Touhou 18.5: 100th Black Market - 1st Market 

of course Pebble Hat would be the first new card option after the tutorial lol

8:09 This confirms that the orbs shooting papers isn't just a visual gameplay trick.

Ahhhh HBM. Haven't played this in a hot minute. Game's real interesting! I really like what it tries to do, but I felt like ZUN stopped just short of something really fun. The biggest thing is the lack of synergy and stat cards. There's only a few cards that stack for a stat in an interesting way, and synergies between cards rarely exists...which is part of the fun in one of these games, so...why? I did find one synergy that was quite good but I'll talk about it in the stage when you unlock the other major piece. I do love the fact though that this game ENCOURAGES SCORE PLAY and going for items so heavily - abusing the magic circle's not-cancel for item gain is really fun.

I like how we’re still not sure why Marisa’s eyes are now red, I remember many were speculating she was turning into a youkai

Black Market time, daze~ 11:32 And Omega’s need/want for lasers prevails in the end, ha!

Finally! I'm waiting till Touhou 19!

You know, I'm the first to defend ZUN and the newer Touhou games/music from nostalgia blind old fans, especially cause I personally find the newer games and music way more enjoyable than the older ones. But not gonna lie, I do not like this game. It's honestly my least favorite Windows Touhou game. I think the concept of the game is great. UM but expanded into a proper roguelike instead of just having a random cards. I was extremely excited for it, which is probably why I feel so let down by it. Unfortunately this game makes a massive blunder right away: Stages are all separate instead of being played in order. Now if the stages were longer with multiple bosses this might not have been too bad. But as it is right now playing through a 2-3 minute stage, getting overloaded with so many cards and then having it be over by the time you finally get into it just doesn't feel great to me. I really think the game would be better if you played all the stages in a row and then bought as many cards as you could afford at the end of each stage. Especially since once you have seen every boss in a stage, it's really hard to find a reason to replay any of the markets outside of the very last one (Which is partially like what I wanted, but with too few enemy waves). The second and absolutely massive letdown that killed the game for me were the boss patterns though. I really cannot express how it feels to be Danmaku designer and be excited to see what cool new things ZUN will create this time around.... and then see that 95% of boss patterns are either just things every boss has pulled off before but easier, or just be extremely uncreative and honestly seemingly unfinished. There is even a time where ZUN took a pattern from ANOTHER character, changed the bullet types and then gave it to a character in this game. Violet Detector gets a lot of flack for reusing patterns, but at the very least the teleport gimmick adds an extra spin to all of them. And 1/3 of the game, while being repetitive is still new content and a new idea, even if it could have been fleshed out more. Here you just do what you already have done in previous Touhou games, and not gonna lie this is extremely disappointing. But on one positive note. The second market theme is one of my favorite tracks in the entire series. It's amazingly good. It's just a shame it's stuck in this game, so not many people will remember it.

12:33 Aaaaaaaaaand here she is XD Glad to see her again :D

22:15 She's gonna send us all to the slaughterhouse!

Koishi's there forever. (Though, curious, how did Koishi become a channel gag?) As an interesting tidbit, this game coincided with the 100th Comket, as well as the Anniversaries of EoSD (20), and HRtP (25!). Sheesh, I'm older than the series...

I love the gameplay of this. Had a blast playing when it came out though I got stuck and did not finish before other stuff came up. Now I am torn between watching you beat it and attempting it myself in June when I am back home. Decisions, decisions...

Hoo boy, i remember that at launch this game sparkled a bit of a controversy among a certain part of the touhou fandom. I love the idea of a rouge touhou game, and UM card mechanic fitted perfectly for it, although there's still a bit of an issue balance wise. It certainly was an interesting experiment from ZUN's part at the end of the day.

0:50 Man, if I had a nickel every time a spinoff declared that the way YOU played a main game canonically happened, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't much, but it's weird that it happened twice. This is the second time that we canonically know that Marisa solved an Incident. The first being the time she and the Eagle Spirit took out Saki, which did more good than Reimu's defeat of Keiki which CAUSED Saki to go on the offensive in the first place. At this rate, Marisa will end up as the new main Incident Solver and Reimu will become the sidekick.

20:53 I love to imagine Koishi subconciously trying to manipulate you into choosing her at that moment, it's so funny

finallyyy! my fave spin off game!

Ahh, HBM Ngl, I don't particularly like this game It is a nice experiment on ZUN's part, and it probably would be fun if ZUN had the time to add more fun stuff to it (I heard ZUN works at a pretty tight schedule to work on his games these days) The bullet patterns are mostly pretty boring and the stages become a grind fest that isn't particularly fun since the boosts that you randomly get aren't exactly synergizing most of the time Well, that's my opinion at least The card mechanic is done much better though, I will give it that, but I play Touhou for the patterns, and this game doesn't have fun patters

Wuhu time is 6:12 rn but who cares, another videooo

The fact there's no progression between stages always reminded me of Avant-Garde Discerning Parallerer and Jamestown. That being said, I don't think 100th Black Market does it as well as those two games.

