Touhou Eiyashou: Imperishable Night
This game features eight playable characters, with four starting preset teams of two and unlockable individual character modes. When playing with the character pairs, one character fires when unfocused, while the other switches in and fires when focused, with a reduction in movement speed. The two shot types can be drastically different. The individual characters, with the exception of Remilia and Youmu, do not change shot types while focusing/unfocusing. Imperishable Night features Last Spells. For the enemy, a Last Spell is a bonus Spell Card which the player can challenge without the option to use bombs and without the risk of losing lives. On the player side, Last Spells are secondary "bomb" Spell Cards, which last longer and do much more damage than normal bombs at the expense of two bomb stocks. Player Last Spells can only be used immediately after being hit, with a grace period of less than 1 second. Additionally, there is a "Time Orb" system which affects the story/score, as well as a gauge which tracks how human/youkai (normal/focused) you are and determines how you can collect more time orbs.
SCREENSHOTS
HISTORY
Touhou Eiyashou ~ Imperishable Night. (Japanese: 東方永夜抄 〜 Imperishable Night.; lit. "Eternal Night Vignette") is a 2004 vertical bullet hell scrolling shoot 'em up video game developed by Team Shanghai Alice. It is the eighth game in the Touhou Project series, and the third main Touhou Project game to be released specifically for the Windows operating system.
Imperishable Night introduces the 'partner' system, allowing the player a choice between four teams of two characters to switch between, each with their own shot type, in real-time.
The game's story is based on that of the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and centers around Gensokyo's moon being replaced by a fake during the Harvest Moon Festival, with the chosen team warping time to try to find the culprit before the end of the night and festival. It was first released at the 66th Comiket on August 15, 2004.
Gameplay
Imperishable Night is a vertically scrolling bullet hell video game, in which the player character is always facing towards the top of the screen, shooting bullets at enemies, dodging the bullets shot by them, and having to face a boss at the end of each stage.
Unique to Imperishable Night is the Last Spell mechanic. Some of the bosses' last spell cards are called Last Spells, some of which are regular spell cards that require the player to deplete the boss health meter, whereas others simply require the player to survive until the time runs out. When a Last Spell is active, the player cannot activate their own Spell Cards, and will fail if they are hit, regardless of how many lives they have. The player also has access to Spell Cards referred to as Last Spells, which are secondary Spell Cards that last longer and do more damage, but cost twice as much to use.
Another unique part of Imperishable Night is the bosses. Depending on the player's character, the player will either battle Marisa Kirisame or Reimu Hakurei during the 4th stage of the game. There are also two final bosses, Eirin Yagokoro and Kaguya Houraisan. If the player has used a continue or has not seen the normal ending with that particular team, the game continues to Final A, where they face Eirin; afterwards, if the player is still on their first credit but has not seen the good ending yet, the game continues to Final B, where they face Kaguya. Upon seeing the good ending, the player is able to choose the Final for that team on subsequent one credit runs. It is required to fight both before unlocking the extra stage (except for the unlockable solo characters).
Time counter
Imperishable Night utilizes a "time" counter, which requires the player to collect a certain number of "time points", which are acquired in the same manner as regular points—collecting point items, grazing enemy bullets, or killing enemies. The game begins at 11:00 PM, and with each stage, thirty minutes passes, or an hour if they fail to gather enough time points. The player will receive a bad ending if the clock reaches 5:00 AM. Time will also advance by half an hour if the player uses a continue, or fails any of the Last Spells of Kaguya Houraisan, the game's final boss, who is also the only character to have multiple Last Spells. Because of this system, Imperishable Night is the only Touhou Project game in which the player can use a continue and still get an ending that is not the bad ending.
Human-yōkai pairs
Imperishable Night features a total of eight playable characters, in pre-set pairs, and, upon completing the game with all teams, the game allows the player to select these characters individually. Each pair consist of one human, and yōkai, with the human being the player's unfocused shot, and the yokai as the focused shot.
A gauge on the lower left corner of the screen keeps track of how human or yōkai the player is, and affects the player's score accordingly. The gauge, ranging from -100% (human) to 100% (yōkai), is determined by which mode the player uses more. When the player reaches 80%, they can collect time orbs by hitting enemies (as a human) or by grazing against bosses and killing enemies (as a yōkai). Because Youmu Konpaku of the Netherworld Dwellers team is a half-ghost, their gauges are adjusted accordingly (-50% to 50% solo, -50% to 100% as the team), and the minimum values for time orb collection are reduced.
Some enemies use familiars that change their vulnerabilities depending on whether the player is playing as a human or a yōkai at the moment. These familiars are completely invulnerable when the player switches to a yōkai, but at the same time these familiars cannot collide with the yōkai player and do not shoot bullets when the player is on top of them. The enemies' alternating vulnerabilities in this game have been compared to Ikaruga. Bosses may also change their standard attacks depending on the orientation of the player, usually firing slower bullets and/or homing bullets when the player is a yōkai.
Spell Practice Mode
The Spell Practice Mode is unlocked by beating the game with the normal ending (i.e. before the game time reaches 5:00 am). This feature allows a character/team to practice any of the game's spell cards, so long as they have encountered them. In this mode, players have only one life and cannot use their spell cards. Clearing spell cards here will show the creator's own comments on the spell cards or the characters associated with them. The stage practice, allowing the player to practice an entire stage, provided they have completed it already, is also present in Imperishable Night.
Only available in the Spell Practice Mode are Last Words, which are typically the hardest spell cards in the game. These spells are earned by accomplishing certain feats such as beating the game using certain characters, or capturing a large enough number of spell cards.
Plot
Prologue
On the eve of Gensokyo's Harvest Moon Festival, the Moon has been replaced by a fake moon that can never become full. In order to find the real Moon before sunrise, the playable teams notice the imperishable night and set out to search for the person who stole the Moon, so they can return it. Yukari Yakumo, a yokai who manipulates boundaries, notices the lunar incident but finds it too bothersome to handle herself, so she enlists the shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei. Meanwhile, the yokai magician Alice Margatroid notices that no one else is taking action; after her own investigation hits a dead end, she seeks the help of the human magician Marisa Kirisame. At the Scarlet Devil Mansion, the vampire Remilia Scarlet attempts to set out to investigate while leaving her maid Sakuya Izayoi in charge of the house, but Sakuya insists on following as a chaperone. Finally, in the Netherworld, the ghost Yuyuko Saigyouji aimlessly departs, dragging her half-ghost gardener Youmu Konpaku along while claiming that if they simply shoot down whatever is flying, they will eventually hit their target.…
STORY
A human and youkai team set off along a forest path to investigate. Along the way, they encounter a firefly (Wriggle Nightbug) and a night sparrow (Mystia Lorelei), who are quickly defeated. Next, they meet a half-beast (Keine) who is protecting a Human Village from youkai. She mistakes the team for enemies and attacks them. After the team defeats her, Keine indicates that the person who switched the moons is in the bamboo forest. In the bamboo forest, they encounter a character (either Reimu or Marisa) who demands to know why the team has been freezing time and causing an imperishable night.
Finally the team reaches the mansion of the perpetrator. But once inside, they find that the mansion is guarded by a pair of rabbits (Tewi and Reisen). The rabbits are defeated, but not before disorienting the team. Confused, the team must choose which path to take (one leads to the real moon and the other leads to the fake moon). After picking the right path, they are able to meet the perpetrator of this mischievous scheme, Kaguya. Kaguya is a moon princess in hiding who has taken the real moon in order to sever the link between the earth and the moon. The team restores the real moon and Kaguya challenges them to face the "5 impossible requests."