Why is Touhou such a poster child for bullet hell?

[RNGmaster]

That said, there's a fairly disproportionate amount of vitriol in this topic.

You noticed? From what I can gather, a good number of people are kind of angry that TH gets all the attention (it's the first thing most people think of when they hear "bullet hell", probably due to that IN Extra video which isn't even that impressive graaaah) when there are so many games that do the whole "bullet hell" thing better, like the aforementioned Crimzon Clover.
It's inevitable, considering the question this topic asked, that the discussion would change from "Why is TH so popular?" to "Why aren't games besides TH popular?"
(probably Banana is to blame for the derail)

[Blackbird]

*shrug* I think the series is a bit overrated, myself, but if it gets a few of my friends to share another common interest with me, then I can't knock it too badly.

It does have quite a few good qualities, too - subtle, but important, points that often go overlooked.

[captpain]

*shrug* I think the series is a bit overrated, myself, but if it gets a few of my friends to share another common interest with me, then I can't knock it too badly.

It does have quite a few good qualities, too - subtle, but important, points that often go overlooked.

Baseball player explains why grown men enjoying and treating whiffleball like a world-class sport is cool, because it brings people to the sport of baseball.

[Hair]

Baseball player explains why grown men enjoying and treating whiffleball like a world-class sport is cool, because it brings people to the sport of baseball.

Comparing Touhou to whiffleball is unfair. Touhou is a real shmup, it just doesn't cater to the most hardcore score-driven player.

It's more like female softball. Those ladies can pitch fast, not as fast as the fastest men, but look cute doing it.

[BPzeBanshee]

Great, now I have to be the dumbass who has to ask about the context of this image.
-image-
So, well: What is the context of this image?

Not dumbass at all mate, just the image I've made myself hasn't gotten popular yet

The girlface is of Shinobu Maehara from the stupidly insane anime Love Hina, I added the red eyes to give an evil appearance ala Terminator and the word I coined is based on the "Hello, Avon Calling!" campaign which can be seen in Edward Scissorhands as well. Imagine someone not knowing what dynamic rank or Yagawa was and then having that freak up at your door going "Hello, Yagawa Calling! AAAAAA ", and that's pretty much the context right there. Yagawa doesn't REALLY look like that, from the pictures I could find he still does look kinda evil though (all black hair and clothes).

Long story short, I made the face to reply to those asking stuff a true Raizing player would know about.

[Sumez]

I thought the image was more fun before you explained it

[Zengeku3]

It's more like female softball. Those ladies can pitch fast, not as fast as the fastest men, but look cute doing it.

So what you're saying is that Touhou is a shmup for girls/women?

Except your character is still slow compared to the bullets, the patterns are still bad and the music will still suck. UFO has a huge shitlist, in fact the only things that aren't there are stage 4(not the boss though), the extra stage and the loading screens

Loading screens? You mean Stage 1, 2, 5 and 6?
What about the music? Didn't you use to enjoy it? At least some of it? Its not all of it that's bad. There are quite a lot of them in UFO though: Stage 2, Stage 3 and Stage 6 for example. Murasa's music is also pretty bland.

Oh and it is correct that you can't outrun the bullets. That's why you dodge them instead.

[BPzeBanshee]

I thought the image was more fun before you explained it

Best not be telling people then eh. Ruins the 'WTF' moment.

[Clessx]

I like seeing how any thread related to Touhou turns into these kind of discussion.

[Obiwanshinobi]

It's to do with Touhou community dropouts ending up on here, already pumped up methinks.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

I like seeing how any thread related to Touhou turns into these kind of discussion.

Touhou (fan) bashing is a old favorite pastime of mine and many others on this forum. Think of english fox hunting but instead of a fox its a shrine maiden or fan.

For me personally I have no major problem with the game (infact ive just started playing TH8) and even the weeabo fans dont phase me (on a good day) if I can keep them at arms length. That been said I still think Touhou is over rated

[Bananamatic]

Think of english fox hunting but instead of a fox its a shrine maiden or fan.

For some reason I love bashing even things I like
I love reading those "holy shit this sucks" reviews even when I liked the game and spent 100s of hours on it

[Zengeku3]

I like seeing how any thread related to Touhou turns into these kind of discussion.

Touhou (fan) bashing is a old favorite pastime of mine and many others on this forum. Think of english fox hunting but instead of a fox its a shrine maiden or fan.

For me personally I have no major problem with the game (infact ive just started playing TH8) and even the weeabo fans dont phase me (on a good day) if I can keep them at arms length. That been said I still think Touhou is over rated

Pretty much the same here.

Think of english fox hunting but instead of a fox its a shrine maiden or fan.

