TWilight INSanity (TWINS) is a rather obscure 2008 PC danmaku game that I started playing because a friend was interested in the series story, of all things. Since there's almost no footage of the game, I thought I might as well upload a video?
This is the C route (best ending/TLB), which requires making the correct dialogue choices and having a sufficiently low P-rate. P-rate increases over time based on the number of enemies on screen, and by 1/10 of the distance to max if you get hit. P-rate decreases by collecting E-crystals (from speedkilling enemies and canceling bullets) and capturing enemy tensions, but keeping it low is mostly about survival.
This game actually has a pretty difficult Normal to 1cc, much more than Touhou Normals. There's the general pattern density (5C/6C in particular). The life count is very low (still not sure what causes the stage 4 midboss to sometimes drop a 1up; it didn't drop this run), one lower than it looks, since you game over the moment your lives reach 0. Tensions (bombs) don't give invincibility, only a single screen clear and boosted shot power for a while. You auto-tension if you get hit with at least 1 tension (which costs you all your tensions and E-crystals), but being hit too much can raise the P-rate too high to stay on the C route. And for some reason, focusing has a delay to take effect! Trying to move smoothly by mixing focus/unfocus typically just leads to dying.
Scoring in this game seems to be about survival (auto-tension is very costly!), maximizing E-crystals by speedkilling enemies for x4 (aside from the direct points, every 700 E-crystals are worth a tension), and using those tensions to auto-collect score items and speedkill enemies for more items/E-crystals. Bosses tend to be a mixture of survival and speedkills/cancels for E-crystals, to build up tensions for the stage portions. Capturing enemy tensions also gives a decent number of points (directly and in the stage clear bonus). Graze (buzz) exists but seems to be mostly irrelevant; each graze becomes a single E-crystal at the end of the stage.
Saijou twins (Yuuri laser, Mayuu spread+homing) have the highest shot power, but it comes with a movement speed so high they can be hard to control. At least that means the focus delay is less relevant, since it's more reasonable to dodge without unfocusing? Their two tensions are very different, so you need to be careful which you use-- Mayuu's tension spawns columns of piercing lasers covering the screen (good for clearing stage enemies), while Yuuri's spawns a group of powerful homing bullets (good against bosses, bad against stage enemies).
4 окт 2024
