Touhou: Plot or not?

[Squire Grooktook]

*snippedy snip*

What actually counts as merit is the problem though.

It's like when we discussed Hardcorps Uprising's level design. You said stage 2 was too cluttered, I on the other hand, liked the feeling of making precise jumps and air dashes past enemy bullets while avoiding landing on mines. Who's objectively right? Is the level design good or bad?

Since any kind of logical argument breaks down when all that's left to talk about is "it felt good" vs "it felt bad" and I don't see any line of philosophy that could align The Idea of Good or The Will of God with the enemy placement in a computer game, I'm going with "it's a matter of taste".

That's level design though, and I'd argue* that level design and such visceral, and "gut" elements are more akin to song structure or melody, which you yourself have admitted to be far more subjective then writing. Still though, while things like "character motivations don't make sense" or "plot holes" can be objective flaws in a work, there's still much room for subjectivity in whether something resonates with the reader, and whether that resonance is enough to overcome whatever flaws might exist within the work.



*

Spoiler

When the line is blurry, at least. If we're not talking "15 minutes of dead air" and more "should the goomba be on platform a or platform b?".

From a philosophical point of view, there's still nothing truly righteous or evil about the former or the latter, being just a game. But for practical purposes less then 1% of the gaming population would likely enjoy the former, so it's not worth talking about how it's technically subjective.

There are also intelligent, thoughtful elements of level design. Risk vs reward, telegraphing, leniency, reflex vs strategy, etc. etc. which can be objectively defined. But when those are in place and you reach a certain point of analysis, it becomes a matter of pure taste to decide which of two very similar options are "better"

And again, whether a subjective element resonates strongly enough to overcome an objective flaw (such as shitty telegraphing, for instance) is also a matter of personal preference.

[Bananamatic]

I haven't read Shoplifting from American Aparrel so I can't comment on the quality of his work, but I can comment on his sentiment, which I disagree with for being ignorant of the broader issue: the capacity of the consumer to identify drivel.

Fiction is fiction is fiction. "I am the only person who exists and my opinions are facts" is a misnomer. You may not be the only person who exists, you may have differing opinions to others, your opinions or their opinions may in-fact, be facts. Absolutes exist in the world and are not dissuaded by 'perception'. Perception is a variable whose correctness is generally at the mercy of its beholder's brainpower, which is also a variable and ranges so dramatically that an individual can be qualified enough to discover the theory of relativity while not being qualified to tie his or her shoelaces.

To paraphrase the Wilde quote, a work is either of tangible merit, or it isn't. The elephant in the room is what persons are able to judge what that merit actually is? Here's the crux of it:

It may be a fact that to an individual, a Dan Brown book is a gripping work of fiction that they couldn't put down. To someone with a history in literature and an education in the classics, it may be poorly written trash. Both individuals are correct in their perceptions.

The only time the facts of the matter cease to be is when the person who considered it a gripping work of fiction tells the person with the education in the classics that it was a brilliant work and a literary marvel. At that point that person has stepped beyond their boundaries and made an erroneous statement.

This happens every day, and is happening right now with a discussion about the merit of Touhou's writing.

The question more simply: are you easily entertained by drivel, and do you have the ability to realise it?

cool
now why can't you have discussions like that about sdoj gameplay

[Squire Grooktook]

Input lag.

[Bananamatic]

you can surely see past the input lag if you can discuss touhou dialogue in such depth

why not futari ultra then, it has no input lag

[Squire Grooktook]

Actually I was just thinking about SDOJ recently.

Maybe it's just me, but does anyone else feel the games hitbox size is a nice idea...if it was a more manic shooter? Like the game has some patterns that are pretty damn dense for something so big. I feel like it might have a nice visceral feel if it had more sparser patterns but more speed (although it's already pretty dang fast iirc).

But on the game itself I like it. Level design seems pretty busy and nice, bosses are cool, etc.

[Despatche]

lol sdoj hijack

There was no hate in Durandal's post.

How can you misunderstand a simple post like that so deeply? Every single bit of that post was about how fundamentally worthless Touhou supposedly is and how shmups should never have story. When you start comparing something like Touhou to something like Homestuck or MLP, you have absolutely no idea what the Touhou series is on a very basic level. This is so terrible precisely because it's not difficult to understand.

