And now, for something completely different.
Touhou Gouyoku Ibun ~ Suibotsushita Chinshuu Jigokutranslation—aka Touhou Gouyoku Ibun ~ Sunken Fossil World —is a video game created by Team Shanghai Alice and Twilight Frontier for Windows computers, releasing in late 2021. It's the 17.5th videogame installment in the Touhou Project franchise.
One day in Gensokyo, mysterious "black water" with a foul stench begins appearing from various water sources. Although a minor nuisance at first, and treated with differing opinions by many, things quickly escalate out of control when it begins gushing from any and every place. Before long, a number of parties are searching for the cause, be it out of duty, self-interest or simple greed. All the while, an unknown figure lurks far beneath the deepest of the Former Hells, and a mysterious third party works behind the scenes...
Unlike Twilight Frontier's previous games, and a first for the series, this is an 2D action Boss Game, in a similar style to the story mode battles in the fighting games. The main gimmick of the game is that grazing bullets allows you to turn them into water. Gathering enough water gives you an extra unit of health, that can be used to use your own Spell Cards.
Two trial versions were released on October 6, 2019 and October 18, 2020, respectively. The full release of the game was released physically on October 24, 2021 at the Autumn Reitaisai and on Steam five days later on October 29, 2021. On May 2nd, 2022, Phoenixx and Twilight Frontier announced that the game would be coming to Nintendo Switch in Japan, releasing on October 20, 2022. Said update would lead to the game getting the official English title of "Sunken Fossil World".
This game features the following tropes:
- 11th-Hour Superpower: During Flandre's Final Boss fight with Yuuma, she has to avoid water as usual for the first phase, but for the second phase where the water is replaced by blood, any spilled blood is completely harmless. It becomes this trope for the True Final Boss which adds a third phase: Flandre can absorb the blood after Yuuma's control is disrupted, using it fuel her power of destruction and defeat Yuuma for good.
- A Day in the Limelight: Despite Reimu and Marisa being the series' main protagonists, both end up being the least involved in the overall story out of the playable characters, and they're the only two who don't even fight Yuuma's second phase. Instead, Murasa and Kanako make the most progress on discovering the truth behind the events, and Okina and Flandre are ultimately the ones who solve the incident by defeating Yuuma.
- Ascended Meme: Bad Apple!! is one of the series' most viral memes and happened to feature Flandre. During the True Final Boss fought with Flandre, she has to conjure a bullet of her raw power to destroy anything that she feeds to the boss — that bullet taking the shape of an apple is surely not a coincidence.
- Beneath the Earth: The story has its characters traveling down to Former Hell, only to visit a place even lower than Kanako's nuclear reactor: the Hell of Blood Pools, where the congealed emotions of countless organisms turn into cursed petroleum as the literal "blood of the Earth" and titular submerged hell of sunken sorrow.
- Berserk Button: Although Jo'on is leading her sister for most of their story, Yuuma hits this for Shion in their final stage by insulting their wealth, enraging her and leaving Jo'on to follow her into the final fight.
- Boss Game: Apart from the tutorial, every stage in the game consists of the player and the boss.
- Cast From Hitpoints:
- In the demo, using your own Spell Cards would consume one hit from your life counter. These two mechanics were made separate in the full release, with Spell Cards instead requiring that you completely fill up a water meter located on the left side of the screen.
- Utsuho's final spellcard covers a wide radius, and she can't be attacked directly during it. The only option is to run away from her, and allow her to be heavily damaged by her own spellcard.
- Competitive Balance: Each of the seven playable characters has their own unique strengths, weaknesses, and playstyles.
- Reimu Hakurei, described as a "Balanced Handling and Firepower-Type", is a Lightning Bruiser with medium-strength melee attacks, a few weak projectiles, and the ability to absorb water while moving, while her 8-directional, easy-to-use dash lets her comfortably avoid damage. She's also the only character who doesn't use the Stamina meter, and is overall the most beginner-friendly character to play as.
- Marisa Kirisame, described as a "Burst Damage and High Firepower Sniping-type", is a Long-Range Fighter with the largest number of projectile attacks, explosive dashes, a massive radius for absorbing water, and high damage, but the trajectories of her potion grenades can be unwieldy and require careful positioning, and her movement is sluggish outside of her orthogonal dashes.
