if I wrote a dystopian novel where the corrupt evil megacorporation that controls society has a fucking smirk for a logo, my editor would tell me to use a less heavy-handed metaphor
Colorful Airglow Bands Surround Milky Way : Why would the sky glow like a giant repeating rainbow? Airglow. Now air glows all of the time, but it is usually hard to see. A disturbance however – like an approaching storm – may cause noticeable rippling in the Earth’s atmosphere. These gravity waves are oscillations in air analogous to those created when a rock is thrown in calm water. Red airglow likely originates from OH molecules about 87-kilometers high, excited by ultraviolet light from the Sun, while orange and green airglow is likely caused by sodium and oxygen atoms slightly higher up. While driving near Keluke Lake in Qinghai Provence in China a few years ago, the photographer originally noticed mainly the impressive central band of the Milky Way Galaxy. Stopping to photograph it, surprisingly, the resulting sensitive camera image showed airglow bands to be quite prominent and span the entire sky. The featured image has been digitally enhanced to make the colors more vibrant. via NASA
For me, nothing in Touhou fascinates me more than the extra bosses and their stages. Whenever a new game comes out, I’m always excited to see who is the secret enemy you fight after the conclusion of the main story. Lemme explain why I love them so much
For starters, a lot of extra boss characters have very exotic and over-the-top designs compared to the rest of cast. You’ve got Flandre and Nue with their weird wings, Saki with her cool cowgirl getup, and whatever the hell Hecatia is wearing. Extra bosses are the biggest challenge in every game after Lunatic mode, and I think their designs often reflect that you’re up against a difficult battle.
Another thing is their stages. Extra stages have a fixed difficulty and the bullet patterns are designed in way that you can’t face them normally like in the main 6 stages. You have to strategize and think outside of the box. The same applies to the attacks of the extra bosses themselves. Extra boss fights are designed to push you out of your comfort zone, leading to crazy unique bullet patterns. They’re often the greatest spectacle in each game, rivaling or outshining even the final bosses.
The last thing I love about extra bosses is their connection to the main story. A lot of games nowadays usually don’t have much post game content, so when you beat the final boss, that’s pretty much the conclusion. In Touhou, the end is not quite the end. Sometimes there is secretly another character working behind the scenes pulling the strings. Other times the defeat of the final boss leads to unintended consequences that lead to the actions of another character. Or maybe, there’s a character with direct relations to the final boss whose interest was piqued by their defeat. Basically, the extra bosses and their stages serve as the final journey back home, and for a shmup series, it’s honestly a pretty unique concept.
So basically, I really love extra bosses. They’re bizarre and cool secret characters with difficult unique fights. They’re pretty much like superbosses in a way, which is another aspect in video games I find fascinating. Anyway hope you enjoyed my TED talk, happy scrolling, Tumblr!