Is Touhou Gouyoku Ibun Hot Garbage? (kinda clickbait)

[buskerdog]

Ok, so let me first preface this with saying that the title of this topic is meant as a joke. I just want to have a serious conversation about what people thought of the quality of Gouyoku Ibun.

Now, with that being said...

Yeah. I have a lot of problems with Gouyoku Ibun.

Warning: Massive text wall ahead. I spent a lot of time writing this, and have done my best to edit it down to make it more readable and concise. This was originally a more freeform conversation type text, but I have decided to organise by section instead. Also, spoilers for some playable characters. Just saying.

Spoiler

Introduction

To begin: it is no secret that Touhou 17.5: Gouyoku Ibun went through a development hell. The game got delayed... a lot. This is its own can of worms to dissect, but for now I'm not writing about that. All I want to analyse is simply the end product of what Gouyoku Ibun is, and how it falls short of my expectations.

Despite my difficulties with the game, I did play through all of it. However looking back on the whole thing, I'd say this is the first Touhou game I've played where I can truly say I was disappointed with it. It just falls short in terms of quality in so many places, and that's especially disappointing when Tasofro's fighting games have generally offered some of my favourite experiences in Touhou and are held in high regard by me.

Visuals

So... let's start getting into the specifics. I'll begin with the art. The artstyle is very bold and different to what has been seen in Tasofro games before, and I'd say that the artistic direction was pretty damn good. Where it falls short is animation quality. The Tasofro fighting games have incredibly well animated characters, each with dozens of moves that all look just as smooth as each other, and with time things only got better, by the time Hopeless Masquerade came out and Tasofro redid all the sprites from scratch, things practically looked professional quality. Gouyoku Ibun, in contrast, has less characters than those games, each with fewer attacks/animation states than those games, and with a lower pixel count than those games, and somehow not only are the animations blatantly less detailed, but there are also cases of cutting corners - what I'm referring to in this case is the sonic-esque "ball/spinning state" that every character has. I wouldn't take issue with this animation if it were used well stylistically, but playing the game it becomes painfully obvious that it's used a "one size fits all" solution to anything that they either don't want to animate, don't know how to animate, or find too difficult to animate – you will see this constantly. Character idle animations are also barebones and painfully stiff compared to the previous fighting games.

Gameplay

Movement in this game is very awkward. This is likely due to an effort to give every character their own unique method of movement. Unfortunately, no one character has movement that feels especially intuitive to control - not at all helpful in a game that incorporates bullet hell elements. It feels like every character had their movement intentionally restricted so that it would be different to how another character moves. Now, I'm not bashing on the movement simply because it's not "normal". There is nothing wrong with having movement in your game that is constrained or goes against the expectations of your game's genre. In fact, there is a saying in game design: "limitations breed creativity". However, if you are going to do that, then you need to design your entire gameplay experience around your unique movement. Gouyoku Ibun does not do this – yes, you can get used to the weird movement, but even if you do, it’s still all too easy in this game to attempt avoiding one thing only to go careering into some other bullet.

The way you actually deal with bullets in this game involves no such words as "strategy", "skill", or "personal growth" – in most cases, the most effective strategies can be summarised as “spam” or "cheese". Dodging in this game pretty much entirely comes down to maintaining a continual graze state by chaining a dash into an attack, and then another attack, etc. since in Gouyoku Ibun, your attacks provide full graze frames as well as your dash, making you invulnerable to bullets. And the thing is, you have to do it this way, because not only is your dash alone probably too difficult to manoeuvre in order to get around bullets, but in later stages there tend to be bullets literally everywhere anyway, so you have no choice but to continually chain these two kinds of action together, making yourself invulnerable. This apparent design decision becomes a disaster once ungrazable attacks are thrown into the mix. When both kinds of attack are present, staying in control is very difficult, since you have to spam attacks and dashes to not get hit by the shower of regular bullets, but this can easily cause you to end up in contact with an ungrazable attack. And on top of all this, you also have to actually hit your enemy when their weak spot appears. Positioning yourself in the right place at the right time, both in terms of offence and defence, feels practically impossible in Goyouku Ibun. Sometimes, you are fortunate and have a character with a massive, spammable attack that is easy to hit. In other cases, you will be less fortunate. The bosses in the previous fighting games were very fun to fight and had difficult, but learnable patterns to overcome, but in Goyouku Ibun, you have no choice but to spam in order to maintain graze, and find whatever the most effective, repetitive way to throw out hitboxes is.

