Touhou Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - Expansion Disk Translation Now Available, Too

[Average Manatee]

I can't find a thread dedicated to LoT1. Have you people beaten LoT1? I still haven't started the second game because I wanted to firstly beat the first one, but I can't manage to win against the boss south of the 30th floor (final boss?), even after grinding a lot.

Grind more.

The game "ends" at floor 20. Everything past that is just postgame stuff to grind on. Wiki says at least level 550 is recommended for that fight.

 

[Crooked Bee]

We do have a LoT1 thread: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-of-touhou-hardcore-pc-dungeon-crawler.60646/

I never did the postgame stuff myself, though I also wouldn't trust the wiki regarding the levels. For the non-postgame content at least, I recall it recommending levels much higher than you actually need to beat the bosses. That isn't to say the postgame isn't grindy -- I bet it is.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yeah my understanding is that the expansions rebalanced some things and that most of the wiki was either made earlier or copied from a japanese source that was based on an earlier version. Not sure if the postgame information is more accurate or if it was changed too.

In any case its grind grind grind. Would not recommend if you want to maintain your sanity. Use cheat engine or something to boost levels if you really want to see what the boss looks like.

 

[nimateb]

Can this be played in fullscreen yet?

 

[Niektory]

Buying Labyrinth of Touhou 2 or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Moonrunes

Spoiler

Downloadable version of LoT2 can be bought from Melonbooks or DLsite for ￥1,944 (around 16 USD).

http://www.melonbooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=IT0000165852
http://www.dlsite.com/home/work/=/product_id/RJ118525.html

We'll go with Melonbooks.

You might want to grab Labyrinth of Touhou 1 as well (￥1,080, around 9 USD):
http://www.melonbooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=IT0000131417

You should get a confirmation e-mail. Follow the link in the e-mail. Afterwards fill in your account details:

English to Katakana Converter can help you with the phonetic name. Not that it matters.

Confirm the next two pages by pressing the green buttons. You should now be logged in on the main page.

Click the yellow button on the next page to confirm the payment.

You can download the game(s) on the following page. Later you can access your downloads on http://www.melonbooks.com/index.php?main_page=account_history

I hope it's useful.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Oooh, this is cool. Finally I can support the dev by buying this game.

Update: I did my patriotic duty and bought both games.

Also, updated the OP of this and the LoT1 thread with Niektory's guide.

 

[Avellion]

Despite, being a casual gamer. I decided to give this game a shot anyways.

I must say, after having Reimu die before I could do anything, sent quite the message too me. That this is not a game that looks to hand me my victory on a silver platter. And I loved it. Further explorations made me realize just how important resource management is in this game. Mana is relatively limited, but you can rest. But resting is limited by TP (so no infinite resting going on here). Additionally Characters would recover MP and HP, but only while benched, this would encourage plenty of switching. I loved that too. All these result in a system which makes you not conserve resources, but also regulary switch party members. The game seems pretty intelligently designed so far, and all its systems seem to work very well together. And best of all, it seems like I am only scratching the surface.

Spoiler

I'm actually enjoying this game more than some of those RPGs I backed on Kickstarter.

My only regret is not to give this game a shot sooner.

Though, I do have a question. Hard Mode seems pretty intriguing, would you guys recommend it?

 

[Crooked Bee]

Hard is basically there to prevent you from grinding your way through bosses by being overleveled.

 

[Niektory]

Since you can level/delevel your characters feely, you can self-enforce hard mode's requirement without actually choosing it. Just delevel everyone to the recommended level prior to fighting a boss.

 

[pakoito]

Since you can level/delevel your characters feely, you can self-enforce hard mode's requirement without actually choosing it. Just delevel everyone to the recommended level prior to fighting a boss.

Am I the only idiot doing that already? Completionist itch was too much.

Maybe I can come back to the game and actually not enforce it. Maybe Ill beat lvl 7 now.

 

[Suicidal]

Despite, being a casual gamer. I decided to give this game a shot anyways.

I'd say this game is pretty casual-friendly since there is no way to actually die or lose your progress. A game over is basically a free trip to the base so you don't have to worry about stuff like permadeath, not bringing enough consumables (actually the fact that there is no potions is one of the reasons the combat is so good because you can't put your character on permanent potion life support and survive every combat like in literally every other JRPG ever made) or not fleeing in time so every time you die you still make progress. The only way you can fuck up is if you spend all your money on some whore and then discover that the boss guarding the stairs to the next floor is immune to said whore's attacks. So I recommend saving your shekels until you hit a brick wall and realize what you need the most at that moment.

