Touhou 17: Wily Beast and Weakest Creature/Main Mechanics

WIP

Tokens

Tokens are the happy little animal faces that float around screen. Collect these to add them to the Token bar on the bottom left. If you stand near a token, it will slow down. If it is a beast token, it will also not change phases until you move away from it.

Unlike the tokens in Undefined Fantastic Object which bounce off the screen at the same angle every time, tokens in this game spawn with a random angle. This means that unlike Touhou 12 which is heavily focused around routing, WBaWC is based on improvisation to random events.

Tokens also have a built in anti-stacking mechanic. If two tokens are stacked on each other and they both hit a wall, they will kindly bounce away from each other in different directions.

Tokens have a lifespan of around 2 minutes and 35 seconds. When a token has been on screen for 2 minutes and 10 seconds, it will appear to fade. This indicates it is nearing the end of its lifespan. Around 15 seconds later, it will no longer be able to bounce off walls, and will instead exit the screen and despawn the next time they reach one.Prioritize fading tokens for collection over non-faders. A token despawned is a token wasted.

Kinds of tokens:

Beast tokens are the most common token. They flash between 3 states: Wolf -> Otter -> Eagle -> Wolf and so on. It is important to memorize this order. Basically, if you are looking for Otters but there are none on screen, look for Wolves, since they are about to become Otters. Collect three or more of the same Beast token to activate a beast hyper. Static beast tokens are the same as beast tokens, but they are only in one state and never flash. There are only two conditions where these appear: If you miss (two matching your shottype will appear) and during the final 2 spells in Keiki's fight (they will constantly spawn). Fish tokens are the tokens with the blue backdrops. They come in 4 forms: Bomb Fragment, Life Piece, Power Item, and Point Item. Ending a hyper with one of these will give you their rewards. Rare Beast Tokens: Rare beast tokens are special tokens that are dropped from the midboss of each stage under special conditions. They will act like Fish tokens, but if you finish a hyper with one, you will get more Extra Beasts.

Rare token spawn conditions (all referring to midboss):

Jellyfish (Stage 1): Defeat Eika without killing any of the spirits that spawn. Cow (Stage 2): Be close to Urumi when you defeat her. A good way to do this is go into her healthbar ring when she's at low health. Chick (Stage 3): Have an Otter hyper active when you defeat Kutaka. This one's pretty simple. Turtle (Stage 4): Graze at least 10 bullets within the last second before defeating Yachie. Haniwa (Stage 5): Have at least 4 tokens on screen when you defeat Mayumi. Horse Haniwa (Stage 6): Spirit Strike (press X with a hyper) just before defeating Mayumi. Triple Chick (Extra): Defeat Kutaka's final spell without going above her.

Rare token rewards:

Jellyfish, Turtle, Haniwa, Haniwa Horse, and Triple Chick will grant 4 beast tokens in random states and 1 life piece token. Cow will reward you with 3 beast tokens in random states, 1 life piece token, and 1 bomb fragment token. Chick will reward you with 2 bomb fragment tokens, 1 life piece token, 1 point item token, and 1 power item token.

Token Duping: Token duping is an important exploit involving Rare tokens that allows you to gain more tokens than intended. It works like this:

End a hyper that does not use a Rare token.

Before you gain the Extra Beasts from this hyper, start another hyper that uses a Rare token.

Essentially, by doing this, you confuse the game into thinking the first hyper used a Rare token. Your Extra Beasts for it will be whatever the Rare token rewards you with. But the second hyper will also give you Rare token rewards because it used a Rare token itself.