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Do Touhou and gacha work together? (2022 - Touhou LostWord, Danmaku Kagura - closed/going to be revived, Arcadia Record)


CountVonNumenor

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News roundup. Finally something to talk about this week...

 

News and updates

In the following hours, we are going to get another maintenance. This time, things that will actually make people pay attention.

- new event: Capsule Crazy Gensokyo
- banne coming with it contains Seija, Raiko and Sumireko (2 gen units everyone was looking for)
- another banner: retro MoF Nitori  just another attempt at selling a reskin to compensate for the fuckup with the original Nitori 

 

Meanwhile, JP is getting more new units

- time to fully milk EoSD with Daiyousei alt and Koakuma; what I appreciate is that they went with the battle sprite for them

- and speaking of Koakuma, there is also her version from the Hifuu universe


 

Community discussion and memes

Surprisingly, there has been nothing relevant going on this week besides having us play Human Phantom Maid for the third time, so I really can't write about any interesting discussion.

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Sumireko appeared for me, so I'm glad to finally try her out in other modes! I was also thinking about using my exchange ema for Raiko or Wakasagihime whenever she arrives. 

On 9/15/2022 at 10:23 PM, CountVonNumenor said:

Meanwhile, JP is getting more new units

- time to fully milk EoSD with Daiyousei alt and Koakuma; what I appreciate is that they went with the battle sprite for them.

I think Eosd Daiyousei and Koakuma look cute and since this is their classic versions, I don't seeing them at all. I wonder which game they will stop at for making these variations. Personally, I think the characters up to Ten Desires is enough, but they'll probably work on this for everyone.

On a separate note, will you guys be voting in the annual popularity poll this time?

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8 minutes ago, Isaac said:

On a separate note, will you guys be voting in the annual popularity poll this time?

I wanted to, but for some reason, my votes won't send. I tried contacting the team but alas, the send button won't work there either.

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Number 1 Alice, Meiling and Youmu fan! jaooooooooo

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Time to come up with yet another update. Get ready for the news roundup (with a copious amount of spicy towards the end)

 

News and updates

JP version of Scarlet Devil Tower is receiving yet another alt... I mean retro character. And not just anyone, but Sunny Milk Maid. For some reason, she is branded as an A6 character (even after exhausting the EoSD cast, you can still find way to milk it). I do not even understand how she is a retro - have we ever seen Sunny in maid outfit in canon? Also, wouldn't she be either an A10/11 (as for the debut of the Three Fairies) or even an A12.8 character? Nonetheless, she is the latest JP banner, at the same time as Momoyo. 

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Community discussion and memes

With the current event uphold, there have been numerous memes spawning out of the meta/self-aware tone of the story. Here are some of the ones that caught my attention:

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"It's Morby time!"

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New character in LW?
 

Meanwhile, someone has figured out the only reasonable way of how to win for good at this game...

...while others are looking for the recipe of success though new units...

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...and others just found a new way to keep themselves even with that tiniest bit of happiness they still have.


Out of context meme format

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Before dropping the final, spicy bit, I have one question for everyone around:

  • Spoiler
    • Same thing that made me install it, 2hus and cute girls doing cute things.
    • It's Touhou and I'm a sucker for waifu PNGs
    • I find the writing charming and I generally like the art. They definitely went overboard trying to increase "sexiness" on several occasions, but it's whatever.
    • Story. That's also counting in the limited time events and other, smaller activities that unveil the story further... yes, even upgrading story cards you get through the gacha.
    • The main story lol. I wanna find out what happens
    • Touhou Gacha. Pretty simple for me. I mean, I also really like the Hifuu stories and I did enjoy Chapter 2 of the main story. But that's really about it. I don't actually like the massive flanderized characters since I find a few of them outright annoying. (Which is sad since a lot of them are some of my favorite characters from the official series).

    • Its ease to just pick up and play for 10 minutes while I’m waiting for something else (like cooking dinner or doing dishes) but also how rewarding it is to play for longer periods of time. trying to do tower or an ex stage is hard and that’s fun. the story is fun to read when I have time, hifuu is a nice change of pace, and the events are nice little bonus content to me. I have never spent money on a gacha game and I don’t plan to, however lostword is more friendly to ftp people and in turn I have more of the characters that I want compared to something like genshin where it would be hard for the average ftp to have 50% of the characters they want the fact that I can have have closer to 90% of characters is great and lets me get more attached to the characters in the story cus for most of them I could get them. it’s got great music and art that the community provides some of which is so old you can’t find it elsewhere. it’s core gameplay loop can get stale but I always find myself playing when I need to fill time because it’s really fun to try new things like harder battles or different characters. it got me into so many new characters I didn’t know existed and so even though it’s not great it’s still fun. Also Touhou Gacha

    • it's a touhou gacha...that's about it. It's the quintessential autobattling png collector that powercreeps units constantly. Nothing about the ganeplay is worth staying for if youre looking for autobattler gachas, theyre a dime a dozen. Event stories are usually fun, especially the current one. As long as they avoid the boring and overused eosd cast, i generally like the events. Main story on the other hand has been getting consistently worse since the middle of chapter 3. Too many alts that make little sense and the story doesnt update enough to keep me engaged. This game relies on touhou fans caring about the characters. Not many games could get away with stuff like unsparkable epic units (and people even defend epic units too!) Lost word has survived because people like touhou and gambling. Not sure why it has outlived better games like danmaku kagura, but I digress. Without touhou's established community that guzzles anything touhou-related, this game would have died before 1st anniversary.

    • it's a touhou gacha...that's about it. It's the quintessential autobattling png collector that powercreeps units constantly. Nothing about the ganeplay is worth staying for if youre looking for autobattler gachas, theyre a dime a dozen. Event stories are usually fun, especially the current one. As long as they avoid the boring and overused eosd cast, i generally like the events. Main story on the other hand has been getting consistently worse since the middle of chapter 3. Too many alts that make little sense and the story doesnt update enough to keep me engaged. This game relies on touhou fans caring about the characters. Not many games could get away with stuff like unsparkable epic units (and people even defend epic units too!) Lost word has survived because people like touhou and gambling. Not sure why it has outlived better games like danmaku kagura, but I digress. Without touhou's established community that guzzles anything touhou-related, this game would have died before 1st anniversary.

    • It being a Touhou Gacha is already one of the biggest reasons to play this. Its ease of play, F2P Friendliness, and story are also a plus.

    • I do get what you mean. LostWord is low on my priority list when it comes to mobile games exactly because it's very standard and no variety in gameplay. But I just like collecting my favorite characters and different versions of them, so that is enough for me.

    • I was hoping for a game with pc98 characters, well we've started getting them in the story so I guess that's enough

    • i dont play any other mobile games plus i love touhou so i keep playing

    • FOMO and sunk cost fallacy like most of us mental patients in this asylum called Gacha Hell

    • Daily challenges and event stuff to get super rich on stuff that I’ll probably never use (60 paper dolls lmao, 4k of each book). Oh and yeah cute 2hus I suppose.

    • Help im stuck in touhou gacha hell and I can't get out.

    • It's low commitment. I only actively "play" the game for about 15 minutes most days, which is clearing daily tasks and the daily arena. The rest of it is just auto-battling which requires virtually no input, and doing errands. I prefer it this way tbh, I know people want more gameplay variation but if they overwhelm me with stuff to do that it becomes too big a commitment I could see myself getting turned off.

    • All my Reisens

    • Well, I like Touhou. And leveling up everyone is fun. I got Sumireko just yesterday, and I'm going to max her out, and make her the best unit ever by absolutely stuffing her with Incense.

