'sup, everybody?
Today, we're going to be playing Tohomon Blue. You may be wondering why I'm not spelling it "Touhoumon", if Touhou is spelled the way it is, and the answer to that is that "Tohomon" is just how it's spelled on the title screen.
I don't know why that is, but I'm not going to question it.
Anyway, if you don't know what Touhou is, or have heard the name before but don't really know what it's about. I can perhaps best sum it up by saying that it's your average insanely hard shoot-'em-up (like say, Radiant Silvergun or DoDonPachi) with the fighter spaceships and elaborate mechanical designs common to that genre replaced with little girls*, fairies, witches, quintillions of different kinds of youkai, vampires, and maids, to name just a few. They're made by a dude named ZUN (aka "Team Shanghai Alice"), and they're pretty difficult. They're also memetic as fuck.
If you don't know what Pokemon is, I have to question where you've been since the 90's.
Now, I've played Tohomon before (and indeed this very version, and they are all quite different), but never all the way through to the end. So the latter half of this will be blind.
*technically, they only look little because of ZUN's lacking art skills. But whatever.
Now, lettuce begin.
This is literally the first thing we see after hitting the start button (Enter on the VisualBoy Advance GBA emulator), I don't know what it means, but I've seen it before and it doesn't seem to effect gameplay, so meh.
So, the first thing the game gives us is the intro. This is the same as it is on Pokemon LeafGreen and FireRed, which the game is a mod of.
You'll note that despite this game lacking any Pokemon, Pikachu is still up there in the corner. Little inconsistencies like this are probably my only major gripe with the game, but they are kind of annoying.
Now after hitting "A", we're greeted by the familiar face of Professor Oak. But--shock and amazement!--he actually has a Touhou by him instead of, what is it usually? Sandshrew, I think.
for anyone questioning the morality of battling with little girls though, some of the other Tohomon games (which actually change the plot) note that they're magic puppets or something. So it's totally okay! Obviously.
First up, we're going to be making our player character. Now, I'm actually going to decide this myself for two reasons, one is that Tohomon does not let you pick your character's gender, two is that I'd like to actually start the game this session even if we don't get much done. The game does, I'll note, let you decide if you're a Tomboy or a Lady. This lets you pick which character model you use (based on the minor Touhou characters Renko Usami and Maribel Hearn respectively.) I'll be picking Tomboy because....well, I'm a boy. And that's about as close as you can get in this game to actually being a boy.
I'll be making my name Natalie, since my actual name is Nathan and I'm pretty sure Natalie is the feminine form thereof.
I totally forgot about having to name the rival.
So for convenience's sake, I'm just gonna call him Gary. Lazy I know, but frankly in these games I could not give even half a damn about the rival. He's just sort of a generic jerk and I've never felt he adds much to gameplay (and yes, I have played the original generation games all the way through. And I still don't think he does).
Aaaand here's us.
In our room. A cozy affair, plus we've got a game system and our own TV and computer. What more could a little girl ask for?
So now we're going to go talk to our mother.
...who is apparently still in denial about the fact that she didn't have a son.
and we're told that the weird professor next door wants to see us.
and of course he's not there. Oh, but look who is!
Fuck you, Gary Stu. Profoundly.
So now we head north to find the Tohomon Prof. (whose name no longer alliterates, sadly)
Where we are stopped by the good professor himself. Who informs us that wild Touhou live in the tall grass (this is way more dangerous than it sounds. Ever tried dodging danmaku?)
We are then told we need our own Touhou. For protection. And totally not for a savage loli-fighting bloodsport.
So the Prof. takes us back to his lab, where we're given the whole spiel by an inpatient Gary. If you've ever played even ten seconds of a Pokemon game, you're very familiar with this shtick.
Also, Touhou are apparently held inside Toho Orbs. Which are seriously not Pokeballs at all why would you think that.
And this is where we're given our choice of three Touhoes.
First up we've got The Miko Touhou, Reimu (Techincally, CReimu or "Chibi" Reimu. All Touhoumon are C[Name] in their first forms. Just their names in their second, and if they have a third E[Name], the E standing for Extra.) She is Normal, and later acquires the Flying type.
Second, we've got Sakuya, the Maid Touhou. Her types are Ice and later Steel if memory serves. I'll be honest in saying that this is the Touhou I'd pick if I were playing alone, as it's the only one I've not yet played with at least a bit. But it is ultimately the audience decision.
