you only have X super powerful powers of the world and the first 2 games already claimed all the awesome ones, the sequel ends up having increasing gimp powers as True Runes and same applies to Touhou where there is not a single character in TH12 that seems to have a worthwhile power. In some sense the Touhou series really parallel Suikoden. By TH10 you had major villians that have to settle for tangible elements (earth/water) over intangible concepts (destiny/destruction/death/life/eternity). By TH12 they don't even have the basic elements left to distribute. It might just be talk but there's something different in an earlier Touhou game when you get to a boss and they'd be like: "You dare to challenge Death? (or whatever intangible concept they represent" and now it's like "You dare to challenge someone who can shoot lasers?"
Stage 1-3 is your typical easy stuff, though Kogasa (stage 2) will kill you quite a few times if you think you're better than you really are since one of her pattern requires a very conservative approach, and another should be bombed immediately. Stage 4 is suprisingly easy though it really helps if you have seen a replay before you fight Murasa since all her patterns involve either leading her shots a certain way or just staying close to her the whole time no matter how dangerous it looks. Stage 5 is pretty much like stage 2 on steroids. You'll lose like 5 lives thinking you can actually beat Syou without resorting to using bombs, so don't do that. The moment her invulnerabilty frame wears off, just use a bomb. She only has 3 lifebars anyway. I hate the entire stage 5 because it's just a bunch of memorization gimmicks from start to end but it doesn't look intimidating enough to make you go into bomb-mode so you're most likely to lose a lot more lives than you should.
And then of course, stage 6, the final stage, is where you're likely to use up all your lives. I think I got there with 7 lives (you start with 3) and ended up with 1. All of Hiziri's patterns are rather interesting, though you're probably more interested in trying to beat the game than figuring out what their trick is at that point so you have to do a bombs-away mode. From looking at replays it looks like you need 8 bombs to beat her so you better have at least 4 lives when you get to her, and you'd need more since her last lifebar is not bombable like all the final bosses. This is where the game's lack of (or rather removal of) boss attack mode really sucks, because you can clearly learn how to beat her patterns if you have enough practice, but when you get there with 3 lives left, you're not going to risk dying with 2 bombs up and just going to use them right away.
All in all this game is not bad, but it's probably only playable due to a sheer accident (SanaeB). Having a boss (Syou) that basically cannot be beaten by skill really sucks too. I don't think I've yet seen a replay where people didn't just bomb Syou the moment she showed up, and I think for the good players they actually used more bombs on Syou than Hiziri.
Playing as Reimu would probably be an exercise in futilty, while Marisa is always reserved for those who are fond of pain. But at least it's not like some of the other Touhous where the entire game is an exercise in futility if you're not some kind of shooter god.
The regular stages are really hard compared to normal, but there are more bullet clearing mechanisms in TH12 so I guess it balances out. The game's character suffers from the Suikoden True Rune syndrone. That is, if you only have X super powerful powers of the world and the first 2 games already claimed all the awesome ones, the sequel ends up having increasing gimp powers as True Runes and same applies to Touhou where there is not a single character in TH12 that seems to have a worthwhile power. In some sense the Touhou series really parallel Suikoden. By TH10 you had major villians that have to settle for tangible elements (earth/water) over intangible concepts (destiny/destruction/death/life/eternity). By TH12 they don't even have the basic elements left to distribute. It might just be talk but there's something different in an earlier Touhou game when you get to a boss and they'd be like: "You dare to challenge Death? (or whatever intangible concept they represent" and now it's like "You dare to challenge someone who can shoot lasers?"
Stage 1-3 is your typical easy stuff, though Kogasa (stage 2) will kill you quite a few times if you think you're better than you really are since one of her pattern requires a very conservative approach, and another should be bombed immediately. Stage 4 is suprisingly easy though it really helps if you have seen a replay before you fight Murasa since all her patterns involve either leading her shots a certain way or just staying close to her the whole time no matter how dangerous it looks. Stage 5 is pretty much like stage 2 on steroids. You'll lose like 5 lives thinking you can actually beat Syou without resorting to using bombs, so don't do that. The moment her invulnerabilty frame wears off, just use a bomb. She only has 3 lifebars anyway. I hate the entire stage 5 because it's just a bunch of memorization gimmicks from start to end but it doesn't look intimidating enough to make you go into bomb-mode so you're most likely to lose a lot more lives than you should.
And then of course, stage 6, the final stage, is where you're likely to use up all your lives. I think I got there with 7 lives (you start with 3) and ended up with 1. All of Hiziri's patterns are rather interesting, though you're probably more interested in trying to beat the game than figuring out what their trick is at that point so you have to do a bombs-away mode. From looking at replays it looks like you need 8 bombs to beat her so you better have at least 4 lives when you get to her, and you'd need more since her last lifebar is not bombable like all the final bosses. This is where the game's lack of (or rather removal of) boss attack mode really sucks, because you can clearly learn how to beat her patterns if you have enough practice, but when you get there with 3 lives left, you're not going to risk dying with 2 bombs up and just going to use them right away.
All in all this game is not bad, but it's probably only playable due to a sheer accident (SanaeB). Having a boss (Syou) that basically cannot be beaten by skill really sucks too. I don't think I've yet seen a replay where people didn't just bomb Syou the moment she showed up, and I think for the good players they actually used more bombs on Syou than Hiziri.
