So why all the Touhou Hate?

[Momijitsuki]

Seriously, I bet this discussion wouldn't exist if you took the lolis out

It's the people who focus entirely on this is what have embittered a few to the series. I like some of the games and I can see how the later ones can be enjoyed, even though they aren't quite my cup of tea. Most else what is being said that doesn't regard the annoying non-player majority of the fanbase is usually taste differences or, less frequently, argument for the sake of argument.

And that's completely understandable. I'll admit that I'm more than a fan of the games, I do have have plenty of IOSYS songs on my computer (I love the game soundtracks, so it just adds to my collection), but I don't take it to the disgusting 'fanboy' level, and I hate it when people do, especially the ones who don't even bother playing the games.

Furthermore, it's sad that the fact that the Touhou shmups are based around magical girls is the only reason that some hate it and refuse to play it. Even if you take the characters out, I still think they're pretty solid games, just a little different from the fast paced shmups everyone is used to.

@honorless: Yeah, I know he was playing around, I was just pointing out that he could have said more to back up his statement instead of just 'DIE loli@porn lover'. I wasn't offended or anything. Consider it a mock-serious reply to a facetious statement.

[Zebra Airforce]

argument for the sake of argument.

Well, we have to argue about something

[spadgy]

I agree with many of the stuff about slow bullets and the loli side of things, but for me it's their availability. I know loads of the console and PCB shooters I play are rare, but info on them, places to buy them and the like seem more welcoming to people like me lacking in multilingual skills.

Last time I tried to get into Touhou, it seemed many were no longer available to buy. I'd liked to be proved wrong, as I'd love to give them a chance, but it doesn't seem to welcoming a scene...

[Motorherp]

I agree with many of the stuff about slow bullets and the loli side of things, but for me it's their availability. I know loads of the console and PCB shooters I play are rare, but info on them, places to buy them and the like seem more welcoming to people like me lacking in multilingual skills.

Last time I tried to get into Touhou, it seemed many were no longer available to buy. I'd liked to be proved wrong, as I'd love to give them a chance, but it doesn't seem to welcoming a scene...

You can still get 'Shoot The Bullet' at himeyashop but the others I haven't found for sale anywhere.

[CStarFlare]

I know loads of the console and PCB shooters I play are rare, but info on them, places to buy them and the like seem more welcoming to people like me lacking in multilingual skills.

Touhou is really pretty easy to find. http://www.paletweb.com/ has EoSD and forward for sale.

For information, touhouwiki is really good though it seems to be down at the moment? Doujinstyle.com has a lot of neat media and a whole section of their forum devoted to the games (though you have to sign up to view them and I've never bothered).

[Momijitsuki]

Touhouwiki is usually a hit or miss when you try to view it. If you can't see a page, check back in another 5 minutes or so.

[shoe-sama]

lol whats with these people pretending to be experts at touhou

or 1 person that's all like lol touhou iz teh complex

i don't even play the games and it was easy to figure out

zomgz shoot things and collect items to make some bar change (yes they all have some bar)
and vacuum items
and have lotsa lives
srsly is that incredibly hard to understand?

hahaha

[lgb]

Ya know, this actually isn't that bad a game. You could always call it one of those "practice shooters" if you want. No harm done. However:

No matter how good a game is, somebody will always hate it. No matter how bad a game is, somebody will always love it.

Seems about right.

Oh and uh, I feel we have had a very bad communication breakdown, on account of me not in my best senses.

[Ed Oscuro]

srsly is that incredibly hard to understand?

I'm about to break o______>______O

I will go play simple mans games like Armed Police Batrider and Lost Hope.

[Twiddle]

Oh and uh, I feel we have had a very bad communication breakdown, on account of me not in my best senses.

"Not directed at anyone in particular, but..."

[Ed Oscuro]

Okay, who's the wiseguy who secretly plays B-Wings every night? Fess up, whoever you are; it's better this way. Better than having the local SWAT break down your door.

[lgb]

Oh and uh, I feel we have had a very bad communication breakdown, on account of me not in my best senses.

"Not directed at anyone in particular, but..."

Well, I didn't expect anyone to really care.

[shoe-sama]

Okay, who's the wiseguy who secretly plays B-Wings every night? Fess up, whoever you are; it's better this way. Better than having the local SWAT break down your door.

hi~

[Ed Oscuro]

V&

[orange]

touhou is way more complex than those dumb looking raizing and cave games

especially garegga and doj

[Twiddle]

Furthermore, it's sad that the fact that the Touhou shmups are based around magical girls is the only reason that some hate it and refuse to play it.

