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Spaztique β Why Vanilla Swords don't work in Touhou...
Published: 2013-03-26 05:03:55 +0000 UTC; Views: 7521; Favourites: 52; Downloads: 25
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Description
Never bring a sword to a danmaku battle... unless the sword actually helps, that is...Comic inspired by talking to people who absolutely *insist* on having their characters use swords, even though it makes absolutely no sense in Gensokyo. As we all put it, it's like a samurai vs. a guy with an AK-47: the AK-47 wins. Though, knifes are a different situation: [link]
Though, ~YeagerD brings up an important point: you can still do hybrid battles like in the Touhou fighting games. In fact, if you've got one good melee weapon and you can somehow breach danmaku attack range, you can have a pretty exciting battle on your hands (even Diamond In The Rough's climax is choreographed like this). It's only when you go overboard with a bunch of vanilla melee weapons do you risk becoming a cliche.
Want to see more comics where Jack is in a field with a sword? Have some more! (And if you make one, send me the link and I'll link it here!)
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Comments: 101
My sword fires lasers as a Spell Card.
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That's perfectly fine/acceptable.
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ONE OF THE IMPORTANT THINGS ABOUT SPELLCARDS IS BEAUTY!!!
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Spell cards are about beauty. It's the thing is: What does the sword have to do anything about beauty when bullets are coming ready to kill you? Besides, the sword is a fierce weapon as compared to the simplicity of danmaku. The sword would overshadow the elegance of the actual things causing the beauty unless the sword serves a major point to the character's fighting style.
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When you have no magic ability yourself, a sword vs. danmaku matchup is the least of your problems.
I mean, where would a pterosaur even FIND a magic sword?
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I'll just get danmaku that shoots swords :3
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Y'know, Saburo was originally supposed to have a katana until Stevo told me, "He's a freakin' dragon! Have him FIGHT like a freakin' dragon!"
And considering that the said katana was only used IN ONE SPELLCARD, better to omit it completely.
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I think people worry that danmaku is hard to write about or not as interesting as a sword fight, but it has been done well. Just look at 's final main act of Asylum of Souls. It was pretty much all danmaku, but it didn't once get boring. The key is to have a goal for the characters to achieve in the fight, and/or have something else going on during the fight: like more story. But I guess most bad fan-fic writers don't want to make more story.
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Youmu's so overpowered that she can even cut through bullets and nullify them altogether.
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Not really, even with high-movement speed, she'd have a difficult time against someone who can spam projectiles everywhere as she has a very limited range and sooner or later, she's gonna get caught and get stunlocked without an effective means of retaliation.
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I think you're forgetting how she can reflect projectiles too. It doesn't matter how much projectiles they throw at Youmu. She can either nullify them or reflect them altogether.
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First off, Youmu doesn't have near limitless stamina like a full youkai, being a hanyou obviously gives her some advantage but even with that, she'd be lucky to achieve such a thing. And doing so would require her to pay more attention to doing so than actually fighting, making such a tactic a poor choice anyway. Plus, swords in general are not for guarding or parrying as they're not made to withstand such power so trying such a tactic wouldn't work for very long, even with a sword like the ones she uses.
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Stamina should not even be an issue here. We're talking about girls who spend most of their days either playing with spell cards or honing their skills for such fights. If anything, her stamina is up to par with others. Even if not, a fight would last only a few minutes between opponents.Besides, when you play through the games, not once did any of the girls ever complained about their lack of stamina whatsoever.
You're right. Youmu doesn't use her swords for guarding or parrying because she doesn't use them for that purpose at all. She uses them to nullify bullets altogether. As in, the bullets disappear. Gone. How she reflects bullets back to the enemy is through a barrier. The barrier is generated through the sword, but the sword itself does not reflect the bullets.
Don't underestimate someone just because she doesn't use what everybody else is using.
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Oh, I thought you were talking about close quarters combat, in a spellcard fight, Youmu does have a clear advantage with both speed and a reasonable pool of magick energy to fuel her own attacks (though I don't believe in mana. Though I doubt she's be allowed to deflect attacks normally as the aim is to dodge and outlast or shoot down the opponent; from using a bomb, probably.
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It's not even from a bomb. If you play her in Phantasmagoria of Flower View, you'll see that she can neutralize bullets without a bomb. Just use a level one charge attack against a bullet.
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Huh, I didn't know that. I haven't played the games in a long time anyway and I've never played PoFV before anyway.
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What about a sword that comes from Ephesians 6:17, the "Sword of the Spirit". Some of how it is described in the Bible gives it properties similar to the Hakurouken. I figure it would probably be used in a similar manner. Would there be a special mechanic behind that? I once had a strange dream of a weird danmaku from such a thing.
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If vanilla swords do nothing, then use chocolate rain?
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Wanna hear something ridiculous? Youkai are weak to weapons with an origin, and chocolate rain has a memetic origin as a song on the internet, and even the song was apparently inspired by Hurricane Katrina.
That's right: Chocolate Rain is a more effective weapon than a Vanilla Sword.
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Unless vanilla swords...
Become a thing! Dun dun du-........ Nah.
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I have broken from laughter.
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I agree with but have you tried to write a danmaku battle scene? Danmaku is made for visual arts, even so that the point of danmaku battles isn't about strength but creating the most beautiful patterns and the more beautiful, the hardest to dodge, and to translate this in written fiction is painful, so much that it's a trend to simply skip the duels or put it ambigous.
