The end of an era.
Touhou Kaikidan ~ Mystic Square is a video game developed by ZUN Soft and published by Amusement Makers for the PC-98 in 1998. It's the fifth installment in the Touhou Project franchise.
Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, Mima, and Yuuka Kazami are searching for someone who's summoning demons hidden in a cave in the mountains.
The game continues the vertical shooter gameplay which its predecessor improved on, and while it's not much compared to Windows games due to hardware limitations, it's still the closest to them when it comes to complexity.
This game provides examples of:
- Alice Allusion: The Extra Stage, where you rematch Alice as a Superboss, features card soldiers as enemies, including one as a King Mook midboss, and the stage theme is even named Alice in Wonderland. Relatedly, during her Stage 3 boss fight, Alice's Attack Reflector is a mirror— Through the Looking-Glass, anyone?
- Breaking Old Trends: In all previous games, extra lives other than 1-Up items were obtained by reaching certain scores. In this game, instead of depending on your score as such, you get extra lives by reaching certain amounts of collected point items, a concept that would be revisited in the seventh and eighth games. That being said, since point of collection has not been introduced yet (with item magnet being only on bombs), those milestones are much harder to hit for an average player, despite being lower in the long term (every 100th point item).
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: One of the bad endings has Yuuka (one of the Player Characters) telling you that you need to train harder. She also tells you to choose her again on your next attempt.
- Characterization Marches On: This is the game that starts solidifying Yuuka's flower motifs, by having her shoot flowers. Her Windows appearances would lean more firmly into it, by establishing traits like her ability to make flowers bloom or her hate of people who abuse flowers.
- Cutting Off the Branches: During the prologue, Reimu wonders how she will get into Makai. This implies she's never headed there before, contradicting the first game's Makai route and leaving Hell as that game's canon scenario by process of elimination.
- Department of Redundancy Department: The Stage 6 theme is called End of the World ~ World's End.
- Desolation Shot: The Amazing Technicolor Battlefield disappears when you dispel Shinki's penultimate spell and blast her wings off. The background of the battle's final phase is a slow pan down over Makai, which is now on fire as a result of the fight.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Downplayed. While the playable characters are among Gensokyo's most powerful residents, they're still going up against the god of Makai. She even mocks the idea of losing to Reimu by saying that "a shrine maiden is nothing more than a dog of the gods".
- Divergent Character Evolution: In the previous two games, Reimu and Marisa had the same movement speed. This is the game that introduced Marisa being faster than Reimu, which would continue to be the case in all future main series games.
- Dual Boss: Yuki and Mai are fought as a pair of bosses in stage 4.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Alice debuts in this game, but looks very different compared to the Windows games. She looks shorter and much younger, wears a different dress, and wears a blue ribbon on her hair instead of a red band. Her dolls also look smaller and have a much simpler design.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Shinki was the first god introduced to the series. However, most of the lore surrounding gods in Touhou, such as faith being their power source, wasn't established until Mountain of Faith and beyond; instead, Shinki's status as a god mostly just serves to characterize her as the creator and ruler of Makai and as an opponent who theoretically outclasses the player characters.
- Alice's characterization in this game, when contrasted with Windows:
- She's encountered in Makai, which implies she lives there and would seem to suggest she was created by Shinki like other inhabitants of Makai. However, in the Windows games she lives in the Forest of Magic, and Perfect Memento in Strict Sense establishes her as a former human. Undefined Fantastic Object later established that Makai's environment facilitates magic, with some humans and youkai traveling there to train and study magic, making it likely that this was the case for Alice as well.
- She is also presented as more belligerent and willing to go all out (the latter specifically in the Extra Stage), while her Windows lore presents her as much friendlier and disliking going all out.
- Easter Egg: If you unlock the Extra Stage with all characters, holding left and right on the title screen will allow you to watch gameplay footage of ZUN himself clearing the Extra Stage with Mima.
- Enemy Roll Call: After completing the Extra Stage, you're shown a "staff roll" listing the names of the bosses and playable characters from the series up until that point.
- Fire/Ice Duo: Mai and Yuki, the Stage 4 Dual Boss. Yuki uses fire magic, while Mai uses ice magic.
- Flunky Boss: Alice summons two dolls to fight alongside her. If you defeat them, she'll replace them after a few seconds.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: Not the game as a whole, but the Extra Stage. It is the only Extra Stage in the whole series to have an ending and a staff roll.note
- Guide Dang It!: Alice's barrier (actually a mirror) only fires bullets when you shoot it, acting as an Attack Reflector, but many players don't realize this for a long time as it wouldn't occur to one to stop shooting.
- Invincible Minor Minion: The last row of card soldiers towards the end of the Extra Stage are invulnerable. You can still shoot at them to increase your score.
- King Mook: Card soldiers appear as enemies during the Extra Stage, and a card soldier wearing a crown serves as the stage's midboss.
- Law Of 100: You get an extra life every 100 collected point items.
- Magic Missile Storm: Marisa's iconic Magic Missile shot type, which sends forward a barrage of magic missiles, makes its debut in this game.
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: The prologue calls the cave the demons are coming from "Cave in Which the Door to Makai is Said to Be (actual name)".
- Petal Power: Yuuka's shot type consists of firing flowers, solidifying her flower motifs from this game onwards.
- Promoted to Playable: Yuuka, the final boss of the previous game, is the fourth playable character.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In Marisa's good ending, she realizes she's grown stronger from her trip to Makai, and when she shows up at the Hakurei Shrine to help kick out the demons, they start running away before she can fight them.
- Sequential Boss: Mai and Yuki fight you as a Dual Boss. Whichever you defeat first, the other goes all out on you, starting a second boss fight.
- Series Fauxnale: The music room includes the soundtracks of the previous four games, and after completing the Extra Stage, you get an ending (which no other Extra Stage in the series has), followed by a "staff roll" sequence consisting of an Enemy Roll Call of the series's characters up until that point. ZUN didn't release any new Touhou games until almost four years later.
- Sheathe Your Sword: Downplayed. The Extra Boss's final attack gets faster and harder to dodge as her health goes down... but if you don't shoot her, it won't accelerate to begin with, and eventually she'll just lose by timeout. However, doing this will also nullify the Clear Bonus, discouraging you from it if you're trying to get a high score.
- Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: The final stage consists entirely of rows of enemies that drop lots of point items and power items, as if trying to make sure you get your next extra life and have full power before you fight the Final Boss.
- Tempting Fate: No prizes given to whoever deduces what happens after Shinki pooh-poohs the concept of Reimu triumphing.
- This Is Unforgivable!: Before fighting Mima, Yumeko tells Shinki: "Her sins against Makai are many and grave! I won't forgive her!"
- Underestimating Badassery: Just because you're a Physical Goddess, Shinki, it didn't mean it was a good idea for you to underestimate the Player Character (aside from possibly Mima). Special note goes to Reimu's scenario, in which Shinki outright pooh-poohs the idea of Reimu beating her. And she even tells the shrine maiden, "A shrine maiden is nothing more than a dog of the gods.".
- Unwilling Suspension: In Marisa's Extra ending, she ties up Alice from a suspended rope while looking through her Grimoire.
