Oh, this makes me so happy! I've always been a really big fan of Touhou and other doujin games. I own most of the games and a lot of merchandise.
And I was always a little bit sad that there seemed to not be a lot of awareness or people talking about Touhou on NeoGAF. I'm so happy to finally have a place to talk about it.
Touhou helped get me into STGs and I'm sure it's done that for many people. When I was a child I didn't have much money to spend on video games and so a lot of what I bought and played were Japanese RPGs. And I had limited experience with STGs, I remembered playing Phalanx on the SNES and enjoying that. As well as occassionally playing games at local arcades and thinking they were fun, especially as there were lots of bullets on the screen. But not much other than that, and they weren't a large part of my gaming.
But after discovering Touhou several years ago, and having a lot more money to spend on video games. Having enjoyed plenty of long RPGs, and having enjoyed a lot of stories. Not only did Touhou introduce me to other world I love and lots of interesting characters. It really made me appreciate and learn to become a really big fan of STGs.
I've started going back and playing a lot of STGs thanks to Touhou. DoDonPachi Dai Ou Jou and the other DonPachi/DoDonPachi games outside of Touhou. As well as Cave and Toaplan games. Also, being a big fan of games like the Tales series made playing Sol-Deace for the SEGA Mega Drive a lot of fun, knowing that it was made by Wolf Team. There's also games like Magical Chase, Cotton, Keio Flying Squadron, and Twinkle Star Sprites, that are all dear to my heart, that I never would have discovered if it weren't for Touhou Project.
I sure hope that Touhou games come to Steam someday. I want to buy them all again.