Why is Touhou such a poster child for bullet hell?

[RNGmaster]

Every doujin shmup with loli/goth small enemies and small bosses? Or magic instead of missles.TH fan inspired shmups? There's quite a few of them. Almost the whole ****ing doujin scene (which is where most of the real action is at, IMO) other than Crimson Clover, Siter Skain, and ABA? x.x has Blue Wish... and Eden. Old school shmups like R-Type and Raiden aren't setting the standard aesthetic anymore.

ESP Ra.De, Gunbird and Progear did this before TH did.

And yes, I am saying that TH is repetitive. That's why it frustrates me that it's what comes to people's minds when they hear "bullet hell". I am aware that all video games are repetitive to some degree, especially shmups, but there's a difference between repetition that creates rhythm and repetition that just staunches creativity and results in monotony.
Every TH game is almost aesthetically identical (besides the early ones, where ZUN was experimenting to see what stuck). They've settled into such a predictable rhythm that you can almost guess every gameplay mechanic as soon as the game is announced.
Hey ZUN, how about you do something besides a 6-stage, linear boss rush for once?
Oh, and the background could be replaced with a picture of someone's arse and the game would still play the same.

[Bananamatic]

ZUN needs to do something about the safespots

Then it wouldn't be touhou

[TrevHead (TVR)]

(This is a quick rewrite of yet another lengthy post that I lost to IE freezing/ crashing grrr)

On the other hand, Touhou sometimes feels a bit like moving that small red-white hitbox across a labyrinth of bullets. TrevHead said it once (and several other people too), that the enemies are so small, including the bosses, that it kind of gets abstract. You don't have gigantic mechanical spiders, tuna sashimi, flying penises on fire or enormous battleships approaching fast so you either remember the characters or they all become nameless bullet emitters.

True, most my fave STGs (Cave, Crimson Clover, Zen-ichi, Rayforce & Kamiu) all have good stages with lots of eye candy. I once said that as long as a shmup has solid game design (ie scoreplay) (like large varied sprites that isnt detached from the equally varied and intresting background / foreground graphics) thats enhanced by high tempo music and sound effects that all goes together to create a game thats as fun to play as possible, ie the perfect arcade game experience.

Touhou is another kettle of fish while while not bad isnt thr messiah reborn as some Touhou fans would have you believe. Touhou like RNG has just said is more of a boss rush then a normal shmup, just a few popcorn fairies that are just there to pace the game and to rack up an extend or two before you meet the boss. Apart from the bullet patterns Touhou is a plain jane that depends on it great music that fits perfectly in the style and tone of the game, just try playing or watching a vid with the sound off and its alot less enjoyable.

Imo the main reason why there are many Touhou clones out there (ignoring the fact that its popular and stereotypical fandom crap) is just because its simple, it has no complex stage design and artwork / eyecandy. Just a couple of small fairies with most of the work going into the script for the bullet patterns. So just for the same reason many budding game programmers make space invaders or another shmup, For good or bad Touhou is perfect for them since it lacks any real content that takes alot of time to do. Thats why ZUN even with the extra presentation can easily knock out a game every comiket or 2, while Siter Skain and Yotsubane take 5 years to finish their creations.

[shadowbringer]

I disagree that the gameplay is repetitive, even though grazing is a common element in them. There are games which give me the sense of lost scoring opportunity more than others (or the feeling that doing some -- subjectively -- difficult enemy hugging is mandatory to have a satisfying enough score.. like SA stage 1 and then Parsee on stage 2, or EoSD's midboss Rumia, on Hard at least iirc), and there are games like PCB or IN which feel more flexible about how much risk you can choose to take (keyword being, I don't like to keep information in mind while playing, especially since the sceneries are hardly useful for helping memorize stages, unlike when first trying to learn how to chain stage 2 in DDP -- without trying to get the bees, of course)

@Barrakketh: ironically, CtC is the only danmakufu script that I avoid playing (not that I've played many scripts, to begin with), both because I don't like grazing in general and because the stages don't feel fast-pace like.. (you may shoot me for saying this ;p) Phantasm Romance's stage 4 and attack patterns from the bosses aren't as fun to dodge imo. (I don't like to milk stage 1's Meiling, for example.. while it's okay -- though frustrating at times -- for me to try to milk Cyvern's first boss :p). Do you also not like Suwapyon's gameplay?

