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Touhou Project


Alex

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Touhou Project

Touhou.full.1652394.jpg

Backstory
The Touhou Project, or just simply Touhou, is a series of vertical scrolling shoot 'em up games that take place in the magical realm of Gensokyo. They are made by a One Man Team of ZUN who is the only member of Team Shanghai Alice. There is a wide cast of characters, almost all of which are female, who are Human, Youkai, Fairies, Lunarians, Fairies or otherwise, and they all have some kind of special ability, and the stronger of these tend to cause incidents. The main characters, Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame, often accompanied by other incident solvers, usually end up going through six stages to beat the bad guy, plus an extra stage for the aftermath. As for the games themselves, they are renowned for their amazing soundtracks, beautiful patterns and great characters.

Mechanics
The mechanics of the main series are pretty simple - shoot down opposing magical girls with Z, bomb with X, move with the arrow keys and focus, or slow down, with left shift. There are four difficulty levels to the games: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Lunatic. The Extra stages are somewhere between Normal and Hard difficulty. The scoring mechanics between each game slightly change too, such as the time system in Imperishable Night or the Faith system in Mountain of Faith. Power, Range, Speed and Bombs vary between characters and their shottypes - for example, Marisa tends to have little range but large power, strong bombs and faster speed, and Reimu tends to have less power and weaker bombs, but a wider range and a slower speed. As of Perfect Cherry Blossom, when one focuses, they can see their hitbox to help with dodging.

Games
The Main series and side games can be split into different eras quite easily, based on their overall style and mechanics, as well as the OS they were on. Here is the entire series of games, listed with their genre! It's recommended you start with 6 or 7, but any is fine, really.

PC-98 Era
Touhou 1 - Highly Responsive to Prayers (Breakout shmup thingy)
Touhou 2 - Story of Eastern Wonderland (Shmup)
Touhou 3 - Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream (Multiplayer Shmup)
Touhou 4 - Lotus Land Story (Shmup)
Touhou 5 - Mystic Square (Shmup)

Classic Windows Era
Touhou 6 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (Shmup)
Touhou 7 - Perfect Cherry Blossom (Shmup)
Touhou 7.5 - Immaterial and Missing Power (Fighter)
Touhou 8 - Imperishable Night (Shmup)
Touhou 9 - Phantasmagoria of Flower View (Multiplayer Shmup)
Touhou 9.5 - Shoot the Bullet (Photography Shmup)

Modern Era 1
Touhou 10 - Mountain of Faith (Shmup)
Touhou 10.5 - Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (Fighter)
Touhou 11 - Subterranean Animism (Shmup)
Touhou 12 - Undefined Fantastic Object (Shmup)
Touhou 12.3 - Hisoutensoku / UNL, SWR expansion (Fighter)
Touhou 12.5 - Double Spoiler (Photography Shmup)

Modern Era 2
Touhou 12.8 - Great Fairy Wars (Shmup)
Touhou 13 - Ten Desires (Shmup)
Touhou 13.5 - Hopeless Masquerade (Fighter)
Touhou 14 - Double Dealing Character (Shmup)
Touhou 14.3 - Impossible Spell Card (Photography Shmup)
Touhou 14.5 - Urban Legend in Limbo (Fighter)
Touhou 14.8 - TBA
Touhou 15 - Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom (Shmup)

Manga
The manga series focuses less on action, and more on the "everyday lives" of the characters. Of course, this doesn't mean a few incidents aren't involved!

Touhou Kourindou
Curiosities of Lotus Asia

Touhou Bougetsushou
Silent Sinner in Blue
Cage in Lunatic Runagate
Inaba of the Moon and Inaba of the Earth

Touhou Sangetsusei
Eastern and Little Nature Deity
Strange and Bright Nature Deity
Oriental Sacred Place

Touhou Ibarakasen
Wild and Horned Hermit

Touhou Suzunaan
Forbidden Scrollery

Artbooks
Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red
Seasonal Dream Vision
Perfect Memento in Strict Sense
The Grimoire of Marisa
Symposium of Post-mysticism

Magazines
Strange Creators of Outer World


Fanworks
Of course, talking about Touhou would be incomplete without mentioning the one thing that keeps its popularity rising: the fanworks. These range from music covers, to doujins to fanart to even giant scrolls unravelled at Touhou panels and cons. The music arranges are plentiful and definitely in the thousands, and range from Hard Rock to Electro and Techno to Classical Folk to Epic Orchestral, with various vocal arranges mixed in. Other notable works include the Touhou M-1 series, a Manzai comedy contest in which the contestants are Touhou characters, various Touhou flashes, the Touhou fanime known as Memories in Phantasm and 3D Touhou fight simulations.

Fangames are very numerous too. RPGs and Dungeon Crawlers such as Labyrinth of Touhou 1 and 2 and Genius of Sappheiros, Pokemon hacks and games such as Touhoumon Word Link and Touhou Puppet Dance Performance, many shmups including the infamous Concealed the Conclusion, Platformers such as Super Marisa World and Koumajou Denjetsu (based on castlevania) - pretty much, if it exists, there's a Touhou version of it. A full list of fangames can be found here.

