The first part, Kou (Scarlet) or E, retells the story of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and has been translated into English by Deranged. The patch can be found here
. The second part, You (Mystic) or P, combines Mountain of Faith and Perfect Cherry Blossom, the third part, Ei (Eternal) or I, combines Imperishable Night with Subterranean Animism, and the final part, Yume (Dream), combines Undefined Fantastic Object, Mystic Square, and an original arc.
The game got an Updated Re-release in the form of Fantasy Maiden Wars Complete Box, which condenses the four games into one package, and polishes various aspects of the game (such as giving characters more facial expressions, to give an example), which was released on August 12, 2019.
On March 9th, 2022, a port of the Complete Box called Genso Maiden Wars: Dream of the Stray Dreamer as announced for March 31st, 2022 release on the Nintendo Switch. (Japan only so far)
This series contains examples of:
- Adaptational Backstory Change: One of the big questions in Touhou is, "What exactly is Alice?" In the PC-98 games she was implied to be a creation of Shinki's, while the Windows games have her as a magician youkai. Yume splits the difference by having her born as a human, adopted by Shinki, and then becoming a youkai at some point after moving out of Makai.
- Adaptational Personality Change: Tenshi is way less of a jerk in this game than in canon Touhou.
- Anti-Frustration Features: From You onwards, having allied units shot down no longer penalizes your acquired funds, after all,
you're going to need every Point you can get. - Area of Effect: What Touhou brings to the Super Robot Wars formula, other than the characters, is Spell Cards. The cards that bosses use take the form of this trope, outlining spaces on the map; anyone who attacks the boss from a marked space will be counterattacked, and anyone ending their turn on one can be targetted by the actual Spell Card. The markers aren't always avoidable, but lighter markers do less damage, and in some cases clever positioning can prevent the boss from hitting someone you don't want.
- Background Music Override: Like in SRW, bosses will always have their theme play during battle and certain stages play special music that continues over the regular battles. Also, certain attacks such as Reimu's Fantasy Seal or Marisa's Master Spark have their own themes that play over even boss themes. When Reimu activates Fantasy Nature, her theme overrides everything, even Makura's music.
- Big Bad Friend: Yuuka has been letting Makura live in Mugenkan for an unspecified amount of time and treats them like an amusing acquaintance she enjoys checking up on. She even knows most of Makura's plans, but keeps quiet partly out of courtesy (and partly because she likes watching the heroines run around clueless).
- Big Damn Heroes: Prevalent all throughout the games. In particular, the Scarlet Devil Mansion's inhabitants tend to show up as reinforcements during climactic battles. In Kou, Sakuya appears to assist you on Remila's orders when fighting Flan. In You, Patchouli and Koakuma show up to lend their aid against Sanae, in Ei, Remilia flies in to save Sakuya when fighting Eirin, and later Nue jumps in to assist in stopping a rampaging Utsuho (in the process alerting the Palanquin Ship crew to an incoming attack, stopping the hit from destroying the ship outright), and in Yume, Byakuren saves Shou from Yumeko and Shinki, while Yorihime, Toyohime and Reisen II rescue Eirin and Lily White from Meeko's sheep familiars. In Complete Box, the final chapter of Kou has Meiling, Elly and Kurumi also join in trying to stop Flan's attempted rampage. (On top of Sakuya joining as in the original release of Kou).
- Bittersweet Ending: How Ei ends. The heroines barely manage to stop a berserk Utsuho from razing the surface. However, the one responsible for the crisis in the first place is still unknown (Yuuka knows, but she's not willing to share aside from hints). In addition, Koishi's memory appears to be getting worse, to the point that she doesn't know how to get home anymore.
- Blessed with Suck: Two of Eirin's personal skills invoke this, offering one turn of a great benefit in exchange for such a horrid penalty that it's not even remotely worth it outside of rare edge cases. One of Reisen's personal skills, implied to be another drug that Eirin gives her, will boost her stats three times and then make her explode.
