Why this forum hates touhou so much?

[Barrakketh]

All Touhou music sucks to begin with, though. It's obvious that ZUN's not an actual musician. I don't know how his stuff got so fetishized.

Some stuff, like U.N Owen Was Her, is practically unlistenable.

No, he's a composer. And if you think the compositions themselves suck, I feel sorry for you since you haven't heard some of the great arrangements of his music, like this.

EoSD's music quality is the low point of the series, though (compare how it sounds compare to PCB and later games). And IN has dem e-trumps.

I do think the fanbase is quite annoying with their claims like "THIS GAME IS IMPOSSIBLE!"

Most of them aren't shmup fans and then pull the DrTrouserPlank routine when they fail miserably without putting forth the effort to even 1cc normal If you make use of all the bombs and extends you're given it really isn't that difficult, but a lot of the players I see ask for help constantly die with bombs in stock.

Scoring makes much more sense to me as well but there's something about scoring in general with Touhou that just doesn't really click for me.

hmm, maybe try watching some replays? pcb is pretty great as far as depth goes.

Here's an old world record run for PCB:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyrkQjwuvFo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ420xAkR_U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si0_a2vSLhg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDlFXnpxVc4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEzuRyIgIfk

I don't know why non-indie games grasp me more than Touhou. There's just something that makes me give a shit after I play them the first time to look up how to actually play the game.

I also feel this way about some indie games, like Crimzon Clover. It looks nice, I like the soundtrack, but it doesn't have any pull that makes me want to want to get really good at the game.

I think a lot of the "hate" stems from the fact that many touhou fans only play touhou (if they play touhou that is, a lot of people are just in the "fandom" and don't even play), and don't have any knowledge or appreciation of shooting games beyond it.

I think you'd have to come up with a list of shmups that are at least vaguely similar to Touhou and not instantly direct someone who plays the Touhou shmups to something like DOJ.

ZUN once said he drew some of his inspiration for Touhou from Darius Gaiden (ZUN used to work at Taito), and it blew my goddamn mind when I saw where Shinki's cheeto lasers came from (Great Thing).

[moozooh]

where Shinki's cheeto lasers came from (Great Thing)

Those have become Taito's trademark attack since DG, finding their way into other series (like Rayforce) and lots of games by other developers. :)

[MathU]

I think they first introduced it in Rayforce actually, but they really went crazy with it in Darius Gaiden.

[Bananamatic]

(compare how it sounds compare to PCB and later games)

zun is hit or miss imo

mostly miss though

[moozooh]

I think they first introduced it in Rayforce actually, but they really went crazy with it in Darius Gaiden.

True, I completely forgot Rayforce was released a year earlier!

[BIL]

ARMED POLICE BATRIDER Discussion

[chum]

haha

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

ZUN once said he drew some of his inspiration for Touhou from Darius Gaiden (ZUN used to work at Taito), and it blew my goddamn mind when I saw where Shinki's cheeto lasers came from (Great Thing).

[Blackbird]

Hahaha! I'll have to point this out to my friend. Amusingly, Darius Gaiden and Touhou are the only shmups that really strike his fancy. Mystery revealed!?

For the record, I haven't really got any beef with touhou myself. Breaking down my opinions:

Pros:

- Relatable characters(?) (moreso than space ships for most people, anyway)
- Some of the most aesthetically attractive bullet patterns around (in my opinion).
- The slower bullet speed reinforces the aforementioned point, in that you actually have time to appreciate the beauty of the wave of death that's approaching you.
- Most people seem to dig the music. I'm not crazy about it, but I can at least see the appeal.
- Difficulty level is low enough that newcomers to the genre aren't completely overwhelmed. Essentially a good entry point from which you can come to appreciate what's good about bullet hell games.
- Forgiving mechanics that make the game less strict for a newcomer than other shooting games. As an example, the time window when you can bomb to save yourself after getting hit. More games should have this. It's more challenging and skill oriented than putting a blanket autobomb on, but at the same time gives a player with bombs in stock a chance to avoid losing everything.

Cons:

- Storyline completely incomprehensible without greater series context (if you even want to bother).
- Stages and enemy designs are extremely bland, the entirety of the game's emphasis is on the bosses.
- Scoring system is incomprehensible and/or unintuitive in most games.
- Bullets might be too slow for shooting game veterans.

[Estebang]

I still think that ZUN should get off his high horse and let Cave or G.Rev take a stab at the Touhou license, with him providing input and getting royalties, of course. I'm certain that something great can be done with the franchise and its unexpectedly rich universe...a proper development team would be able to add better normal enemies and actual background environments, for instance. And a proper soundtrack. The character/remix-centric fanbase would be forced to take notice of the shmups, and it might kickstart a resurgence of interest in the genre.

[Udderdude]

what now bitches :O

[Nifty]

I can appreciate ZUN for indulging in the "novelty" of bosses that don't fill the entire screen or pattern shooters that use more than a couple of bullet colours

[ebarrett]

Storyline completely incomprehensible without greater series context (if you even want to bother).

Trouble arises, somewhat questionable authority figures ranging from rogue to semi-official in their law enforcement status beat up everyone involved (and the odd innocent bystanders), the end.

It's just WELCOME TO VIOLENT CITY in fantasy land, really.

[Blackbird]

The character/remix-centric fanbase would be forced to take notice of the shmups, and it might kickstart a resurgence of interest in the genre.

Maybe my perspective is skewed because I'm a member of this forum, but it already seems to me like a resurgence of interest is happening. The slew of region-free and localized X360 shooting game ports from Cave and G.Rev have made the games a lot more accessible to the average gamer than they have been in a long time. I've heard a lot of positive feedback about Deathsmiles LE (probably because it's so cheap right now and comes with a faceplate, lol). It's even been listed on SlickDeals a few times.