Oh, and by the way sometimes ungrazable attacks aren't even telegraphed. Usually a special symbol appears warning you of an attack that can't be grazed, but sometimes... nope, you just get hit by something that's ungrazable for no clear reason.

The flawed design truly culminates in the true final boss, especially with her last spell card. I used to have several paragraphs written about this, but since it turned more into a rant that just reiterates the points I already made, I cut it. But the TLDR is basically: the last attack is extremely long, has lots of ungrazable attacks where the hitbox doesn’t even seem to line up with the graphic, and ultimately, avoiding damage for the whole thing multiple times in a row is difficult enough to be considered impossible, which makes it more effective to beat the attack by finding a way to bombard her with as much damage in as short a time as possible, rather than actually waiting for the weak points.

The reason I still bring up this section I cut about the last boss is because it makes me very sad, comparing to other Tasofro final bosses, which have been incredible. In particular I think about Tenshi's last spellcard from SWR. It really kicked my butt the first time, but with good positioning and timing, I slowly learned that avoiding it and counterattacking was entirely doable and not even that difficult once you got the hang of the strategy. But honestly, all other finales in Tasofro games have been fantastic.

Story

The story was... OK, I guess. However it did not feel nearly as impactful as the stories of the previous fighting games, which have had some really cool plots. The worse presentation/gameplay experience is not helping at all in this regard, since I did think that the reveal of the true final boss was actually really cool... before I had to play it, that is.

There is something else I need to bring up, and that is the characters. The casts for the Tasofro fighting games have typically served an actually quite important function: to take characters that were introduced in the past few games, and continue to establish their personality and stories. Sure, occasionally they bring back older characters as well, like Mokou and Reisen in AoCF, which is also good, but shining more light on recently introduced characters has been a great strength of the Tasofro games in my opinion.

The cast for Gouyoku Ibun is… weird. It only features 2 characters that come from 16 and 17, and neither of them are playable, which defeats much of the purpose of having them in. I absolutely loved seeing Kutaka show up, but we don’t get to spend enough time with her for it to really mean anything. There is one playable character that I did thoroughly enjoyed seeing in the game though – or more accurately, a pair of characters. Jo’on and Shion are returning characters from the previous Tasofro Game, 15.5: Antinomy of Common Flowers, and not only are their self-centered personalities incredibly entertaining in the game’s setting, but having them included is great because it shows us what they’re up to and what their ambitions are, now that their scheme from the game they originated from has been foiled. The rest of the cast is OK, but I didn’t feel like I was learning anything new about them; it’s really lacking those newer characters. And then I need to talk about Flandre… why is she in this game? She effectively gets employed as artillery to be used against the final boss, because no one else can destroy her (for some reason) but honestly, it more feels like Flandre was included as a fanservice thing, since she’s a fan favourite character who has never reappeared since her origin game. Sounds like it should be a big deal, but given the overall quality of the game, it really fails at that, and now they’re not going to get a second chance. Mechanically, Flandre is intentionally overpowered. This is because she has to fight more bosses than every other character. I don’t have a problem with this design choice, but it does feel to me like they’re trying to push the whole “LOOK! IT’S FLAN! REMEMBER HER?” thing wayyyy too hard.

End

The overall impression I get from Gouyoku Ibun is that I feel like I’m playing a fangame. And honestly that’s pretty brutal when you consider that there are many Touhou fan games out there which don’t feel like fan games when you play them. The overall quality of Touhou 17.5 just doesn’t cut it compared to any of Tasofro’s past work.

But anyway, what were your experiences with Touhou 17.5? I’ve spent way too long writing about something I don’t like… hopefully it will be worth it and I get some interesting responses.

