Part 46: The Summer Villa - Part 1b

Hey, she's coming!

Hmm, she flies faster than I thought... We won't be able to get away.

Do we actually need to run away from her?

Ahh, that's true. It'll be faster if I just freeze her into a block of ice.

Grrr, don't make fun of me! I'm going to use that technique that Elly taught me... Come out, evil eyes and ghosts!

Four Doofy Ghosts and four Evil Eyes spawn in.

...! It's monster eyeballs!

Huh, so she can actually do demon-like things~.

Hehehe, were you surprised? Even I can do something like this! All right, everyone. Punish them with all your might!

This is bad, they're coming!

...

...Eh? Hurry up and do it.

...!

The Evil Eye attacks Kurumi. I guess she didn't have enough badges.

Wah!?

W-What are you doing? Your targets are the fairies over there!

...



H-Huh...? Why!?

...It seems those eyeball youkai aren't listening to orders.

Her charisma is insufficient. At this rate, those youkai will be indiscriminately attacking everything.

Heh, controlling familiars ain't easy.



The table everyone's sitting at gets hit.

Whoa there!

Ahh! My prosciutto e melone! That's the last straw. We're supposed to be enjoying ourselves, do something!

Those youkai will continue going berserk. If you wish to relax and ejoy your meal, why not get rid of them yourself?

Grrr... Oh fine.

Remilia's not going to be joining us that easily.

Exercise before the meal, huh? Let's do this!



The initial formation's set up so that Reimu and Marisa are grouped with their partners. For best results the two groups should be swapped, but I'll just go as is.

Huh? Are you here to help!?

Well, basically yes. In actual terms...

We're gonna clean up these crazed evil eyes... Then deliver some punishment onto those fairies.

Wait, this doesn't have anything to do with you all!

Reimu's prosciutto e melone has been burned up.



Indeed. This is a good chance to test out my new spellcard as well.

No way, we're gonna be burned up in return...?

I'll be counting on you all!



The bonus this time is kind of a hassle.



I'll be blunt: this is a filler chapter, and the only important part of it happened in the pre-battle cutscene. That isn't a bad thing though; having the difficulty just constantly shoot up makes it seem like your characters are never really growing stronger, so in my opinion having little breather chapters like this for your units to strut their stuff is always welcome.

It'd be weird if four fairies and Rumia were somehow stronger than all of the SDM together anyways.



Most of this chapter's difficulty comes from two things: getting the bonus,



and keeping Kurumi alive. Since you can't heal her you're essentially on a time limit, and while she can fend for herself pretty well things can go wrong if you don't bait her away from the fairy trio.



One last thing to note before I start: Keine has a new attack. And it is terrible. It costs way too much MP, works off the wrong attack stat, and the only way to use it is to keep Keine away from the frontlines. Which needless to say is a bad idea!



There's really not much I can do on the first turn besides have Reimu and Keine beat up the closest Doofy Ghost.



Meanwhile, Marisa and Alice are too far away to even target something. With their barriers it's safe to park them near the Evil Eyes at least.



The "enemies" of this map won't do anything until you get near them. Note that Bomb Cirno's carrying; it's the only way to fulfill the Bonus, so you have to beat her first.



Ah-ah, Elly took the trouble to teach me, yet I couldn't do it properly...

...Oh well. If you're not going to listen to me, then I'll have to punish you! That's what Yuuka always says!

I'm not sure if that qualifies for .



The regular enemies have no real chance of taking down Kurumi.



Also, this dope is going to keep on trying to hit Rumia with a laser for the entire chapter. I guess that's still better than the Doofy Ghosts though; the ghosts straight up won't do anything unless there's somebody right next to them.



Hey, see this thing? Guess what it is.

If you guessed "Bonus Conversation spot", you were right!



Everyone will get there eventually though, so I don't need to make a beeline for it like back in chapter 6. Instead, I continue cleaning up.



