The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil

東方紅魔郷
～ The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

Developer(s) Team Shanghai Alice
Publisher(s) Team Shanghai Alice
Platform(s) Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7
Release date(s) August 11, 2002
Genre(s) Vertical danmaku scrolling shooter
Mode(s) Single-player

Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. (東方紅魔郷 ～ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil., lit. Eastern Lands of the Scarlet Devil) is a vertical scrolling shooter and the sixth official game of the Touhou Project series. It is the first to be released specifically for the Windows operating system and the first by Team Shanghai Alice. All games before Embodiment of Scarlet Devil were made for the PC-98 series of computers and were released by Amusement Makers.

Gameplay

Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, or EoSD, features two playable characters to choose from, each having two distinct attack types. Reimu Hakurei covers a wide area of the screen with weaker attacks, whereas Marisa Kirisame relies on her speed and power to make up for her thinner attack spread. The bombs ("Spell Cards") also show different behavior and damage depending on the character and type chosen.

Some important gameplay features that Embodiment of Scarlet Devil introduces over its predecessor Mystic Square are automatic item collection, which allows the player to collect all items on screen by moving to the top of the screen at full power; and the counter-bomb system, which allows the player to negate an enemy hit by pressing the bomb button immediately after contact with the enemy projectile. Also, this game is the first Touhou game to feature Touhou's iconic "Spell Card" system. Each Spell Card is a particular bullet pattern and is given a name. A bonus can be earned if the player does not use a bomb or die during any particular pattern.

Story

In the summer of the 118th season, there occurred an incident called the Scarlet Mist Incident (紅霧異変). Gensokyo was entirely covered in this mist, and since the sun was obstructed, it became a gloomy and chilly summer. Since this strange mist even reached the human village of Gensokyo, and since humans are not typically able to withstand 30 minutes of the strange mist, the humans of the village were not able to exit from their homes for several days until the incident was resolved. Reimu Hakurei, a shrine maiden working at the Hakurei Shrine, felt that it was her duty as a shrine maiden to find the cause of this unnatural weather. Marisa Kirisame, a black-clothed magician, hoped that the person responsible for the mist would have some interesting items to collect.

The heroines found their way to the Scarlet Devil Mansion (紅魔館) in the middle of Misty Lake (霧の湖), where its residents tried to stop the intruders from reaching the lord of the mansion. The source of the mist is revealed to be final boss Remilia Scarlet, a vampire. Remilia reveals that the scarlet mist was created to block out the sun so that she could feel comfortable during the day (because vampires are weak against the sun). After a fierce battle, Remilia is defeated and things return to relative normality in Gensokyo. The Scarlet Mist Incident is the first time the spell card rules were used, which popularized its use throughout Gensokyo, and battles from their own also used the spell card rules.

In the Extra Mode, the heroines returned to the Scarlet Devil Mansion during Remilia's absence and found the entire household in chaos. Remilia's younger sister, Flandre Scarlet, was on the loose, while Patchouli Knowledge, the library witch, was trying to keep her from escaping. Meeting the heroines after 495 years of being locked in the basement, Flandre asked that they would play with her, but the heroines defeated her.

Setting

The Scarlet Devil Mansion, which features in stage 3 and beyond, as well as on the extra stage, is a western mansion located at the bottom of yokai mountain on a causeway of Misty Lake. It is entirely scarlet in color, and the road that leads to it is also entirely scarlet. It has a clock tower, which rings only at 12 o'clock midnight. The head of this mansion is the final boss Remilia Scarlet, but since she is a child, the head maid and fifth stage boss Sakuya Izayoi is in charge of the place. The gatekeeper is the third stage boss Hong Meiling, who intercepts fairies who come from the lake. The extra boss Flandre Scarlet is also in here, as well as a great number of fairy maids who feature as regular stage enemies. Sakuya manipulates the space inside and makes it seem larger in appearance.

Characters

Playable characters
Boss characters

Development

In the four years since Mystic Square, the previous Touhou installment, the creator ZUN branched off from Amusement Makers and established his own dōjin circle named "Team Shanghai Alice", with ZUN himself as the member. As EoSD would be the first release of Team Shanghai Alice and the first game made for a Windows audience, ZUN felt that the game would need to leave an impression. This is why EoSD has a Western theme, unlike most other games in the Touhou Project whose theme is Oriental.[1]

The Spell Card system, featured in every Touhou game since EoSD, was created by ZUN in 1999 while working on Seihou, and was intended to be a means to identify bullet patterns with names as well as adding depth to his characters. ZUN further stated that EoSD itself was created for the purpose of introducing this system.[2]

EoSD is also the first time ZUN programmed a Windows application from scratch. As he was more familiar with APIs and DirectX and was relatively unfamiliar with the application level, a lot of time was put into creating libraries and tools for EoSD. As a result, little time remained to improve the game's presentation, and ZUN resolved to improve the next game in that regard.[3]

References

  1. ↑ "神主ZUN、『風神録』についてかく話りき！", Chara Mel (Ichijinsha), 2007-11-10: 111
  2. ↑ 「システム」「スペルカードボーナス」, 幻想掲示板 (ZUN's guestbook) via webarchives. 2002-11.
  3. ↑ ZUN, "Shanghai Alice Correspondence Vol.1". Embodiment of Scarlet Devil Afterword. 2002-8-11.

External links