[Tenkko]

well. i watched the whole thing but only played a little bit myself and kept thinking "man this game is very mashy". also the visuals look weirdly crisp to me.

spoilers(?)

Spoiler

think most agree flan came out of nowhere, but wasn't the reason everyone else fails because final boss just, eats their attacks or something? idk i was under the impression that it was justified somehow. i mean ultimately this is a game about okina. and commentary. and yeah it's kinda eh.

oh also i remember there being a greyed out option on the character select, was that ever addressed? i haven't kept up with updates.

[CountVonNumenor]

Honestly, I really did not play the game until now. At most, I have only sen some play-throughs. However, if there is something I like, that would be a part of the songs used for soundtrack. The new remix for the Yorigami sisters and basically all the songs in the Yuuma stage are spot on. I really love Depths of the Earth, Ocean of Avarice, as well as the first of Yuuma's themes - that one really sounds like a ZUN song that would fit quite well into WBaWC.

As for the rest of the game, I really do not know what else to say in lack of proper experience with it.

[buskerdog]

Despite all my grievances with Gouyoku Ibun, the soundtrack does of course absolutely slap... you didn't need me to tell you that, though.

[CountVonNumenor]

 

55 minutes ago, buskerdog said:

you didn't need me to tell you that, though

True. I just don't have what to really add about the topic, as again, I did not actually play the game

[LorWkey]

Well, I'm a big fan of Tasofro's works, but reading what you've said; I gotta say that I should have noticed these things earlier. I didn't play the full game  since I'm very clumsy and skill-less for these type of games; but I watched gameplays of the parts that I couldn't touch, so I will proceed to compare by points what you said with my thoughts.

1) Visuals

>"the artistic direction was pretty damn good."
Nothing to say. The artworks and designs are just . They have that waterish-ink borderline that gives a great style that combines with the game gameplay; specially for those characters that we've got used to see in ZUN art-style such as Murasa or Flandre.

>"not only are the animations blatantly less detailed, but there are also cases of cutting corners (ball state). Character idle animations"
In my experience, when I was playing the game, I didn't pay too much attention to the sprites and animations; they just looked fine and cool for me, because I loved that chibi sprite style since the very beginning of the first versions of the game.
But now that you said so and I took a look at gameplays carefully; you're totally right. The chaos when you play the game (with so many bullets to graze and such) made me not to notice it properly, but I completely agree that the spin-animation for everything gives an horrendous look (even more in the case of Flandre with the crystal-spikes of her wings); specially when the character has to jump upwards-it gives a vibe that the spinning ball is always facing to left or right; not up or down-.

Regarding to the idle animations, I get your point; some characters could have gotten more intense and exaggerated movements in their idle animations to emphasize the character treats, such as Flandre (sorry Flandre), her wings gives a rigid appearance. Other example is Shion and her hair, which could have been more similar to her 15.5 sprite. But, overall, I still like the animations and the sprites; yet they obviously show a kinda spiritless treat in some of the girlies animations.

2) Gameplay

>"Movement in this game is very awkward. no one character has movement that feels especially intuitive to control"
Exactly. I can totally tell you from my experience that the controls felt awkward and odd af. I started playing with Reimu, trying to understand her attacks; but I reached to a point where I was only spamming the buttons since it seemed the easiest way to win the battles instead of thinking what keys I should press. But then, I tried with Marisa, and her movement was different and I struggled so much with her attacks and speed.
The constant pressure and chaos of the bosses made me not to think what proper moves I had to do, just move around all the screen at my will without thinking.

>"The most effective strategies can be summarised as spam "
>"later stages there tend to be bullets literally everywhere anyway"
As I've just mentioned, I ended spamming the graze in the battles since everything was turning out to be quite chaotic-specifically in Yuugi and Kanako stages for me-. I literally didn't know where to move or what to do. Even if I enjoyed that chaotic aspect of the game, it's impossible to take when you reach higher levels. I even watched the gameplays of the final bosses-and GOTDAMN-how would I be supossed to avoid that??

