seki108

Very long post warning. Finally writing something for the Puppet Dance Performance......though I could probably write two since I've been putting it off.  For some reason, I started taking a lot of screenshots.....way too many  The first two sections are kinda fillerish, so skip to "At least I got a new Gap spot as soon as I entered Makai" to see me ignoring the last red flags  and 'Champion' if you want to skip to near the end / the relevant plot.

Simply put, this track is burned into my mind, like I've already posted about a few times

Past PDP:SOD updates here:

Ok, onto something.  Well, after facing both of our rivals, it's time to investigate Makai......which we get to through through another cave.  If only I picked up up on the pattern, though it was a altered, so I wouldn't have anyway.

I used to not have to use Repels......I had so much patience with wild encounters back in the day.  NOT ANYMORE!   I did come across the organizer of Gensokyo's first cosplay convention...

Anyway, after many dead ends (but with good items at the ends), I came upon the one Touhou gatekeeper I always forget about and a teleporter.   Well, time to go to Makai.............

.........or not.  We come out in some random boundary Ice World......completely with Ice Puzzles.  At least these aren't too complicated and those iced trees look great.

Another time of me saying I like the VS sprites in this game even the NPC trainers.  Also, clutch survival by Kokoro.  Good job!

A bit mad that this named character was here to heal you.......which I didn't find out until afterward.  I thought she was another named character battle and wanted to save healing items............and ended up wasting more.

Finally at the end of this world, two more named characters.......which means good A.I.  I don't really remember much except that they forced me to use almost all the healing items I had, so they must have been decent.   Also, the levels on the named enemies have pretty much caught up to time at this point. Much like this entire Ice segment, I don't know why the Extra stage bosses of Touhou 4 are here as a buffer before Makai (Touhou 5), but I assume they just skrewed with things to battle me.  

At least I got a new Gap spot as soon as I entered Makai. That cave was too long.  There really isn't much here, except for an item vendor that is selling top of the line healing items.  Finally they are selling the Full Restore equivalent, so the Max Revive equivalent is the only thing not sold, as is common.  I did notice that I was using quite a lot of healing items just to get by now.  I know I don't have the best balanced team and the typing differences still confuse me, so I decided to try to not items the next battle.......wrong time, me....wrong time.

All that's left is to do here is go to the castle(?) at the end of the path that I just realized I don't have a screencap of.   Amusingly, there is both a path for people with appointments and another for those without........which the person at the desk mentions is inescapable once entered.   AND FINAL FLAG IGNORED because I found the situation amusing.

Once I entered the room and saw the layout, it clicked to me what this was.  I just walked into what can count as the Elite 4 gauntlet....after just resolving to try to use less healing items in battle.  Well, I was going to give it shot.  All three 'elites' have a special bit of dialogue if you just try to walk past them to the door; very nice detail there.    *FOR THE REST OF THIS UPDATE, ALL SPOILER TAGS WILL HAVE IMAGE CLUSTERS, INSTEAD OF JUST ONE IMAGE

I really tried with this one not to use items.  Yuki had a team mostly built on SPEED variants of puppets, with a slight preference for Fire types.  I turns out Fire was pretty much only checked by my leading glass cannon Kogasa.  I had Ground Earth coverage, but they were part Steel and melted before they got an attack off.  My whole plan of not using healing items didn't pan out in the end, especially since the game has no option to change to Switch mode....Set only. 

The main thing I noticed with this battle is a disturbing trend that has followed ever since.  Most trainer's A.I.s from this point on are freaking mind readers.  I remember seeing something about this on a thread here a few weeks back, so it isn't new to Pokemon apparently, but this just ramped it up.  Every switch in was likely to be met with a Super effective move, while every returned Super Effective was met with a switch out from the enemy.  

I was at least going to get to the next trainer before possibly losing and trying again with some different members.  Kogasa barely managed to pull off a victory in the end.

Honestly, Mai wasn't that hard with either team and I managed to beat her first try, though with some healing item usage.  Kisume almost took out half Mai's team by herself.....she really is probably my best wall with her unique Fire/Grass Nature typing and all the immunities it brings.  Also, I forgot her ability prevents switchouts from Volt-Switch equivalents, which REALLY helped here since half of Mai's team used those moves.....it was her gimmick. Plus, her alternate sprite lets her be Snake, so that's a plus

Also, behold the game's Wobbafett stand-in

Now for the fucking maid that cause so much trouble, even forcing me to bring a revised team just to deal with her.  Damn you are going to have to pull some work in FMW next time I play it to make up for this.  Honestly, I don't remember most of her other team aside from an Alice and Sakuya puppet that were a bit more than speedbumps; the main problem was her ace puppet, Speed Yumeko. 

Like Power Aya, she has the game's equivalent to Skill Link, is fast as hell, and has decent coverage.  Normally, her pure Steel typing wouldn't be that much of a problem.....except that Kisume is the only Fire type I have, the other Fire coverage is a glass canon, and she could 5-shot any of the Fighting coverage I had.  It seems she paid a lot of offerings to RNG-esus considering how many crits she landed and how many times my Will-O-Wisp missed;  Shinki's going to be pissed at your split faith.

Finally I got a Will-O-Wisp and pretty much just had to keep Kisume alive until Yumeko melted away.  The lack of screenshots here should be telling.

Not only do we face the 'Champion', but we also find out she was the one who's behind the Puppet incident......for the most Touhou of reasons.

Shinki's team mostly consisted of Stage 5, 6, and Extra bosses from Touhou games......in other words heavy hitters or beefy units only.  However, without something as obnoxious as Skill Link on a supremely fast unit, she was quite manageable within a time or five.  She has her own theme and a great battle background.

Incident over it seems, though a Creator God's magic apparently takes a while to go away

Then an unpleasant interruption that signals the boundary between the main game and the post game

And a cute credits scene with your starter with many of the theme remixes of the game on display