100th Black Market

バレットフィリア達 (たち) の闇 (やみ) 市 (いち) 場 (ば) 100th Black Market
Developer	Team Shanghai Alice
Publisher	Team Shanghai Alice
Released	2022-08-14 (Comiket 100)
Genre	Vertical Danmaku Shooting Game
Gameplay	Single-player Story Mode
Platforms	Windows 8/10/11
Touhou Series chronology
Unconnected Marketeers 100th Black Market (2022)

Bulletphilia-tachi no Yami-Ichiba(Bulletphiles' Black Market) ~ 100th Black Market (バレットフィリア達の闇市場　〜 100th Black Market) is a vertical-scrolling danmaku game and the "18.5th" official installment of the Touhou Project, featuring Marisa Kirisame as the playable character and protagonist. The game is a follow-up to Unconnected Marketeers, featuring a modified version of its Ability Card system, and has gameplay based on previous scene-based games such as Impossible Spell Card and Violet Detector. The game was released on August 14, 2022, at Comiket 100.

Gameplay

Main articles: Gameplay, Strategy, Spell Cards, Ability Cards, and Achievements

100th Black Market consists of several self-contained stages that the player can play through individually. Each stage consists of several enemy waves and boss encounters selected semi-randomly, broken up by card shop menus where the player can purchase more equipment and abilities in the form of Ability Cards (previously featured in Unconnected Marketeers). While a single playthrough is short, repeated playthroughs to acquire more cards and experiment with different strategies are highly encouraged.

Name and Concept

As suggested by its title, 100th Black Market was created to commemorate the 100th Comiket. The game also marks the 25th anniversary of the Touhou Project, almost to the day, as the 1997 summer Comiket, the first one ZUN attended, began on August 15, while 100th Black Market was released on August 14. Additionally, if one accounts for Gold Rush, 100th Black Market is the 25th Touhou game developed solely by ZUN.

Story

Main articles: Dialogue, Translation, and Characters

Despite Chimata Tenkyuu's assertion that her Ability Cards would fall out of fashion after the events of Unconnected Marketeers, the cards' value is still somehow climbing further and further. Marisa Kirisame sets out to investigate the "black markets" that are trading in cards without Chimata's oversight — and to collect as many cards as she can for herself.

Music

Main article: Music

The soundtrack of 100th Black Market features a total of ten tracks. Four of these are re-recorded from previous games, specifically Unconnected Marketeers and Violet Detector, and are used for the tutorial, staff roll, and as story themes. The title screen track, like others before it, prominently features the motif from "Theme of Eastern Story."

When composing new tracks for the game, ZUN did not create any songs that were tied to any specific character or stage. Instead, the songs are meant to evoke certain emotions, such as "bright and cheerful", "speedy", or "lazy." He also had certain mental images while composing, such as "youkai cheerfully leaping around", "laying on the floor", or Marisa excitedly dashing off to investigate something on a whim. When composing "The Hundredth Black Market", he hoped that those listening would find that it had a distinct Touhou Project feeling to it.

"Lunatic Dreamer", a song from Violet Detector, was initially put into an internal test version of the game as a placeholder song. It ended up matching the game very well, so ZUN kept the song in the game and used it for the tutorial.

Press

100th Black Market was first announced on Touhou Yomoyama News on July 21, 2022, along with information about the characters and story, and several in-development screenshots. The game's Steam page was made live, coupled with a gameplay trailer, on August 9, and the game was released at Comiket and on Steam on August 14.

Trivia

• This is the first game to have a number in its title that is not written in letters.
• This is the first Windows-era game to have an unobscured character portrait on its jewel case instead of silhouettes.

English patch

Touhou Community Reliant Automatic Patcher / THCRAP

• Community translations from the Touhou Patch Center wiki.
• Select lang_en during patching.
• Video walkthrough
• Also available as a [ pre-packaged standalone] (not recommended).

These patches are a community translation based on Touhou Wiki and the English Touhou Patch Center Portal.
Visit the thpatch game page to find the specific patch contents for 100th Black Market.

Gallery

• 

  CD cover of 100th Black Market.

External Links

• Official announcement on Touhou Yomoyama News
• Steam page