Mountain of Faith

Mountain of Faith

Cover art

Developer:	ZUN (Team Shanghai Alice)
Release date:	Demo 0.01: May 20, 2007 0.02a: July 26, 2007 Full Game 1.00a: August 17, 2007 Steam: June 6, 2020
Previous game:	Shoot the Bullet (spinoff) Phantasmagoria of Flower View (main series)
Next game:	Subterranean Animism

Mountain of Faith (Japanese name: 東方風神録, Touhou Fuujinroku) is the 10th main series Touhou Project game, developed and released by the one-person doujin circle Team Shanghai Alice in 2007. MoF is a significant game for Touhou as it was the first game to be made in ZUN's Second Engine and has a much stronger resemblance to modern Touhou games than the early Windows era games. It is also known for introducing power bombing, a mechanic used only in this game and Subterranean Animism, where bombs are tied to power and using one costs 1 power level. It's also considered one of the hardest Touhou games to score, due to the extreme faith penalty on death.

The game was added to Steam along with Subterranean Animism and Undefined Fantastic Object in 2020.

Controls

MoF uses the standard Touhou control scheme. The controls are designed for keyboards, but the game supports controllers with remappable controls.

• Z: Shoot
• X: Bomb
• Shift: Focus

On keyboard, movement can be done using either the arrow keys or the number pad.

Playable Characters and Shot Types

Mountain of Faith has 2 playable characters, with 3 shot types each. Each shot type has different shot behavior, but unlike other Touhou games, the bombs are the same for everyone.

Reimu Hakurei

Reimu Hakurei			A	B	C
			Homing Type Shot: Homing Amulet Option: Rear Position	Forward Focus Type Shot: Sealing Needle Option: Forward Position	Sealing Type Shot: Youkai Buster Option: Left/Right & Focus Type
			Description: Reimu A is a homing shot, which performs well on stages but is disadvantaged compared to Reimu B on bosses.	Description: Reimu B is a forward focus shot, and requires more stage routing than other shot types but performs well on bosses due to its high damage output.	Description: Reimu C is a spread shot. She's often considered the most difficult shot type for survival and is only recommended for experienced players.
			Strengths: Great for stage portions Weaknesses: Below average damage output	Strengths: High damage output Weaknesses:	Strengths: Weaknesses: Very low damage output
			General Information: Reimu's hitbox is smaller than Marisa's, and her movement speed is slower as well.

Marisa Kirisame

Marisa Kirisame			A	B	C
			High-Power Type Shot: Spread Star Option: Trace & Hold Formation	Piercing Type Shot: Illusion Laser Option: Close Contact Formation	Magic-User Type Shot: Cold Inferno Option: Front & Lock Formation
			Description: Marisa A has option formations similar to Gradius, where they follow her as she moves. The option formation can be locked by focusing.	Description: Marisa B is a forward focus shot with piercing lasers, meaning they can shoot through enemies.	Description: Marisa C has options that can be held in place by focusing, like Remilia in Imperishable Night. These options have a very short range and in order to make the most of them you have to place them close to enemies.
			Strengths: Weaknesses: Much lower damage output than the description would lead you to believe Splash damage is broken	Strengths: Piercing 3 power glitch Weaknesses: Below average damage output	Strengths: Excellent damage output Weaknesses: Difficult to use for inexperienced players
			General Information: Marisa's hitbox is larger than Reimu's and her movement speed is faster as well.

Difficulty Modes

Mountain of Faith has 4 difficulty modes. The higher difficulties are, of course, harder, and also have higher scoring potential. The difficulty modes are:

• Easy
• Normal
• Hard
• Lunatic

The game also has an Extra stage, which is treated as its own difficulty. Extra must be unlocked by getting a 1cc on any difficulty. This is one long stage with one long boss fight, and the difficulty of clearing it is somewhere between a Normal and Hard 1cc.

Power and Power Bombing

Mountain of Faith has a power up system. The game starts you with zero power, and you gain power by collecting the red power items, small items giving 0.05 power and big items giving 1.00 power. Each new integer is a new power level, ie. 1.95 is the same as 1.00, 2.00 is a new power level. On death, the player loses 3.20 power but drops 3 big power items and 4 small ones, which just add up to 3.20 again so you don't really lose anything. In fact, if you die below 3.20 power you get even more than you had before because of these items.

The most important feature of Mountain of Faith's power system is power bombing. With this system, using a bomb costs 1.00 power. You also can not use bombs below 1.00 power, unlike in games such as Battle Garegga which lets you bomb with a single fragment but not a full bomb. The game's power maxes out at 5.00, but this is identical to 4.00 and only exists to give the player a free bomb.

