Game:

Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom (2015)

Duration: 33:11

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4

This run is pretty scuffed but has a lot of meaning packed into it. Not sure what I'll do next - there are lots of big goals I could go for that it's hard to choose. More LNBs than just MoF, clears with more/all shots across all games, LNN stages/bosses, even other games entirely. Currently leaning towards 14.3 all scenes no items without pausing like I did back in 2014 (which was not considered cheating/unfair play at the time) to truly check that off, and then Witness Randomizer improvements?

Finally, 13 years after I first played a Touhou game, I can claim the full set of Windows lunatic 1ccs. Only 4 or 5 of those years had any appreciable amount of playing, and when I stopped in 2014 I was missing only one: UFO. A position I'd been in twice: having 6-11 + 13, and later after DDC came out and I cleared that back to one. LoLK was the final nail in the coffin back when it came out - I was already checking out of bullet hells and it felt like the only way I'd push through UFO was if it was the final clear left for the full set... and LoLK, at the time, felt the same - and I didn't even like the game (though my opinion has since flipped, it's quite good).

Then, May of this year. Archipelago - a multiworld randomizer - had someone create a way to input your own randomizer into it, though everything had to be manually tracked and done. Most games didn't fit into this framework at all. Touhou 14.3 did. So I played it a bunch trying to clear every scene with weird item combinations to see what worked, including if no item scenes needed doll or not. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AycqhUSmKrA ) This, combined with having been gifted a copy of 18.5 and realizing I don't know anything about 16-18, was a big push.

I didn't know it yet, but I was back, having rediscovered what I enjoyed about these games in the first place, and being far enough removed from some unpleasant IRL associations I could actually reclaim things. I didn't want to take the step of fully joining a community until I knew I was going to stick around, and since MoTK was a ghost town, I needed something to prove to myself I was back. So, as described in my UFO lunatic 1cc commentary ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NLpgvi_IbI ) I chose to go for the one goal that had eluded me that decade ago.

After clearing, I found the Touhou Replay Community ( https://www.twitch.tv/touhou_replay_showcase ) and joined - though lurked to get the pulse of the community at first. It seemed welcoming enough, and while I'm not super active there I do follow most of the conversations. I also went and played the newly released games - clearing 16, 17, 18 on normal before playing 18.5, then clearing 18, 17, (19 came out and I cleared it), 16 on lunatic. Which for the third time, brought me back to one single lunatic uncleared.

But this time, I knew I could do it.

And so, here we are. A pipe dream I had before I was an adult, that became even more challenging over time has finally been achieved. It doesn't feel like an ending, instead it feels like a new beginning.

If you're still here, thanks for reading :)
I'll probably be trying to find a large unbroken block of time to stream ISC soon ( https://www.twitch.tv/ihavenonamesda )

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