Why is Touhou such a poster child for bullet hell?

[RNGmaster]

Isn't that a fair comment though, since the "hardest video game boss ever" video shows Futari in its own highest difficulty level?

No, because Futari's highest difficulty level has been 1cc'd by almost nobody, and at least 20 people on Shrinemaiden are capable of busting a Lunatic 1cc out in a few weeks. TH on Lunatic =/= Futari on Ultra (or DOJ WL, come to think of it).

it's mainstream

On the internet, I come upon a lot of people saying "hey, have you heard of this game Touhou, it's really obscure". I crush these people with an iron grip of fact:
- 40% of stalls at Comiket (which BTW is a huge fucking event) are TH doujins or TH related. That's a monopoly.
- the Bad Apple video and Marisa Stole the Whatever have like a million views each
- every other bullet hell game is inevitably compared to TH (this is a law, not an assertion)
- an entire board of 4chan (/jp/) is exclusively TH posts
- my god have you fuckers ever seen all the TH videos on nico
- TH has its own doujin convention, which is an accomplishment that no other huge fandom can claim.
- even in the West, anyone who regularly trolls Something Awful/4chan/etc. will inevitably be exposed.

[Bananamatic]

and at least 20 people on Shrinemaiden are capable of busting a Lunatic 1cc out in a few weeks

hundreds if they actually tried instead of reading fanfics, drawing fanart and saying how lunatic is beyond their skill level

half of the game can be memorized down to the point it's trivial and the other half can be completely disregarded because you get a fuckton of bombs and lives

[RNGmaster]

and at least 20 people on Shrinemaiden are capable of busting a Lunatic 1cc out in a few weeks

hundreds if they actually tried instead of reading fanfics, drawing fanart and saying how lunatic is beyond their skill level

half of the game can be memorized down to the point it's trivial and the other half can be completely disregarded because you get a fuckton of bombs and lives

by that logic then anyone on 4chan could 2-ALL DOJ WL if they just stopped posting goatse and CP for a few minutes

[Barrakketh]

Question, do modern touhou fans play/discuss the PC-98 games?

Some do, sure. I think a decent percentage of the people who play on Lunatic play the PC-98 games. A couple of the insane ones have even tried to time out Gengetu Rape Time. Check out the vids on that guy's channel, he has quite a few PC-98 videos on it.

[Special World]

I also disagree with "Ketsui being representative of CAVE taste", since that seems to be the Dodonpachi series. Personally, I hate DDP's scoring system (chains resetting the counter instead of decrementing it like DFK) and consider it as fun as grinding in any sort of RPG.

Ketsui, on the other hand, is fucking awesome.

I dunno man, I think Dodonpachi's scoring system is somewhat of an outlier in Cave's catalog. It may be their flagship series, but overall I think Cave focuses on making their scoring systems more fluid rather than restrictive. Out of all their newer (non-DDP) titles, the only one that feels restrictive at all to me is Deathsmiles, and that's basically just knowing when to fever. Ketsui, Futari, DSIIX, Muchi Muchi Pork, Pink Sweets (okay I don't know about Pink Sweets yet), and especially Espgaluda II grant you lots of leeway within the system. None of them really feel "be here now" like Dodonpachi does with its strict chaining and bee collecting. Dodonpachi is only representative of Cave because it laid down laid down all these foundations.

Really, it'd be hard to say that any of them are particularly representative of Cave "taste" because almost all Cave games are COMPLETELY representative of Cave. I could only pick an outlier like Pink Sweets and say "well it's not really in the same style."

[Skykid]

That TH dude can't draw for shit.

[Obiwanshinobi]

On the internet, I come upon a lot of people saying "hey, have you heard of this game Touhou, it's really obscure". I crush these people with an iron grip of fact:
- 40% of stalls at Comiket (which BTW is a huge fucking event) are TH doujins or TH related. That's a monopoly.
- the Bad Apple video and Marisa Stole the Whatever have like a million views each
- every other bullet hell game is inevitably compared to TH (this is a law, not an assertion)
- an entire board of 4chan (/jp/) is exclusively TH posts
- my god have you fuckers ever seen all the TH videos on nico
- TH has its own doujin convention, which is an accomplishment that no other huge fandom can claim.
- even in the West, anyone who regularly trolls Something Awful/4chan/etc. will inevitably be exposed.

