Let's Play Touhou Puppet Play, I want to be the very best~♪

Greetings, internet people, and welcome to Let's Play Touhou Puppet Play. I'm your host, Hinoa, and I'm going to kick this game's ass.

Q. Okay, what the Belgium is Touhou Puppet Play?
A. You might know it better as "Touhoumon." For those of you who don't know, it's a hack of Pokémon Fire Red where instead of using Pokémon, you use characters from Touhou. Apart from that, the game remains mostly the same.

Q. Whaddya mean, "mostly?"
A. Well, some dialogue has been modified, and some other dialogue has been replaced outright. You'll be able to tell what the latter is; it's the dialogue that sounds like it was written by a person with a tenuous grasp of the English language. (Which, incidentally, it was.) Also, the type chart has been modified somewhat. For instance, Dark-types are now weak to Steel-types, meaning that Dark/Ghost types now have a weakness to exploit. :3
Lastly, the Champion is... well, you'll have to see, won't you?

Q. I wanna play! I wanna play!
A. Not a question. Also, I can't link ROMs in this forum without getting a +5 Hojillion Axe of Banning to the face. However, if you were to talk to me over Skype...

Q. You stole this whole Let's Play shit from SA, didn't you?
A. And if I did?

Anyway, let's get on with this. New Game, go!



: My name is Oak. People affectionately refer to me as the Gensokyo PROFESSOR.


: For some people, Touhou are pets. Others use them for battling. As for myself, I study Touhou as a profession.


zzzzzzzz... oh hey, the intro's over. Now, time to make our first decision of the game, and the one with the greatest ramifications for our game: Dude or dudette? Truly, there can be no more fiendish choice than this...

Wait. This is Touhou we're talking about! There's maybe three male characters in the entire series, including non-game characters.


Dudette it is.


Wow, even more earth-shattering decisions to make. What should we name Our Heroine?
: You say that as if I didn't already have one...


: Yup. Maribel Hearn.


I'm just going to smile and nod and pretend I understood what you just said.


: Her name is Renko Usami.


: Yeah. Also, has it occurred to you to invest in hearing aids?


--you know, it's only now as I'm putting this together that I realize how asinine this conversation is.

Also, "her."


: Your very own Touhou legend is about to unfold! A world of dreams and adventures with Touhou awaits! Let's go!

Right then, first things first.


Yay, free shit.

Moving right along, we're heading out of here. But first, a talk with Mom...


"Don't get dirty. Oh, yes. PROF. OAK, next door, was looking for you."

Sounds like a plot hook to me. Allonsy!


Well, next door doesn't look like the Professor's house, but then again, in vanilla Pokémon Red, the rival *is* Oak's grandson...

...but nobody's in here but Daisy.

"My brother sister, Renko, is out at Oak's LAB."

Meh, Renko can wait. Heaven knows how many times she was late when Maribel was waiting. Let's explore Pallet Town first.


: Really? Lemme look.

"Trainer Tips:"

: I feel like you've been having me on...


"You can now store and recall items and touhou as data via PC."

Yup. That's how we got the Potion earlier.

Anyway, it's not like there's much of Pallet Town *to* explore, so to the lab!


...which is about thirty feet away. Meh.


"Many touhou TRAINERS hold him in high regard."


Dammit, now where could he have gone?


Eh, maybe he's in Viridian for god-only-knows what reason. I'll run up that way. It's not like evil demons are waiting in that long grass or anything...


Oh. There he is.


What are they gonna do, use Growl at me?


: I know! Here, come with me!


: You know, this all could have been avoided had you been at your lab to begin with...

: Renko? Let me think... Oh! You two, I have something for you! There are three Touhou here.
: They're doing a very good job of hiding, in that case.


: When I was young, I was a serious Touhou trainer. But now, in my old age, I have only these three left. You two, choose one. Go on, choose!


An aside here. You'll notice that nearly all of Renko's dialogue that I've posted is in poor English. Remember when I mentioned that all the replaced dialogue is bad? Yeah, they had to rewrite nearly all of Renko's dialogue, mainly because she's about fifty times nicer than Gary F^@&ing Oak.

: Well, you heard her, Maribel. Go on, pick one!

And now, it is decision time. Which Touhou Girl should we choose as our starter?


