Seven Colours of Perfect Freeze

An official remaster of the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was announced today, releasing this September. The first time a Touhou game has gotten this treatment, and notably the first time EoSD is available digitally at all (I think). Featuring art and music redone by ZUN, updated gameplay, and notably, inbuilt translations for 10 languages!

I figure I should circle back around to clarify some of the things that people online seem most curious about. This is all from public sources, not any kind of insider info.

The circle "Shanghai Alice Reprise" formed for this project consists of ZUN and some of his usual collaborators like his wife Kii-san, Jyunya and Curee from AQUASTYLE, and Unabara Iruka from Twilight Frontier, plus some other staff. There is some vague hope of continuing with the remasters in the future. New Touhou games are still going to be done by Team Shanghai Alice i.e. ZUN with some help, just like before. Nothing has changed in terms of the fanwork guidelines either, he wanted to clarify, I guess because there's a new circle involved and all.

Contrary to what I kinda vaguely said, the art is done by other people like Curee (close redraws of ZUN's old art), Jyunya (enemy sprites) and Kii-san (player sprites). The coding is being handled by other people like Jyunya recreating ZUN's old game in a newer engine.

The music is all redone by ZUN himself. It has wider instrumentation and better audio quality, obviously, but I'd say it's still pretty close to the original rather than e.g. some attempt to make "2026-style versions" that'd sound like they came out of FW. I'm not a music person, though.

While the others talked ZUN into this project, it isn't just something he gave his blessing, he is closely personally involved with it. In his own words, until now he's been very busy just making all the music, but now comes the part where he needs to check other people's work and nitpick everything he wants changed (mostly joking). They've had a very tight schedule coming up on this announcement, and still a lot to do in the three months before release.

The release includes both the new version and a close recreation of the 2002 original, down to lacking quality of life features that the new version adds in. (screenshot source)

And who helped me with that? Not people calling for some nebulous revolution. Not people telling me that the system was useless. Not people preaching at me to grow my own food. It was a church food bank partially funded by the state of Texas that some southern hippies donated a bunch of Whole Foods nonsense to.

And you know what? I’m sick and tired of defeatism. What can we get done right now, huh? Are you gonna accept something a bit better to help people right now or are you waiting for your perfect utopia to come to you?

And then if you go to college, there aren't quite so many people making things fun for you--although there are RAs, and the student life office, and various clubs and organizations doing activities, etc.--but you're in an environment where your friends are nearby and you all have similar schedules and responsibilities, so a lot fun just kind of arises spontaneously.

But once you're out on your own, in the workforce and whatnot, all that just drops of a cliff. Planned activities for adults exist, but you generally have to seek them out, rather than having them relentlessly advertised to you and/or taking place in locations where you will bump into them on the way to breakfast. And your friends are all spread out, and everyone's busy at different times, so you aren't just bumping into people and getting sucked into whatever adventure they have going on, you have to make arrangements.

It's a big shift! If you have kids, you generally figure out pretty quick that your role is now the Planner Of Fun, but without that big obvious signpost, it can feel like the world just gradually stopped having fun things in it.

But it hasn't; you just have to plan and seek out opportunities for fun yourself, because it's no longer anyone else's job to put them in front of you--it's yours!

okay i need to poll the public … is this cope, or does it kinda look like march is wearing a modern hanbok…? 🥺