It's more the fact that most of its fans ogle over fanart of those to such extremes than the game having those characters in the first place. To put it in another slightly fucked up way, you don't blame a victim of child molestation for attracting the pedophile.

[orange]

and the fact that people say

OMG SO HRD HOW DO DODGE BULLETS

when in actuality it equates to move 3 pixels

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Okay, who's the wiseguy who secretly plays B-Wings every night? Fess up, whoever you are; it's better this way. Better than having the local SWAT break down your door.

Better run down to the local Home Depot & buy a reinforced steel guard door to deflect that type of brute force beforehand...

Having accidentally stumbled into an alternate universe where it is a crime to play shmups, a police-state rules the land and have started crackdowns into common folks playing shmups illegally at home...

There have been some stray intel reports that a small heavily armed common folk group have banded togther to bring down this police-state once and for all in order to play their precious shmups freely and without fear and intimidation. Have we subletly crossed into the Twlight Zone without knowing for sure? Sure seems like it... ^_~

Alright, back to the Touhou bashing topic at hand... ^_~

[shoe-sama]

There have been some stray intel reports that a small heavily armed common folk group have banded togther to bring down this police-state once and for all in order to play their precious shmups freely and without fear and intimidation.

sounds like an awesome shmup

[Lynx Winters]

There have been some stray intel reports that a small heavily armed common folk group have banded togther to bring down this police-state once and for all in order to play their precious shmups freely and without fear and intimidation.

sounds like an awesome shmup

Milestone's next project

[Udderdude]

There have been some stray intel reports that a small heavily armed common folk group have banded togther to bring down this police-state once and for all in order to play their precious shmups freely and without fear and intimidation.

sounds like an awesome shmup

Shmupping .. FOR FREEDOM!

:: insert awesome guitar solo here ::

[dai jou bu]

My opinion about the Touhou series is this: They're really good introductory games for players new to shmups, and a nice alternative to those already familiar with Guilty Gear's engine. The problem is that his games tend to suffer from something I like to call "Capcomitis," which is where he keeps churning out one game a year with very little improvement upon the original formula.

A lot of his games were hit and miss for me. EoSD was essentially a tech demo to show ZUN's prowess using DirectX since there really wasn't much to the game's engine that hasn't been done before on his PC-98 titles (although it still was enjoyable to me), PCB's Cherry system frustrated me because it really feels like a tacked on feature that exists just so he can say he did something new to the game's engine, as most of the time it activates when you DON'T want it to (ie- a lull in the boss' attack pattern) and you don't want to sit there and time it properly so you can maximize the benefits of this ability.

IN's system felt the most cohesive to me the moment I learned how the time collection worked, which was a godsend compared to the near-uselessness of PCB's Cherry system outside of scoring. The alternate fire mode between the normal and slow modes that should've been seen two games ago are finally implemented here, and most people can finally react in time to activate a bomb to save themselves when they take a direct hit from something, with the window of opportunity decreasing the more they keep using it without dying.


I haven't played PoFV much simply because there's nobody to play it with offline and the built-in netplay feature is pretty bad. The CPU on the hardest level can also dodge anything you'll throw at it based what I've seen when the AI fights itself.

As for StB, you can read my review on that. The only thing I need to add that isn't mentioned in that article is that the entire playing field can be fair game for the bosses, as some of their attacks consist of them moving to locations other than the top quarter of it, which is also something he should've considered using a long time ago to spice things up instead of implying that the top quarter of the screen is designated as the no-fly zone.

While I have a legit copy of MoF, I still haven't touched it yet simply because a Studio Siesta shmup always takes precedence over a Touhou one for me unless it was a game that Tasogare Frontier made and is part of the offical Touhou canon.


tl;dr version

A few of the Touhou games are pretty enjoyable to me. EoSD is good oldschool fun, PCB angers me, IN is the most polished, PoFV is no fun without a human opponent, StB is just plain awesome, and I haven't played MoF yet because Trouble Witches slapped me upside the head and asked, "Do you want to play me or THAT game?"

[Etrian]

Also, I would still like you to provide me the names of shmups with scoring systems identical to, or at least closely resembling those of EoSD, PCB, IN, and StB. They have been done before, right? Which means you can name them… right?

