Touhou PCB Trial+ (v0.01) | Diao Ye Zong (withered leaf) (Extended, 12hrs)
3Stage 2 Boss - Chen's Theme [ ティアオイエツォン(withered leaf) | 橙（チェン）のテーマです ]
| Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLujoxIwGAx_Joy0K8YLPs4OIuEy4nzIHT |
Nothing too different on this one. Keeping here just for convenience's sake.
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The Trial+ version of PCB, released on Comiket 63, is one of the very few Touhou available/archived prototypes from the Windows era. Due to the franchise not being as popular as it is today, prototype versions of the old games are extremely hard to come by.
Due to this version being the very first one for PCB, some elements were still very "The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil-like" (EoSD-like) and were yet to be polished. Some songs really does sound something out of EoSD, while the portraits in-game weren't "full-body" ones yet, they still were "squared" as how it was in EoSD.
Internally, in the game files, most of the sprites still use the same system as EoSD did (one sprite sheet with things included with it, and another sprite sheet with the same elements, but painted in white, to apply the transparency, known as an "alpha mask"). Subsequent games no longer uses this method, and ever since final verion's PCB, all sprite sheets are transparent by default. Due to EoSD being an old game, it was most likely a limitation back then.
Though, not all sprites use this method, character portraits were already made transparent, even though portraits would be heavily revised for the final version of the game.
Aditionally, Trial+ still have all the game-related files compacted in five different .dat files (similar to EoSD that has six .dat files). In the final version, all of the game-related files is located in just one .dat file. The Trial+ also does not have thbgm.dat, instead, all songs are inside a folder called "bgm", yet again, just like EoSD.
One interesting trivia about this version, is the different Cirno portrait. There was an attempt in modifying her portrait from EoSD to something else, where in the final version, the EoSD pose was restored, and made her portrait be longer in height, to be consistent with all other portraits in the game.
In Trial+, Cirno's portrait has a different pose, no longer blocking her chest. Due to this, we can see a white sash bow in the center of her dress. Notably, this is the only time in Touhou history that she is seen with this bow, in all subsequent games (including print works and other Touhou media), her bow has simply vanished. It is entirely possible that this bow was already in the EoSD portrait, but was not visible due to her arms blocking it.
Another interesting thing is how Reimu has white gloves on her portraits on Trial+. Her gloves were removed on the final release, but one glove can still be seen in the character selection screen (which was kept even on the final release of the game). Just like Cirno, she has no longer been depicted with these gloves ever since.
You can see Cirno and Reimu's portraits (as well all the other portraits from this version) here: https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/File:PCB_Trial_Portraits.png