I'm not hating on Homestuck or MLP, by the way. Apparently I need a disclaimer for everything, because everyone constantly assumes things I haven't even implied.

The only time the facts of the matter cease to be is when the person who considered it a gripping work of fiction tells the person with the education in the classics that it was a brilliant work and a literary marvel. At that point that person has stepped beyond their boundaries and made an erroneous statement.

No, they haven't, because noone knows what a "classic" is. The definition of that term changes drastically every single decade, and so many "classics" are only called such because one very particular individual thought some book, or some painting, or some film was great and managed to get that work pushed into school curriculum. This right here is the clearest example of opinion masquerading as fact, beyond the stupid game review sites with their brainwashed readers or communities that take the horribly misunderstood words of a few as gospel.

This happens every day, and is happening right now with a discussion about the merit of Touhou's writing.

This is not a discussion. This is everyone going "lol, Touhou", as they always do, and getting the hell out.

Noone knows what this series is, and they will always try to criticize it as if they did. Noone knows how any of this interaction works, and they will never stop to think on how. People will continue to completely ignore the all-important mangas, and they will also continue to ignore the games because they're not CAVE. This is not a discussion by any definition ever written.

[Squire Grooktook]

How can you misunderstand a simple post like that so deeply? Every single bit of that post was about how fundamentally worthless Touhou supposedly is and how shmups should never have story.

Wrong.

Here is what his post communicated:

I feel that there's not enough time to devote to properly setting up character development, humor, motivations, etc. in a shmup through dialogue boxes, and it can still be good if well done*, but I don't personally find Touhou's execution of it interesting.

His post was also aimed entirely at the script within the games. He never said that the gameplay was fundamentally worthless, that the music was fundamentally worthless, etc. etc.


*

Spoiler

He clearly implies that a work with a small amount of dialogue, like a shmup can be well executed when he says this

I feel that Touhou does not have enough time and space to make the dialogue stand out, nor is it of high enough quality to be memorable despite it's short length.

IE he's implying that high enough quality can make it memorable, and that it's therefore possible in a shmup. And before you say that this proves your point that he's passing off his statement that Touhou's script is not high quality as a fact, note that he prefaces this with "I feel".

[Shepardus]

Perhaps it would clear up confusion if we were to make a distinction between worldbuilding and storytelling, and avoid drawing muddled comparisons between the worldbuilding of one game and the storytelling of another as if they're the same thing. For all the praise RayForce and a number of other titles mentioned here have received for their "storytelling," where they really excel is in their world-building. RayForce takes place within a beautifully realized world (literally, for the latter half of the game) and the atmosphere and emotions conveyed through are arguably unparalleled in the genre. But its plot amounts to little more than "oops our AI's become sentient and now we're destroying it, and Earth too," and it has no characters except the silent pilot, whose only characterization comes from the self-sacrifice in the ending cutscene. This is comparable to the amount and depth of story Dangun Feveron has. I'm not saying this is a bad thing (I think RayForce is better off this way), but comparing this to the dialogue in Touhou is comparing apples to oranges.

I'm not saying Touhou's writing and plots are good (I think they're okay at best, which is what I think about most videogame writing anyway), but the little it has is already far more substantive than almost any other STG. Radiant Silvergun is the only exception I can think of off the top of my head as far as plot goes (and even its characters have little chance to be characterized as more than a one-dimensional caricature). Maybe Astebreed too. I rarely ever pay attention to this while playing STGs, though, so I'm hardly a good judge of shmup plots. But from my experience there's usually very little of it to judge.

As far as worldbuilding goes, I don't think the Touhou games alone do a particularly good job of it, but Gensokyo is significantly more fleshed out in the print works based on what I've seen (I haven't read more than brief snippets of them), which is to be expected (fleshing out the world is kind of inevitable with the amount of Touhou media there is compared to other shmups, maybe it's even unfair to make that comparison).

The only time the facts of the matter cease to be is when the person who considered it a gripping work of fiction tells the person with the education in the classics that it was a brilliant work and a literary marvel. At that point that person has stepped beyond their boundaries and made an erroneous statement.

If they've defined brilliance as the work's ability to grip them, then there's nothing erroneous about that statement.