The source of that "fact" about 40%?
Massive as it is, Comiket itself from western perspective is fairly obscure. Enormous crowds attending certain festivities in India don't make them popular in the west either. Dragon Quest - the very best selling jRPG series in Japan - isn't a poster child for jRPG in the west. And so on, and so on. I don't even think all western nerds out there have a slightest idea how big doujin industry is (or know the word "doujin" to begin with).

[stryc9]

That TH dude can't draw for shit.

Thats what I thought. Seriously, I don't understand. Is TH really that popular? I hadn't even heard of it until about a year and a half ago, must be an internet thing. When I checked out Subteranean Animism it looked fairly solid for what it was, but nothing that you would substitute for your daily J360 fix. I prefer overly large metal bosses with fuck-off attack patterns to tiny sprites of little girls, but thats just me. To me they look like imitations of arcade bullet hell games but whatever floats your gunboat I guess.
far more impressive in the Doujin scene is Crimzon Clover, which could actually pass as an arcade STG, if it wasn't for the fact a TATE mode wasn't included.

[captpain]

"must be an internet thing"

ahahahha

[Barrakketh]

On the internet, I come upon a lot of people saying "hey, have you heard of this game Touhou, it's really obscure". I crush these people with an iron grip of fact:
- 40% of stalls at Comiket (which BTW is a huge fucking event) are TH doujins or TH related. That's a monopoly.

The source of that "fact" about 40%?

I don't know where he grabbed that number from, but every Comiket you can get a map and list of the circles selling things. It wouldn't be that hard to cross reference it with a list of circles that create Touhou doujinshi to get a figure.

As he mentioned, Touhou is also big enough to have its own convention (Reitaisai). There will be two this year, with the demo of TH13 being available March 13.

Massive as it is, Comiket itself from western perspective is fairly obscure.

Not nearly as obscure as CAVE is to westerners

What is your point, anyway? Shmups are obscure to westerners. Nearly all recent games require you to import the game from Japan (any other exception aside from Deathsmiles?), and a large number require you to own a Japanese Xbox 360 since they aren't region-free. Or, I suppose you could also build yourself a SuperGun and import an arcade board...surely that's something every shmup player does, right?

In contrast, the Touhou series is a PC game. The only thing you need other than a copy of the game is either AppLocale or to set your system locale to Japanese. The community has released English patches for all of the games in the main series, the fighting games (yep, there are two (SWR also has an expansion)), and the oddball games (Shoot the Bullet, Double Spoiler, GFW). Hell, I think a couple of the PC-98 games have translations.

[stryc9]

The fact that I've only been connected to the net for about six months might have something to do with it

[rancor]

To be so popular, they certainly don't sell very well. Aside from 12.8 "Fairy Wars", I think I've maybe sold one copy of each. Possibly two. I've sold a grand total of "0" copies of 9.5 "Shoot the Bullet".. Maybe it's just that everyone that actually purchases doujin games already have the older releases.

[Aisha]

Your store isn't the only place where one can import doujin games. Paletweb has been selling Touhou games to overseas buyers for years now, for example. Hell, there's even a place where you can get them for 1,000-1,500 yen plus shipping.

Of course, most people just download them.

[rancor]

Your store isn't the only place where one can import doujin games. Paletweb has been selling Touhou games to overseas buyers for years now, for example. Hell, there's even a place where you can get them for 1,000-1,500 yen plus shipping.

I know there are other place to buy the games, I'm just speaking comparatively. I know that it's difficult to find Crimzon Clover at other doujin sellers, so that's not a good comparison. But take "Prizhm" for example. Many other stores sell that game, and I've sold more than 30 copies. Any of the Siter Skain games are a good example as well. Other stores sell those, and I still move a fair amount of copies myself. I'm just saying that in my store Touhou games don't sell very well.

