Touhou Labyrinth

Touhou Labyrinth (also called Labyrinth of Touhou) is a fan-made RPG starring the cast of Touhou Project. It draws heavily from dungeon crawler RPG titles such as Etrian Odyssey, with a heavy emphasis on exploring a huge dungeon filled with many complicated floors. Aside from its dungeon crawler roots, it also features numerous Shout Outs to not only the Touhou Project series, but also many other video games and anime.

The original game features 20 floors to explore and up to 32 characters to recruit. The Plus Disk expansion added another 10 bonus floors filled with even more challenging battles, as well as 8 additional characters. The Special Disk that was released later includes both the original content and the Plus Disk, and aside from a few gameplay tweaks, its most notable contributions are a new soundtrack and the option to use customized character portraits.

The game's story isn't particularly innovative or deep, but no one would expect it to be, given how often characters break the fourth wall. Still, there is a surprisingly large amount of depth to be found in the game; it's merely concentrated in its battle system. The game uses an action gauge similar to that of many earlier Final Fantasy games, with each character taking turns selecting abilities from a unique list of 2-5 spells. While individual characters may not possess many spells on their own, the player has access to up to 12 characters at a time, with 4 characters in the active party and 8 waiting in reserve to be swapped in at will. Making judicious switches while micromanaging each characters' active gauge is key to achieving victory against the game's many challenging boss fights.

For more information, check out the game's wiki page on the main Touhou wiki.