[Squire Grooktook]

I'm not sure I'd chalk Rayforce's success to world building.

World building is creating a detailed world with its own history, mechanisms, etc. This would be more in line with Rayforce's overlying "backstory". Where Rayforce really succeeds is how the plot is conveyed through the visuals, music, etc.

For example, arriving on Earth and seeing how much it has been changed by Con-Human. The bases made of chunked off pieces of rock lifted into the sky through technology, the wastleland and craters you've seen earth's greenery become from above. The gaping mechanical city Con-Human has "replaced" humanity with in stage 5. The dark musical atmosphere and claustrophobia of the penultimate stage, the panoramic view as you arrive at Earth's hollowed out core in the finale...the sacrifice. etc.

None of those are world buliding. They're conveying a story through visuals, music, gameplay, sound fx, and the combination of all these (atmosphere). World Building would be more akin to this.


One of the major complaints about Touhou is exactly this: it (arguably, I suppose) doesn't do enough to convey character motivations, what's at stake, the world, etc. during the game, either through it's script or the actual game part.
There are other things I really don't like about the script and Zun's writing style but they're not important because I don't actually care to debate whether it's good or not. Unlike some people, I don't care if someone likes something I don't like.

[Despatche]

uuuuuugggggghhhhhh

Okay. One more god damned time.

Personally, I don't find the plots for Touhou in general to be any better than BLAST OFF AND STRIKE THE EVIL BYDO EMPIRE.

This is an opinion. There are two kinds of opinions: those that have no basis in anything (what's your favorite color) and "decisions" that are supposed to be backed up with facts (this).

It's true that games like Rayforce or G-Darius aren't anything different in this regard, but what sets them apart from Touhou is that they tell a cliche story well. Excellent execution can make even the most generic and blandest concepts come to life.

-claims that touhou is poorly told.
-implies that touhou is generic and bland.

As far as I know, the most appealing aspect to Touhou aside from the gameplay appears to be the interaction between characters. Well-written dialogue and great characterization is what makes games like Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines and Alpha Protocol shine, even if their gameplay is mediocre. The problem is that an arcade-style SHMUP which tells story through traditional dialogue boxes simply does not have enough time and room for proper character development and making character motivations clear. If you spend too much time on dialogue, you end up with 40-50% visual novel without branching storypaths and 50-60% SHMUP gameplay.

-lists examples of games he personally likes as "proof" of the below with no further explanation unless you immediately allow yourself to believe such a far-reaching claim.
-claims that story "doesn't work" in shmups. claims that a character literally stating the motivation that everything else in the game points at isn't "clear"; people like this will soon temporarily backpedal and use the reverse logic as a reason to call the game shallow. claims that there is somehow "not enough time" in the genre, even though developers make that time. talks about "50% novel, 50% gameplay" as if the two conflict each other, even though there is an entire button dedicated to preventing that; people like this will soon temporarily backpedal and use the reverse logic as a reason to "skip" the plot (the implication is that the dialogue "gets in the way").

As for Touhou, most character interactions involve two or more cliché one-dimensional characters talking about something before they duke it out for rather vague reasons (I have a feeling that Reimu and Marisa quickly resorting to violence is actually just a running gag at this point). Touhou takes the DanganRonpa approach to offset the lack of deeper characters by having a larger amount of shallow characters, each with their own special looks, quirks, themes, etc. There is rarely any comedy given the lack of time for a proper set-up, there is rarely any tension felt between characters, there is rarely any character development since most characters are deported to the Faraway Islands after you defeat them, there is rarely any emotional moments given the light-hearted setting and atmosphere, there is no romance at all, there is rarely any mystery given the lack of exposition or an interesting hook, there is.... just 'banter'?

For me, this simply isn't interesting. It's like fast food, which you eat in a short time and directly forget about it afterwards. I feel that Touhou does not have enough time and space to make the dialogue stand out, nor is it of high enough quality to be memorable despite it's short length. I've played Labyrinth of Touhou 2, and even though the dialogue feels alot like the Touhou games, the fact that LoT2 is a dungeon crawler with a slower pace than SHMUPs means the dialogue has more time to seep in. Such banter feels more in place with slice of life anime, and in a SHMUP it just feels like filler dialogue. Be honest, has one conversation in Touhou before a certain boss fight stuck with you after you closed the game?

