HiddenWings
Member
I played this and Imperishable Night years ago. I always liked it better for some reason. Which of the "newer" entries are the most highly recommended?
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Touhou Community Thread | Highly Responsive to Posts
- Thread starter LeleSocho
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I played this and Imperishable Night years ago. I always liked it better for some reason. Which of the "newer" entries are the most highly recommended?
Subterranean Animism is the only one you should play, all day every day.
SA is one of my favorite Touhou games, so I would definitely say to play that. Mountain of Faith isn't too bad, but it's really easy to beat considering how powerful bombing is in that game. Unidentifiable Flying Object is super annoying because everything is very flashy and distracting and there's tons of powerup boxes littering the screen most of the time. Ten Desires and Double Dealing Character aren't all that bad, but I never really got into them. I've been meaning to mess around with those two games a bit more, but haven't had the time lately to really play them.
NeoGAF needs more appreciation for Touhou! They really are great games, even if you don't want to immerse yourself in the fanbase.
Proof that you don't need a big budget, fancy tech, or quirky ideas to make beautiful art and deep, rewarding gameplay.
Vouching for this one as a gorgeous and awesomely fun fan game. I found the difficulty to be tuned very well, something few fan shmups get right. Fantastic indeed.
I'm also very eager for Impossible Spell Card! I wasn't sure how I felt about the idea at first, but the replayability options from all the attack/item combos gets me excited.
EDIT: Since everyone's talking about their favorite games, I'll say Imperishable Night, Mountain of Faith, Subterranean Animism, and Double Dealing Character are my favorites. Ten Desires is my least favorite - huge letdown in the music, spell card, and gameplay departments imo.
If someone's looking to get into the series/genre, I'd recommend Mountain of Faith. Great music, moderate difficulty, and encourages you to develop good bombing habits.
Proof that you don't need a big budget, fancy tech, or quirky ideas to make beautiful art and deep, rewarding gameplay.
Fantastic Danmaku Festival
A very recent game (last month or so), it’s a very, very well made danmaku, similar to the main Touhou games, with Touhou characters and remixed music. The game is hard, most definitely harder than the main games, on every difficulty level. It involves maxed out flashy colors and beautiful and fast bullet patterns. Its harsh difficulty and insistence on stream patterns makes it a lot more niche than the main games, but boy, is it beautiful to look at. And it’s absolutely free, so being interested won’t hurt anybody.
Vouching for this one as a gorgeous and awesomely fun fan game. I found the difficulty to be tuned very well, something few fan shmups get right. Fantastic indeed.
I'm also very eager for Impossible Spell Card! I wasn't sure how I felt about the idea at first, but the replayability options from all the attack/item combos gets me excited.
EDIT: Since everyone's talking about their favorite games, I'll say Imperishable Night, Mountain of Faith, Subterranean Animism, and Double Dealing Character are my favorites. Ten Desires is my least favorite - huge letdown in the music, spell card, and gameplay departments imo.
If someone's looking to get into the series/genre, I'd recommend Mountain of Faith. Great music, moderate difficulty, and encourages you to develop good bombing habits.
Depends what you mean by newer, but Subterranean Animism definitely. You can't go wrong with that.
These things (partially because of the translation buffer) take time to really settle and get a feel for, so I'm not sure about it yet, but I think Double Dealing Character is great. Seija is an amazing fight and a really fun character. I won't spoil her gimmick, but it made me smile for the whole day after I saw it.
edit: while we're here, currently liking this mix of Love-colored Master Spark
Personally, I'm not really fond of her gimmick, although I guess I won't really go into why so as not to be spoilery. In general, I find that the more disruptive a gimmick is to me, the more I don't like it. When it comes to gimmicks, I like Sakuya and Reisen a lot more. Those are both some really fun fights.
Also, thinking of Seija and Reisen reminds me, I wish more of the games had spellcard practice. It's such a wonderful tool to have!
RyougaSaotome
Member
I can respect the hell out of those intentions. Understood! \o/
That's an applaudable effort for a community thread OP. IMHO it can do without some minute details and giving more time to the official spinoff games - the fighting games are at least as often what got people into Touhou as the official shooting games. The fan game suggestions also sorely lack an excellent turn-based strategic RPG in the form of the Fantasy Maiden Wars series.
