Shining Shooting Star
Cover art
| Developer: | 雨夜枫雪制作组 |
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| Release date: | Demo: July 2015 Full Game: June 9, 2016 |
| Next game: | Abyss Soul Lotus |
Shining Shooting Star (Chinese name: 东方夏夜祭, Dōng Fāng Xià Yè Jì) is a Touhou Project fangame, developed by the Chinese doujin circle 雨夜枫雪制作组 (often known in English simply as the SSS Dev Team) and released in 2016. It is often regarded as one of the best Touhou fangames, with many considering it to be on par with, or even surpassing, the quality of the official Touhou games. The game is also free to play and can be downloaded here.
Contents
Controls
SSS, just like the official games, uses the standard Touhou control scheme.
- Z: Shoot
- X: Bomb
- Shift: Focus
On keyboard, movement can be done using either the arrow keys or the number pad.
Playable Characters
Shining Shooting Star has 4 playable characters, each with different shot behavior and a different bomb.
| Reimu Hakurei | ||||||||
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| Marisa Kirisame | ||||||||
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| Sanae Kochiya | ||||||||
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| Koishi Komeiji | ||||||||
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Difficulty Modes
Shining Shooting Star 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 Normal Mode or higher. This is one long stage with one long boss fight.
Basic Mechanics
The Star System and Borders
Certain enemies and boss patterns drop stars, which will come down from the top of the screen. While descending, the starts will cycle through 3 colors, blue at the top, red in the middle, and green at the bottom. Each star has a different effect, with red stars acting as life pieces, green stars acting as bomb pieces, and blue stars increasing point item value by 5,000. Collecting a star also changes the color of your border gauge.
Borders are built up by collecting items and cancelling bullets. The gauge is located in the bottom left of the screen. A border is activated once the gauge is full. Each color border also has a different effect, red borders increasing power, blue borders giving a score bonus, and green borders being a shield like in Perfect Cherry Blossom. Each time a border is completed, it is added to the border counter. If the border counter meets certain requirements, the boss of that stage will have an extra spell card.
Power
Shining Shooting Star has a power up system similar to the official Touhou games. Power starts at 1.00 and can not go below that value. Power is raised by collecting power items, which increase this value by 0.02. Power up happens at each integer. On death, 0.16 power is lost, but this is cancelled out by 8 power items being dropped.
Point of Collection
Just like the official Touhou games, all point and power items will be autocollected above the Point of Collection, which is a line high up on the screen. Stars are not autocollected above this line.