I guess there are plenty of people out there who like stories with a large cast of one-dimensional characters just interacting with eachother like Homestuck and My Little Pony, but I'm not one of them.

-hates on what little he is able to understand about something really simple, and tries as hard as he can to make it seem like meaningless drivel. makes all these claims that, ironically, solve every problem he has in the previous paragraph. this entire block is saying the exact same thing.

How the actual fuck do you gloss over all of this without doing it on purpose?

One of the major complaints about Touhou is exactly this: it (arguably, I suppose) doesn't do enough to convey character motivations, what's at stake, the world, etc. during the game, either through it's script or the actual game part.

I'm going to take this moment to pull a very tiny bit of the blame off of you and put it on the language barrier.

-Every single game has additional text that explains exactly what's happening outside of the actual stage dialogue and the endings. Yes, you are expected to read the wiki for this, because the entire game is in Japanese.
-Nearly every bit of the games are constantly telling you what's happening, and every single discussion tells you why that character is there. It is not physically possible to mangle this text enough that you can't figure out what's basically going on.
-You can't get most of the endings anywhere except for some really old translations because the wiki is run by idiots.

[d0s]

those poorly-made Compile games,

Yeah dude ZUN could totally pull off what they did on 8 and 16 bit systems

[Squire Grooktook]

This is an opinion. There are two kinds of opinions: those that have no basis in anything (what's your favorite color) and "decisions" that are supposed to be backed up with facts (this).

Yes, and he made it clear that it was of the "color" variety, by the phrase "peronsally, I don't find..."

That is all you can ever hope for with entertainment. It almost all comes down to "favorite colors" at the ultimate level.

-claims that touhou is poorly told.
-implies that touhou is generic and bland.

He already implied with the previous "personally, I don't find..." that it is so in his opinion. You can't expect every single criticism to have a fucking clause like that before it.

As for the opinions themselves, those are perfectly fine opinions considering he explained why he felt that way about them. I find certain things generic and bland that others don't. That's an opinon, not a warcrime.

-claims that story "doesn't work" in shmups. claims that a character literally stating the motivation that everything else in the game points at isn't "clear"; people like this will soon temporarily backpedal and use the reverse logic as a reason to call the game shallow. claims that there is somehow "not enough time" in the genre, even though developers make that time. talks about "50% novel, 50% gameplay" as if the two conflict each other, even though there is an entire button dedicated to preventing that; people like this will soon temporarily backpedal and use the reverse logic as a reason to "skip" the plot (the implication is that the dialogue "gets in the way").

As for "story doesn't work in shmups", he was not implying that. See the *spoiler in my previous post. He clearly implies at the end of his post that it can be pulled off.

Developers don't make time, they use it. He's saying that the time spent in Touhou's games does not give him a clear enough picture of the characters that makes them sympathetic, likable, the moments tense, etc.

This is again an opinion and element of personal taste. There's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes I don't empathize with characters because of little nitpicks and things that are not to my taste as well. It's normal. That's why we have rich, diverse bodies of work to choose form, so there's something for everyone.

The point however, is that he already made it clear in previous posts that this was his reasoning for not liking it. You could have a debate with him over what the character motivations are, when and how well they are communicated, whether they are sympathetic, etc. And at the end come to a nice, friendly agreement as to why he doesn't like it and why you can, perhaps ultimately respecting eachother's opinions and understanding eachother more. That's called a discussion, in which ideas and opinions are exchanged.

-hates on what little he is able to understand about something really simple, and tries as hard as he can to make it seem like meaningless drivel. makes all these claims that, ironically, solve every problem he has in the previous paragraph. this entire block is saying the exact same thing.

Again, he did not "hate" on anything. He never used a word stronger then "I don't like it/I don't find it interesting". He also didn't say anything that "solved problems". He explained in a logical reason why it doesn't resonante with him. Because the small script within the games don't give him enough characterization to suit his tastes in what constitutes a likable or interesting character or plot.

I'm going to take this moment to pull a very tiny bit of the blame off of you and put it on the language barrier.

Oh, so you're blaming me because I don't like something you like. You know what, I've had it. We're done here. I'm out, not reading this shit anymore.

Fuck this thread.

