It’s tough to design a good boss battle in a top-down strategy RPG. As the game developer, you can give an enemy unit lots of health, let it snipe at characters from across the map, and/or break out flashy special attacks in direct combat. But sooner or later the fight comes down to the player’s units surrounding the boss from every cardinal direction; the course of the battle is determined from that point forward. That’s why it’s often a better idea to make “boss scenarios” involving multiple units rather than building an encounter around just one.

That wouldn’t fly in Fantasy Maiden Wars, because the game is based on the Touhou Project series of shoot-em-ups. Touhou games are all about their memorable one-on-one boss encounters featuring mesmerising, screen-filling bullet patterns. So a faithful adaptation would require adapting those encounters for the turn-based strategy arena. Developer Sanbondo’s solution was to give bosses powerful field effects called “spellcards.” The player can nullify some of these effects by having their own units “focus” within a spellcard field. Otherwise, they must either break the spellcard within a certain number of turns, or survive the turn limit without dying.

Thanks to these new mechanics, Fantasy Maiden Wars has some of the most memorable boss encounters against single enemies that I’ve experienced in a strategy RPG. I’ll always remember the moment when vampire Flan Scarlet transforms the whole battlefield except for a tiny window into damage tiles, shifting the game into a turn-based shoot-em-up. Or when Shinki, the goddess of Makai, enforces that any unit below 3000 HP must leave the battlefield. These abilities aren’t just dangerous but also (like the spellcards in the original Touhou games) teach you something about their wielders. That Flan would sooner destroy everything and everyone than risk being abandoned by others; that Shinki is kind but stern.

Then there’s Yuuka. Series heroines Reimu and Marisa first encounter her early in the game at Scarlet Devil Mansion, where she and her colleagues Elly and Kurumi are visiting local vampire Remilia Scarlet. Unlike nearly every other character in the game, each of whom is introduced to Reimu and Marisa as if for the first time, Yuuka already knows the pair from previous experience the player is not privy to. She is also much too powerful for the two of them to defeat. The best way to coax a reaction from her is for Marisa to blast her with the screen-filling magic spell Master Spark. In response, Yuuka obliterates Marisa with her own Master Spark; Marisa copied the spell from her, you see.

After her first appearance in Chapter 10, Yuuka remains stubbornly evasive for the next 65 chapters. Every other character inevitably becomes Reimu and Marisa’s friend, whether they be a humble kappa, an all-powerful sage, or even a god. Yuuka by comparison keeps her spellcards close to her chest. Even when she briefly joins Marisa’s crew for a few chapters, she leaves abruptly without revealing her secrets.

It isn’t until the very end that Yuuka finally confronts Reimu and Marisa, in the middle of a battle with the dream deity Makura. Yuuka is revealed to be the only official character in the cast who is familiar with Makura. But she does not challenge your party to a duel for Makura’s sake. She does it because she’s had a bone to pick with your party the whole time. Now it’s personal.

Yuuka is a rude and spiteful opponent. She snipes at approaching units with her Master Spark, treating that all-powerful attack with the same grandeur as if she was throwing a rock. She’s surrounded by a field that makes all units take damage from “graze” even when they dodge her blows. Worst of all, she has multiple layers of counters that invalidate your attacks. Even spirits like “Bullseye” that guarantee hits aren’t always enough to pierce her defenses.

Her spellcards frustrate your learned habits from previous battles. “Flower Sign: Blossoming of Gensokyo” nullifies spirits you might use to increase the evasion and accuracy of your units. “Fantasy: The Beauties of Nature” cancels out any upgrades you may have made to a unit’s stats via in-game currency. “Flower Master of the Four Seasons” drains half a unit’s total HP, MP and SP any time they engage Yuuka in battle, ensuring that they can only fight her twice in a row at most before being knocked out. Not to mention that several of these spellcards grant Yuuka the power to walk through your units. No matter how hard you try to box her in with your tanks, she will always make a beeline towards your squishiest allies.

Despite all this, you have to admire Yuuka’s flair for drama. The first thing she does after choosing to take the fight seriously is transforming the battlefield into a flower garden. Every move that she makes after that is calculated for maximum impact. Cloning herself to flood the field with Master Sparks? Transforming into “Full Bloom Mode” to obliterate her opponents? Every one of her attack animations makes you gulp and say, “you’ve gotta be joking!” Even something as simple as her nudging somebody’s shoulder (to kill them) makes an impact.

That sincerity can be seen in her most powerful attack, “Flower Master of the Four Seasons.” Yuuka grows an enormous flower from her own chest that tangles up her opponent while growing towards the sky. As the great flower blossoms, Yuuka’s body sprouts from the flower to embrace the enemy, and everything becomes flora. Her body falls from the heavens, a single shining tear, to pollinate the earth. Yuuka doesn’t take any damage from the attack herself, but I can’t wonder what it means that her most powerful and “honest” attack involves self-harm.

Yuuka is not the strongest or flashiest opponent in Fantasy Maiden Wars. The game’s final boss, Makura, is so powerful that her attacks include not just eating but also giving birth to her opponents. Other bosses like Toyohime are similarly ludicrous. But Makura’s final stage is a victory lap, and Toyohime’s scariest abilities are an optional challenge. Yuuka by comparison is a roadblock that the player must overcome in order to see the end of the story. In that respect there is no more difficult fight in the game.

When you defeat Yuuka for the final time, her whole body transforms into a flower bouquet, like something out of the film Annihilation. There is no more fitting way for her story to end. After a battle designed to intimidate you, thwart your traditional strategies, and inflict as much harm on your units as possible, Yuuka becomes a beautiful corpse for her own enjoyment. No matter how powerful Reimu and Marisa become, she is determined to go out on her own terms. Talk about main character syndrome!