Luna Nights: Stage One Walkthrough

     Welcome to Luna Nights! The game begins with a scene of Remilia Scarlet.  

“The time has finally come. Now, my world will begin. Are you ready, Sakuya?” The scene cuts to the outside of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Sakuya is teleported there. She hears Remilia’s voice, revealing that this is actually a fake copy of Gensokyo that Patchouli Knowledge helped her make. Patche even made the weather the same! She has some impressive magic! Remilia says you need to overcome tests she’s created and make your way over to where she waits. Of course, she put a limit on Sakuya’s ability to stop time, too. “A new game isn’t fun if you’re already powerful.” She can only slow it now. Your conversation concludes and now it seems you’re on your own. There are little instructions on the controls in the boxes with the joystick icon above them. You may notice that instead of buttons you know, it will say things like “[attack button]” and such. You can see what buttons these are and change them to your liking in the controls section of the pause screen.  

     The first challenge! It’s… a revolving door.  Kind of underwhelming considering you can manipulate time. Trigger snail time right after you pass through one section of the door to be faster than the second part of the door can block you. Sakuya pauses at a small pool of water. On the other side there is a little mech that takes off. The design seems familiar…? Nothing will happen if you fall in the water, but if you want to avoid getting wet, something that is helpful in later stages too is that when you jump and attack down by attacking while in the air, holding down (it’s the same button you can kneel while not jumping with) and holding forward, you don’t fall as quickly as you would normally or even while gliding (hold the jump button while in the air to do this). Keep going forward. The screen might seem to end but if you keep walking forward there is another room. This makes it so that on the map in the pause screen it is easier to see specific places and also so that the yokai in each room respawn when you leave. Like the ones in front of you! Uh Oh…. Quick! Hit the attack button to throw knives at enemies. Sakuya throws three knives each time. They get stronger the more you level up, but for now the only way to level up is to keep defeating yokai. If you feel that an enemy is approaching too fast, remember you can always slow time! It doesn’t take any magic points (MP) to slow time, unlike throwing knives. MP recovers on its own, unlike your health points (HP). 

     The first thing you will notice when you defeat yokai is that they drop little jewels! Hurry and pick them up because they disappear if you leave them too long! The pause screen displays how many of each jewel you have. I wonder what they are for. When you defeat all the yokai in the room, you can keep going. In the next room there is… Hieda no Akyuu? Upon starting the conversation, Sakuya determines that she must be an imposter that Remilia’s space created. Hieda no Akyuu offers to create a record for Sakuya. That is her ability after all. Now, whenever you use the green telephones scattered across the map, your game saves! If you want the “no retries for you!” achievement, hopefully you won’t need them though… If you’re careful and you follow this guide closely you should be able to get it! 

     Time for the next room! Surprise surprise, its more yokai! There’s also a strange red glowing door? It won’t open though. It seems you may need a key. We’ll deal with that later, for now just go up. There’s a middle section with two doors. There are also two bear yokai that guard the doors. That’s okay, we just need to go to the top for now. At the top section, there is a huge swarm of yokai floating towards you! You can throw knives upwards by attacking while holding up, but unless you really want the gems then maybe just go into the hall to your right. Here, there is a vending machine at the end of the room! Pass by it to completely recover your MP and HP! If you walk over to the trash bin, Sakuya will throw it away instead of littering. If you throw a soda can away in every trash bin on the map, you get an achievement! This trash bin seems a little far though…  

     Go back into the main room, but this time go into the top left room. Seems empty, right? Well, when you walk into the middle, the mech you saw earlier lands! The front opens up and out comes Nitori Kawashiro! This Nitori seems to be an imposter too… But there must be a reason she is here. Remilia must have made her to provide something just like Akyuu. Nitori claims to be doing some business and offers Sakuya a watch. She says it has strong magic in it and will help Sakuya use her power again. Plus, its free! Nitori says she offers it as a sign of their acquaintance. Walk forward and take the watch. It’s called an eternal clock! Now you can stop time whenever you want with the stop time button! Just one small problem… You can’t use it forever. The clock icon at the top middle of your screen has been activated and there is now a time gauge. It recovers on its own, but it decreases when you have time stopped. It uses more when you perform any action while time is stopped. On the bright side, now you can stop time and throw knives! They’ll all go at once without your enemies having a chance to move when you unfreeze time. Now you can easily get rid of the big swarm of yokai next door. You do have a limit to how many knives you can throw during the same time stop. Go back to the top right room. The vending machine recovers your time gauge too! When you drink soda, you can also stop time before Sakuya throws the can to get to farther away trash cans for the achievement.  Plus, you get five gold every time you throw away a can! Not much use for the gold yet, though.  

     Next go to the center right hall. You can’t get what’s in the center left just yet. Defeat the two yokai and then stand on the pressure plate in the middle of the room. Trigger snail time, then walk off. The wall in the front of you will begin to spin and face the other way. Go through it whether over or under it when it’s on its side. You can also stop time while it’s on the side if it still seems to go too fast for you. You can stop time while snail time is triggered, and you can also start the countdown for snail time while time is stopped. Continue down this path into the hallway. There’s a lot of yokai there so just throw knives as you go. It leads into another room with some more… you guessed it… yokai. There’s a stairway floating above you, but you can’t jump that high. When you’ve defeated all the yokai, you may have noticed that a part of the wall on the far right broke a little when hit with a knife. Keep throwing knives at it! Woah… It’s a secret room! You can discover these all over the map to get extra items. Don’t worry, I’ll point them all out! In this room there is an MP up. It increases the max MP you can have in your MP gauge by 10. Other things you can find are skills which are different ways of throwing knives or types of knives you can choose to use (but they cost more MP), HP up which does the same thing as MP up but for your HP, Time gauge up, same thing but for your time gauge, and Knife up which increases the amount of knives you can throw while time is stopped.

     Go back to the left and go down. Another red glowing door to your right. I guess your only option is to go left. In this room there is a different type of yokai and a big pool. Sakuya points out that you should be careful in water. Water solidifies when she stops time and she will be stuck in it! We can also use this to our advantage though. Stop time and walk on the water! It’s a solid now so you don’t fall through. You can also just jump over the yokai now that time is stopped. Something you may have noticed by now is the graze feature. Its just like in the original Touhou games except you don’t have a hitbox. If you just get really close to an enemy you can collect graze which heals your HP, MP, and recovers your Time gauge. When time is stopped, it is easier to collect graze so you can only collect red graze. This only recovers red gauges so it only affects your MP and Time gauge.  

     Keep going left. To the far left a little bit above you, there is the opposite side of the first red door we saw. Just ignore it and go down. On the very bottom there should be two ways you can go. Continue left. Keep going down that hall until you find a place with a door to your left and some stairs down. Go into the left room. This is a warp zone. You can travel instantly to other warp zones, but only ones you’ve seen. You haven’t seen any other warp zones yet, but you’re going to need to go to this warp zone eventually. Get out of the room and go down now. To the left there’s a vending machine. Use that and then go right. There’s another pool, but this time there is water flowing out on top. If you stop time to walk on this, you wont be able to get past that. Stop time, walk on the water, and then jump. Mid jump, unfreeze time and glide through the pouring water. Then once you’re through, stop time again to stand on the water on the other side and jump up to the solid ground. You could also go under the water, jump when you’re on the other side, and then freeze time to land on the now frozen water. Now, the gate in front of you only opens when you’re standing on the pressure plate. Stand there, stop time, and then run through. There’s another space where water flows down in front of you, so when you come back you will need to slow time and run through it while it’s closing.

     Stop! There are spikes in front of you! Don’t touch those because they deal a lot of damage and they’re hard to escape. If you do fall in the spikes, jump while you’re still invincible after taking damage and use the trick from earlier where you throw knives down and move to stay in the air. There’s a little platform over some spikes. You could just jump and throw knives to clear it but if your MP is low or you want to go on the platform, don’t rush. That’s how you fall onto spikes. Keep going right and jumping over obstacles. In the next room there are yokai statues. If you break any, some other yokai come out. Just go down and to the right. There is a secret room to the left, but it would be hard to get what’s in there right now. In the room to the right you should be able to go up. There is a save point in the room at the top. If you don’t need it just keep going right. Defeat the first yokai, then pause time. Throw knives at the yokai behind it this way. If you don’t, it will shoot a tall laser that moves at you and you will either have to jump over the laser or just take a hit.

     Keep going. With this pool, you should do the same thing from the one earlier. Great! Now in the next room just get to the top and into the room in the left. There’s a something in there! Wait until you have a full time gauge. Stop time while on the pressure plate for the door to be opened and then keep walking on the water over to it. Collect it! You got a sliding knife! Now if you hold down and press jump you can slide under spaces or hit enemies from below. It doesn’t even use any MP!

     Keep time paused and just start walking back. You should have enough Time to get past the gate at least without having to do something with time slowed on the pressure plate in the water. Make your way back to the place with the vending machine by going down and to the left. You can slide under that big chunk in the room now too. Just keep going left. You may need to stop time to avoid getting trapped by an enemy’s attacks. Once you’re back through the spikes, slow time to get through the gate and waterfall. You might need to use the sliding knife to get underneath the door. Once you’re back at the room close to the vending machine, go up and then right. You could of course use the vending machine if you need it. Just keep going to the right.  

     You should find yourself at the place where you came down and had to go left. Keep going right into that hall. Now there’s a save phone. When you call to make a record, Nitori picks up the phone. She asks if the eternal clock has been working and tells you about the business she started. Now, unless you plan on getting all your money from throwing away soda cans(trust me it’s not easy), you can sell Nitori jewels! You can also buy plenty of useful items in exchange for any money you have.

      Going right, you can use the sliding knife to get under the small spaces. You’re going to find yourself in a room with so many yokai and a few statues. You may need to stop time to get past this. There are also floating platforms to bring you up. Up around the middle of the wall to your right, there is a secret door. Destroy the wall before getting on the platform. Once the platform takes you above the place where the wall goes in a little, jump off to the right and glide. Keep going right while gliding and you should be able to glide into the secret room. Going right, using the sliding knife to go under walls, there’s a skill in there! You got auto aim! You can now throw knives that automatically aim for your enemies. There’s also a wooden crate in there, but you can’t do much about that right now.

     Go back into the main room. Try using auto aim to get rid of all the yokai there! Then use the platforms to go up. On the final platform, wait until it’s kind of high up and then jump off and glide to the right. Collect the thing on the floor. It’s a red key! Now you can open the glowing red doors. Go to the left through a red door. Then go up and to the left. Just keep going and use the door that turns over. Now you can get what’s in the middle left room with your sliding knife under the wall. It’s another skill! This time you got a stun knife. It uses less MP than auto aim and it stuns and shocks your enemies! Now that you’re back here, you can buy things from Nitori if you need. She’s still in the same place she gave you the eternal clock in. She sells consumable items and status up items. In consumable items, there are four things labeled “health”, “magic”, “time”, and “shop”. Health, magic, and Time all recover their respective gauge upon consumption. The one that says shop is called a shop ticket. You can summon Nitori whenever you want to buy and sell other items with it. My first time playing the game, I forgot it was a consumable item and I used it just to see what would happen. So, if you are wondering, yes, you can only use the same shop ticket once. In status up items, there is a Time gauge up, Knife up, and experience points. She does sell out of these items if you buy too many. Buying anything from Nitori isn’t required to beat the game, but if you think you might need any of these items, it also doesn’t hurt to buy anything. If you don’t think you will need anything from Nitori, just go to the vending machine on the top right and go back to where you found the red key. Remember that if you are lost, you can always check the map in the pause screen. You can also see all the skills you have and trash cans you’ve thrown a soda can away at in the pause screen. 

     Once you’re back there, go to the right. You made it outside! Now keep going right. There is a space with a vending machine and a telephone. It’s a bit odd to see them both in the same room. There’s also a box with instructions on how to use skills. Could you guess? It’s the [skill button]. Something it doesn’t say there though is that if you hold the skill button, everything pauses, and you can quickly change to the skill you want. This is also helpful if you’re like me and you need to just pause and see what’s happening sometimes. When you use the save phone, Nitori is there! She tells you about the vending machines she installed. Those were Nitori’s? Next, she says that the boss fight is near, but if you want to shop at her store then come again soon! Wait… boss fight!? This might be harder than we thought…