This thread

The reason for me to make this thread was that I noticed many Touhou fans on the Reborn forums, especially with the recent Touhou avatar takeover, who would love to share their achievements, fanart they think is cool, any good music or house sets they stumbled upon, fangames they think are cool, or want some help dealing with troubleshooting or a particularly difficult part they are on, be it a fangame or main series game. This is a place to share anything Touhou related, so have fun and post whatever you enjoy, hate, or are entirely neutral about Touhou!

This OP is up for adding any extra information or links you want, just notify me within this thread or a PM or on server or whatever you like!

Edited by Alicirno
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  • Veterans

oh boy i am going to post so many remixes/arranges i found here

i havent even played all of the game but the music is SO GOOD so i might frequently post stuff here

anyways here's an arrange to start off with

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I love Touhouvania 1 and 2, they are pretty amazing. Difficult (because I suck at this type of game), but amazaing.

I also didn't see MegaMari mentioned here. It's a Megaman-Game, but with Marisa, which makes it way better.

The rpg-fangame Genious of Sappheiros is pretty fun but I didn't play through it completely yet, but I will eventually. I think it's okay and it even looks like a proper 2d-rpg, lot'sa effort in the sprites <3 I love how much effort some people put into those games.

Touhou Mother is also pretty cool, because Earthbound+Touhou=Glorious. But I have issues installing it and resorted to watching a Lets Play because I am lazy as hell.

Then there is Aya Attorney, which is Phoenix Wright with Aya being the defender. Does not feature the same awesome animations, but it is pretty fun for those who enjoy this type of game.

Also, Touhou Puppet Play/Touhoumon is pretty amazing, especially the two games based on version 1.8, which seem pretty balanced because they all have similiar base stats and most have three evolutions. I just love the idea of it. The 1.8 hack on firered is just amazing, because it also includes Johto AND has an extremely frustrating final boss. But: Level-curve is not as brutal as other Touhoumon-Games. Love this. Touhoumon Purple is also 1.8, but just Emerald with Bonéka.

There are also the other games, but especially Another World requires some grinding and the early boss-fight against Reimu is brutal. It was still fun, though also somewhat frustrating to the point of pissing me off.

Music: I recommend Komeiji Records, which is a channel that does some great Touhou-Remixes <3

Inb4 Mima appearing in next Touhou-Game. Will totally happen (I thought the shadow in Urban Legends's trailer was totally her, dammit)

Edited by UnprofessionalAmateur
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Hi, I'm the scrub who's bad at Touhou so she spends her life playing Soku and ULiL and occasionally trying to beat EOTSD :P

Don't play easy mode (to learn the pattern properly and because easymodo is for kids ahahaha) and try to be in slow mode once the evil, tricky attacks show up (One of Meiling's does a spiral, which is pretty bad for me). Keep playing until you learn patterns and don't panic. If all else fails, use bombs to wipe the screen of bullets. Graze (get your hitbox close to projectiles and especially beams) for extra points, because much points will give you eventually lives, but don't risk too much, because normally grazing should be done once you are gud at dodging one attack or if the attack is easy (Like most attacks Rumia and Cirno dish out, though be careful with the baka). Good way to learn patterns is by first trying to just survive spellcards, maybe you being pacifist and not shooting back until the timer runs out and instead focus more on dodging, or shoot back, just survive and ignore the timer. If you try to beat the game, you can obviously fire back. Or just try over and over again while shooting and dodging and learn the patterns, tbh it doesnt matter how you learn the attacks, just do it. Live and learn ~

Oh, and remember the bombs. I have witnessed so many deaths in Lets Plays because someone forgot how to bomb.

I think picking Reimu with Homing Missiles might be good, because then you can focus more on dodging because part of her attack will still hit the enemy if you have high enough power. Marisa is sometimes 2fast, though she does some great damage (and hell, she is Marisa. I have to play as her)

Edited by UnprofessionalAmateur
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I love that big picture that shows all the characters of Touhou. But why not in Zun-Art? :3

Zun-Art is best art.

Only played EoSD (on masochistic-newbie Lunatic mode), but I plan to at least play the other "classic windows era" games once I get the feel for the controls.

You should try PCB and then play IN.

Everybody who wants to play Touhou should experience the horror of PCB's stage 4.

Edited by UnprofessionalAmateur
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I love Touhouvania 1 and 2, they are pretty amazing. Difficult (because I suck at this type of game), but amazaing.

I also didn't see MegaMari mentioned here. It's a Megaman-Game, but with Marisa, which makes it way better.

The rpg-fangame Genious of Sappheiros is pretty fun but I didn't play through it completely yet, but I will eventually. I think it's okay and it even looks like a proper 2d-rpg, lot'sa effort in the sprites <3 I love how much effort some people put into those games.

Touhou Mother is also pretty cool, because Earthbound+Touhou=Glorious. But I have issues installing it and resorted to watching a Lets Play because I am lazy as hell.

Then there is Aya Attorney, which is Phoenix Wright with Aya being the defender. Does not feature the same awesome animations, but it is pretty fun for those who enjoy this type of game.