Lives

Mountain of Faith starts you with 2 lives, and gives lives based on score. In the main game, the score extends are at 20,000,000, 40m, 80m, and finally 150m. The Stage 3 and 5 midbosses also drop an Extend, for a total of 8 lives. On the Extra stage, the score extends are moved to 30m and 100m, with another Extend after the midboss for 5 lives total.

Point of Collection

When moving above a certain height on the screen, all items will automatically be collected. Point items collected above this line are worth their maximum value. This is also based on where the point item is on screen when it's collected, not the character. Unlike in modern Touhou games, point items collected via PoC must be collected above the line to stay at max value.

Items

Mountain of Faith has a few items, used for gaining power and score.

Power Items

Item	Name	Value
	Small Power Item	0.05 Power
	Big Power Item	1.00 Power
	Full Power Item	4.00 Power

Point Items

Item	Name	Value
	Point Item	Current faith value (above PoC line)
	Yellow Point Item	Current faith value (under all circumstances)
	Faith Item (Green Star)	Depends on difficulty
	Small Faith Item	100 faith

Scoring

Mountain of Faith has a primarily chain-based scoring system.

Faith

Faith is MoF's point item value system, and it's the most important mechanic for scoring. In addition to affecting point item value, it also affects spell bonus and clear bonus. This value is displayed in the bottom left corner of the play field. Faith starts at 50,000 and is increased in two ways. The first way, and the one that makes the biggest impact, is collecting faith items. As mentioned earlier, small faith items always add 100 faith, but the value of big faith items changes depending on the difficulty. The values are as follows:

Difficulty	Value
Easy	5,000
Normal	5,000
Hard	8,000
Lunatic	10,000
Extra	10,000

The second way to increase faith is by cancelling bullets, either through bombing or ending boss patterns.

Faith eventually maxes out at 999,990, which, on Lunatic, can be done by the end of Stage 3. On death, Faith is reduced by:

([Current faith value] - 50,000) / 3.

Bombing also has a faith penalty of 3,000, but deathbombs, which are done by bombing within 8 frames of getting hit, have no such penalty. Timing out a spell reduces faith by 30,000, even if you have no choice but to time it out.

Chaining

As mentioned earlier, MoF scoring is largely based on chaining. The chain timer is increased by collecting items and killing enemies, with faith items completely filling the meter and other methods only having a small increase. The chain meter is displayed below the faith value. When the chain is broken, faith will decrease at a rate of 10 per frame, which increases to 180 per frame if no enemies are on screen. Faith will also never do below 50,000 under any circumstances. The chain timer is also frozen during bosses and midbosses.

Spell cards

Spell cards are certain boss patterns which give a score bonus if you No Miss No Bomb them without timing them out (except for some spell cards which must be timed out, such as Peerless Wind God, Aya's 3rd spell). Spell bonus accounts for a large amount of score in Mountain of Faith. Spell bonus is determined by the formula:

[Current faith value] x (10 + (current stage x 3))

Spell bonus decreases over time, so spells should be captured as quickly as possible to maximize their value.

Clear bonus

Mountain of Faith only awards one clear bonus at the end of the game, unlike most other Touhou games which award small clear bonuses after each stage. The formula for the clear bonus also depends on difficulty.

Difficulty	Formula
Easy	(Lives in Stock * 20 million) + (Power * 2,000,000) + (Faith * 100)
Normal	(Lives in Stock * 25 million) + (Power * 2,000,000) + (Faith * 100)
Hard	(Lives in Stock * 35 million) + (Power * 4,000,000) + (Faith * 100)
Lunatic	(Lives in Stock * 40 million) + (Power * 6,000,000) + (Faith * 100)
Extra	(Lives in Stock * 40 million) + (Power * 8,000,000) + (Faith * 100)

The value used for Power is your current power level multiplied by 10, rounded down to the nearest whole.

Glitches

Marisa B Damage Glitch

This is one of the most well known glitches in Touhou. When using Marisa B, at 3 power and unfocused, the right main shot does about 10 times more damage than it's supposed to because its damage output is set to 122 instead of the intended 12. Here's a video by Surnist explaining the glitch.

Replays in MoF are very prone to desyncs. The reason for this is still unknown. Replays have been known to work after being moved to a different slot, or saved multiple times. Additionally, replays will almost always desync if they are started from Stage 4.

Trivia

Sanae's second spell is a reference to EX-Alice's second pattern in Mystic Square, which itself is a reference to the Stage 6 boss final from DoDonPachi.

Mountain of Faith is one of the shortest Touhou games, with runs lasting just over 20 minutes.

MoF is the most popular game for Lunatic No Miss No Bombs, with 76 players having done an LNN of the game as of the writing of this article.

Due to how MoF's scoring system works, it's actually not that hard to get a score that's very close to the world record (assuming you can No Miss the game). The top 25 players on Lunatic Mode are all within about 98% of the world record.

The game introduced several fan favorite characters, most notably Momiji Inubashiri and Sanae Kochiya.