Also, a tiny nitpick. I don't know where the "Classic Era" "Modern 1" "Modern 2" distinction comes from. But the man himself has already made a statement about how the eras are delineated (photo from BitSummit 2014):
The first (Windows) generation starts with EoSD in 2002, the second generation starts with MoF in 2007, and the third generation starts with DDC in 2013.
Also, a tiny nitpick. I don't know where the "Classic Era" "Modern 1" "Modern 2" distinction comes from. But the man himself has already made a statement about how the eras are delineated (photo from BitSummit 2014):
The first (Windows) generation starts with EoSD in 2002, the second generation starts with MoF in 2007, and the third generation starts with DDC in 2013.
MoF and DDC are easy to pick up, although not all people enjoy the DDC 5th stage boss's gimmick, as shown in this thread. SA and UFO are both good, though whether one likes them is a matter of taste. The spinoffs are good for pick-up-and-play.
HiddenWings
Member
Decided to get SA, and we'll see if I get anything newer than that after.
All bets are off if they start releasing digitally, because I have no self-control re: certain genres.
All bets are off if they start releasing digitally, because I have no self-control re: certain genres.
I just think about it as having to adapt. With Sakuya, as fun as that fight is (and I love it), there's no adaption, you know pretty fast how to do what you need to do, it's just pulling it off. I know I'm bad in general but with Seija for me there's the extra step of figuring out how it's gonna work in my head and habits, and then work on a switch in my brain to be able to do it on the fly. If I needed to do that often in Touhou it would have been a pain, but as it is right now, Seija is really neat. It's kinda fun wrestling with my habits. And her power allowed for some hilarious troll jokes.
But sure, like I said, gimme another year or two and I'll be able to have a more confident opinion. I'm not entirely into it myself.
Hopefully with 14.3 she'll finally be able to graduate from Kill la Kill crossover fanart into actual Touhou fanart, haha.
I just don't like things that disorient me. I don't think adjusting is really much of an issue after the first time, since you should already know what changes to expect, but I tend to get really frustrated with her very last spellcard. Unless I just bomb my way through it, I'll generally die because
of the screen flipping while I'm trying to move away from bullets.
I made this:
It was fully controlled at the panel, no keyboard to mess around with even for boot/shutdown. Sadly eventually I needed to move it to make space and nobody wanted a Touhou cab, so I turned it back into a generic cabinet. Still, it got mentioned on Zun's blog which was cool.
It was fully controlled at the panel, no keyboard to mess around with even for boot/shutdown. Sadly eventually I needed to move it to make space and nobody wanted a Touhou cab, so I turned it back into a generic cabinet. Still, it got mentioned on Zun's blog which was cool.
MonsterHunter
Member
False Reimu.
neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=146329
neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=266534
They tend to die out.
neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=146329
neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=266534
They tend to die out.
Wow, neither of those threads even got past the first page. Were there any other threads that managed more success, or have we already broken a record here?
thesaucetastic
Unconfirmed Member
You can check pretty easily if it was posted or not :lol but man the 3D Touhou videos are so crazy. It looks amazing.
How does Touhou control with a stick? I'd really like to try it sometime
I was hesitant to try. But at least community threads stay usable for a longer time.
Whoa, really cool. It could also work with PoFW with those 2p controls.I made this:
It was fully controlled at the panel, no keyboard to mess around with even for boot/shutdown. Sadly eventually I needed to move it to make space and nobody wanted a Touhou cab, so I turned it back into a generic cabinet. Still, it got mentioned on Zun's blog which was cool.
How does Touhou control with a stick? I'd really like to try it sometime
Yep
I was hesitant to try. But at least community threads stay usable for a longer time.thesaucetastic
Unconfirmed Member
How viable do you guys think a 3D Touhou would be anyway? Or a bullet hell game in general? Thinking of the game design of something like that makes my brain hurt a little
Yep
It's only a matter of time until this thread devolves into nothing more than two people arguing whether canon Alice or fanon Alice is better while random people pop in to say "Oh, there's a Touhou thread? Cool." before disappearing into the void never to be heard from again.
I don't think the nature of bullet hell games would be very conducive to being in 3D. A big part of shmups is being aware of what's in the immediate area surrounding your character. I think that being in 3D would only obscure a lot of what you need to see and make it difficult to react accordingly.
Yep.
And Youmu. She actually was my avatar everywhere (including GAF) way back when.
VR bullet hell. Believe.
A Huge Battleship
Member
From memory, the closest thing I've seen so far is Master Burner Climax. It's not without its flaws, but it's still a lot of fun and I was impressed by some parts of the boss fights.
cj_iwakura
Member
I assume they just got written off. Touhou gets pretty ignored on huge boards despite having such a devout following.
What's in that Grimoire of Marisa book? I'm both surprised and kind of impressed that ZUN's always stuck to his guns and not outsourced the in-game art to any of the wide talent out there.
He has gotten a lot better, though. (Uh, assuming he still does it.)
thesaucetastic
Unconfirmed Member
Dude this looks amazing. Looks a little cheesable though, 'cos the player keeps dodging to the bottom.
Yeah, that exact reason was what was giving me trouble imagining it. The only 3D shoot 'em up elements I've ever seen in a game were in the final boss battle(s) of Kingdom Hearts 2, and that really doesn't count for much.
Personally, I've always been under the impression that the Touhou fanbase isn't so big as it is that the existing fanbase is super rabid. Every single Touhou community I've been a part of have all been pretty small and very insular, so I can see why it would get glossed over in larger communities.
As for the Grimoire of Alice, it's just a book with a bunch of pictures of spellcards and art and stuff. Also, everything written in the book is supposed to be from the perspective of Marisa. It's pretty interesting, and I've been wanting to get both that and Symposium of Post-mysticism.
AmethystEnd
Member
I FOUND A TOUHOU THREAD. Woooo.
I've only played a couple of the games but my god dat music.
I've only played a couple of the games but my god dat music.
Collection and description of charcaters' spell cards, probably looks better without the cover. Bohemian Archive is also really good.
I find his art quite charming.
It's kinda surprising that you don't see Touhou mentioned much when people talk about shmups, considering the games are really good. :/
Pppp..ppp.. Alice... !? I know she insists that she wrote it but c'mon we all know the truth...
cj_iwakura
Member
Collection and description of charcaters' spell cards. Bohemian Archive is also really good.
I find his art quite charming.
It's kinda surprising that you don't see Touhou mentioned much when people talk about shmups, considering the games are really good. :/
Look at how the shmups.system11 community treat Touhou and I think you'll understand. The aesthetics put them off.
Ye I know, it's a shame really.
cj_iwakura
Member
It's pretty hypocritical if you look at the average Cave shmup's art design.
(I don't like Cave games much, full disclosure.)
Played some more of Fantastic Danmaku Festival and it really, really likes its stream patterns in stages 4+. Streams are my weakest dang gosh point, haha. Completely impossible for me.
Everything in the game looks super beautiful.
Everything in the game looks super beautiful.
I really like how it looks. It definitely need tweaking but it seems very playable, considering.
Pppp..ppp.. Alice... !? I know she insists that she wrote it but c'mon we all know the truth...
Ahaha, I didn't realize I wrote Alice. I always keep getting the name mixed up.
Streaming patterns are always my favorite. It's part of what I love about SA, since there's a lot of streaming patterns in the later stages. Of course, you can also pretty much trivialize streaming patterns by using Yukari's shot type and warp from one side of the screen to the other.
Well, we all know which game made it into Guiness World Records and which didn't
You are forgiven.
HiddenWings
Member
I have no idea, but this video might give you a clue. It's an attempt at rendering the Flandre Scarlet fight in 3D, and I think it includes all of her spell cards.
As much as I love the touhou universe, there are several things that falls on my nerve:
- If we aren't interessed in playing the games, we can't even be spoiled of the ending. That goes against my beliefs. Even if ZUN opened up pretty much everything he made to the fan-base and only asks to hide that... I mean, why not the coding of the game instead?! I am interessed in the universe and the culture involved but, unfortunately, not in the games.
- The western fanbases translates everything. Why is this a bad thing? Well, it's bad for song titles! The 1st OP post has an exemple: U.N. Owen was Her? Why do you TRANSLATE that? The song title is "U.N.オーエンは彼女なのか？" which reads to "U.N Owen Wa Kanojo Nano Ka?" I understand you want to remember the title, but urgh... The title was not in English, it was Japanese... please respect that.
That is my opinion. So, people seeing that should chill.
