Me vs Raiko Horikawa (DDC Extra Boss)

"RIMSHOT!!!!

A video of me beating my way through the drum tsukumogami, Raiko Horikawa

Raiko Horikawa (such a thunderous name!!!) is the Ex-boss of the game Double Dealing Character, the 14th installment of the Touhou Project. The Touhou Project is a series of danmaku games where serial killers battle against folkloric beings of varied musical power. The mind behind this is a man known only as ZUN. And soon you will see what I mean.

Raiko is a very fun boss. Her leitmotif fits her to a tee and her fight is both challenging and ingenious, for the most part. ZUN has a tendency of shoving curvy lasers where they don't fit and quite frankly the worst part of her battle are those curvy lasers. That annoying type of bullet has not business existing. Raiko's nonspell follows Suwako's and Koishi's school of nonspell. They vary greatly between each other, having two variations for each pattern: and easy one and a hard one. Her spell's gimmick are the drums. She will regularly summon drums to do her bidding. Although they aren't groundbreaking, they allow for some fun patterns and one of those patterns actually force you to take a minute and consciously makes you stop shooting since that can lead to disasters. All and all she is a rather normal but fun Exboss. Also, her boss fight originally reminded me of Donkey Kong due to her drums looking like barrels.

Raiko herself is also rather interesting. If you have read the official Touhou manga "Forbidden Scrollery", you should have a fairly good idea of how cunning, if not downright manipulative, Mamizou is. I imagine Raiko is to tsukumogami what Mamizou is to tanuki. Raiko has that air of knowing what she's doing, why she's doing it, and to what end. Her backstory seems to indicate she does possess, if not some leadership, at least some charisma, enough to sway other tsukumogami due to her actions. From what I could understand, Raiko started gaining more power, but discovered that the power came from less than savory sources. She decided to abandon her taiko drums she originally was and gambled on transferring herself to something from the Outside World. She succeeded as shown by her being the tsukumogami of a modern drum set. Didn't knew tsukumogami could transfer from one object to another, but ok. Point is she push other tsukumogami toward a similar goal in order to bring "tools" more relevance. Of all the characters in the game, I find her the most interesting, although that might change as the fandom kick in, translations for the game become available, and I read more about each character. Design wise, I always liked Touhou characters with modern attire. Her casual-elegant clothing and hos she portrays herself (confident and in control) make her appealing. Again, this might all change when the dialogue gets translated.

Anyways, to end this all in all I found Double Dealing Character a great game. I was even tempted to do a review of it or a Normal 1cc of it. But that would take too much time I don't have. Despite the gimmicks, the mechanics are fun and the characters are interesting. The music is solid, me particularly loving the stage 2 song, the stage 5 and 6 bosses' theme, and the extra stage. That is all for now, enjoy.

For more info the Touhou Project, visit the wiki:
http://www.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Touhou...