Kanako Yasaka/RicePigeon's first version

''Haughty and imposing; such a description of Kanako has never been more true than this version of the Moriya shrine goddess. When you have an extremely effective zoning fighter that can easily put the pressure on the opponent with relative ease and little to no drawbacks, who needs danmaku projectiles? Kanako might as well be the final boss of an SNK fighting game.''

Gameplay


This version of Kanako is a three-button character, using, , and for attacks. The button is used as a power charge, allowing Kanako to build meter for as long as it is held.

Unique to Kanako over RicePigeon's other Touhou characters is that Kanako is able to perform up to two air dashes instead of one, including a vertical upward airdash that can act as a double and triple jump. While it may have less reliance on projectiles compared to a standard Touhou character, Kanako can still be an effective zoning character. Most of Kanako's normals are relatively fast and sport a huge amount of range, allowing Kanako to not only easily keep opponents away, but to do so without fear of much punishment. Most of Kanako's specials are projectile based, and cover different spaces of the screen. While at first glance such an arsenal might suggest a keepaway character, Kanako's most frightening strong point is offensive pressure.

At the beginning of the match, Kanako must select from a total of nine different spellcards; three level 1s, three level 2s, and three level 3s, each one corresponding to a different Hyper. Each selected spellcard costs a number of points equal to its level, and Kanako can only use a maximum of nine points before no more spellcards can be selected. This offers a wide diversity of attacks to choose from, making Kanako even more of a threat.

The character utilizes a custom AI that can be quite difficult to defeat due to all of the aforementioned properties of Kanako's attacks.

Trivia

 * This version of Kanako was originally part of the playable cast of Touhou RP Extended, but was cut from the game due to balance issues.
 * Curse God "Red Mouthed Mishaguji" is not a spellcard that Kanako uses in any of her appearances in Touhou Project, and is actually used by Kanako's rival goddess and friend, Suwako Moriya.
 * The Hyper, however, ironically fits in with Kanako's snake motif.