Touhou Tenkuushou ~ Hidden Star in Four Seasons released

[BrianC]

Mickey Mouse FC/NES (aka Mickey Mousecapade, but only on the NES box) the shmup?

[Squire Grooktook]

There are 26 official Touhou games, including spinoffs. All of them have been translated by fans. None of them have been officially translated. To my knowledge, only one of them has ever seen an official release outside of Japan, and it was untranslated.

Yeah, and that's the problem. Maybe the failure of the fangames will send a message, but it'll probably be the wrong one. ("No one wants Touhou games, guess we better not bother" instead of "Guess we should localize the actual ZUN games".)

I thought Zun's given reason for not wanting to localize them is because he wanted to translate them himself, being the only one who could possibly do them justice

[cj iwakura]

There are 26 official Touhou games, including spinoffs. All of them have been translated by fans. None of them have been officially translated. To my knowledge, only one of them has ever seen an official release outside of Japan, and it was untranslated.

Yeah, and that's the problem. Maybe the failure of the fangames will send a message, but it'll probably be the wrong one. ("No one wants Touhou games, guess we better not bother" instead of "Guess we should localize the actual ZUN games".)

I thought Zun's given reason for not wanting to localize them is because he wanted to translate them himself, being the only one who could possibly do them justice

Basically. He doesn't trust anyone with his glorious magnum opus.

[cj iwakura]

I thought Zun's given reason for not wanting to localize them is because he wanted to translate them himself, being the only one who could possibly do them justice

Am I missing something here? Going from the fan translations, there is nothing of substance to translate anyway No?

Not really. The scripts are basically thinly veiled excuses for the girls to kill things. There are cool characters, but it's not like this is Digital Devil Saga or something. Though to be fair, the fan translation quality is all over the place from game to game.

[Bananamatic]

I don't think I even bothered with the english patches for years now, he could just release them as they are as a digital download and people wouldn't complain (and I don't mean one release of a game 2 years after it's been out but actually making the games available as they're released)

sadly nothing about zun makes sense, from the game design to the decision how to release the games

[Squire Grooktook]

Normally I don't judge the creator by their work, but the dialogue in Touhou always made me feel like I was having a brain aneurysm so I'm not surprised.

[seraph]

Guys some of us have autism okay.

[xxx1993]

Gonna wait for the full version. Hopefully this one won't be as painful as Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.

[Shepardus]

To be released at the upcoming Comiket: http://kourindou.exblog.jp/25971572/

[KennyMan666]

Game's out. Woo.

Gonna try it soon.

Edit: Eternity Larva is no longer misspelled, but then ZUN screwed up the stage 4 boss name, it's Narumi in the picture and manual but Naruko in dialogue and on-screen name displayed during the fight. More details about the game later.

[Lord Satori]

According to the wiki,

Spoiler

the final boss and extra boss are the same character.

Seriously, Zun, what the hell?

[Despatche]

Why do so many people in this thread know so little about something they've been having to deal with for a decade?

No "what the hell" about it, he did it before with every PC-98 title. The Extra fight is completely different, and the setup is funny, so it's pretty alright here.

Game's funny, I enjoy it more than Kishinjou or Kanjuuden. ZUN brought his A-game with the soundtrack, this is far and away the best release he's ever done. Overall with this game, when he said he was "returning to his roots", he really meant it.

Apparently he ran into some life trouble at the end and had to rush the game in a few days. This might be why there are a few oddities like the stage 5 Spell Practice, the Extra season not being as nice as it should have been, and so on.

Naruko was probably intentional. Only one character actually says a name at all, and this character is an acquaintance.

Not really. The scripts are basically thinly veiled excuses for the girls to kill things. There are cool characters, but it's not like this is Digital Devil Saga or something. Though to be fair, the fan translation quality is all over the place from game to game.

Incorrect. They provide a framework that is expounded upon through additional materials, which English-speakers rarely read... even as they absorb every letter of poorly-translated game dialogue.

And, while ZUN denies it forever, he has provided a framework for people to build off of, whether it's filling key political spots with new characters or adding additional details to a character's nature. His fault, 100%. He'll have to deal with it for as long as Touhou still has steam, and probably long after on a more personal level.

[Bananamatic]

Why do so many people in this thread know so little about something they've been having to deal with for a decade?

No "what the hell" about it, he did it before with every PC-98 title. The Extra fight is completely different, and the setup is funny, so it's pretty alright here.

