Touhou Puppet Dance Performance: Shard of Dreams - Post-Game Endings
7SPOILER ALERT!
Don't watch this video if you don't want to be spoiled about how this game ends.
So, I had been playing through Shard of Dreams lately in some of my free time (not a recorded playthrough), and near the end of the post-game, Yukari presents the player with a choice. I wanted to look up how that choice would affect the ending, if at all. However, I couldn't seem to find any info regarding this online. (Maybe I didn't search in the right places?)
I decided to make a backup copy of my save file before making my choice, and then see for myself how each choice affected the ending. And yep, the dialogue from the final bosses varies, along with what's shown during the credits.
First, I pick the "I want to live with puppets" choice, and that results in there being lots of puppets all over the place during the credits scenes. And then, I show what happens with the "I want to return home" choice, which results in the credits scenes being completely devoid of puppets, save for my starter following behind me. (Honestly, the puppet-filled credits definitely seems like the happier ending to me, so that's what I ultimately went with for my file in the end.)
Oh, and I show the method I use to easily defeat the final bosses using just two puppets in the mid-80s for levels. Start with Power Tenshi, set a Stealth Trap, then switch to Extra Medicine, whose Poison Labyrinth ability prevents non-Poison foes from switching out, so their opener Koishi will be stuck in battle after it sets up Field Protect and Field Barrier (they typically switch out Koishi if possible after setting up the screens).
Koishi will then usually use Overrun (or rarely Catastrophe, but that didn't happen in this video), which would normally hit my Medicine for about 50%, I think. However, I let my Medicine learn Moon's Protection, which raises SpAtk and SpDef (just like Calm Mind in Pokémon), and that lessens the damage from Koishi's attacks. So, I start using that over and over, and usually after 4 attacks from Koishi, my Medicine will be at red health, which triggers the Skirmisher Charm I gave her, boosting her Speed.
So, what do I do once Medicine has +4 SpAtk, +4 SpDef, and +1 Speed? Well, I proceed to sweep, sweep, sweep their team, of course! They don't have any priority attacking moves at all, +1 Speed is enough to even outspeed their Choice Belted puppet, and +4 SpAtk will let me just wreck everything in one shot. Oh, and the reason for the Stealth Trap at the start was to break the Black Choker that their Remilia holds (works like Pokémon's Focus Sash, allowing the holder to survive a one-shot move with 1 HP if they started at full HP).
Once Medicine's ready, I use the following on each of their puppets:
-Field Break on Koishi.
-Poison Bomb on Flandre.
-Field Break on Satori.
-Poison Bomb on Remilia.
-Poison Bomb on Mugetsu.
-Field Break on Gengetsu.
The initial Field Break on Koishi breaks the screens she had set up, and these moves are all super effective except for the Poison Bomb on Remilia. But, Remilia actually loses 50% of her HP from Stealth Trap, being 4x weak to Steel, and the neutral Poison Bomb is still way more than enough to finish her.
The only thing that I think can go wrong with this strategy is if Koishi lands a critical hit with any of her Overruns. If that happens, at least it's near the start of the fight and I can just reset and try again quickly. (If the very first Overrun crits, I'll actually survive, but will only be able to get off 2 Moon's Protections. However, that is actually still enough to sweep their team!)
And yes, my starter was Suwako on this playthrough, but I did manage to fit a Cirno onto my team in the post-game, who helped quite a bit in certain situations. I did bring a full team for this fight here, but then I figured out this strategy to win using just two puppets. Also, the second time around, with the "I want to return home" choice, I kinda rushed to the end without grinding as much, so my levels were lower there (particularly Remilia, who was the newest addition to my party), but they were still good enough for this strategy to work. (Also, I turned off the battle animations the second time to speed things up.)
(0:00) "I want to live with puppets"
(0:58) Pre-battle conversation.
(5:06) Post-battle conversation.
(6:00) Start of the credits.
(10:11) "I want to return home"
(10:36) Pre-battle.
(13:36) Post-battle.
(14:34) Roll credits.
Feel free to comment, but just know that I dislike profanity. Any comments containing F-bombs and/or S-bombs will be run over! (In other words, they'll be deleted.)
(Comments containing other types of inappropriate content and excessively spammy pointless comments may meet this fate as well.)
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Touhou Puppet Dance Performance Shard of Dreams Post-Game Ending Variants Final Battle Atrocious Demons Mugetsu Gengetsu Tenshi Stealth Trap Medicine Moon's Protection Skirmisher Charm Sweep SomeGuy712x Some Guy SRA