Also, Touhou Puppet Play/Touhoumon is pretty amazing, especially the two games based on version 1.8, which seem pretty balanced because they all have similiar base stats and most have three evolutions. I just love the idea of it. The 1.8 hack on firered is just amazing, because it also includes Johto AND has an extremely frustrating final boss. But: Level-curve is not as brutal as other Touhoumon-Games. Love this. Touhoumon Purple is also 1.8, but just Emerald with Bonéka.

There are also the other games, but especially Another World requires some grinding and the early boss-fight against Reimu is brutal. It was still fun, though also somewhat frustrating to the point of pissing me off.

I couldn't just write down all the fangames, so I just put a link to the fangames wiki page there instead :3

also have some Hartmann's Youkai Girl

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I couldn't just write down all the fangames, so I just put a link to the fangames wiki page there instead :3

also have some Hartmann's Youkai Girl

Just me recommending some great games because maybe others will find enjoyment with those games too ~

Also: Byotiful music. Never heard that one yet, so thanks ^^

Here's my favorite remix to this theme, really dig this mix of guitar and orchestra ^^

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I'm the scrub who hasn't played any games past the first modern era. :P

Ya scrub...

I haven't played any of the Beat 'em ups except SWR

Also: Holy shit, this. Just this.

I love the crazyness of the Touhou-Fandom:

40.media.tumblr.com/426bbfdfbc6baecae69b84d87b06fb89/tumblr_nj07zpaBro1rw29u3o7_1280.jpg

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Touhou is best anime.

Is this from the fanmade anime series, Fantasy Kaleidoscope or is it Memories of Phantasm? Or are they both the same series? I kinda have lost track on the fanmade anime.

But there are so many fanmade Touhou-manga and I am not counting in all the hentai. So many manga and they put in so much effort into them. So much talent ^^

Edited by UnprofessionalAmateur
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Holy moly that's bloody awesome. In terms of quality, they look better than some of the more famous anime-series. I remember Memories of Phantasm looking extremely good (well, it does).

Actually makes me wonder why there is no official anime yet because I'm sure there's quite a number of people who would watch it ~

Well, there are still the official manga ~

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Official anime-->copyright issues-->clamping down on fan worksZUN doesn't want that since he quite enjoys the creativity of the fans.

Yeah, right, copyright >_>

Didn't know about his stance on the works of his fans though, but I am glad he is cool with it.

The guy must be some musical genious though if it's true that he had barely to no musical education.

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Being part of the Facebook anime community also meant I was exposed to 2hus.

I didn't play a whole lot because I sucked. I really wished I had some ports of the old PC-98 games but whatever. Played all the way until 13. Favorite is Fairy Wars because Cirno best Baka fairy. I have been more in line with official remixes of Touhou songs. More specifically the works of some IOSYS Members and other very popular Doujin members. (Kyu/Nhato, uno/RoughSketch, camellia, REDALiCE) I have also been helpful towards Doujinstyle which heavily sponsors Touhou with music downloads from Comiket/M3, official games, and other fandom bits for the game in general. If you need a song from a specific album, I can probably find you the whole album.

Also I'm a BEMANI fan so that also helps quite a bit.

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Don't play easy mode (to learn the pattern properly and because easymodo is for kids ahahaha) and try to be in slow mode once the evil, tricky attacks show up (One of Meiling's does a spiral, which is pretty bad for me). Keep playing until you learn patterns and don't panic. If all else fails, use bombs to wipe the screen of bullets. Graze (get your hitbox close to projectiles and especially beams) for extra points, because much points will give you eventually lives, but don't risk too much, because normally grazing should be done once you are gud at dodging one attack or if the attack is easy (Like most attacks Rumia and Cirno dish out, though be careful with the baka). Good way to learn patterns is by first trying to just survive spellcards, maybe you being pacifist and not shooting back until the timer runs out and instead focus more on dodging, or shoot back, just survive and ignore the timer. If you try to beat the game, you can obviously fire back. Or just try over and over again while shooting and dodging and learn the patterns, tbh it doesnt matter how you learn the attacks, just do it. Live and learn ~

Oh, and remember the bombs. I have witnessed so many deaths in Lets Plays because someone forgot how to bomb.

I think picking Reimu with Homing Missiles might be good, because then you can focus more on dodging because part of her attack will still hit the enemy if you have high enough power. Marisa is sometimes 2fast, though she does some great damage (and hell, she is Marisa. I have to play as her)

I can't even play without homing Reimu >_<

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I usually play as Marisa because Marisa, but... Honestly, with my amount of skill I should probably resort to Reimu seeing as I'm still not that great at touhou. I NEED TO PLAY THIS GAME MORE

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because if it exists, there's a Touhou version

on a separate note I tried to 1cc DDC with SakuyaB, did pretty well... then game overed to Seija because I cannot do her flipping for the life of me. Seija is the one thing stopping me from 1ccing with SakuyaB because I'm pretty sure I could do well against Shinmyoumaru but the flipping is terribad and should't exist in a bullet hell :c

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