[Hair]

ESP Ra.De, Gunbird and Progear did this before TH did.

Good point about Gunbird and ESP.Ra.De, but they don't look anything like Touhou. I shouldn't have said TH was the first to use humanoid avatars shooting magic rather than a ship, but neither Gunbird nor ESP have created the string of aesthetic followers that TH has. That's not a bad thing, since those games remain visually unique. But TH has had an effect on the industry. That is all I am saying and only a fool would deny it.

I'm not sure why you mentioned Progear, which is more steampunk.

For what it's worth I like Cave and Psikyo more than Touhou, I just don't think TH is unplayable crap either.

So negative opinions on the game don't matter, because everything is subjective. Except now positive opinions do matter, because... they just do? Seemin' kinda inconsistent bro. also stop making appeals to popularity they are dumb and they make you look dumb for using them

You're very confused. That's okay, I'll help.

I didn't say negitive opinions don't matter, nor imply it, nor imply that positive opinions do matter more. You can have whatever negitive opinions on TH you want to. You can say "I dislike TH because I find that I get bored while playing due to the easy bullet herding and repetitive and easy to dodge boss spam patterns that last way too long." That's different than saying "TH fans are fags" or that the people that do like the game are "wrong". Neither positive nor negitive opinions are "wrong" and saying someone is wrong for having a different subjective opinion is ignorant, plain and simple. If someone says they enjoy TH, or that the games aren't complete ass, someone else jumping in just to say "you're wrong" isn't giving an opinion, they're just being a child. They could, however, explain why they don't like TH in a mature manner. That's just very rare on the Internet, this forum included. Also, context is important. This thread posed a specific question. There are already threads about TH being good or bad. It is just odd that any time someone makes any mention of Touhou (such as a topic asking a question about scoring in a TH game), the hate squad comes out to bash it.

TH is *one* of the poster childs for the genre. Deal with it. The question was "why", not "tell me why you hate TH".

ZUN is doing his thing. His games are the way they are on purpose. You don't have to like them, but the hate (and hate is the best word) aimed at him, the games, and the fans is disgusting. The most disgusting thing about this community as a whole. Any time something goes mainstream it creates a backlash. I feel the people doing that backlashing are pretty pathetic, not for dislike the thing (in this case a game), but for becoming more vocal and hateful about it once the thing gets popular, only to feed their own ego.

Oh, and don't accuse me of using an ad populum. That is utter bullshit. I specifically said that popularity does not equal quality. I said that many hardcore and experienced shmupers do enjoy Touhou. This is to counter the incorrect notion that only shmup newbies and idiots like the games. This is not an ad populum.

[Hair]

(This is a quick rewrite of yet another lengthy post that I lost to IE freezing/ crashing grrr)

On the other hand, Touhou sometimes feels a bit like moving that small red-white hitbox across a labyrinth of bullets. TrevHead said it once (and several other people too), that the enemies are so small, including the bosses, that it kind of gets abstract. You don't have gigantic mechanical spiders, tuna sashimi, flying penises on fire or enormous battleships approaching fast so you either remember the characters or they all become nameless bullet emitters.

True, most my fave STGs (Cave, Crimson Clover, Zen-ichi, Rayforce & Kamiu) all have good stages with lots of eye candy. I once said that as long as a shmup has solid game design (ie scoreplay) (like large varied sprites that isnt detached from the equally varied and intresting background / foreground graphics) thats enhanced by high tempo music and sound effects that all goes together to create a game thats as fun to play as possible, ie the perfect arcade game experience.

Touhou is another kettle of fish while while not bad isnt thr messiah reborn as some Touhou fans would have you believe. Touhou like RNG has just said is more of a boss rush then a normal shmup, just a few popcorn fairies that are just there to pace the game and to rack up an extend or two before you meet the boss. Apart from the bullet patterns Touhou is a plain jane that depends on it great music that fits perfectly in the style and tone of the game, just try playing or watching a vid with the sound off and its alot less enjoyable.

Imo the main reason why there are many Touhou clones out there (ignoring the fact that its popular and stereotypical fandom crap) is just because its simple, it has no complex stage design and artwork / eyecandy. Just a couple of small fairies with most of the work going into the script for the bullet patterns. So just for the same reason many budding game programmers make space invaders or another shmup, For good or bad Touhou is perfect for them since it lacks any real content that takes alot of time to do. Thats why ZUN even with the extra presentation can easily knock out a game every comiket or 2, while Siter Skain and Yotsubane take 5 years to finish their creations.

Most of what you said applies to Kenta Cho as well. Yet he is fairly respected and I've never seen him bashed, nor his fans insulted. Why is Touhou different?

Of course I know the answer. It just doesn't reflect very well on the people doing the bashing.

[Bananamatic]

I wouldn't hate it so much if the internet didn't shovel it down your throat all the time

It's everywhere
If a forum has a gaming subforum, there is probably a touhou thread on the first page
If you play a game, there is probably a touhou mod
People have touhous in their names, their avatars, their signatures, they even have touhou sprays in fps games, AND THE NEVER ENDING YOUTUBE COMMENTS ABOUT THE SUPPOSED DIFFICULTY.

And the worst part of it all? It's not even that good. Apart from Touhou Labyrinth which is a damn good RPG.

[MathU]

Does TH being popular and you not like it make you feel you need to bash it?

No, but I do feel like I need to point out that they are LOUSY GAMES every now and then.

Honestly, as a fan of PC shooters, the thing that does chafes my ass sometimes is that Touhou is a series of mediocre commercial games, and at the same time is extremely popular. There are literally tons of PC shooters that are far better than them, and this include both commercial and freeware games. I guess it makes me mad sometimes that these PC shooter gems seem to get largely ignored in favor of this Touhou crap. However, when I realize that most of the fans of Touhou (and these include ones who actually play the games) aren't actually fans of shooters in general, this instantly makes me feel better.

[Naut]

[NzzpNzzp]

Oh, and don't accuse me of using an ad populum. That is utter bullshit. I specifically said that popularity does not equal quality. I said that many hardcore and experienced shmupers do enjoy Touhou. This is to counter the incorrect notion that only shmup newbies and idiots like the games.

What? You were directly responding to a guy saying that the games lacked quality, nothing at all related to what kind of people liked them. You even had that sarcastic line about how those experienced players who like the game must be wrong. You're trying to say that they like the game so the game must be good, and that's an ad populum.

Popularity doesn't equal quality, but there are many hardcore shmup fans that like Touhou. They all must be wrong...*MASSIVE FACEPALM*

Everything after the comma is you suggesting that the game is good because people like it. You think I can't go back a page to see what you wrote? It's right there, christ, at least edit your post if you're going to try to pretend you didn't say something that you did.

[balp]

image

animes have no right to be smug at me

[Treasurance]

the best thing about touhou is threads like this

[drei :3]

Most of what you said applies to Kenta Cho as well. Yet he is fairly respected and I've never seen him bashed, nor his fans insulted. Why is Touhou different?

Kenta Cho fans don't write about which abstract shape they want to "cuddle with"...

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Most of what you said applies to Kenta Cho as well. Yet he is fairly respected and I've never seen him bashed, nor his fans insulted. Why is Touhou different?

Kenta Cho fans don't write about which abstract shape they want to "cuddle with"...

Or say that all other shmups are crap compared to Cho's games

Im not saying Touhou is bad per-se, it has its own style and its very good for what it is. However there are lots of other shmups out there that are much better then touhou which get snubbed because the bullets arnt in pretty patterns. In many ways im thankfull to ZUN and Touhou for been a poster child for the genre, but im under no dissolution as to what Touhou is: a B grade shmup which is a good stepping stone for anyone getting in the genre.

