Touhou Gouyoku Ibun/東方剛欲異聞 Guide (How to Play)

If you’re reading this, it means you’re probably struggling and attempting to learn how the game works. If that’s the case… don’t worry, it’s kinda complicated!

Let me give you a rundown of the basics that this game has to offer (and that it’ll teach you on the in-game tutorial anyway):

• Moving (stick/d-pad / keys / whatever you bound movement to.)
• Dashing (A – or what’s bound to A)
• Attacking (Z – or what’s bound to Z)
• Stamina / Health
• Absorbing (R1 – or what’s bound to R1)

As the basics imply, these are what you’ll be using throughout the course of the Story Mode.
Each of these are very important, don’t forget about them!

Basic Movement is necessary for every other action (with the exception of Absorbing).

The direction you’re moving in affects the direction you dash in, as well as the direction your attacks go to.

Some characters are faster than others, but more than often it’s compensated with more power.

To do this, simply move left or right, or in any direction if you’re performing a dash, an attack or if in mid-air. (It’s as easy as it sounds!)

Dashing is going to feel somewhat weird to you at first. (Talking from experience here!)

It’s a surprisingly hard ability to master, but very useful nevertheless!

It allows you to relocate yourself to a better position, dive head first onto your opponent and get yourself out of trouble; however, there is something to be mindful of, and it’s the fact that you’re invulnerable while dashing.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you can keep dashing over and over, as just doing that won’t do at all! You need to plan your dashes carefully, always thinking about what the best course of action would be in each situation.

Each (or most) characters can perform a maximum of three dashes, being able to regain those dashes by touching the ground.

The dash of some characters can also deal damage to your opponent, as well as have some other unique features.

To do this, simply press the A button in any direction. Be careful, however, as not every character has the same type of dash!

Attacks are the most vital element of the game, yet something you shouldn’t always be doing. (Unless you’re Reimu – in which case, it’s okay to be extremely aggressive.)

They can be performed in a lot of ways, such as but not limited to:

– By standing still and then pressing the Z button.
– By moving and then pressing the Z button.
– By dashing and then pressing the Z button.
– By holding multiple keys (or aiming the stick in a certain direction) and then pressing the Z button.
(An example of this would be holding down and right and then performing an attack, or moving the controller’s stick up and right and then performing an attack.)
(Not every character is able to do this.)
– By pressing the Z button in mid-air.

Each character has a different set of attacks that, either fast or powerful, heavily varies depending on who you choose.

For example, Reimu has more direct melee attacks, while Marisa has more ranged attacks.

Attacking also allows you to break some of the enemy’s projectiles and turn them into Ink, but there’ll be more on that below.

To do this, simply follow any of the above by pressing the Z button in different ways, while performing other tasks or both.

Your Stamina is essentially the bar you’ll see at the bottom of each combat. This bar will be drained and change color the more attacks you make, in the following order:

– At around 70%, the bar will turn Yellow.
– At around 35%, the bar will turn Red.
– At 0%, the bar will be depleted.

Upon being fully depleted, the bar is going to forbid you from Attacking or Absorbing until it fully recharges back to 100%.

Some attacks consume more Stamina than others, therefore it’s advised to pay attention to it during a moment of tension, as it might otherwise create some awkward situations that are going to be hard to come back from.

Take in consideration, however, that Dashing does not consume any Stamina, meaning that you are free to move around and run away if you happen to be in one of those awkward situations…

…just be mindful that in order to recharge this Stamina bar, you must be on the ground or not attacking.

On the other hand, at the bottom left, you’ll have your Health bar.

Your health divides in 5 Balls of the Occult, each of those balls being able to endure up to 10 hits per combat.

Sadly, these balls do not do anything special besides looking fancy.

As it stands, there is no way to regenerate your health, so be careful!

And last on the basic tech of the game, you have the ability to Absorb.

On its own, this’ll do nothing. However, if there’s ink scattered on the ground or in the air, you’ll be able to absorb that ink and charge your Ink bar.

What’s the Ink bar? Simple! It stores Ink!

Having Ink in your Ink bar allows you to perform Stronger Attacks, such as letting you Guard or Deal more damage, also heavily varying on the character that you choose.

This bar can go up to 100%. If it does, pressing the R1 and Z buttons is going to let you perform a Super Attack.

Each character has their own Super Attack; and depending on who you choose, you can aim this attack in any direction, either on the ground or in mid-air, as well as being able to cancel it at any moment by letting go off the buttons.

Ink can be created by Attacking your Opponent, Erasing Enemy Projectiles or by the opponent itself.

As a fair warning, each character has a different way to absorb ink.

For example! Reimu can Absorb Ink while moving but has a smaller absorption radius, Marisa can only Asborb Ink while on the ground but has a bigger absorption radius, and Kanako has to stop attacking to Absorb Ink but can fly (temporarily) while doing so.

To do this, hold the R1 button to Absorb ink.

What? There’s more?

Well… yes and no. There’s only a few Advanced tips that I’ll be talking about here, mostly stuff that I considered to be kind of out of the way and somewhat hard to learn / master.

Such as:

• Stronger Attacks
• Grazing
• Barriers

“But you talked about Stronger Attacks already!”

Yes, but only in a way that can easily be overlooked.

Here’s why I’ll go more deeply into it:

Imagine you’re playing the game, right? And sometimes… you’re wondering why some of the moves that you’ve used before aren’t coming out like you want them to.

That’s because you’re probably lacking the Ink to perform them.

Some attacks, such as Reimu’s Guarding Technique, need Ink to be performed. These are mostly always going to be good for you, and often more viable than Super Attacks.

They usually don’t consume too much Ink, but consume more Stamina in return.

While you’re attacking, try keeping an eye on your Ink bar. You’ll see what I mean, specially if you’re playing a difficult character like Murasa.

Grazing? In my Touhou fighting game? It’s more likely than you think.

Remember when I mentioned that you’re invulnerable while dashing? This is exactly what I was talking about.

By Dashing right into danger you can do some funky stuff, such as being able to attack freely for a little while before you die miserably to whatever’s surrounding you (that is, if you don’t erase the enemy’s projectiles with an attack).

HOWEVER. It’s worth noting that there’s a brief frame of vulnerability before and after dashing that can get you killed.

You can also attempt to Graze by performing a Super Attack. As well as performing specific commands as certain characters.

(An example of the above: Holding the Z button as Murasa.)

Grazing, however, does not have any other qualities besides allowing you to have a million bullets in your face for a couple of seconds.

Take in mind that not every attack from the opponent can turn into Ink, so you shouldn’t always attempt to be Grazing.

In each combat, the opponent’s going to have Barriers that you can break in order to stun them.

A BLUE barrier means that the opponent’s going to perform their attack continuously, and you should avoid them as their projectiles might hurt you.

After a few couple of seconds, these BLUE barriers, however, will turn into RED barriers.

A RED barrier means that they’ve succesfully lowered their guard, meaning that you can perform a Heavy Attack in order to briefly stun them.

After doing this three times (can vary) in a single spell card, the sprite of the opponent is going to start flashing and become stunned for a longer period of time, and every projectile they have is going to dissapear, allowing you attack them freely until they’re no longer stunned.

Upon breaking their last barrier and recovering their previous stance, they will only regain one barrier, and not all of them at once.

What is a Heavy Attack? Well, it’s a powerful attack that deals more damage.

Unfortunately, since this can be very different between each character, I cannot tell you which of each character’s attacks are a Heavy Attack. (You can still find out by playing the game though!)

An example of a Heavy Attack can be seen upon dashing towards the enemy as either Marisa or Murasa.