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Friday, July 8, 2016

Touhou Corner: Phantasmagoria of Flower View

Touhou Kaeidzuka (lit. 'Flower Viewing Mound') ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View (東方花映塚 ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View) is the 9th main-line title in the Touhou Project series, launched in occasion of the 68th Comiket on August 14, 2005.

This danmaku shoot-em-up entry in the series features one of the widest playable character rosters in the series, as 16 different heroines from Gensokyo are driven to find out the cause of the land's latest incident, this time involving the Spring's return with an unusually-higher flower bloom ratio (even for non-Spring flowers!) and an extra abundance of faeries. Regardless by the character chosen, by battling her way through the other characters the chosen heroine will eventually meet the cause of the troubling situation in the fields of Muenzuka (無縁塚, lit. 'Mound of the Unnamed'), where the slackery of shinigami Komachi Onozuka has caused the many dead souls to possess the surrounding flowers in their wait to reach the enlightenment of the afterlife on Komachi's ferry rides.

This game's English subtitle is based on the one from the third PC-98 game of the series, Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream; this is not the only link between those two games, as both are structured to be 1-vs-1 competitive vertical shooters. On each stage, two players indirectly battle one another by charging and releasing charge attacks and Spell Cards upon the other player, until one of the two's life gauge drops to 0. The peculiar gameplay structure makes this game one of the few in the main-line series which features both a single-player Story and a Versus mode against the AI or other players, enhanced from the PC-98 title with the addition of online multiplayer through the later-released netplay patch for both LAN and Internet matches.

Phantasmagoria of Flower View's soundtrack ranges from brand new pieces to new versions of older tracks, while also featuring selected extra tracks from soundtrack albums and unusued music in the former games. This game is also the last one in the main line of Touhou Project games to be performing under the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil's engine.

Of the currently-available arrangement tracks from this multiplayer-friendly shooter chapter, the first one has made it into public play as one of the first two Touhou arrange tracks in Taiko, while another has been a Reitasai-exclusive feature.

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-Phantasmagoria of Flower View songs-



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