Violet Detector: The "Worst" One, Apparently.

[@Suwawako]

"You can't spell Violet Detector without volcanic disaster" - 🤓 This one was a pain in the ass to make, so I hope you enjoy. I restrained myself from including any 🪳 references this time around, so you're going to have a good day after watching. My next video will be the final one of 2023 -- get freaking ready, it's going to be a FULL ON CHRISTMAS SPECIAL!! 🍪 ⭐ Linkydinks: Twitter --> @Suwawako2 Insta --> @suwawako Kofi --> kofi.com/suwawako Discird --> uhh check description

[@kuadralinkzero5197]

I think the reason ZUN make self deadline when he create game maybe have something to do with Japanese work culture or maybe just because he have archivement to release game every year and doesn't like to delay That just what I think, I could be wrong tho

[@spaghettiking7312]

Men of culture love Sumireko.

[@Suwawako]

Yes :3

[@agent7103]

correct

[@Codename-JX]

:3

[@kazunoriN]

Indeed.

[@HirokaAkita]

And the whole SSC too. These two gurls are really underrated.

[@xyreous6146]

14:00 No sane person should have sticky keys on who doesnt need it, you can turn off that popup and prevent it from popping up again.

[@KStarPR]

Fr, most pc games use shift on keyboard. That stuff should be disabled at the earliest notice if you play pc games. I get judging it on the key never being used in Touhou games, but complaining about sticky keys is kinda the player's self-imposed problem.

[@ZPS_STG]

Fun Fact: VD was announced when I was playing Roblox with some of my friends, it became an inside joke in our circle that we placed a curse on the game because of this. Anyway, when I played it on release, I thought it was fine, until I got to Nightmare Week which just felt lazy and miserable to get through. And it's also most of the game's playtime. Once you're past the first 2 scenes of a Nightmare Week day you've already seen every pattern, but you still have to do 6 more that are just different combinations of the same patterns. There's also a common strategy where people mash shift to essentially move at a speed in between focused and unfocused, which completely interferes with the teleport system, so that's why that's so hated. On top of all the other issues it has, it just completely breaks a common strategy just by being bound to Shift.

[@Suwawako]

🦭

[@JonathanKanelis]

You know you can deactivate sticky keys… Right?

[@AltraHapi]

I'm surprised more people don't know this...

[@Takane_Yamashiro]

I wouldn't say Black Market is bad at all. It doesn't feel traditionally touhou, but it's a very fun roguelike where you can have fun with the cards. Unlike Violet detector it succeeded in doing exactly what it set out to do. Its really just a matter of if its what people actually want to play. Honestly, i feel like most of the complaints for it were coming from people who tried playing the thing unpatched totally clueless. But after the community learned more about it and could most importantly read everything, people who enjoyed roguelike gameplay started to like it a lot. The main problem with it is that by becoming a roguelike, it made skill secondary to luck. Which while very much a roguelike thing, it feels very un Touhou like

[@akiradkcn]

Market is good

[@BuwakoBuwako]

of course black market isnt traditionally touhou, its a spin off

[@Shyguymask]

No, Black Market is just bad. Few & repetitive stage sections that get same-y after 15 minutes, said sections also being just lazy RNG vomit, cards having no sort of balance where they are often marginal OR (if not literal) win buttons, the boss position indicator not even being aligned properly, some blatantly unfair spellcards like Chimata spawning bullets on top of you, dreadful visibility and finally, the game as a whole re-using assets from previous games more than ever with little new/original things to find, even for Touhou standards. Compare this game to a *free flash game* from over a decade ago (Bullet Heaven) which has a bigger & better emphasis on upgrades, actual & designed stage sections, a lot more shottypes, a bigger & fully original soundtrack, actual visibility and more.

[@angrysunflower222]

There was this one thumbnail with the human > ape devolution. BPoHC (Len'en 4) was on the human while HBM was on the ape

[@BidiguiloChefao]

@@angrysunflower222 nobody cares

[@dagazwithloweffort9356]

Sumireko really has her whole existence built on a dream lmao

[@gnixreal]

i never managed to use the teleportation properly on that game and decided to not play after marisa

[@niggyshiggy]

lmao, same, I played it when there wasn't a translation of the game yet and thought you had to run towards the lasers and snap a picture to erase them at the most precise moment to pass through them. only ever got marisa's health down to half on each attempt

[@jackling3138]

I am probably never going to touch Violet Detector, but I did play 100th black market and enjoyed it for what it was. VD looks like it had potential and it’s nice to see some understanding for ZUN. Also I love the cow woman how dare.

