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Story of Eastern Wonderland/Gameplay

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Title screen of the game

This article describes the overall gameplay and background information for Story of Eastern Wonderland.

General Information

Controls

Story of Eastern Wonderland must be played with the keyboard. Keyboard controls are as followed:

  • The Arrow Keys move the character around
  • Z causes a short barrage of shots to be fired; it may be held down for continuous fire. Additionally, the key may be tapped rapidly in order to fire shots at a higher speed.
  • X releases a bomb (presuming that any are left)
  • Esc pauses the game and brings you to the in-game menu

Basic Gameplay

Story of Eastern Wonderland plays like a fairly typical vertically-scrolling danmaku shoot 'em up, in which the player's character is always facing towards the top of the screen, shooting at anything that moves, avoiding and weaving between enemy bullets, and confronting difficult bosses at the end of each stage.

There are 4 levels of difficulty: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Lunatic. Selecting a difficulty can only be done via the Option menu. Each difficulty level features differences in the number of bullets fired by each enemy, rate of fire, and variations in the bullets' pattern of movement. Lunatic difficulty, however, is an exception to this rule — it is a mirror of the Hard difficulty, with a singular added complication: whenever a stage enemy is destroyed, two fast-moving bullets are fired from the enemy's last position towards the player.

The player will traverse 5 increasingly harrowing stages through the course of a regular game. Once the game has been completed with all three attack types on any one difficulty, an Extra Stage is unlocked. The Extra Stage features significantly stronger and faster enemies, an extremely difficult boss battle, and no option to continue if all lives are lost.

Shot

A character's "shot" is the player's primary method of attacking enemies. While the shot's attack area and behavior varies depending on the Attack Type the player has chosen, the shot can be powered up by filling up the Power Level by collecting power items. Normal power items (labeled "P") add 1 to your Power Level; Super power items (labeled "S") add 10. The shot gradually becomes more powerful when the player reaches the Power Levels of 7, 15, 31, 39, 51, 63, and 79 (MAX), respectively. At maximum power, each attack type attains one of two special attributes — Attack Types A and C gain the ability to penetrate (or fire through) enemies, while Attack Type B obtains auto-targeting capabilities.

The progress bar will change its color according to the player's current power as followed: 0 - 14 Red, 15 - 30 Purple, 31 - 38 Blue, 39 - 50 Green, 51 - 62 Cyan, 63 - 78 Yellow and 79 White with MAX written on the bar.

If your power is greater than 31, when you get hit, your power will drop to the previous level (i.e. 73 > 51). Also, when you die, 5 items are scattered over the screen: 1 Super power item and 4 others, n Power items and 4-n Point items with n a random number from 0 to 4. (This random is not equiprobable: n=0 6% n=1 19% n=2 44% n=3 19% n=4 12%)

If you choose to continue after a Game Over, your power is reset to zero and 5 Super power items are scattered. Furthermore, the next two killed enemies will drop Super power items.

Bomb

A character's "bomb" is the player's limited-use method of getting out of difficult situations. A bomb's attack area, duration, and power varies depending on the Attack Type the player has chosen, but it typically deals heavy damage to every enemy it touches, in addition to canceling out any bullets on the screen. The player's character becomes invincible during and for a short time after the bomb's effect wears off.

By default, at the beginning of the game and any time your character respawns, you will start off with 3 bombs (1 bomb in Extra), except when respawning with zero lives remaining in reserve — in those cases, you reappear with 2 bombs more than your usual starting amount. You can select between 0 and 5 number of bombs in the Option menu. Bomb items will increase your current stock by one. You can carry up to a maximum of 5 bombs at a time. If you receive a bomb when you already have the maximum, you will receive 65,530 points (times the difficulty multiplier) instead.

Unlike in later games in the series, bombs don't auto-collect items while active. Also, instead of bomb items only appearing in set locations, there is a very low chance that a normal enemy may drop a bomb item instead of a power or point item.

Lives

Unofficial hit box mark on Reimu Hakurei

With default settings, you will start off with 3 lives (that is, 2 extra lives). You can choose between 1 to 5 number of lives in the Option menu. You can lose a life by getting "hit" by an enemy attack.

The hit box for your character is quite small in comparison to your on-screen sprite, approximately only 5 pixels by 5 pixels in size. It's not marked on the sprite, but it is possible to approximate its location well by looking at the red ribbon in Reimu's hair, which defines the top of the box (See right image). If the hit box of your character's sprite comes into contact with the hit box of an enemy bullet, laser, or the enemy itself, then you have been hit.

Unlike in later games in the series, hits cannot be negated by activating a bomb within a short time of the player's character being hit. If the bomb key is pressed in approximately the same instant that the hit occurs, in most instances, the bomb will never engage, and you will lose a life as normal.