    • I guess a love of Touhou brought me here with Lost Word's great artwork. This is my first Gatcha. 3 Things which keep me around in the game. 1) This game like other tackles the conundrum of the traditional RPG (Before DLC came a thing) which would eventually come to an end, as new content is always generated, which keeps you investing, kinda like MMO's. This is for the main story and the events. 2) EX events pipeline: I have been consistently playing since nearly day 1. I find enjoyment trying to first complete the EX events from my toolbox of cards and characters which are different then what everyone else has posted online and then like finding ways to as efficiently and consistently as possible farm the ex stage. I think this is where I differ from other people as don't play any other Gatcha and can leave it auto-farming at work. 3) The alternative Characters in the main story seemed to be quite good character development if your the main character of the chapter, Alterisa, edgy Youmu... While the events are usually much to do about nothing and I do agree that characters do have some Flanderisation there which I am fine with as the writing team keeps it consistent and hence more humorous then the main story. Hits 50-50 with the creativity of the events, some like the current event can be really creative and I like how they change the title of the characters. The upside of flanderisation is and what the events have been really good at is focusing on a different set of characters each time, just not incident resolvers, and then you get to see them interact interdependently with other characters. I have noted that the Lost Word alternative version Characters in the main story seemed to be quite good character development if your the main character of the chapter, Alterisa, edgy Youmu.. instead of the character which stops any incident where a character could be mis-characteristic. That's my 2c why I stay around.

    • [This one comes from our friend Sodaodaoda] The fear of missing out is what keeps me from quitting (again.). The fact that it's Touhou helps it as well, since I adore Touhou and will probably eat anything up that's Touhou. I quit for the first time 2 months after the game got launched. I remember that the new banner at that time was Alterisa. The only reason that I'm back here is because EoSD Reimu quite literally haunted me ever since I first saw her back in February (I remember waking up from a dream where I was playing Lost Word and I had EoSD Rei, Mari and Saku, and after waking up I downloaded the game again.). The gameplay became stale for me again, and I got to the point where I have to force myself to play through the new event. I want to stop, but there are so many new units and events that I don't want to miss, so idrk what to do. /shrug

    • Multiple of my favorite characters still not being in the game yet - Yuuma, Chimata, Momoyo, Tsukasa, Sariel, Gengetsu, Yumemi, Shinki... Ruukoto (though we will never get her lol). The list goes on...

    • holds me over until next mainline game

    • The hope of eventually getting something decent one day

    • When I "take a break" I just do my dailies when I wake up and font touch the game until the next day, maybe do that

    • Just playing casually. I find the gameplay interesting when I can't just auto through and I think the story and events have improved a lot.

    • This game's main objective, just like any other gacha game, is to make you spend as much money on it as possible, and in order to do that they make the game addictive and difficult to quit because of they "everything i invested will be for nothing if i quit" feeling. If you enjoy the game, then keep playing it, the game being a gacha game doesn't mean you can't have fun with it, but don't let it take too much of your time. Friends, job/studies and a healthy live in general are way more important.

    • I’m waiting for more characters I like. I’m a F2P who’s out waifu collecting. I liked the story, but after the middle of ch3, I’m a bit scared to start 4… I eagerly await more Hifuu content.

    • I'm getting SCs until the new Yuuka come out and then I'll decide if I'll continue for a while or not, so yeah the game doesn't really have much worth, story is somewhat intriguing but the game as a whole doesn't have enough.

    • Nothing in particular...i just enjoyed it

    • Hong Meiling

    • Not only because it's a Touhou Gacha, but because the story writing is actually quite interesting. It also beings up topics that are rarely used in fanworks or lore like Yumemi's Probability Space Hypervessel, Reimu's ability to summon Gods from training with Yorihime, etc.

    • Big numbers and ufez flan go brrrrrr

 

 

And now, the part you may have been waiting for. Since the latter part of past summer, Touhou LostWord has decided to pull a classic gacha move and make a beach episode, complete with summer skins, actually I mean completely new characters just to sell summer skins at the prove of an overpowered, unsparkable unit.

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Looking at you, EFES Yukari and Hecatia...

 

Around the same time, I was taking a look at the bigger general gacha communities. It just happened that they were talking about summer skins, just in a different way and about other games. Given they are gacha communities after all, the way the approach gacha game tropes sure is different from us, people who tend to be more used to the world and community of Touhou. Anyway, I will let the results talk by themselves:

 

Alright, so here is what the people answered (I will only select a few answers I found more substantial, or at least interesting. Some of those will also be accompanied by image support of the comment linked images, which if needed will be marked as spoiler). Before anything, I ended up believing the summer skins LostWord gave us are purely child's play compared to whatever those people are talking about (I am not very familiar with the world of gacha, and at best I can recognize some of the game titles but not associate them with anything)

 

  • This, i just played DC (Destiny Child) this week and shocked how most skins are very lewd. Got summer and towel skin Anemone for free only need grinding. If any want to play now is best time to try they give a lot freebies for new player. Make sure you downloaded the taptap version cuz its uncensored there dont download the Google Play one.

 

  • [Azur Lane fans getting angry their game is not lewd enough]: Not anymore. April 2021 was the last event that had the regular top tier skins. Since then, no full frontal unobstructed bikini skins at all.

    - most adult characters are drawn facing away from the viewer.
    - most adult characters have 0 summer themed skins
    - I mean look at Taiho. Yunsang is wasted, look at his 2020 skins vs now. Night and day.
    - only the Loli characters have lewd skins.

    Actually, I believe New Jersey’s design was dumbed down because of the regs. If she were released a year earlier, she would 100% have an open chest and regular thigh highs, not a BS black body suit. It makes me angry because they ruined such a good thing. I’m not even looking forward to Musashi and Yamato anymore, because I know both designs will be dumbed down to appease the woke mob over in China. I mean look at ALs marketing. The teased swimsuit skins for every event this summer in the advertising. But what do we get?

    - Tutus.
    - Sports skins.
    - Half assed swimsuits that have obvious obstructions (and only two total).

    The Chinese Minister of Culture has ripped out the very soul of this game. On the AL subreddit you will get downvoted into oblivion by the woke mob who view the ships as cute, and they don’t want them to be to undressed or some bullshit. The games whole point was the lewdness.

    Just to put it simply:

    From 2018-2021 I spent $17,000 on the game.
    From 2021 to now I have only spent ~$1k.

 

  • Azur Lane hasn't had good summer skins lately but the old ones are fine. Listed some I like below: (* = generally well liked by "coomunity")

    Big Tits:

    - *Zara - Poolside Coincidence (Big tits)
    - Honolulu - Summer Accident (Big tits)
    - Sirius - Scorching Hot Seirios (Big tits)
    - *Vittorio Veneto - The Flower of La Spezia (Big tits)
    - Atago - Summer March (Big tits, well liked)

    Medium tits:

    - Prince of Wales - Sun shing upon Windsor (Medium tits, nipple)
    - Surcoff - Loisirs Balneaires (Medium is Premium)

    Ass:
    - Drake - The Golden Hand's Respite (Big Ass)
    - *Pola - Seaside Coincidence (Big Ass and A Starfi)

          Other: *Richelieu - Fleuron of Waves (Classy, same artist as Surtr)

Unrelated to the summer skins, but a general idea of what people mean through Azur Lane skins (one of the mild outfits)

1920px-Skin_Selection_Interface_EN.png

There is literally WAY TOO MUCH content to put it in here, so I guess a link will have to do it instead https://azurlane.koumakan.jp/wiki/Skins#Swimsuits-0. People in the Reddit discussion also wanted to point out the following two skins:

Spoiler

HonokaSummer.png

Honoka

NyotenguSummer.png

Nyotengu (both images apparently made from a collab with DoA - I have no idea what is that)

 

  • People keep on talking about Azur Lane, so I guess I will add more shit from there:

- Kashino’s Hot Springs Relaxation - L2D
- Surcouf’s Loisirs Balnèaires - L2D
- Pola’s Seaside Coincidence - L2D
- Formidable’s Lady at the Beach
- Zara’s Poolside Coincidence - L2D
- Nicolas’s Summer Cleaning “Volunteer”
- Vitterio Veneto’s The Flower of La Spezia - L2D
- Richelieu’s Fleuron of the Waves - L2D
- Those are all of my favorites of the swimsuit skins, but there is a lot more good ones

Actually, I believe Azur Lane might be more relevant than one would think, given Touhou LW is pretty much a clone of this game.