Reimu hits Level 16 at the same time she becomes an Ace. Or to be more specific, a Wife, but like hell I'm using that term.



On the other side of the map, Alice and Marisa do stuff.

The second enemy phase starts with a cutscene.

We're going to be backed into a corner at this rate.

Yes, we'll have to weather through this with our unity.

Unity... You don't mean...

Yeah, let's do what we practiced before!





But together, we are three!

This is the true power of the three light fairies!

Music: The Tiny Future Shines Brightly


Watch the SRX Team Three Fairies attack!

What... They all attacked simultaneously...!?

Ooh, that's cool~!

Is it? All they did was attack together.

Individually, their power is low.



And a herald of things to come.

Hmhm, they've thought up something pretty interesting for a bunch of fairies.

...Yeah, that might just work.

...? What's the matter?

A brilliant thought just came to my mind. Lend me your ear for a bit.



On the NPC phase, Kurumi steals a kill. Now that the Three Fairies have access to S-Formation, you want to try and keep her away from them since they'll use their combination whenever possible. Three S-Formations in a row really hurts.



And on turn 3, another cutscene.

Wha? Attacking together... You mean like that Combination attack we just saw? Why me in the first place? You're more familiar with Reimu.

We're both magicians, that makes us a good match. Explanation please, ma'am!



Several units combine their power to deliver an attack. The cooperating units must be within the surrounding 8 squares of each other.

...I see, so Marisa and I must be next to each other in order to perform it.

Basically, yes. There are Power and MP requirments as well, do take note of them. All cooperating units must have the required Power and MP to perform it.

That about finishes it up. Let's give it a try.

...Oh fine. If you're that desperate, I'll go along with you.

And with that,



Marisa and Alice learn their last move. I'll discuss it in detail once I can actually use it, so for now I'll just say that it's completely amazing.



The magicians get in position to use Proto Malice (though Marisa doesn't actually have the Power for it yet since Kurumi stole one of her kills),



and Reimu and Keine continue busting ghosts.



Kurumi keeps doing her thing, and an Evil Eye lands a 3% on Alice. I probably should have taken a picture of that last one, but I was just turboing through the phase.



Turn 4 has yet another cutscene.

Yes. I realized in the battle against the vampire... that there are are enemies where simply rushing them will not be effective.

My new spellcard "Amaterasu" uses the power of the sun to brighten the darkness. No evil will be able to escape from it.

In case you haven't played Okami or something, Amaterasu is the goddess of the sun.

Huh. I think you're at your best when you're rushing in.

What, do you think I'm some wild boar or bull?

Your new spellcard seems to be useful, though. Having it around will be reassuring.



Keine and Reimu get to work on the last Doofy Ghost. Reimu's also moved herself into Cirno's line of fire (she cast Focus first just in case), so hopefully I can get started on getting that Bomb.



Marisa's doing three things here: killing this Evil Eye, getting enough Power to use Proto Malice, and triggering a Bonus Conversation.

Ohh? Something's here... Isn't this that taiyaki everyone was talking about? It's still warm too... Someone in the Scarlet Devil Mansion must've dropped it.

I'll get Alice to treat me to one again the next time I go to the human village.



I end the turn by getting Alice in position for Proto Malice.



Turned out Cirno didn't have enough Power for Perfect Freeze, so nothing happened on the enemy phase. And on the NPC phase, same old, same old.



Here we go.


Watch Alice and Marisa work together!

Mm, that's roughly how it goes.

The power does seem notably higher.

Well, this would be the best that could be done on short notice... But it really is just you two firing at the same time.



Notice how in the animation, Marisa completely misses two shots.

That's fine, we can save all that for next time.

...So that wasn't the end?



Okay, time to gush about how awesome this move is. First and foremost, it is astoundingly MP efficient. It's only 15 MP (or 30 considering you'll probably use it twice a turn), yet it's Marisa's third strongest attack and Alice's second strongest. And considering the attacks right above them cost 40/55 MP, that's pretty damn great! If you haven't been upgrading Marisa's MP, this is the game throwing you a bone and practically making it a nonissue.