Lastly, we've got Marisa, the Witch Touhou. She is Electric, and later also Fire.
Anyway, I'm going to stop there. Because I want you guys to pick which starter Touhoe I'm going to be using. And also what I should nickname it, if anything. (NOTE: If your answer to that is "nothing" please put "No Nickname")
I should also note that it is possible to acquire alternate versions of both Reimu and Marisa later in the game (though not both, if memory serves). Just something to keep in mind.
So! I'll resume the game either sometime tomorrow or whenever I have what I deem to be a sufficient enough amount of votes (only like five people are reading right now afaik, so that's like what, three?).
TALLY
Reimu:
Nicknames:
ZESTPOOLE THE SAKUYA -- WINNER!
Nicknames: Zestpoole (IIx), N/A (II), Athene ( )
Marisa: II
Nicknames: Heapette (I)
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Comments
Probably just the original Gameboy games. There are like six Tohomon hacks by the way. Most of them suck, but I'm partial to this one
Also, vote?
noted.Okay.
Any nickname?
Added.
Also I just realized that the typings I put up for the starters are actually from Tohomon Puppet Play, which is a different version of the game.
I think they're the same, but am not positive.
"Because lasers" is indeed a valid point.
Nickname?
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
No Nickname
It appears we have a tie on our hands.
If I get another vote, or if someone changes theirs, I'll go with that (unless of course said vote is for Reimu, which would not help at all).
and we have a winner, ladies and gents.
But! We still need to decide a nickname. Please vote between the given options (Athene, Zestpoole, or none).
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Yeah.
I literally had a post written up declaring Zestpoole a winner BUT THEN A CERTAIN SOMEONE HAD TO CHANGE HIS VOTE.
|:|
edit: oops
I'll take a look at her quick before calling it a night.
Gary, meanwhile seems to fancy the Miko Touhou, Reimu.
Now, let's take a look at Zesty's profile. Ain't she cute?
so she's Mild, huh? Yeah this is clearly not the canon Sakuya.
and her ability is the accuracy-raising Concentrate. Yay?
lastly we see her moveset. Scratch and Leer. Not bad for a level 5.
Overall, a solid Touhou.
And that, ladies and mentlegen, is where I will call it a night on the Tohoemon front for today.
ugh. Alright folks. Short update because vanilla saw fit to just eat the one I had written up for some reason.
so, we find out we're going on to the next town
I don't know why. I guess our mom kicked us out and we're too lazy to get a real job? Sure. Let's go with that.
Let's talk to Gary Stu, because why not.
fuck you, Gary.
Whatever, let's just leave.
OH WAIT, WE CAN'T
Fuck you, Gary.
Now you might think that this being the first battle of the entire god-damn game, that this would be simple.
Oh no, my friends. The Random Number God saw fit to give Gary the most jacked-up Reimu ever. I swear she's on fucking steroids. Because I got pounded into submission by this freaking Miko no less than twenty times, and had to reload my savestate every damn time because goddammit I am not losing to Gary.
And guess what I got to listen to every single time?
Yeah. No, Professor I've actually played this game several times.
But you're just going to keep yammering on, aren't you? I seriously demand to know why this is not skippable after five generations of Pokemon games.
THEN WHY DID YOU EVEN SAY ANYTHING YOU SENILE OLD MAN?!
guh..
What ensued was this happening a lot, giving me false hope I could actually win against The Shrine Maiden of Steroids
And then I would lose. Constantly. I would just like to point out that this took me a good half hour.
No one has sent a Sakuya to get her ass kicked this many times since Scarlet Weather Rhapsody's story mode.
oh, but wait, what's this?!
YEAH!
FUCK YOU, GARY!
FUCK YOU GARYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!
SUCK IT
SUCK
IT
okay, I think we're done now finally. I'm going to do another installment later tonight in which we might actually catch some other Touhoes. I'll post the rules on catching when we get to that.
edit: actually here they are, along with some other stuff from the old post. Because it magically re-appeared in my post box. Because fuck me, I guess.
No clue! Probably not.
And I think most of Zesty's moves are Ice, which I think is a special-stat controlled element? Not sure. If not, I'll just have to start finding her some delicious vitamins.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
(Note: Most of that was recently found off of Bulbapedia. Not actually a master at this)
ah, thank you Yarrun.
I am having a snack and will resume Tohoe-ing afterward.
edit: dammit always doing that
Now we're gonna head on to the next town, cuz why not? Maybe we'll level up a bit on the way.