[Bananamatic]

A few chars from there are pretty hot too tbh

[Skykid]

So Touhou is for little girls and effeminate male weeaboos? Got it.

When is God coming to smite the earth again? I think it's just about ready.

[Hair]

What? You were directly responding to a guy saying that the games lacked quality, nothing at all related to what kind of people liked them. You even had that sarcastic line about how those experienced players who like the game must be wrong. You're trying to say that they like the game so the game must be good, and that's an ad populum. Everything after the comma is you suggesting that the game is good because people like it. You think I can't go back a page to see what you wrote? It's right there, christ, at least edit your post if you're going to try to pretend you didn't say something that you did.

As I said already, I was disproving the notion that Touhou is not enjoyed by hardcore players, as well as the implication that Touhou is bad because it is popular. I simply said it was, indeed, enjoyed by players with a valid opinion based on experience with other games in the genre. I did not say, nor imply, that Touhou is "good" because these players like it. I said, and I will put this in all caps so you can read it THE OPPOSITE OF WhAT YOU SAY I DID. I said, once again, that popularity does not equal quality. My sarcastic comment only implies that someone who dislikes Touhou is not proof in and of itself that the people that like it are "wrong" (and the reverse is of course true as well). I did not *EVER* say that the people that dislike it are wrong either, whether the game is popular or not.

No need to edit my posts, I was perfectly clear. Nothing is good because it is popular, but nothing is crap just because it is popular either. You accuse me of an ad populum fallacy, but I was simply stating that TH isn't bad because inexperienced masses like it, which is the fallacy that many TH haters use in their arguements. Opinions can have different levels of expertise and experience. Experienced players (some of them) also like Touhou and their opinion is valid. That is not an ad populum in any way, nor does it even imply that TH is good (so it can't even be an ad populum if I had said more than 50% of experienced players like TH, since I don't claim THAT is the reason the games are good). I even had specifically stated that neither opinion on Touhou was wrong, and I never implied that the amount of people holding one opinion or the other make it more or less true. Learn2read.

I wouldn't hate it so much if the internet didn't shovel it down your throat all the time

It's everywhere
If a forum has a gaming subforum, there is probably a touhou thread on the first page
If you play a game, there is probably a touhou mod
People have touhous in their names, their avatars, their signatures, they even have touhou sprays in fps games, AND THE NEVER ENDING YOUTUBE COMMENTS ABOUT THE SUPPOSED DIFFICULTY.

I pretty much agree, but that is my point. You hate the games based on perhiperal crap, not the games themselves. I hate when TH fans say TH is the hardest shmup. I hate when I see a thread on a general gaming forum about a shmup, and someone chimes in that it "isn't as intense as Touhou".

Touhou gets extra crap and backlash because it's popular. That's no better than liking it only because it is popular. I say, forget about how popular it is and judge it on its own merit. Whether you like it or not is a matter of taste, but don't let other people influence you. If you go further with your criticism and hate for the games because of the many crappy fans, then you are doing it wrong. Explain to those "fans" whenever possible that other shmups exist and kick ass. Some will listen, most will not. Let the rest roll off your back. Going to a real shmup forum to bash Touhou and get your pent up rage out just makes that forum look like it's full of petty children. I know the internet is full of people venting because they can't do it in real life, but I expect better from a niche genre forum (rather than one that's less esoteric) of adults. This isn't really aimed at anyone here in specific.

Bashing a game extra freaking hard because a lot of its fans are inexperienced in the genre isn't really productive, nor will it educate any Touhou fans; it will probably just turn them off from wanting to learn more and cause them to fire back "no, Cave sucks those games are dumb". Is that the goal? Why does it bother you? Or rather, us, since it does bother me too?

It's like Ford vs. Chevy bullcrap. They are more similar than the haters on either side would care to admit.

[RNGmaster]

the best thing about mentioning touhou on shmups forum is threads like this

Fix'd. Best thing about Touhou is, as anyone will tell you, ZUN.