Second, the move is very accurate! Only Stardust Reverie and Kick give bigger accuracy modifiers, and those both run off the wrong attack stat and leave the user in a bad range. Proto Malice can give Marisa the boost she needs to actually hit something, and if you happen to have the Marisa/Alice Support it gets even better!

Third, notice that attack range? It's almost an exact match for Master Spark/Shanghai Doll. It is a totally valid boss strategy to spam Proto Malice, since if you're in range for it you're in range for the double finisher. And since it's so MP efficient, you'll have more than enough to nuke the boss!

Finally, as the move's name implies this isn't the actual Malice Cannon yet. Sometime in the future (probably when FMW gets to Touhou 8, since that's where the Malice Cannon originates from) this attack is going to get even better. It'll probably lose its ridiculous MP efficiency in exchange, but looking at how FMW2 treated MP I don't think that'll be a problem.



As a sidenote, you've probably noticed that Marisa and Alice have different damage numbers. I'm honestly a little confused as to why, but I think it's because any boosts to their attack power are applied after the base damage calculation. As I understand it, the base damage is calculated by (Magic Missile + Shanghai Doll)/2, with none of the boosts Magician or the Movement skills give being taken into account. That's (2000 + 2900)/2, which equals 3450. From that, if you add up all of Marisa's attack boosts (two levels of Magician, one level of Unfocused) that does become 2600... but if you add in Alice's her damage should be 2650. So I don't know why it's 2700; maybe the game rounds up? To make it even more confusing, on my Lunatic save the damage is 3600 on both, which is just the base damage (7100/2) rounded up so .

Putting aside the mystery, this is why I recommended getting Focused Movement for Alice.



Back to the battle! Reimu's getting started on beating Cirno's face in.

Being around you really is cooling.

Really? Dai told me not to freeze other people's stomachs. But you're always going around with your bellybutton exposed... Won't you catch a cold like that?

It's different. I wear clothes like this all year long, so a bit of coldness is nothing to me.

Hmm, you might be tougher than I thought...



This won't take long.



And since she won't be needed, Keine starts moving for the Bonus Conversation spot.



And Marisa parks herself right here, right in the range of all three fairies. She has Alert cast so she's guaranteed to dodge the first salvo of S-Formation, and from then on it's just hoping she doesn't get hit.



And that she can actually hit. Maybe I should have waited a turn so I could set up Proto Malice.

Gahhh, Marisa! ...Um, what might you be doing here? ...Oh, you're with Alice as well.

Yeah, I thought she'd be free, so I invited her here.

Really? That's odd, you were arguing so much back then... Oh well, it's good that you're on good terms now.

...Why are you acting like we're buddies?



There's actually a lot of possible dialogue for S-Formation, since what plays changes depending on who initiates the attack.



Also Marisa hit!



...And weakened Sunny to the point that Kurumi's probably going to sweep in and kill her.



I've basically already lost, might as well play it safe.

Ah, Marisa! What are you doing here?

I'm here to investigate an unidentified living being. I heard it's a mysterious bat that can emit mist.

Mist, huh... Speaking of which, I just saw that suspicious maid that we talked about before. She's in the mansion there.

Ahh, that's all done and dusted. The mist incident's been resolved. Everything with the maid is settled now.

Ehh? You resolved it...?

You gotta wait for the continuation though. You can ask the wind how it ends!



If the full hit had landed, Marisa would be under half health.



Which would have made this fatal. Marisa could tank this as she is now, but I don't feel like going for another 50/50 chance.

Gah, Marisa! ...Um, what might you be doing here?

That doesn't matter. More importantly, how'd you do that attack you just used? You need to totally be in sync for it, right?

Umm, you mean our Formation Attack? You can ask, but... We're always together, so we know the timing intuitively.