Game's funny, I enjoy it more than Kishinjou or Kanjuuden. ZUN brought his A-game with the soundtrack, this is far and away the best release he's ever done. Overall with this game, when he said he was "returning to his roots", he really meant it.

Apparently he ran into some life trouble at the end and had to rush the game in a few days. This might be why there are a few oddities like the stage 5 Spell Practice, the Extra season not being as nice as it should have been, and so on.

Naruko was probably intentional. Only one character actually says a name at all, and this character is an acquaintance.

Not really. The scripts are basically thinly veiled excuses for the girls to kill things. There are cool characters, but it's not like this is Digital Devil Saga or something. Though to be fair, the fan translation quality is all over the place from game to game.

Incorrect. They provide a framework that is expounded upon through additional materials, which English-speakers rarely read... even as they absorb every letter of poorly-translated game dialogue.

And, while ZUN denies it forever, he has provided a framework for people to build off of, whether it's filling key political spots with new characters or adding additional details to a character's nature. His fault, 100%. He'll have to deal with it for as long as Touhou still has steam, and probably long after on a more personal level.

it's shit

[Despatche]

You know I didn't mean you, I mean the weirdos here who follow Touhou forever but claim they don't care about it and/or seem to give negative fucks about really key stuff. These people have been around for a decade, but they get worse and worse every single game.

I don't agree that ZUN's decisions don't make sense, especially the bit about releases. The Playism thing was just a shot in the dark that happened to fail, and for reasons beyond his control. 2 years shouldn't mean anything, when the much older games people want would be part of this hypothetical mass digital release thing too.

[seraph]

I obtained a perfectly legal copy on release day and cleared Normal + Extra blind on my first try. I then started to play Hard but I fell asleep on the final boss and died. I can't not play the new Touhou, but Touhou is never good anymore. I'm pretty positive that the last few Touhou games would have gotten no attention at all if they weren't Touhou games. Danmaku doujins like Akashicverse or Stellavanity should be getting the attention instead. Lol.

[Despatche]

I'm not sure why you were expecting difficulty in these games? You might wanna stay in 2009 for that one.

Akashicverse is broken and stupid, and unfinished to my knowledge. StellaVanity is good, but actually more annoying to figure out than HellSinker and more obviously unfinished. RefRain, because why not, is also an extremely dumb game, but doesn't seem to be unfinished.

I would immediately say that Tenkuushou, or Kanjuuden, or Kishinjou, are miles better than Akashicverse and RefRain, because it's true. So the odds aren't looking too good! But not Shinreibyou, which is a piece of garbage. That's the only truly bad game ZUN has ever done. Maybe it'll stay that way.

[chum]

I obtained a perfectly legal copy on release day and cleared Normal + Extra blind on my first try. I then started to play Hard but I fell asleep on the final boss and died. I can't not play the new Touhou, but Touhou is never good anymore. I'm pretty positive that the last few Touhou games would have gotten no attention at all if they weren't Touhou games. Danmaku doujins like Akashicverse or Stellavanity should be getting the attention instead. Lol.

I don't think Newhus are bad by doujin standard but they've all had some major major issues since 13, I'm not even gonna play the newest one probably. 12.5 is all I need for the foreseeable future anyways.

[Despatche]

Releases are funny. Because your entire item value depends on them, you can ignore them completely and get a small basic score, or abuse them and get billions. This dichotomy is so extreme that I think it was on purpose. Shoutout to NNFS? I dunno. (Does that actually mean what I think it means?)

I don't think Newhus are bad by doujin standard but they've all had some major major issues since 13, I'm not even gonna play the newest one probably. 12.5 is all I need for the foreseeable future anyways.

My thing is that Shinreibyou is extremely bad and the games after it are significantly better. Really, I'd put something like Tenkuushou here on the same level as Hujinroku or Chireiden at least. I prefer those older games a bit due to their pacing, but apparently I'm the only one in the world who caught the huge pacing drop-off between Seirensen and Shinreibyou, so I guess even that doesn't matter.

And, let's be honest, what ZUN is doing now is amazing considering how he basically has to struggle to get a game out anymore. He's got a million side projects, plus an actual life, plus probably getting dragged into a billion interviews, plus probably enjoying TriHarding game development less than he used to almost a decade ago, etc. I can only ever feel bad for him.

Maybe if the western superplayers would play things like Tougenkyu or Mahojou more, they wouldn't be so disappointed. Those are mostly legit, especially if you can manage to unlock Tougenkyu's Overdrive mode. Comes complete with SDOJ health bars! Reimu C in Tougenkyu is like, the best Reimu type design ever.