 

  • Azur lane (Before last year April 2021, The italian swimsuit batch was the best and there were plenty of good summer Live2Ds before that era such as Kashino/Zara/Surcouf/Sirius etc. Nothing as good since then has been released, skins have not been as skin-revealing and fanservicey since then). GFL (some of the Live2Ds were reaaaaallly lewd, like the close to nude one with the starfish)
     
  • FGO, for creativity. Problem with most gacha’s summer skins is that they just put the character in a swimsuit and call it a day. While the art is usually very lovely, it’s also somewhat boring. They are pretty much “exactly as expected”, with gacha artists just trying to out lewd each other. Every single one of FGO’s summer outfits all have some kinda goofy secondary theme/motif to them, giving them a lot more visually interest outside of “just swimsuit”. Because FGO’s format is to have each character have 3 separate sprites, they usually allow 2 outfits to be a standard swimsuit while 1 is something wacky and unexpected. Some great examples would be Nitocris being fully covered in a Medjed sheet on 1st ascension, Meltryllis having a penguin parka -> ballerina swimsuit, Jeanne being a dolphin trainer, Tomoe playing VR beat saber, BB’s final ascension switching from swimsuit to eldritch tentacles, Kiara changing from swimsuit to police dominatrix outfit to a full mermaid transformation, Saint Martha punching enemies with iron fists, etc. The unpredictability of FGO’s summer costumes makes them all visually entertaining and highly distinct. Some even greatly changing the base design of the characters (Wu Zetian goes from angry child to a proper adult, complete with jiangshi and magic) or have other unusual elements (the Valkyries are a free character, but you can only choose 1 out of 3 of them, and each can swap to a different Valkyrie, resulting in 6 sets of voicelines and sprites). It gives them all an added layer of fun that I feel a lot of other gachas lack in their alts, which typically play too safe.
     
  • I'm gonna have to dig a grave and do a little necromancy to say King's Raid. Tons of tight bikinis of various sizes and designs. Hell, there's even a loli in bandages, you see quite a lot. KR fanservice and swimsuits were AMAZING and their sizes of booba and skin revealing was wild. 
     
  • Counterside has some good ones coming this week. For Reference:

 

  • Azurlane by far, the Live2D ones are on another level. With the special touch when you tap their chest or ass they will play with the swimsuits and comment something equally as horny as you are.
     
  • Dunno where to see Ash Arms has the best summer costume, even after the recent summer event ended 5 days ago. But the art style isn't consistent, looks like they are from different games. I'll just list the characters with their summer costumes, and you'll take your verdict:

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E7B7A8E99B86E88085E794A8E3839AE383BCE382 

E7B7A8E99B86E88085E794A8E3839AE383BCE382 

E7B7A8E99B86E88085E794A8E3839AE383BCE382 

E7B7A8E99B86E88085E794A8E3839AE383BCE382 

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E7B7A8E99B86E88085E794A8E3839AE383BCE382

FZtcCrMUYAAdV-F?format=jpg&name=large

E7B7A8E99B86E88085E794A8E3839AE383BCE382 

E7B7A8E99B86E88085E794A8E3839AE383BCE382 

 

  • I personally love the sailor event Twisted Wonderland put on! It's not sexy or anything of the sort but it's cute. Not exactly a skin but it's summer-themed cards.
     
  • Azur Lane has amazing swimsuit skins like Atago, Vinetto, and Tosa. Sadly, they have toned down the fan service because of potential censorship issues. AL is mainly monetized by their amazing skins, so it should come as no surprise.
     
  • I like the costume Pansirone got for halloween during the "swimsuit fiasco" in King's Raid. The "swimsuit fiasco" was half a year when all thematic costumes released in the game were swimsuits, because a poll stated that users liked those costumes the most. However the comunity got tired and started to rant and be vocal about it.
     

  • Guardian Tales (images linked in the original comment below):

SLorraine.png

beach-sohee.png

beach-yuze.jpg

 

  • Fruits Fulcute has some pretty nice art, too bad its a 虚無ゲー. Some of the sex scenes are animated, some are static. Typically anniversary skinned characters are animated.
Spoiler

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(I wanted to load the chibi GIF animations for those two, but they are on such a shoddy wiki page that 90% of the time when you want to load it, it gives a runtime error)
 

  • For degeneracy then destiny child no debate, some characters there are almost close to nude already that they use nipple pasty only, its important to downloaded the taptap uncensored version. Would put Last origin on first place cuz they really hired some hentai artist's on that game but sadly its not in global.


 

Closing thoughts

Wow, it really took me much longer to write this than I expected. But I guess it was mostly coming from the summer skins part. 

I am not very sure how to continue this thread. There has been less and less noteworthy stuff going on with the game, so I don't have what to write about in the news round-up. If I am to write opinion texts, they are starting to showing an increasing degree of frustration and wish to be done with the whole thing while I still can (only intensified as we are getting closer and closer to the shutdown of DanKagu). My only other options are either put an end to the whole thing, or start diversify. But I can't just close this down so easily. The thread already reached 10K views and over 200 replies, so a lot of effort went into it for half a year. 

And do not get me started on the whole slowly gathering negativity towards LostWord. I hate that exactly the laziest, cheapest and most soulless of the Touhou mobile games is the one to have survived. I don't think we will ever hey to see nice Live2D animations for characters in a Touhou game (and now I mean mobile games - I don't have money for computer games, nor refer to them - do they use Live2D for any of the Touhou fan games on PC?). I don't think there will be anything too soon to beat the cute animations and animated dialogue from DanKagu, if there will be anything at all.  

DanKagu failed financially so hard it could not even afford to make a server outside JP, as it failed to incentivize the players to pay for any in-game content. Therefore, it will get the axe in a month from now. This is one of the scariest things about "games as a service" kind of content (yes, I do believe all of the Touhou mobile games fit in this category). You fully depend on the creator's servers, many times can't play without internet, and if they decided o shut down the game (most of the time only because it is not profitable enough), the player loses everything (and if you spent any real money in the game, then I guess you are fucked because nobody will give you compensation) as you remain with nothing when the game ceases to exist (many times without the chance to recover/salvage it). The games basically become lost media. Scott Ross, the creator of famous machinima series "Freeman's Mind" has a very interesting video about the whole concept of "games as a service", why hates them so much and why he considers the whole concept to be a fraud.  

 

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Alrighty, there's a lot of stuff to write, so I'll start with the simplest reply xd

On 9/17/2022 at 9:55 PM, Isaac said:

Oh, hopefully you'll still be able to vote in time Soda!

I did actually manage to fix the issue! I guess I linked my Twitter account and for some reason, it got fucked up, and it wouldn't work. Maybe it was because back then, my Twitter name was just "kouma" but now I added a "Commissions opened" after it. I just used my email to get the ID and from now on, I'll use that ID to vote.
image.png.90839be4d8f6164d19d07e6a8c2eb316.png

1. Alice (duh)
2. Meiling (duh)
3. Youmu
4. Marisa
5. Konngara
6. Eiki
7. Kana Anaberal

image.png.a2898c359ff6b1b144fdefe0be76cd08.png

1. EoSD (duh)
2. 100thBM
3. HRtP
4. MS
5. PCB

I'll probably vote for songs too, I just need to see which one I'll pick.

 

Now, for Count's part.

First of all, why is Sunny A6??? She's not from EoSD.... Is it because of this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAjxo_yB9ek - Sunny Milk's Scarlet Mist Incident, from the CD Strange and Bright Nature Deity

Having Momoyo is nice tho.

(speaking of the devil, here's sunny milk's intro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ik1nFGpmjk)
(i hate her voice)

 

Okay, now for the lewd costumes.

It's pretty obvious that they're here just for the appeal of the "coomers" of the gacha community. It's a shame because the art of these games is really good, and I'm sure there's more summer/lewd costumes than the SFW ones, in fact, the only gacha that I can think of off the top of my head that has more SFW costumes is in fact our good friend TLW. Even TLW's beach costumes are tame compared to these games (I still want the captain Ran costume....).

Also, I didn't know that Guardian Tales got into this trope as well.

 

10 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

I am not very sure how to continue this thread. There has been less and less noteworthy stuff going on with the game, so I don't have what to write about in the news round-up. If I am to write opinion texts, they are starting to showing an increasing degree of frustration and wish to be done with the whole thing while I still can (only intensified as we are getting closer and closer to the shutdown of DanKagu).

