Finally, justification for people drawing Youmu without Myon.

Unfortunately I am not nearly gamer enough to handle these patterns, so I am glad there were no game overs and the danmaku was very pretty. I've also always wanted to see a shmup with melee mechanics so that and the way dialogue was integrated into the fights was neat.

it took me the longest time to realize that I could let go of the "z" key. and then I could play the rest of the game!!

the dialogue was very funny 10/10 would read again and the music was also a bangers (plz put that yuyuko stage mix on youtube plz) the danmaku was really dense tho, a little too dense for my liking but no lives system means no problem!

I had fun!!!!

hi its me again just played latest patch and wow! addresses so many of my problems, even though they were my fault to begin with!

i hadn't actually played the entire way through, or even really done anything outside of the testzone until now, so basically like doing it normally. review: pretty awesome

patterns obviously you already know, they got that hood shit goin on, fantastic visual spectacle, although one thing i didn't realize would be a deal was that its actually quite easy to miss the "spellcard names" on the right, even though i knew they were a feature i kept forgetting they were there and didn't read what they said (which i already knew but didn't mean to miss)

the art is awesome, big fan of reisens boss sprite, i think i only saw the unshaded sketches for the talksprites before so its super cool so see how quality they turned out

you've got sound effects, actual sound effects gat damn i'll be catching up soon. thanks tami and taira komori and whoever else

even though i know its all technically ONE small cell in ONE stage youmu doesnt go ANYWHERE the cutscenes convey the movement and change of environments well, the text is pretty funny its great great game

engines kinda shit, node js is for lazy ass developers, the sword doesnt work during time slow segments, why does it say infinity in the top right, default controls are a and s???? no wii remote support??? whys it so damn big?????? ha ha

all in all, not as good as undertale, but substantially better. why does your 2d game have zfighting

I absolutely have skill issues with danmaku games, alas, so I can't speak too much on the specifics of the gameplay. (Truly an ironic thing, no?) 

But what I CAN speak to is the art, presentation and writing. 

It's apparent right away that this is meant to feel very different from normal Touhou fare despite the similarities. There's no score being kept, the cool down/build up mechanics are graphically represented on the left, and-- the most fascinating part to me-- continuing dialogue on the right side over a picture background. 

I'm unsure of what the actual intention is, but I read it much like you would poetry, and it most certainly seemed to fit the overall idea of the plot, which is a sprawling, fascinating talk on the idea of relationships in general. Whether the nature of the relationships is work, familial or romantic, and even if it's just relating to one's self or with others, there seems to be a lot to say about boundaries and respect. 

It's an angle I appreciate; the melancholic slant lends an unexpected emotion to the visually lovely (though PC-slowing) danmaku fights, especially given you're able to get through them no matter what with the infinite lives mechanic.

I unfortunately played the Jam version, which does not have music, but Tami's work is superb, and in have no doubts it adds to the experience. 

The ending is a little bit silly, but with how Komachi is characterized, it honestly makes a lot of sense.

The completed arts are also very nice; backgrounds are pretty without being distracting and have a nice atmosphere. The character portraits were also nice when completed (Rei'sen, however, haunts my dreams.) The sprite art is also wonderful. Yuyuko's especially feels overwhelming to overcome with how big it is on the screen, which feels appropriate. Komachi's is also gorgeous. Lots of subtle details which I could point out and adored. 

I wish it wasn't so unbalanced as a game; even with the infinite lives, it was a very high degree of difficulty from the word go. It would have felt more earned to get an ending with a more friendly difficulty setting, but for a first attempt at a danmaku game, it's a very solid effort all around.

For some reason, the sound doesn't work and the game seems to be running slower than intended. Playing on Linux Mint 21.1 through WINE version 8.9-staging.

Even at like 30-50 FPS, it's really hard to dodge.

I don't think I quite got the game. It could partly be due to me underestimating the reach of my sword, perhaps? How do you build bullet deletion meter more quickly? Since most bullets originate from the boss, even deleting the bullets doesn't give much opportunity to do damage.

I would probably be more motivated to give it another chance if it ran well on my machine. Maybe consider a linux export? There seem to be a lot of cool ideas and I do love Shoot the bullet style puzzle attacks, so I'd like to be able to give the game an honest chance.

