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Title screen!

First choice is load, second is new game, third is options.

Upon selecting a new game, we can mess with the difficulty.

The top options are Classic and Casual. The former gives you FE-style permadeath, the latter lets characters that die come back between chapters. We'll be going with Classic for this playthrough.

The bottom options are Easy and Normal. I'm not sure what all is affected by this, but we'll be going with Normal.

Upon confirming, we're presented with...

Back when Gensokyo had not yet been isolated from the outside world...
Yukari Yakumo was enjoying a quiet life in "Mayoiga", a land of her own creation.
Mayoiga was protected by a boundary hiding it from sight, and with few exceptions, it was peaceful.
However, Yukari could not accept this state of affairs.
While human civilization was rapidly progressing, she sensed that youkai were in danger of having their existences denied.
Youkai attack humans, and humans dispose of them...
Thus, the relationship between humans and youkai gradually broke down.

...

The year was Meiji 16.
One fateful encounter would change the course of history.

Prologue: The First Shrine Maiden

Whe~~ew! There's just somethin' special about drinking sake here!

It's because of the wonderful atmosphere. It's no surprise sake would taste exceptional.

Here, I've brought you some more snacks.

Ooh, is this trout? Don't mind if I... huh?

MGMGMG

H-hey! Yuyuko, don't just gobble 'em all down!

MGMG... Can't help it. They're too tasty.

Gah! Hey, Ran! More snacks, ASAP!

I'm afraid that was the last of our trout...

Whaaa... You're kiddin' me...

Oh dear, how unfortunate for you.

And whose fault do you think this is!?

Goodness, even drinking sake turns into an uproar with those two.

...Whew.

If you're going to drink, it's better to have fun with it, don't you think?

...Say, Yuyuko.

What's the matter?

What do you think about the current state of Gensokyo?

That's all you talk about these days. Are you really that afraid of humans?

Afraid? No, that's not quite it.

It's just...

The weaker youkai are going to disappear, right?

...

If you've got something in mind, then just go for it. The three of us will all be there for you.

...Thank you.

Yuyuko leaves.

...
Even still, the best I can manage is to save a small handful of youkai.
If I want to save everyone, then I need something more...

Lady Yukari, we have an emergency!

What are you making such a fuss about, Ran?

Mayoiga's barrier has vanished! Not just a part of it, I mean the whole thing's gone!
On top of that, there are people coming towards us!

I see... Rather inconvenient timing.
(The barrier was completely dismantled... what could have possibly happened?)
Ran, prepare to repel the intruders. Yuyuko, Suika, could I ask for your assistance?

It's the perfect time for an after-meal work out.

I'll vent my frustration on 'em!

Using them as your punching bags? Sounds fun.

Yuyuko, you're next!

Ooh, scary~.

Could you two please take it outside...

Are those the intruders?

Um, I believe so, yes.

They don't seem like they'd have the power to break my barrier...
Regardless, drive them out.

And like that, we're thrown into our first fight. 4v4, with a bit of defensive terrain dotted around to give us the edge. That tree...ish thing that I'm hovering the cursor over gives +1 defense and +15% evasion, not unlike forest tiles in a real Fire Emblem.

But for now, let's look at our characters.

Yukari
Gap Youkai

HP: 20
STR: 5
MAG: 1
SKL: 6
SPD: 5
LUK: 5
DEF: 4
RES: 3

Smol Yukari is a typical Eliwood/Roy-ish Lord character. She's roughly average in everything but Magic. She'll usually be decent, but she'll almost never excel at anything. She's held back by her low strength, but she can contribute well enough.

Her weapons of choice are Homing Danmaku, this game's version of swords. High accuracy, low damage. They are basically the worst weapon type, which is unfortunate, and she doesn't gain anything new on promotion. She comes equipped with basically the equivalent of an Iron Sword and a Slim Sword, as well as a 3-use vulnerary.

Her first skill, Boundary, reduces all damage she receives by 25%. It's nice to have, though the pre-battle forecast doesn't take skills into account, so you always have to remember it yourself. Her second skill, Gap Movement, lets her move via teleporting, so terrain or enemies can't block or impede her movement in any way. And then the third just gives her access to the item storage.

Ran
Gap Youkai's Shikigami

HP: 23
STR: 6
MAG: 3
SKL: 4
SPD: 7
LUK: 2
DEF: 6
RES: 1

For reasons I'll get into later, Ran would be useful just for her 8 movement, but she's pretty decent aside from that. She's a classical "average at everything" Cavalier, though unlike Yukari she has a strength stat worth a damn.

She comes with an Iron Sword (note: I am too lazy to translate these weapon names, so I will mostly keep using Fire Emblem analogues) and an infinite-use Bronze Sword. After promotion she'll be able to use the lance equivalent, so she's in good shape there.

Her only skill is Beast, which is just Canto from FE9/FE10. A solid skill that lets her move, perform an action (including attacking), and use her remaining movement to move again. With how I tend to use Beasts in this game, it is perhaps less useful than you might think, but it's still good.

