Dream End Drama
"Today is Gensokyo's final day.''
— Yuyuko Saigyouji
In Gensokyo, a rather weak spring is blooming. The flowers are weak, the youkai are rather calm, and Gensokyo seems to be in a slump. Marisa Kirisame, a scheming magician, is brewing up some new magic. However, unlike her normal magic, this isn't for fighting, it's for viewing flowers. She goes over to Reimu Hakurei, to show her. However, when she shows up at the shrine, nobody is there, and it's locked up, appearing to have been vacant for a period of time. A tragic story of Gensokyo has quickly begun...
Touhou Mutsuigeki ~ Concealed the Conclusion is a fangame to the popular Touhou Project series of shooting games, developed by doujin group danmaq, first for the Touhou Danmakufu engine, then as a standalone game. The game revolves around a point system called 'Hakurei', similar to the Time Orb system in Imperishable Night. Also brought over are the Last Spell and Last Word spell cards, as well as differing conditions for the Stage 6 boss depending on the amount of Hakurei you have.
Ten years later after the original release, danmaq released a follow-up spin-off novel titled "Answer the Conclusion". The book explores the life and times after the game's ending, from the eyes of an ordinary schoolgirl name Rein.
This game provides examples of:
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: Essentially this. Instead of the series continuing onto Touhou Fuujinroku ~ Mountain of Faith, Reimu abruptly dies and Gensokyo begins undergoing Dream Apocalypse.
- All Just a Dream: Gensokyo turns out to be all Reimu's dream.
- Or Was It a Dream?: Gensokyo is recreated as a 'real' place thanks to Suika's efforts, part of her having survived the Dream Apocalypse.
- All Your Powers Combined: Reimu's spell card Gathering Dream "Fantasy Girl" summons Kaguya, Remilia, Yuyuko, & Eiki to each shoot their signature bullet types.
- Autobots, Rock Out!: Many in the soundtrack. Of note are "G Free ~ Ultimate Dream
" & "Lunar Clock ~ Luna Dial". - Barrier Maiden: Reimu's existence as the Hakurei Shrine Maiden is necessary to maintain the Great Hakurei Barrier. This game explores what happens should she die.
- Bonus Dungeon: The Extra and Phantasm stages, which take place in the rebuilt Gensokyo.
- Bullet Hell: It is a Touhou fangame, after all.
- Darker and Edgier: This game was a lot darker than the main Touhou Project games available at its release.
- Determinator: Marisa will not let anyone stop her until she finds Reimu.
- Dream Apocalypse: It turns out Gensokyo is Reimu's dream, and is falling apart as Reimu is dying. By the end of the game, she's woken up in the real world.
- Dual Boss: Stage 4 is full of this, with Ran and Chen first attacking you as midbosses, then following you for the rest of the stage; then they are joined by Yukari for the actual boss fight.
- Stage 6 has the midboss be Yuyuko and Yukari double-teaming you.
- Ethereal White Dress: Reimu's wearing an all-white variant of her miko outfit in Stage 6. And yes, at this point, she's dead.
- Expansion Pack: The Spell Practice addon for the Danmakufu version added Last Words and Another Last Words.
- Fade to White: Happens after completing the game as Gensokyo is destroyed.
- Gainax Ending: Compared to the normal games in the series, which were pretty light-hearted until fairly late in the series, this game finds itself getting rather dark (and somewhat surreal) out of nowhere.
- Harder Than Hard: Another Last Words. Imperishable Night, eat your heart out.
- Hitbox Dissonance: Notable in that it's different from the main Touhou games due to the way Danmakufu handles hitboxes, resulting in an absolutely minuscule hitbox for the player but larger hitboxes for the bullets. It takes a while to get used to.
- The Last Dance: Finally accepting that Reimu is dead, Gensokyo is ending, and there is nothing she can do about it, Marisa challenges Reimu to one final duel.
- Last Request: In Ending B, Alice's last request to Marisa is to never forget Gensokyo.
- Killed Off for Real: Implied to be the fate of Reimu in Ending A.Even though we did our best...the time of death was 17:58.
- Multiple Endings: Par for the course for a Touhou fangame. To wit:
- Ending A, obtained by running out of time while fighting Reimu, bringing the fight to a premature end. Reimu dies while Marisa wakes up and it was All Just a Dream.
- Ending B, obtained by beating the game proper. Marisa learns that she too is not of Gensokyo. Reimu's dream is being shared by her and both, are about to wake up now. In the last moments of Gensokyo, Alice and the others bid Marisa to never forget about them.
- Ending C, where Marisa and Reimu wake up in a hospital, in the same room. Marisa gets Reimu to admit that they both dreamt of a place called Gensokyo.
- Nostalgia Level: Route D. All of the music specific to this route is from the PC-98 games, and the route's characters and locations are a big reference to the PC-98 Era as well: you fight Mima at the Hakurei Shrine, Yuuka in her mansion Mugenkan, and Shinki and Alice in Makai.
- Shout-Out:
- Tewi makes a reference to The Matrix:
Tewi: "If you wish to stay deceived, take the blue pill. If you want to know the truth, take the red pill."- Each of Reimu's spell cards reference a main series Touhou game:
- Scarlet Dreams "Clockwork of Fate" to Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.
- Ghostly Dream "Wakeless Spring Slumber" to Perfect Cherry Blossom.
- Imperishable Dream "Nocturne at Two o'clock" to Imperishable Night.
- View Dream "Phantasmagoria of the Tenth Years" to Phantasmagoria of Flower View.
- Reimu's Last Word is effectively all her well-known shot types and bombs compiled into a single Spell Card.
- Superboss: Par for the course for a Touhou fangame. The Extra Stage boss is Suika while the Phantasm Stage boss is a revived Reimu.
- Time-Limit Boss: The fight against Reimu in Stage 6 is timed, with the amount of time you have for the battle tied to the amount of Hakurei you have. And yes, if you die or bomb partway through the battle and take a penalty hit to your Hakurei, the clock will shorten accordingly.
- Unstable Equilibrium: Dying or bombing resets your Hakurei meter, resulting in you receiving less Hakurei per graze/hit. Considering you also lose a good chunk of your Hakurei, it'll be a hell of a time rebuilding it.
- Wham Line:
- Stage 3A:
Patchouli: "That red-white..."
Marisa: "...? What is it?"
Patchouli: "She's dead."- Stage 3D:
Alice: "Ah, I don't care anymore. Do what you want. Reimu has left Makai and gone far west, sleeping in the great cherry blossom garden in the sky."- Stage 5:
Yuyuko: "Every living thing other than Reimu is but an actor created in this dream-world. And when the performance is finished, the stage is broken down, and when their duty is done, the actors...