[cj iwakura]

I've played the PC-98 games. I kind of have to, seeing as how I'm writing an article on the games.
(That's gonna take a while.)

They're not bad, but not as special as the new ones, IMO. Touhou 12 is especially impressive, given the development process.

[whoozwah]

I hadn't even heard of it until about a year and a half ago

The fact that I've only been connected to the net for about six months might have something to do with it

woah. You discovered them a full year before you got connected to the internet.

[Barrakketh]

Your store isn't the only place where one can import doujin games. Paletweb has been selling Touhou games to overseas buyers for years now, for example. Hell, there's even a place where you can get them for 1,000-1,500 yen plus shipping.

I know there are other place to buy the games, I'm just speaking comparatively. I know that it's difficult to find Crimzon Clover at other doujin sellers, so that's not a good comparison. But take "Prizhm" for example. Many other stores sell that game, and I've sold more than 30 copies. Any of the Siter Skain games are a good example as well. Other stores sell those, and I still move a fair amount of copies myself. I'm just saying that in my store Touhou games don't sell very well.

Another place that isn't from the usual channels is a guy on the "main" Touhou forums that happens to live in Japan. He can basically buy or pre-order anything you want (not limited to games), and the people who care enough to register on those boards can take advantage of him. For example, Aisha (presumably the same one quoted here) asked:

Out of curiosity, about how much would a package of Crimzon Clover (http://yotsubane.blog99.fc2.com/), Double Spoiler, and Great Fairy Wars run me, with shipping to North America?

Also, is it still possible to track down DoDonPachi Dai Ou Jou Black Label Extra for the 360? It has been out of print for over a year now, and I've never been one for eBay, so I've been wondering how much this game is going for in a used games store or something.

Which got the simple reply:

Aisha: Probably around $60.

And Amazon has copies of DOJ BLE. Cheapest used copy goes for 7000 yen, which will end up being around $95 shipped.

You can basically ask for anything that isn't "too racy and/or in poor taste." By his standards, of course.

I don't know whether it is always the case, but the guy does go to conventions. Sometimes the sellers limit to one copy/buyer (ZUN does this for new releases), but it can be a way to get a hold of things before they hit the usual doujin channels.



Out of curiosity, do you post anywhere else where your shop might get some exposure? Most Touhou buyers who don't already have a preferred shop are probably going to check the wiki's page (note: the community moved from Wikia, though Wikia chose to keep the old wiki active). I never heard of it until CrimzonClover's release. I'm rather surprised to see you carrying Suwako's Jumping Shooting Game, though

[Treasurance]

Touhou 12 is especially impressive

[Naut]

half of the game can be memorized down to the point it's trivial and the other half can be completely disregarded because you get a fuckton of bombs and lives

Still waiting on that ufo lunatic clear

Why do you even post

[Jeneki]

To be so popular, they certainly don't sell very well.

Some people just don't "buy" games.

Back in ... 2007 I believe, Touhou games started appearing on my game request forms for a local convention. I only had one of them at the time. Luckily I knew one of the dealers who had them in stock at a reasonable price, so I was able to pick them up the day of the con. When I brought them back to the gaming area to install, a few had installation problems (and since I couldn't read the error message I wasn't about to troubleshoot it). When the players showed up and I explained the situation, they all whipped out zip drives with the post-install files they got online. While the all had every single game, not a single one had actually paid for any of them.

I felt kinda bad for the dealer who sold me the games. Even though I demoed them all weekend, I'm sure I was the only one who bought any.

[Treasurance]

That TH dude can't draw for shit.

he should hire Ryukishi07

Why do you even post

Why do you even post

Why do you even post

[TrevHead (TVR)]

And the sad fact is that the vast majority of people who are fans of Touhou aren't people who play the shmups (or shmups in general). Most of them [should] know they exist, but aren't interested in playing them for whatever reason. The other doujin material, whether they be comics, artwork, music, or video games based on the series far outstrips the the popularity of the main series.