Oh, and if anything is peripheral to this discussion it's what you are saying, Hair. We have resolved what it is that makes TH so popular, and due to the amount of emotion this fact apparently evokes in us forumites, we are now on to RAEGing about how TH doesn't deserve its popularity.
If you can't get used to Touhou-bashing or constant thread derails, this is most definitely the wrong forum for you.

It's like Ford vs. Chevy bullcrap. They are more similar than the haters on either side would care to admit.

What hallucinogens are you on right now? The gameplay style of TH versus non-TH is very different, due to TH's slower bullet speed and focus on "figuring out" patterns rather than constant dodging like DDP or Psikyo. Visually, yes, all bullet hell games are similar, but if you really think that TH is similar in gameplay to Dodonpachi, you have some learnin' to do. You can't expect knowledge gained about how to play TH correctly to carry over to other shmups, even other bullet hells, just due to some main points:
-TH has breaks in patterns, allowing players a chance to rest in between separate phases of enemies. Transition time like this is almost non-existent even in Stage 2 of Dodonpachi, where you are constantly being barrages with new enemies.
-All aimed bullets in TH are pixel-aimed at the character's hitbox, rather than aimed in their general direction. Combine this with the fact that streaming sections don't often last long enough to require U-streaming, and any TH player of moderate skill is woefully unprepared for a section like 1:30 in this video of Stage 5 of Dodonpachi.
-TH has lots of sections where you fight one boss enemy, and very few where you're faced with a deluge of popcorn enemies.

So, no, your point doesn't make any sense.

[Hair]

Oh, I can deal. As long as you can deal with me giving my opinion as well. I may be in the minority on this forum, but that doesn't make me want to leave, nor hold my tongue or fingers. I love this place and have learned a lot here lurking for years before I signed up. I post when I have something to say, and while I won't ask you to leave you could always just skip my posts if you don't like them.

I don't remember a "you must hate Touhou" box that I had to check in order to register.

You don't need to tell me the differences between Touhou and a Cave game, I've been playing shmups for 23 years and try to enjoy every facet of the genre for their unique differences. I'm not an expert (especially compared to some of the people on this forum), but believe me, I don't need a lesson how Touhou is different from Ketsui. You admit that all bullet hell games (a subgenre itself) are somewhat similar. That is all I am saying. Ford and Chevy aren't exactly the same either, they just do some of the same stuff, while differing in other ways. Touhou is more similar to other danmaku games than it is to Tiger Heli. True, yes? That was all I was saying.

Read my words again: Both sides are *more similar* than either side would care to admit. Not "the same".

I don't think fans of one or the other have to like both, I just wish some people would leave the childish bashing in their own heads rather than polluting the forum. Car forums are spammed with the same "Ford sucks" or "Honda sucks" bull crap.

As for hallucinogens... send me a PM.

[whoozwah]

I remember that box...

[Obiwanshinobi]

Royal "we" sure is being hurled around prominently.
Touhou is so everywhere that I had to register on here to realise how everywhere it is. Is it a forum for people banned from Touhou forums or what? There must be a reason behind all this passion.

[Sapz]

people banned from Touhou forums

Well guessed.

[NzzpNzzp]

My sarcastic comment only implies that someone who dislikes Touhou is not proof in and of itself that the people that like it are "wrong" (and the reverse is of course true as well). I did not *EVER* say that the people that dislike it are wrong either, whether the game is popular or not.

Can you at least keep your story straight? First you were letting people know that experienced players like the games (who suggested they didn't?), now somehow you've switched to telling everyone that those players aren't wrong for liking the game (where did this come from)? Why the hell did you bring up quality at the start of the sentence if you weren't even going to be talking about it? Was that post where you suggested that Touhou must be high quality because a lot of games have been influenced by it talking about something else too?

I gotta get out of here, you're killing my brain. Between this and those other gems of yours like claiming Touhou invented attacking with magic and that games cannot be objectively good or bad (well hey I guess Superman 64 is just as good as Doom then because IT'S ART), oh man, I can't take it.

[Bananamatic]

people banned from Touhou forums

Well guessed.