>"The bosses in the previous fighting games were very fun to fight and had difficult, but learnable patterns to overcome"
>"The flawed design truly culminates in the true final boss"
I agree on this. In my case, I really liked the final bosses of Sanae vs Suwako or Cirno vs Goliath in 12.3 but in this game, many fights are a constant "What do I do?", which add to that the rage that I can feel when I don't reach at proper time to hit the boss when her barriers are broken and vulnerable...

In previous games, you had a part of the screen free to reach to and escape from the attack; but in this game, the majority of the time the screen is filled with bullets once and once again. I also have to add that I feel that the screen and the range of move on it is kind of... small? Or it's just me? Whatever, these two parts: chaos and little movement based on graze everything on your face, gives such a situation of no understanding what's going on in the screen and the pressure.

About the final boss, from what I've seen in gameplays; yeah... She appears to be a pain to surpass, specially in the final spellcard; as you pointed. I compared the final spellcard to 12.3's ones; where, at least, you had a timer where you just had to survive the final spellcard of the boss with careful moves.

3) Story

>"The story was... OK, I guess. However it did not feel nearly as impactful as the stories of the previous fighting games"

Well, the story gives up an interesting initial idea for going back to Hell, which also gives the base of how the mechanics are settled in the game. Comparing it to previous games, the stories have always been around a simple plot that makes them fight: The Festivals and the Mist of 7.5, The Weather Chaos of 10.5, The Gigant Being of 12.3... Which I think that it's the same case here: The Oil Pollution supposedly from Underground. 
I share that the impact of the previous games make them special: who didn't love fighting Tenshi above the Skies, Yukari in the middle of the Boundaries or Joon&Shion in the middle of a Concert? But I still loved things in 17.5 such as the Reactor stage or the Final Stage Background (leaving behind their actual battles on them), but I can say that they look very simple scenearios and contexts compared to a great Prismriver Concert or The Broken Moon; yet they work well and maybe we're just being kinda nostalgic for the old games.
>"The cast for Gouyoku Ibun is weird. "

The fact that is weird is what made me love it so much. When I saw all those random characters on it, I screamed of joy from such unexpected cast. But I share the point of putting on the game the most recent characters to give them more development and protagonism. But we also have cases such as 12.3 (yes, I love 12.3, it's my fav touhou game); where we literally got as protagonists Cirno, Sanae and Meiling; because yes?? I don't complain, tho xD.

Even so, I think we have to understand the plot: we're going to the underground, so that obviously involves Touhou 11 characters and Kanako. Yet, if we follow this statement (and imo), they should have added other characters that could have added an interesting conflict, like Shikieiki or Saki and Yachie-Wouldn't it have been cool that Saki, Yachie and Toutetsu had fought for the oil?- Anyways, I agree that the newest characters that they were actually added should have gotten more attention and playability.
>Flandre… why is she in this game?" 

Well, we don't know the actual reasons; so the question will remain unanswered for us. Fanservice? Nostalgia? Marketing? Design? Who knows. But I bet more for the design and plot reasons. Besides that Flan has to fight more characters, so she's overpowered; Toutetsu was given an incredible ability of absorbing a n y t h i n g; which follows the path of Saki and Yachie of having overpowered abilities as well; they're chairwomen after all. 
So... We have an overpowered character, how can we defeat her? With another absurd overpowered ability, which is Flandre's. Flandre was the element that the story needed to give a ""reasonable"" ending to the game. Though, we can just see her as a Deux Ex Machina that the developers needed after not knowing what to do with such a Hell monster, hehe. At the end, I don't mind seeing her again after so much time; even if she's one of my least favourites characters in the franchise.

4) Conclusion

My experience on the game was fine. I liked it despite of difficulty and flaws. I didn't feel as I was playing a fangame, yet it reminded me of Tempest of the Heavens and Earth, which I also love. The game got many problems as we can deduce from the delays on the release, and it ended as a product that could have been done better; but... How much time would it have cost if it had already passed a lot of time? We gotta be glad that we finally got the game, and just hope that the next Tasofro game comes stronger!

