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Phantasmagoria of Flower View/Gameplay

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Title screen of the game

Gameplay

Controls

The game may be played using either a keyboard or a gamepad.

Keyboard controls are as follows:

  • Full
The Arrow Keys move the character around
Z is fire and when held it will charge up your spell attack up to level 4
X is casting the highest level spell card you can fire at the moment
Left Shift slows down your movement and the red transforming field becomes visible
Esc pauses the game and brings you to the in-game menu
Ctrl fast-forwards through any dialogue
Home produces a .bmp screenshot in the /snapshot directory
Enter may be used as an "okay" key on menus, if the Right or Left control setups are in use, then this will confirm both player's selections on the character selection screen.
  • Q returns you to the title screen when the game is paused

The Left and Right setups are designed for and only permitted in human vs. human match mode. At any other time, Full keyboard will automatically take precedence.

  • Right
The Number Pad: Move
Down Arrowkey: Fire
Right Arrowkey: Spell
Left Arrowkey: Slow
  • Left
F, H, T, and B: Move
Z: Fire
X: Spell
Left Shift: Slow

Basic Gameplay

Phantasmagoria of Flower View uses the same concept as Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream. A 1vs1 danmaku fight where the screen is split into two. And thus the goal is not to have the highest score, but beating your opponent first. Just as in the other games, you can choose between four difficulties: easy, normal, hard and lunatic.

Shot

Shooting is the main source of defeating enemies that spawn. You can't hit your opponent directly via your shot. The shot type varies depending on the character and attack type the player has chosen.

Spells

There are 4 spell levels which may be used by a character. For level 2, level 3, and level 4 spells there are also more subtle levels from 1 to 16 which affect the intensity and length of your spell's attack (Dragon, Witch and Fairy intensities).

Spells may be obtained by building your spell levels from destroying targets and bullets. Losing health also increases your spell bar, and when you get to your last half dot of life, your spell bar is automatically raised to level 4. A level 4 spell can also be obtained via a "G" special bonus. A level 4 spell cast by your opponent may be neutralised entirely by you casting a level 4 spell in turn. If both players have a level 4 spell charge, the first to cast their spell may be disadvantaged in that their spell can be neutralised by the other.

Level 1 spells unleash your special attack which may be capable of hitting multiple targets on your field. It has no direct impact on your opponent. Your special attack is also a part of spell levels 2-4.
Level 2 spells (Fairy level) also give a "blast wave" that destroys bullets, fairies, and spirits in a moderate radius around your character. They will also cause a character specific bullet pattern to appear on the opponent's field, primarily composed of small reflectable bullets.
Level 3 spells (Witch level) give a blast wave with a larger radius. The pattern created on the opponent's field is generally similar to that of a level 2 spell, but is composed entirely of bullets that cannot be reflected.
Level 4 spells (Dragon level) will clear your entire field of the obstacles currently on it. A mirror version of your character will fly into your opponent's field and unleash a variety of unique attacks. Again, the form of level 4 spells is dependent on the casting character.

The power of spells is determined by the numbers in the lower corners. The lower left number affects the power of your level 2 and 3 spells. It increases whenever you do a level 2 spell or higher, capped at 16. The lower right number is shared with your opponent, and affects the power and health of bosses. It goes up whenever either player sends a boss and also has a maximum level of 16.

Lives

All characters initially come with 5 health dots in the top middle part of the field. These go down by halves whenever your character's hit box (Focus/Slow to see it) collides with another object. However, you may find that up to three dots may be reduced from your health at a time. This is affected by how late into the match you are - early hits (e.g. within first 15 seconds) won't do as much damage as later on. You cannot die from losing multiple halves: your character is always reduced first to a 1/2 dot and a warning is given. Only after that warning can you actually be killed.

If your character collides with an object and loses health, the objects within a small radius around your character will be dissolved to allow you to recover. As noted under the "Spells" section, you'll also receive a boost to your spell bar.

In Story Mode you also start with a number of lives, 3 by default; these are indicated by yin-yang icons near the top-left corner of the screen. You get an extra life at 10, 30, 50, 70, and 90 million points. Setting the number of starting lives higher will mean you won't get any point bonuses at the end of a Story Mode stage - meaning less extra lives and a lower Total Score. In Extra Mode you start with a single life, but gain an extra life every 5 million points up through 40 million for a maximum of 8 lives.

Combo Counter

The Combo Counter on the top left shows how long your current combo is. A 'combo' is defined as a cumulative destruction of fairies, spirits and bullets in a single chain reaction of explosions. Starting a second chain reaction elsewhere will re-start the combo counter. The maximum combo that the counter will register is 999.

