Video Game / Touhou Soccer

Unbreakable Object Versus Unstoppable Forces.

Touhou Soccer Moushuuden, also known as Touhou Soccer 2, is a sequel to Touhou Soccer that expands on the original game by adding various new features. It includes the original game's Main Scenario mode, and adds sub-scenarios for a number of characters in which you can unlock new moves. It also features Campaign Mode, a 25-game mode focused on building your own team by buying players and items; and All-Star Mode, where you can play exhibition matches against the AI or other players.

It is basically a parody of Captain Tsubasa Vol.II: Super Striker but quite different in many ways.

This game provides hilarity among fans for various reasons, most of which will be listed below.

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This game provides examples of:

• Artificial Stupidity:
  • The AI's only strategy is rush forward with everything. However, The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard so it can pull this off and still pose a big threat.
  • One particular blatant AI flaw is on Cirno, who never uses her combination intercept, even if Letty is on the same team. She always uses the solo version of Facial Icicle Fall instead, which is less effective. This can benefit the player, as it's still possible for dribbles (even the regular dribble command) and a few special passes to get past her.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Some skills, despite the flashy animations, are nearly useless in the game. A few characters fall into this category as well.
  • Foremost among the Awesome, but Impractical skills is Double Spark. This skill looks like it should be awesome. It's used by Yuuka Kazami, it involves firing off two Wave-Motion Gun blasts, and the AI's use of the shot in Story Mode punts your goalkeeper around like a rag doll. Issues? Its Power and Strength are so low that it has trouble scoring on GENERIC GKs with no Special Saves, the absolute worst in the game. The only reason the AI could score on you at the time was because you were 1) underleveled and 2) using resident Butt-Monkey China as a GK with no Special Save.
  • The Scarlet Sisters' Translyvania is AWESOME. It unleashes a crystal death meteor that blows the field to hell. Its raw numbers are incredible: a devastating 105 Strength, 70 Power, and a 90% chance to blow away the GK, leaving most shots in the dust. The catch? The Guts cost is insane: 440 for both Scarlets, when even the mighty Twilight Spark costs 500. Furthermore, its decay is high, weakening the shot severely when used anywhere that's not right in front of the goal. Most players opt to use the Scarlets' individual shots instead.
  • The folding chair robot shot, Fantasy Combine!, is hilarious with a great cinematic to boot. However, its high cost (320 for both component players) and the initiator's subpar overall stats means it will not be used often.
  • Yumeko is a GK with a unique Special Save, Doll of Sorrow, which, upon success, flings the ball back at the opponent's GK from all the way across the field, attempting a goal with a no-decay, fairly powerful shot. However, the proliferation of Special Save spamming SGGKs among the later campaign teams means that the save effectively hands the ball over to the opponent.
  • Suika is a GK with sky-high stats across the board as well as being nigh-unbeatable in one-on-one confrontations, an advantage that few GKs share. However, the AI rarely opts for one-on-one, preferring to use the powerful Ground and Air Shots that make up the arsenal of nearly every character in the game. Without a Special Save to counter the most basic means of scoring in the game, Suika generally is a benchwarmer.
  • Medicine Melancholy's specialty is her unique ability to lower guts through her Special Danmaku and Dribble commands. However, since this ability does not work against the cheating AI, it is functionally useless.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: The final Main Scenario Match. The match starts with the terrifying Hakurei Miko built up as the main threat of an already incredibly powerful team, and it certainly seems that way. She has terrifying stats all over the place and far outlevels your strongest team members. However, at halftime, she is replaced by Rinnosuke, a far more dangerous player with Game-Breaker stats and a Special Shot practically guaranteed to score. By the end of this match, anyone will be guaranteed to Oh, Crap! upon seeing anything in a fundoshi.
• Beam Spam: Several examples. Xanadu's Last Judgement is the most triumphant example. Reimu's Fantasy Seal - Blink also counts to a lesser degree.
• Boring, but Practical: Several skills qualify:
  • Youmu's Artistic Dribble. This Special Dribble has none of the flashiness of backflipping over the ball, stopping time, or spraying Danmaku all over the place. Though a little expensive for a Special Dribble, its high Knock Away and Critical values ensure most attempts to steal the ball end with defenders being blown away.
  • Sakuya's Misdirection Special Tackle. It is one of the few tackles in the game that can steal the ball from Rinnosuke and Erich on top of being a near-guaranteed steal from everyone else.
  • The Orthodox formation increases Guts recovery, a rather mundane effect compared to the more complex formations. However, since Guts are needed to fuel any kind of meaningful defense or attack strategy, it is universally helpful.
