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Gameplay
Controls
The game may be played using either a keyboard or a gamepad.
Keyboard controls are as follows:
- The Arrow Keys move the character around
- Z causes a short barrage of shots to be fired; it may be held down for rapid fire
- X releases a bomb, also known as a Spell Card or spiritual attack (presuming you have sufficient power)
- Shift slows the character's movement, and changes the nature of the character's shot and bomb; it generally makes your attacks more focused
- Esc pauses the game and brings you to the in-game menu
- Ctrl fast-forwards through any dialogue
- Home or P produces a .bmp screenshot in the /snapshot directory.
- Q returns you to the title screen during boss fights
- R returns you to the beginning of stage 1 during boss fights
- F10 switches between fullscreen and windowed mode
Basic Gameplay
Subterranean Animism plays like a fairly typical vertically-scrolling danmaku shooting game, in which the player's character is always facing towards the top of the screen, shooting at anything that moves, avoiding and weaving between enemy bullets, and confronting difficult bosses at the end of a stage.
There are 4 levels of difficulty: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Lunatic. Each difficulty level features differences in the number of bullets fired by each enemy, rate of fire, variations in the bullets' pattern of movement, and the number and type of enemy Spell Cards used.
Shot
A character's "shot" is the player's primary method of attacking enemies. The shot's attack area and behavior varies depending on the character type the player has chosen.
Point of Collection
Like previous Touhou games, there is a line most of the way up the screen called the point of collection. Unlike the previous games though, it works slightly different, but the end result is the same. If you move your character at or above this line, your Communications Gauge is maxed which has the effect of drawing all items on the screen to your character. Like Mountain of Faith, you don't need to have full power or focus to use the POC - it's always available.
Options and Spiritual Attacks
Like Mountain of Faith, there is no separate bomb counter. Instead, there's a relationship between your power gauge, bombs, and options. Options are the small "satellites" that stick around your character and shoot shots. The more power items you collect, the higher your power gauge rises. The power gauge takes on values from 0 to 4 (or 8 for Marisa/Alice), and decimal numbers in between. The number of options you have corresponds to the integer part of your power gauge - e.g., if you have a power level of 2.75, you have two options. When you go into focused fire mode, your options change position.
Your power level must be at 1.0 or higher to use bombs. Whenever you use a bomb, your power gauge decreases by 1.0 - thus, you lose an option.
Lives
With default settings, you will start off with 3 lives. You can lose a life by getting "hit" by an enemy attack.
The hit box for your character is quite small in comparison to your on-screen sprite, approximately only 5 pixels by 5 pixels in size. If you hold Shift, a colored dot will appear, showing the hitbox precisely. If the hit box of your character's sprite comes into contact with the hit box of an enemy bullet, laser, or the enemy itself, then you have been hit.
In Subterranean Animism, the player's life stock is represented by stars. Bosses occasionally drop fractions of stars after spells or spell cards finish; if you collect five of such fractions, you gain a life.
Stages
There are 6 stages in the full version of the game:
- Stage 1:「忘恩の地から吹く風」 The Wind Blowing From the Thankless Land
- Stage 2:「地上と過去を結ぶ深道」 The Deep Road Connecting the Past and the Above Ground World
- Stage 3:「忘れられた雪の旧都」 The Snowy Forgotten Ancient City
- Stage 4:「誰からも好かれない恐怖の目」 Those Terrifying Eyes Nobody Loves
- Stage 5:「昔時の業火」 Hell Fire of Times Past
- Stage 6:「荒々しい二つ目の太陽」 The Tempestuous Second Sun
- Extra Stage: 「地獄のラブリービジター」 The Lovely Visitor From Hell
Boss Battles
The main challenge and the main attraction. Each boss has multiple lives, which are represented by multiple health bars shown at the upper left of the screen. Bosses usually alternate between attacking normally and attacking with Spell Cards, switching once with each health bar. Colored sections on the health bar indicate the start of a Spell Card attack when the boss' health is depleted that far.
