Going through (almost) every Touhou game in release order #3 - Mystic Square

[Cosmic]

Well, here we are, the last of the PC-98 games! I really love this one.

In a way, Mystic Square, also known as "Shinki gets her home trashed by random strangers through no fault of her own", kind of feels like a culmination of everything the PC-98 games have been so far. It plays similarly to Lotus Land Story, which although I haven't played PoDD, I'm going to assume is the best of the previous PC-98 games gameplay-wise, and adds Mima and Yuuka as playable characters, each with their own distinct shot types and endings. Additionally, it's also a fair bit harder than LLS was - not as hard as most of the Windows games, mind you, but hard enough that my inclusion of the fact I managed to 1cc it as Mima on normal in this post is purely here for me to brag about being able to do that, as opposed to an attempt to demonstrate the game's lack of difficulty.

Anyway, onto the game's story. Basically, demons from Makai have opened up a kind of tourist agency and are flooding into Gensokyo in unprecedented numbers, prompting either Reimu, Marisa, Yuuka or Mima to head into Makai to try and sort the situation out. Structurally, it is very similar to SoEW and LLS' stories of "strange new world causes incident, main character go in new world to solve incident", but the added dimension of the Makai incident being caused by a tourist agency of all things as well as the expanded roster adding extra dimensions to the story still makes this my favorite of the PC-98 stories. As you might have guessed, this game's story also doesn't take itself too seriously, leading to, in my opinion, potentially the funniest game in the series. Reimu and Marisa's stories mostly take themselves seriously, but Mima and Yuuka's might as well be glorified shitposts, and I kind of love them for it.

Mima is just an absolute menace of a character who just wanders around Makai mercilessly bullying anyone she comes across, and when she's asked why she did all this by Shinki at the end of the game, she just says it was to "let off some steam" (thanks to this game I am now firmly a part of the "bring Mima back for Windows Touhou" crowd). The game also features a running joke where she'll consistently tell obvious lies and have them be followed by "(lie)" at the end of her sentences, which should not be as funny to me as it is, but oh well. Similarly, Yuuka is also mostly just here because getting to fight strong people sounds fun to her, and like Mima, is a pure demon with no regard for anyone's life but her own, with this game being where her infamous "genocide is just a game, after all" line comes from. Pretty much every encounter in Yuuka's story can be summarized as some unfortunate soul running into her, being either scared, confused or both by her intense bloodlust, and immediately getting curbstomped shortly after. My opinion that this game is one of the funniest in the series is largely carried by the fact that I find these types of characters really funny for some reason, so if you don't also find them funny then you probably won't enjoy a lot of this game's humor, but I still enjoy this game's writing a lot.

Humor aside, the game's also just filled with tons of really cool set pieces that do a great job at conveying the tone and feel of their particular areas through visuals and gameplay. Stage 2's whole flying stars effect does an excellent job at making you feel like you're flying through another world, and is perhaps the single most visually impressive thing in any PC-98 Touhou game, and the rapid onslaught of enemies in Stage 5 excellently conveys the feeling that this entire world has suddenly come together all at once in a single combined effort to stop you from getting any further, contrasting excellently with Stage 6 being mostly barren, being potentially the easiest stage in the game aside from the first and using a single unmoving background, as if at this point Shinki is just throwing whatever she has left at you to get you to just go away already, but by now, you've already burnt through all of her most powerful forces. Additionally, I also just... really like a lot of this game's characters. This technically marks Alice's first appearance in a Touhou game, although she's very different in both design and personality (honestly I think I prefer Windows Alice), but aside from her, Louise's interactions with the main cast are all just generally really funny for one reason or another, Yuki and Mai's whole dynamic is really interesting to me, and still in my opinion the most well-executed version of the "fighting two bosses at once" concept the Windows games would go on to try out a handful of times, and although she's far from the best character in the game, Yumeko is basically a trial version of Sakuya, which at least makes her somewhat interesting to me. Also, Shinki did nothing wrong and deserved better, justice for Shinki.