Also those fucks better be making Labyrinth 3 or I'll make my hitman friends pay them a visit.

 

[pakoito]

You don't need to save your sheckels, all points are refundable, respecs are free.

 

[Suicidal]

You need items for respecs which are finite IIRC

 

[pakoito]

You need items for respecs which are finite IIRC

Nope. Free.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Really? Pretty sure I recall being unable to change something or other without special items. Maybe it was a hard mode only thing?

 

[pakoito]

Really? Pretty sure I recall being unable to change something or other without special items. Maybe it was a hard mode only thing?

 

[Niektory]

Resetting level up bonuses (the ones you distribute at the shrine) and skill points is free. Resetting the bonus attributes you buy at the library for money (and also certain special growth items) requires using Tomes of Reincarnation. It's never really necessary to do it though, you can always get more money.

 

[Damned Registrations]

It's the special growth items that really matter though. They make the biggest difference later on.

 

[Niektory]

I've never used them.

 

[Avellion]

I'd say this game is pretty casual-friendly since there is no way to actually die or lose your progress. A game over is basically a free trip to the base so you don't have to worry about stuff like permadeath, not bringing enough consumables (actually the fact that there is no potions is one of the reasons the combat is so good because you can't put your character on permanent potion life support and survive every combat like in literally every other JRPG ever made) or not fleeing in time so every time you die you still make progress. The only way you can fuck up is if you spend all your money on some whore and then discover that the boss guarding the stairs to the next floor is immune to said whore's attacks. So I recommend saving your shekels until you hit a brick wall and realize what you need the most at that moment.

Also those fucks better be making Labyrinth 3 or I'll make my hitman friends pay them a visit.

True, but at the time of making that post, I had yet to make a full wipe. Didnt happen until floor 3 against Komachi Onosuka. Wanted to ask early rather than later if I should play on Hard mode or not I ended up starting a new game on hard mode regardless, just as safety measures (in case I would forget delevelling before a boss).

The further I delve into the labyrinths, the more it makes me question some firmly held beliefs I had in this genre. I was pretty vocal against respeccing (especially overly generous forms of respeccing), since it ruined permanancy and removed the choices and consequences of character building. But this game (and Guild Wars 1), shows me that respeccing can be done right. But only if the game is built to occomadate for it.

And hell yes, they better make a third. This game is so good, I pretty much forgot to play Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition. And I loved Divinity: Original Sin. I will buy the game as soon as I can, and have already started to spread the word of this game.

So thanks, pakoito and Crooked Bee for bringing this game to my attention in that best of the new shit thread. You can add me to your list of converts.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Yeah, I used to be absolutely against respeccing before I played this game, too. Just goes to show that no design element exists in an armchair design vacuum, but is contingent on the actual implementation.

 

[Suicidal]

So after going through my backlog I though it was finally time to play LoT1. But before doing that I decided to go back into LoT2 and attempt some of the post-game extra dungeons. My attempt to advance into the extra areas was greeted with some c++ memory error. Fortunately one of the fixes I've found worked and now I'm still playing this.

Did any of you who played the game do any of the post-game stuff? Holy shit some of the bosses there are insane, much harder than the final one. But I love how unlike almost every single JRPG ever made you don't have to grind like crazy to do all the optional stuff, you just need a good strategy. I only had to grind for like 30 mins before doing the first post-game boss because I was severely underlevelled and after that each boss kill granted me enough experience to be at the recommended level for the next one.

Also this fucking thing:

is one of the most infuriating RPG bosses ever conceived. I struggled with it for a few days until managing to pull off an incredibly lucky clutch victory, like the kind of victory that I will have fond memories of for years to come. It's rare for a game to make me feel something like this. There was also an incredibly unlucky clutch defeat at one point and that made me really fucking butthurt

 

[Damned Registrations]

That's cool; I never tried the post game stuff because I assumed you'd need to grind a ton for the levels, had no idea the bosses would give you the required xp. I lost my save file though, so I'll need to do a whole new playthrough... which I'm actually inclined to do anyways. LoT2 was the best shit ever.

 

[Suicidal]

You also have to explore the new dungeon rooms, some of which are fucking gigantic and contain new enemies and loot and combined with the boss rewards XP deficiency is the last thing you have to worry about.

 

[nimateb]

Just started to play this, after a slow start it really picks up the pace in F3 IMO, last night I played like 5 hs straight.

Awesome game, developers who like to talk about systems and encounter design should take a look at this.