Subterranean Animism Playaround — Stages 1 and 2

May 25th, 2008

SPELLCARD: SUPER AUDIO DESYNC.

So much for sleep. I tried, but SWR wired me up too much.

I’m extremely unimpressed with the game for all the wrong reasons. First off, it interacts with other programs extremely poorly. FRAPS basically just gives up and spits out a nigh unrecognizeable movie file when you try to record that has to be massively error corrected (and is why the audio is so badly desynced in that video), and it just crashes entirely a few minutes into stage 3 every time I try to record it. I also use a keybinder because one of this laptop’s arrow keys tends to fritz out, but with the keybinder on, sometimes the game thinks I’m still holding a key when I’m not, which sends me sailing off in whatever direction I’m going in. Or sometimes won’t register a keypress at all. It works fine with the keybinder off, but then, sometimes I just can’t move right, which is its own set of problems.

So, I guess the game is alright, but… I’m finding it a bit hard to enjoy it for those reasons, plus SWR is calling my name. Also, Reimu is horrible. Without her needles and homing amulets, she’s just… ugh. UGH. UGH.

Posted in Touhou | 5 Comments »

5 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • albert_2mb says:
    May 25, 2008 at 2:01 pm

    Without her needles and homing amulets
    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

  • Joule says:
    May 25, 2008 at 2:20 pm

    Reimu’s new shot types aren’t that bad. Yukari’s is pretty good. The new homing is pretty gimped though. Aya’s is interesting.

    An new kind of Reimu that can’t depend on homing. Heh.

  • Griffin says:
    June 4, 2008 at 12:51 am

    Just wanted to say thanks for blogging about these games. I came for the anime blogging, but eventually got tired of not knowing what this Touhou thing was that you kept talking about, so looked it up, watched some videos, got some demos, and am now hooked. Never expected I’d like the curtain fire genre. So thanks.

    As a newcomer, I’ve noticed a difficulty curve over the series. EoSD and PCB start off pretty gently, but MoF is noticeably harder, and Subterranean Animism way harder still — first one where I had to drop down to Easy to beat the demo. Judging by Youtube videos, it seems like they all wind up at the same insane difficulty by the end, but the earlier ones start off easier.

    Any advice for which one (of the normal danmaku ones) would be the best first purchase? And is Paletweb the only place to get ’em?

  • Griffin says:
    June 4, 2008 at 12:55 am

    I forgot to mention that I’m impressed by the creativity of some of the attack patterns in Subterranean Animism. The jealous spirit in particular has several neat ones (the chasing trail (“Green-eyed Monster”?), the bubbles that leave a “flower” trail, and the twin attack).

  • Aroduc says:
    June 4, 2008 at 2:50 am

    Himeya carries most of them too.
    http://www.himeyashop.com/

    I’d personally suggest Imperishable Night as it’s my favorite and has a bit of everything. Perfect Cherry Blossom is also pretty good. Phantasmagoria and Shoot the Bullet are both different types of games, so you may enjoy them more or less depending on your tastes.