I think that there's still gonna be some outrageous updates done to TLW, but at this point, I'm sure you're fed up with all this stupid shit that TLW does.
It's super sad that the good games can't live long enough, I think both Cannonball and DanKagu lasted for about a year, and TLW is still.. Somehow going strong. And I don't even know what's happening to Arcadia Records.

It's a shame really, how these days it seems like people only care for lewdest stuff. And it's even more sad that these games are becoming lost media. I really wish that the gacha industry was better, or, an even better approach, that it didn't even exist.

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Number 1 Alice, Meiling and Youmu fan! jaooooooooo

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12 hours ago, sodaodaoda said:

Even TLW's beach costumes are tame compared to these games

Holy shit, after that little trip into the gacha world of summer skins, the ones LW gave us are literally nothing compared what those other games of the genre pull for their player base. But again, the main point of these games is to have good art and attract through horny. Had the art not been good, nobody would have invested their time playing a gacha after all. 

 

12 hours ago, sodaodaoda said:

I think that there's still gonna be some outrageous updates done to TLW, but at this point, I'm sure you're fed up with all this stupid shit that TLW does.

I am more than sure by not there will be more stupid, outrageous, stupidly outrageous and outrageously stupid stuff to come in the future. Now that classic monetization methods are starting to run dry, they will have to make money out of something else. Either by pulling some new bullshit into the game, or throwing the game under the bus and move to the next project. 

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It's a shame that people would only consider spending ridiculous amounts of money for these types of costumes, no matter how shallow the gameplay is. Even though swimsuit characters should've been costumes instead, I'm just glad that lostword isn't focusing on over-sexualising them. 

There's also a dev letter arriving sooner than expected. Wonder which characters are arriving next, apart from the ufes ones.

 

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I was wondering if there was any Pc-98 characters in TLW (i’ve started playing this game 3 weeks ago 😅)

Plus, why they didn’t added, with Koakuma and Daiyousei, Rin Satsuki aka  the forgotten EoSD character since we already have an official colored version of her 🤔

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5 hours ago, Nekofire said:

I was wondering if there was any Pc-98 characters in TLW (i’ve started playing this game 3 weeks ago 😅)

Welcome to gacha hell. Sadly, there is no playable PC-98 character in LostWord. At most, we have seen PC-98 Reimu, Marisa, Shinki and apparently an alt character that the LW community seems to be referring to as being based on PC-98 Yuuka. 
 

5 hours ago, Nekofire said:

Plus, why they didn’t added, with Koakuma and Daiyousei, Rin Satsuki aka  the forgotten EoSD character since we already have an official colored version of her

Here is the thing. The drawn character everyone associated with "Rin Satsuki" IS NOT ACTUALLY Rin Satsuki. That image only represents a mascot for Team Shanghai Alice ZUN came up with at the time, while Rin only remained a forgotten name coded into EoSD, which was never pictured.

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The name "Rin Satsuki" coded into the EoSD files

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Team Shanghai Alice's "poster girl"
 

Basically, the image we associate nowadays as "Rin Satsuki" fits the following situation: a character without an image, and an image without a name. As fans wanted to fill in the gaps, they merged the two and we ended up with this:

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19 minutes ago, Nekofire said:

I thought that it was officially her… but the full color artwork I was talking about is this one (the one below) it is called « Hermit Girl » and the girl kinda looks like the mascot of Team Shanghai Alice

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Oh, this might be one of the miscellaneous drawings ZUN did. In the time gap between Mystic Square and EoSD, ZUN draw a lot of images. That one in itself represents an interesting era in the evolution of his art, given it is the transition era towards early Windows games art. I really want to talk in a separate thread about those drawing because they are very cool as concept and he drew them for quite some time.

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7 hours ago, Nekofire said:

Here, a useful link for your future thread  (sorry to post it in this thread) 

https://zh.touhouwiki.net/index.php?title=ZUN/其他绘作&variant=zh

Oh fuck!!! I haven't seen some of these at all!
Thank you for sharing these, I love ZUN's old drawings so this makes me incredibly happy. I just wish I knew chinese...

Number 1 Alice, Meiling and Youmu fan! jaooooooooo

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33 minutes ago, sodaodaoda said:

 I just wish I knew chinese...

You just can use Google translate even if the translations are sounding strange sometimes…

There is some stories about some characters that we have never seen and it’s very interesting (like a full body illustration of Marisa where ZUN sayed that, according to him, her skirt is a tiny bit too short 😶 or some mikos that we have never seen)

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6 minutes ago, Nekofire said:

There is some stories about some characters that we have never seen and it’s very interesting (like a full body illustration of Marisa where ZUN sayed that, according to him, her skirt is a tiny bit too short 😶 or some mikos that we have never seen)

Oh yeah, the Hourai Shoujos, I like the image of that "adult" looking miko, by the river.

https://zh.touhouwiki.net/images/7/75/Zun008.JPG

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Number 1 Alice, Meiling and Youmu fan! jaooooooooo

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Time for the news roundup.

 

News and updates

On the Friday-to-Saturday night (at least according to my time zone), there has been a Dev Letter for LW Global. Quite a few things have been announced, given the game reached 2 million downloads. Looks like LW will not die out any time soon... Let's see what the game will put at our disposal. Keep in mind, the 2 million downloads celebration might be coming just in time with the 1.5 years game anniversary for Global. Last year, the 0.5 anniversary was celebrated by cutting some of the free features, so I wonder if we are gonna lose anything this time around.

The main features that have been announced:

  • guaranteed friend festival: from what I can understand, you are getting daily one Guaranteed friend ritual, which might also contain retro versions of the characters (compared to the classic ritual, which only contains general pool friends)
  • special tasks: my guess is that through these tasks, the players will receive either increased resources or special, rare ones 
  • bonus for daily logins - music connected to the Hifuu universe versions of the SDM cast
  • battles will cost half the Sprit Points - finally, I was really looking to this one, as I am running dry on resources with the current event; I have not seen my SP count go below 20K since last year at least - to be fair, I am also using expensive units for farming 
  • more x4 rewards for main story and Hifuu 
  • x3 School XP for a week


Interesting they have decided to split the news into 2 parts this time:

  • Hifuu Patchouli and Koakuma are coming; unfortunately, they are separate banners
  • new 72H Newcomer banner
  • current event is getting the Extra stages - get ready for more Morby
  • the general friends pool is getting an update in regards to Guaranteed Prayers
  • more floors opened in the Scarlet Devil Tower
  • more characters are getting Fantasy Rebirth 2.0

 

Meanwhile, the colleagues from Scarlet Talk have decided to cover the news their own way. Get ready for more Remy & Patchy shenanigans:

Spoiler

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The artist for Remilia and Patchouli actually has a Pixiv page, and can be found here https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/4972747 . He's got a lot of cute stuff
You can always find Remi & Patchy's news roundup here 

 

Community discussion and memes

This time, an interesting video I would recommend. It is about the original game inspiration for Reimu's shot types and spellcards. Maybe the person has not used the best examples everywhere/could have used better images at times, but the effort is to be appreciated. 

 

Also know your enemy:

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News roundup. A little less structured or cohesive than last time, but some things happened since the weekend.

 

News and updates

It looks like the LW team has pulled a PR stunt with some sort of Q&A thread on r/touhou_lostword. Due to being busy the entire first half of the day and overall unfortunate timing, I could not submit a question for this session. The idea was simple: people ask questions, the dev team answers them. Let's see what happened: 


Below, I have selected a number of questions that have been relevant in regards to the development of the game and what the crew has to say about it. A special section for unanswered questions will come at the end. Keep in mind, some of the answers might be rather vague, while for others they have completely avoided answering at all. Many of the answers have been given by Phantasma, while others went to different members of the team the questions were addressed to (Masayuki Yamagishi (Yama-P), Comp (Butaotome), Caroline, Phantasma, team members from the translation team). 

 

Q: Is Rinnosuke going to be playable?
A: No plans at the moment regretfully!

 

Q: Only one question: Will we get playable Pc-98 characters at some point in the future?
A: If we have a chance this is something we would love to do!