Targets

Targets are objects which may be eliminated by shooting them:

Fairies: There are two types of fairies -- large and small ones. They come in from the edges of the field. They are the primary targets and are extremely easy to destroy by shooting. These also have an explosive impact for objects around them (although this does not affect your character at all). Shooting one of the fairies in a row usually causes a chain reaction along the entire row.
Spirits: These glowing butterfly/wing-like objects are formed in the top third of the playing field from the destruction of fairies by your opponent. They vary in speed and size, and generally drift towards the bottom of the screen. Like fairies they may be destroyed by shooting at them, although a bit more fire power is needed to eliminate them. When spirits come in contact with the characters' fields, they become Activated with a bubbling sound effect.
Activated Spirits: Glowing balls created when Spirits come in contact with your Field. Whereas unactivated spirits tend to drift downward, Activated ones will drift upward at a reduced speed. These are now easier to destroy by shooting, and for all intents and purposes they have the same explosive range as fairies. However, if left undestroyed, activated spirits dissolve into 3 white balls with red outlines which drift toward the last known position of the character.

Shooting certain fairies and spirits (activated or not) will have an impact on your opponent's field -- either they fly into their field and become level 1 obstacles, or they become "Ex attacks". Destroying targets also raises your spell points and spell bar. Level 1 obstacles can also be indirectly destroyed via the blue explosions of fairies and spirits, and this indirect destruction raises your spell points and spell bar and sends these obstacles into your opponent's field. However, if a level 1 obstacle is destroyed by a spell's "blast wave" instead of by the blue explosion of a fairy/spirit, that bullet simply disappears: it does not count toward your spell points or spell bar, and it will not be sent to your opponent's field. Note that any fairies and spirits caught by a spell's blast wave will be destroyed normally (as if you had shot them, and with a blue explosion), and the blue explosions from these fairies/spirits will destroy bullets normally.

Obstacles

Obstacles are objects on the field which cannot be destroyed by shooting. Both levels of obstacles can be destroyed by casting a spell of sufficient level:

Level 1 obstacles are bullets which can be reflected (sent to the opponent's screen) by exploding fairies or spirits close to them. They look like small dots - either light blue or light red. Light blue bullets are vaguely aimed at you (i.e. you cannot stream them as they're aimed in your general direction only) and light red bullets ignore your position. They tend to be easy to avoid, although they can prove extremely hazardous if there are a lot of them. Upon reflecting them (blue explosions from activated spirits and fairies), they retain the same colour (to be confirmed?) and speed as before.
Level 2 obstacles are objects which cannot be destroyed by normal means -- they have to be avoided and allowed to drift off the screen. These tend to come in the forms of larger circles, petals, stars, etc.
"Ex" Attack Obstacles are obstacles generated in your field by the opponent destroying fairies or spirits. Ex attacks fly into your area as glowing patterns which look like doilies/giant snowflakes. The spot where they go to is usually where the Ex attack obstacle will spawn. These specials differ by character, and some Ex attacks will also react to your character's initial position.

Extra Mode

Once unlocked, you can play as Komachi (and later, Eiki) in their 'Story Mode'. You start with 0 extra lives and all fights are Deathmatches - both you and your opponent have half a health dot to start with. The AI has an Invincibility Period that is shown under the sprite of your character. You must survive this long before the AI will become vulnerable. Usually, the AI will be hit the instant its timer runs out.

Once you have beaten Eiki's Extra path, all characters can be played in Extra Mode and the two boss characters can be played in Story Mode.

Unlockable Features

  • Unlocking Cirno and Mystia for Story Mode
To unlock these additional 2 characters for the Story Mode, you must have seen 2 unique endings.
  • Unlocking Lyrica and Tewi for Story Mode
To unlock these additional 2 characters for the Story Mode, you must have seen 4 unique endings.
  • Unlocking Aya, Medicine and Yuuka for Story Mode
To unlock these additional 3 characters for the Story Mode, you must have seen all the endings from 1 to 9.
  • Unlocking Extra Mode
To unlock Extra Mode, you must have seen all the endings from 1 to 12.
  • Unlocking Eiki for Extra Mode
To unlock Eiki for the Extra Mode, you must beat Extra Mode with Komachi.
  • Unlocking all available characters for all modes
To unlock Lunasa and Merlin for Match Mode and all other characters for Story and Extra Mode, beat Extra Mode with Eiki.

