[JP News] 7/29 Stream Recap!

SPOILER WARNING! This post will be going over three things announced during the 7/29 livestream: a brand new Story Chapter, Reincarnation news, and a new challenge mode based on Chapter 3. As the former was all shown as marketing materials, they will be shown first as they are ‘softer’ spoilers - another spoiler warning will be given before this post switches over to news that includes Chapter 3 spoilers.

There was also some news on merchandise and a new music video, shown off at the bottom as it features spoilers for Chapter 3 Act 1

So it turns out that the “???” was Hifuu all along! It seems in a new story chapter, we’ll be following along with them and what appear to be some of Gensokyo’s residents all decked out in futuristic tech gear. Some extremely futuristic scenes were teased, but the stream was light on the details - what on earth could’ve happened…?

For those of you who don’t know, the Hifuu Club, better known as the Secret Sealing Club in the west, is a group made up of college students Renko Usami and Maribel Hearn. It’s the primary focus of many of Touhou’s Music CDs, involving a futuristic Japan in which the world is pretty much the same but worse (so, pretty bad!), and most of the alcohol's fake. The horror.

Renko Usami is a physics major who can tell exactly what the time and current place of any scene is simply by looking at the stars - kind of like a living GPS. Maribel Hearn is a psychology major who can see the boundaries in the world - the same boundaries that Yukari Yakumo manipulates. Together, they investigate Gensokyo and other paranormal activities. 

Currently, there are no plans to make either playable in LostWord, so it seems they’re primarily here for story purposes.

Six new playable characters were announced, alongside Renko and Maribel: versions of Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, Youmu Konpaku, Sakuya Izayoi, Reisen Udongein Inaba, and Sanae Kochiya equipped with futuristic gear. They were all confirmed to be Ultra Festival, with the first two (Sakuya and Sanae) arriving in the JP version on July 30th and August 6th. Check out their intro videos down below!

Some additional news on Reincarnation (a sort of way to upgrade already maxed out units) was revealed on the stream. Firstly, Sakuya and Reisen’s costumes were shown off. Secondly, Nitori Kawashiro and Hong Meiling were confirmed to be the next units to be receiving a Reincarnation.

Spoiler warning. The following section includes spoilers about Chapter 3 Act 1. Read on at your own risk.

Lastly, the Hakugyokurou Arena was confirmed to be added to the JP version in the next update. It’s a daily mode in which you must fight 4 waves of enemies in a single go, with a daily “special rule” - an example provided was that buffs were only a third as effective. There are four difficulty modes: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Lunatic. If you do a harder difficulty mode (for example, Lunatic), you’ll get all the rewards of the difficulties below it. Each day, the rewards reset, and a new fight is offered.

The rewards shown were a special sort of incense wood which raises your units stats even further.