seki108

Stage 51 complete (after I didn't touch the game yesterday).  Now the plot of Touhou 11 begins in earnest, with the last stage being the "prologue."  However, the conflicts of Touhou 11 started being explored and set up in the latter half of the second game (along with the 'cool down' mission before Moonbitch arc), so last stage was just the main reason everyone is storming the Underworld.

Anyway, the actual gameplay now.  Mostly a straightforward stage at first, with the main annoyance being the re-introduction of the fairly accurate Hell Crow mook.  In fact given the bosses, this is mostly a revision/revisiting of Stage 27 (Marisa route), except you have your whole rooster and aren't confined by a Skill Point that requires you to rush to finish the stage in 5 turns.  Both bosses to have a good bit of upgrades (now having better---more annoying--- initial field effects, better skills, and a spell card each).

Considering they are squeezing all of Touhou 11's main conflict into these 5-6 stages, it makes sense that they decided to squeeze two stages bosses together.  The skill point is worrying to begin with: activating both their spell cards on the same turn.  

Given one's initial field reduced all damage to enemies by 25% while the other dropped all the player's stats by 20 points each, their next effects were likely going to enhance these effects (which I guessed right ); activating both spell cards on the same turn would likely make some of the fields stack, thus making the gimmick for this stage being a real race to take both down within 3 turns (the length of the spell card).   In hard mode you only get one Bomb (which destroys the danmaku fields), so you have use it wisely, though it is really only enough time to take down one of them in a turn (unless you heavily upgrade weapons).

This is the result of activating both the same turn (image below), with the effects of listed in the bottom left.  Thankfully I tried to separate them so bucket girl wouldn't Support Defend spider girl, so the fields only kind of overlapped  Given that bucket girl's damage reduction gimmick was more threatening (and didn't have holes to move into), I used my resources to take her out first.  With only her gimmick and the holes in her field, I was able to take down spider girl within the time limit.

While potentially very gimmicky, I definitely liked this one.  I'm very glad I bought Hatate for her 'Hermit Purple' personal skill (increases damage enemies take by 10% for 1 turn---2 uses per stage).  Also, I have to give props to Mokou this stage for dodging two attacks with an above 80% accuracy rate.  You really do make a good Chirico Cuvie substitute in this series:

Favorite unique pre-battle dialogue of the stage: