Awesome / Gensou Shoujo Taisen

• Kou: Chapter 4 in Marisa's Scenario can count, not only for Marisa, but for Rinnosuke as well. When Elly traps the team, picking them off while they're defenseless, Rinnosuke risked his own hide to give Marisa her newly upgraded Mini-Hakkero, allowing her to use the Master Spark. He gets easily shot down but manages to give the item to her in time to finish off Elly. Sure he got his ass kicked but it still shows bravery for running in the middle of a battle even though he couldn't defend himself.
  • Rinnosuke further distinguishes himself as, mechanically speaking, being the best captain of the Palanquin Ship in later games, since Murasa's stats are melee-focused and completely out of line with the ship's usage of ranged stats (not helped by the fact that having Murasa take the wheel actually increases the Ship's cost). He may not be able to take the field personally (even if having the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi would make him rather formidable), but he's still a valuable unit.
• Chapter 10 in Kou. Yuuka stops by to watch the team fight the Scarlet Devil Mansion crew, and also check on her servants Elly and Kurumi. Marisa, Alice, and Reimu all remember her instantly, and while Marisa is defiant, Reimu is understandably leery of the second most powerful being she fought as a child. But the real zinger is what happens if Yuuka notices Marisa attacking her with Master Spark, a spell of her creation, and one she never named herself. Amused but unimpressed, Yuuka casually blocks the giant laser with her parasol, then folds it shut and returns fire with the original Master Spark, a blow guaranteed to either put Marisa in the dirt or leave her hanging on by a thread. She will then start using Master Spark as a regular attack, and occasionally firing the MAP version from Chapter 75, making her even more of a monster to fight. That said, if you manage to knock down the Flower Master of Four Seasons, she'll drop her Sunflower item and reward her opponent with a massive amount of experience points, almost certainly worth multiple levels.
  Yuuka: "Master Spark" ... So that's the name you gave it. You can have it back.
• Chapter 13 of Kou for Reimu. Back in Chapter 7, Sanae attacked Reimu, and due to exhaustion from the previous battle with Cirno, Fantasy Seal misses and Reimu gets hit with Grey Thaumathurgy. However, Momiji interferes before any further action can be taken. Here, Sanae has returned and plans to turn the Hakurei Shrine into a branch of the Moriya Shrine. However, the tables have turned because Sanae is low on faith. The battle ends as a complete reverse of the first battle with Sanae missing and Reimu scoring a direct hit with Fantasy Seal, and is oh so very cathartic. This also doubles as Fridge Brilliance: Due to its ridiculous accuracy modifier on top of Reimu's naturally great accuracy, a miracle would be needed for Fantasy Seal to miss- implying that in order to avoid Fantasy Seal, Sanae had to use up most of her faith.
• Chapter 29M from You sees Marisa, having accidentally trespassed into Old Hell, running away from Satori, with the rest of the team cut off from her by a group of spirits. Satori, in a rare showing of her race's sadistic streak towards habitual liars like Marisa, plucks a memory from the witch's mind to kill her with, which manifests as an image of a familiar vengeful spirit... only for said spirit to suddenly appear out of nowhere and blow the pale imitation to pieces. A remix of Reincarnation kicks in as Mima reveals herself, telling Marisa to leave while she deals with the riff-raff. And given we meet her again much later looking none the worse for wear, she apparently took on Satori, Orin, (pre-Yatagarasu) Utsuho, and a legion of Old Hell's finest, and cleaned their clocks offscreen without so much as a scratch.
• Both versions of Chapter 39.
  • In 39R, Reisen gets a lucky shot and smashes Reimu's gohei, leaving her unable to fight. While she's disabled, Reisen begins picking off the rest of the party one by one, until Yukari finally relents on giving Reimu the new equipment that was being developed for her. What follows is Reimu single-handedly turning the tide of battle, wiping out the reinforcements that previously had the party on the backfoot, and to the tune of a special version the upgraded Reimu's theme, Dream Balancer.
  • Chapter 39M is no slouch either. After an argument with Mima, Marisa is left doubting herself and her magic, causing her Hakkero to malfunction (Gameplay-wise, she reverts to her Chapter 1 moveset) and as a result ends up being knocked out by an ambush from Tewi's forces. As the team are being overwhelmed by Tewi's forces who are attempting to capture the unconscious Marisa, Marisa remembers what she wanted from her magic, reaffirms her resolve and she gets up, stronger than ever, and wipes the floor with the Rabbit mooks surrounding the party using her empowered magic as a special version of the upgraded Marisa's theme, Stardust Hero, begins to play. As the final rabbit general is left on the ropes, Marisa mops things up by unleashing one final spell she thought up to try to impress Mima: Blazing Star, her Last Word from IN.
• Chapter 44 from Ei. Remilia charges through a barrage of literally everything Flandre can fire at her in order to hug her. The entire conversation gets a unique combat animation as Remilia tanks her sister's most powerful attacks - attacks that can occasionally One-Hit Kill your weaker party members - and lunges in to embrace her.
• Chapter 49. Reimu's first activation of Fantasy Nature. To make a modern comparison, Reimu effectively enters Ultra Instinct, and begins blinking around the map, each blink landing on a Moon Rabbit that is clobbered so quickly they don't even get an attack animation. When she finally lands on Yorihime - a powerful demigod princess who soundly trounced her in canon - she delivers a blow so fierce it knocks the wind out of Yorihime and dunks her HP so hard into the red she might have less than 100 left. The only thing that saved Yorihime is Marisa rushing in to shake Reimu out of her battle fuge and drag her to safety. It brings into perspective Yukari's earlier statement that Reimu's new gohei is a dampening focus, meant to keep her power under control - unrestrained, she can fight the franchise's ultraweight characters on even ground, which is not a good thing for Gensokyo's delicate human/youkai balance. Fantasy Nature is so powerful its theme music overrides everything, even Makura's various themes.
• Chapter 58. Meeko tries to kill Utsuho again. Utsuho has none of it and defeats Meeko with Abyss Nova.
• Mima spends her time between the third and fourth games in Makai, clobbering demons and stealing magic where she can. She apparently became so much of a terror that Shinki and Yumeko were about to go after her personally before the team breaking into Hokkai to free Byakuren became a much more pressing matter... which then instantly got worse since Mima decided to rejoin them.
• Chapter 66. Evil Eye Sigma pops out of the wormhole, threatening to wipe out the entire crew. Murasa takes the Palanquin Ship on a frontal assault and annihilates Evil Eye Sigma.
• Chapter 70. Meeko has the crew cornered and is threatening to kill Eirin, who is protecting the last package of Butterfly Dream Pills she has on hand to keep Makura out of the Human Village's dreams. Yorihime makes her back down using Hino Kagutsuchi - Flame. Meeko sends some of her sheep to kill Lily White, which Rei'sen intercepts with Bullet Strike. Meeko then summons a whole herd of sheep. Toyohime shows up and wipes them all off the map with her Wave Fan. The entire experience, plus Yorihime's outright death threats for harming Eirin, utterly terrifies Meeko, giving her PTSD that ends up actively altering the scenario during the post-game gaiden chapters when her fear of the sisters causes their Dream Soul copies to become extra-strength aggressive.
• Chapter 73. Team 9 gets cornered by Nightmare Mima and Nightmare Byakuren. When the Palanquin Ship shows up, the crew encourage Daiyousei to help. When Nightmare Byakuren assaults Team 9, Daiyousei overcomes her fears and completes the Bakatet Special, turning it into Final Bakatet Special.
• Chapter 74. The Prismriver Sisters cast Ghostly Wheel Concerto Grosso: Revised to power up the crew, recovering them from a power drain done by the Catfish. They then defeat the Giant Sheep with Ghostly Wheel Concerto Grosso: Heart.
  • The first part deserves some elaboration. They actually use a spell card (one of the few times your own allies do that) that has a ridiculous range for its field. The effect of the spell card? + 100 to both Max Power and Max SP. The event also recovers all of your characters to maximum: HP, MP, SP and Power. In terms of gameplay it is an almost unfair boost, and very cathartic after being forced into a low Power state for the entire battle up until then.
• Chapter 75. The fight against Yuuka. She sets the stage by turning the barren section of the dream realm they're on into a beautiful field of flowers and then proceeds to give the crew what is arguably the hardest fight in the entire series. Highlights include making two copies of herself to use Double Spark, showing off her insane power with Ultimate Spark and going full nightmare fuel with her final attack.
  • During the same fight, she had also been giving Yukari a small-scale Hannibal Lecture, tearing into her about her relationship with Yuyuko - namely the fact that she's the reason Yuyuko is permanently a ghost, and that she never told her. But after the border youkai gets encouraged by Yuyuko, she decides to answer Yuuka by bringing to bear her Last Word from IN - Profound Danmaku Barrier -Phantasm, Foam, and Shadow-. A downright planetary scale attack that reaches into upper orbit, showing that she isn't called the strongest youkai in Gensokyo solely due to her ability. And she brings this attack down on the one being who was, before the appearance of Kasen and Okina, considered by the fandom to be her only equal, laying out the Flower Master in a single blow. Oh, and before she can launch this attack, she tanks Yuuka's ultimate spellcard, which as noted on the main page, involves Yuuka attacking with a giant beanstalk flower summoned out of her own body.
• Chapter 76. Reimu and Marisa use Shin - Trichromatic Lotus Butterfly for the first time to defeat Meeko once and for all - a combo platter of most of Reimu and Marisa's most powerful attacks. Starting with ofuda, lasers, needles and alchemical bombs, they then follow up with a barrage of Spell Cards, starting with Reimu's Omnidirectional Dragon-Slaying Circle, and Marisa following up with Orreries Sun. After flying further into the sky, they follow up with Fantasy Nature and Blazing Star, before neatly wrapping things up with the very first spell cards they use in the story- Fantasy Seal and Master Spark, respectively. Gensokyo's dynamic duo unleashes everything they have and blasts the dream sheep into the dirt. And this is after Meeko overloaded herself with some of Makura's power, making her functionally a baku in her own right and thus extremely powerful in the Dream World.
• Chapter 77. Makura turns into her Dream Form, declares The Furthest Reaches of Dreams, and powers herself up with nearly every spirit in the game. The entire crew powers themselves up in response with Fantasy Maiden Wars for a climactic final phase, with a Triumphant Reprise of the title theme kicking in.
  • Much like Ghostly Wheel Concerto Grosso: Revised, Fantasy Maiden Wars is an ally spellcard that covers the entire map- its effects are actually similar to the former, but amplified. All units gain +150 max SP and Power, and are instantly healed up to max. Additionally, Full Power Mode usage is recovered at the start of every turn while Fantasy Maiden Wars is active.
• Chapter 74 in the Future route accessed through Dream Mode. After battling through many Nightmares, Meeko’s own nightmare appears trying to bring the crew into despair and conjures a dream manifestation of her based on when she was in desperation to defeat the crew with little regard to her own life and overloaded herself with Makura’s power, due to the baku being the only one who cared about her at the time. Now, Meeko not only has Makura backing her up, but all of Gensokyo is on her side as well, and she starts having a sense of belonging, causing the dream manifestation to fade away. Meeko then takes the dream energy into herself and defeats her nightmare with her new spellcard, Dreams In My Hands.
• Dream Mode itself can be this, given it lets you pick any six girls (that aren't Akyuu) and have them be part of the story from Chapter 1 onward. Want to undo the injustice of Mima being Chuck'd in canon and have her haunting Hakurei Shrine like she was after Story of Eastern Wonderland? You can do that. Want to make the entire storyline take place after the Three Fairies' first few manga and have them start out as Reimu's pets/tenants? Sure thing! Want to lean into the popular fanon of Yuuka and Mima being best friends, making the former Marisa's Honorary Aunt and thus more interested in helping her Family of Choice out? Absolutely! Think Shinki and Yumeko should've been a bit more interested in visiting Alice, resulting in them getting sucked into the plot much earlier than the last game? Show Remilia what a real demon is like and proceed to curbstomp your way through the first three games! Want to unite the Nineballs immediately and bring along Letty to babysit? Show your enemies that The Power of Friendship can more than make up for lack of raw power! Want to create time paradox shenanigans by having "The Eight Protagonists" (Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya, Youmu, Reisen, Aya, Sanae, and Cirno) all together as a team from the word go? Have at it! Want to fulfill your personal OTP preferences and have your three favorite pairings fly into battle together? Go nuts! You can even completely bork the plot and have Meeko and Makura show up well before Shiro the Kedama approaches Marisa, which also unlocks a chance to activate the true postgame storyline. Much like choosing the three warriors to face Galeem and Dharkon, the possibilities are nearly endless.

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