...I see, so sticking together is important. That sounds kinda annoying...

Ah, you should still have separate rooms though. Sharing a room can get bad if both people have completely different tastes.

I didn't ask for that much info. Well, whatever. Show me the pattern again. I wanna see it with my own eyes so I can steal it.



They hit again. Seems whatever coin the game's using doesn't like me.



Sure, why not.



Sadly, Reimu didn't get a critical.



Rumia also throws herself at Reimu. She's in ranged for a Shotgunned Fantasy Seal, but that won't be necessary.

Hm, you smell really good~.

O-Oh, really? I didn't use any perfume or anything...

Yeah, you smell like fish~. It's making my stomach growl.

Ahh, you mean that kind of smell... Do you want the leftovers?

Yeah~. I should've gone with you instead of Cirno.



Reimu got a critical this time.



Which saves me since Kurumi went for Rumia! Now I feel pretty dumb for having Marisa hold back earlier though.

Ah-ah, if I wasn't so hungry, I wouldn't have eaten that sandwich. I didn't have an afternoon snack today after all...

Ehh, was it really that bitter~? I think it looks fine to eat~.

You think it's fine...? Have you ever eaten something as bitter as that?

Yep. As long as it fills the stomach, it's fine.

...There's really all types of youkai around. I could never stomach something like that...



Kurumi gets a critical too but fails to take down Rumia.



So Marisa casts Accel and zooms on over. I could have left her as bait for Kurumi to attack, but since I'm busy getting the Bonus Conversations anyways I doubt I'll be able to arrange things to get this chapter's bonus.

Ah, Marisa. Long time no see~.

It hasn't really been that long. Ain't this the first time we've fought?

Hm, I think so. I'll add some extra darkness just for you~.

...Right, her darkness protects her from lasers. This ain't the best matchup for me.



I didn't have any strength cuz I was hungry...



Cirno decided to be clever and Evade.



Reimu laughed in her face, then overkilled her. 6346 damage, if you were curious.

I was just holding back today!



Now it's Alice's turn.

...? What might this be? It's shaped like taiyaki, but its horn is outrageously exaggerated...

It may be something to eat, but it surely wouldn't whet anyone's appetite.



On the NPC phase, Kurumi finally heads over to Sunny. Here's hoping she misses!

It's you, isn't it? You said you made that bitter thing. Have you ever tried to eat it yourself?

Well... When bitter dumplings were really popular... Luna made a type of dumpling with mugwort that REALLY looked like bitter dumplings.

Ehh? And then?

I didn't like bitter food, and she gave that to me. I thought she was harassing me, and we ended up arguing. But in the end, it was just a misunderstanding, and everyone ate all of it up.

Hmm, I see... Wait, that means you never ate the bitter dumplings yourself.

Ah, yeah, that's true.

Hmph, I'm gonna make you eat the remainder of this! You'll see how bitter it is~!

Seeing this conversation unlocks an entry in the glossary.





I give~.

Hey, Sunny's been shot down!

Oh well. Let's grab Sunny and withdraw.

Luna and Star run away.



Thanks a lot, everyone. This takes a load off my mind!

That's good to hear. Though we didn't really do this for you.

Aww Reimu, you should be honest and show your happiness for me.

Since when are we that close!?



Remilia and Sakuya were just spectating the entire time.

That's good. Let's enjoy this party once again, shall we?

...Speaking of which. You were Kurumi, right? Would you like to join us?

Ehh? Are you asking me...!?

Yes. You said you were eating food off the floor earlier, right? Eat some of this to wash the taste away. It'll just go to waste otherwise.

...I-I see... It's kinda embarrassing to be invited so formally... Is it really okay for me to join in with everyone?

I don't mind. There ain't much of a difference between four people and five.

All right, let's continue the party!



So in the end I basically got nothing done.



So let's try that again.