- Blood Knight: Mima and Yuuka are sometimes depicted as strong friends in fanworks, usually because they have a common interest of some sort. Here, they share a love of picking fights with powerful entities just to test their own strength, with Yuuka happily throwing down with Reimu and Marisa should they dare to, and Mima going down into Makai between Ei and Yume just to fight demons and steal their magic, even joining your team just for the thrill of challenging Shinki herself once again. They will also field together as Marisa's heavies during Chapter 40 just for the sake of throwing down with Reimu and her heavies (Yukari and Yuyuko). Hell, Yuuka stands in your path during Yume almost purely to pick a fight with the combined might of Gensokyo. Though she also is doing Makura a favor as her landlord and has it in for Yukari in particular...
- Body Horror:
- Utsuho's arm cannon, lead boot, and chest eye in this universe - impatient and desperate to support Satori, she allowed Yatagarasu to seize hold of and transform her right arm, right leg, and even her heart into the iconic traits of her empowerment. Shiro's kedama swarm specifically attempts to tear out the eye in Utsuho's chest that is now her heart, which would've instantly killed her.
- There's also Yuuka's ultimate spellcard, Flower Master of the Four Seasons, used against your party in Ch75 and later becoming her dynamic finishing attack as a player unit. She uses her own body as a catalyst to summon a colossal beanstalk, which emerges Chest Burster style and smothers her victim in flowers. And once the attack is finished, the scene ends with a shot of her seemingly lifeless corpse, which then sprouts several plant stems - nature's cycle of death and rebirth in miniature. And of course she gets right back up none the worse for wear.
- Bragging Rights Reward: Beating Yorihime in stage 49 gives you a "Lunar Magatama", which does nothing except say that you beat Yorihime in stage 49. Complete Box suberts this in two ways. First, the Lunar Magatama is altered to instead give the equipped girl an extra 100 SP, meaning it has a use now. The second is that Yorihime has one when she joins the team, meaning you don't have to defeat Yorihime in Chapter 49 to get one.
- Broad Strokes: In general, the games stick to the general story of the source material, but with some liberties taken. From the start, characters that don't appear in the game the story arc is based on appear and team up with the heroines (which is a divergence in itself).
- Kou retells the story of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, but there's a running sideplot of Youkai Mountain dealing with the Moriya Shrine and its residents arriving, with Sanae showing up during the incident to judge Reimu for herself. Youmu also shows up looking for ways to make cherry trees bloom, foreshadowing Yuyuko's plan to revive Saigyou Ayakashi in Perfect Cherry Blossom.
- The first half of You is a retelling of Mountain of Faith, a level right afterward is based on Immaterial and Missing Power, and the second half retells Perfect Cherry Blossom. Shou and Nazrin appear in the second half and join the heroines and Marisa ends up accidentally getting sidetracked to the Former Hell. The two plot points converge in The Stinger when Marisa leads Shou and Nazrin to the Palanquin Ship and they free it.
- Though the divergences get broader in Ei, the first half is based on Imperishable Night, the second half is based on Subterranean Animism, and in between is a small story arc based on Silent Sinner in Blue. Most significantly, the Palanquin Ship is used in this game as a battleship unit with the Buddhist group operating it. The heroines are well aware of their goal to free Byakuren. Nue shows up, bitter that she was left behind by Murasa and shows up from time to time to cause trouble. And the Silent Sinner in Blue arc doesn't have the Gambit Pileup that was in the original story and instead, the heroines are asked to deliver a letter to the Watatsuki sisters by Eirin, though things are complicated by the letter being misplaced.
- Yume throws the original timeline completely out the window. First up, the events of Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and Hisoutensoku are completely averted, as the party stops Tenshi from ever starting the incident by fighting her before she has the chance (this also makes Tenshi in FMW very much act differently to how her canon self would act), and the party learns the truth behind Hisoutensoku (an advertising balloon made by the kappa) almost immediately, leaving no room for Sanae and Cirno to misidentify it. Then there's a small mini-arc where the party assists Satori in searching for Koishi, loosely based on the extra stage of Subterranean Animism. After that is essentially a combination between a rerun of Mystic Square and the second half of Undefined Fantastic Object, with the Buddhists leading the party down into Makai to free Byakuren, fighting Yumeko and Shinki and permanently recruiting Mima in the process. And once the party leaves Makai, they come back to find out the Big Bad has essentially begun phase one of their Evil Plan for Gensokyo completely unaccosted, with the rest of the game spent hunting them down. And during the ending after defeating Makura, the mass out-of-season blooms of Phantasmagoria of Flower View kick off just in time to herald the party's return to Gensokyo, with Eiki calmly explaining why it's happening.