 

Q: Will the game stay on mobile or would you ever consider putting it on steam or on the switch?
A: Would love to do Steam if there's an opportunity in the future!

 

Q: Hello! Link from Argentina here! Is there any plans for a Spanish translation?
A: This is something we honestly really wanted to do, but LostWord is a game with an abundance of text that makes this unrealistic regretfully, it's already a massive job for English [*guys can't even finish translation for English, let lone expand to other languages (Coming Soon...)]

 

Q: When are we going to have the normal text of the Story Cards that only have the coming soon text?
A: Caroline: Thank you for your patience. We're currently in the process of translating the Story Cards we didn't have time for previously. You'll be able to read them soon!

 

Q: Is PVP/Coop PvE going to be implemented directly anytime? Like for example, 1v1 or raids.
A: We're currently thinking about multiplayer type features, however, the development load for such systems is quite heavy and requires much more deliberation

 

Q: Do you guys actively play the game as well?
A: Yep all of us play the game, I believe the highest level out of all of us today is in the late 100s!

 

Q: Will we get/be able to equip costumes to UFES and/or EFES units at some point? It seems we only have costumes for L1 units currently, and I was wondering if other universe types will get costumes/be able to use existing costumes for their other universe counterparts.
A: At the moment we have no plans for costumes for the additional series

 

Q: Will there be any future changes to the core fundamental gameplay? (ie. new mechanics in battle, enemy mechanics, player actions, etc.)
A: We have a variety of battle system improvements and additions in the works as we get more into development we'll be announcing them via our new development manifestoes which will begin from Sept 28!

 

Q: For Comp: 1) Are you in charge of choosing the BGM of the game? (Spellcard themes, etc). 2) What's the process behind the making of the MV project; how do you pick the singers, circles, and characters/themes? 3) Do you have any involvement in the creative process of the global-only collabs?
A: 1) I choose the BGM in collaboration with the Game Director. 2) I think about which singers and circles would make for the most interesting and fun collabs with each character. Then I make them an offer. 3) Yes.

 

Q: Is there a reason you guys don’t list the VAs for each character? I follow a lot of seiyuus and I’ve seen some names and heard some voices I’m familiar with be in the project, but I’d love official credits like that
A: A big reason is that if we list voice actors people will end up choosing to use that character or voice due to who the voice actor is, but we would like everyone to choose voices based on what voice they feel fits the character best

 

Q: Why was the development manifesto only announced recently? Wouldn't it have been more beneficial to have a line of communication between the developers and players since the launch of the game?
A: Within the team we've always had one, but we we though saying too much early wouldn't be the best. But reading more and more comments from everyone we understood that it would be best to get the lines of communication open and be more transparent in the development process.

 

Q: The Chinese version of Touhou LostWord currently features exclusive story cards only available in that version, as well as an exchange point spark for Epic Festival banners. Alongside the remaining gacha pool cards only available in the Japanese version, will the global version introduce a feature like that if it is met with popular demand? (There are two more questions, those going to the "Unanswered" section)
A: Original Story Cards from the Chinese version, we currently have no plans to bring them to JP or global!

 

Q: Do you have any comments on the translation process for LostWord? LW is interesting in that it's significantly more loaded with (what is to Westerners) more esoteric religious and spiritual concepts and Japanese traditional culture than many other titles. You can expect the Touhou audience to be much more receptive to this sort of thing, but it's still quite notable. Do you have guidelines internally for what you translate via expansion, calques, or leaving the original Japanese name for a concept in place? Any other issues or struggles you've had?
A: Translation Team: I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying the story. Yes, we try to leave the original Japanese names for most religious and mythological concepts and supplement them with an explanation where possible, like in the Story Cards, Spell Card, and Ability descriptions. However, it's difficult to fit all that information within the story, so we sometimes have to change a few things to make it understandable to a more general audience.

 

Q: How is it like developing Touhou lost word and is it enjoyable?
A: There are lots of enjoyable aspects and also some tough aspects! For tough aspects especially the translation is tough as a lot of the story and world is grounded in a variety of Japanese culture, but it's great to bring the game to everyone around the world!

 

Q: Do you guys plan to have a Collaboration with other games?
A: No plans at the moment regretfully on this one!

 

Q: To Japanese dev team: Are there any plans for new game modes anytime soon?
A: Look forward to the development manifestoes as we'll be releasing info about new content from time to time! As Phantasma now works on both teams the chance of version exclusive content is diminished as we would like to strengthen the game as a whole to provide a more fun experience to everyone! Arena update will be coming in soon for units as they still require some translation and data creation.

 

Q: To Japanese dev team: Are epic fes friends here to stay? Will they replace super fes friends?
A: (same as above)

 

Q: To Japanese dev team: Will general units get reduced to 100 pity like in global?
A: (same as above)

 

Q: To Japanese dev team: How was JP player reception to stages like the L1 Reimu extra stage? (where it heavily punishes players who lack a certain unit like c3 Yukari).
A: (same as above)

 

Q: To global people: Are there any plans for global exclusive content like elemental extra stages?
A: (same as above)

 

Q: To global people: Now that we're mostly caught up with JP in terms of character releases and story, what plans does global have for future releases? Will we just get new banners the same time as JP does?
A: (same as above)

 

Q: To global people: When will arena get updated with modern units? I noticed that newer units like Megumu appear in JP arena.
A: (same as above)

 

Q: Are there any game aspects that the team is really proud of? Or in the opposite, wish to change?
A: From Yamagishi-san but he feels the following. The 5 main points of a RPG he feels are done quite well - Characters, Story, World, Battle, Music. In terms of change, rather than change he and the rest of us would like to improve upon all of the aspects as we go forward!

 

Q: What was the process for selecting the songs in the game so far? Are there plans to add songs from other circles?
A: Comp: I choose songs to match the story. Yes, there are plans to add songs from other circles.

 

Q: I only have a few for this AmA. How long will the story be as it seams its almost ending or just getting started at this point by this I mean how many chapters there are in total once the full main story is out? (There are three more questions, those going to the "Unanswered" section)
A: We have no end in plan for Touhou LostWord's story and plan to continue to expand heavily on the world!

 

Q: Are we going to see the return of Mochi pounding event? If so, are you guys cooking unique game modes for global?
A: Hope to bring our friend Kagami-Mochi back some day but, we're also thinking about different fun forms we can implement events like this!

 

Q: Will black Youmu Fumo be on sale again?
A: Sorry this is something that our friends at Gift deal with!

 

Q: Are there plans to add in-game players interaction? I'd love to show off my UFES to my friends
A: We are discussing these types of features currently! However, the development cost is quite high so we have no solid details at the moment

 

Q: Can we get a little behind the scenes of the gacha game industry with an explanation of why THLW, like so many other phone gacha games have different servers for different regions instead of one unified game that everyone plays together with a language toggle? I understand it would be a hassle to get them synced when they start at different times, but I feel like it would be worth it due to all the negativity that results from global having different pacing and out of order releases that makes a lot of players feel like global is just an afterthought. Thanks!
A: The architecture we use requires no option for selection server and in terms of language we answered this in another question but LostWord has an abundance of text compared to many titles, resulting in us only being able to offer English globally. In terms of why JP and global aren't synced, there are an abundance of processes the title have to go through before release which make it difficult to have a synced release. It would require a much larger team than we have currently to have made a reality.

 

Q: Is the translator team still at purple heart?
A: Translation Team: I'd say the translation team is at orange heart at the moment. We will have an update on it soon, so please look forward to it!

 

Q: What is the reason behind the decision of not adding the pity exchange shop for the JP story card farm stage?
A: (unanswered)

 

Q: I noticed that Phantasma is no longer doing the live stage, where the team can communicate with the players on the direction of the game and future plan (as well as answering some of the players' concern). Is that because you no longer have time to do so?
A: Phantasma's responsibilities have expanded, so it's tough at the moment but look forward to a Q/A forum in discord that will be implemented soon.