Ok, sure. Grazing was done in Raiden Fighters before EoSD. PoFV is a Twinkle Star Spirits clone. MoF's bombing system is taken from Ibara. Focusing was in Shikigami. PCB's scoring system is like daioujou's rank. Need more?

Nope. It's actually far simplier.

When you're playing as a human character, you gain time orbs for dealing damage. When you're playing as a youkai, you get time orbs for grazing boss attacks (x3 during spellcards).
Human characters deal damage to familiars. Youkai characters don't. Killing a master will make its familiars explode and cancel every bullet in explosion range into time orbs. Killing a familiar before its master will penalize you.

Thus,
1) you don't want to kill familiars before their masters;
2) you still can milk them for time orbs as a human and get more points overall that way.

It's more of a timing issue common to that of powergrazing, rather than a complication of the scoring system. The principle is logical and crystal clear, but the implementation requires skill. See AKST's Normal and Hard mode replays to see how it's done.

Otherwise what you're saying is roughly equal to complaining that Ikaruga's scoring system is too complex because the enemies don't always align themselves in groups of three. You have to memorize their positions, count killed enemies, make sure not to make unwanted kills, and do that all within very strict time frames! Arg, most complex scoring system evar!

At the same time, it's incredibly difficult to exhaust its scoring potential, because of how much skill it takes (current WR is 5.76 billions, but the theoretical limit exceeds 6.5 billions).

Now you're just contradicting yourself.

[shoe-sama]

MoF's bombing system is taken from Ibara.

uh no it was taken from salamander (or at least salamander 2, I haven't played the first)

it doesn't even remotely resemble ibara or any raizing game's bombs
Do you power down when you bomb in raizing?

hahaha get your facts straight

also what how is pcb scoring like daioujou rank?

how can you compare a scoring system to rank system lol

[Etrian]

MoF's bombing system is taken from Ibara.

uh no it was taken from salamander (or at least salamander 2, I haven't played the first)

it doesn't even remotely resemble ibara or any raizing game's bombs
Do you power down when you bomb in raizing?

hahaha get your facts straight

Excuse me. I have. Bombing in Ibara gives you score and you must use it often and in appropriate places, bombing in MoF does the same. This is painfully obvious.

[moozooh]

PCB's Cherry system frustrated me because it really feels like a tacked on feature that exists just so he can say he did something new to the game's engine, as most of the time it activates when you DON'T want it to (ie- a lull in the boss' attack pattern) and you don't want to sit there and time it properly so you can maximize the benefits of this ability.

It's not necessarily good that a scoring system isn't accessible, but to its defense, cherry allows fantastic strategic depth when you control it, which is why new border spots are still being found (HS参謀 comes up with a new one, like, each month). Controlling it by itself isn't too hard since you have many tools available for it, but it requires a good deal of planning ahead, which is the actual hard part. It also helps survival somewhat, since you can use borders as free shield, and they save you the trouble of coming to the top of the screen to vacuum items.

Ok, sure. Grazing was done in Raiden Fighters before EoSD. PoFV is a Twinkle Star Spirits clone. MoF's bombing system is taken from Ibara. Focusing was in Shikigami. PCB's scoring system is like daioujou's rank. Need more?

Bombing in Ibara gives you score and you must use it often and in appropriate places, bombing in MoF does the same. This is painfully obvious.

Hahahahahahahahaha

This is the worst erinu logic ever, seriously.

I asked you to name games whose scoring systems closely resembled those of the games I listed (and note that I didn't list PoFV because it's never been a secret to me that it was a clone of Twinkle Star "Spirits" — Sprites, actually), not in which some of its particular elements appeared. That's retarded. As I said, following that logic, pretty much all the scoring systems from 90's on are unoriginal, because by that time all their elements, which include blowing up stuff for score, bombing, collecting items, speed and proximity bonuses, etc., have been done. I don't even want to bother showing you every point you've missed, because that's just too retarded.

Now you're just contradicting yourself.

If you ever learn to read, you'll see that a simple scoring system doesn't mean exhausting it is simple. I'm not contradicting myself in the slightest.

[P_HAT]

Let's play IaMP via net bastards!

[orange]

itt grasping at straws

[admith]

Scoring system doesn't matter for me. Saying this, I think Zun's games are fun and comes packed with wonderful music and the most beautiful bullet patterns I have seen in a shmup...

... So I really like this games too.

[320x240]

We make games for Chartered Accountants. Now you can play STG's and still be your boring self!