This is a dictionary of words, terms, items, and characters mentioned that you may not be familiar with. The text in red throughout the posts are all defined here in order of appearance.
Remilia Scarlet.
Remilia Scarlet is a vampire and the owner of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She is the older sister and guardian of Flandre Scarlet. She also claims to be related to the world’s most notorious vampire, Count Vlad Ţepeş Dracul (Dracula), but this is a lie. Her ability is manipulation of fate, but there is no documentation of the ability being used in combat, and it obviously has some rules or else she would win every battle. Her theme song used in the game is “Septette for the Deceased Princess”. Her theme “The Young Descendant of Tepes” also plays during stage four. Her theme names are interesting because “Septette for the Deceased Princess” is not a septette, Remilia is not deceased, nor is she a princess. It has also been stated that her relation to Dracula is a lie.
Sakuya Izayoi.
Sakuya Izayoi is the chief maid in the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She is the only human living in and working there. She has the ability to manipulate time and is incredibly skilled with her weapon of choice, knives. When she runs out of knives, she says that she stops time to pick up ones that she’s already thrown. Sakuya also uses her manipulation of time to get cleaning done very quickly. Being the main character in the game, she has various theme songs that play in the background including “Flowering Night”, “Night of Nights”, “Luna Clock ~ Lunar Dial”, and “The Maid and the Pocket Watch of Blood”.
Gensokyo.
Gensokyo is the fictional land in Japan in which the events of the Touhou series take place. Gensokyo was once deserted, so powerful yokai began to settle there and terrorize nearby places. Powerful humans were sent to Gensokyo in an attempt to exterminate them. The fighting went on until 1884 A.D. when Reimu Hakurei sealed Gensokyo off from the rest of the world with the Hakurei Border. The only known gateway between the rest of the world and Gensokyo is the Hakurei Shrine.
Patchouli Knowledge.
Patchouli Knowledge (also called Patche) is a witch who lives in the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She spends a lot of time reading books and studying magic. She has very impressive elemental magic, but due to her asthma and anemia, she can’t use it very well. She is still incredibly smart and spends most of her time in the library. Her theme song used in the game is “Locked Girl ~ the Girl’s Secret Room”.
Yokai.
Yokai is a term used to describe mostly any supernatural creature in Japanese folktales. Yokai tend to have extremely long lifespans. Many eat humans, but in some cases (Such as the one with Remilia and Sakuya) will also cooperate with humans.
Hieda No Akyuu.
Hieda No Akyuu is the current “Child of Miare”. A Child of Miare is born into the Hieda family once every few hundred years. They have the ability to not forget anything they see and record Gensokyo’s history. Every Child of Miare is a reincarnation of the last, inheriting their memories of the previous incarnates. Each time she reincarnates, her life span gets shorter. She is the ninth reincarnate, and her name is a pun off of that (Kyuu meaning nine in Japanese).
Nitori Kawashiro
Nitori Kawashiro is a very shy Kappa (a type of yokai) who likes gadgets and engineering. Despite being very shy, she actually likes humans, and is very good natured, she just shows it in odd ways. Her theme song used in the game is called “Candid Friend”.
Secret Room.
The secret rooms placed around the map are hidden rooms that can only be accessed by breaking the wall that covers it by attacking it. These rooms contain skills and status up items.
Graze
Grazing is a feature that was introduced in the original Touhou games and also used in Luna nights. In the original games, your character had a hitbox inside the character sprite. If something hit your character sprite but not your hitbox, you would get extra points. In Luna Nights the feature is continued in a way that would be more relevant to a platform game. In Luna Nights, you collect graze points when a yokai comes close to the character but doesn’t touch the character sprite. Instead of adding points, it allows you to recover Time, health, and magic points. When time is stopped, it is easier to collect graze, so it only recovers Time and MP.
Sliding Knife.
The Sliding Knife is an action Sakuya can perform where she uses a large knife and slides to attack enemies and slide under small spaces. It deals damage but doesn’t use any MP, so it is useful in situations where you need to conserve MP for larger attacks later. It is not classified as a skill and is required for game progression.
Auto Aim.
Auto Aim is a skill you can collect in stage one of Luna Nights. It is not required for game progression. It uses 30 MP and fires around 20 knives that all automatically aim for any enemies in the room. Once you use it, it will keep firing knives when you switch to a different skill, so it can be useful for rapidly attacking enemies. It does use more MP than other skills though, so it is good for dealing a lot of damage in a short amount of time. It can also be useful against enemies at angles that are hard to reach with normal knives. It is not very good against enemies that move very quickly because the knives don’t readjust themselves to hit the target once they choose the direction to fire in.
Stun Knife.
The stun knife is a skill collected in stage one that allows you to throw one large knife that stuns and shocks your enemies. It costs ten MP. It is not required for game progression. It is useful to deal large amounts of damage without running out of MP so soon. It is not very useful against enemies that move fast because it does not move once placed.
Hong Meiling
Hong Meiling is a yokai working at the Scarlet Devil Mansion, but it isn’t known which species of yokai she is. She is the gatekeeper and gardener. She is known for her mastery of martial arts. Her theme played in the game is “Shanghai Alice in 1884”.
Spellcard
Marisa’s “Master Spark”
A spellcard is something from the touhou games that got carried over to Luna Nights in a way that is more relevant to platformer games, the same way that the Graze feature was. In the original Touhou games, spellcards are actions that bosses can perform that allows them to summon a lot of danmaku (bullets) that the 2D player has to dodge. These can range anywhere from a pattern of danmaku to the whole screen spinning around. In Luna nights, spellcards are adapted to the platformer game in the way that bosses have one high damage spellcard they incorporate into their attack cycle when at low health. The spellcard system was created by Reimu Hakurei to allow even weak yokai and humans to win fights and to have fair battles without injuries.
Fairy maids.
Fairy maids are most of the maids that work at the Scarlet Devil Mansion. There are thought to be at least 28 of them. They all serve the residents of the mansion. They work with Hong Meiling and work directly under Sakuya Izayoi.
Red mist.
Red mist is a mist that rapidly drains your Time gauge and causes Sakuya to become time paralyzed. This means that she can’t stop time or regenerate the Time gauge for up to 15 seconds. Red mist can appear in many different forms throughout the game such as a permanent wall of mist or a temporary wall of mist that an enemy summons. Red mist does not affect Sakuya’s ability to trigger snail time.
Marisa Kirisame
Marisa Kirisame is a human witch who has a habit of stealing books from the library of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She is a hard worker and keeps note of every other spellcard user she encounters. Her theme in the game is called “Love Colored Master Spark”.
Danmaku
Reimu dodging danmaku
Danmaku is both a type of game and a type of bullet in video games. The original Touhou series is a danmaku game meaning the characters in the game are going to use bullets made of light in patterns that you have to dodge to survive. The bullet danmaku is a ball of color that the characters shoot. They can be made of or relating to a certain object or element.