Full Unlock Code

To unlock all unlockable content at once, navigate to the Result menu and press D three times, S four times, Q one time and R two times. If done correctly, the 1up sound effect will play and all characters will be unlocked, together with the Extra Stage for all of them.

Secrets

  • Different character colour schemes
Hold down your "slow" key while selecting your character to make her wear a different color scheme.

Special Bonuses

Special bonuses may be obtained by shooting at the character sprites which come into the field to unleash attacks. Both the mirror image of your opponent (level 4 spell) and Lily White (who unleashes a whole heap of dots of various colours) may be shot at. Depending on the intensity and effectiveness of your shooting, you might be able to destroy the sprite and shorten the assault. Destroying the sprite will cause a special bonus item to drift down.

"Ex" will unleash a whole lot of specials (EX attacks) upon your opponent's field.
"G" will fill up your spell gauge.
The blue (Point) adds between 70,000 and 224,000 spell points. This value increases as match time increases, although the exact relationship is not understood.
The orange (Shot) is similar to the EX item, but instead of sending a horde of EX attacks, it releases a large number of bullets that appear on the top of your opponent's screen.

Screen Layout

Screen Layout
  1. Your character (Player 1)
  2. Player's score
  3. Player's lives
  4. Spell point
    • Combo: How many combo hits
    • Score Counter
  5. Spell bar
  6. Number affecting lvl 2 and 3 spells
  7. Number affecting lvl 4 spells
  8. Amount of lives in story mode
  9. Idiot

Scoring

You get points for destroying enemies and also for destroying bullets via enemy explosions (but not for destroying bullets via spells or by getting hit).

Enemies yield both points and spell points. Fairies and spirits increases the score counter by amounts that need further investigation. Thus as the match progresses, your score counter will increase faster since each fairy increases it by much more and there will be many more spirits to kill (spell card kills count for point gathering).

At 100,000, 300,000, and 500,000 spell points a level 4 attack is automatically unleashed against your opponent. Furthermore, at 500,000 spell points you also get a free level 3 attack unleashed at the same time. If you reach 999,990, it stops increasing and every fairy you destroy from then on shows a yellow BONUS! marker, each of which indicates a 5000 point bonus.

At the end of the match/level, you get lots of points for:

  • every half Health dot you have remaining (100k points each)
  • longest combo (length times 10k points)
  • how many Fairy- or Witch-level spells you cast (150k points each)
  • how many Dragon-level Boss spells you call (300k points each)
  • how many enemy Bosses you nullify by calling your own Dragon-level spell (300k points each time, in addition to previous one)
  • remaining lives after beating Round 9 (10 million points each)

In Match Mode and in Story Mode, you may notice spinning flowers in the top right corner. These represent the number of wins that character has had, similar to how in Fighting Games, one gets a little icon of sorts below their health bar. In Story Mode, only the enemy will have these, you only need one win to advance so you never accumulate these. Also in Story Mode, the computer will tend to become easier to defeat the more of these it has.

Character Statistics

Refer Translation. See also Frame Data for precise analysis.

Glitches

This is a list of known glitches, bugs or other unusual capabilities that aren't supposed to be part of the original gameplay.

Glitches reported in the full version:

  • Stage skip glitch: Pausing the game, clicking Return to Title, putting your cursor on Yes, then simultaneously pressing Shot and Up/Down will skip to the next stage. Performing this glitch on Stage 9 will crash the game. It also doesn't work on Extra mode, where it sends you back to Stage 1 instead. Video of this glitch.
  • Replay save crash: Attempting to save a replay may crash the game. Unofficial patch for this bug.
  • Youmu slow speed bug: Youmu slows down when activating a level 1 charge attack on the top of the screen; her unfocused speed will become equal to her focused speed. Using another level 1 away from the top will cancel out this bug and losing a round cancels it as well.
  • Lyrica P2 crash: The main story will crash at Stage 9 if you play as Lyrica in her P2 color.
  • Reisen explosion error: The explosions caused by Reisen's projectiles can sometimes show in a different location from where the projectile actually hit.
  • Sakuya time stop glitches: Sakuya's time stop can cancel the effect of her spells, as well as making waves of bullets overlap each other.

The following apply to multiple games, including Phantasmagoria of Flower View:

  • Spritesheet glitch: On very rare occasions, the game will load incorrectly, resulting in erratic behaviour during gameplay. The game will randomly and rapidly flash chunks of the entire spritesheet during play. If it occurs, the game stays this way until it's closed.