[Jeneki]

Personally, I don't find the plots for Touhou in general to be any better than BLAST OFF AND STRIKE THE EVIL BYDO EMPIRE.

Oddly enough: If you want R-Type with a painfully long introduction and cutscenes (the stage 6 one in particular made me laugh hard that they wanted to take R-Type in that direction), see R-Type Complete on PC-Engine Super CD.

[Skykid]

The only time the facts of the matter cease to be is when the person who considered it a gripping work of fiction tells the person with the education in the classics that it was a brilliant work and a literary marvel. At that point that person has stepped beyond their boundaries and made an erroneous statement.

If they've defined brilliance as the work's ability to grip them, then there's nothing erroneous about that statement.

The work's ability to grip them doesn't define the quality of the work, and it would be foolish to suggest otherwise. A large proportion of people are gripped by Nicki Minaj and Michael Bay's "works", it isn't necessary to suggest that fact elevates the work from junk status.

No, they haven't, because noone knows what a "classic" is. The definition of that term changes drastically every single decade, and so many "classics" are only called such because one very particular individual thought some book, or some painting, or some film was great and managed to get that work pushed into school curriculum.

There's an element of stable argument in here in that generationally what we consider to be examples of artistry change. For example I might cite a Manga (or several) as being works of high art that my parents might take exception to and write off as garbage simply for being in comic book format - the same with video games.

But that's an argument that regards knowledge of the field, and that's completely unchanging from one generation to the next. If you ask me, "is this archeological find exceptional?" I wouldn't be able to comment because I have no idea what constitutes impressive attributes within that field.
However as the topic here is 'writing', I feel as though I can comfortably comment that Touhou's literary contributions are not worth a damn.

It's worth noting is that the quality of videogames is rarely an argument that arises on this forum. Disputes over shmups are usually about someone not knowing how to play or approach them properly - another example of one person knowing his field and another being clueless. But I assume we don't all go tooth and nail over why a game is crushingly good or bad because as a community we mostly understand what constitutes good or bad. Most disagreements are about taste, which is a different thing entirely.

[Shepardus]

I'm not sure I'd chalk Rayforce's success to world building.

World building is creating a detailed world with its own history, mechanisms, etc. This would be more in line with Rayforce's overlying "backstory". Where Rayforce really succeeds is how the plot is conveyed through the visuals, music, etc.

For example, arriving on Earth and seeing how much it has been changed by Con-Human. The bases made of chunked off pieces of rock lifted into the sky through technology, the wastleland and craters you've seen earth's greenery become from above. The gaping mechanical city Con-Human has "replaced" humanity with in stage 5. The dark musical atmosphere and claustrophobia of the penultimate stage, the panoramic view as you arrive at Earth's hollowed out core in the finale...the sacrifice. etc.

I would still call that world-building, but whatever, I think we're getting at similar things and I don't want to turn this into a debate over semantics.

One of the major complaints about Touhou is exactly this: it (arguably, I suppose) doesn't do enough to convey character motivations, what's at stake, the world, etc. during the game, either through it's script or the actual game part.

I'm inclined to agree, though I'd chalk that up mainly to the fact that characters' motivations are just more grey and less straight-forward and intuitive as they are in most other shmups. RayForce does a fantastic job of showing the evil doings of Con-Human and just why you need to destroy it, but even if it didn't do that and simply said "blast off and strike the evil Con-Human" it'd still make perfect sense (it wouldn't be as compelling, but it'd still make sense). Meanwhile in Touhou, for better or worse, the protagonists don't even know who the antagonist is until they meet her and they spend much of the game just trying to make sense of the situation while everybody they meet is going "ehh howabout you stop right here." The plot's less clear, but it also is to the protagonists.

those poorly-made Compile games,

Yeah dude ZUN could totally pull off what they did on 8 and 16 bit systems

He did make a couple pretty good PC-98 games, and Story of Eastern Wonderland.

The work's ability to grip them doesn't define the quality of the work

So what does?

[d0s]

poorly-made

poorly-made

p o o r l y - m a d e

[Shepardus]

Didn't know this thread was about the character art. But if it is, note which character designs have endured and are more immediately recognizable today. Even if ZUN isn't a top-notch artist (he's still better at drawing than I am, at any rate), it'd be unwise to doubt his character design abilities. Until Clownpiece happened

Also just going to ignore that your second image isn't from any of the games.