Tropes used in Touhou Labyrinth include:
  • Absurdly High Level Cap: You can beat the main game easily in the low 100's. The last boss of the Plus Disk will probably require a level of 500+. The actual level cap is far, far higher than that.
  • Actually Four Mooks: There are some enemies that have their sprites literally stacked on top of each other, preventing you from seeing just how many there are (although you can still target them). Beware when it looks likes there's only one foe present.
  • AI Roulette: Some bosses use this, but there are several that have defined patterns. Exploiting these patterns is a major part of the game's strategy.
  • Arbitrary Headcount Limit: It's bad enough that you can only take up to 12 characters into the labyrinth at a time, but the real question is: what are the 8 reserve members of your team doing slacking off back there?
    • Spending turns Focusing. Can't burn through all your SP constantly, after all...
  • Barrier Change Boss: The Serpent of Chaos changes its elemental resistances every turn.
    • Suwako changes from being immune to physical to immune to magic every so often.
  • Barrier Warrior: Reimu
  • BFG: Nitori's Megawatt Linear Gun. Notable for being significantly buffed in the Special Disk, almost to the point of being a Game Breaker.
  • Big Bad: Zigzagged. First, all signs point to Yukari being responsible for the Spacial Rift. Then the Eintei Trio seem to be at the heart. Then we're back to Yukari. Then its learned that Rinnosuke is the mastermind as part of his plan to remake Gensokyo. And then it turns out the true "villain" is actually Maribel.
  • Black Mage: Plenty of examples. Marisa and Patchouli are the first two to join your party.
  • Bonus Dungeon: Floors 21-30, in the Plus Disk. At this point there isn't even an Excuse Plot to explain why you're doing it.
  • Boring but Practical: Remilia, one of the first characters you get, only has two spellcards in the entire game, and neither are flashy. However, she's still all-around solid.
  • Boss Battle
    • Bonus Boss: The Bloodstained Seals, the Version 2 bosses, and pretty much everything in the Plus Disk.
    • Boss in Mook Clothing: Pretty much every enemy on the 20th and 30th floors. And then there's Nitori before that, although you get a proper boss fight later.
    • Boss Rush: Unlocked on the 20th floor. And there's a LOT of bosses.
    • Climax Boss: On the 16th and 18th floors.
    • Contractual Boss Immunity: Averted for much of the game. Many bosses are vulnerable to either paralysis or status debuffs, and almost none have resistance to poison. Several of the earliest bosses aren't even immune to instant death. Of course, you shouldn't have access to instant death spells at that point, but on a New Game+...
    • Degraded Boss: All the enemies on the 30th floor are nothing more than souped up party members that were previously fought as bosses.
    • Dual Boss: The Hibachi Twins. One is immune to physical attacks, the other to magical attacks.
    • Flunky Boss: The second fight against St. Elmo's Fire and Reisen.
    • Marathon Boss: Rinnosuke who has no less than 8 forms, most of which can heal if he switches before you kill them.
    • Recurring Boss Template: Alice and Maribel will have 3 summons that is a physical attacker, a magical attacker, and a supporter.
    • Sequential Boss: Orin
    • Turns Red: Very common among many later bosses. Most will gain extremely powerful, party-wiping attacks when low on health. Many boss parties will become a lot tougher if you defeat their teammate.
    • "Wake-Up Call" Boss: For most players, either Youmu or Alice.
  • The Cameo: In the Plus Disk, one of the bonus bosses is YHVH!
  • Character Portrait: Of varying qualities. The Special Disk allows you to use your own custom portraits.
  • Curb Stomp Battle: What will happen should you try to take on one of the Bloodstained Seal Bosses when you can first get to them. The Final Boss of the Plus Disc will do this should he feel like it.
  • Death Is a Slap on The Wrist: Invoked. Akyu tells Reimu and Marisa that they and their party can die over and over without penalty so long as they keep saving. This kinda disturbs them.
  • Death or Glory Attack: Flandre's Laveatein will probably result in a Game Over if it doesn't outright kill the enemy.
  • Defeat Means Playable: Lampshaded in one instance when it doesn't happen. Otherwise played straight to the point where, outside of your initial party, you can count the characters you recruit by simply talking to them once on one hand.
  • Drop in Nemesis: Triggering too many of a certain cutscene[1] will cause a boss battle against a boss that not only is a bit of a Puzzle Boss, but also has more life than the boss of the next floor.
  • Dump Stat: Due to the evasion mechanic of the game being bugged, it's pointless to raise your EVA stat. Most characters have another stat (usually STR or MAG) that they can safely ignore as well.
  • Dungeon Crawling
  • Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Fire/Ice. Nature/Wind. Spirit/Mystic. If it strong against one element, chances are it is weak against its opposite. Rinnosuke takes this Up to Eleven with his elemental forms.
  • Endgame Plus: Even without counting the Plus Disk, there's still the Bloodstained Seals and Version 2 bosses in the first 20 floors.
  • Endless Game: Each time you defeat the Final Boss of the Plus Disk, he'll just respawn with higher stats until the game engine can't handle it anymore.
  • Enemy-Detecting Radar: On the bottom-left corner of the screen. It goes up with each step.
  • Excuse Plot: Big portal shows up in Gensokyo. Let's go exploring!
  • Extended Gameplay: Possibly longer than the main game.
  • Fake Longevity: Some see the 30th floor as this.
  • Fetch Quest: Required to recruit Aya and Suika, although both will join without a fight afterwards.
  • Fragile Speedster: Chen takes this to the extreme. Can attack several times as often as most other characters, but has the durability of wet tissue paper.
  • Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: Quite a few boss fights have nothing to do with the plot.
  • Glass Cannon: Several characters to varying degrees, but the biggest examples are Flandre and Suwako.
    • And Chen, who combines this with Fragile Speedster (as noted above). Not only does she have paper-thin defense to begin with, but her primary self-buff spell lowers them as far as they can go, in exchange for maximizing her attack.
  • Gradual Grinder: Wriggle specializes in this, possessing the best poison spells in the game.
  • Gradual Regeneration: Characters in reserve will slowly recover HP and SP each turn.