[Gou the frog]

30 minutes ago, LordgyMer said:

Well, I'm a big fan of Tasofro's works, but reading what you've said; I gotta say that I should have noticed these things earlier. I didn't play the full game  since I'm very clumsy and skill-less for these type of games; but I watched gameplays of the parts that I couldn't touch, so I will proceed to compare by points what you said with my thoughts.

1) Visuals

>"the artistic direction was pretty damn good."
Nothing to say. The artworks and designs are just . They have that waterish-ink borderline that gives a great style that combines with the game gameplay; specially for those characters that we've got used to see in ZUN art-style such as Murasa or Flandre.

>"not only are the animations blatantly less detailed, but there are also cases of cutting corners (ball state). Character idle animations"
In my experience, when I was playing the game, I didn't pay too much attention to the sprites and animations; they just looked fine and cool for me, because I loved that chibi sprite style since the very beginning of the first versions of the game.
But now that you said so and I took a look at gameplays carefully; you're totally right. The chaos when you play the game (with so many bullets to graze and such) made me not to notice it properly, but I completely agree that the spin-animation for everything gives an horrendous look (even more in the case of Flandre with the crystal-spikes of her wings); specially when the character has to jump upwards-it gives a vibe that the spinning ball is always facing to left or right; not up or down-.

Regarding to the idle animations, I get your point; some characters could have gotten more intense and exaggerated movements in their idle animations to emphasize the character treats, such as Flandre (sorry Flandre), her wings gives a rigid appearance. Other example is Shion and her hair, which could have been more similar to her 15.5 sprite. But, overall, I still like the animations and the sprites; yet they obviously show a kinda spiritless treat in some of the girlies animations.

2) Gameplay

>"Movement in this game is very awkward. no one character has movement that feels especially intuitive to control"
Exactly. I can totally tell you from my experience that the controls felt awkward and odd af. I started playing with Reimu, trying to understand her attacks; but I reached to a point where I was only spamming the buttons since it seemed the easiest way to win the battles instead of thinking what keys I should press. But then, I tried with Marisa, and her movement was different and I struggled so much with her attacks and speed.
The constant pressure and chaos of the bosses made me not to think what proper moves I had to do, just move around all the screen at my will without thinking.

>"The most effective strategies can be summarised as spam "
>"later stages there tend to be bullets literally everywhere anyway"
As I've just mentioned, I ended spamming the graze in the battles since everything was turning out to be quite chaotic-specifically in Yuugi and Kanako stages for me-. I literally didn't know where to move or what to do. Even if I enjoyed that chaotic aspect of the game, it's impossible to take when you reach higher levels. I even watched the gameplays of the final bosses-and GOTDAMN-how would I be supossed to avoid that??

>"The bosses in the previous fighting games were very fun to fight and had difficult, but learnable patterns to overcome"
>"The flawed design truly culminates in the true final boss"
I agree on this. In my case, I really liked the final bosses of Sanae vs Suwako or Cirno vs Goliath in 12.3 but in this game, many fights are a constant "What do I do?", which add to that the rage that I can feel when I don't reach at proper time to hit the boss when her barriers are broken and vulnerable...

In previous games, you had a part of the screen free to reach to and escape from the attack; but in this game, the majority of the time the screen is filled with bullets once and once again. I also have to add that I feel that the screen and the range of move on it is kind of... small? Or it's just me? Whatever, these two parts: chaos and little movement based on graze everything on your face, gives such a situation of no understanding what's going on in the screen and the pressure.

About the final boss, from what I've seen in gameplays; yeah... She appears to be a pain to surpass, specially in the final spellcard; as you pointed. I compared the final spellcard to 12.3's ones; where, at least, you had a timer where you just had to survive the final spellcard of the boss with careful moves.