Option number 1: Reimu Hakurei. Reimu is the shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine, which separates Gensokyo from the real world. She's essentially the main character of Touhou, and has appeared in every game except the side-game Shoot the Bullet.
Gamewise, Reimu is the most balanced of the three starters, and quite possibly the most balanced Touhou in the game, at 50 stats base across the board. She's a Normal type, and gains the Flying type with her first evolution.

An aside: All Touhou, barring the fossil Touhou, novelties, and legendaries, have three forms: Chibi, Normal, and EX, in increasing evolutionary stage. (The fossil Touhou have only the first two stages, and the novelty/legendaries only have one.) Most Touhou evolve anywhere between levels 18 and 28, and then again between levels 36 and 44. (The starters evolve at levels 18 and 36; the low end of the spectrum.) There are, of course, exceptions.

Anyway, moving on...

Option number 2: Sakuya Izayoi, the head maid of the Scarlet Devil Mansion and the only maid that actually does anything. She enjoys cleaning, cooking, throwing knives, and sleight-of-hand. She first appeared in the sixth Touhou game as the stage 5 boss, and again as a playable character for two games thereafter and in all the fighting games.
Sakuya, despite being Ice-type, is focused highly on physical Attack. Hell, she doesn't get an ice-type attack until level 19--and that's if she elects not to evolve at level 18, when she gains the Steel type.


Option number 3: Marisa Kirisame, one of the witches of the Forest of Magic and She Who Stole The Precious Thing (and several other things over the years). She's appeared in almost all the games as well, with her first appearance in Touhou 2 as the penultimate boss, and appears in every game since then except Shoot the Bullet.
Marisa, an Electric-type, has a focus on Speed during her Chibi form and a balance between Speed and Sp. Attack from Normal form on. She also only gains her second type, Fire, in her EX form.

Hmm. Decisions, decisions. Here's how it's going to work. You, the readers, get to choose who I pick. However, I want *reasons* for who you want me to pick; the more entertaining, the better. I reserve the right to break ties, and ties will be broken with a vote for Sakuya, or if she's not an option, Marisa.

For the record, if I pick Sakuya, Renko will pick Reimu. If I pick Reimu, she'll pick Marisa, and if I pick Marisa, she'll pick Sakuya. From this, the most likely pick for "Suffer, Hin, Suffer" Mode would be Reimu, since she's the only character I can pick that will eventually take type weakness damage right in the face. On the other hand, Pewter Gym is still Rock-type, so if you want me to have trouble there, Marisa would be the choice for you.

So then. Go vote.

Sakuya. Hell yeah, maid that can stop time and throw knives.

Marisa gogogogo

Sakuya. Why wouldn't you want to use a time manipulating, knife throwing maid of awesome?

It just so happens that she's the only Touhou character I know much about at all.

I say, good sir, 'tis my utmost respectful opinion that Ms. Izayoi, whom you refer to as Sakuya, should be chosen. After all, she is quite the interesting person. And such focus on knives - such an elegant weapon, even in this modern age of guns and plagues which could decimate the human race. One should really consider her first and foremost.

I'm leaving the voting open for at least the rest of the day.

Also, a few comments:
*I've played through this once before, and I picked Sakuya then.
*I said I wanted reasons. I thought I could leave it freeform, but it appears that you leave me no choice. Votes must be accompanied by at least one stanza of haiku (or senryu, if you want to be pedantic) or similar poem for it to count. Funny reason-poems will count double.
*Nyoro~n.

[[Edit:]] Grim, you're excepted; you did it right the first time.

Okay if you said so... *clears throat*

Picking your Tohou
Sounds quite challenging unless
A rock-breaker is found...

Really, going from what you described, all three starters doesn't seem to fare well in a battle against Rock-types... Are Cerulean & Vermilion gyms keeping the types of their non-hacked versions?

Of the three starters, Sakuya probably will have the easiest time against Brock if I were to take it solo; she learns Steel-type attacks early, and has a high Attack. Reimu I *think* will learn a Fighting-type move early on, but doesn't quite have the stats to back it up (or at least, less so than Sakuya).

This isn't counting that, last time I played through this, I counted two Water-types and a third Water/Grass type before I arrived in Pewter...