  • Guide Dang It: A few scenes require certain characters to finish enough battles in your active party to trigger their flags. Of course, this number is hidden, and a few flags require characters you may not use often. For instance, the first such scene in the game requires Rumia to have 150 "battle points".
  • Harmless Freezing: Minoriko is found frozen in a block of ice by Cirno on floor 2. She has to be taken to a certain spot on floor 1 to be thawed out - Sakuya notes that if they just break the ice, it'll be like a horror movie.
  • Healing Spring: There are two on the 5th floor. One of them is actually a spring of sake.
  • It's All Upstairs From Here
  • Jack of All Stats: Keine, the definition of average.
  • Justified Save Point: Akyu records your adventures to save your game.
  • Late Character Syndrome: Some of the Plus Disk characters suffer from this, but that's what New Game+ is for.
  • Lazy Backup: Many of the characters you recruit will just be chilling back in Gensokyo, doing who-knows-what.
  • Leaked Experience: All characters not in your party will still receive 80% of any experience points earned. This includes characters that have yet to be recruited.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Rinnosuke, hampered mostly by late join time. Remilia is one that you get right from the start.
  • Locked Door: The infamous fail-safe locks of the 10-12th floor maze.
  • Mana Burn: The much-hated Djinn Storm, which drains all SP from all active AND reserve characters. There's also Destroy Magic, which only hits your active party but does damage, and a single-target version that also inflicts PAR.
  • Magikarp Power: Due to how stat growths work in this game, some characters start off weak but become far more effective in the late game. For example, Rumia's Demarcation barely heals any HP at first, but her MAG growth will eventually grow faster than your party's HP, thus turning her into a solid healer in the post-game. Reisen may seem mediocre when first recruited, but becomes a powerhouse later on when she has enough SP to keep herself fully buffed with Grand Patriot's Elixir.
  • Mighty Glacier: Yuugi and Youmu.
  • New Game+: Clearing the 30th floor lets you carry over characters, skill points, and equipment to a new game. As expected, the latter two would completely demolish the difficulty curve.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Most of the names of the enemies/Non-Touhou character bosses. There's a reason why the Final Boss of the Plus Disc is named **WINNER**
  • Non-Elemental: In the late Plus Disk, when you can outfit your whole team with strong elemental resisting gear, these become the most dangerous attacks in the game. Some of your own nonelemental attacks are quite powerful in their own respect.
  • Overly Long Name: The first Bloodstained Seal boss is named "Master Light Wings Close Range Support Cruel Battle Mecha E.V.D."
  • Palette Swap
  • Piñata Enemy: Liliths on the 27th floor.
  • Randomly Drops: To proceed beyond a certain point in the Plus Disk, you must first collect several random drops from the 20th floor. The drop rate is maddeningly low, although it was raised in the Special Disk.
  • Restart At Level One: True for all the bosses that you recruit. Thank goodness for Leaked Experience (you still have to spend the points on levels and distribute their level bonuses).
  • Sequence Breaking: Notable in that if you do a certain event out of order on the 1st floor, you can find a secret but otherwise unremarkable boss. The characters will snark to no end about why you shouldn't sequence break.
  • Shout-Out: Where to begin?
    • The fact there's so many, the translation patch for v3.01 comes with a rather large text file which does nothing BUT list the shout outs.
  • Squishy Wizard: Patchouli is this trope incarnate. Highest SP, Magic, and Mind growth, lowest HP, Speed, and Defense.
  • Standard Status Effects: Notable in that many bosses are not immune to one or more, making them quite effective in some situations.
  • Status Buff: Extremely effective in this game for both the player and for enemies, and should never be underestimated.
  • Status Buff Dispel: Tenshi's Sword of Rapture.
  • Stock Video Game Puzzle
  • Stone Wall: Tenshi is all about this trope. When set up properly, there are quite a few bosses that can't even scratch her.
  • Support Party Member: Several characters can arguably play this role, but by far the most dedicated one is Renko.
  • Title Drop: The name of the 20th floor.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Yuugi's Knockout in Three Steps, when used as an enemy. The v1 form does 6000 damage, when the tank, if using a team that can fight her ASAP, might have 1500 HP. Her v3 form is easily capable of 1 million damage.
    • The attack "Scourge" is pretty much always this. It does around 200,000 damage when used on the 20th floor by Diamond Knights and one of the final boss's summons, easily enough to kill anyone several times over at that point. When used by the first 30F boss, it can do around 2 million damage when your best tanks are probably only rocking a few hundred thousand HP.
  • The Wandering You
  • Unblockable Attack: Many of the most dangerous bosses possess attacks that ignore DEF or MND. A few of your characters also have these.
    • The most powerful one of these being Shikieiki's Last Judgement attack. It deals 666% of her attack stat to anything. No matter how high the DEF or MND of the target, they will take 666% of Shikieiki's attack in damage. On top of ignoring all defense stats, it's non-elemental so there is literally no way to reduce the damage short of debuffing her attack stat.
  • Useless Useful Spell: Chen's Soaring Guardian God might sound awesome with its +100% EVA. Too bad that EVA doesn't work at all.
  • We Cannot Go on Without You: Oddly enough, you get a Game Over so long as your active party is wiped out, even if you've still got 8 characters ready in your reserve party.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Rinnosuke
  • White Mage: Minoriko is the most dedicated at the role, but Reimu, Sanae, Eirin, and possibly even Rumia can also play the part.
    • This is part of the reason why Meiling's an effective tank - not only can she heal herself for a significant amount of her HP (if using an attack build), she can also heal others... not for much, mind, but she is the first character who can remove status effects - and that's the main reason Healer ever gets used.
  1. ↑ Namely, the one where Cirno freezes frogs
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