 

Q: Will you consider giving further rein1.5 buff that actually fit the unit core issue (like Sakuya bad slicing scale, Lily White bad healing utility/focus down that harm allies, Seiran lack of useful debuff utility, etc).
A: (unanswered)

 

Q: Will there be any other way for Epic Dolls to be obtained easier.
A: As time progresses we would like to add more methods to get the Epic Paper Dolls & the others.

 

Q: Thanks Touhou Lost Word Team, AMAs are very awesome. Here's a question for the translation team. When translating for characters from very niche Japanese folklore how do you go about getting the translation across to an audience that may not be familiar with the original source. An example being someone like Iku Nagae.
A: Translation Team: Yeah, it's not easy. There isn't really much space to convey the folklore within the story unless it is also written in Japanese. However, in the Spell Card and ability descriptions, we try to add a few more explanations while leaving some of the Japanese terminologies so people can more easily research it for themselves if they are interested.

 

Q: Looking at the ongoing success of this game and with seemingly no risk of EoS anything soon, is there the possibility of either a sequel, prequel, or spinoff game of LostWord?
A: In terms of further direction of Touhou LostWord itself, we would like to continue strengthening the title as a whole which will open up more possibilities in the future for us to discuss

 

Q: Do you plan on hosting any events in real life for global players? (ie. story card submission contest)
A: In Japan things like Reitaisai we participate it from time to time, but for global we don't have any solid plans at the moment, though it is something we discuss frequently so we hope to get something going in the future! In terms of contests we may be able to get some going this fall or winter!

 

Q: I asked this on this sub once before, but would like an answer directly from the team, but what's the best way to support LostWord other than in-app purchases? I know there was a dark Youmu Fumo at some point, but is there any other merch or other ways of supporting the game and the team?
A: Besides in-app purchases, participation in Discord, Twitter, YouTube and other places are great ways to support! Questions here on Reddit are already a great way to support!

 

Q: Not sure if you can answer this since it's not really game-related. Are there any plans to make more Lost Word action figures? I placed an order for mysterious swordsman Youmu Fumo months ago and I can't wait for it to come.
A: Our publisher Good Smile Company has a line of LostWord figures they are working on! I believe some may be available for preorder currently

 

Q: Did you ever consider leaving honorifics in? Its a breath of fresh air to have many of the native names of the mythological and historical concepts.
A: Translation Team: It was considered, but we decided that it would be easier to read without honorifics for a wider audience. And they are generally just kind of clunky in English.

 

Q: How did the idea for Lost Word originate? The callbacks and fanservice in the story, the involvement of dojin music circles, non-predatory pricing model shows this game was made with love. Do you consider Lost Word a "fan game"?
A: Yama-P: We wanted to make an RPG based on Touhou Project. So we thought it over between Comp and the directors. We decided that it would be good to have lots of various artists create the art for the Story cards and music. The original games aren't voiced, so we decided to provide three options so the player could pick what they felt suited the character best. We wanted to create a game in collaboration with lots of other creators.

 

Q: Will the 4-komas in JP be translated?
A: Hopefully some day in the future we'll be able to get the manga in the game, but we still have quite a few event stories and others we need to get done, so once we're in a better place there we'll discuss the manga to see what can be done for global

 

Q: Are we to get more vocal tracks on Lost Word i would love for more circles to participate on the game (Stack maybe pls)? [Count's comment: PLEASE]
A: Comp: There will be more MV project songs. Please look forward to them.

 

Q: Butaotome was the first circle that got me into Touhou doujin music 待チ人ハ来ズ。it's one of my all time favorites Thank you so much
A: Thanks so much for listening to Butaotome. I'm really happy to hear you enjoy it. Thank you for the support.

 

Q: If you could, would you want to collab with more Virtual YouTubers in the future? Additionally, when Pomu's Heat of My Fingertips came out, I expected for a Pomu Friend to get released. You're probably never going to have non-Touhou characters as Friends, right?
A: We loved working with everyone at NIJISANJI & Pomu Rainpuff so we really hope to do more in the future!

 

Q: Will there be a way to make the special cards made for the Epic characters more available? IE: Behind the Bullets: Reimu and The Heat of My Fingertips. Could it be done like the elemental EX stages.
A: Look forward to an update on this as our first development manifesto that releases on the 28th will have a bit of info on this!

 

Q: Are the story cards with "Coming Soon..." actually coming soon?
A: Caroline: They will...! We're working on some right now!

 

Q: Are there any chances that concepts like character fusions or duo characters be implemented into the game? Fusions, at least I feel, would do really well since it takes two good characters and makes an even better character and duo characters could be a nice homage to Touhou 8's main gimmick.
A: At the moment no plans on this end!

 

Q: I know translations for the main story/events and Tower are a priority, but do you believe the untranslated story cards will have a translation one day?
A: We hope to get more of these in once we hit Floor 200 of the tower!

 

Q: Which music group would you love to partner with the Music Videos, and are you willing to partner with any that not know for Touhou music? My dream is getting Jun Senoue (Crush 40) or Tomoya Ohtani from the Sonic Team to partner in a MV.
A: We plan to collaborate with many different types of artists through the MV project. Please look forward to it.

 

Q: How was the survey for the game, did you guys learn a lot from it and now taking considerations for the game because of it?
A: We want to take the various answers on board to improve the characters, story, music, battles, and setting. Please look forward to the updates.

 

Q: Considering how many songs are being added to the game, will there be a way to sort them? Are there plans for adding QOL features? (like better ways to manage spell cards and friends)
A: This type of QOL is always in the works but as it requires quite a bit of UI work it takes time to get in!

 

Q: Hi THLW dev team, do you guys plan on adding any of the .5 characters to the game?
A: Similar to a previous answer but if we have a chance, we would love to do it!

 

Q: Will the 30fps lock be fixed?
A: No plans at the moment, but it is a topic that comes up from time to time so we may do something in regards to fps options some day

 

Q: Will Ele EX get a drop rate up through the future?
A: There will be a large update coming in on this eventually so look forward to more details soon!

 

Unanswered questions:

  • With governing bodies around the globe taking strides to regulate gambling mechanics in all video-games, how will Touhou Lostword Global evolve in order to remain legal in most countries? Would the gacha system be dropped in favor of something like a battle pass?

 

  • Question for the Devs: You guys been giving us a lot of free stuff since day 1, compared to JP players, we're basically spoiled by you guys and we appreciate it, but I'm curious if there's any consequences to this, like does it affect the monetization? Are you guys still earning money? And who gets to decide on what Stuff to give out to us players? Is it only phantasma or something else? As an individual who cares deeply about this game, I'm somewhat curious in the financial status of it, we surely don't want a sudden EoS due to lack of money right? More of a Personal question: So phantasma, do you happen to have time to read The Scarlet talk series? It's something I've been doing every Dev letter here on reddit and any kind of input would be appreciated Your thoughts on my Spirit News Article no.1 on the discord server is the reason why scarlet talk exist, so i would like to hear any comments from you :)

 

  • According to a friend of mine who was formerly a staff member working with the team, they told me one reason for their falling out was due to poor communication between higher ups and staff and supposed "drama." Will the current staff members look towards rectifying these wrongs by reaching out to former staff members with an olive branch, whether it be public or personal?

 

  • One of your server staff members and GamePress writers was formerly involved with an infamous Touhou piracy website and distributed pirated Touhou content themselves. Since NextNinja is officially partnered with Team Shanghai Alice, doesn't this present a conflict of interest considering that LostWord is an officially licensed product?

 

  • 2) What does the Mc we play as/control look like it most likely fan interpretation but if you have your own look for the Mc what is it? 3) Will there be some sort of trading of friends to exchange duplicate friends you have for another or any kind of coop that will be added in the future? 4) Will friend prayer rates be improve at some point since there so low and most of the time it's story cards when the banner does not increase the odds for a friend?

 

  • What are your opinions on the other Touhou mobile games like Cannonball and Danmaku Kagura and do you think something could of been done better to increase the longevity of those games seeing how they only lasted around 1 year?

 

  • How do you feel about LW bringing in a large number of new fans to the Touhou culture?

 

  • One thing that i love is that you can make your favorite friend powerful with some time and dedication (me in particular Seiga and Momiji) apart of incenses and rebirth will there be more ways to improve a friends power in the future?

