For those of you who don't know what Touhou is, an explanation would be far too long, too detailed, and would inevitably end up taking up three times more space than the rant I have on this game. Go here or here. Those of you already familiar with it, proceed ahead.
...All done? Good.
So, Mystical Chain is a one-player fangame by Lion Heart, that plays something like a 2D sidescrolling beat-em-up from the good old days of Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Except, you know, it's a fangame based off of Touhou, so expect ridiculous amounts of bullets, spells flying everywhere, and strange bits of humor scattered here and there. You get a selection of three characters (Marisa, Alice, and Patchouli, more on them later), from which you can choose two, your primary attacker and secondary attacker, or as the game refers to them, the "Master" and "Slave". You can switch which one you control at will (pressing a certain button changes who your Master character is), and in fact this is kinda the point: The whole combat system revolves around teamwork- You can get some really wicked combos by switching while one character is in the middle of attacking, and continuing the attack with the other character. You can also "save" your Master character if they get knocked down by pressing the Spell button while they're still in midair, set your Slave character to stay in one place and then switch to them when an enemy or boss is in the ideal position for a surprise beating, etc. The better you get at managing two magicians, the more complex and painful combos you pull off, the more Coupling Points you get, and 20 Points earns you the chance to fight the true final boss, which makes the rest of the game look like a cakewalk.
The three characters you can play as are fairly well-balanced, and also fairly true-to-form-
-Marisa is the zippiest of them, but she has fairly poor range attacks. Her signature card is, of course, Master Spark, which can be fired upward at a diagonal, from the ground, or downward at a diagonal, from the air, and covers the greatest amount of screen. She prefers to attack with her broom, but can also fire a thin laser that crosses the entire screen, throw an exploding potion that does excellent damage, and fly in an upward spiral, sending any enemies on the ground into the air, and easily hitting any airborne enemies.
-Alice is a good middle-ground, with decent ranged attacks. In true Alice fashion, she only attacks with her dolls (except for one special). Her spellcard has the poorest range and is probably the least useful (it doesn't work on bosses, the only place I actually care enough to use spells!); it involves a doll flying straight out a short distance to grab an enemy, lifting them up, electrocuting them, and driving them into the ground, also damaging any enemies unfortunate enough to be near the impact site. If her partner is in the middle of a combo, Alice's chained attack (the one you get by simply mashing the attack button) automatically targets whoever her partner is attacking after she lands the first hit. She can also set a doll in place as a trap, send one running across the ground to hit everything in its path, send a doll to grab the enemy and slam them into a wall/bring it directly to her (OH ABUSABLE!), or grab the enemy herself and nail a curse doll directly onto its body (which is, frankly, as fun to watch as it is to execute).
-Finally, Patchouli is the slowest, but probably has the most useful and varied attacks. They fly a decent range, and are varied enough that comboing off of her is really easy. Her spellcard is Silent Selene, which sends hundreds of water-bullets flying upwards and hit anything that move into their path. If it doesn't go off as planned, the spell can end early, so the player isn't left sitting there waiting for it to finish. Her downward slam has the most range of the three, and her specials are really nice- One is a beam of sunlight that goes from the top of the screen to the bottom, hitting everything in its path, another is a circle of stars that, when one has hit the enemy, the rest instantly lock on and attack that same enemy, and a bubble that can trap an enemy, keeping them out of your hair for a little bit. If you pop it, it does excellent damage, but it's basically useless for combos. If you leave it alone, and the bubble pops near another enemy, it'll damage both. Which is AWESOME.
The game follows five chapters with five stages each (plus one for the unlockable final boss). In the first through fourth stages, you fight various fairies and low-leveled youkai, and in the fifth, you fight a boss. The bosses are really where it's at; They throw spellcards at you while you try and find the best position to attack from, or the best opportunity to interrupt and unload a humongous combo on them, and some of their reactions to getting hit are decently funny. In one chapter, you face off against Kaguya and Mokou, except they're not fighting you, they're fighting each other, and you're just kind of in the middle of it- Which makes it particularly epic, so much so that the boss that comes after, while harder, is kinda disappointing in comparison. Both the Chapter 5 boss and the unlockable boss after it are particularly awesome, but for reasons I can't give away because of spoilers.
The music is really good, but can't seem to decide what genre it wants to fit into- Most of the stage themes and boss themes have an epic orchestral feel to them (e.g. Lord of the Rings), while others (the final boss' themes, character select, and stage clear, most notably) are hard rock, still others are extremely chill and pretty and relaxing (credits roll, title theme), and at least ONE has its own seperate, ethereal feel that seperates it from the rest of the OST entirely (I'm looking at you, Chapter 3!), but somehow, they all mesh together perfectly and it just kinda works.