The player is awarded extra lives upon reaching certain score totals or by collecting 1up items. In both the regular game and the Extra Stage, extra lives are awarded at 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8 million points. You can carry up to a maximum of 5 extra lives at a time. If you already have 5 extra lives, 1up items will be replaced by bomb items (which will not revert if you die before collecting them), and any lives gained from score will be added to your bomb stock instead, if possible.

Rank

There exists a rank system in this game. (This "rank" should not be confused with what the game calls "Rank", which is difficulty level.) As the rank increases, enemy bullets will become faster, but the density of bullet patterns will not change. Rank, though not explicitly named as such, is implicitly reflected in the Clear bonus at the end of each stage, in the component labeled "Stage", whose value is 3200 + (rank × 200). (The Clear bonus component labeled "Rank" is unrelated to this rank parameter and merely reflects the difficulty level chosen.)

Rank is a signed value ranging from −6 to +16 on Normal and greater difficulties and from −6 to +4 on Easy; the game starts with rank at 0. Rank increases gradually with survival time since the last hit/death (by +1 every 30 seconds) until it reaches the cap of +16 (+4 on Easy), corresponding to the highest variable difficulty. The rank value decreases whenever the player is hit. If the rank is 2 or greater, the first hit (death) reduces it to 0; otherwise, the rank is further reduced by 2, with a floor at −6. Rank is not affected by using a bomb, and apart from getting hit, nothing decreases rank.

Boss Battles

Unlike any other game, there are no boss health bars, timers, or distinct spell cards in Story of Eastern Wonderland, although the latter doesn't exist in the PC-98 canon. After receiving a specified amount of damage, a boss will alter its attack, though without the screen-clearing visual effects that accompany such changes in later games.

Character Statistics

There is only one character available for use: Reimu Hakurei, though she has three distinct styles of attack. The player decides which Attack Type to use at the start of the game.

Shaman: Reimu Hakurei

Th02AttackType.png
Reimu Type A
Movement Type (高機動タイプ)
Movement Speed: ★★★★★
Attack Range: ★★★★★
Attack Power: ★
Bomb Duration: ★★★
MAX Power Ability: Forward high-power penetrating shots + aimable bullets (the red bullets with a black dot that fire beside the center penetrating shots can be shifted out to a much wider spread by holding the down arrow while tapping the attack button, and aimed forward again be tapping the attack button while not holding the down arrow)
Summary: Though the high movement speed makes it easy to dodge bullets and collect items, boss battles can be lengthy
Reimu Type B
Defense Type (防御タイプ)
Movement Speed: ★★★
Attack Range: ★★★★
Attack Power: ★★★
Bomb Duration: ★★★★★
MAX Power Ability: Auto-targeting shots
Summary: Quite balanced; suitable for beginning players
Reimu Type C
Attack Type (攻撃タイプ)
Movement Speed: ★
Attack Range: ★
Attack Power: ★★★★★
Bomb Duration: ★
MAX Power Ability: Forward high(er)-power penetrating shots
Summary: Though excellent against bosses, item collection proves to be difficult

Screen Layout

Th02ScreenLayout.png

The layout of the overall screen is typical for a Touhou Project shoot 'em up. Note that there's no health bar for the enemy.

  1. Your character
  2. Player Score
    • High Score: Displays your highest score for the current character, type, and difficulty
    • Score: Your current score
  3. Player Status
    • 靈撃 (Spirit Strikes): The number of Bombs remaining in stock
    • 霊夢 (Reimus): The number of Lives remaining in stock
  4. 靈力 (Spiritual Power) — displays your shot power level, maxing out at 79
  5. Difficulty Level
  6. Boss (In this case, Rika with her Flower-Tank)

Scoring

The scoring system in Story of Eastern Wonderland is less complicated than in other Touhou Project games. Listed below are the details for how points are given in this game.

Enemies

Any damage you deal to any enemy, whether it be caused by your shots or your bombs, will cause your score to increase very slightly. Actually destroying enemies will award you slightly more points, but the points earned from this are around the range of a thousand to a few thousand per enemy. While this is a more significant amount than in later games, it is still not very significant. However, destroyed enemies release items for you to collect, and those are very important for scoring, as covered below.

Bosses

Defeating bosses will award a fixed amount of points, depending on the boss. Unlike later games, the number of bullets on screen has no effect on the points gained.

