Immaterial and Missing Power
Encyclopedia
, commonly abbreviated as IaMP in English speaking circles, is a versus fighting game collaboratively developed by Twilight Frontier
and Team Shanghai Alice
released in 2004. It is numbered as the 7.5th installment in the Touhou Project
because the events in the game take place place between Perfect Cherry Blossom
(7th) and Imperishable Night
(8th), although it was released after Imperishable Night.
roots.
In the story mode, there are spell cards that are available only to the enemy characters. A spell card can be "collected" when the player defeats the enemy character in a limited amount of time when the enemy's spell card is in effect, and that collected spell card would appear in a gallery in true Touhou fashion.
Spring has passed by the land of Gensokyo, a reclusive realm in the far east, and the cherry trees have since shed their blossoms. However, the hanami
kept on going, with feasts being hosted day after day with no end in sight. Adding onto that, every time the feast is held, an unknown restless spiritual aura in Gensokyo also increases; however, nothing happens even while the spiritual aura rises, but when the spiritual aura rises, not a single person attempts to stop the feasts. As such, everyone who goes to the feast, be it human or yōkai
, appear to be very suspicious.
Three days before the next feast, the heroines set out, each on their own, and attempt to investigate.
"I'll get to the bottom of this before the next feast!"
, announced they would make a Touhou fighting game named Exciting Touhou 2. In its introduction page http://www.tasofro.net/e_touhou/(now defunct), the group provided a trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNkAWD50_1I and screenshots of that game, which appeared to be a version of WWE SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain
with Touhou characters. (The WWE Smackdown! series
is named Exciting Pro Wrestling in Japan.)
A day after the April Fool's Day, Twilight Frontier announced the production of IaMP with Team Shanghai Alice. Team Shanghai Alice was responsible for character design, the plot, stage design, system graphics, spellcard naming, and a portion of the soundtrack while Twilight Frontier took care of the rest.
The soundtrack of the game was compiled into an album named Gensōkyoku Bassui (幻想曲抜萃) which was sold on August 14, 2005. A significant portion of the soundtrack were remix
es of existing Touhou songs.
Twilight Frontier
Twilight Frontier is a Japanese doujin game developer. They are noted for making high quality derivative works of other games.-Productions:...
and Team Shanghai Alice
Team Shanghai Alice
is a one-man Japanese dojin game developer specializing in shoot 'em ups. The team's only releases thus far have been the Touhou Project games and related merchandise.-Games:*The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil...
released in 2004. It is numbered as the 7.5th installment in the Touhou Project
Touhou Project
The , also known as Toho Project or Project Shrine Maiden, is a Japanese dōjin game series focused on bullet hell shooters made by the one-man developer Team Shanghai Alice, whose sole member, known as ZUN, is responsible for all the graphics, music, and programming for the most part...
because the events in the game take place place between Perfect Cherry Blossom
Perfect Cherry Blossom
is a vertical-scrolling manic shooter made by Team Shanghai Alice, and is the seventh official game of the Touhou Project. The full game was first released on August 17, 2003, in the 64th Comiket in Japan.- Gameplay :...
(7th) and Imperishable Night
Imperishable Night
is the eighth official game of the Touhou Project scrolling shooter series by Team Shanghai Alice. It is the third Touhou game to be released specifically for the Windows operating system...
(8th), although it was released after Imperishable Night.
Gameplay
IaMP is unique within the Touhou Project series in that it is a fighting game instead of the usual bullet hell. The game is also unique among fighting games for its heavy slant towards projectiles, tracing the series' shoot 'em upShoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up is a subgenre of shooter video games. In a shoot 'em up, the player controls a lone character, often in a spacecraft or aircraft, shooting large numbers of enemies while dodging their attacks. The genre in turn encompasses various types or subgenres and critics differ on exactly what...
roots.
Grazing
IaMP has a "graze" function, unique among the versus fighting genre, that allows the player to dash through projectiles unharmed provided the character has enough energy to do so. Not all projectiles can be grazed, however.Spell cards
Spell cards, in this game, are special moves that have to be announced before they can be used. Each character can choose 1 out of 3 normal spell cards and 1 out of 3 overdrive spell cards to use before a match starts. The overdrive spell card replaces the normal spell card when the player's character has been defeated once. Also, when a spell card is announced, the player's HP replenishes for a certain amount.In the story mode, there are spell cards that are available only to the enemy characters. A spell card can be "collected" when the player defeats the enemy character in a limited amount of time when the enemy's spell card is in effect, and that collected spell card would appear in a gallery in true Touhou fashion.
