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How are the Touhou games?

S

Soulflarz

Banned
I decided im going to finally try them
I just beat the first one on the upper route (i think thats heaven) and i guess ill do it again on lunatic+hell route, but just wondering-
Howre the normal ones? Anyone played them/things to know going into it?

Edit- for those who dont know- the first one isnt exactly a top down shooter- its diff from the "bullet hell" the series is known for (though it still has plenty of bullet dodging
 
Tried getting into them, unfortunately I've always hated danmaku shooters and nothing's changed in that regard. The fighting game spin-offs are cool tho.
 
I only played a few of them (Embodiment..., Imperishable Night, Mountain of Faith and I'm proably forgetting something else), and they're pretty good. Great bullet patterns and the scoring systems are quite fun. Graphics are bad, though. Backgrounds, sprites... even the character portraits suck.
 
They're great. Start with the first ZUN one(Scarlet Devil) and work your way up to the likes of Imperishable Night and PCB so you can see how much progress he's made over the years.

I also enjoy the silly plots and characters("Now bitch, get out of the way!"), but that's just me.
 
My only experience with the Touhou shooters was attending a panel at Otakon on Touhou and when the panelists asked "has anyone here NOT played a Touhou game?" I raised my hand and they called me up to play it... then I proceeded to... do pretty decent while everyone looked on, shocked, about how good I did my first time. Told them I play my fair share of Cave shooters.
 
Love the Tohou games. My favorite part is the music love the piano medleys. Perfect Cherry Blossom is my favorite.
 
cj_iwakura said:
They're great. Start with the first ZUN one(Scarlet Devil) and work your way up to the likes of Imperishable Night and PCB so you can see how much progress he's made over the years.
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Aren't all main Touhou games "Zun ones"? Did you mean the first PC one?


m0t0k1 said:
Perfect Cherry Blossom is my favorite.
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Good man!

I also really like the bullet freezing mechanic in the Fairy Wars spinoff.
 
Durante said:
Aren't all main Touhou games "Zun ones"? Did you mean the first PC one?


Good man!

I also really like the bullet freezing mechanic in the Fairy Wars spinoff.
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He probably meant Team Shanghai Alice which is solely ZUN, whereas anything prior to Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was developed by Amusement Makers, which ZUN was part of.

Touhou games are great fun, I especially enjoy the music.
 
I've only played a bit of Perfect Cherry Blossom.

It's pretty fun. The art is downright horrible though.

I'd love to know how the fandom got so huge because it's pretty mesmerizing how that become that.
 
I love them, my favourite is Perfect Cherry Blossom, and the one where you take pictures of the bullets to remove them was a nice twist too.
 
EvilKatarn said:
I've only played a bit of Perfect Cherry Blossom.

It's pretty fun. The art is downright horrible though.

I'd love to know how the fandom got so huge because it's pretty mesmerizing how that become that.
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I find the art charming in its own way , wouldn't call it out right horrible.
 
Durante said:
Not really, Zun's art sucks, and his characters rarely have a "waifu" personality.
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Dat fan art though
 
I think they're great! This might be a bit typical, but Imperishable Night was the one I started with, and it's still my favorite. Though I also really enjoy Phantasmagoria of Flower View for something different. I also found Highly Responsive to Prayers to be fun, even though it's really from the later games.

Though I always play on normal, I've never been exactly great at the games. I've never managed to beat Okuu's final spell card in Subterranean Animism.

I really like the fighting game spin-offs as well. I'm not too bad using Suika in 12.3, which is great for me since I'm usually pretty terrible at fighting games.
 
Javier said:
Only played Perfect Cherry Blossom and loved it. What's another good one?
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Of the mainline games I also really like Imperishable Night. And the mechanics (bullet photography in Shoot the Bullet and Double Spoiler and bullet freezing in Great Fairy Wars) in the spinoffs are worth a try.

Javier said:
Also, Youmu's Theme is best theme.
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Youmu is also the best character. I think I even had a Youmu avatar on GAF once for a few months.
 
I dunno, the controls always felt off to me, like, too loose or something. It doesn't really make sense to me or anyone else I know who plays the series why I feel that way, so you should probably still give it a try.
 
Got into these pretty hardcore for a little while. Played through Scarlet Devil, Perfect Cherry Blossom, and Imperishable Night (which I find to be the best one). My first 1CC of Scarlet Devil was definitely one of my prouder moments as a gamer.

I also love how dedicated the fan community is for the Touhou universe. There are some amazing artists out there who take ZUN's cutesy-but-crude designs and really flesh them out.

Like using this

th002.jpg
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and turning it into this

Reimu_Yukari.jpg
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Can't I just watch the Touhou anime and save some time?

I prefer Cave for shmups, but nothing compares to Touhou's doujin scene. I love the hard-hitting techno music, and the metroidvania titles folks put out.


I guess I'll admit to liking Perfect Cherry Blossom.
 
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Satori (stage 4 of Subterranean Animism) actually has the most beautiful bullet patterns you will ever see.

Played all the official Touhou games, invested decent amounts of time into Perfect Cherry Blossom, Mountain of Faith, Subterranean Animism and Double Spoiler. Also Scarlet Weather Rhapsody / Unthinkable Natural Law on the fighter side. Generally feel positively about the series, primarily for the ingeniousness of the danmaku combined with the aesthetics (with a side order of the fanwork), although the most recent core entry (Ten Desires) never grabbed me and I don't think I played through it more than once or twice.

Incidentally, ZUN's said in interview that he was influenced by Darius Gaiden when designing the games, particularly in how they favour boss battles / make bosses more than just game symbols. Another reason why giant enemy fish are awesome.

Javier said:
Also, Youmu's Theme is best theme.
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Satori's theme is vastly superior. 6th place vs 57th in the last major poll!
 
Chacranajxy said:
Touhou is Cave for poor people.
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I've played most Cave shooters, and I don't like them nearly as much as my favourite Touhou entries. The aesthetics and gameplay of the boss bullet patterns are simply superior. Come at me!

Oh, and talking about poor people, I wonder how many people who played them actually own their Touhou games. They aren't all that simple to acquire (I bought them when I was in Japan).
 
cj_iwakura said:
I mean the non-PC88 titles, after he took over and went solo.
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TheChaos0 said:
He probably meant Team Shanghai Alice which is solely ZUN, whereas anything prior to Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was developed by Amusement Makers, which ZUN was part of.
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The thing is, Amusement Makers was/is just a loosely organized college club. ZUN made the first 5 PC-98 games all by himself. Saying they are not "ZUN games" is inaccurate.

A Huge Battleship said:
Generally feel positively about the series, primarily for the ingeniousness of the danmaku combined with the aesthetics (with a side order of the fanwork), although the most recent core entry (Ten Desires) never grabbed me and I don't think I played through it more than once or twice.
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Yeah, Ten Desires is plainly the weakest Windows game. Hopefully Touhou 14 (coming out this year) will be a return to form.
 
cuc said:
The thing is, Amusement Makers was/is just a loosely organized college club. ZUN made the first 5 PC-98 games all by himself. Saying they are not "ZUN games" is inaccurate.
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Didn't know that.

Okay, the first non-98 one then. :P

My favorite art in the series is probably from UFO. He's not exactly an artist, but his work has its charms.
 
Shoot the Bullet is one of my favourite titles of all time. Double Spoiler plays better, but come on - Shoot the Bullet! It's just so great.
 
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