 

  • While I love the story it's kinda hard to read all of it for me. Will there be a way to have like small story bits when skipping the story?

 

  • Do you intend to make the Epic Paper Doll more accessible for all players? Since the "only" means to have it is in the Fortune Dust store and with Packs (which in some countries (such as Brazil) are extremely and ridiculously expensive.)

 

  • Do you intend to make all units that are in the main story JUST Epic Festivals Friends and no longer Ultra Festival Friends? Well, if the answer is yes, that reinforces what I said in question number 2.

 

  • Are there plans to take a second look at C3 Hecatia and debuffs in general? The sentiment among those invested in strategy is that C3 Hecatia does not compare favorably with her Epic peers due to the transient nature of debuffs being disadvantaged in multi-wave/gauge content and her extreme focus on it at the cost of an otherwise robust kit. This is to the point where she is compared directly to her gen/fes debuff peers (Recent Debuffer EoSD Sunny Milk being a very striking and assessed-as-superior example, especially once you include the fact she is exchangeable).

 

  • As of now, there are many aspects in LostWord that can be improved so that players will have an incentive to actually try them out instead of outright skipping them. For example, the Arena revampt was mediocre at best, seeing how it only gives the players some stats to boost their friends and literally the increased in parametre does little to none to help them gain an upper edge, or how the so-called "end game content" EX stages are more or less geared toward a set of characters for an easy clear instead of being an actual challenge. To back my arguement, the Dev Letter of Global LostWord mentioned that around 15 to 20% of the playerbased cleared the Elemental EX out of around 2000-ish challengers, but considering the fact that at that moment, there were more than 1 million unique downloads, and let's assume 10% of the downloads continued continued on playing the game, it means that only ~2000 out of 100000 (or ~2%) actually want to try the new challenges. Will there be any plans to improve these factors or taking these into account when creating newer contents?

 

  • As of now, many local players (I will not disclose the nation where we are from) are discontented with the release schedules and designs (both gameplay and visual), as well as the abysmal lack of communication between the playerbase and the developer. Are there any plans to improve the communication as well as the transparency of the game as most of the rifts between the two parties were majorly due to the lack of these factors?

 

  • (For Global team) How do you choose which events and banners appear in Global (considering how different it is from JP’s schedule)? (For JP team) Similarly, how is music selected for the game?

 

  • Would it be possible to add a feature that lets you select any part of a character them to play it during their spell card. Many people would like to change the part that they hear during Patchouli A6's spell cards so could it changed?

 

  • Any plans on making alternate versions of characters from Touhou 16 or above?

 

  • Any plans on being able to set the 3-star Story Cards (as they're mostly landscapes) as home screen backgrounds? Some of them would work really well as backgrounds.

 

  • Any plans on making a 3x speed setting, or even a 4x speed setting for battles? The newer stages are taking increasingly long to finish due to modern units's longer Spell Card animations, plus the stages themselves requiring more turns than before.

 

  • Why not put the new UFes Patchouli and Koakuma on the same prayer if you were going to release them at the same time anyways? It would have been a neat way to celebrate 2 mil downloads and makes sense for the two of them. The dev letter gave my friends and I the impression that you guys were going to do it that way.

 

  • There was once a mention of Wood EX (Global Dev letter #13 iirc) so I'm wondering if there's any update about that or it's just completely forgotten?

 

  • When it comes to adding characters to the game, what’s the general process for this, if possible to be answered? Are characters planned far in advance from when they release, when/how is their music decided on, VA recordings, that’s the gist of what I’m asking if it’s able to be answered Edit: a bit of an addendum but have you ever had to scrap characters, or heavily postpone them?

 

  • How do you pick your ideas? Like, for example, thinking of a new alt character, the costume or colors that she'd have, names for the spellcards, animations, etc.

 

  • Why haven't you released Kagerou (and other units) yet you're releasing newer units instead? Most of them epic and relic ones.

 

  • Will all units get a rebirth or will this be exclusive to L1 units only?

 

  • Why is a single character skin equivalent in cost to a $30 crystal pack.

 

  • What was your inspiration for the Lost Word storylines?

 

  • Can you make that you can date the girls pretty please. Like giving them presents spending time with them [Count's note: I guess this player would like the game to implement a dating simulator element, perhaps similar to other gacha games?]

 

 

Community discussion and memes

Even if going through the "become Fumo" process, Remi & Patchy are still up to presenting the news in their new plushy form. 

Spoiler

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And of course, it cannot be a regular day if the AmA did not spart some memes out of the answers. 

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8 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

Q: Will the game stay on mobile or would you ever consider putting it on steam or on the switch?
A: Would love to do Steam if there's an opportunity in the future!

Honestly, I'd love for TLW to be on Steam, since I'm more on my laptop than on my phone.

8 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

Q: Only one question: Will we get playable Pc-98 characters at some point in the future?
A: If we have a chance this is something we would love to do!

Chance? Didn't the JP branch announce once that we will be getting PC-98 Rei and Mari?

8 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

While I love the story it's kinda hard to read all of it for me. Will there be a way to have like small story bits when skipping the story?

I do agree with this, the main story, while interesting, is kinda hard for me to read. It's not like that I can't understand the words, it's just that I probably can't immediately piece it together in my head, and I need external sources to get it all right. Maybe it's because things happen too fast/too slow.


Also, I kinda don't want a collab for TLW... I'd just like for things to stay fully Touhou,

 

8 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

Q: Will we get/be able to equip costumes to UFES and/or EFES units at some point? It seems we only have costumes for L1 units currently, and I was wondering if other universe types will get costumes/be able to use existing costumes for their other universe counterparts.
A: At the moment we have no plans for costumes for the additional series

What's the point of the costumes then? Apart from making the drop rate bigger for point events. Most of the L1 friends are average, and not worth putting in a team, unless you're doing it for a challenge.

 

To me, this AMA seemed like they want to improve on the game, but also it just seems a bit shady, if you get what I mean.

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Number 1 Alice, Meiling and Youmu fan! jaooooooooo

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A lot has been revealed for the September jp dev letter.

Firstly, we have a new Epic and Ultra festival character on the way:

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Even though I'm not interested in any of the Epics, I'll admit that I love this piano arrangement of her theme! However, I'm not a fan of Koishi being depicted as psychotic, so I'm satisfied with her SA version.

 

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I also love this arrangement of 3rd eye, but there really isn't many reasons for me to have Ufes Satori either. I think the Komeji sisters were announced sooner to make as much profit as possible.

 

Unfortunately, there was another MV character announced too:

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There isn't a video showcasing Sakuya at the moment, though I still don't think any of the Relic characters needed to exist at all.

On a positive note, here are the new costumes and fantasy rebirth outfits!

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I think Sagume and Doremy look absolutely beautiful! Their outfits are much better designed compared to the regular dresses that other characters received! Miko and Saki look equally amazing as well!

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Alright, time for another news roundup.

 

News and updates
 

Since I barely had any time this week to look and write for this series, and the fact Isaac already covered the most important updates, guess I have o deal with the bare bones... Anyway, here is the rest of the events:

In 2 days from now (just a bit over 24 hours actually, according to my time zone), we are going to get the next maintenance. It is interesting we are getting a rerun of Yakumo Ambition, which is a rather recent event (just 4 months ago, back in June). Probably the other big thing sticking out like a sore thumb is the A6 Sunny Milk "retro" unit. Again, how did Sunny an EoSD character? 


 

Community discussion and memes

The reception of Sunny as a retro unit is already being received in an interesting way. She is not even out yet, but the discussions are on.

A few opinions:

  • Technically THIS Sunny Milk isn't canon. She never appeared in EoSD. But she was technically a maid at some point alongside Luna and Star in the Manga. That was due to them infiltrating the Scarlet Devil Mansion and dressing as maids to try and blend in with the other fairy maids to go unnoticed.
  • eo$d - that's it. EoSD is the Pokemon gen 1 of Touhou, so NN is intent on milking EoSD for everything it's worth. I'm still baffled that we're getting fucking EoSD Daiyousei, who has no spellcards or art from EoSD. I'm really excited to see A6 Sanae because she was playable in the EoSD fangame Fantastic Danmaku Festival. The main thing that rubs me the wrong way is that no other game in the series would ever get this much preferential treatment. does anyone think we're really going to get an A7 Letty? A10 Minoriko? A12 Kogasa? Nope.
  • I saw this theory somewhere that Sunny Milk could've became a maid due to the Scarlet Mist Incident since the A6 universe is where the Scarlet Mist incident doesn't stop so not just the EoSS crew will be affected by the incident.

