Beating the Bosses of Touhou Luna Nights with Only Knives and No Time Stop

The mastermind behind this game is Remilia Scarlet, a vampire who has lived for over 500 years and the mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Bored, Remilia decides to have some fun with her maid and prepares a separate space, into which Sakuya is suddenly transported. Sakuya normally has the power to stop time, but in this story that ability has been sealed as well. Sakuya overcomes numerous trials and eventually reaches Remilia. According to the commentator, the game consists of roughly five stages, with a boss waiting in each one.

The first boss is Hong Meiling, the gatekeeper of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She's usually napping, but this time, unusually, she's actually doing her job. Sakuya's basic attack is throwing knives. Meiling puts up a barrier each time she's attacked, but for some reason she doesn't do so when attacked from close enough that their bodies are touching. The commentator uses this behavior to stay pressed up against her and wraps up the fight easily, even after her HP drops and her attack pattern changes. The commentator describes her as a so-called tutorial boss.

The Stage 2 boss is Marisa Kirisame, who, as the commentator puts it, is "by now a familiar face from Yukkuri commentary videos." She zips around quickly on her broom, making it hard to land knives on her. Marisa is often depicted with a star motif, and stars are used in the enemy's bullet patterns as well. The commentator points to this as an example of the developer's attention to detail, and notes that while it's easy to get distracted by the flashy bullet patterns, small details such as how Marisa turns around are also worth noticing. The commentator dodges her signature move, Master Spark, at the last moment by jumping to maximum height with good timing.

During this fight, the commentator explains the game's core mechanics. Knives can't be thrown infinitely; each throw consumes MP. Midway through the Marisa fight, the MP runs out and the commentator can no longer throw. That's where "grazing" comes in. Brushing very close to an enemy's body or attacks restores a small amount of MP. In the original shooting games, grazing also awarded bonus points. In this game, that has been replaced with MP. The commentator praises it as an interesting system in which taking more risk yields greater rewards.

In the commentator's view, combat in this game doesn't work if you only dodge attacks. You need to dodge, then go collect MP, and keep attacking so your MP doesn't overflow. The commentator says this resource management—figuring out how to replenish MP so you can keep attacking—is what makes the combat fun.

The Stage 3 boss is Patchouli Knowledge, a magician who has mastered seven elements. The commentator says that by the third boss, the attacks become more intense and the fight starts to feel like "dodging bullet patterns."

The commentator particularly likes the green attack. Because the magic lingers in the space, the player is required to guide where it gets placed. The commentator praises how well the "guiding bullet patterns" experience from shooting games has been translated into an action game.

When the MP runs out, the commentator waits for the next bullet pattern. The commentator calls the attacks where spears rain down and where water sprays out a "blessed rain," since they allow MP to be collected. In the second phase, too, the commentator recovers MP through grazing while attacking all at once. The commentator speculates that Patchouli's spells probably follow the order of the days of the week. Since Thursday comes after Wednesday, a leaf spell came after the water spell. The commentator says the water attack is the most welcome of all.

The player's hitbox is surprisingly small, so attacks sometimes miss even in close calls. Regarding the fact that the hitbox isn't shown to the player, the commentator takes a positive view, saying it captures the feel of the original Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, which had no hitbox display. The commentator adds that it's unclear whether this was an intentional design choice.

In this section, the commentator also explains the details of the restriction. During exploration, Sakuya met a kappa and learned the ability to stop time as well as attack techniques. This time, however, the commentator doesn't use any of them and fights with knives alone. The reason given is that this way the bullet patterns can be properly enjoyed, and the BGM can be listened to at leisure.

The fourth boss is the mistress of the mansion, Remilia Scarlet. She's clad in heavy-looking weaponry, and attacks are blocked while her lower wings are closed. The commentator speculates that the wings open on their own after attacking from the ground for a while. Because her attacks are more intense than those of the previous bosses, MP is easier to recover, and the commentator considers her a fairly easy boss to fight.

Specific ways of dealing with her attacks are also demonstrated. The spears can be easily dodged by moving left and right. The bats are a bit hard to see, but you can simply double-jump over them. The hardest attack to dodge on a first encounter is the one where bullets fall from above; it's easy if you stop time, but even without doing so, you can dodge it in midair, since the spawning point itself has no hitbox. The commentator explains that, like the originals, this game has almost no random elements, and every attack can be countered if you memorize it well. The commentator says it's a design that rewards effort, and this is something the commentator likes quite a lot.

The real fight begins with the second phase. Against the omnidirectional attack, the commentator keeps throwing knives while floating in midair so as not to get shredded, and builds up MP through grazing. Even when MP is about to run out, there's no need to worry, because grazing a full sequence of attacks restores it to maximum. The commentator says the beam attack is surprisingly easy if you stand in the middle. The diagonal beams in the third phase only have a hitbox on the parts glowing pink.

The commentator also touches on the attention to detail. The large clock in the background apparently displays the actual time. The commentator is impressed by how carefully even small details are crafted, such as the behavior of thrown knives and the MP recovery effects. Finally, the commentator dodges a beam and delivers the finishing blow.

Remilia's game comes to an end, but things don't wrap up neatly with Sakuya being sent back to the original world. Due to someone's interference, she can't return, and Sakuya heads to the swamp.