So here's our first wild Touhoe.
This is a Chibi Chen. These things are, as I recall, freakin' everywhere. They're basically Ratata. Chen herself (the Touhou) is a cat Youkai and one of Yukari Yakumo's servants (Yukari being the chick in my avatar, notably). We defeat her with minimal difficulty.
And here we encounter Market Guy, who gladly gives us a free sample of some product from his....well, his market.
And we walk for a minute and hey, another wild Touhou!cuz why not, right? Free potions are always good. Relatedly, I always thought this was a hilarious way for him to introduce himself for some reason. He doesn't tell you his name or anything. He's just like "Hi! I'm stuck at a dead-end job! Here, free sample for you."
that'd be Chibi Suwako. Suwako's a frog goddess in the original Touhou games. Here, all I know is that she's a water type and also you can later catch her hat. By itself. For some reason. Taking down Suwako proves to be a bit harder, as she's got a high defense already and also knows Defense Curl (which raises it). But we do manage to get her eventually, though it leaves us badly in need of a potion.
On the positive side of things, Zesty levels up as a result aaaaand
FUCK YEAH.
Knife Throw is one of the original moves programmed to this mod. I'm not sure if it has an exact equivalent in the original FireRed, but it's a strong, single-hit move. Oddly I remember it being more similar to Fury Attack or something, perhaps I remember wrong.
So we feed Zestpoole a potion and get on our way.
and before long, we run into another Touhou.
This'd be Chibi Mystia. It's a flying type that knows Sing. So it's sort of a cross between Pidgey and Jigglypuff, I suppose. They're rather annoying, but this one's only level two, so let's try out our new move on it, shall we?
Ouch. You can't see the aftermath here, but we took it down in only two hits. Big improvement over Scratch. I tried to get a shot of it in-action, but couldn't. Perhaps I'll get one later.
So we move on, and before long we're in lovely Viridian City.
Hm! Who knows what awaits us here? (ProTip: Same thing that awaits us in the regular version of FireRed)
I'm going to end this installment here, but I'm not going to be done tonight just yet. If you'd like me to catch any of the Touhoes we encountered, cast your vote and I'll record it below. Remember, you get only one vote per Touhou. Also! Suggest nicknames.
CATCH REQUEST TALLY
CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN: II
Suwako: II
Mystia: I
Noted on both counts.
I'll leave the voting open for an hour or two before I start playing again, but if we, at a later date, run into those Touhou again, I'll reopen the voting and keep the tally from before and add it to the new one. Remember, a Touhou needs three votes for me to catch it.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Frankly, I just want you to catch the next touhoumon you come across.
Also, I'm just going to do an infodump for Mystia, since you missed that one.
Mystia's a wild sparrow youkai. She's one of the few who actively attack humans. Her song, unlike Jigglypuff's, causes night blindness. She also runs a grilled lamprey shop. Grilled lamprey is a traditional cure for nightblindness, so she can often fleece some money from her victims.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I think you have to fish for those actually.
IDK why.
alright, first thing we're gonna do is head to the PokeTohomon Center to get Zesty all fully healed and such.
And then uh, then we're gonna figure out what we have to do. Cuz I forget.
Immediately upon walking into the Touhou Store, I am reminded
well not really, but surely this is a quest impetus of some sort.
Oh, we're apparently expected to run this thing we've been given back to the Tohomon Prof.
Sure! Not like we're homeless and desperately searching for a place to spend the night or anything....
Well, let's head back to Pallet Town oh hey what's this
why it's the other local bird Touhou. Chibi Aya! In Touhou, Aya is a tabloid reporter. Also she somehow has a camera. Also also, her ability here is Speed Boost, which makes her faster/more annoying every turn.
on the plus side, during the course of this battle I managed to get a shot of Knife Throw in action. Original sprite and everything.
sadly if you go check the description
Somewhat less original, to be polite.
I really don't know why the descriptions of all things are left unchanged. This is actually a sore spot for me because some of the original attacks don't do what the old description suggests. So you're just kind of left guessing how they work.
Just outside of Pallet Town we come dangerously close to getting KO'd by a Chibi Mystia, but we scrap through with only 2 HP left to our name. Awesomely, the resulting EXP. lifts Zesty up to level 8.
Now, we're gonna go see the Professor.
We hear the old speech about how our Pokemon Touhou seems to be growing attached to us. etc. etc.
then we give him the package!