- Broken Pedestal
- When Marisa is properly reunited with Mima during Ei, she's initially ecstatic to see her teacher and foster mother again... But then Mima completely tears her apart for relying entirely on the Mini-Hakkero and demands she both cast aside the "toy" and leave the team so she can be retrained. This leaves Marisa in a Heroic BSoD for a few chapters until she finally declares she will forge her own path separate from Mima, pleasing the old spirit and prompting her to praise Marisa's independence. Mima stays somewhat aloof with Marisa for the rest of Ei, but things between them warm back up during Yume after she rejoins the party.
- Yukari is terribly afraid Yuyuko will have this reaction when Yuuka reveals she was the one who removed Yuyuko from the cycle of reincarnation and bound her in Hakugyokurou. Subverted in that Yuyuko doesn't seem to think any less of Yukari for it, and almost immediately forgives her.
- Brutal Bonus Level: The entirety of Dream Mode's Future Route. If you trigger it at the end of Chapter 70, you have to face, in order- a tougher version of Chapter 71, a chapter where you have to shoot down three 100k HP bosses in five turns while also being unable to use Makura, a chapter where you fight an empowered Nightmare Hisoutensoku, a Boss Rush including Nightmares of some of the most threatening characters, involving their spell cards from their chapters (Including but not limited to Flandre's Four of a Kind, Remilia's Scarlet Gensokyo, Yuuka's Dual Spark, Toyohime's Waveguide Fan, Yorihime's Take-mikazuchi, Ran's Ultimate Buddhist, Reimu's Fantasy Nature and Marisa's Master Spark) alongside some new original spells, like one from Yuyuko that reduces all afflicted units' HP to 1... and this comes at the same time as Yuuka and Toyohime's spell cards, which are both infinite range MAPs (which cover each others' blind spots to boot), and lastly a battle against Shitone and her army of Nightmare Giant Sheep and Nightmare Hisoutensokus. They're all brutally difficult- even on Normal+, let alone Lunatic. Shitone in particular is a nightmare to face, especially in her final spell card, which boosts her defense and accuracy as her hp drops (On Normal+, she has 600,000 HP, in stark contrast, Makura's final healthbar is only 300,000, split into two 150,000 spell cards), to the point where eventually even characters as evasive as Reimu and Yorihime will have no chance to dodge without using a Spirit, and even extremely tanky characters like Hisoutensoku and Tenshi are in danger of being wiped out from the sheer damage the attack puts out.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Not to put too fine a point on it, but Namazu the catfish in Yume is essentially every stereotypical JRPG villain rolled into one.
- The Cavalry: Mima appears to save Marisa in the Underground. In Yume, Yorihime, Toyohime and Reisen II show up to protect Eirin (the Watatsukis) and Lily White (Reisen II) from Meeko's familiars.
- The Chessmaster: Kanako and Suwako appear only in cutscenes in Kou, seemingly planning their move for You. They plan to do this again in Ei by manipulating Utsuho, but things go horribly wrong.
- Combination Attack:
- Marisa and Alice's Proto Malice Cannon, later upgraded into the true Malice Cannon.
- Reimu and Sanae's Shrine Maiden Extension.
- Patchouli and Koakuma's Silent Selene.
- Ran and Chen's Shikigami (Chen).
- Kanako and Suwako's Suwa War.
- Murasa's Phantom Ship Harbor, if she's not captaining the Palanquin Ship.
- Kurumi and Elly's Reflector Tile.
- Aya and Hatate's Double Spoiler.
- Kisume and Yamame's Cannon Bucket Attack.
- Satori and Koishi's Komeiji Heartbreaker.
- Shou's Radiant Treasure Gun and Nazrin's Greatest Treasure, depending on who has the Pagoda.
- Reimu and Marisa's Trichromatic Lotus Butterfly, and later True Trichromatic Lotus Butterfly.
- Cirno and Daiyousei's Twin Fairy Strike.