  • For the relatively low price of 200 Guts, the attack strategy Fast Break greatly speeds up your forwards. Speed might not have the same oomph as blowing away encountered defenders with danmaku, but dodging around defenders saves Guts and a possibly chancy encounter with powerful special techniques that could ruin a scoring attempt.
  • Reimu and Marisa's Touhou Combination is a one-two, basically both of them passing the ball back and forth several times. However, it has a low cost, high success rate, and propels both characters quickly across the field.
  • Tewi's Ancient Duper. Though expensive for a Special Pass, it is very difficult to intercept. Thus, it is possible to make highly risky passes that normally would be unfeasible. Her ability to increase money earned from games in Travel Mode, as long as you field her, falls under the same category.
  • Meiling's Flying Dragon Fist. Despite having the worst special shot animation, it's a very powerful special shot that is virtually unbeatable in one-on-one matchups.
  • Dribbling into goals with Aya. A successful dribble in a one on one confrontation with the GK scores a goal automatically, no strings attached. On a character that excels at dribble speed and a Super Mode that guarantees the success of any dribbles she makes, it might not be as flashy as her Special Shot, but it gets the job done.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Meiling, Cirno, and other weaklings are treated like crap no matter how much they prove themselves or how competitive they are in the actual gameplay.
  • Cirno especially gets it bad — her "Minus 9" combination with Letty has her trying to hit the ball with her infamous "Icicle Fall -Easy-" card, getting utterly hammered in the face by the ball, and then dying (being a fairy, dying isn't a big deal for her, but still...).
• Colony Drop: The Combination Shot Transylvania drops what is best described as a crystalline death rock on the field.
• Combination Attack: There are quite a few combination attacks, though they are all over the place in terms of effectiveness. They are a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, the resulting combination is often far better than one of the individuals could put out. On the flip side, all participants must pay the Guts cost. The Primsrivers' special techniques are all essentially of this type, typically needing two or more sisters to execute them.
• Crippling Overspecialization:
  • GK Koakuma has an amazing Special Jump... and that's it. Without a Special Save or high stats, the only shots she can conceivably block are point-blank and in the air, a situation that rarely occurs.
  • GK Saito has a powerful special save, Ice Sword, that can only be used in one-on-one confrontations. Though it will succeed if this occurs, the computer never goes for a one-on-one shot.
  • Chen skirts this trope. High speed, but little else means that though she can get the ball to the goal, her poor offensive stats leave much to be desired.
• Crutch Character: PC-98 Alice starts with very good stats everywhere, which promptly fall off after a couple levels. Zig-zagged though a bit in Travel Mode as she doesn't necessarily starts with all of her special techniques, and needs to level up to unlock them.
• Death or Glory Attack: The GK Jump command. It has a high chance to intercept the ball in midair and prevent a devastating Special Shot from scoring on you. It also has an equally high chance of failing and leaving the goal completely empty.
• Deface of the Moon: Youmu's Paschal Moon-Reflecting Satellite Slash, in which she carves the attack's name into the moon before slicing it in half.
• Doppleganger Attack: Reimu's Fantasy Seal - Blink.
• Fastball Special: Rikako and Wriggle's Combination Tackle.
• Glass Cannon: Outfielder!Mima is overwhelmingly powerful on the offensive front, thanks to Twilight Spark being one of the single most powerful shots in the game. Defensively... not so much. To elaborate, she has poor stats outside offensive ones and has no easy means of evading defenders besides a somewhat expensive one-two which requires another subpar character. On top of this, she has no Special Tackle or Intercept to take the ball for herself. In short, the best way to utilize her offensive potential is to wait for your other players to get the ball, move it up the field, and attempt to pass to Mima in the goal zone while avoiding any confrontation at all costs when she has the ball.
  • Flandre Scarlet. Her amazing Shoot and Dribble speed stats enable her to avoid defenders easily and a goal is practically guaranteed if she gets the ball in the air near the goal. A poor Special Dribble and no special passes leave her helpless if actually caught by a defender.
  • Patchouli has asthma, so despite the fact that she is a powerhouse during the main story, she runs out of stamina very fast. Luckily, she can skip confrontations for a quick recovery.
• Guide Dang It!: Unlocking several of the special techniques is a pain, but unlocking Tewi's Lobbing Shoot has to take the cake. Most hidden Special Shots and techniques in the Scenarios have fairly intuitive unlock conditions, such as the opponent's most powerful scorers or your own getting into the correct penalty zone in the final match of each scenario. This is what they could reasonably be expected to do, since that's the best place to shoot from. However, Tewi's Lobbing Shoot requires a computer-controlled character with no indication of having any offensive potential at all and in a defensive position to boot to somehow cross the entire field and confront your goalie in one-on-one. This makes no sense whatsoever and is not hinted at in any place in the game. Getting Tewi to do this in the first place is a Luck-Based Mission without using an A.I. Breaker.
• Hold the Line: Later scenario matches can devolve into this when your offensive threats run out of Guts, particularly if Demonic Spiders are involved.
• Humongous Mecha: One of which is present in Chiyuri and Yumemi's Combination Shot, "Fantasy Combine!", and it's made out of folding chairs!
• Indy Ploy: Some matches' briefing comments end up with a message that you should score as much as possible in the first half, and then pray the opponent doesn't catch up with you in the second.
• Jack of All Stats:
  • Ran Yakumo. Above average statistics everywhere, an average cost, and a lot of techniques for almost any situation. Her issue is that she doesn't exactly excel anywhere. Without Chen and Yukari backing her up, her scoring abilities are curtailed, leaving her an ok defender though incapable of scoring much.
  • Reimu's statline is actually average, save for a decent Dribble Stat. She compensates through very powerful Special Shots and her Super Mode.
• Lethal Joke Character:
  • Rumia looks like a joke. Poor stats everywhere, an astounding Power of 1 (even generic Mooks have higher), and being an initial Warmup Boss in Story Mode doesn't help. Most players bench her. However, her generally overlooked Special Fake Command is actually extremely effective. While most shots can't blow through SGGK defenses, after a Special Fake or two, they will be unbalanced enough for shots to break through. This is necessary in later matches when Special Save equipped GKs become absurdly common.
  • Characters treated as a joke in-game are actually pretty good. Cirno's combination intercept can intercept any kind of special pass and even some special dribbles without fail. Kaguya's special saves are powerful and efficient given her cost. Finally, Outfielder!Meiling is one of the best forwards in the game due to Flying Dragon Fist.
• Lightning Bruiser: A few:
  • Eirin. Her stats are high everywhere, as well as having effective techniques for offense and defense. Her only drawback is that those fancy techniques tend to drain her Guts FAST.
  • Remillia Scarlet: High stats everywhere with a tilt toward offense.
• Macross Missile Massacre: VIVIT's Complete Smash unloads a small army's worth of missiles to launch the ball fast enough to crunch through whatever poor sap is the GK today.
• Made of Indestructium: That soccer ball. It takes every special attack that the characters can throw at it and keeps on going. A running joke amongst those who play the game is that the ball has either been imbued with the Hourai Elixir or is, in fact, Reimu's Yin-Yang Orb. It kinda is a third of the actual artifact.
• Magikarp Power: VIVIT begins with pitiful stats everywhere and two rather underpowered Specials. In fact, some generic players have better stats. However, if one has the patience to raise her to level 99, her stats suddenly are above average everywhere, on top of acquiring special techniques that practically allow her to serve as nearly any role.
• Me's a Crowd: Flandre uses her Four of a Kind ability to form a team all by herself.
• Mooks: As in the main danmaku games, Fuzzballs, Ghosts, Fairies, Rabbits, and Flying Eyes have pitiful stats and no special abilities. They exist to fill space and be punted away by the latest apocalyptic event on the field. Though to be fair, most things would be blown away by Twilight Spark.
• Mighty Glacier: Outfielder Meiling has the Flying Dragon Fist, enabling her to score on practically any goalkeeper one-on-one. She also has Miracle Kick to wreck any attempts to bypass her and take the ball for herself. The problem is getting her into a threatening position: an average dribble speed and no Special Dribble means she is practically helpless when in confrontation with any defender that isn't a generic mook and is hard-pressed catching up to faster characters.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Seriously. The often overpowered residents of Gensokyo are utilizing their various abilities just to play soccer.
• No-Sell: The most powerful SGGKs have this tendency, seeing as they can somehow save shots being launched by, among other things, thousands of time-stopped knives, 10,000 flaming sword strikes in a single second, and crushing a satellite in space, somehow coming out of the apocalyptic explosions and whatnot unscathed and in control of the ball. Most notable is SGGK Letty, the game's direct Expy of Genzo himself, who can block pretty much everything. Even Twilight Spark and Master Blade have little chance of scoring.
• Oh, Crap!: Cirno's "Minus 9" combination with Letty has her using her infamous "Icicle Fall -Easy-" card to try to hit the ball, only to realize she forgot that the card can't hit anything directly in front of her. As the ball gets closer and closer, poor Cirno gets the Oh Crap face as she realizes she can't move out of the way fast enough, just before she gets one of the worst beatings by the ball ever.
• Power Gives You Wings: Marisa's Master Blade, Mima's Twilight Spark, and VIVIT's Complete Smash.
• Psychotic Smirk: Mima looks way too happy about unleashing what appears to be a concentrated solar flare on the innocent soccer ball.
• Slasher Smile: Flandre when using her 16-Clawed Flame Wall.
• Squishy Wizard: Patchouli's stats are strong overall, but she uses Guts quickly and doesn't recover any extra from either halftime or the Orthodox formation. In Travel Mode, this drawback can be mitigated somewhat through Guts Recovery-increasing equipment, but otherwise, careful use of her Special Shots and liberal use of her special Read command are key.
• Space Station: One shows up for a short time in Eirin's Apollo 13 shot before being blown to pieces to accelerate a soccer ball.
• Stone Wall: Letty Whiterock. Effective tackle, effective intercept, and a special clear. When on defense with Cirno, practically no passes or dribbles are getting through to your goal. However, her movement speed and offensive power are nothing special.
• Super Mode: Each Touhou character can possibly go into Border of Death. When this state is achieved, the BGM will be overidden by a remix of the character in question's Leitmotif and their player number flashes. In order to reach this state, each character has a hidden condition that has a high chance of instantly triggering Border of Death, such as knocking a particular character away or failing many actions. As a second option, characters will gradually build toward it through normal gameplay. The effects of Border of Death include a large boost in Guts, jumping in stats, or gaining new abilities, such as being able to use special shots at no cost.
• Take That!: Weak goalkeepers are constantly compared to Morisaki Yuzo of Captain Tsubasa fame, since in the game this parody is based on, Morisaki-kun is a horrible keeper who gets blown away a lot of times.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard
  • The AI has INFINITE GUTS. The opposing team can throw around all the Fantasy Heavens, Master Blades, and Twilight Sparks they want, on top of special intercepts, saves, dribbles, and others. On paper, it could easily crush the human, since the computer teams often have superior rosters and stats. On occasion, the difference is so drastic, particularly in some final matches, that the only way to win is to unload as many powerful shots as possible that are capable of breaking through the AI's SGGK defenses, then timing out the computer by passing between your own goal zone and other players.
  • Lampshaded when Kaguya learns the low-cost version of her "Help Me, Eirin!" catch, and the characters comment on how guts conservation shouldn't be an issue since she's on the computer-controlled team anyway.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Nearly every shot, and some Special Tackles as well. Besides Twilight Spark, other examples include Eirin's Apollo 13 (crushing a Space Station), Game of Life (knife and arrow spam), and Master Blade (Wave-Motion Gun Sword Beam).
• Useless Useful Spell: In general, most shots that combine an attempt to score with unblancing the goalkeeper generally are like this. The intiators and the shots in question are often too weak to pose a threat to the GK, and the unbalancing debuff effect often isn't strong enough to compensate.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Mima's Twilight Spark, Marisa's Master Spark, plenty of examples abound.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Marisa's Team in the Main Story Campaign. It has the misfortune of being both a relatively early match and a nasty Difficulty Spike. Her team has a much better roster than every other team before, having three powerful special characters as opposed to the previous team's weaker lineups.
  • The first one, Marisa, is a handful. Her signature Master Spark is an almost-guaranteed scorer and the AI will spam it at will. Furthermore, preventing her from actually getting into range to launch Master Spark is an exercise in frustration due to her Forceful Danmaku Dodging Special Dribble flinging your defenders away.
  • Their other offensive threat, Yuuka Kazami, would not be an issue because her Double Spark Special Shot is weak. However, attempts to steal the ball from Marisa often ends with your players using Danmaku to force a foul or flinging the ball offsides by accident leaving the other team having possession. More often than not, the computer opts to use Double Spark to score during the corner kick resulting from the foul, another source of goals since your goalkeeper's stats are frankly TERRIBLE.
  • Third is the GK, Mima, Marisa's mentor. Due to special story shenanigans, your special shots can't bypass Mima until Reimu comes up with Fantasy Seal - Blink to score a goal, meaning your ability to score is greatly hampered for a good chunk of the first half while Yuuka and Marisa score willy-nilly with their infinite Guts. If this is your first time playing, Fantasy Seal - Blink is practically the only way to score, and it is very expensive at this period in the game. Your offensive effectively runs out of steam after 4-5 goals at most. leaving you to endure until halftime and then the entire second half. There are Guide Dang It! strategies to debuff Mima, such as using the Fake Command. However, the Fake Command often forces you to lose possession. Without a solid strategy, Level Grinding, and luck, this match is essentially unwinnable. Have Fun. To rub salt in the wound, Marisa joins your team and then you switch perspectives to another team altogether.
• Weaksauce Weakness: SGGK Letty, when she first appears, seems pretty much invincible. Her incredible Special Save and astronomically high statistics means that even the likes of Master Blade can't even bypass her defense. However, if the player can maneuver a player into confronting her one on one, suddenly, she becomes much less of a threat since she can no longer use SGGK.
• Worf Effect: Many of the special kick animations involve Yukari as the goalkeeper declaring her barrier to be invincible... Guess whether the ball goes through.