Video Game / Gensou Ningyou Enbu

Reimu, I choose you!

Released at Comiket 87, Gensou Ningyou Enbu (幻想人形演舞, lit. Fantasy Puppet Dance Performance), unofficially referred to as Touhou Puppet Dance Performance, is the Spiritual Successor to Touhou Ningyougeki. The game was developed by FocasLens, a one-man doujin circle consisting of HemoglobinA1C, who also developed the original Touhoumon romhacks. However, unlike those games, Touhou Puppet Dance Performance is a stand-alone title featuring new mechanics and a wider cast of puppets to choose from.

The story begins with the protagonist spirited away to Gensokyo by Yukari via bus, right in front of the Hakurei Shrine. However, they're dropped in the middle of an incident where Gensokyo is overrun by the puppets, Fun Size replicas of Gensokyo's residents, with many of the humans taking a liking to taming them and becoming puppeteers. Thankfully, they're spotted by Marisa and loaned a puppet to defend themselves from a puppet attack...only to have somehow tamed one without the use of a sealing thread. The incident doesn't see itself ending anytime soon either, leaving them trapped in Gensokyo until the incident is resolved. With the Human Village as their main lead to learn more about the incident, the protagonist descends the mountain with their puppet partner to get involved while Reimu and Marisa are out doing their usual investigating.

At Comiket 89, the game received an Updated Re-release called Yume no Kakera (lit. Shards of Dream) that includes more puppets, places to explore, and an expanded plot.

The game has a wiki here.

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Touhou Puppet Dance Performance contains examples of:

• Anti-Frustration Features: Defeated puppets still gain EXP, albeit only half of what they should gain. This ensures they won't lag behind too far if they're falling in battle a lot.
• Barrier Change Boss: Power Kokoro's and Extra Satori's ability "Infinite Scales" is essentially Protean. Extra Satori even has similar stats to Greninja, a Pokemon that got Kicked Upstairs to Ubers. Additionally, Extra Hecatia can not only change between three combinations of elements, but also drastically change her defensive stats, resulting in a puppet that can have high Focused/low Spread Defense, vica-verca, or Focused and Spread Defense that's higher than either, depending on the move used.
• Big Bad: Shinki is the one behind the creation of puppets because she feels bored.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • Power Suika is the Slaking of this game, having the highest Focus Attack in the game (165), but cannot move every other turn.
  • Poor Power Miko is this games' Archeops. Boasting impressive stats, but her True Admin ability halves her attacking stats when HP is below half.
  • Power Yukari has the second highest combined stats of 630, but can only use the full extent of her high Spread Attack and Speed stat after 5 turns of being in the field, due to the Allowance ability, the equivalent of Pokemon's Slow Start, effectively making her this games' Regigigas.
• Book Ends: The opening BGM of Fantasy Puppet Dance Performance has a remixed version that serves as the BGM of the True Final Boss of Shard of Dreams.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Getting 50 consecutive wins in the Puppet Exhibition in Shard of Dreams nets you the Boundary Trance, an item which may serve as the game's main Game-Breaker. It acts as an upgraded version of the Dream Shard, meaning only special puppets (Read: Either those with max happiness, or starters) can benefit from holding it. Unlike the Dream Shard, which increases the holder's stats by 10%, though, the Boundary Trance flat-out doubles the holder's stats. The only issue is that, without using New Game Plus, there's no challenge left in the game to use the Boundary Trance on, as the Puppet Exhibition is the final challenge in the game.
• Color-Coded Elements:
  • Dream: Light Gray
  • Void: Bright Pink
  • Fire: Red
  • Water: Blue
  • Nature: Green
  • Earth: Brown
  • Steel: Gray
  • Electric: Yellow
  • Light: Light Yellow
  • Dark: Black
  • Nether: Dark Purple
  • Poison: Bright Purple
  • Wind: Yellow-Green
  • Fighting: Orange
  • Illusion: Deep Pink/Magenta
  • Sound: Mustard Yellow
  • Warped: Navy Blue
• Damage Typing: Like Pokemon, attacking and defensive stats are split into two categories, Focus and Spread attack, with corresponding Focus and Spread Defense.
• Elemental Powers: Just like Pokemon, there are 16 types in the first version, 17 in Yume no Kakera, with changes and additions.
  • Dream: Non-Elemental
  • Void: Non-Elemental, Power of the Void
  • Fire: Playing with Fire, Magma Man
  • Water: Making a Splash, An Ice Person, Ice Magic Is Water
  • Nature: Green Thumb, Petal Power
  • Earth: Dishing Out Dirt, Mucking in the Mud, Gemstone Assault, Power Crystal
  • Steel: Extra-ore-dinary, Chrome Champion, Cold Iron
  • Electric: Shock and Awe
  • Light: Light 'em Up, Holy Hand Grenade
  • Dark: Casting a Shadow
  • Nether: Soul Power, Technicolor Magic, Casting a Shadow
  • Poison: Poisonous Person, Poison Is Corrosive
  • Wind: Blow You Away
  • Fighting: Bare-Fisted Monk, Charles Atlas Superpower, Ki Manipulation
  • Illusion: Master of Illusion
  • Sound: Musical Assassin
  • Warped: Reality Warper
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Being a Pokémon parody, it was bound to happen. There are a total of 16 elements^note Void, Fire, Water, Nature, Earth, Steel, Wind, Electric, Light, Dark, Nether, Poison, Fighting, Illusion, Sound, Dream (17 in Shard of Dreams^note Warped), each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
  • Non-Elemental: The Dream element holds the honor of being the only element which no puppet in the first game had. This changed in the second game, in which puppets with only this element have no weaknesses or resistances against any element. There are only two Dream-element moves, both of which are the 'physical' and 'special' equivalent of Pokemon's Tackle. The only other defining trait of this element was that it prevented the status effect Stop, the equivalent of Pokemon's Sleep status effect.
• Elite Four: Just like in regular Pokemon games. Subverted in that there are only like three trainers and a champion.
• Evolution Power-Up: Each puppet starts as their basic Normal style. After reaching level 30, they can do a Style Change, where they power up into one of two (three in Shard of Dreams) styles. The first two choices are either Power, Defense, Speed, or Assist, with the third choice always being the Extra style added in Shard of Dreams.
• Field Power Effect: Puppets can manipulate weather or terrain to gain an advantage and deter the opponent with various effects, such as powering up one type while reducing the others, or reverse the turn order (priority moves still work the same).
• The Four Gods: The Terrain moves are named after them. The expansion included the fifth God, Kouryuu.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The abilities that affect weather are named after the four temperaments. The expansion introduced a new weather with its ability named Supine.
• Fragile Speedster: Speed Aya is the fastest puppet in the entire game with blazing 145 Speed. Her other stats are decent but nowhere near as impressive.
• Fun Size: The puppets (with the exception of Power Suika) are quite small compared to their trainers. Special mention goes to Defense Sukuna who is even smaller than the other puppets.
• Glass Cannon:
  • Power Utsuho has amazing 150 Attacking stats in both Focus and Spread, however, her HP is average, her Defenses are a weak 50 on both fronts, and she's not very fast with 60 speed. She'll leave a dent on any opponent she faces, provided she even has a chance to get an attack off...
  • Speed Gengetsu hits hard with 120 Attacking stats and has incredible speed (130) to match, but her Defenses are pathetic at 45, with mediocre 65 HP. If Gengetsu doesn't kill her opponent in one hit, she's most likely getting KO'd in return.
• Greater-Scope Villain: In Shard of Dreams, turns out that Shinki didn't intend for her puppets to come to the outside world. Mugetsu and Gengetsu are the ones behind the puppet outbreak, and they will serve as the True Final Boss of the expansion.
• Ice Magic Is Water: There is no "Ice-Type" in the game. Instead its just integrated with Water into the Water-Type.
• It Amused Me: Yuuka encouraged Medicine to start the Puppet Liberation Front just because she thought it'd be entertaining.
• Lethal Lava Land: The Hell of Blazing Fires, which connects to the Nuclear Furnace beneath Youkai Mountain.
• Like Cannot Cut Like: Fire-, Water-, Nature-, Electric-, Steel-, Poison-, Light-, Dark-, Sound- and Warped-Type Puppets resist their own moves. Illusion- and Nether-Type puppets invert this, being super effective against themselves.
• Middle Name Basis: Enforced to ensure a One-Steve Limit. As the Touhou series has two Reisens, Reisen Udongein Inaba is refered to by her middle name. The other Reisen keeps her name.
• Mighty Glacier: Defense Suika has high HP at 110. High and well rounded 100 Defenses, and her Focus Attack is also equally good at 100. Her 60 speed will leave her lagging behind opponents, however.
• Mirror Match: In Shard of Dreams, Satori copies your team, with the same levels and movesets.
• Multiform Balance: Extra Rika can change into the more offensive Shifted Form by attacking, and into the more defensive Normal Form by using Nature Barrier (Protect). She's essentially this game's Aegislash. And Defense Keine, with the ability to change from the overall defensive Normal Keine to the fast and powerful Hakutaku Keine, is essentially a "reverse" Zen-Mode Darmanitan. The only unique puppet of this type is Extra Hecatia, whose typing and stats change depending on the move used that turn.
• Mutual Disadvantage: Void-Types and Illusion-Types are immune to each others' attacks. Similar to Pokemon's relationship of Ghost and Normal.
• Ominous Floating Castle: The Shining Needle Castle, an inverted castle seen in the title screen. It plays a significant role much later.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: Just like Shedinja in Pokemon, Assist Akyuu has only 1 HP, but can only be harmed either by super-effective attacks or indirect damage, such as traps and status effects.
  • Or at least, she MAY only be harmed by super-effective attacks when she has Frail Health as her ability. In Shard of Dreams she can have another ability, Curse Return^note like Magic Bounce, where all status moves are reflected back to sender.
• Palette Swap: Players can purchase alternate costumes for their puppets at a shop that opens up early in the game.
• Piñata Enemy: Poor, poor Yuki, first boss of the Pandemonium quartet. Due to an exploit, players can challenge and defeat her, then use the SukiMap to warp outside the Pandemonium, resetting the battle and allowing them to battle her multiple times, resulting in huge amounts of experience and money. This has become somewhat of a recurring joke, one that eventually gave birth to the Spinoff, "Yuki-chan's Training Regime". Thankfully (or not), in Shard of Dreams, the SukiMap is unable to be used in the Pandemonium, making this strategy useless.
  • ...until players found that this title was passed on to poor, poor, POOR Eshua the Hell fairy. Not only is her entire level 95 team completely obliterated by a level 100 Extra Reimu, this time players can just walk outside the door to reset the battle. And Junko, who will heal your puppets for free, is waiting just outside.
• Power Limiter: Power Suika's base stats total is 640, the highest number of all the puppets, and has the highest Focused Attack stat tied with Power Yuugi along with above average Speed. This is all offset by her only ability in this Style, Drunkard, which is the equivalent of Pokemon's Truant^note The puppet can only attack every other turn. Power Yukari has the second highest combined stats of 630, but can only use the full extent of her high Spread Attack and Speed stat after 5 turns of being in the field, due to the Allowance ability, the equivalent of Pokemon's Slow Start^note except in this case, it's the Spread Attack that's halved for 5 turns, along with Speed.
• The Rival: Both Reimu and Marisa are your recurring rival trainers.
• Shop Fodder: Defeating other puppeteers will reward you with various knick-knacks that can be sold for money, instead of giving you the money outright.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Icy Cavern in the center of Misty Lake, though the insides are inaccessible until postgame.
  • In Yume no Kakera, the Frozen Fields of Makai.