For some reason I love bashing even things I like
I love reading those "holy shit this sucks" reviews even when I liked the game and spent 100s of hours on it

Then start bashing Hellsinker.

[RNGmaster]

Then start bashing Hellsinker.

Okay!
-Needlessly complicated interface
-Too many items to pick up and too many systems working against each other
-Not necessary to dodge due to the blue aura and giant #s of bombs
-Attacks are hard to aim
-Graphic style is way too minimalist (backgrounds don't have any influence on gameplay, enemies are mostly paper cutouts)
-Scoring system doesn't make any sense

I won't bash the music though; I really like it.

[Treasurance]

GO GO GO

-Needlessly complicated interface

Haha. No.

-Too many items to pick up and too many systems working against each other

No.

-Not necessary to dodge due to the blue aura and giant #s of bombs

The aura makes stuff harder to dodge IMO, and the game's already hard enough if you turn autobombs off

-Attacks are hard to aim

n00b, are you using Moon Cradle or what

-Graphic style is way too minimalist (backgrounds don't have any influence on gameplay, enemies are mostly paper cutouts)

I wouldn't call GARLAND minimalist

-Scoring system doesn't make any sense

That applies to pretty much all shmups.

I won't bash the music though; I really like it.

The 4th menu theme sucks


Don't judge this game before beating it.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Hellsinker minimalistic? I wouldn't say so. A bit on the abstract side perhaps, but very ornate. Tumiki Fighters looks minimalistic.

[Zengeku3]

Don't judge this game before beating it.

By that logic, You and I and Bananamatic would have to beat UFO before we can judge it. And hard mode and below doesn't count.

[Sapz]

Don't judge this game before beating it.

By that logic, You and I and Bananamatic would have to beat UFO before we can judge it. And hard mode and below doesn't count.

I highly approve of this logic.

[Zengeku3]

Don't judge this game before beating it.

By that logic, You and I and Bananamatic would have to beat UFO before we can judge it. And hard mode and below doesn't count.

I highly approve of this logic.

Sometimes you can make a judgement if you've just played the game enough. Naturally you can't go play the game for 2 hours judge it solely on that. You'll need to give a game some time, I agree with that but you don't need to beat the game in order to judge it. For example, if your reason for not beating the game is that simply practicing feels dreadful despite having logged 50-60 hours of playtime then I think its pretty safe to make a judgement.

I don't have much reason to believe that Treasurance OR Bananamatic has been equally as patient as I have though.

The logic that you have to beat the game to judge it doesn't make sense.

[Treasurance]

By that logic, You and I and Bananamatic would have to beat UFO before we can judge it. And hard mode and below doesn't count.

I highly approve of this logic.

Sometimes you can make a judgement if you've just played the game enough. Naturally you can't go play the game for 2 hours judge it solely on that. You'll need to give a game some time, I agree with that but you don't need to beat the game in order to judge it. For example, if your reason for not beating the game is that simply practicing feels dreadful despite having logged 50-60 hours of playtime then I think its pretty safe to make a judgement.

I don't have much reason to believe that Treasurance OR Bananamatic has been equally as patient as I have though.

The logic that you have to beat the game to judge it doesn't make sense.

It does in the case of HELLSINKER, because it's more of an adventure than your typical (touhou) shmup

and most of the awesome lies in the later parts of the game anyways, especially the last boss

wait screw this, JUST GO BEAT IT AND YOU'LL SEE, it's no UFO Lunatic to do

[Zengeku3]

It does in the case of HELLSINKER, because it's more of an adventure than your typical (touhou) shmup

and most of the awesome lies in the later parts of the game anyways, especially the last boss

wait screw this, JUST GO BEAT IT AND YOU'LL SEE, it's no UFO Lunatic to do

What do you mean "more of an adventure than your typical shmup?" You'll have to elaborate further on that. But really, you might want to try and convince other people than me. I don't want shmups to get complicated. The formula for a good shmup is for me:
Hold down the A button for focused fire. B bombs. C uses auto-fire. Gameplay is alternating between A and C and pressing B when a bullet is about to hit. Then you just dodge stuff.

Esp.Ra.De almost intimidated me because of that splatter mechanic but upon realizing that you could just hold it down and combine it with your regular shot calmed me down. However, you can't just hold down the button in a game such as Crimzon Clover. Because of that, I didn't like it. Which is a shame! It looks damn good but whenever i play it it becomes bad because you can't just survive exclusively on normal shots.

The shmup you are talking about, Hellsinker, looks even more needlessly complex than CC. Why should one want to play it then? Having seen your gameplay videos, the danmaku doesn't even look very interesting.

[MathU]

Hellsinker is a fantastic game and way better than any crappy Touhou.