Plot
Hanami
is the Japanese traditional custom of enjoying the beauty of flowers, "flower" in this case almost always meaning cherry blossoms or ume blossoms. From the end of March to early May, sakura bloom all over Japan, and around the first of February on the island of Okinawa...
kept on going, with feasts being hosted day after day with no end in sight. Adding onto that, every time the feast is held, an unknown restless spiritual aura in Gensokyo also increases; however, nothing happens even while the spiritual aura rises, but when the spiritual aura rises, not a single person attempts to stop the feasts. As such, everyone who goes to the feast, be it human or yōkai
Yōkai
are a class of supernatural monsters in Japanese folklore. The word yōkai is made up of the kanji for "otherworldly" and "weird". Yōkai range eclectically from the malevolent to the mischievous, or occasionally bring good fortune to those who encounter them...
, appear to be very suspicious.
Three days before the next feast, the heroines set out, each on their own, and attempt to investigate.
"I'll get to the bottom of this before the next feast!"
Characters
Eleven characters are available for play; all but one are returning characters from previous games.- Reimu Hakurei
- The mikoMikois a Japanese term that anciently meant a "female shaman, spirit medium" who conveyed oracles from kami , and currently means a "shrine maiden; virgin consecrated to a deity" who serves at Shinto shrines.-Word:...
of the Hakurei Shrine. She is troubled by the constant feasts in the shrine that she has to host, and goes to attack whoever she thinks is making her host all the feast.
- Marisa Kirisame
- A magician. She acts as the secretary in charge of the feasts, though she has no idea why Gensokyo's having so many feasts.
- Sakuya Izayoi
- The maidMaidA maidservant or in current usage housemaid or maid is a female employed in domestic service.-Description:Once part of an elaborate hierarchy in great houses, today a single maid may be the only domestic worker that upper and even middle-income households can afford, as was historically the case...
of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Sensing a mysterious qiQiIn traditional Chinese culture, qì is an active principle forming part of any living thing. Qi is frequently translated as life energy, lifeforce, or energy flow. Qi is the central underlying principle in traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts...
in the feasts, she sets out to investigate.
- Alice Margatroid
- Another magician whose speciality is puppetPuppetA puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....
s. This is her first try at exorcismExorcismExorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...
.
- Patchouli Knowledge
- A witch who does not usually go out of her library. This time, however, she took responsibility in investigating the mist that has been blanketing Gensokyo.
- Youmu Konpaku
- A half-ghostGhostIn traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
. Like Reimu, she goes slashing the suspects with her sword.
- Remilia Scarlet
- A vampireVampireVampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
who is thought to be one of the prime suspects in creating the strange mist, because she did it once before in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.
- Yuyuko Saigyouji
- The ghost princess of the netherworld. She is another one of the prime suspects.
- Yukari Yakumo
- A wandering yōkaiYōkaiare a class of supernatural monsters in Japanese folklore. The word yōkai is made up of the kanji for "otherworldly" and "weird". Yōkai range eclectically from the malevolent to the mischievous, or occasionally bring good fortune to those who encounter them...
who was never invited to the feasts but comes anyway.
- Suika Ibuki
- An Oni. Her powers allow her to collect the inhabitants of Gensokyo to hold feasts day after day, and scatter herself to become mist that covers all of Gensokyo.
- Hong Meirin
- A ChineseChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
-like yōkai that was included in one of the new patches of the game. She has no story mode.
Production
On April 1 2004, Twilight Frontier, famed makers of Eternal Fighter ZeroEternal Fighter Zero
Eternal Fighter Zero is a dōjin fighting games for Microsoft Windows produced by Twilight Frontier, including characters from the visual novels Moon., One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e, Kanon, and Air...
, announced they would make a Touhou fighting game named Exciting Touhou 2. In its introduction page http://www.tasofro.net/e_touhou/(now defunct), the group provided a trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNkAWD50_1I and screenshots of that game, which appeared to be a version of WWE SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain
WWE SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain
WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain is a video game released on the PlayStation 2 console by THQ on October 27, 2003. It is a sequel to WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth and is part of the WWE SmackDown! WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain (Known as Exciting Pro Wrestling 5 in Japan) is a video game...
with Touhou characters. (The WWE Smackdown! series
WWE SmackDown! (video game series)
WWE is a series of professional wrestling video games developed by Yuke's and published by THQ...
is named Exciting Pro Wrestling in Japan.)
A day after the April Fool's Day, Twilight Frontier announced the production of IaMP with Team Shanghai Alice. Team Shanghai Alice was responsible for character design, the plot, stage design, system graphics, spellcard naming, and a portion of the soundtrack while Twilight Frontier took care of the rest.
The soundtrack of the game was compiled into an album named Gensōkyoku Bassui (幻想曲抜萃) which was sold on August 14, 2005. A significant portion of the soundtrack were remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
es of existing Touhou songs.