Which isn't to say that the derivative games are bad. Koumajou Densetsu II (commonly called Touhouvania II) is pretty fucking awesome, and puts a little bit of danmaku into your Castlevania experience (particularly the bosses). MegaMari is MegaMan (some elements from MM2 and MM4) with a lot more bullets from enemies (pretty hard IMO), and New Super Marisa Land is a fun and rather well polished take on Mario games.

Depending on how many non shmup games are released to the west, I can see a simlar thing happening with Cave

[Obiwanshinobi]

Massive as it is, Comiket itself from western perspective is fairly obscure.

Not nearly as obscure as CAVE is to westerners

What is your point, anyway? Shmups are obscure to westerners. Nearly all recent games require you to import the game from Japan (any other exception aside from Deathsmiles?), and a large number require you to own a Japanese Xbox 360 since they aren't region-free. Or, I suppose you could also build yourself a SuperGun and import an arcade board...surely that's something every shmup player does, right?

The point is that being huge by doujin standards doesn't make Touhou a poster child for bullet hell in the west. Cave shmups via emulation are even easier to pirate for westerners than Touhou.
As a matter of fact, first time I saw names Touhou and Cave was in a Gradius V thread on certain mainstream gaming forum. Somebody asked if shmups other than Gradius V also have such small hitboxes. One person mentioned Cave, another one - Touhou and that was it, no beef whatsoever. Since then I kept seeing mentions of Touhou and Cave at about equal rates. Now Cave shmups (iPhone ones) are known (by name if anything else) to people who wouldn't even consider playing games on a PC.

In contrast, the Touhou series is a PC game. The only thing you need other than a copy of the game is either AppLocale or to set your system locale to Japanese. The community has released English patches for all of the games in the main series, the fighting games (yep, there are two (SWR also has an expansion)), and the oddball games (Shoot the Bullet, Double Spoiler, GFW). Hell, I think a couple of the PC-98 games have translations.

Melty Blood games also have English translations, moreover, the virtually lagless online patch was nothing short of technical marvel. None of these things made Melty Blood a poster child for 2D fighters. Even Gulity Gear seems more popular.
That sort of community support (translations, lively forums, YouTube vids) is only visible on the internet if you hang around in seedy places such as these boards.

[Bananamatic]

Still waiting on that ufo lunatic clear

I prefer playing games

[Barrakketh]

The point is that being huge by doujin standards doesn't make Touhou a poster child for bullet hell in the west. Cave shmups via emulation are even easier to pirate for westerners than Touhou.

I'd disagree with that. If you're going to go the piracy route the games can be as easy as unpacking a zip to some folder.

MAME, on the other hand, plagues you with different versions of ROMs that are compatible with different versions of MAME and may or may not require the ROM to be renamed. Or it could be missing an EEPROM file or something. Then configuring MAME properly (not hard IMO, but not as easy as Touhou's "start, pick resolution and fullscreen preference, play").

In contrast, the Touhou series is a PC game. The only thing you need other than a copy of the game is either AppLocale or to set your system locale to Japanese. The community has released English patches for all of the games in the main series, the fighting games (yep, there are two (SWR also has an expansion)), and the oddball games (Shoot the Bullet, Double Spoiler, GFW). Hell, I think a couple of the PC-98 games have translations.

Melty Blood games also have English translations, moreover, the virtually lagless online patch was nothing short of technical marvel. None of these things made Melty Blood a poster child for 2D fighters.

People who are actively interested in that genre don't like being stuck with outdated versions of a game. If you're playing on the PC then you're stuck with Act Cadenza. Actress Again and Actress Again Current Code have been released since then with lots of changes, and they prefer to use the most recent console version.

Take the community at SRK. Last year the BlazBlue community opted to not participate at EVO 2010 due to Continuum Shift's release, having already left Calamity Trigger behind. MBAA ended up taking its spot at the tournament.

Even Gulity Gear seems more popular.

Guilty Gear also gets official NA releases of the games. Same with BlazBlue.

That sort of community support (translations, lively forums, YouTube vids) is only visible on the internet if you hang around in seedy places such as these boards.

The translations are all "advertised" on the wiki. If you pirated the game odds are it is already translated or includes the patches.