I actually deleted my account and peacefully walked away

back on topic, at least Touhou is better than Donpachi. In gameplay, that is.
It's better to fall asleep from boring bosses than extremely long stages.

On the other hand, you don't have dudes running around the internet saying DUDE DID YOU PLAY DONPACHI IT'S THE MOST HARDEST GAME EVER.

1:30 in this video of Stage 5 of Dodonpachi.

IMO that part is 10x harder than anything that DOJ 1st loop has
hell I actually find DDP harder than DOJ in bullet patterns

[Barrakketh]

-All aimed bullets in TH are pixel-aimed at the character's hitbox, rather than aimed in their general direction.

That's wrong. You have aimed bullets that are aimed at your character's hitbox, spread patterns which have some of their bullets aimed at the hitbox, and bullets that are aimed relative to the hitbox (note the blue bullets here, where the player stops moving and the bullets don't touch him).

The main problem is that even with a combination of directly and relatively aimed bullets, they're still easily avoidable through streaming. Frequently enemies either fly in from a single direction and fire just like these guys in Dai Ou Jou (the ones firing the thin blue bullets), or they appear from two sides of the screen in a symmetric fashion. Either way, streaming is the way to nearly absolute safety.

Even with those flaws, there are sections of stages that earn a lot of rage from some players (particularly if you're trying to avoid using bombs). Post mid-boss spam in MoF stage 4 and UFO stage 5 are notable examples, though in the former you should bomb for points when scoring. And even then, experienced players can and do still fuck up with some regularity. Even those who do play shmups other than Touhou

[RNGmaster]

-All aimed bullets in TH are pixel-aimed at the character's hitbox, rather than aimed in their general direction.

That's wrong. You have aimed bullets that are aimed at your character's hitbox, spread patterns which have some of their bullets aimed at the hitbox, and bullets that are aimed relative to the hitbox

Yes, but all of those types of shots use the player's exact position rather than the general position to determine trajectory. If you have a 3 bullet spread aimed exactly at your position, that's pretty much the same thing as having a single stream of bullets coming at you, except you've got extra stuff to the sides.

Here, have some ASCII art. On the left is exact aiming, like in TH. On the right is other bullet hell games.

Code: Select all

      E                        E
     /|\                      /|\ 
    / | \         vs.        / | \            
   /  |  \                  x  |  x
  x   |   x                    x
      x                           P
      P

[ptoing]

There are lots of patterns in cave and raizing games and i am sure others, which aim at the hitbox, but they tend to mix it up a bit more.

[Heartbeam]

-All aimed bullets in TH are pixel-aimed at the character's hitbox, rather than aimed in their general direction.

Just to nitpick, PoFV does feature this with the reflectable light blue pellets. Although it doesn't really have anything to do with games played the "normal" way...anyway, continue. I don't hold any strong opinions so I can only sit here and watch the sparks fly. Must be good stress relief.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

Let's not forget the occasional aimed away from the hitbox. Though the only ones that come to mind at the moment are Brilliant Dragon Bullet lasers and Orin's ghost wheels on Easy(but who actually plays Easy), though I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting. Oh and PCB stage 1's opening fairies.

[Snake]

True, most my fave STGs (Cave, Crimson Clover, Zen-ichi, Rayforce & Kamiu) all have good stages with lots of eye candy. I once said that as long as a shmup has solid game design (ie scoreplay) (like large varied sprites that isnt detached from the equally varied and intresting background / foreground graphics) thats enhanced by high tempo music and sound effects that all goes together to create a game thats as fun to play as possible, ie the perfect arcade game experience.

Touhou is another kettle of fish while while not bad isnt thr messiah reborn as some Touhou fans would have you believe. Touhou like RNG has just said is more of a boss rush then a normal shmup, just a few popcorn fairies that are just there to pace the game and to rack up an extend or two before you meet the boss. Apart from the bullet patterns Touhou is a plain jane that depends on it great music that fits perfectly in the style and tone of the game, just try playing or watching a vid with the sound off and its alot less enjoyable.

I think this pretty much nails it.