Suika
Antisocial Oni

HP: 21
STR: 7
MAG: 1
SKL: 3
SPD: 3
LUK: 3
DEF: 8
RES: 0

Prototypical Knight. Unlike your usual Lance-wielding FE Knights, however, Suika uses Big Bullets, which are this game's Axe analogue. For reasons that I'll explain later, we really need to train her up in the short term. In the long-term, her abysmal base speed and skill can hold her back a bit, but she can still be very useful. She comes with an Iron Axe.

Her first skill, which I'm going to call Iron Skin, reduces received physical damage by 1/3. Very tanky. Her second skill, Human Slayer, boosts her accuracy and evasion by 10% against humans. Those aren't a very common enemy type, and the evasion aint useful on Suika, but accuracy is one of Suika's weak points, so you take what you can get. Her last skill, Gather, gives her a small chance of getting a sellable treasure item upon defeating an enemy. It's a veeeeery low chance, like maybe 5%, but it's a nice bonus when it happens.

Yuyuko
Restless Ghost

HP: 18
STR: 3
MAG: 5
SKL: 7
SPD: 7
LUK: 7
DEF: 3
RES: 5

Yuyuko's an odd one. I guess she's like a Pegasus Knight? She wields Highspeed Bullets, this game's Lances, and comes with an Iron Lance and a 1-2 range Javelin. Despite being locked to a physical weapon type, she's much more of a mage character with high magic and low strength, but she won't be able to leverage that until she promotes. At the very least, she's a fast flyer, so she has a niche, but the mid-game before she promotes is gunna hurt.

Speaking of flying, she has Flight. It lets her ignore terrain penalties, and also hover over water/open pits/etc. I can't remember if it also means she doesn't get defensive terrain bonuses like in FE, but regardless, it's a good skill to have spread amongst your units. Her other skill is Ghost, which reduces all damage from Swords, Lances, and Axes by 50%. It means her low defense will go a lot further than it might seem, but don't push it - she's still pretty fragile.

To get back to the map, if you move 2 units next to each other and select this option...

You get an Awakening-style Pair Up.

I'm not entirely sure how this is calculated, but generally, the higher a partner unit's stats are, the more bonus stats they give. Right now we're all pretty weak, so the bonuses will mostly be +1, or a rare +2 to defense if you're partnered with Suika.

There's no dual strike-ish mechanics or anything like that, but there is one more thing that makes Pair Up in this game kinda busted. See, you can swap which unit is in front before moving, same as any other FE game, but you can also swap after moving. This means that hypothetically, Suika with her 5 move, could swap to Ran with her 8, then Ran could move and swap back to Suika. In effect, both units in a Pair Up move as fast as the fastest unit among them.

For the time being, we've just got Ran/Yuyuko staying off the side, while Suika/Yukari head down to the defensive terrain. The purple tiles are an enemy range indicator, by the way.

Just like in Fire Emblem, units take turns attacking each other, in this case by hurling energy bullets.

The weapon triangle is in full effect here, so Suika (axes) has a disadvantage against these basic fairies (swords). Her accuracy is hovering around 60%, but luckily she hits everyone that comes at her. Between her high defense, Iron Skin, and the defensive terrain, she takes hardly any damage herself.

Back on the player phase, it's time to drop some bodies. This yellow wolf enemy is an axe wielder, so Suika has good odds to kill her.

ezpz

This enemy also dropped a Vulnerary. Unlike most Fire Emblems, there is literally no indication of what items enemies will drop upon defeat. It is one of the many small gripes I have about this game's UI. Luckily, you viewers won't have to worry about it.

Resources in this game are tight, so being able to get a "free kill" on this fairy with Ran's infinite-use Bronze Sword is much appreciated.

And thanks to Beast, she can move afterwords. In this case, there's no where strategically valuable to put her, so she just moves down.

The enemies conveniently defeat themselves for us.

Is that all of them?

There seems to be more, coming from the west this time.

The barrier's gone, but I'm still surprised there are this many of them.

We really don't have the time for this.

Yuyuko's gunna go hang out on this forest tile and let the enemies come to her. Crucially, she's out of range of the axe wolf. Ghost might let her take some hits, but axes will still put the hurt on her.

One annoying thing about this game for LP purposes is that there's no damage numbers popping up after a hit, it just changes the hp bar below. Thus, you'll just have to take my word that Yuyuko only takes 2 damage from these fairies.

Enemies have a variety of AI patterns in this game, and I won't pretend to understand them at all. In this case, the fairies moved towards us, but the axe wolf didn't.

Killing the fairies like this lets me bait the wolf over.

This game doesn't let you save mid-mission normally, but it does give you checkpoint saves every 5 turns. It's a decent compromise between never letting you save, and letting you save-scum freely.

Killing this guy nets us our first level ups of the game!

Suika gets HP, strength, skill, and speed. A fantastic start for her!

Yukari gets HP, strength, and luck. I'll take all the strength I can get on her!

Looks like they're coming from the east this time.

Another set of 3 enemies, this time including a green wolf that uses lances.

Yuyuko will be moving to intercept that one on the enemy phase.

Despite the Ghost skill, Yuyuko still takes 5 damage. Her defense is low, so you really can't abuse it.