It's not for everyone though. You really do have to put some considerable time into it to appreciate it. Partly because it's an extremely long shooter (probably what he means by "adventure"), and partly because its gameplay is so deep.

[Zengeku3]

Hellsinker is a fantastic game and way better than any crappy Touhou.

It's not for everyone though. You really do have to put some considerable time into it to appreciate it. Partly because it's an extremely long shooter (probably what he means by "adventure"), and partly because its gameplay is so deep.

You can say that its better than Touhou but still claim it to not be for everyone? Touhou is not for everyone either. I'd say that a comparison here is meaningless since they are both very different games. And I would probably pick Touhou because the gameplay doesn't pretend to be an RTS game.

[Naut]

It does in the case of HELLSINKER, because it's more of an adventure than your typical (touhou) shmup

What do you mean "more of an adventure than your typical shmup?" You'll have to elaborate further on that.

He means "play it once for the experience then never touch it again, just like an adventure game."

[Treasurance]

It does in the case of HELLSINKER, because it's more of an adventure than your typical (touhou) shmup

What do you mean "more of an adventure than your typical shmup?" You'll have to elaborate further on that.

He means "play it once for the experience then never touch it again, just like an adventure game."

Haha. No, HELLSINKER is one of the very few shmups that has managed to hold my interest even after the 1CC.

With adventure I meant long and epic à la Radiant Silvergun

[CptRansom]

Hellsinker isn't for everyone. It takes a considerable effort to get into the game, but I do promise you that once you figure out the basics, it's going to grab you and not let go in a way that Touhou never did for me. I normally hate absurdly complicated games and I STILL love Hellsinker. Playing for score is obnoxious, but this is definitely one game where playing for just survival is still totally worth it.

[gs68]

I'm not worried about people knowing danmaku through Touhou--hell, I know a couple Touhou fans who have also gotten into CAVE games and Crimzon Clover, among other things. I'm more concerned about:
- People whose only knowledge of shmups is through Extra bosses (or any infamously hard boss or gameplay for that matter)
- People think you should only play on Lunatic difficulty, which only adds fuel to the "OMG I'M NOT PLAYING SHUMPS EVEN ON THE EASIEST MODE" fire. There was someone at a Touhou panel (not the host but someone attending) at Animation on Display who did just this. As someone who wants to get more people into shmups, even if I have to let them creditfeed and such, I am VERY, VERY opposed to this kind of douchebaggery.

[RNGmaster]

Don't judge this game before beating it.

Oh, by that logic I shouldn't have hated FFXIII after 30 miserable tedious hours, and should have stuck with it until I beat Orphan.
...Yeah, the starting impression a game makes has a huge effect on how much people will get into it. Hellsinker just looks incomprehensible, and I don't even want to take the jump to play it because, frankly, I'd rather pull my eyes out.

And most of your counter arguments are just "No it isn't". Give me an actual reason, for example, why the game needs to have 10 pickup item types, and I'll listen to your arguments. Blindly refuting everything I say will go nowhere, even if you're trying to troll me (and considering your post history...)

It's not for everyone though. You really do have to put some considerable time into it to appreciate it. Partly because it's an extremely long shooter (probably what he means by "adventure"), and partly because its gameplay is so deep.

I have heard this exact argument applied to Braid and Limbo (and other artgames), and you know what? Those games are incomprehensible and pretentious too. Fans of both HS and art games both try to defend their game by saying that if you hate it, it's just too "deep" for you. I find that logic highly unsatisfying.
YEAH I JUST CALLED HELLSINKER AN ARTGAME
TAKE IT
TAKE IT

[CptRansom]

The pickup items have various functions. The little purple items that come from making bullets disappear with aura and shooting some enemies raise your rank, which helps your score. The green balls that occasionally fall down the left side of the screen have the same effect (the pink ones on the right lower rank). Even though Sol (bomb stock) and Luna (primary shot power) raise on their own slowly over time, there are Sol and Luna chips to help them along. Terra chips add to your Terra counter - something that gets lowered at the end of stages or by dying. You want your Terra UP because when it falls to zero, you trigger the Shrine of Farewell, which is a massive scoring opportunity and gets MORE massive the later in the game you activate it. Tokens are just a means of keeping score that aren't really used (though hitting certain amounts results in a BREAKTHROUGH giving you an extend). Hearts give you extends at certain amounts.

Tl;dr Everything but Tokens are useful.

You shouldn't beat a game before judging it, but it would be nice if you gave it a solid effort instead of immediately writing it off. And if not, that's fine. It doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game.

[Treasurance]

Hey, I disliked HS first too. Cool boss theme but too much weird shit going on and that stage 2 boss was a fucking pain in the ass

Then, several months later, I was bored and decided to give it another go, with the help of this...

btw Shrine of Farewell is touhou done right