How brutal/hard is this game?

[BlackDragon]

I've been wanting to take a closer look at the much-famed Touhou-setting for agers, but I've never liked Bullet Hell shooters. So an RPG spinoff sounds like the perfect chance! Except... it's listed as 'Roguelike', which is a bit of a red flag for me. Randomized, procedurally-generated dungeons, that's fine, I can dig that. It's certain OTHER elements of the 'Roguelike' genre that tends to frustrate me, such as permadeath, enforced 'ironman' mode, and brutal difficulty.

Does this game have any of those? If not, I'll probably pick it up... despite the rather ludicrous pricetag of the 'complete' version.

[Lord Gek]

The main story dungeon isn't too nasty, and unlike other roguelikes like the Shiren Mystery Dungeon games, you get to keep all of your equipment for future runs.

Dying isn't completely painless, however, as you'll lose all of your currently carried gold and you'll have your level reset to 1 (actually your level is reset to 1 everytime you leave a dungeon, even if successful).

Lastly, while the main story dungeon isn't too nasty, some of the later dungeons you'll unlock once you clear the main story are insane (like my many favorite dungeons in which you can't bring any items in with you and can only bring new items out of the dungeon if you clear it).

[BlackDragon]

So... equipment is permanent, levels are only for each specific dungeon-run? Interesting approach. Do you get to power up your characters in any permanent way other than by getting better gear? I can usually handle stuff like that as long as it's possible to grind the effective difficulty down, step by step.

[Ajie]

Originally posted by BlackDragon:

So... equipment is permanent, levels are only for each specific dungeon-run? Interesting approach. Do you get to power up your characters in any permanent way other than by getting better gear? I can usually handle stuff like that as long as it's possible to grind the effective difficulty down, step by step.

Basically you'll still need a better gear to power your character up, but the gear itself in enhanceable. The enhancement limit is breakable through leveling said gear, and could be further enchance by doing a certain fusion even after said gear is cap'd at max level. Altho this method could be hardly called permanent since you could lost your gears in a dungeon, but by the time you reached this point of the game, you'll already know the counter-measure for not losing your gears

[BlackDragon]

...hmm. Still on the fence. Fine, then - deciding question. One simple thing: Is there manual saving? Like, can you just... save your game, and then go back to that if something goes wrong? Or is it an autosave only, forced 'ironman' type deal?

[Corr]

Originally posted by BlackDragon:

...hmm. Still on the fence. Fine, then - deciding question. One simple thing: Is there manual saving? Like, can you just... save your game, and then go back to that if something goes wrong? Or is it an autosave only, forced 'ironman' type deal?

It is indeed forced 'ironman' but because you keep your equipment which greatly affects your characters stats you can eventually just brute force yourself through dungeon even if you fail a lot. Then there is the bonus dungeons that wont let you bring your stuff in them but they are optional (a lot of fun though as above poster mentioned).

[BlackDragon]

*sigh* Sounds like a pass in the end, then. A shame - I'd have liked to get to know the world of Touhou at last, but it sounds like this game would just frustrate me if I tried to play it. Besides, the sale's over by now. :P

[Belwin]

I've just enchnted my equipment to +40 and then lost everything, beacuse enemies can steal... Now I have some kind of Insanity effect

[Ajie]

Originally posted by YrslvShlk:

I've just enchnted my equipment to +40 and then lost everything, beacuse enemies can steal... Now I have some kind of Insanity effect

Steal'd Item could be recover by beating said thief. But a destroyed one is forever gone (Sunk into the mud, Burnt by the fire terain, stolen and then thrown at your own face (this one is the worst feeling))

[Adzi]

Originally posted by BlackDragon:

*sigh* Sounds like a pass in the end, then. A shame - I'd have liked to get to know the world of Touhou at last, but it sounds like this game would just frustrate me if I tried to play it. Besides, the sale's over by now. :P

Welp, there's a workaround: Alt+F4. Reloading the game will restore you to the state upon entering the most recent level. Most useful for retaining the long-crafted gear in case of "accidents".

I'd myself say that this actually is a design flaw in this game - this enforcement of permanent consequences. Traditional roguelikes are indeed brutal and merciless in their treatment of failure, but are BALANCED AROUND THIS FACT. Those games do not expect you to grind equipment over several runs (because they don't even allow you to do that), so any sort of a bad thing happening to your gear is only a setback for this one attempt.

Genso Wanderer is more balanced around the fact that you DON'T lose equipment all the time, and you keep upgrading it all the time - yet it still leaves in some ways to have your equipment permanently destroyed anyway, possibly just for the fidelity toward the main inspirations, Shiren the Wanderer, Nethack and Rogue.

[BlackDragon]

Hmm. So it only autosaves when you leave the dungeon or, presumably, die? I see. Could be a workable solution indeed. I've previously played - and enjoyed - similar 'hardcore' experiences simply by bypassing their vaunted 'permanent consequences' with an external save-system... copying folders and stuff. So that would certainly work. Maybe I'll put it on my wishlist so that I can grab it next time it goes on sale!

[Murphos]

the game saves at every floor you pass in a dungeon. say if you are in dungeon 2 and you are on floor 16 of 40, something goes wrong and you want to rescue the run.
just alt+f4 and restart the game and your save is in the beginning of floor 16 and you can continue playing with nothing lost.