Edit to add: All the gyms and all the Elite Four save Lance keep their original types, and Lance only gets screwed out of Dragon because there's only two Dragon-types in the game. (At least he uses both of them.)

Okay... Either going for versality with Reimu (only times she could be in benches would be Pewter gym and Vermilion if evolved into her Normal form) or for a powerhouse with Sakuya (She's gonna blast her way through any gym not located in Cinnabar. Have some other supporting against the Elite Four, though).

I'm so not doing that. Too much effort for a vote.

1.) Reimu doesn't evolve into Normal from Chibi until level 18, well after I'll be out of Pewter.
2.) Sakuya will have to sit out Cerulean, too; in this hack at least, Steel and Ice attacks are ineffective against Water. Then again, I suppose I could use her against one of Misty's mons...
⑨.) I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier.

They always were.

I say pick Sakuya, because she's an icy ninja maid =3

...But like Kris, I'm too lazy to do a Haiku ;D

EDIT: Um...how does breeding work in this game? >.>

It's a hack of red. There was no breeding there.

FireRed. If it still has the Sevii Islands, there's breeding. And the Touhoudex lists egg moves for some of the characters...

The same way it usually work. Don't think about it too hard; your poor brain might break.

They're all Dittos.

Well, from the looks of it, I'll be choosing Sakuya as my starter. And here I thought you'd try to make me do this in "Suffer, Hin, Suffer" Mode. Not that you won't have plenty more opportunities to make it that way. Writing up a new update now.

Also, would it be possible for one of you admin-types to up the posted picture limit? I really don't want to split every update between three posts in the future. :/

Update 02: My Touhoumon is Fight; or, You Fail English Forever


Sakuya it is, then. Who am I to go against the tide of popular opinion?

On the plus side, this means I can make JoJo's Bizarre Adventure jokes more frequently.


And Renko goes with the shrine maiden.

Here is when the second title of this update comes into play: Prepare for a lot of Engrish.


Just smile and nod, fellow Kradenites...


: With it at your side, you should be able to reach the next town.

Right then, let's take a look at the mon we just acquired.

Sakuya currently is lacking in the offensive department; with a whopping 9 Attack and 8 SpAtk. Her ability, Concentrate, raises accuracy by 30% of the old score. So for example, Blizzard (normally a 70% Accuracy move) would hit 91% of the time (30% of 70 = 21, which is added on to the old Accuracy), not 100%. The latter would make it broken; the former is merely overpowered.

Right now, Sakuya has Scratch and Leer. Woo-hoo.


And with that, I'm outta here. It's not like anything's going to happen, anyway...

[Musical Cue: Girls' Sealing Club - Touhoumon Ver.]
(Oh, did I mention some of the music in the game is different? Some of the music in the game is different. This one, however, isn't one that's programmed into the English version of the hack. I also apologize for the game artifacts in the versions I'm posting. I couldn't find one that didn't have them. D= )

: Cone on, let's Play! [sic]
: ...Renko, you know I can speak Japanese perfectly well, right?


[Musical Cue: Love-Colored Master Spark - Touhoumon Ver.]


Those of you who have played Fire Red or any derivative hacks will remember the tutorial sequence here. It's boring and we all know how to play the game anyway, so I'm going to toss it out and explain it as I go.


As stated, Sakuya has two attacks: Scratch and Leer. For those of you new at this, Leer lowers Defense and Scratch deals damage.
We will be dealing exclusively with the former attack for now.


Similarly, Reimu has two attacks right now: Pound and I think Growl. She will also be dealing exclusively with the former attack for this battle.


Touhou can hold items. This item can technically be anything; however, only a few items can be used in combat by the Touhou. The most obvious example is that of berries, which can be eaten to restore HP or status effects. There are other items that carry a passive boost: Charcoal, for example, will add 1.1x damage to any Fire-type attacks used.


Well. That was close.


At least we got a level out of it!

Like in any RPG, you gain stats and possibly attacks by leveling. By leveling, you also get closer to evolving Touhou, and why am I even saying this you all already know this


Victory is ours!


...and our reward is more Engrish.


...and I suppose 80 Pokébucks/Touhoubucks/yen/ryou/monies.
Cheapskate.