• Starter Mon: Exaggerated. You don't get access to three standard Fire-Nature-Water Puppets at the start of the game, oh no. Try every single puppet in the game as your potential starter.
• Status Effects: Some of them are a bit different from those of Pokemon, but they're still there. A single puppet can be affected by up to two status effects, with the more powerful ones not being able to overlap with others.
  • Poison: Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Puppets lose a fraction of their HP per turn. Can overlap with other status effects. Poison and Steel-Element puppets aren't affected by this, except under certain situations.
    • Badly Poisoned: The damage the puppet receives per turn increases per turn, similar to how Badly Poisoned worked in Pokemon. Other than get this status effect, a puppet can suffer from it by getting Poisoned while already Poisoned. Doesn't overlap with other status effects. Like Poison, Poison and Steel-Element puppets aren't usually affected by this.
  • Burn: Like Poison, this status effect also has puppets lose a fraction of their HP. Unlike the Pokemon version, this one doesn't have the puppet's Focused Attack lower. Can overlap with other status effects. Fire-Element puppets aren't usually affected by this.
    • Badly Burned: Like Badly Poisoned, the amount of HP lost per turn increases steadily. A puppet can also gain this status effect by being Burned twice. Doesn't overlap with other status effects. Fire-Element puppets aren't usually affected by this.
  • Paralysis: Puppets have their Speed greatly decreased. Unlike the Pokemon version, puppets don't suffer from the possible freeze that can occur per turn. Can overlap with other status effects. Electric-Element puppets aren't usually affected by this.
    • Shocked: Along with the decreased Speed, excluding certain skills, all opponent skills will hit the puppet without fail. A puppet can also gain this status effect by being Paralyzed twice. Doesn't overlap with other status effects. Electric-Element puppets aren't usually affected by this.
  • Blinded: Puppets have their Focused Attack greatly decreased. Can overlap with other status effects.
  • Fear: Puppets have their Spread Attack greatly decreased. Can overlap with other status effects.
  • Weaken: Similar to Pokemon's Heal Block, puppets lose the ability to heal their HP from skills, excluding a few skills. Can overlap with other status effects.
    • Greatly Weakened: Along with the inability to heal, the amount of SP (PP in Pokemon) used up for each skill increases by 1, meaning a normally used skill uses 2 SP instead of 1 SP. A puppet can also gain this status effect when Weakened twice. Doesn't overlap with other status effects.
  • Stop: The equivalent of Pokemon's Sleep, the puppets loses all ability to use skills, excluding a few special ones. Unlike the other status effects, this one can heal normally by waiting a few turns. Doesn't overlap with other status effects. Dream-Element puppets aren't usually affected by this.
• Stealth-Based Mission: In Shard of Dreams, getting the items in the Lunar Capital requires the player to be undetected. If seen by anyone, the player gets ejected back out to the Dream World.
• Stone Wall: Several. Defense Orange is the Chansey/Blissey of the game. Having high HP but weak Focus Defense and very high Spread Defense. Assist Kisume is the same thing but vice-versa. Defense Lunasa and Defense Kotohime have high Defenses, but their low HP mitigates this. In Shard of Dreams, Extra Renko serves as an equivalent to Shuckle: absolutely godlike Focus and Spread Defense, but awful stats everywhere else.
• True Final Boss: In Shard of Dreams, you will have to face Mugetsu and Gengetsu again in a completely different place, with much stronger puppets. They serve as the last opponent of the entire game barring the Puppet Exhibition in Human Village.
• Updated Re-release: The game received an Append version in Comiket 89 with the name Gensou Ningyou Enbu: Yume no Kakera. It introduces new puppets from the cast of Urban Legend in Limbo and Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom, added more places that you can explore, and added another plot in the postgame.
• Warp Whistle: Halfway through the game, you will be given a Sukimap (Gap Map) that functions like HM Fly in Pokemon. The difference being that you can use it anywhere, even in dungeon, with some exceptions. For some reason this is the only way to look at the map of Gensokyo.
• Weather Manipulation: Some puppets have the ability to alter Weather, which can drastically change how the battle plays out. There are four types of Weather in the first version, with a fifth added in Shard of Dreams.
  • Calm: Additional Effects of attacking skills are nullified.
  • Aurora: Light-Element skills are strengthened, while Dark-Element skills are weakened.
  • Thick Fog: Dark-Element skills are strengthened, while Light-Element skills are weakened.
  • Sandstorm: All puppets, excluding Earth and Steel-Element ones, are damaged by a fraction of their HP per turn.
  • Sunshower: Added in Shard of Dreams. Switches the Focused and Spread Defense of all puppets.
• You Will Not Evade Me: Assist Chen's Adverse Wind only allows Wind-types to escape, Extra Medicine's Poison Labyrinth only allows Poison-types to escape, Battle Mania prevents Fighting-types from escaping, and Assist Satori's Shadow Stitch prevents any escape unless the opponent is holding the appropriate item.

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