- Cirno, Mystia, Rumia, and Wriggle's Bakatet Special. Adding Daiyousei makes it the Final Bakatet Special.
- The Three Fairies of Light have the S-Formation Attack and the Prismriver Sisters have Prism Concerto, both basic attacks in their combined forms.
- The Aki sisters are queens of this trope, having three GunBuster-themed combination attacks: Super Aki Sisters Kick, Double Autumn Busters, and Super Aki Sisters Kick Kai.
- Combining Mecha: After being defeated individually, the Prismriver Sisters huddle together to become a single unit, which is treated mechanically like an SRW Combining Mecha. This results in the Three Fairies of Light deciding to "combine" as well... in a scene which parodies Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- Continuity Porn: The game blends the story of the official Touhou games, including the PC-98 continuity, into one.
- Cooldown Hug: Happens twice in Ei, first with Remilia hugging a berserk Flandre in a special attack-animation cutscene, and later with Rin and Utsuho, although the latter only partially succeeded because Utsuho's power was no longer under her control even after she regained awareness.
- Cultural Translation: The subtitles "Kou", "You", and "Ei" come from "Koumakyou", "Youyoumu", and "Eiyashou", the Japanese parts of the first three Windows Touhou games' names (which are relatively obscure in the English fanbase). The
Fan Translation renders them as "E", "P" and "I", from their English portions, "Embodiment of Scarlet Devil", "Perfect Cherry Blossom", and "Imperishable Night", which more closely fits the naming scheme of the Super Robot Wars games.- One of the quit game skits has a Kedama giving the player a tip about being careful around spell card effects after a long string of ellipses, referencing how Heero does the same in one of the quit game skits of Super Robot Wars Alpha 2. Since Alpha 2 never got an English translation, the English patch of the game adds "it can hurt like hell" at the end to make the reference more obvious.
- Defeat Means Friendship: A majority of your units are recruited only after you defeat them in battle.
- Diabolus ex Machina: After taking down Utsuho and talking her out of her plans of world domination Shiro shows up with a swarm of Kedama, and attack Utsuho in order to get rid of the Yatagarasu. This causes Utsuho to lose control of her powers, threatening to cause a nuclear meltdown.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Remilia in Kou. Kanako and Suwako in You. Eirin and Kaguya in Ei. Shinki in Yume.
- The Dreaded: Yuuka. And if you attack her, you'll see just why everyone is afraid of her. If you're feeling gutsy, have Marisa attack her with Master Spark. If you're curious...
- In Ei, the party has a similar reaction to Yorihime.
- Dual Boss: Minoriko and Shizuha, Kanako and Suwako, Dream Mima and Dream Byakuren.
- Wolfpack Boss: The three Fairies, The Prismriver Sisters.
- 11th-Hour Ranger: Sakuya in Kou. Youmu in You. Both Rin and Nue in Ei, one of whom has a special ability specifically designed to counter the final boss. Yuuka in Yume.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: Reimu and Marisa's Combination Attack in You is acquired two scenes before the last boss.
- In Ei, Reimu acquires the new spellcard "Fantasy Nature" just in time to stop Yorihime from defeating the party.
- In Yume, Reimu and Marisa's Combination Attack gets upgraded to defeat Meeko.
- Felony Misdemeanor: Sanae interrupts a party at the Hakurei Shrine to reveal a "shocking secret" about Reimu which will break everyone's trust in her forever. The reaction was not what she was expecting.
- Final Boss: Flandre in Kou. Yukari in You. Utsuho in Ei. Makura in Yume.
- Final Boss Preview: Marisa's stage 13 features Flandre as an NPC competitor. She turns into an Optional Boss if the Gensokyo Chronicle has been completed. You also meet a pre-powered up version of Utsuho as one of the weakest bosses in the game, to foreshadow her character development.
- Friendly Enemy: Shinki and Byakuren like each other quite well. However, Byakuren cannot be released from Hokkai without releasing the Sealed Evil in a Can and Shinki won't allow that.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: In Chapter 6 of E, where you're trying to clear up a misunderstanding with Cirno, she will never attack Daiyousei, even if she ends up in range, because they're established as friends. It helps since one of the win conditionsnote is to bring the two fairies together to talk.
