Preview: Eastern Versus Tradition in Decimal

Nagae Iku went through numerous iterations when we were working on Lunatic Extra. Since we were doing a lot of physical testing those days, those alternate Ikus have been lost to time. Today’s Iku stands unmodified from Lunatic Extra 1.0. There’s bliss in not having your awkward teenage years preserved on the internet forever.

Hinanawi Tenshi lives cringe but free. Tenshi’s character card had the same issue as Patchouli where +3 cards isn’t that much over the course of an entire Danmaku!! game. This was the first card Carrot told me they wanted to buff if we ever did a reprint. Tenshi was always one of our most popular character cards though, so we couldn’t change her existing rules too much. In Big Box, Tenshi remains largely the same, but now she’s got a celestial’s good luck in addition to her hot-blooded Ability.

Himekaidou Hatate entered Touhou as a foil to Aya. Initially we gave her a similar design to Aya, but it turned out Aya’s Spell Card only worked because of the large number of Danmaku cards in the deck, and other card types didn’t work as well for the concept. Hatate revolves around taking photos of danmaku. Any card in her hand can be a Graze, and the photographs she takes can be either traded in for profit, or used to fuel her Spell Card as a kind of delayed Reflect Shot.

Hata no Kokoro’s poker face is so good she doesn’t know herself what her Spell Card is gonna do. “Four Humors Possession” works an interesting way if you’re using strict rules, the cancel window actually closes before the flips, so opponents must decide if they’re canceling without knowing what she’s going to do. Kokoro decides after the flip of course, it makes for some good back and forth. This version of Kokoro also contains an exploit fix. Previously Kokoro passing Danmaku and Invocation cards happened immediately, meaning that an ally with a Trick Shot could let Kokoro always get her maximum attacks off. The mask pile holds the cards temporarily now.

Ibaraki Kasen’s Ability lets her discard her hand!* Kasen’s main feature is her Spell Card. Referencing the famous Monkey’s Paw story, this is a Spell Card that gambles with your fate and gets more powerful the more danger you’re in. Combinatorics are Carrot’s field and this was super complex, so I just wrote a quick program to brute force the numbers. I've attached the results. It's important to remember that you don't die immediately when hitting 0 life, so this spell card allows you to die then immediately come back. Freaky.

Usami Sumireko is a rare character who directly gains power by card counting. Unlike previous incarnations, Sumireko can only do it on her draw step now, stopping the infinite card draw nonsense we got infinite reports about. As a baseline you have a 43.75% chance of getting an extra card draw; card counting, Artifacts, and dumb luck can increase this number significantly. To those who reported cheating in Tabletop Simulator, feel free to use the Official House Rule that Sumireko must shuffle the deck after she declares but before drawing. "Psychexplosion" is like Sanae's and Parsee's Spell Cards which blow up players who are in good positions.

Yorigami Jo'on & Shion are here to...bring in the trash. These tough-luck sisters share their misfortune with you via their strange reverse card quality Ability. "Welcome to the World of Destitution" makes each other player destroy an Item or discard. The sisters actually have the most hand destruction out of all of the Danmaku!! characters. It's rough out there.

Toutetsu Yuuma is...not friend shaped. This greedy devil sucks up all danmaku directed at her and spits them at her foes. Unnaturally greedy, Yuuma's Spell Card lets her suck up distant danmaku and can even be activated once per turn instead of once per round.

*I’ll see myself out.