Part 56: Source Material

And here's the comparison with the source game.

PCB Prologue

PCB's prologue is split into two parts, a general backstory of Gensokyo and the actual prologue. The only thing in the former that's really relevant to this discussion is:
This, obviously, is the main reason Yukari is so interested in the player army.

The actual prologue is split into three segments, one for each player character. Reimu is sick of the cold and heads out in the direction her intuition tells her to, Marisa sees some cherry blossom petals in the wind and decides to follow them, and Sakuya is worried about whether or not the SDM will have the resources to survive such a long winter, so she heads out to find spring. Basically none of these show up besides that one time Patchouli griped about Sakuya's rationing.

PCB Stage 1



The protagonist just kind of ends up in the middle of mountains. They beat up Cirno along the way, then run into Letty. She picks a fight with Reimu, and gets assaulted by Marisa and Sakuya.



FMW2 tries to make Letty more relevant and has the heroes think she's behind the endless winter. She's not, of course, and joins the party to help restore order to the seasons (so she can go to sleep).

PCB Stage 2



Continuing their wandering, the protagonist somehow enters Mayohiga. Chen tries to chase them off and gets wrecked. Reimu loots the place for good measure too since supposedly bringing utensils back from Mayohiga is good luck. It's probably also worth noting that Chen is much less child-like in PCB, and talks kind of formally.



Meanwhile this game turns stage 2 into a vessel to introduce characters from UFO to the main plot. Basically the same besides that.

PCB Stage 3



After even more wandering, the protagonist bumps into Alice. Who actually has some idea what's going on! She shoots the shit with Reimu and Marisa, and gets forcefully interrogated by Sakuya. Afterwards she fills Reimu in on what the cherry points Reimu's been collecting are, gives Sakuya a tip (that Sakuya gets the wrong, yet at the same time correct conclusion from), and... continues to shoot the shit with Marisa. I really don't know how Marisa gets through PCB honestly, she just charges around randomly.



FMW2 completely excised stage 3, mostly because Marisa already fought Alice back in 2M. She was just too much of an obvious pick for Marisa to recruit to hold off until PCB, I guess.

PCB Stage 4



For whatever reason, the protagonist figures out they have to go above the clouds. They blow through Lily White as they move onwards, end up in front of the gate to the Netherworld, and sit around until one of the Prismrivers show up. Lunasa informs Reimu about the flower viewing event Yuyuko is setting up, Lyrica dances around Marisa's question on how to open the gate, and Merlin threatens to turn Sakuya into a main dish. Afterwards, the protagonist enters the Netherworld. Reimu shatters the barrier, Marisa is told she just has to fly over it, and Sakuya does something (she probably also flies over it).



Stage 4 is kind of entirely pushed to the side here. The Prismrivers still inform the party about Yuyuko's planned flower viewing, but other than that they're just kind of there. Their chapter even gets hijacked by Ran.

PCB Stage 5



The protagonist's rampage through the Netherworld causes a huge stir, so Youmu flies over to scope out the situation. She is the first person the protagonist runs into who knows exactly what is going on, so she helpfully exposits about how and why she's been stealing spring. Reimu and Marisa are curious about the Saigyo Ayakashi, while Sakuya doesn't care and just wants to eliminate the mastermind.

Youmu's "hold on until the tree blooms, and then I'll return spring" thing shows up in Sakuya's route, by the way.



Stage 5 is where FMW2 finally starts to really change things up. Youmu is much more hesitant to turn her blade on the group she's fought alongside with than some random intruder, and after she's informed about what's going on she makes the decision to stop Yuyuko.

PCB Stage 6



Stage 6 actually starts with Youmu pulling a last stand. After she's swatted aside, the protagonist meets Yuyuko. Who is well aware that the Saigyo Ayakashi is a youkai! She wants to unseal the tree, and it's only in Reimu's route that she actually explains why (to revive the corpse buried underneath). In Marisa's she gets into a snark off, and in Sakuya's she doesn't even mention the tree until the fight starts.



Once she is defeated, spring floods from the Ayakashi and the game ends.



Over here, Yuyuko is completely obsessed with making the tree bloom and meeting the Fujimi girl, to the point she basically ignores everything else. There have also been major backstory changes: Yukari's story implies that the Saigyo Ayakashi isn't actually a youkai in this setting, and that the legends about it are actually about Yuyuko's corpse. Reviving the Saigyo Ayakashi wouldn't doom Gensokyo, it'd just doom Yuyuko; since the tree is sealing Yuyuko's body, her soul can't reincarnate. If it's freed, Yuyuko will immediately pass on. Not that Yuyuko would have even been capable of it: her PCB character profile hints that her powers over death prevent her from restoring life. This is why Yukari was so unconcerned, by the way.

Endings

Of the nine endings, only one shows up at all: Sakuya A. It's the one where Patchouli makes a miniature Netherworld, though originally it was a gift to Remilia instead of Flandre. FMW2 instead goes for a much more elaborate ending that actually attempts to resolve the whole Saigyo Ayakashi thing and incorporate Yuyuko's backstory into the main plot.



By the way, one of the PCB endings has Reimu in a hat. It never shows up again.

Extra Stage



Shortly after PCB, Yuyuko informs the protagonist that Youmu was able to steal spring from Gensokyo because Yukari weakened the barrier between the Netherworld and Gensokyo. Now that the incident is over, though, that barrier should probably be restored. So the protagonist goes over to the Netherworld to look for Yukari, and runs into Chen (who they beat up) and then Ran. After the fight, the protagonist demands to meet Yukari and is told she's still asleep.



The entire Netherworld barrier subplot is dropped in this game. Ran instead shows up in PCB stage 4 to question Marisa's group, then zooms home to wake Yukari early.

Phantasm Stage



The protagonist comes back again at a later hour (youkai wake up at night) and beat up Ran again. This time Yukari comes along, and has a completely nonsensical chat with Marisa and Sakuya. Reimu is the only one to actually bring up the Netherworld barrier, and after the fight yells at Yukari to fix it. She doesn't.



And in FMW2 Yukari... kind of just comes in at the very end to exposit about PCB's backstory. The entire battle basically only happens because it's PCB and you gotta fight Yukari for some reason.

All in all, FMW's adaption of PCB was kind of bland. But to be honest, PCB isn't a particularly easy game to work with. A lot of the dialogue is straight up nonsense, the plot is mostly hidden in the backstory, and Reimu is the only protagonist whose actions even begin to make sense. So sure, I'll take bland.