- Kanako Yasaka, described as a "Fortress-Type with Versatile Zoning Capabilities", is a Stone Wall with a large number of enormous projectiles, immense amounts of invincibility frames on her slower attacks, the ability to fly freely while absorbing water and weak projectiles, and two 8-directional air dashes. Her movement is overall slow and deliberate, requiring careful use of her limited dashes, and her projectiles fly in fixed arcs.
- Minamitsu Murasa, described as a "Slow Anchor Movement and Ultra-High Firepower-type", is a Mighty Glacier with astronomical damage output, surprisingly effective air mobility with three "dashes", and the ability to rush down bosses. Her movement relies on hurling her anchor and letting it pull her forward, which lets her constantly fling herself at enemies, but each of her "dashes" is highly delayed and can easily put her into danger, making her unwieldly for precision dodging, while her walking speed is the slowest in the entire game.
- Jo'on and Shion Yorigami, the former described as a "Super Close Up-Type Who Uses Her Elder Sister as a Shield", is a duo of a Close-Range Combatant who relies exclusively on strong melee attacks and a passive Assist Character who deletes enemy bullets she touches. Shion can be thrown to erase attacks from a distance, and used to carry Jo'on for limited flight, while Jo'on is the only playable character with no ranged abilities, relying on Shion's defensive aura to get close and stay safe.
- Flandre Scarlet, described as an "All Purpose-Type with No Weaknesses Except Water", is a Jack of All Stats with a simple but powerful moveset, melee attacks that easily erase bullets, a freely-controllable bat transformation dash, strong projectiles and a screen-wide attack instead of the ability to absorb water, but is the only character who is actually penalized for touching it.
- And finally, with the Switch re-release, Yuuma Toutetsu, described as a "Late Bloomer who Grows Through Her Infinite Appetite", is a more melee-oriented character focused on Gathering Steam- or rather, water. Her range of water collection is rather wide, and her movement involves chargeable jumps and the ability to create water platforms while mid-air. Once she collects enough water, her attacks become larger, and can transform into a Juggernaut of a sheep-head made of water to dish out a lot more damage.
- Continuity Nod:
- When Reimu meets Yuuma, Yuuma thanks her for helping with defeating Keiki in Wily Beast and Weakest Creature, as it's allowed the Animal Realm to return to its original cutthroat state of affairs.
- Likewise, Yuuma recognizes Marisa on sight because of her subordinates. She even mentions how Saki of the Keiga Family has taken a liking to Marisa, and proceeds to mock Saki for her love of muscleheads.
- In Urban Legend in Limbo, Koishi offhandedly remarks about how Minamitsu sometimes visits the Hell of Blood Pools in Former Hell during her victory speech against Byakuren.
- Cutting Off the Branches: Yuuma recognizing Marisa and Reimu due to her subordinates implies that they went through Wily Beast and Weakest Creature with the Eagle Spirit, with Reimu defeating Keiki, and her mentioning Saki taking a liking to Marisa implies Marisa going through the Extra stage canonically happened.
- Filler: Marisa's story is entirely non-canon and is purely filler content. Joon and Shion's influence on the story is so minor that the one plot-relevant scene they have (going into one of Okina's backdoors and ending up as training for Flandre) is outright skipped in Flandre's own scenario. While Murasa cooling down the Hell of Blazing Fires to allow access to the Hell of Blood Pools does seem like a large contribution, the only characters to benefit from this are ones who ultimately contribute nothing to resolving the incident (Kanako only went down to investigate the nuclear reactor, the Yorigamis don't even make it down there before Former Hell re-ignites, and Marisa skips that section entirely), since Reimu descends before Murasa's flood, and Flandre just warps there with Okina's backdoors.
- Human Resources: The true nature of the "petroleum". It manifests itself as an endless pool of blood in the Hell of Blood Pools, and, in Yuuma's own words, is "made from the fear, pleasure, grief, loathing, and resentment of living creatures". Understandably, player characters who are made aware of this fact are disgusted and/or horrified at the revelation.
- In Medias Res: Kanako's scenario begins just a few seconds before she fights Yamame on her way down to check on the reactor.
- Literal Metaphor: The petroleum, the "blood of the Earth", isn't actual petroleum. Instead, it is blood from the Hell of Blood Pools, meaning that it is literal blood from the Earth. That said, Yuuma describes it and literal petroleum as effectively the same thing, the remains of dead organisms.