- Hopeless Boss Fight:
- If you fill out all of the Encyclopedia Exposita in the first game; when Marisa competes with Flandre to kill the most bats; Flandre will decide to focus on "playing" with Marisa. One can theoretically beat Flandre, but she'll keep reviving.
- Stage 49 of Ei is a race to the goal line while being chased by a full-power Yorihime, who drops a Bragging Rights Reward item if the party can defeat her at least once.
- Yuuka will watch the party fight Medicine in Yume, leaving them alone if they avoid her. Like Flandre and Yorihime, she'll constantly revive if you somehow beat her. The Giant Catfish on stage 74 follows similar rules, but fully restores itself after every attack instead of just on defeat.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Lunatic. Yume adds an additional slider for each difficulty except Lunatic between Basic, Normal, and Challenging, which can be changed between stages, making a total of ten difficulty settings. Complete Box rolls this back down to four: Normal, Normal+, Hard, Lunatic.
- Leitmotif: Everyone has at least one. Sakuya, Nitori, Youmu, Aya, Sanae, Flandre and Makura have different ones both as an enemy and as an ally. The three fairies gain one for their Combination Attack and another one in Combining Mecha form. Reimu, Marisa and Mokou have an additional theme each in Dream Mode. Sometimes even attacks have their own leitmotifs. Notable attacks that have their own leitmotifs (not including former boss leitmotifs like Youmu's and Sanae's) include but are not limited to the following:
- Sealing Charm, Blessed Light for Reimu's Fantasy Seal and, after her Midseason Upgrade, Fantasy Seal -Blink-.
- That Voice Won't Reach for Reimu's Fantasy Nature.
- The Moment Dreams Reach the Stars for Marisa's Master Spark and, after her Midseason Upgrade, Final Spark.
- Trichromatic Danmaku Träumerei, for Reimu and Marisa's Trichromatic Lotus Butterfly.
- A Single Blow for the Fate of Gensokyo for Reimu and Marisa's True Trichromatic Lotus Butterfly.
- Tied to your Fingertips for Alice's Phantom of the Grand Guignol.
- Crumbling Silver Knife for Sakuya's Eternal Meek and later Soul Sculpture.
- Roar Towards the Full Moon for Yuuka's Master Spark.
- Wish Upon a Rainbow for the Prismriver Sisters' Ghostly Wheel Concerto Grosso: Revised.
- Three Hearts Blazing Like A Morning Star for the Three Fairies' Fairy Overdrive.
- UDON-ZAM for Reisen's Lunatic Red Eyes.
- Drill Through that Cloud for Iku's Dragonfish Drill Break.
- Get Angry!! for Tenshi's Scarlet Weather Rhapsody of All Mankind and later Scarlet Weather Rhapsody of all Humans and Youkai.
- Invincbility Session!! for Cirno, Rumia, Daiyousei, Mystia and Wriggle's Final Bakatet Special.
- Exclusive to Complete Box is An 3rd LOVE!! for Satori and Koishi's Komeiji Heartbreaker.
- Sealing Charm, Blessed Light
- Last Episode Theme Reprise: The main theme gets an orchestrated reprise at Makura's final spell card.
- Limit Break: In Yume, the player gains access to a mechanic called Full Power Mode. When both units in a pair are at 150 Power, they can, once per chapter Except when under the effect of Fantasy Maiden Wars, which refreshes Full Power Mode usage at the start of every turn, have both characters perform a combined assault on the target. Unlike usual team attacks, the backrow unit can use any attack they want, and without any Team Attack damage penalties. In Complete Box, this mechanic is instead unlocked during Chapter 42 (Specifically, after Remilia saves Sakuya and joins the party), about halfway through the Ei scenario.
- Lord British Postulate: In Kou, it's possible to defeat Sakuya in chapter 5, Sanae in chapter 7, and Yuuka in chapter 10 if you can reduce their HP to zero in one hit without going below a certain threshold beforehand. They'll still escape as per the story, but you'll get items and EXP and such for a boss kill. Doing this with Yuuka is the only way to acquire the extremely useful Sunflower equipment part until partway through Ei.