[@alejandrotti10]

As a game in itself, it is flawed an maybe even overcomplicated. As a piece of lore, not only do we get how much of a pain has to endure Sumireko just for losing the notion between dream and reality, but also opens up a lot of mysteries to think about: -Considering that Dream Sumireko is the protagonist, and (confirmed by Curiosities of Lotus Asia) the actual Real Sumireko was in the Outside World uncapable to dream, what was exactly doing Doppelganger Sumireko aka the Sumireko from Gensokyo before the last showdown? -Considering how Doremy handled things in Antinomy of Common Flowers and how this incident started, how was she absolutely sure of the true nature of Dream Sumireko? Was she even that sure by then? --Let's remember that from Doremy's POV the lunarians were way stronger, even for a yokai, but she still released the most controlled versions of them, not only to respect danmaku or general 1v1s (by then Mai and Satono were most likely sent by Okina), but because like in AoCF, there are some who are kinda messed up, like Dream Tenshi, and may not even respect danmaku rules, like Dream Marisa in this game who shot undodgeable lasers on the TP tutorial. With that in mind, how much of the difficulty spike was planned to come? -Adding to the previous mystery, were all the final bosses trying to kill Sumireko? -How must've both Sumirekos felt during the Nightmare Week, where TP was kind of mandatory and they needed to capitalize on it, even if it just on its few usages could gave'em chills? -Talking about dream dwellers, why didn't Yukari help Sumireko and instead simply confronted her, even if by a dream dweller? If someone should know what's happening with Sumireko, it is her -Koishi doesn't dream. This was confirmed by Doremy in AoCF. It is supposed to be cuz' of her closed eye incident. So why does she have a dream dweller? What kind of circumstance should let her have one on the first place? And even if she has one, how would she act like, and what kind of dream could she live? -What did Real Sumireko do in response to the lack of dreams during three whole weeks, and how must she've felt?

[@lpfan4491]

Sumireko probably said "this sux" and moved on. Is it a big deal in the Touhou world to not have dreams? Because there is infact a small percentage of people in reality who semi-regularly have dreamless nights and inversely can remember dreams they have perfectly, it really does not impact one's quality of life much.(I know because I was one of them at some point. As I got closer to adulthood tho, I joined the majority in being a "normal dreamer" who almost always dreams and forgets most of the details quickly.)

[@alejandrotti10]

@@lpfan4491 It is a big deal for Sumireko in particular (and maybe Yukari for similar reasons), as dreams are, aside from a miracle, the only way she can enter Gensokyo now that she doesn't have the Occult Balls, which matters because it is in this world that Sumireko actually wants to develop friends, as she founded the Secret Sealing Club before to stop other to befriend her. It's here where she actually wants to enable connections and brag about the marvels of her world, while in the Outside World she can have a topic to reveal to some interested followers (which is why the whole photography stuff, even if it is from the Dream self). And that's pretty important because it comes to a point when, even considering that she got trapped in the Dream World before as victim of a Perfect Possession glitch, she couldn't discern between dream and reality. She canonically spent so much time preferring to sleep that it actively perjudicated her school grades pretty badly. All of this is why her Violet Detector incident started, and considering how the "doppelganger rivalry" works and how it is her own Urban Legend, it pretty much risked her life as a Gensokyo inhabitant, and a Real World self. Worst part being, this is not the first time we've seen Sumireko pointlessly risking her own life for her own stubborness. With that said, and seeing how much Sumireko actually did to spend more time in Gensokyo and have a more interesting life than the one on her world, there's no way she could move on that easily.

[@noahfollowerofrosemi-sama1603]

The thing I remember most about playing this game is the save data corruption I ran into close to the 9 hour mark. Basically I was just fooling around since the 10 hour achievement and the final teleport achievement was all I had left. So I was on the Mokou + Junko spell card just getting teleports out and I was taking pictures everytime it was up (without damaging the bosses) until I timed out, a few minutes later, the game crashes and when I tried to open it back up, it crashes immediately, I tried changing settings in the config.exe and I was finally able to reopen the game only to see my save data gone. If anyone is curious, I did go back and replay the entire game until 100% completion, though that was after playing Touhou 19 since the save data corruption happened the day before Touhou 19's release. It was an interesting idea for a game, just needed more time in the oven.