But since it's not about the character art, let's derail this topic into something else, like danmaku aesthetics.
<insert screenshot of Touhou>
<insert screenshot of Aleste/some other Compile game>

[d0s]

Didn't know this thread was about the character art. But if it is, note which character designs have endured and are more immediately recognizable today.

Also just going to ignore that your second image isn't from any of the games.

"more popular = better than" on a forum devoted to noted highly popular genre, the STG

[AxelMill]

Didn't know this thread was about the character art. But if it is, note which character designs have endured and are more immediately recognizable today.

Of course they endured, the latest Touhou came out five and a half months ago. Compile died in 2003, before the Internet became available to everyone. And it's a given that those games also were released before that time, unlike Touhou's yearly releases.
Of course they are recognizable, people spam them everywhere. Then Minions also are good because they are immediately recognizable.

[Shepardus]

I was going to elaborate a bit, but really the important takeaway here is that this Compile vs. Touhou debate has nothing to do with the topic at hand, which is the writing and other forms of plot development in Touhou. Besides, I don't have anything against Compile, seeing as I have yet to play their games.

Anyway, I don't have much more to say; I'm not well-versed in game stories, Touhou or not, and to pretend otherwise in order to sway the opinions of those who have already made up their minds would be a waste of breath. I've stated my take on this; I'm out.

(just play the damn games, guys. also fairy wars has an excellent story and anybody saying otherwise is wrong)

[NTSC-J]

The popularity of the Touhou mythos has always been a bit of a mystery to me. To an outsider like myself, it looks mediocre. So when I hear that a fan-made series that is then fan-translated is actually really well-written, you've piqued my interest. I'm thinking this is the video game answer to Milton and Dostoyevsky. Then I read:

Stuff gets serious, people die. In one of the more recent series, Reimu straight up kills someone

and it all makes sense again. When the peak of your drama is who lives and who dies, you know what you're getting into. This is like Spider Man stuff. And that's ok, I liked Spider Man when I was growing up, but we're once again running into the "it's well-written, for a video game" thing and I'm just reminded of how far games have to go before they reach genuinely quality writing. It took comics several decades to produce anything that educated readers respect and games aren't there yet.

[Durandal]

This is an opinion. There are two kinds of opinions: those that have no basis in anything (what's your favorite color) and "decisions" that are supposed to be backed up with facts (this).

Yes, stories are subjective. The so-called "objective" standards for storytelling are 100% subjective and will change drastically pretty much every decade or two. Countless countless countless old novels that are now considered "classics" were considered "worthless" in their time periods. Some even became this "worthless" decades later for political reasons, then were "rediscovered" more recently. As long as you can write legibly in your chosen language, and sometimes even when you can't, you're good.

Aren't my reasons for disliking the dialogue in Touhou further down in my original post? I'm not sure how you are supposed to back up subjective opinions on subjective media with cold hard facts.

-lists examples of games he personally likes as "proof" of the below with no further explanation unless you immediately allow yourself to believe such a far-reaching claim.

To be honest, I shouldn't have used RPGs as an example for anything in a SHMUPs forum. Most people who played the games I listed would understand what I was getting at. It's kind of like saying 'Dodonpachi is a good example of a SHMUP' doesn't have much value in an RPG forum either.

-claims that story "doesn't work" in shmups.

In the second paragraph of my original post that you quoted, I clearly state that any concept, no matter how generic, can shine with proper execution. Like stories in SHMUPs, and I listed G-Darius and RayForce as an example for that.

claims that a character literally stating the motivation that everything else in the game points at isn't "clear";

I get that 'strike the evil youkai' is basically what the main characters do all of the time, but what I don't get is why seemingly unrelated characters just start fighting eachother with danmaku.

people like this will soon temporarily backpedal and use the reverse logic as a reason to call the game shallow.