Fun writing with a very cute premise!

There are lots of creative and unique bullet patterns, but I gave up on actually dodging any of them pretty much immediately. To that end, I think making the swords charge much, much faster (especially the bullet-clearing one) might've helped it work more as a game?

If you're leaning more into the visual spectacle than the difficulty then you may as well make the player over-the-top powerful as well, otherwise the players who care about not getting hit will feel powerless and frustrated even with infinite lives

Um, the file with no version number is the Jam version right? And does v1.11 just add music and have cut size?

Anyway, playing this was uh. An experience™. I recognize this shot type. It emulates Youmu's from TH13 and TH17 does it not? The charge time is a bit long and its range makes it awkward to use. It's not that the shot type in itself that is bad, rather I feel like the danmaku patterns are not suited for Youmu's shottype.
Given the context of the game, I dunno if that's intended to make the player feel overwhelmed. However I can affirm that I did not have fun completing the game. That comes from a Hard Mode Touhou player.
Even with the Hakurouken to delete bullets, most of the patterns are just too much to approach the boss without getting damaged. Hell even if I had an orthodox shot type, it'd still be too much.

Good example is this. One boss just circles around the screen, leaving behind dense circles of varying speeds (and angles since the circles spawn all around the scren). While the other boss makes an explosion at your location. There's absolutely no breathing room at all.

The best example is this:

How the absolute hell am I supposed to go about this one. You have: Komachi's pathing shot YoumuGhost's kunais the occasional water explosions from below. And they overlap like this very often. The slowdown mechanic in there can't save me.

So yes, that's certainly the big complain I have of the game, which is a shame because some of these patterns are pretty creative, or quite nice to look at. Like Yuyuko's Double Colorful Death Butterfly(?) or Reisen Kana's... Treadmill Ride spellcard?? That's really amusing. I also recognized the spellcard "Danmaku Barrier" even if it's YoumuGhost's knockoff lol.
This story about Youmu's literal struggle against herself is sweet too. Just like apricots I guess?

It’s neat danmaku, but the patterns were too dense for me; then again, I just play Easy mode nowadays, haha. I got 200 hits despite trying to dodge, so I appreciate having infinite lives. The setup was cool, I liked how Youmu’s ghost half was independent and probably truer to her own feelings... that’s something that could be explored further in fanwork in general. And the pairing is novel to me, but quite good. The music is pretty good, but when I first started the game it had no sound, so I had to restart it after checking that you indeed had Tami in the credits!

And of course, I appreciate the Kana and Reisen continuity from your Kotohimegame.

Hopefully Youmu can get many apricots from now on.

Edit: Forgot to mention, but having only close-range attacks was certainly a challenge. I wish it had a bit more range, but I liked it.

Edit ][: Extra props for arranging TD's stage 1 theme for Yuyuko! Underrated theme.

I really loved this! This is such a fun danmaku game. (My biggest desire is for a graze counter, and also maybe changing the controls a bit? A/S is a bit awkward compared to Z/X)

The idea of being able to cut bullets in front of you in exchange for a bomb adds a bit of leniency to the player in emergencies, but maintains a good level of challenge (you can't cut behind you, after all). I have a soft spot for danmaku games in Touhou game jams admittedly—on it's own, though, I think it'd still be one of my top games of any jam. Great job to the entire team and super fun patterns!!!

Excellent gameplay! I thought it was very tense, especially as the patterns are above the level that I as someone with only a few hard 1CCs can normally sight-read, but you didn't punish the player appreciably for getting hit, so it seemed like you could basically decide how you personally wanted to accept damage taken and change the difficulty based on "vibes," I guess? And I loved the way the patterns worked, and especially how much variety there was in the patterns given how little dev time there was! The writing was also quite charming, and I really appreciated the callback to the reisen sprite from kotohimebook.

Out of the jam games I've played thus far, this might be my favorite, and I expect it'll stay pretty high up there. My one complaint is probably just that I couldn't remap my controls; I'm a shift/z/x person through and through. But a and s weren't too far off, so i mostly got used to it, lol.

I liked all of the remixes. They each served the story well. My favorite part of the writing was Yuyuko: she was portrayed excellently.