So, given all this info, you may ask, "Okay- but is it good or not?" Well, yeah. I'm honestly impressed at the amount of polish Lion Heart has put into this. Mystical Chain is a shining example of how 2D gameplay from the days of old can still work, and work well. I'm a little disappointed that it doesn't have a 2-player mode ('cause that would be AWESOME), but honestly, it stands well enough on its own that it really doesn't need it. My only other complaint is that, since the game allows you to start from whichever stage you left off on, but doesn't save how many Coupling Points you had at that point, the two best options you have for getting the true final boss is to start from somewhere near the beginning and play it all the way through, or get really, really good at keeping up a combo- both of which are fairly time consuming processes. It's theoretically possible to start at Chapter 5 Stage 1 and have 20 coupling points by the time you reach the Chapter 5 boss, but most players aren't going to be that good and only the most hardcore of hardcore MC players are going to be able to pull it off. And for someone more casual like myself? Well...
Anyway, TL;DR, Mystical Chain gets a pass for the sheer amount of epic win it's packaged with, and the whole Lion Heart team get cookies for having been the ones to package it.
Now all I have to do is wait for the English patch to come out...
...All done? Good.
 |
| From left: Puppeteer, |
The three characters you can play as are fairly well-balanced, and also fairly true-to-form-
-Marisa is the zippiest of them, but she has fairly poor range attacks. Her signature card is, of course, Master Spark, which can be fired upward at a diagonal, from the ground, or downward at a diagonal, from the air, and covers the greatest amount of screen. She prefers to attack with her broom, but can also fire a thin laser that crosses the entire screen, throw an exploding potion that does excellent damage, and fly in an upward spiral, sending any enemies on the ground into the air, and easily hitting any airborne enemies.
-Alice is a good middle-ground, with decent ranged attacks. In true Alice fashion, she only attacks with her dolls (except for one special). Her spellcard has the poorest range and is probably the least useful (it doesn't work on bosses, the only place I actually care enough to use spells!); it involves a doll flying straight out a short distance to grab an enemy, lifting them up, electrocuting them, and driving them into the ground, also damaging any enemies unfortunate enough to be near the impact site. If her partner is in the middle of a combo, Alice's chained attack (the one you get by simply mashing the attack button) automatically targets whoever her partner is attacking after she lands the first hit. She can also set a doll in place as a trap, send one running across the ground to hit everything in its path, send a doll to grab the enemy and slam them into a wall/bring it directly to her (OH ABUSABLE!), or grab the enemy herself and nail a curse doll directly onto its body (which is, frankly, as fun to watch as it is to execute).
-Finally, Patchouli is the slowest, but probably has the most useful and varied attacks. They fly a decent range, and are varied enough that comboing off of her is really easy. Her spellcard is Silent Selene, which sends hundreds of water-bullets flying upwards and hit anything that move into their path. If it doesn't go off as planned, the spell can end early, so the player isn't left sitting there waiting for it to finish. Her downward slam has the most range of the three, and her specials are really nice- One is a beam of sunlight that goes from the top of the screen to the bottom, hitting everything in its path, another is a circle of stars that, when one has hit the enemy, the rest instantly lock on and attack that same enemy, and a bubble that can trap an enemy, keeping them out of your hair for a little bit. If you pop it, it does excellent damage, but it's basically useless for combos. If you leave it alone, and the bubble pops near another enemy, it'll damage both. Which is AWESOME.
The game follows five chapters with five stages each (plus one for the unlockable final boss). In the first through fourth stages, you fight various fairies and low-leveled youkai, and in the fifth, you fight a boss. The bosses are really where it's at; They throw spellcards at you while you try and find the best position to attack from, or the best opportunity to interrupt and unload a humongous combo on them, and some of their reactions to getting hit are decently funny. In one chapter, you face off against Kaguya and Mokou, except they're not fighting you, they're fighting each other, and you're just kind of in the middle of it- Which makes it particularly epic, so much so that the boss that comes after, while harder, is kinda disappointing in comparison. Both the Chapter 5 boss and the unlockable boss after it are particularly awesome, but for reasons I can't give away because of spoilers.
 |
| So instead, here's a picture of Alice, mid-Spellcard. |
So, given all this info, you may ask, "Okay- but is it good or not?" Well, yeah. I'm honestly impressed at the amount of polish Lion Heart has put into this. Mystical Chain is a shining example of how 2D gameplay from the days of old can still work, and work well. I'm a little disappointed that it doesn't have a 2-player mode ('cause that would be AWESOME), but honestly, it stands well enough on its own that it really doesn't need it. My only other complaint is that, since the game allows you to start from whichever stage you left off on, but doesn't save how many Coupling Points you had at that point, the two best options you have for getting the true final boss is to start from somewhere near the beginning and play it all the way through, or get really, really good at keeping up a combo- both of which are fairly time consuming processes. It's theoretically possible to start at Chapter 5 Stage 1 and have 20 coupling points by the time you reach the Chapter 5 boss, but most players aren't going to be that good and only the most hardcore of hardcore MC players are going to be able to pull it off. And for someone more casual like myself? Well...
Anyway, TL;DR, Mystical Chain gets a pass for the sheer amount of epic win it's packaged with, and the whole Lion Heart team get cookies for having been the ones to package it.
Now all I have to do is wait for the English patch to come out...
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