How does one shallow aspect of a game make the whole game shallow? The reason why I listed VtMB and Alpha Protocol is that even games with poor gameplay and great stories can still shine. If you played cRPGs, you know that there is always a weaker aspect to the game.

claims that there is somehow "not enough time" in the genre, even though developers make that time. talks about "50% novel, 50% gameplay" as if the two conflict each other, even though there is an entire button dedicated to preventing that; people like this will soon temporarily backpedal and use the reverse logic as a reason to "skip" the plot (the implication is that the dialogue "gets in the way")

Given the 30-50 minute long arcade-layout of Touhou (and SHMUPs in general) with only a fraction of that dedicated to the story, most people would find themselves really limited to tell more engaging stories through dialogue alone. Spending half of your time on story and the other half on gameplay in a SHMUP isn't the most ideal thing to do, because of pacing. That does not mean it is impossible, I'd say Undertale is a greater example of pacing (even though the shmupping is just a JRPG battle system) as it rarely ever gets boring by regularly introducing new characters, enviroments and other quirks. Astebreed approach to storytelling is to tell the story with voice-acted dialogue while you are playing, so aside from the screaming lolis it does not affect gameplay as much. Tyrian does this by sending you optional e-mails which are actually fun to read IMO. Touhou's dialogue is short enough that it doesn't get in the way, but at the same time I don't think it adds alot of value to the games. Hence my comparison to fast food.

-hates on what little he is able to understand about something really simple, and tries as hard as he can to make it seem like meaningless drivel. makes all these claims that, ironically, solve every problem he has in the previous paragraph. this entire block is saying the exact same thing.

What am I unable to understand? I'm not sure why you assume I be hatin' on Touhou just because the dialogue isn't all that special for me. It should be obvious to anyone that my original post was mostly opinions and a difference in tastes, but I'm not sure what exactly ignited you. Even then, you've yet to convince me that perhaps there is something more to the character interactions in Touhou. Instead you lament how this forum treats Touhou as being nothing important and that fanfiction is indeed an important part of Touhou's story. If you expect me to read a book before I can properly understand what the hell is going on and what the hell is at stake instead of clarifying this in the game, then I wouldn't classify said game as a good example of storytelling. Older games were excused of only leaving the story in the booklet because of technical limitations, nowadays this shouldn't be much of a problem.

-Every single game has additional text that explains exactly what's happening outside of the actual stage dialogue and the endings. Yes, you are expected to read the wiki for this, because the entire game is in Japanese.

Like this?

Here it seems there wasn't much exposition in the game to begin with, instead flat-out telling you to buy the books for more info on what is happening. Most synopsis sections in Touhou games I've played are rarely any longer than one paragraph, meaning either the translators were lazy and just left large amounts of exposition text out so you can check the wiki, or there simply wasn't any in the original Japanese version to begin with. This has less to do with the language barrier, methinks. IMO Touhou could use more visual storytelling to tell what it can't tell through dialogue alone (as it is mostly spent on banter). It could be a cutscene, or whatever.

-Nearly every bit of the games are constantly telling you what's happening, and every single discussion tells you why that character is there. It is not physically possible to mangle this text enough that you can't figure out what's basically going on.

I understand why the characters are there (since you usually intrude their domain), but the motivations for the other characters were never that clear or interesting to me.

[Shepardus]

Small nitpick, but the print works aren't fanfiction, they're official parts of Touhou.

Much of the information you're looking for is in the omake.txt or some other .txt file that's in the game folder. Typically they give some extra story background and information on each of the characters, with a nice little spoiler warning at the beginning before you start reading. That's usually the go-to source for basic character information and stuff directly related to the game in question, while the print works are about other things in Gensokyo. And yes, translation patches generally don't bother with that file and just make you go to the wiki if you want to understand what's written there. Not exactly the ideal way to present stuff, but eh.

With Fairy Wars in particular, that game is basically a spinoff from the manga series about the three fairies (the artist for the manga even drew the character art in the game) so it's understandable that it expects you to have some familiarity with the manga. There's not a whole lot to understand, though, it's just fairies doing fairy things. ZUN himself said in his blog post announcing the game that you don't need to have read the manga to understand what's going on, it's just a simple and fun story (it is a spinoff game, after all).

I dunno about adding more visual storytelling to Touhou; even without considering ZUN's ability or desire to work on cutscenes, it's just more stuff people are going to ask to skip. I'd rather he focused on the gameplay, which is what actually matters at the end of the day.

I'm out.

That sure lasted long.