- Making a Splash: A large number of the cast use water-based attacks in one form or another, which ties into the overall water motif and mechanics of the game. This even extends to characters who normally prefer alternatives, such as Marisa eschewing her typical laser-based spells for explosive potions and an enormous torrent of water as her spell card. The Yorigami sisters and Yuuma's first phase instead use oil, and Yuuma's second phase uses blood, though they function almost identically.
- Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Most characters have the ability to absorb water from the ground by pressing C to build up a meter, and unleash it as a spell card when filled, with two exceptions:
- Jo'on and Shion can't directly absorb water; instead, enemy projectiles that touch Shion are transformed into oil, increasing their water meter, and pressing C launches Shion forward to intercept attacks. Their meter constantly depletes, but if enough bullets are absorbed to max it out, Shion automatically performs a powerful oil-spraying attack, and the oil left on the ground can be ignited by Jo'on's attacks to damage enemies.
- Flandre, being a vampire, is weak to water, so she inverts previous gameplay entirely by wanting to avoid water whenever possible. She automatically absorbs any water she touches, and while her meter constantly drains, letting it reach maximum damages her. Pressing C performs a unique attack, instead.
- Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Mysterious oil spillage happening around Gensokyo → crime boss from Hell trying to become strong enough to take over both Hell and Gensokyo. Notably, the latter had nothing to do with the former incident, and it was all set up to raise awareness of the latter.
- Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: The first game since Yousei Daisensou ~ Touhou Sangetsusei to have a title completely in Japanese, as opposed to the part-Japanese, part-English titles of most other Touhou games. Averted as of the Switch release, which gives it the title of "Sunken Fossil World".
- Perception Filter: Kanako, Minamitsu, the Yorigami sisters, and Flandre initially perceive the Hell of Blood Pools as a massive oil deposit before, via one method or another, its true form as a massive pool of blood is revealed.
- Pet the Dog: Yamame attacks Kanako because she's hungry and laments still being hungry after being defeated. Kanako tells her she'll get her something to eat after she finishes her investigation.
- Promoted to Playable: This game marks the playable debut of not one, but three characters from the series: Kanako from Mountain of Faith, Minamitsu from Undefined Fantastic Object, and finally Flandre Scarlet from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.
- Rivers of Blood: The Hell of Blood Pools, a massive lake of blood located within the deepest parts of the Earth. This particular location serves as the battleground for some of the final boss stages.
- Run or Die: When Utsuho's charging up her last spellcard, the player has to quickly run away from her before she gets the chance to use it. Otherwise, she will unleash an unavoidably large magma bullet.
- Sequel: As the story deals with Yuuma, leader of the third of the matriarch-led gangs of the Animal Realm, it serves as a direct sequel to Touhou Kikeijuu ~ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature.
- Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer:
- Downplayed in the case of the Yorigami Sisters. They weren't shown in any promotional material, but appear as early as Kanako's and Murasa's scenarios, and are the fifth playable characters.
- Played quite straight however for for the sixth playable character, who only finally appears as the penultimate boss of the Yorigami Sisters' own route — blind players didn't expect Flandre Scarlet to start ripping them a new one like the good old days, not having had a proper appearance in 19 years if you don't count cameos or wordless side-fights.
- Shown Their Work: In Marisa's scenario, Yuugi corrects Marisa when she mentions the smell of the hot springs and claims that it's sulfur-related by stating that sulfur doesn't have a smell, and that the odor of the hot spring actually comes from the grudges of vengeful spirits. She isn't wrong, since pure sulfur is odorless and sulfur odor actually comes from its compounds, most commonly hydrogen sulfide.
- Too Many Belts: Downplayed, but the artist for the game, TOKIAME, is well known for adding copious amounts of belts to characters outfits and this game is no different. Though this time it is not as pronounced as with something like Cage in Lunatic Runagate with the belts being more subtle.
- Villain Episode: The Yorigami sisters' story is the only one to focus on characters who aren't trying to solve the incident one way or the other; instead, they're simply riding high on their (believed) riches and trying to get more of the petroleum for themselves.
- Water Source Tampering: The game's plot is that someone has contaminated Gensokyo's water supply with some sort of black liquid, which Yuugi identifies as petroleum.
- The Worf Effect: Every single playable character besides Flandre proves completely unable to defeat Toutetsu thanks to her devouring all of their attacks, with Toutetsu launching them back out of the Hell of Blood Pools in a geyser. It turns out to even be an Invoked Trope, as Okina lured them all down to be defeated by Toutetsu to make fighting her more appealing to Flandre, who relished the chance to be able to destroy someone that nobody else was able to.