[@-x_i_x-3506]

As a Touhou fan, I only know Violet Detector for the funny Silvagunner Fnaf song (I'm still new to most of the newer games)

[@toasterwaffleowen4709]

I'm not gonna lie, I'm lowkey kinda biased in my defense of VD purely because Sumireko is my favourite Touhou character so I can't bring myself to dislike her solo game 💀 That being said, PoDD is hands down the ACTUAL worst Touhou game

[@Dukstless]

imagine saying that when soew -and udoalg- exists

[@toasterwaffleowen4709]

​@@DukstlessSoEW would be my second worst

[@lpfan4491]

All the PoDD fans:"We'll kill you."

[@notlol1]

At least PoDD isn't boring and lazy.

[@toasterwaffleowen4709]

​@@notlol1It's both of those things 💀

[@rurihime4965]

"You can't rush art" Ironic since Toy Story 2 was rushed

[@Suwawako]

The difference is Toy Story 2 is goated while Violet Detector is sad 😢

[@marisakirisame867]

fun fact : VD is the 5th touhou game to be translated to malay by me (and my language expert friend)

[@BinglesP]

Very nice work, I hope many fans get good use out of those translations! /g

[@ougi_rk]

Yo WHAT, this script is SO GOOD, I love the introduction!! ❤‍🔥❤‍🔥 Instead of just describing the plot of the game you are actually giving good storytelling! I love this style of making videos, keep going!

[@SomeGuyParadise]

Quality video! I enjoyed Violet Detector a decent amount but I definitely felt it was the weakest of the photo games by a good margin. I feel the fact it featured the most scenes in a photo game could have contributed to nearly every attack being lackluster or recycled (StB and DS had around 70 or 80 iirc while VD had more than 100). I was surprised to see my silly VD mod, Violaceous Dream Retrogenesis, mentioned near the end alongside Comatose Chaos! It's pretty cool to see any touhou mod be mentioned in a video, but I'd never thought to see a mod in a video like this; it almost felt like a dream.

[@Merciless_Marbles]

I really like Sumireko but i really think that VD could be better if ZUN would want to work on the game better. However, it's much better if fans would be patient while waiting for the release of a new game.

[@stick_mster12]

This game ended my entire bloodline☹

[@blazythecatgirl2513]

Idk why but i just liked VD enough at one point that i couldn't stop until i cleared all scenes without knowing about any glitches lol (even tho yeah teleportation isn't good) yet i still found it fun most of the time)

[@Shyguymask]

100th Black Market is the worst one and is just an outright bad game by itself in general. You can hardly argue any positives for it when free flash games from over a decade ago like Bullet Heaven clear it in at least several aspects.

[@CringeRat]

PSA: you can disable sticky keys notifications 🙃

[@kevinreynolds7500]

I started with HSiFS. Mai and Satono were not outliers to me as I had little to compare. Frustrating as hell fight, but once I got it consistently was rewarding. The duel bosses in VD felt like expansions of the idea. The repetition was a bit much, certainly felt less enthusiastic than original cards. Have much fewer complaints about it than more veteran fans, although the teleportation was a huge issue.

[@kapifromnevada4697]

Zun caught on 4k 😱 17:11

[@CelestialReturner]

Now imagine Suwawako covering the WORST Touhou Print Work... ...When it's finished within a few years that is!

[@lpfan4491]

Assuming you are speaking about what I think you do, it is still amazing how Mokou appearently canonically became a Youkai somewhen before summer of 2019(Offscreen, no context) and everyone does their best to just pretend it didn't happen. Even the Wiki prefers to consider it as a plothole rather than admit it is canon lore as of now, it's that unpopular.

[@edwinandino8756]

What?

[@jotogoat]

@@lpfan4491 guh???

[@lpfan4491]

@@jotogoat Yes, that actually happened.

[@jotogoat]

@@lpfan4491which print work?