 

 

People are making their own predictions in regards to what units will be coming next into the game

And of course, we cannot forget about the memes in regards to how to create a Relic unit:

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Closing thoughts 
 

On 9/28/2022 at 9:11 AM, sodaodaoda said:

To me, this AMA seemed like they want to improve on the game, but also it just seems a bit shady, if you get what I mean.

Again, that is why I called the whole thing a PR stunt. Many I have talked to told me it was surprising it took LW 2.5 years to realize their game has problems, which led to the AmA and then developer manifesto the following day.

Surprisingly, I did ask about Arcadia Record at the same time, given we have not really seen that game being discussed for the past coupe months since release. What i was even more surprised was to hear that not only is the game still alive, but that it is actually much better than LostWord right now. That is has an actual development team listening to the issues players report and fix them in mere days. That the game gets quickly updated and it takes 2-3 days at most to implement QoL updated whenever needed. That AR is actually starting to attract music circles to collaborate with, including Akatsuki Records (music group who, at the current point, is only missing from LostWord out of all Touhou mobile games ~ under what category should Touhou Spell Bubble be added?). Maybe that game does have a chance to survive...

 

On 9/28/2022 at 9:11 AM, sodaodaoda said:

Chance? Didn't the JP branch announce once that we will be getting PC-98 Rei and Mari?

All I know about Reimu and Marisa in their PC-98 form is that they appeared in one of the Hifuu story cutscenes... and that's about it. They also did appear on some promotional material, but nothing more about actually implementing the units. 

 

On 9/28/2022 at 9:11 AM, sodaodaoda said:

Also, I kinda don't want a collab for TLW... I'd just like for things to stay fully Touhou

Oh, you would be surprised to know how many people were actually asking for a collab/cross-over with Azur Lane. Which may not be impossible, given that LW is pretty much a clone of that game. 

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I came to the Shrine to quickly redownload Hisoutensoku and then I find this extremely long thread. Ah well, might as well share some thoughts (or a full on review) while I'm here.

 

Main Story

I've been playing TLW ever since the first little sister event (Which now makes a lot of sense for being an event when we learned that our MC is very very young) and I've got quite to say about the game. At first I've grabbed the game for the sake of it being a Touhou game, but while the story has been progressing it has captivated me and soon enough I become a regular player. The earlier bits were such a drag however, since there were a LOT of unnecessary battle stages against nobodies (which was made even more annoying when the earlier stages had the best Support Card WoSD so you had to clear a lot for lunatic). Thankfully they've significantly cut it down for the later chapters.

At first the chapter 3 saga started out well enough, though I felt that the LostWord would have easily been Yukari or something... And then Act 3 & 4 came. Oh boy, I felt like I understood NOTHING. I came out confused when they said that the LostWord were Youmu's swords.

The interlude chapter came, and then I felt a bit confused why everyone was treating Lossie as if as a child but it was nice to see them meet each other. Then the final part of the interlude came and my only thoughts were just: "W-why?"

Act 4 arrives, and much to my joy/dismay it really feels like we're getting close to the end of the story with all characters from different universes gathering around and the inclusion of Hifuu Characters as well. (I thought it was hinted that Vampire Hunter Sakuya ultimately won her fight and killed the sisters but NOPE. She's become their maid now.) That and we're getting hints of Lossy's true identity. Sigh regardless, I'm sticking to finishing the story no matter what.

Event Stories

The earlier ones were lackluster/felt like there was no way they could happen in Gensokyo (except the Detective Marisa case). But soon, the writing and dialogue of the events started better, so even the events that feel like they shouldn't happen were really fun to read. I want to say that Masked Dancer's Rebellion is my favorite but I know that's just me being biased to Kokoro (and Satono). So I put Yakumo's Ambition on the top. I love the absurd things happening in the event and how meta it got. That event also taking place in the 1st universe we saved (the school universe) was a good excuse to go a bit ham on the concept of the event. It's sequel however, the Jo'on Phantom Thief confuses me as it acts like it all took place in the L1 Universe. But nevertheless, the writing of the event stories have really improved and I hope the skipped events are on par with the writing.

Gacha System

My experience with this has been... A mostly positive one? The one and only time where I've failed to grab a unit I want was F1 Reimu. I spent all my cubes for that. Most other times though has been a success. I've also been quite lucky when it came to rolling for Ultra Fes I wanted, with only needing to Spark once for Soldier Reisen. But ever since Chapter 4 dropped that Winged Marisa I've been saving. Now however with the 2Million Downloads banner came up, I've been rolling 10s everyday and either the rates are higher than usual, or I'm lucky (I've gotten Miko, Alice, and Patchouli so far).

But talking about what they have been doing so far with Relic and Epic? God I wish Epic didn't exist. I'm fine with Relic the way it currently is, it's sparkable but the designs of the characters feel a bit lazy (ESPECIALLY the brand new Sakuya). But Epic? That can go. I was fine with Blue Reimu being Epic but now that a good amount of Chapter 4's main cast will be Epic? Nah, screw that. Blue Reimu had Important Story Reasons to be Epic, but I don't see why Hecatia needed to be Epic. The brand new Koishi being Epic I can barely forgive since she's apparently F1 just like Reimu. The power creeping is starting to show with the push of Epic units that I'm starting to miss the Super Fes spam.

By the way, locking away the good Story Cards away in the gacha is stupid. Encourages hoarding 5 star cards in the event you get a character that needs it.

Arenas, Rebirths, Tower, and EX Battles

Arena's are for non-casual players who want their characters to deal a bit more damage. Weekly Arenas however provide casuals who has an abundant of MLBd characters to spam Last Words and gain easy access to the incense. Scarlet Devil Tower is a challenge designed for more advanced players, but starts of only a tad bit more difficult so that newer players can learn things such as barrier breaking and resource management. EX Battles are for the even MORE advanced players and rewards you with really good cards. Someone like me who doesn't really care about learning how to the combat system works and strategizing so man am I glad tutorials for characters and Story Cards I happen to have exist. Rebirths. First I found them neat with the costumes. Soon they started releasing them with plain old normal wedding dresses and flower/ring bearers. Now my interest is getting piqued with them releasing more unique costumes. That said it sucks that the stories are locked behind Ring of Fates because they rarely give them out for free.

 

Anyways that's all I have to say. I have nothing to talk about Hifuu because at the moment, it seems to be quite dead. Even in JP.

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Time for the news roundup.

 

News and updates

This week, "In the West Nothing New" (or as everyone knows it better, "All Quiet on the Western Front")... I mean nothing new happening in regards to LW Global. However, JP seems to be having a little bit more activity:

 

It looks like LW is trying to blue-ball us again with a PC-98 character. Again, do not expect her to be playable in the nearby future. If anyone from PC-98 will be playable AT ALL, given the uncertainty of the answers given by LW staff during the AmA session. Besides her, there is also a new Hifuu Space War character. 

Spoiler

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Meanwhile, Relic Festival Sakuya has been announced, and will soon be part of the game. There is also a new event, which may finally make sense why in the Morby story, Kagerou, Sekibanki and Wakasagihime were all dressed like each other (during that event on Global, there was no explanation or context to what was going on):

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Community discussion and memes

Not so much in terms of discussions this week, but there are memes:

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Edited by CountVonNumenor
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Quote

There is also a new event, which may finally make sense why in the Morby story, Kagerou, Sekibanki and Wakasagihime were all dressed like each other (during that event on Global, there was no explanation or context to what was going on)

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Wait, this is a new event and not a rerun? I could have sworn I've seen those costumes before...

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  • CountVonNumenor changed the title to Do Touhou and gacha work together? (2022 - Touhou LostWord, Danmaku Kagura - closed/going to be revived, Arcadia Record)

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