Surprise!
Touhou Seirensen ~ Undefined Fantastic Object is a video game created by Team Shanghai Alice for Windows computers in 2009. It's the twelfth installment in the Touhou Project franchise.
Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, and Sanae Kochiya are investigating a strange flying object in the sky.
The game features the colored UFO mechanic. By collecting saucers of a different color, the player can get more life pieces, bombs, or point bonuses.
The game's official website can be found here
(in Japanese).
This game provides examples of:
- Another Dimension: Stages 5 and 6 take place in Makai, which is a separate dimension from Gensokyo.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: In Stage 1, Nazrin's final Spell Card produces crystals that can block the player's shots. However, Marisa-A bypasses them with her piercing lasers.
- Art Evolution: The game is notably where ZUN debuted his now modern artstyle, as it was the first game where he properly did outlines for the character sprites. The result is far more consistent anatomy and cleaner art overall.
- Breaking Old Trends: Up to this point, every main series game since the second had an original composition as the staff roll theme.note However, from this game onwards, staff roll themes are instead arrangements of another theme in the game, usually the title screen theme, a stage theme, or (as is the case here) the final boss theme.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall:
- Kogasa appears on the disc in an attempt to surprise you. She also does this on the game's Steam page by appearing in one of the preview images.
- In Sanae's scenario, she mistakes the Power items for secret treasures.
- Cutting Off the Branches: According to ZUN in a September 2009 interview with Nae Radio, Marisa-B is the canon route because it directly connects to the Extra stage.
- Excuse Plot: By the admission of
Word of God, the game's story is ultimately more a reason to introducing the Myouren Temple Cast Herd than creating a coherent narrative. - Flying Saucer: Part of the system involves collecting small UFOs from certain enemies that carry them. Upon collecting a red, blue and green one or three of the same color, a large UFO appears, abducts all items onscreen, and tries to fly offscreen. The saucer drops rewards upon defeat - the loot varies depending on the UFO's color and how much it absorbed.
- Game-Breaking Bug: Reaching 1 billion points would up and crash the game. A patch was released to fix this 12 days after release.
- Heartbeat Soundtrack: The Stage 6 theme, Fires of Hokkai, starts with a heartbeat. Probably counts as a Mythology Gag to the PC-98 games, since ZUN wanted to do the Mystic Square stage 6 theme with heartbeat sounds.
- If It Swims, It Flies: The Palanquin Ship is a ship that can fly in the air as well as act like a regular boat, and is used by the heroine to travel to Makai.
- Offhand Backhand: When unfocused and at 3.00 power or higher, Marisa-B can shoot backwards.
- Promoted to Playable: This game marks the first time that Sanae is playable in a Touhou game.
- Recurring Riff: Stage 6 theme Fires of Hokkai is based on Mystic Square Stage 6 theme World's End.