[@HirokaAkita]

ITS SUMIREKO, NOT SUMIRENKO!!! AAAAAAAAAAAA (I just hope i misheard xD) (Also, i just love how the whole Urban Legend incident background story is completely omitted xDDDD)

[@lpfan4491]

Yukari when people call Sumireko as Sumirenko(The descendant being more popular despite never having been in a game): 🤣

[@BinglesP]

I mean, this is the same guy who refuses to pronounce ZUN as "Zoon" like it's supposed to for some reason

[@Nahmona_Hooves]

MrS Suwawako, what's your favorite Touhou game?

[@BinglesP]

He's said before that it's Phantasmagoria of Flower View, in other videos.

[@silvr42069]

Thank god 19 came along to steal the title of worst touhou game

[@kirimusse]

13:15 How ironic that I, a self-proclaimed fan of VD, was featured as an example of someone who was "frustrated" with the difficulty of the game… But yeah, to be fair, VD is the worst of the 3 (4?) photo games; still, I think it's a fun game nonetheless (yes, even gameplay-wise).

[@kirimusse]

And it should be noted that with that comment, I was criticizing the constant recycling of bullet patterns in the Nightmare week, not their difficulty (if anything, VD is one of the easiest games in the series). …Still wondering how I've managed to beat so many Touhou games with the crappy D-pad on that gamepad of mine.

[@user-AADZ]

I STILL SEE YOUR SHADOWS IN MY ROOM 🗣️🔥🔥🔥

[@Fishnberg]

Well, fortunatly I'm glad I played it on a Macbook Windows emulator that felt different

[@YakuTa-dn3gr]

Played a bit of Violet Detector (my first official touhou game) and I found it good, but...I've only just started.

[@kuadralinkzero5197]

I just turned off that sticky keys notification because it's annoying everytime I play Touhou

[@kag2576]

Idk if this is a hot take but I love most of the duo fights in the series, especially Seiga. Having to balance aiming your shots with dodging both danmaku and ensuring Yoshika doesn't get in our way or using her as an opportunity to damage Seiga presents a unique challenge. I bring this up because I believe it reflects, what I think, hinder the nightmare stages: boss attacks in duo fights aren't made to work together. They're standardised attacks plastered together that end up feeling rather unfair and not massively creative. Overall I think VD is okay, but that's because I'm nit too big a fan if the photo games in the first place, they're probably my least favourite of the spinoff games. I also find 100th black market is the worse game overall imo since I find quite boring to play and feel it doesn't do the card mechanics as well as the mainline game that introduced them.

[@Animarux_]

For me a based lunatic player the worst is: try to lunatic clear IAMP, like you can only do it with patchouli but the rest of the cast will make you rage quit, there is also hisoutensoku lunatic Cirno when you fight Okuu... i still dont wanna replay Violet Detector

[@sweetiepie7290]

VD was fine, it's just I didn't like using the teleportation mechanic.

[@wildpaper4388]

Amazing analysis and video!

[@Catwatermelon2211]

I feel like at this point suwawako has a strong hearted toward suika lol.

[@kurukuroni3486]

Me whose favorite Touhou spinoff game is Violet Detector: "Interesting..." (Also, TIL about the infinite respawn glitch. Would've made 100%-ing the game so much easier... Live and learn, I guess. 😅)

[@Akira_Nyan]

However TH16.5 is one of my favourites... I love the OST and I really like sumireko

[@MsZsc]

noooo

[@studiolunarprod]

So this was Sonic Colors Ultimate... ... before Sonic Colors Ultimate... 💀

[@FROZENbender]

VD might be a meme but it has some WICKED tunes

[@mavi3348]

Can't we all agree that highly responsive to prayers is the worst.

[@EEErmine]

Soew exists tho,,,

[@Personal.Digital.Assistant]

Why though? It's my top 3 favorite under LoLK

[@blazi2293]

Nah the Sariel fight is peak

[@KirbyComment]

I don't think the absence of score entries has anything to do with the game being hard. I think it just has to do with the game coming out in an era where scene game scoring has lost it's novelty, only one photo counting for your final score not being appealing and the game just succs dicc. At least 100th Black Market tried to do something different, even if it failed at being different. Violet Detector was the third photogame when the first two games were already splendid games and I think there wasn't a good excuse for it being the way it was. I remember making a review of it on Moriya Shrine when the game just came out (review was deleted but someone copypasted it in Shmups Forum if you want to see it) and saying that the game felt like a joke.

[@Nusoipoopie]

Good game, never had these glitches. Don't justify him for failing to create muh heckin wholesome videogamus, he's not a deity that shouldn't be criticized. He failed, period.

