Shining Shooting Star
Cover art
| Developer: | 雨夜枫雪制作组 |
|---|---|
| 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 / Japanese name: 東方夏夜祭 Touhou Natsu Yasai) 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
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.
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.
Scoring
Scoring consists of grazing (every 10 times) to increase the point item value (aside from bullet cancels), get spellcard and border bonuses, etc.
The Colored 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. In Hard, Lunatic and Extra, each time a border is completed, it is added to the border counter. If the border counter meets certain requirements and is full, the boss of that stage will have an extra spell card, which also leads to unlocking Tensei`s TLB form.
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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Items
| Power items: Increases shot power. | |
| Point items: Increases score and grants resources whenever the collected point items count reaches a threshold. | |
| Value items: Increases value of point items | |
| Colored star: Appears from killing certain enemies. Green gives bomb parts, red gives life parts and blue provides extra point value. It also changes the border gauge. | |
| Full bomb: Instantly grants an extra bomb. | |
| 1UP: Gives a full Extend. |
Trivia
- One spellcard pattern that Tensei imitates comes from LoLK`s Stage 6 bullet shower section.