Moving on from the writing, I think it's worth noting that this is by far the most visually impressive of the PC-98 games, and it's clear that ZUN really wanted to push the engine to its limits with this game. The previously mentioned Stage 2 in particular has a really cool effect going on, and Alice's background in the extra stage is also particularly notable in this regard, but this added level of visual polish extends to most aspects of the game. Additionally, the soundtrack, like in LLS, still holds up excellently, and I'd put both games' soundtracks on a similar level of high regard, actually being more enjoyable to me than some Windows games (although I would rank this game very slightly higher than LLS). Grimoire of Alice is an overall great song, and potentially my favorite thing to come out of any PC-98 Touhou soundtrack, but it's far from the only banger this game has to offer, with End of the World ~ World's End, Legendary Illusion ~ Infinite Being, Crimson Maiden ~ Crimson Dead, and Last Judgement all being similarly excellent examples of why I believe this to be the best PC-98 Touhou game soundtrack overall. The Stage 3 theme is also another great one, perhaps my favorite in the game if we ignore Grimoire of Alice, although I have no idea why ZUN thought calling it "Romantic Children" was even close to a good idea.

Overall, Mystic Square is an excellent game that still holds up perfectly to this day, and a great way to cap off the PC-98 Touhou era. Additionally, although I'm still largely convinced the LLS lag issue I had was purely something on my end, it's worth noting that this game for some reason runs perfectly fine for me, as does everything else in this series. It's not particularly relevant to the rest of this post, but it did feel worth mentioning, so I tacked it on at the end here. Anyway, Mystic Square absolutely slaps, go play it right now if you haven't already.

[Eulogous]

Mystic Square is my favorite to play of the PC-98 games, though I slightly like the music more in LLS. Plastic Mind and Dream Express are the songs I like the most from the game, though.

11 hours ago, Cosmic said:

Yuki and Mai's whole dynamic is really interesting to me, and still in my opinion the most well-executed version of the "fighting two bosses at once" concept the Windows games would go on to try out a handful of times

This. Also, I generally like a lot of things the PC-98 games tried compared to what's standard in Windows nowadays.

 

[Cosmic]

8 hours ago, Eulogous said:

I generally like a lot of things the PC-98 games tried compared to what's standard in Windows nowadays.

 

Such as? I'm curious as to what specifically you like about them compared to the Windows games.

[Eulogous]

I have a few examples of what I like, but I'll start with enemy variety and how they're integrated into the stages. The PC-98 games just have overall better varied enemy visual designs over the Fairy, Phantom, and weird Yin-Yang enemy that come standard in just about every Windows game.

In LLS, you'd have enemies that only appear on their respective stage. Stage 2 has the enemies that rise from the lake, Stage 4 has both the doll-looking enemies that come out of the floor and the sawblade enemies that spawn behind the player offscreen with a telegraph and act as mini hazards. In SoEW's Stage 1, there are cannons that emerge from the water on the sides of the bridge, there are constant large projectiles coming from the top of the screen and it ends with a boss fight against Rika, showing that the projectiles were tank shells. Then you have stuff like Mystic Square's Stage 2 and the whole space theming it has going on, with chunks of debris to shoot and flaming comets to dodge.

Stuff like that goes a long way into making a stage memorable outside the music, and it makes a stage feel like an actual location instead of just a surreal/pretty background disconnected from reality. Closest thing I can think of in Windows that did that was MoF's Stage 4, with enemy shadows being shown in the waterfall and jumping out to attack, which was cool.

Next up are some bosses who have gimmicks outside of what flavor of bullet pattern they have. In SoEW, Mima has a lunging attack in the final fight where she tries to line up with the player and does a quick drop with her staff. LLS has Elly's survive phase pre-fight, which isn't amazing or hard but is something unique to her, as well as the boomerang scythe she throws periodically. Mystic Square has the Yuki and Mai fight you mentioned, which is the only fight in this series that has a definitive 2nd phase completely dependent on which of the two you beat first (closest thing in Windows are some of the duo fights later on in Violet Detector's scenes). 