This time I had Reimu and Keine start on the right, both so I can get their Bonus Conversations and because Reimu's much better at safely weakening the fairies.

This is... Taiyaki Maryuu Azking!? Why has it been dropped here? It doesn't look too dirty, though...

......No, I shouldn't, it was dropped on the floor...

Reimu, what's going on? Why do you look so conflicted?

I-It's nothing.

More importantly Keine, you said you would buy taiyaki for me! You promised to after the incident was resolved, right? Remember your promise!

Yes, I know. I'll buy some and bring it over next time, so wait till then.



These are some nice odds.

When I went back after the incident, I noticed something strange...

Something strange...?

The rice cookies in the cupboard had disappeared. Well, technically they were still there, but the seaweed had been removed.

Ahh, that? They were damp, I figured they probably weren't edible anymore...

Obviously. You'd have to heat them up a bit before they could be eaten... But with the the way you're talking, you know something about it, don't you?

...Ack, I ran my mouth off like Sunny always does!

And here's the last bonus conversation:

Oh, there's some taiyaki from Daimonji here. It's already hard enough to get, who would've thrown this away?

Honestly, food should be treated with more respect.



And on that thrilling note, Reimu continues her counter attack.

You're that fairy who's always flying about suspiciously near my shrine. What are you doing here?

Gah, the shrine maiden's caught me... W-Well, you see, since the scarlet mist disappeared... We've sort of been investigating why...

Wha? I was the one who resolved that during the last full moon.

Wait, it was a full moon? Then why did Keine not... oh whatever.

Huh, really?

Really. That's why you shouldn't be here!



Sheesh, and this is with Focus cast.

You seem a little smarter than the company you keep.

Mmhmm. Sunny's a sleepyhead, and Luna's always tripping over her own feet... I really don't know what to do with those two. Ah, and they argue with each other all the time too.

I see, I see. I'll kick all of you out here at once, then.

...She's not listening at all...



Alright, just have to take down Cirno and I've got this in the bag.

My, you're with different children today. What happened to Daiyousei?

She seemed to be really enjoying her afternoon nap. I didn't wanna wake her up.

Hehehe, I've snagged a souvenir for her though! She's gonna be so happy!

I see. You seem to be getting along, and you don't appear to be worrying her too much.

...You always seem stronger whenever you're next to Daiyousei, though... I wonder how that works.

You have your own Support, you know how.



And now I just have to hope Marisa hits. She has Gain cast, so if she does she might get another level.

Hey Cirno, here's a riddle for you. What kind of cake can't be eaten?

Ehh, why so suddenly? And a cake that can't be eaten...?

Yep. Here's a hint: It's solid and slippery.

I see, a cake that's solid and slippery...

...

...A-A frozen sponge cake?

...Heh, I knew it. Cirno's way too fun to talk to.







Marisa didn't get a level, but she's close.



Keine kills the last Evil Eye to bump Reimu's Power up to 126,



and Reimu casts Luck to make up a bit for the penalty for bombing things to death.



Ahh, oh well. I'll go back and have some tea.

I give~.

Geez, this is all Sunny's fault!



Yay, another Firefly Gem. Now Keine can be nightproof too.







Now the only thing to do is smash Rumia.



She makes it very easy.



I assume this is a reference to Combattler V.



The chapter ends with a killsteal. I could have prevented this by having Marisa counter with Magic Missle, but .



Much better.

------

No video this time since there are still some upcoming new attacks.

------

Good evening, everyone. This is Daiyousei hosting All Night FMW tonight, along with...

Me~!

Let's begin with the first postcard... It's from "Submitted by the Insects News Service".

"I am the leader of the insects. But humans think I am creepy because insects follow me everywhere..."

Is that so~?

U-Uh... Yes it seems.

"Furthermore, for some reason, everyone thinks that I am a guy and..."

Huh, is that so~?

...Y-Yeah... O-Okay everyone, see you next week! Bye bye!

Bye bye~.