- In Ei, when you fight the protagonist you didn't choose, your objective is only to shoot down Reimu/Marisa; however, the more powerful characters such as Yukari and Yuyuko/Yuuka and Mima will sit in the back and not engage your units unless you pursue them. The same thing happens in Yume when fighting the Nightmares.
- Lord Error-Prone: Sanae, to a hilarious extent.
- Medley: The last stage track in Kou contains fragments of every single stage theme from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, plus the title screen theme.
- The last stage of You does the same thing with songs from Perfect Cherry Blossom.
- Similarly, the stage theme for the final battle of Eientei in Ei does this with the stage themes of Imperishable Night. Though it's not the final stage this time.
- In the Future Route, the theme used for Shitone’s final spell card is a medley starting with Enigmatic Doll, then continuing with every main game final boss theme from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil to Undefined Fantastic Object. It then plays sections from Meeko’s, Makura’s, Reimu's and Marisa's themes before ending with the main theme.
- Magikarp Power:
- When Lily White joins your team she has only a single attack, low stats, and is practically an Emotionless Girl; she powers up (and brightens up) significantly once you get closer to where all the Spring was taken.
- The Three Fairies of Light increase in power by learning how to group together into a single unit with the sum of their stats.
- Utsuho's entire character arc is about this trope, and what happens when it goes too far.
- Byakuren's debut has her go through this in the course of a single stage, starting out as a weak unit and gradually unlocking her full movepool throughout the fight with Shinki.
- Daiyousei's final personal skill is only unlocked at level 99, and boosts all of her stats by 40.
- Hoo boy, Akyuu Hieda, though not in the traditional sense. While her base stats are terrible and she only has a single melee attack, she has a unique skill, Miare, that increases her stats and damage dealt as the Gensokyo Chronicle is completed, which can increase to truly absurd levels.
- Mauve Shirt: Tengu A, Tengu B and Kappa C in You, three recurring enemies who are identical to standard Mooks of their species but have a few lines of dialogue and slightly higher stats. Kappa C stands out for also being red rather than blue like the other kappa, and claiming to be three times faster.
- Meaningless Meaningful Words: Nue yammers on about her "way of life" nonstop throughout Chapter 60, to the point the phrase "way of life" shows up in roughly half her lines. It's all hot air; she really wants to be with the rest of Byakuren's friends, but she's too proud to admit it. Thankfully, kicking the crap out of her gets her out of it.
- Mecha Expansion Pack: Multiple units gain the ability to switch between different forms to alter their capabilities. Noticably...
- In Chapter 22 (You) Nitori gets an upgrade into Full Armor Nitori, though you can swap between regular Nitori and FA Nitori during the preparation screen to reduce Nitori's Cost.
- In Chapter 39 (Ei), Reimu and Marisa get a Midseason Upgrade, revamping their movesets, increasing their stats and increasing their Cost. Exclusively to Complete Box, if you have Reimu/Marisa have 100 foes shot down by Chapter 56 (the start of Yume), you can have Reimu and Marisa swap back to their pre-chapter 39 moveset, with the sole exception of having gained a MAP in their pre-upgrade moveset (Reimu's is unique to this situation, Marisa's is her Master Spark MAP from Chapter 40R), and from then on gaining the ability to swap between the two forms (akin to Full Armor Nitori).
- In Chapter 62 (Yume), Lily White gains the ability to change costumes into Lily Black for a greater offensive focus. In Complete Box, this is a secret unlockable only available on Marisa's route. See Secret Character below for more details.
- In the same chapter, Shou and Nazrin acquire the Pagoda, and one of them can wield the Pagoda to gain increased stats and access to stronger moves. While both have access to stronger moves, the one who doesn't have the Pagoda will only be able to use it as a combo attack with the one who does. Equipping the Pagoda to Shou in particular will increase her Cost.
- In Chapter 66 (Yume), Sanae gains access to two new forms that she can swap between in the preparation screen alongside her base form, her Sky and Land frames. Her Sky Frame increases her armor and gives her an S in Sky terrain (fittingly, like Kanako) and grants her access to her MAP from Chapter 22, though at the cost of some mobility. Her Land frame, on the other hand, gives her an S on Land and Water terrain (fittingly, like Suwako), and while she loses access to Summon Takeminekata, she gains access to a new finisher, a combination attack with Suwako. In Complete Box, she gains access to these midway through the Ei scenario- specifically, after Chapter 40.
