One-of-a-kind experience.

I used to follow the touhou games very closely, and beat all games I played on hard mode. I beat perfect cherry blossom first.
Then Embodiment of the scarlet devil. Then Imperishable night, followed by Mountain of faith.

Then came Subterranean Animism.

This game is the hardest out of all the touhou games I've played. You can only pick Reimu and Marisa as playable characters, but their shot types vary according to the off-screen character you choose. I picked and beat Subterranean animism (henceforth SA) with the Marisa+Nitori combo.

The first level sets things up. Yamome is on the level of a stage 3 boss. Instead of the usual difficulty curve that goes up geometrically, SA feels like it starts difficult and ups the difficulty a tiny bit with each stage. By the time I reached Yuugi (stage 3), it felt like I was on the stage before the last.

Reaching and going up against Satori (stage 4), her being the master of the house and having the very unique gimmick of recalling spell cards of bosses from previous games, it made me think I had reached the final level. I already knew there were other characters but, considering the difficulty, the character selection being only two characters and the partner system, I assumed on the spot there were multiple routes leading to different "final bosses".
I patted myself on the back for a job well done and braced myself for the ending screen.

A fell wind blew. The black background faded into hellish flames.
Silence.
A guitar intro. A melancholic song begins to play.
The lullaby of deserted hell.

Mountain of faith always felt to me like a pilgrimage, a game that can only be fully experienced in a sunny autumn afternoon, with the final traces of summer. SA stage 5 feels like a pilrimage all on its own. It is the hardest touhou level I ever experienced, including extra stages.
It's the level I played the most, just to try and beat it. I remember spending a whole day on it.

Part of the reason this stage is so difficult is the boss. Orin is a charming character with a rather conservative design, but her level will stay with you.
No character to me is as difficult to separate from her stage. Orin shows herself in her cat form as a nuisance through levels 3, 4 and 5, revealing her human form as the boss. Her danmaku style focuses on creating narrow, sinuous paths you have to tansverse at increasing speeds. When you think she doesn't have more tricks up her sleeve, she'll throw huge flame wheels and zombie faeries that creep towards you slowly but surely.

I'm sure Orin is slightly easier to pull through when you have bombs that clear the screen of bullets and damage Orin. The problem with playing with Nitori as your partner is that, while shooting missiles as a broom-riding witch is a fantastic visual, her bomb simply clears the screen of bullets when you're hit by one. I'm the kind of person who sticks to his style, so I was not going to abdicate from this superstar combo.
And so I marched through Orin's level, over and over.

The conclusion I arrived at was simple: if I had to have any hope at going through Orin without using continues, I'd have to reach her level at full power, with as many lives as possible -- to do the perfect game until Orin. And so I did.

Yamame down, Parsee mastered, Yuugi satisfied, Satori subdued.
I knew what to do and where, and so I did.

A weird feeling took over, like I was moving my character directly with my mind. I had gone through level 5 enough to know what I could dodge with raw reflexes and where I needed to use a bomb for two seconds of breathing room. I survived orin with two lives and at the lowest shot.

The next level was completely unknown to me. And it was a breeze. Relief washed over my body. Touhou was back on traditional difficulty, at last!

And then she came.

No. No no no no no no no. Not again. Not this again. What was I expecting? Stage 5 bosses always show up as the stage 6 midboss. I should have known, but I had put Orin behind me already. And she'd been tailing me ever since level 3!

Her danmaku pattern is slightly more merciful here, but still a challenge. My mind went from 1 to 11 in a flash. I beat Orin again and prepared for the boss.

Utsuho is a fun fight. There's little else to say about it, but this is praise. It's everything I wanted: the stage is set for a confrontation that feels epic, the background music fits the theme amazingly, both ominous but with a touch of determination to it. The nuclear reactor gimmick goes hand in hand with the Marisa+Nitori combo and I'd argue it's the canon route simply because it completes the theme of the intermingling of magic and science. Touhou in general is fun. SA is fun overall and I wouldn't have kept playing if it wasn't. But Utsuho has a special place in my heart for surpassing my expectations. I beat her on my first try and it felt incredibly satisfying.

But this is not where it happened.

I challenged the extra stage right away. And this extra stage does not play around. I found myself dodging everything the first enemies throw at me, unsure of what else was coming. The level is very fast-paced and my senses were the sharpest they could be.

I saw myself transversing the screen up down left and right navigating labyrynthic danmaku until I reached the mid boss. I got familiar with the touhou OST through the doujin covers and this was my first time hearing last remote in its original form, which I only realized it was what was playing once the song hits the dramatic segue during the midboss. I kept going, matching my play style with the music. I was cruising through the stage. Everything turned into a blur. I only got a hold of myself when I was deep in Koishi.

"I might actually win an extra stage, on my first try!"

During the spellcard "Depths ｢Genetics of the Subconscious｣". I suddenly realized my body wasn't breathing.
How long had I been without breathing? I don't know, but I gasped for air.
Was my heart beating too fast? Was it beating at all? It was like my body jump-started out of stasis. I was scared.

*PICHUUN*

As it felt as if I was jumping headfirst back into my body, I began losing lives. My performance afterwards was abysmal and I never got to beat Koishi on my first time. I was too worried about my brain having gone beyond overdrive and I was anxious. The sooner that session ended, the better for me. It was an incredible experience but it was way too stimulating. I didn't touch a computer or expose myself to any other electronics outside tv from a very safe distance for the next week. In the end, it took me some 10 tries to beat Koishi.

APOTHEOSIS

I had the greatest touhou experience I could have. The most challenging game, with the most fitting character combination, with a tight, cohesive cast, great gimmicks and overall excellent OST. Add to that an out-of-body experience while playing the game with characters whose powers focus around spirituality and psychology. All the pieces came together to form a perfect picture.

But I might be too sensitive a person and the aftermath frightened me. I continued to play touhou games and they're great for the most part. I still can't bring myself to play unidentified fantastic object because it feels like such a massive downgrade in visuals and music compared with SA. The final mainline game I bothered with was Ten Desires, which was almost as good as SA and again I made the very fitting choice of choosing Youmu not knowing anything about the plot. But it was no SA. It'll forever represent to me the peak of the series. I still keep in touch with official works but the new fighting system imposed in hopeless masquerade flipped off a switch inside me and my interest in touhou never got to the level it used to.

I definitely should make some time to check out cheating detective Satori, however.

Click either to return to:
Home page | Videogames