Stage 1 midboss :  100,000
Stage 1 boss    :  200,000
Stage 2 midboss :  200,000
Stage 2 boss    :  300,000
Stage 3 midboss :  200,000 (each part)
Stage 3 boss    :  300,000 (each part)
Stage 4 midboss :  500,000 (each appearance)
Stage 4 boss    :  200,000 (+ 50,000 for each orb destroyed)
Stage 5 boss    :  1,000,000
Extra boss      :  3,000,000

Point Items

As the name implies, point items are the major source of points in the game. The higher up on the screen you collect them, the more points they are worth, up to a defined maximum of 51,200; on higher difficulty settings this value is then multiplied by a set amount. The maximum values for point items are as follows:

Easy    :  51,200
Normal  :  51,200
Hard    :  102,400 (51,200 × 2)
Lunatic :  204,800 (51,200 × 4)
Extra   :  409,600 (51,200 × 8)

The number of point items collected per stage is used to calculate the clear bonus, to be discussed later.

Power Items

Before attaining maximum shot power, the values of power items are based on difficulty as well:

Easy    :  10
Normal  :  10
Hard    :  20 (10 × 2)
Lunatic :  40 (10 × 4)
Extra   :  80 (10 × 8) 

However, once maximum shot power has been reached, each additional power item collected will be worth more than the previous one collected, up to a maximum of:

Easy    :  12,800
Normal  :  12,800
Hard    :  25,600 (12,800 × 2)
Lunatic :  51,200 (12,800 × 4)
Extra   :  102,400 (12,800 × 8) 

Unlike point items, power items will award you the same number of points anywhere on the screen. However, if you lose a life and your power level falls to less than maximum (79), power items will be worth only 10 points just like the beginning, and you will have to start this process over again. The progression is as follows: 10, 20, 30... 100, 200, 300... 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500... 10000, 10500, 11000, 12000, 12500, and 12800 (apply multipliers for higher difficulties). Note that 11500 is skipped.

Super power items act the same as normal power items, except that when you are at maximum shot power, they increase the current value of power items as if you had collected 5 normal power items.

Bomb Items

Bomb items are worth 65,530 points (times the difficulty multiplier) if you already have 5 bombs, and 10,000 points (times the difficulty multiplier) otherwise.

Clear Bonus

At the end of each stage (except for the final stage), the player is awarded a point bonus based on their performance throughout the stage. The bonus is calculated as follows:

Difficulty:

Easy    ・・・ 0
Normal  ・・・ 2000
Hard    ・・・ 4000
Lunatic ・・・ 6000

Is added to:

"Stage" score: 3200 + ("rank" × 200), where "rank" is described earlier (range: 2000 to 6400, or 2000 to 4000 on Easy)
2500 - (Number of Bombs used in the stage × 500)
3000 - (Number of lives lost in the stage × 1000)
(4 - The number of initial Bombs) × 800
(5 - The number of initial lives) × 1000

This combined total is then multiplied by the number of point items collected in that stage.

For the final stage there is no clear bonus (apart for the 1,000,000 gained on defeating Mima).

For the Extra stage the bonus is calculated as follows:

Clear       :  10000
Death count :  20000 - (Number of deaths in the stage × 4000)
Bomb count  :  20000 - (Number of bombs used in the stage × 4000)
Clear time  :  0 to ?????[1] (depending on how fast you cleared the stage)

As usual, this combined total is then multiplied by the number of point items collected. This bonus is in addition to the 3,000,000 gained on defeating Evil Eye Σ.

Achievements

Bad Endings

To view the bad endings, finish the game on any difficulty having used one or more continues.

  • For Bad Ending No. 1, use Reimu Type A.
  • For Bad Ending No. 2, use Reimu Type B.
  • For Bad Ending No. 3, use Reimu Type C.

Good Endings

To view the good endings, finish the game on any difficulty without continuing once.

  • For Good Ending No. 1, use Reimu Type A.
  • For Good Ending No. 2, use Reimu Type B.
  • For Good Ending No. 3, use Reimu Type C.

Unlocking Extra

To unlock the Extra Stage, you must reach the "GOOD END" (beat the entire game without continuing) with all three attack types on any difficulty.

Glitches

  • On stage 1, if the player doesn't destroy the Shrine Tank and lets the tank ride to the end of the bridge, then an extra layer of wood on the bridge with track marks will be place on the path. This is likely a script error as to when the tank should be destroyed by default.
  • This can't be defined whether it's a glitch or not, but if you were to repeatedly tap the shot key at a high speed, similar as to how you would in Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream, extra shots will be fired, thus making it quicker to defeat a boss.

Notes

  1. It's not known if the "Clear time" bonus has an upper limit, but the current (as of January 2022) world record run for Extra, which cleared the stage in just under five minutes, got a value of 15970, suggesting a practical upper limit of 20000 or less.