I like this game's idea, the problem is i'm kinda mediocre at the camera games, good enough to clear them with some good effort, bad enough to suck and get stuck on simple spells for some time, that said the sheer mount of fails i had on this game initial stages is embarassing, the frustration made me drop this game for a bit till i had enough drive to finish it, also somehow this game resource system made me remember the Hakurei point b***s*** from CtC.

For a tidbit, most cards that buff those stats to the right max out at 3. I don't remember what the max for power is, though, maybe 8 or 9? I personally had fun with hbm, but I do wish there to do with all the funds you stockpile after getting all the cards. I dunno, just kinda bothers me watching the number climb with nothing to do with it. Wonder if there's any patches that add more content. Edit: enemy difficulty is based on the wave, so they always get harder the further in you are. Cards also get more expensive as you progress. If you didn't notice, there's a bit of dialogue from marisa about the boss she beat instead of the description of the area if you beat one. Also futo's card kinda sucks and aunn is god

Boy this was....definitely a game to experience. I think it's really close to being an out & out good game but it's just missing some pieces. As it is, it's just...okay, I guess. Beating it was really trying.

Jesus, Nemuno a bit of a difficulty jump there?

should take the kosh hat

My favourite game! BPoHC!!! always wanted to commit this joke

I find it odd how every boss in this market doesn't wear socks or shoes.

Two small things I don't think you noticed: When buying cards in the black market, you should see a fraction on the top black border of the cards. That's what tells you how many copies of a single card you can have, and how many you have right now. The other thing: the difficulty is actually not random! Well, it might as well be, if you don't know, but, it's actually determined by the number of cards you bought on the black market. So maybe, if you're struggling with progression, maybe buy fewer cards.

Would it be better or worse at this point to get a Koishi Fumo?

4:17 I do hope for you that mentioning her, even if not by name, won't get her attention.

This has got to be one of the most divisive Touhou games, and that's saying a lot, given all the haters/doomers nowadays that hate on anything ZUN puts out for the sake of hating without any nuance, and the kiss-ups that will take anything without recognizing flaws. (One could say sometimes the latter is worse, given the way positive Steam reviews are just one unserious sentence while the negative ones actually go into detail about why they didn't like the game, but the doomers are really fucking annoying too.) I said in 17.5 that while I liked that game, I wish I got more out of it. The same applies here too, maybe harder than in 17.5. I had a fine time with it, but boy you run out of interesting things to do REALLY fast. Even later on, with one of the markets that feels like it was meant to be replayable, it just doesn't do much, sadly. This game feels more like a tech demo than anything, like the perfect kind of game for someone else to take the reins of and expand further. While there are a lot of cards, most of them don't really have any sort of synergy, or sometimes are just plain pointless. Like Jaimers put it, there's like 20 variations of "cancel bullet" lol. I think that also contributes to there being not much to do. That said, I think I'll leave some notable cards here as we go along these videos. (Again, Omega has already pre-recorded these, but this is more as a general matter of fact kind of thing.) Miracle Mallet - Honestly? Keep this on you the WHOLE game. Slowing down bullets with the magic circle and then malleting them all is the best way to grind Funds in the whole game, which makes buying cards at the regular market much faster. Doubly so considering you also get Bullet Money by using the magic circle in the first place, so you win on both ends. Any card that strictly increases your shot power like Physical Enhancement Jizo, Ringo Brand Dumplings, or any card that gives you an option like Mini-Hakkero and Yin-Yang Orb are mostly good. Marisa's default shot is like a peashooter... Not all option cards are particularly good however. Most cards that affect your spell circle like Sutra of Dharmatic Power, The Dragon's Path and ESPECIALLY Ferocious Komainu, are insanely good, and especially coupled with a card that we don't have the possibility to see until the next market, that combined with Ferocious Komainu becomes overpowered as hell, especially for Miracle Mallet strats. I don't like Magician's Basic Study or Aesthetics of Destruction all that much, since they ruin what makes grinding Funds effective (by hitting bosses for more damage or destroying bullets, respectively). Gale Geta - Might be good if you hate how slow Marisa is in this game. Lord what is this default speed. Manekineko with Good Business Skills - I guess it's good if you want more options. That's always a higher chance of something good. Life Explosion Elixir - That is massive damage if you get hit close to a boss, but the starting cost is very high, so only take it if you have enough space. Bumper Crop of Life - PICK. THIS. UP. One extra life as you start is ALWAYS good. If you see Life Card after this one though, by the way, pick it up still, since, while you can't take it with you at the start, again, you'll get discounts on it if you buy it. Also, I think starting card slots are actually tied to how many bosses you have defeated, so staying back in the same market hunting down bosses is advised. On that note, you can only take cards belonging to a boss (like, say, Minoriko's card), on a run where you fought that respective boss, so for some good boss cards, it may come down to hoping you get that boss ASAP so you make your life easier in the future. I think you also can only get the fourth boss in a market after you've defeated the previous three.