- If we aren't interessed in playing the games, we can't even be spoiled of the ending. That goes against my beliefs. Even if ZUN opened up pretty much everything he made to the fan-base and only asks to hide that... I mean, why not the coding of the game instead?! I am interessed in the universe and the culture involved but, unfortunately, not in the games.
- The western fanbases translates everything. Why is this a bad thing? Well, it's bad for song titles! The 1st OP post has an exemple: U.N. Owen was Her? Why do you TRANSLATE that? The song title is "U.N.オーエンは彼女なのか？" which reads to "U.N Owen Wa Kanojo Nano Ka?" I understand you want to remember the title, but urgh... The title was not in English, it was Japanese... please respect that.
That is my opinion. So, people seeing that should chill.
cj_iwakura
Member
Heh, my first exposure to the series was Marisa Stole The Precious Thing.
I thought they were a couple or something.
(For all I know that's actually the case)
The quality of the fan translations vary wildly. You go from EoSD's downright surreal script to IN's awesome one.
I'm not entirely sure what are trying to say in that first point. That you need to play the games to see the ending? You can always rad up on everything elsewhere.
Translations of songs' names, well, I don't mind either way but it certainly easier to remember for the non-Japanese speaking fans.
The problem with doing that is you would essentially need a section for each game. Although there's a general set of mechanics shared between the games, there's also different mechanics specific to each game, and the shared mechanics are pretty typical and simple mechanics.
cj_iwakura
Member
If nothing else, I'd explain hitboxes, spell cards, and the auto-collect border(when applicable). The rest is easy enough to pick up on within each game. IN has my favorite mechanics.
I.. I don't know about that. I do understand where you're coming from, definitely, but... the endings aren't really that big of a deal. They're pretty much fun little side scenes. The settings and stories and all the stuff that go into the fanbase that you're talking about, they're all in the games themselves and remade into the various fan works like the EoSD/PCB For Busy People VNs and stuff.
Granted I haven't seen every ending so I might be wrong about it, but the ones I did see were all harmless rewards for people who cleared the games. They're completely trivial.
But in any case, I'm pretty sure Youtube has the grand majority of endings regardless.
I considered it for like 1 second, but there are so many better pages on the internet that do the same thing. Both wikis have it, Moriya's Shrine has it, and if you google "how to play touhou" a lot of blog entries pop up. In addition, every game's Wiki page has an additional Gameplay page that goes over all generic Touhou gameplay features, and the specific game's gameplay nuances, making it perfect to see how to play a specific game in the series.
I do think IN is a bit less newcomer friendly. If possible, let her try Mountain of Faith, or EoSD/PCB.
I would probably say to have her skip EoSD for now. It may be friendlier in terms of mechanics, but you also don't have a visible hitbox and I'd say it has more difficult spellcard patterns to deal with.
I think EoSD is probably one of the harder ones to start with. PCB is a good one.
cj_iwakura
Member
Is EoSD really considered one of the harder games? I didn't know that. I did feel that it's harder than PCB, but not by a lot.
Well she did play IN so she should know the true nature of the hitboxes, but that's true, didn't think about it. Maybe the patch would help.
U.N.(KN)Owen Was Her is an allusion and a pun to be understand in the English context. It makes every sense to translated it. Just nitpicking at your nitpickings.
How could you put that last one and miss this one? It's even game-related!
Oh, and subscribed, fave shooter is PCB, fave fangame is Koumajou 2 (<3 Sakuya), and manzai are awesome if you can understand them.
I don't think it's that important, but it probably would be worthwhile to go ahead and give basics or something. I wouldn't really trust people to go clicking through wiki links, anyways, if there's something they wanted to know. Like what cj said earlier, it's probably worth it to mention stuff about hitboxes, spellcards, and point of collection. Especially point of collection, since if people decide to start on DDC since it's the newest, then they should at least know about point of collection since it plays a pretty big part in obtaining more bombs and lives.
Edit: Actually, I take that back about it not being important. It would probably be really helpful to include basics and stuff towards the beginning of the OP. I was thinking about it, and I just remembered that when I got into the series with EoSD, I never knew of any resources to help me learn about that game. I can understand why someone would want more condensed information that is readily available in one place because I originally didn't know I could hold shift to focus. That made EoSD kind of a painful experience until I learned about that.