- Mercy Rewarded:
- Talking to Alice with Marisa in Chapter 2, rather than shooting her down, will increase Alice and Marisa's friendship ranking permanently.
- If you talk down Cirno with Daiyousei in Chapter 6, when she joins the party, she comes in with two upgrades to her attributes already, saving you from spending 38,000 points of doing it yourself, and making her more viable as a unit for future battles.
- Talking down Nitori in You will cause her to rejoin the party sooner.
- The WP Bonus on Chapter 72 of Yume has the characters refer to the Mercy spirit by name, the only viable way to achieve it.
- In Complete Box, these are altered. While the Alice example is unchanged, as is the example in Chapter 72, talking Cirno down no longer starts her with two upgrades, and instead just clears the EX mission, granting you 10,000 points (The player now automatically gains 10 WP per stage cleared).
- Midseason Upgrade: Nitori upgrades to Full Armor Nitori in You, which gives her More Dakka and a BFG Wave-Motion Gun. The upgrades can be removed if you want Nitori to take up less space in your team.
- Both Reimu and Marisa change sprites and movesets (and theme music) partway through Ei, just in time to use them against each other in the obligatory Let's You and Him Fight from Imperishable Night stage 4. In Complete Box, if Reimu and Marisa have 100 enemies shot down by Chapter 56, they can return to their original movesets with the exception of gaining a MAP.
- Mighty Glacier: Hisoutensoku. It's understandable, really, given the fact that the Hisountensoku in the party is a dream manifestation in the form of a giant robot.
- My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Makura breaks out a spellcard after she runs out of spellcards in the final battle.
- New Game Plus: In Complete Box, beating the game as well as the three bonus scenarios (Sakuya's, the gaiden chapters featuring the Yorihime refight and Meeko's) will unlock Dream Mode. This allows the player to pick any six units (except Akyuu) from any point in the game to start with (and they'll never leave your party, even during chapters such as Chapter 13R where you can only deploy Reimu), as well as having all characters start with PP equal to the total amount acquired across the previous playthrough (Including a prior Dream Mode playthrough). Dream Mode also lets you use Makura and Meeko from the very beginning of the game, as they join during Chapter 1 in a Dream Mode playthrough, and there is a special Future Route for Dream Mode playthroughs, to take into account that Meeko and Makura are party members. This is why the Kou chapters have the cost mechanic applied to them in CB; in Dream Mode you can pick enough heavy hitters that you can use enough cost to run out. Any units you start with will also keep any buffs they would acquire over the story (i.e. Tenshi getting the Courage spirit and her second finisher, Yuuka getting access to her Full Bloom Mode, Reimu and Marisa starting with their Midseason Upgrade forms and True Trichromatic Lotus Butterfly). Additionally, any secrets you unlock (except for Reimu and Marisa's pre-upgrade forms) in a given playthrough will be available on any future playthrough- including route exclusives like Akyuu and Lily Black.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In You, the heroes are gathering allies to help them against the forces of Yokai mountain, Reimu and Keine asking Mokou, and Marisa and Alice asking the Scarlet Devil Mansion. They intially refuse, but the tengu tailing them decide to attack and make the respective people change their minds, resulting in Remilia making Sakuya and Meiling go with them, and Mokou joining up despite her initial refusal.
- Nintendo Hard: When its harder difficulty levels boast to have the same level of difficulty as the classic SRW games, you know you're going to catch hell. Also a partial case of Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels. In contrast, Easy and Normal compare themselves to more modern games, Alpha and Alpha Gaiden.
- Original Generation: Meeko and Makura.
- Precision F-Strike: Marisa's final pre-fight retort to Makura if you picked her as main character for your run?"I'm Marisa Kirisame, and I'm going to kick your ass."
- Readings Are Off the Scale: Any enemy unit whose current HP is exceeds 10,000 will have both their current and max HP values replaced with question marks. Their health bar still shows the percentage of their health, though.
- Some of the older Super Robot Wars game did that too so it might have been done on purpose.
- This happens in the plot as well when Keine measures Yorihime's spiritual energy after letting her use all her power.