[@thetouhoubaka]

damn i never kenw about the glitches and i played the game a bunch

[@Totallynotkyubey]

Sumireko, not SumireNko. She shares only the family name with Renko.

[@Mellivorae]

I still think the OST for VD is very underrated.. About the game, i don't know i still didn't play it but yeah, i'll try to just as i comment this

[@quarium5681]

More than half of the OST is reused tracks from ZUN's standalone albums so uhhhh...

[@AltraHapi]

The VD menu song is extremely underrated imo

[@JosephHk743]

For what it’s worth, I don’t think VD was the worst game. I felt like it just needed more refinements, even if it means potentially a release delay due to gameplay awkwardness. That’s what I like to think in some perfect reality where VD doesn’t get as much hate. I still like VD and it was an interesting game to look back and analyze. Nice bringing in the fan games too because those are pretty great. This was some good quality analysis!

[@Mizuryryn]

SuMIDreko

[@benb.1273]

I'm gonna have to ask for the context behind the picture at 17:10

[@aluigiFromKart]

part of me wants to say that the game would be called the best if it was called violent detector because wouldn't that be so funny

[@mavi3348]

14:20 Err... Wat?? You play with WASD and ShiftZX? You know you got a whole other hand bro.

[@Suwawako]

I just naturally do that with my hand i play with arrows and the default keys. Still painful as hell tho for VD!

[@sumirekofan]

Violet detector is the best Touhou game

[@ilovemywhiteshoes]

wait what

[@GrayvyFellow]

I think it’s a little neglectful to mention how the games background story is practically a repeat of 15.5s campaign for Sumireko although with a 3rd Sumireko being omitted. The doppelganger is also a side effect of an ability Sumireko developed in that game also which it’s effectively her occult move. Even if the story is a retread, I at least think Sumi is enjoyable in terms of her comments and hashtags she uses to describe the patterns after beating them. Truly this could have been an excellent game is way more thought went into it. I don’t know if I exactly agree with some of your takeaways but I can get down at the very least with how it has been a game that inspired others at the very least.

[@thegameglitcher2439]

I wouldn’t say the story is a retread. Why do you think that?

[@akiradkcn]

Lmao, from where is is that pic of him reading that satori dojin pic (is that actually him?)

[@d_meta5755]

somewhat better than th185 i'd say

[@Edknowsnothing]

Lol here before the discord announcement, anyways Sumireko best girl and president 👍

[@Suwawako]

True fan ^^^^^^^^

[@katach3142]

y u no liek urumi?!?!?!?1?!?1?! (Jokes aside, why? I'm hardly her biggest fan, but she doesn't seem that bad...) Why exactly didn't you like HBM all that much? I had a blast collecting cards and seeing all those old bosses turn up (even though the midgame grind was awful and the difficulty required some cheese to overcome)

[@msyon.]

The game

[@sucksatciv5780]

sue war cho

[@Churix0]

?

[@longtran5118]

AYOOO WHAT ZUN READING 😂

[@billtrent6520]

Hopefully when i get home I will wach it.

[@mata7769]

Nice video !

[@ougi_rk]

🥸

[@somesadnormie5881]

This game is literally just an official version of Diamond in the Rough.

[@quarium5681]

This is a messed up reference lmao

[@Hg-201]

ZUN took the best touhou game (Shoot The Bullet) and replaced the best girl with the worst girl. No wonder it didn't go so well.

[@LushieTilde]

Well it was the worst one, I honestly think 18.5 is worse now. Also VD is actually not hard at all. It's WAY easier than the previous 3 scene games. Even the 2-3 challenging scenes that are in VD are a piece of cake compared to the harder scenes in other scene games. People don't care about it cause it's a bad game.

[@arrashishiv1591]

VD always felt like game that didn't need to exist. Almost as if ZUN really just wanted game, any game, for Sumireko to appear in and went for an easiest option. Overally even if some people may think its not the worst, its certainly most skippable official touhou game.

[@Yellowpikachu1]

First.exe Now everyone slaughter me

[@TheLittleTanuki]

👋

[@akiradkcn]

Sumireko.exe

[@abd-animation-22]

Ai art be like Ha ha ha

[@angrysunflower222]

Tofu 16.6.666 // Beepboop Sea Lion Club // _Purple Burglar Alarm_