HOORAY! NOW WE CAN BE DONE WITH THIS BULLSHIT PLOT POINT!
Apparently it's a custom Toho Orb. Woohoo.
and now we get our Tohodexes
which again, not at all like a Pokedex. Seriously. Why would you even think that.
More importantly, we receive five Toho Orbs,
sorry. Toho BallS (I like to think these are Toho Orb-themed versions of those obnoxious rubber testicles rednecks put under their trucks)
making us now fully equipped to catch Pokemon Touhou.
Gary then informs us that we won't be necessary, and that he will tell his sister not to lend us a Town Map.
fuck you, Gary.
and that's where we'll stop for right now, cuz my emulator is laggin'. I might do another update tonight if I get more votes re: Touhou catching, that is, if you guys really want me to catch something in particular. Other than that, I think I'm done for today.
okay, kidlins. Let's get this thing started.
So yeah! We've got Toho Orbs and a Tohodex now, time to head back north for funzeys.
On our way back to Viridian we easily whoop a pair of Chibi Mystia and rack up some EXP. from that, after restoring at the Touhou Center we'll have a look around and see what's up.
Alsoooo, I forgot to show this off earlier, but when we got the Tohodex, we also gained access to the entry on Chibi Sakuyas, such as our own Zestpoole, and!
that's right, each Touhou has a unique 'Dex entry, as far as I know, anyway. The phrase "elegant and tiny maid" just tickles me for some reason, I do have to say.
So now we're going to head out west to Route 22. Later on in the game this'll be where we go for the Pokemon League, but right now we're just sort of looking around. We run into a slightly stronger Chibi Mystia (Level 4) who knows sand-attack, so it takes a bit of time to beat her. But we're soon back off and exploring and oh hell.
fuck you, Gary.
well actually no, I'm just kind of looking around. And what do you mean "forget about it", you douche?
No. Of course I don't, I haven't even been taking the Gym challenge.
Of course you want to fight. You prick.
Somehow, I feel as though this isn't going to end well and oh shit he has two Touhou now and one is a Level 11 Chibi Aya.
After getting our asses handed to us, I reload the save and pretend we never saw Gary out that way.
Because we never did, right?
Let's try heading north instead, where a random man stops us to tell us how important coffee is to him.
I suppose it's good to see someone with an enthusiasm for something other than a vicious bloodsport around here, but it's still a bit random, yes?
He then takes a sudden interest in a possession of ours.
Obviously, the only logical choice is to now brace for a brutal mugging.
wait how does he know what The Tohodex is? Aren't me and Gary the only people who have them? Clearly this man is some kind of international superspy hellbent on stealing the secrets of our Touhoutechnology for the Americans!!
and then he offers to give us "advice" ADVICE HE SAYS. NOT THE FACE, I'M TRYING TO START A MODELING CAREER IN UNOVA!!
OH GOD THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FINESSE. THE MIIIIIIIIIIIIND. GAAAAAAMES.
SEE HOW HE MOCKS US?!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
wait what da fuck
is that a Chibi Cirno?
So when you said "show us how to catch Touhou" you meant...ah...okay. I think I see now.
uh. Yeah.
So after this *brilliant* old timer shows us how to catch a Touhoe, we flee with our lives barely intact.
So anyway, we notice that the town has a local Touhou Gym, well hey let's stop by and earn ourselves a badge. Totally not just to show up Gary.
of course!
Alright that's all for this installment. Catch Voting is still open and I'm hoping y'all vote on something soon--Chen and Suwako only need one more vote--but whatevers. New update will probably come later this evening.
Also I'm gonna do some non-recorded grinding with Zesty, cuz if Gary was any indication of what we'll be facing, she's going to need it.
So hey. I just found out some bullshit.
If your last Touhou/Pokemon is poisoned, and you're walking, and it faints, not only do you white out and get sent back to the Touhou Center, you "panic" and lose money.
what the fuck, seriously?
also we encountered a new Touhou while grinding. Chibi Medicine Melancholy, poison type, knows poison sting and growl, and has Poison Body as its ability. Poison Poison Poison.
edit: we ran into yet another new Touhou. Chibi Sanae. Now Sanae's a miko with wind powers in the actual Touhou game. Here, she knows Pound and Safeguard. I dunno what's up there, but whatever.
here's the catch tally again for anyone curious
Chen: II
Suwako: II
Mystia: I
Aya:
Medicine Melancholy:
Sanae:
and for Touhou we can't get yet:
Hina: I