[Illyrian]

I'd personally like to state that I LOVE drivel, this is why I can enjoy the Arnold Schwartzenegger film "Commando" and have over 30 hours played on Euro Truck Simulator 2.

This doesn't change the fact that the story in Touhou games is dreadful (in my opinion) as is the farty Touhou trumpets. On the rare occasion I play Touhou these days I do it with the music muted and other music playing in the background.

One of the main issues with the Touhou story is the presentation. This consists of one static picture of the character and the boss with lip flaps and sometimes blinks and shakes. That is it. This is not how a good story is told.

Furthermore, having these pauses for dialogue slows down the pacing of the level and in no way raises expection for the boss. If I could provide a counter example, take Lylat Wars. When you fight a boss it ominously scrolls onto the screen, emits 1 taunt at most normally and the fight begins immediately, so the tension from the rest of the level is maintained. The rest of the dialogue occurs during the boss fight and at the end of it. The only exception is on Venom, where you fly down corridors to the boss fight room to allow the tension to build while ominous music plays.

I don't think I've ever read a single Touhou cutscene ever, because they are just a distraction before the boss, and the dialogue is abysmal. The only time I've ever seen it done well was in Imperishable Night where if you go the harder of the 2 routes, the boss has dialogue between it's last spell attacks.

Also Despache you should stop taking people having other opinions to you so personally dude, it's all just video games on the internet.

[Shepardus]

The dialogue is abysmal but... you haven't actually read any of it?

[Strikers1945guy]

those poorly-made Compile games,

Yeah dude ZUN could totally pull off what they did on 8 and 16 bit systems

Knocks compile.
Loves touhou storyline

[KAI]

Friendly reminder that Milestone games have similar in-game dialogs and better artwork than touhou, but you don't see people making threads about it every fucking month.

[Lord Satori]

This is the stupidest thread I've ever read. Face it: you guys will just leap at any excuse to argue about Touhou.

[qmish]

RayForce

RayForce impressed me in a way Dark Souls impressed me with level design: on each stage you see glimpses of next stage, providing a visual connection between areas which makes feel of progression stronger. It's amazing how in RayForce you go from space stations into planet's atmosphere then fly over cities then going underground etc and for exemple when you are above ground you see how hatches open and from underground factory new mechas appear.

But that has nothing with "plot", though it's part of narrative in a way how action's of player in game is his own "story".

[Eaglet]

Just a quick jump-in on the whole debate about subjectivity:

What a lot of people fail to see is that any sort of creative expression has two distinct traits (or factors, depending on how you see it); Art & Craft.
One is entirely subjective (Art) while the other one (Craft) isn't.
Art is the expression the creator wishes to purvey while Craft is the ability to do so.
As expression (and interpretation of it) is subjective in value it's entirely left up to the inidividual to make their judgement on it.
Craft however (as in grammatical structure, vocabulary, knowledge of verse structures etc. for writing and technical ability with an instrument, compositional and arrangement skills etc. when it comes to music) IS objective. Mastery of Craft brings the ability to deepen whatever expression one wishes to portray. Someone with low ability in Craft might use the word "sad" to express whatever a character is feeling while someone with a higher level might use less general and more accurate descriptions like "melancholic" or "disillusioned" to better portray whatever they had in mind.

Now, I can't speak on the level of Craft in Touhou writing as i haven't read the scripts in japanese, but from what i remember of the games story and character interaction it's all just typical childish/teenage drivel with no poignant points whatsoever aside from the sort of "cutesiness" that has completely taken over otaku culture (albeit more subdued than the whole moe-blob thing).
As people have touched on here before, stories and writing in video games are generally pretty shit. Even the ones heralded as containing a great story or great writing are simply lacking the sort of depth that's necessary for me to call it great. What i find to be a problem is when people (because of low expectations or lack of education, I don't know) portray something as being greater or having more value than it actually has. MGS is a great example of this.
If you like the games, fine. If you think the writing is fun, fine. But don't try to give it some sort of deeper value than it actually has because it won't stand up to comparison and just retard general development.


I personally think games are at their best when they focues the most on being what they are (games) and use the nature of the game to portray what (little) story there is.
Rayforce, as people have mentioned before, is very simplistic. But it's well executed and works. A perfect fit for the genre.