That's pretty much the reason I'm here: I saw Cave's arcade games on the PS2 and X360, as well as Touhou on PC, and went "Wow, is this what a scrolling shooter is like nowadays? There are so many bullets!" And then I wanted to learn as much as I could about the newer shooting games. The last shooting game I had played was Thunder Force V on my Saturn =P.

Not to mention the iOS ports, lots of people have been checking them out because they blow most of the other games on the platform out of the water.

It's not like shooting games are going to become mainstream anytime soon, but I at least see a few more people now that see a shooting game and go "Hey, that's pretty cool, is that a bullet hell game?" as opposed to "Bah, that game sucks, I'm going to go play an FPS".

@ebarrett For shooting games, WELCOME TO VIOLENT CITY is all you really need =D.

[Estebang]

I suppose Blackbird might be right, to an extent. We've seen plenty of new users here in the past few months.

[NTSC-J]

A year or two ago I had a little Touhou marathon for a couple weeks where I tried out most of the games to see what the deal was, and I certainly didnt hate them, but I didnt really like them either. For Touhou fans that get a little heated, please understand that I`m just answer the TS` question before you cast the slings and arrows my way.

Things I didnt care for:

- Theyre ugly. The art design, from the characters to the backgrounds, are uninspired. I think I tried at least five of these games and I cant for the life of me recall any of the settings outside of a vague Japanesey theme. The backgrounds were like floating in a space/purgatory ether.

- The tiny characters, especially the bosses.

- The tick-tick-tick sound effects when collecting items.

- Just kind of bland. I`m sure the scoring is very deep, but the pacing, stage layout, and enemy layout just didnt do it for me.

I think these games are certainly playable, but I can think of many others I`d rather spend my time on.

[Skykid]

3. this doesn't even happen, you are not the 10% today skykid

Huh, and there I was thinking I directly answered the thread question in a succinct manner. Not very elegant, but to the point at least.

I stand by it. Nothing wrong with Touhou as games, they're okay, just the art/audio/plot/weeaboo fandom that dampen the party.

Crimzon Clover: no soap opera required.

[third_strike]

Why this forum hates so much touhou?

Easy:
Because the guy which posted before me don't like. If he liked Touhou would be in top 25 Shmups of All Time.

[Drum]

Say what you like about Touhou, at least they're better than Cave.

[Drum]

PS I'm dumb and fat.

[drunkhobo]

I only play IN and 10D because they appeal to me the most, but atm I can only 1cc them on easy/normal. I like the music, bosses and bullet curtains. I do agree that the art is pretty bad and I don't care about lolis or moe stuff in general. I enjoy the grazing because it gives me something to do on the stages that I find easier than the others but I prefer most of caves scoring mechanisms.

Are they better than ketsui,ddpdoj,espgaluda II, or futari? I don't think so, but I still enjoy them as a break from the mind numbing difficulty of ddpdoj.

[mesh control]

DO NOT WANT CAVE OR TOHOES

Let's talk about Batrider and great aesthetics...

edit: Touhou metal remixes make me think of GG, they are alright.

[Illyrian]

Yaaaaay! Touhou thread!

I've always liked Touhou games, Imperishible Night was one of the first shmups I played back in 2008 when I started out. The low difficulty of playing that game, and other touhou games on easy gave me my first taste of a 1cc and a little bit of success back when I still thought games like dodonpachi were technically impossible to clear.

The hardcore cospayers etc. are total spackers, but you just ignore them.

I actually think with the 4 difficulty levels, the extra stages etc. most touhou games have more depth than most arcade shmups, especially if you're a newer shmup player and you can work your way up through the difficulty levels bit by bit.

UFO is shit though, convoluted trash.

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

edit: Touhou metal remixes make me think of GG, they are alright.

You know the funny thing is, you'd actually be right about this if you were referring specifically to this Luna Dial arrange. Compare to Testament's theme A Fixed Idea

[Friendly]

"Why this forum hates so much touhou?"

Touhou is to shmups what this question is to English.

[Zengeku3]

a proper development team would be able to add better normal enemies and actual background environments

And perhabs even actual stages.

[O. Van Bruce]

"Why this forum hates so much touhou?"

Touhou is to shmups what this question is to English.

Sorry about my grammar... I appreciate anyone who corrects me on this issue because i'm loosing a lot of my former english level. I don't use it as often as some years ago.

[DrInfy]

I personally like the fact that the bullet hitboxes are similar size to the actual projectiles and your own hitbox is visible (in focus mode at least). Meaning you actually die when you're supposed to die. I really hate Crimzon Clover and Ketsui for throwing a ton of bullets on top of the player and the player still surviving. I personally don't care much about the stories or characters, even though it's a nice added bonus to have some personalities on the characters you're playing with.

I personally hate the scoring system on most of the Touhou games as you're supposed to bomb away some of the hardest parts to get the best score, sometimes even dying on purpose to get even more bombs to throw in. I also hate UFO for throwing those color changing pickups, which is probably one thing I hate the most in any shmup. Touhou games could also use some level design (backgrounds) and the stages could be slightly more interesting, but overall I feel they're pretty decent games.

[Never_Scurred]

a proper development team would be able to add better normal enemies and actual background environments

And perhabs even actual stages.

...and better BGM and sound effects that don't sound like bubble wrap popping.

I really hate Crimzon Clover and Ketsui for throwing a ton of bullets on top of the player and the player still surviving.

Come again?

[O. Van Bruce]

I suppose he's refering to the invincibility you get when you activate Break Mode... and the way you overhelm everything in Double Break Mode.