Her counter is a critical hit (that's what the gold text on the side is saying). I don't think it makes a big difference in the animation. Maybe the explosions re a bit flashier? Regardless, it triples the damage, so Yuyuko does 21 here instead of 7.

If you wanna follow along with damage numbers yourself, the red number next to character's protraits is attack, the blue number is defense. Subtract the two to figure out damage (which is further modified by skills). Green is accuracy, yellow is crit chance.

Suika mega overkills the green wolf.

Aha! With the bonus from Pair Up, Ran has 8 speed, which is just enough for her to double attack this yellow wolf. For those not familiar with Fire Emblem's flow of combat, this means Ran attacks, Enemy attacks, Ran attacks again. _{On the enemy phase, it'd go Enemy, Ran, Ran, instead.}

As you can imagine, having high speed is a very good thing.

The enemy's are polished off, so I'll take a second to point out a use for Yukari's Gap skill. Normally the wall around the house would be inpassable, but Yukari alone can warp past it and hang out on the interior. Not very useful right now, but worth keeping in mind for later.

More enemies show up.

More of 'em? Getting kinda sick of this.

Stay on guard. If you're injured, be sure to use a vulnerary.

Ran levels up! HP, Speed, Luck. As I established, Speed is basically the god stat, so I won't complain.

HP, Magic, Skill, Luck. That's a lot of stats, but it doesn't have speed or strength, so it's not what Yuyuko particularly wants right now.

I'll note here that, while I don't have access to real, datamined growth rates, I can say from experience that growth rates are pretty low - closer to FE6 than something like Awakening.

Suika grabs another level, and gets HP, Strength, Skill, Luck, and Def. If not for the skill I'd call this an average Suika level, but with the skill I'll call it excellent.

Alright, I think we got all of them!

...No, more are about to arrive.

A girl in red rushes forward.

Haa... haa...

Is that... a house?

Is that... a human?

A human lost in Mayoiga... it's been quite a while since that's happened.

Lady Yukari, should we go to her?

Hold on, is that human...

Ran, Yuyuko, Suika. You take care of the enemies.

Gunna go save her?

I am.

...Welp, you're the boss.
You go do wutcha gotta do.

First, I'll need to reach her and calm her down.

Let's talk to her.

_{ignore the slight differences in unit positions here, I took multiple takes for this.}

Ahh! Go away!

Be at ease. I am not your enemy.

Huh? Oh, okay.

...I wasn't lying, but you're awfully quick trust, aren't you?

???

It's fine. Here, take this.

What is this?

Danmaku. You should be able to handle it.
Use it to protect yourself.

Hmm, got it.

...I certainly hope so.

Shrine Maiden
Wonderful and Carefree Girl

HP: 20
STR: 4
MAG: 1
SKL: 4
SPD: 4
LUK: 10
DEF: 3
RES: 4

Yes, her name is just "Shrine Maiden". She's another balanced Lord-type unit, like Yukari. Except, uh, basically better in every way? From my experience her growth rates in every area are above average. In particular, she has enough strength that being stuck with Swords isn't totally awful. Add in her access to Staves for healing, and she will likely be one of your better units. Incidentally, she also has the Micaiah thing going on where she has like a 90% growth in luck, or there-abouts.

Fittingly, her skills are great too. Youkai Slayer is like Suika's skill, giving her +10% accuracy/evasion against youkai. Youkai are the most common enemy type, so it works well. Her next one is Nihil, which just like in FE, disables enemy offensive skills. It also prevents them from critical hitting her ever. Her third skill is Charisma, which gives all allies within 3 tiles +10% accuracy and evasion.

So yeah. She's pretty strong, and makes everyone else better just by showing up. Nice to have in a Lord.

She starts by healing Yukari. There's no animation for this, sadly.

That katakana on the left is Reimu's Charism proc'ing.

In the late game, you will often see like 8 different skills going off at once.

Healing in this game gives a shitload of EXP by the way. 2 uses and Shrine Maiden's over halfway to a level.

HP, Magic, Skill, Speed, Def. That's a lot of things that aren't strength... but it's a good result overall, so I really can't complain.

Yeesh, those are some low hit rates on the enemy side. Thank you, Youkai Slayer.

Ran finishes off the yellow wolf. This one was carrying a 1-2 range Hand Axe. Unfortunately, this game follows the "make 1-2 range weapons have significant drawbacks" paradigm of Fates, so it's got a base of 55% accuracy. Suika's got bad skill to begin, so she won't be hitting anyone with this for quite a while.

This wolf is listed as a "Boss Youkai". It has slightly higher stats and a much higher level than the other enemies in this chapter. It also has the same Human Slayer as Suika, so don't let Shrine Maiden near her.

Shrine Maiden heals into level 2. Magic, Skill, Speed, Luck, and Res. She tends to have more "lots of stats" levels than anyone else. I'd guess she has the highest total growths of anyone in the game, though I can't prove it.

Finishing off the boss, Ran gets Strength, Skill, and Res.

Meanwhile, Yuyuko gets Skill, Speed, Luck, and Def. As good as a "no strength" level can reasonably be.

By the way, I haven't been mentioning it, but we got like 5 vulnerary drops throughout this chapter.