As if the new Scarlet Weather Rhapsody demo wasn’t enough, Zun announced yesterday Touhou 11 Chireiten Subterranean Animism (東方地霊殿 ～ Subterranean Animism) which I almost missed because of the crazy blog nonsense that I went through last night. Anyways, I hope pKjd‘s guess is right that it will be released at Comiket 74. Even if it’s off, the demo that will be released at Reitaisai on the 25th will be enough to keep me busy.
Since I’m too lazy to attempt translating it myself, I used the magic of Google which told me that the story has something to do with geysers and hot springs; can’t wait to see the fan art.
Edit: A translation of Zun’s blog post can be found at Gensokyo.org. Copipe below for convenience:
[Touhou Chireiten ~Subterranean Animism~]
As always, 300 yen.
Since it’s a demo, I didn’t want a huge fanfare, so I’m announcing it quietly.As always, the demo will be three stages, with no Practice Mode and no Extra Stage.
Story:
“With the spouting of geysers, the spirits of the Earth emerge. Reimu and Marisa are fine with it, but the youkai can’t allow this. Sluggishly, they go underground, to the source of the disturbance. Sealed deep within the earth are youkai with a detestable ability… what will the pair do this time?”…or something like that. Same as always.
This time around, you can chose youkai you like. I tried to create the feeling that Reimu and Marisa are borrowing power from the distant earth above. Up until now, there hasn’t been much difference in playing style between characters, but this time, chosen youkai have different abilities that seriously impact playing styles, so players should be able to see the pros and cons of using different characters clearly.
Since actively engaging and destroying enemies will make playing a lot easier, this might be the first time where playing at a higher difficulty might actually be more simple.
Depending on what youkai you choose, the dialogue might change into something like rapid-fire stand-up comedy.
On the technical side, I’ve added the option of changing window sizes. If your computer is good enough, your window can be about twice as large as normal. In addition, you can also adjust input sensitivity and a host of other options.
There is not much else to say since there are only these pics out for now. One thing I did notice is the return of the graze meter; now I’m going to end up killing myself trying to snag those few extra points. Another thing is that the Power Max in all the screens is 4 except the last one which is 8. I wonder if this means that it gets higher the further you get like the Time Counter in Imperishable Night. Lastly in the same pic, Shanghai as a weapon?! DO WANT! Only about 3 weeks until I get my hands on SWR and SA demo!