See, the most reviewed Touhou fanfic is Imperfect Metamorphosis and it's written in a nearly-professional level (though it has polemic points, it's agreed that it's well written) and there isn't a single spellcard duel. In the beginning, the characters conveniently forgot the rules until they abandoned completely (in fact, ignoring the rules was what caused a good deal of the problems, including miscommunication).
Eh, and what 'vanilla' means in this context? I mean, I see you placing the term rather frequently.
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Vanilla = A regular sword with absolutely no special properties. It's the kind of sword that would be rendered totally useless by any form of magic attack, long-ranged or short-ranged.
There are more practical uses for swords in Touhou: as a utility item (Youmu and Yorihime use it for cutting bullets), as an assisting weapon (Tenshi and Youmu), for firing bullets (Youmu again, the Tengu army, and Crystalgreatsword's Okami), or as bullets themselves (Yumeko and DitR's Brolli).
Vanilla swords are not a utility item: their only purpose is cutting people. The owner would never dream of cutting bullets: that could damage the sword!
Vanilla swords are not used in conjunction with any other weapon expect more vanilla swords. Who cares about ranged attacks when you got a sword?
Vanilla swords do not fire bullets. They're for slicing and dicing things that can shoot bullets!
Vanilla swords are never to be thrown: that could hurt the sword!
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Ah, that's very cool (especially the conclusion: "Vanilla swords are never to be thrown: that could hurt the sword!" 
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I have to honest at that point.
I ignore the fact, that battles are fought with danmaku in Gensokyo. I let my fights be more half close combat, half danmaku (in other words, similar to fights in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and Hisoutensoku).
I have two reasons for that:
1. "Making spellcards" by sometimes randomly placing bullets and hitting the 'cluster'-button is something, I consider to be boring. The amount of work is relatively low and nothing, what I consider entertaining for reading in stories.
2. Since I like to challenge myself now and then, I make close combat scenes, since they require more planning and (that's at least what I hope) are more interesting and entertaining for the readers.
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I completely with your points, Which is why I based my battles more torward the fighting game.
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Well, we both love our final attacks, who take multiple panels, but which are definitely worth the effort. ^^
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Yeah, Show off the sheer epicness with an attack is worth the effort, Which why my fortΓ© is battle comics. 
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I've seen that page and I can really imagine that
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Weirdly enough, I knew I could cluster thing; Though, The clustering would have been inconvenient for me.
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I'm also perfectly fine with Touhou fighting game-style half danmaku/half melee battles (the entire final battle of my own Diamond In The Rough is one, lasting about fifteen minutes long). Partial melee combat is perfectly fine and can be quite exciting when infused with ranged combat, giving the best of both worlds.
In fact, I originally was going to end this comic showing a hybrid melee/ranged battle, but I decided to skip on it. Now I regret not doing it.
What I'm not fine with are guys who have fifty bazillion different kinds of custom swords (often comissioned by other people during pre-development), each with their own backstory, and not a single hint of ranged weaponry anywhere on their character's arsenal. These characters usually never see the light of comic day, so you never actually get to see their swords in action, but as somebody who gets bombarded with these cliched swordsmen over and over daily, it's something I pray people will eventually take a hint and stop doing.
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Okay, considering this point of view, it sounds understandable, which actually reminds me of your comic "The life of an unused OC".
Asking for sword-costumes and then not using it, really is another perfect example of an unused OC. Still, I wonder, why this happens.
Don't they think everything through, if not even twice?
Did they underestimated the work, which brings a close-combat OC?
Do you prefer to be lazy by simply placing clusters and sell it as Danmaku?
I don't know the answers, but in my case, I accept it, that it might be more difficult, than placing clusters.
Anyway, I digress. The reason, why you give them swords (which goes along with battle skills, in my opinion), is as important as making a fitting design and (the most important thing for me) giving them a name. Those, who make a close-combat OC, should consider these things, since giving them the "right" sword is as important as the rest of the design.
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That's why you're my most favourite walfaser, YeagerD!
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Paul: Just so you know Jack, my sword is Magical that do fire light bullets, along with other Holy Spell that I know of, along with that my Telekinesis can make up for ranged.
And well Yeah...
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Pfft, if i were to have a sword, it would have been a projectile type. And deflect darkness...i hate darkness.
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Swords are classic fiction staples by this point. Swords are cool, even though half the time they don't fit in their setting.
I understand the appeal, I truly do. But sometimes other weapons work better.
A certain scene with Indiana Jones and a swordsman comes to mind.
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Explanation for my characters having weapons:
Megumi: needs it for any kind of magical ability
Hiraku: a standard weapon for the Tengu Army
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I knew I forgot some peeps from that final photo.
Also, don't forget Momiji.
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Well, I got to agree that swords are useless in bullet fights unless they help...
BUT! I need to remind about fighting games like IaMP and SWR, where characters' swords CAN be used in melee. Hell, even 's Megumi used it for it (even through her sword CAN shoot danmaku). I guess that means you can't have your sword ONLY for melee attacks. Is that what you wanted to say?
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Yep. The points brought up at...
1. Swords as a melee weapon are useless.
2. Swords in Touhou are mainly used as ranged weapons or utilities.
3. Swords totally ignore the fact that Touhou is mostly about air combat.
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Meh, I kinda figured from the start before it became apparent that swords wouldn't work in a game that requires bullet use.
..Thought I wish I could integrate a bowie knife somehow...
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Of course everyone's gonna keep using melee weapons! After all: (really dumb) Heroes prefer swords!
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Well, if Vanilla doesn't work...why not use chocolate? While the enemy is eating, you shoot'em dead!
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