The fifth boss is a robot piloted by Nitori Kawashiro. Staying at the edge of the screen also protects against her charge attack, so the commentator makes the screen edge a home base. The commentator steps forward to replenish MP only when missiles appear, then returns. The small enemies that appear from this fight onward leave obstacles in the space if not defeated quickly, but since the commentator is fighting from the screen edge, it's fine even if the space fills up. However, the space at the edge itself must be kept clear. In the second phase, she adds gunfire, but the commentator dodges it behind cover and gets through the rest with the same pattern as before.

The commentator says that thanks to this approach, the fight went by with almost no hits taken. According to the commentator, the real joy of bullet-hell games is how finding just one handy strategy can make things dramatically easier. The commentator adds that there must be many better strategies out there, and is looking forward to watching other people's playthroughs after clearing the game.

On the character side, the commentator praises the detail put into the smug face shown on the robot's display and the expression that changes only when it's attacked. Since Nitori is set up as an engineer who loves humans, the commentator sees her as an easy character to include in fan games. However, the commentator also notes that in this game, the reason Nitori is there is properly revealed within the story.

The one who had been taking Nitori's form was Remilia's younger sister, Flandre Scarlet. Something like Nitori's discarded shell lies at her feet. In this game, defeated enemies drop jewels, which could be used to shop from Nitori. The twist is that this world was originally made from Flan's jewels. The commentator remarks that if Flan was just taking back the jewels her sister used without permission, that's pretty pitiful for her.

Among her attacks, the commentator sees the one that traps you with green bullets as an arrangement of a spell from the original. The use of jewels in place of bullets is also an arrangement, according to the commentator. However, the condition that makes the green bullets start moving apparently differs between the original and this game. The commentator says that in this playthrough, without time stop, it may actually have made it easier. The attack where Flan splits into four copies is a spell card derived from a poker hand, and it breaks apart when the real one is attacked.

The poker theme leads the commentator to mention Balatro, which the commentator recently played. It's a poker game with roguelite elements, and the commentator found it very fun. The commentator recommends it to people who like games such as Backpack Battles. The one drawback, however, is that it looks unapproachable and it's hard to tell at a glance what's going on, and the commentator thinks that alone puts a game at a considerable disadvantage these days.

The commentator applies this point to Touhou Luna Nights as well. When played normally, the game becomes a cycle of stopping time, firing off skills one after another to rack up damage, and then stopping time again. As a result, it's hard for onlookers to tell what's happening. That's why the commentator decided to beat the bosses using only knives this time—that's the reason for the restriction.

During time stop, knives can be thrown without using MP. Without that, MP runs dry more easily, making collecting it through grazing all the more important. It looks pretty plain, but the commentator says it lets you appreciate how good the enemies in this game are, so it might be a fighting style the commentator rather likes. The commentator rubs up against large bullets to build MP, then uses that MP to attack bit by bit.

On the other hand, using up all your MP leaves you unable to deal with gimmicks. So you have to keep enough MP in reserve to handle them. Players confident in their action skills can pour even that reserve into attacking. The commentator praises how risk and reward are built into the way resources are used.

Midway through the fight, Flan suddenly sweeps across with Laevateinn. If you wait for it to converge and dodge slowly, it's a trap: beams rain down from above. The commentator remarks that she "has a lovely personality," jokingly adding that everyone in Gensokyo has a lovely personality.

The commentator likes how the BGM changes along with the phase transition, saying it feels just like a rage mode. The intro of this track was used in the very first stage BGM, and after the intro, it becomes an arrangement of a different Sakuya theme. The commentator is thrilled that a Sakuya theme is used for the final boss fight and highly praises the song selection. It's a song included in many different works, but surprisingly, an arrangement is used rather than the original Touhou track. The commentator says that a fan-made song being incorporated into yet another fan work is a distinctive part of this community's culture.

That Nitori was really Flan had apparently been foreshadowed in earlier dialogue. There's a setting in which some vampires are weak to water and can't go out in the rain. The vampires in this game are no exception. When Patchouli went so far as to recreate the rain, Remilia complained that she had done something unnecessary. In fact, this was a measure to hold Flan back just in case. In addition, Nitori had been running a shop outside the mansion from early on. The commentator explains that Remilia also has a line that seems to praise her sister, saying it was clever to use a mech, and this too was foreshadowing. The commentator is impressed by how the foreshadowing was built from small details of the setting.

The commentator also touches on the background of the work as a whole. The Metroidvania-style design and Sakuya's skills are all things that players of the Castlevania series can't help but be delighted by, according to the commentator. The commentator suspects that Sakuya's deep attachment to knives likely stems not only from the Touhou Project but from there as well. That said, the game is polished enough to be thoroughly enjoyable even without knowing the related works. The commentator praises it as a game that establishes its own originality without leaning on the works it pays homage to, and that's fun for anyone who picks it up.

Around the time the BGM is about to loop, Flan's HP is nearly gone, and the fight ends with the commentator throwing knife after knife. The incident is resolved.

In the overall assessment, the commentator first highlights the elaborate graphics. The commentator was favorably impressed by how the game values each character's individuality while arranging them in its own way. The commentator closes the video by also noting that the concept of dodging bullet patterns has been skillfully translated into action elements, making it genuinely enjoyable as an action game.