3) Story

>"The story was... OK, I guess. However it did not feel nearly as impactful as the stories of the previous fighting games"

Well, the story gives up an interesting initial idea for going back to Hell, which also gives the base of how the mechanics are settled in the game. Comparing it to previous games, the stories have always been around a simple plot that makes them fight: The Festivals and the Mist of 7.5, The Weather Chaos of 10.5, The Gigant Being of 12.3... Which I think that it's the same case here: The Oil Pollution supposedly from Underground. 
I share that the impact of the previous games make them special: who didn't love fighting Tenshi above the Skies, Yukari in the middle of the Boundaries or Joon&Shion in the middle of a Concert? But I still loved things in 17.5 such as the Reactor stage or the Final Stage Background (leaving behind their actual battles on them), but I can say that they look very simple scenearios and contexts compared to a great Prismriver Concert or The Broken Moon; yet they work well and maybe we're just being kinda nostalgic for the old games.
>"The cast for Gouyoku Ibun is weird. "

The fact that is weird is what made me love it so much. When I saw all those random characters on it, I screamed of joy from such unexpected cast. But I share the point of putting on the game the most recent characters to give them more development and protagonism. But we also have cases such as 12.3 (yes, I love 12.3, it's my fav touhou game); where we literally got as protagonists Cirno, Sanae and Meiling; because yes?? I don't complain, tho xD.

Even so, I think we have to understand the plot: we're going to the underground, so that obviously involves Touhou 11 characters and Kanako. Yet, if we follow this statement (and imo), they should have added other characters that could have added an interesting conflict, like Shikieiki or Saki and Yachie-Wouldn't it have been cool that Saki, Yachie and Toutetsu had fought for the oil?- Anyways, I agree that the newest characters that they were actually added should have gotten more attention and playability.
>Flandre… why is she in this game?" 

Well, we don't know the actual reasons; so the question will remain unanswered for us. Fanservice? Nostalgia? Marketing? Design? Who knows. But I bet more for the design and plot reasons. Besides that Flan has to fight more characters, so she's overpowered; Toutetsu was given an incredible ability of absorbing a n y t h i n g; which follows the path of Saki and Yachie of having overpowered abilities as well; they're chairwomen after all. 
So... We have an overpowered character, how can we defeat her? With another absurd overpowered ability, which is Flandre's. Flandre was the element that the story needed to give a ""reasonable"" ending to the game. Though, we can just see her as a Deux Ex Machina that the developers needed after not knowing what to do with such a Hell monster, hehe. At the end, I don't mind seeing her again after so much time; even if she's one of my least favourites characters in the franchise.

4) Conclusion

My experience on the game was fine. I liked it despite of difficulty and flaws. I didn't feel as I was playing a fangame, yet it reminded me of Tempest of the Heavens and Earth, which I also love. The game got many problems as we can deduce from the delays on the release, and it ended as a product that could have been done better; but... How much time would it have cost if it had already passed a lot of time? We gotta be glad that we finally got the game, and just hope that the next Tasofro game comes stronger!

Very astonishing review, good sir. For me the game was a lot harder than your average 2d scrollers: it being touhou says it.

The combat was janky but I enjoyed it full heartily. Not pictured (getting a complete stop towards Utosho and Murasa) I have some good & bad moments of the game like yin & yang. The bad moments are pretty obvious: hitboxes, sluggish controls and overall chaos when trying to dash & attack at the same time. The goods are my favorite oni "Hoshiguma Yuugi" is here with a cool ass kimono and a new character "Yuuma Toutetsu" who became my instant favourite and having a fun time overall in 17.5. 

I am 100% with your conclusion here. 

[LorWkey]

9 minutes ago, Gou the frog said:

Very astonishing review, good sir. For me the game was a lot harder than your average 2d scrollers: it being touhou says it.

The combat was janky but I enjoyed it full heartily. Not pictured (getting a complete stop towards Utosho and Murasa) I have some good & bad moments of the game like yin & yang. The bad moments are pretty obvious: hitboxes, sluggish controls and overall chaos when trying to dash & attack at the same time. The goods are my favorite oni "Hoshiguma Yuugi" is here with a cool ass kimono and a new character "Yuuma Toutetsu" who became my instant favourite and having a fun time overall in 17.5. 

I am 100% with your conclusion here. 

Thank you, hehe. The game got its good points and its flaw moments, as we've talked about. But, yes!!! Yuugi looks wonderful with her kimono as well as Murasa with her Sailor-Captain looking and Yorigami Sisters with their Pure-White clothes... Toutetsu has became one of my fav characters; she feels so unique!