Normal attacks are incrementally stronger versions of the boss character's basic attack. Spell Card attacks bedazzle the player with combinations of complex patterns that often involve the use of projectiles and obstacles crafted especially for use with that Spell Card. If the player manages to defeat a Spell Card attack without getting hit or using any bombs, a substantial score bonus is rewarded for the feat.
Each attack is accompanied by a timer. When time runs out, the boss will switch to their next attack pattern even if their health bar isn't empty. Waiting for a boss character's attack pattern to self-destruct may be enough to beat them, but mere survival won't earn the player any score bonuses. (Note: There are some bosses that are invulnerable. For those bosses, you WILL get a score bonus if you survive the countdown to zero.)
When fighting a boss, a position marker shows up on the bottom margin of the screen, indicating where the boss is on the horizontal axis. Since your target can be completely obscured by bullets or darkness at times, use this marker to help you aim your shots. The marker will dim when the boss is being hit, and will flash red when her health bar gets sufficiently depleted.
Screen Layout
Unlockable Features
- Level Practice: This feature allows a character/team to practice a level that she/they have already beaten. You begin with 9 lives and 3 bombs. If you lose all your lives, you can't continue.
Playable Characters
Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame.
Scoring
Enemies
Any damage you deal to any enemy, whether it be caused by your shots or your bombs, will cause your score to increase very slightly. Actually destroying enemies will award you slightly more points, but the points earned from this are around the range of hundreds to thousands of points per enemy. This is not a significant amount at all. However, destroyed enemies release items for you to collect, and those are very important for scoring as covered below.
Point Items
As its name implies, point items are the major source of points in the game. Unlike previous Touhou games they are worth more points not depending on how high you are on the screen, but depending on how high your Communications Gauge is. The higher the Communications Gauge, the more points they are worth, up to a defined maximum. You can easily tell when you are collecting point items for their maximum value, since they show the value in yellow text.
Power Items
Power items increase your power gauge. Small items give you a 0.05 power boost(or 0.083 for Marisa/Alice), while large items give you a 1.0 power boost. The maximum value is 4.0 (or 8.0 for Marisa/Alice). If you're already at full power, you will instead get small special point items.
Special Point Items
Special point items are the green star point items. (They look the same as Mountain of Faith's Faith Point items.) They slightly increase the value of point items.
Point Item Value
Point item value is calculated by a value shown in the lower-left corner multiplied by a second value shown to the right of the first. The first value starts at 25000 and is increased by collecting special point items(100 for normal, and 10 for small special point items). The second value is calculated by the sum of both the Graze Counter and the current Communications Gauge values. When it is at 0.00 the point items are not worth 0 but a minimum of 10 points
Communications Gauge
The gauge in the lower-left corner reflects the strength of the communications channel between the player and the youkai assisting them from above ground. It has a variable value of 0.00 minimum and 1.00 maximum which is added to the 2nd value(the multiplier) in the point item value. It increases when you graze bullets, but like the Faith gauge in Mountain of Faith, it decreases relatively fast over time if you let it, so you need to graze a lot of bullets at a small timeframe if you want to see a significant increase. At maximum value it has the effect of autocollecting items wherever you are on the screen.
Graze Counter
This counter, making a return from the Touhou games before Mountain of Faith, counts how many bullets have come dangerously close to your hitbox. Starting at 0, it affects the 2nd value(multiplier) in the point item value, increasing it by 0.01 per 100 points of Graze.
Spell Card Bonus
Occasionally, a boss will attack using a Spell Card. You will know this is happening when the background changes and the Spell Card's name appears in the upper right corner of the screen. If the boss's healthbar is depleted within the time limit and without getting hit or using a bomb, the Spell Card bonus will be added to your score.
The bonus starts at out at a value equal to 1 million*(stage number+difficulty value), with difficulty value being 0 for Easy, 1 for Normal, 2 for Hard and 3 for Lunatic. It decreases over time.
Clear Bonus
A clear bonus is added to the score at the end of each stage based on the stage number and the lives remaining at the end of that stage regardless of the difficulty, calculated as follows:
(1 million * stage number) + (1 million * lives in stock)
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