[Frederik]

I quite enjoyed Imperishable Night. I don´t really care for scoring in TH games, but this one felt the most polished, and I really like the spell practice mode. I think I recall reading somewhere that IN is considered one of the best games in the series by a lot of the fans.

Couldn´t really get into the other games, though, especially Subterranean Animism felt odd - somehow all of the characters felt really underpowered. Most parts between the bosses in most TH games feel uninspired, while the bosses have some very nice patterns.

I don´t have anything against flying girls per se (I really like the whole setting and art style of Deathsmiles), but a 50x50px witch of some sort shooting three million bullets feels out of balance to me. I´d much rather have giant enemies - and it doesn´t always have to be super-grim military stuff, take the giant toy robots in Pink Sweets for instance.

Adding to that, everything in these games in a bit too tiny for my taste, and the player shots are visually unsatisfying.

This being said, I sometimes enjoy Touhou for the inventiveness of some of the boss attacks, and the music in Imperishable Night is very relaxing. Kinda kitschy circus music, but nice nonetheless from time to time. All in all I don´t have any problems with TH at all, and not every single game needs to mimick CAVE.

[Blackbird]

To be so popular, they certainly don't sell very well.

Of all the people I know that have Touhou games, not a single one ever paid for them. Yay, piracy -_-.

If I namedrop a shooting game, Touhou is the most likely to garner recognition, in my experience. If I drop DoDonPachi, I hear "Huh?" or get a blank stare. If I drop Touhou, it's usually "Oh, that's the game with all the lolis, right?" or "Yeah, I'm down with Touhou. Megamari was totally awesome."

[Bananamatic]

The best part of Touhou is Touhou Labyrinth

kickass RPG

[Obiwanshinobi]

The point is that being huge by doujin standards doesn't make Touhou a poster child for bullet hell in the west. Cave shmups via emulation are even easier to pirate for westerners than Touhou.

I'd disagree with that. If you're going to go the piracy route the games can be as easy as unpacking a zip to some folder.

MAME, on the other hand, plagues you with different versions of ROMs that are compatible with different versions of MAME and may or may not require the ROM to be renamed. Or it could be missing an EEPROM file or something. Then configuring MAME properly (not hard IMO, but not as easy as Touhou's "start, pick resolution and fullscreen preference, play").

For those who are into piracy either way shouldn't be a problem. Cave ROMs (and BIOSes) are even smaller than Touhou games. Small advantage, but if you go into such details, it should count for something. Also, I'm pretty sure many people feel better pirating coin-op games than PC games. On these forums, for example, playing on MAME is being discussed openly, whereas other forms of piracy are more of a delicate subject.

People who are actively interested in that genre don't like being stuck with outdated versions of a game. If you're playing on the PC then you're stuck with Act Cadenza. Actress Again and Actress Again Current Code have been released since then with lots of changes, and they prefer to use the most recent console version.

Take the community at SRK. Last year the BlazBlue community opted to not participate at EVO 2010 due to Continuum Shift's release, having already left Calamity Trigger behind. MBAA ended up taking its spot at the tournament.

Even Gulity Gear seems more popular.

Guilty Gear also gets official NA releases of the games. Same with BlazBlue.

Apparently coin-op BlazBlue is already playable on the PC, along with some other Type X² games. As for coin-op MB, I don't know if NAOMI (or whatever it runs on) ROMS got dumped yet, but I'd be surprised if PS2 emulators couldn't handle "exclusives" of this kind just fine. Besides, I seem to recall some people sticking to Re-ACT for whatever reasons when Act Cadenza was already out. Not every update of this kind is equally welcomed by all.

That sort of community support (translations, lively forums, YouTube vids) is only visible on the internet if you hang around in seedy places such as these boards.

The translations are all "advertised" on the wiki. If you pirated the game odds are it is already translated or includes the patches.

Touhou Wiki is just one of seedy corners of the internet you don't stumble upon unless you're already interested in the subject.

[Treasurance]

The best part of Touhou is Touhou Labyrinth

kickass RPG

also has the best music in touhou

Touhouvania 2 sucks btw, WAY too linear and huge hitboxes. Super Marisa World is the best fangame atm