- the series have a lot of potential for fanworks (though I myself have gotten to know the series by accidentally finding an IaMP video while searching for another video
-- note, though, that the latter wasn't available on Youtube since YT didn't allow videos longer than 11 minutes back then), and the people who get to know the series through them will eventually get to know the games- fighting games are imho more popular than shmups, also fighting games allow people of the same ability level play among themselves and they have netplay (while shmups have online highscore tables.. but most newcomers don't bother about it :p). Street Fighter, especially, can appeal to players of every level. (as long as there's not a large enough gap in the players' experience)
- learning how to get into shmups is (imho) a bit less obvious than learning how to get into fighting games, as (in the beginner's stage) the latter give the player at least some hope that he/she can improve (should I say, the progress is more noticeable?), while, maybe, the shmups' learning curve regarding how to properly move yourself (for people who like to say that arcade games are designed to eat your money), etc., is less obvious or doesn't give as much hints about what you could've done to avoid dying?
- some reactions from people who get to play shmups after being introduced by Touhou vary from (of course, not limited to)
-- not caring about scoring systems (in Touhou or other shmups, should he/she ever try them)
-- being disappointed by the less visually-impressive patterns (color included) in non Touhou games, but not thinking of how fun would it be to try to play and dodge them (perhaps because he/she watched videos "passively")
-- not getting interested by gameplay features (I guess most new players in general wouldn't be familiar with trying to know said features and exercising yourself by making lots of thoughtful choices which consider said features)
-- at least learning (in my case, personally) that shmups are beatable (and that doing so was a very interesting exercise), and a lot of effort on creating the stages and bosses (on arcade shmups, mostly) were previously ignored (by me) due to the idea that "it was too easy to die in shmups" or that they were "too random".
-- people not wanting to play shmups for score, because their only reference for scoring mechanics is Touhou
(would be similar to the second case, fortunately I'm not speaking of anyone in this forum or another, but on certain people only I know)
is mostly based on freezing bullets, and those bullets shattering deal much more damage to enemies than your shot does. It also gets some hate because it isn't a "normal" shmup (the freezing mechanic). It's shorter than the main games in the series with only three stages, but there are six routes in the game that decides which mid-boss and boss you'll fight in each stage and they'll use different attacks depending on the route.