- Some of the older Super Robot Wars game did that too
- Recycled In Space: Lampshaded in Ei, chapter 48, which is titled "Gensou IN SPACE". Naturally this chapter is when the party visits the moon.
- Sealed Good in a Can: Hijiri Byakuren. The problem is, the Can she's in, the Hokkai, has Sealed Evil in a Can as well. Breaking the seal would release everybody.
- Secret Character: There are two in Complete Box, one for Reimu's Route and one for Marisa's route. Reimu's route has Akyuu, who can become a standalone unit instead of piloting the Palanquin Ship, starting in Chapter 50, as long as you managed to get her to reach the patch of flowers in Reimu's Chapter 4 (Kosuzu replaces Akyuu as one of the pilots of the Palanquin Ship if this option is chosen). Marisa's route has Lily Black, who is unlocked by having Lily White shoot down at least one enemy in Marisa's Chapter 38 as well as Chapter 46, which will allow Lily White to swap between her regular and Lily Black forms come Chapter 62. To a lesser extent, Reimu and Marisa's Pre-upgrade forms become this in Complete Box, as they can be unlocked by having Reimu and Marisa have 100 kills respectively by Chapter 56.
- Secret Level: Completing Kou with both Reimu and Marisa's routes unlocks Sakuya's route, which consists of four levels; one takes place before the story, and the other three take place after the main story. At the end of Yume, if you're not on a New Game Plus, you can access a set of gaiden chapters which are a recreation of the events on the moon, except this time with access to every character, including the Watatsukis. This also contains Yume's two superbosses: a refight against Yorihime as she appeared in Ei, with massively beefed up stats, and a fight against Toyohime, who didn't appear on the original stage 50, and since the stage is in space she doesn't have to worry about limiting the power output on her Wave-Motion Gun like she does as a player unit. In Complete Box, Sakuya's scenario is available at the beginning of the game, and the Yume gaiden chapters are unlocked after beating the game. Also after beating the game is Meeko's scenario, consisting of five chapters. Completing all three of these scenarios in CB is mandatory to unlock Dream Mode.
- Shout-Out: So many it has its own page.
- The Stinger: You has one where Marisa helps Nazrin and Shou find the Palanquin Ship.
- Stylistic Suck: Hisoutensoku as an enemy unit has really crappy animations for its attacks, as a shout-out to the earliest SRW games.
- Sudden Soundtrack Stop: Fittingly for her powers, this occurs when Sakuya stops time for her ultimate attack.
- Title Drop: The spell card that the heroes use to respond to Makura's The Furthest Reaches of Dreams is called Fantasy Maiden Wars.
- To Hell and Back: Yume does this at least twice. Once with Satori harmonizing with the leftover remnants of Koishi to go into oblivion to bring her back; and then a literal trip to Makai to rescue Byakuren; made complicated by Shinki opposing them.
- True Final Boss: Shitone, Makura’s nightmare, in the Future Route of Dream Mode.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In Ei, Reisen II (named Rabbit right now) meets up with Reisen first instead of Reimu like in SSiB, and attempts to get on her good side by claiming she's a fellow fugitive with lunar emissaries pursuing her. Instead, this freaks Reisen out, causing her to flee to Eirin and Kaguya to report to them, which leads into the IN part of the story.
- Violation of Common Sense: In Lunatic difficulty of the last Extra Chapter in E, even if Flandre's And Then There Were None lasts 7 turns, you have to actually let it hit at least one of your units (and she definitely will thanks to casting Strike). This is because you need to make sure she doesn't start Ripples of 495 Years with enough SP to cast Strike, because if she does, the final spell turns into a meatgrinder.
- What the Hell, Hero?: If Marisa is your protagonist and you shoot down Daiyousei first in Chapter 40 (Showdown! Reimu vs Marisa in Ei), Reimu's entire team will not only call you out; but the entire team will get a Spirit buff. This also happens if you're playing Reimu's version of events and shoot down Lily White first. This can be avoided if you shoot down Cirno and Rumia first if you're facing Reimu's team, or the Three Fairies and Prismrivers first if you're facing Marisa's team.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: Nearly every party member is recruited immediately or near-immediately after defeating them as a boss.