Lastly, I prefer how Point Tiles are handled, as they give extends after enough are collected. I know that the first few Windows games carried it over to some extent, so I'll give those games that. I miss that system a lot, because it made collecting Point Tiles worth a damn besides just getting a higher score.

To me, the PC-98 games feel different enough between entries and stick with me more after playing them.

[Cosmic]

8 hours ago, Eulogous said:

Closest thing I can think of in Windows that did that was MoF's Stage 4, with enemy shadows being shown in the waterfall and jumping out to attack, which was cool.

EoSD Stage 4 had the weird book things, so there's that. Overall, you're right, though, enemy design variety is a nice thing to have, and the lack of it in Windows games does feel strange.

8 hours ago, Eulogous said:

Next up are some bosses who have gimmicks outside of what flavor of bullet pattern they have.

I do actually think some of the more gimmicky bullet patterns in Windows games go a long way to make their fights feel unique, though. Stuff like Seija reversing the screen in DDC, Kyouko reflecting her bullets off surfaces in TD or whatever Reisen had going on in IN all goes a long way to making those fights feel memorable to me, and there's a few more examples I could choose from. I do kind of wish the Windows games did that kind of thing more, though, it always feels really fun whenever it does happen.

8 hours ago, Eulogous said:

Lastly, I prefer how Point Tiles are handled, as they give extends after enough are collected. I know that the first few Windows games carried it over to some extent, so I'll give those games that. I miss that system a lot, because it made collecting Point Tiles worth a damn besides just getting a higher score.

This is fair too, methods of getting extra lives in Windows games can vary on if they're any good or not, and I agree that point tiles are one of the better ways to go about it. I do like the way UFO does it, though, that felt really fun and interesting to me.

[Eulogous]

28 minutes ago, Cosmic said:

I do like the way UFO does it, though, that felt really fun and interesting to me.

Same, and I also like how DDC handles Bomb/Life Pieces with the Point of Collection.

33 minutes ago, Cosmic said:

I do actually think some of the more gimmicky bullet patterns in Windows games go a long way to make their fights feel unique, though. Stuff like Seija reversing the screen in DDC, Kyouko reflecting her bullets off surfaces in TD or whatever Reisen had going on in IN all goes a long way to making those fights feel memorable to me, and there's a few more examples I could choose from.

That's fair. Of that group, Kyouko stands out to me more as something I wanna see more of, since her ability directly interacts with her own bullets. Heck, I kinda wish there was a pattern like some of her ISC ones in TD, creating a barrier on the player where they have to approach the bullets in a slightly different way.

I enjoy the Windows games, though after a while of playing and replaying them I start to notice how same-y they can feel at times. I can appreciate the small changes and gimmicks between main numbered entries, but I need something more substantial every once in a while. Honestly I wish there'd be a new mainline game that goes full in on a unique mechanic like GFW or ISC.

[Pepi]

I haven't played enough LLS to compare it with MS, but this game is impressive! 

The music is glorious for being made with FM Synthesis. Alice in Wonderland, Dream Express, Dimension of Reverie, Doll of Misery and The Grimoire of Alice all blow my mind (and there isn't one song I don't like and accomplishing that is impressive)
Stage design, Character design, Difficulty, Dialogues are ones of my favorites in the saga. 

 

23 hours ago, Eulogous said:

Mystic Square has the Yuki and Mai fight you mentioned, which is the only fight in this series that has a definitive 2nd phase completely dependent on which of the two you beat first (closest thing in Windows are some of the duo fights later on in Violet Detector's scenes). 

 

Not only it's the best multiple enemies fight, Yuki and Mai also move around like crazy, making it so that even if you are pointing for one of them, there's a chance the other one will get the fight. 
In future fights that do the multiple enemies concept, their movements are predictable and attacks don't change if you focus on one enemy (aside PCB's Stage 4) 

Mystic Square just does things well, it doesn't try to reinvent the wheel with gameplay gimmicks (that can make you either love or hate a game) and it's waaay more polished than EoSD (that also focuses on "just bullet hell").