Teach me about Tohou!

[Blade]

Any Tohou experts around here?

Truth is, I barely know anything about them, game-wise, Zun-wise, or anything else really.

I heard a rumor that there's a PSP homebrew emulator of a few of the games, which I'd like to get (but that could be discussed elsewhere discreetly )

I've played demos of the PC games but that's all. I'd like to know if ports or console versions of the games exist. I heard it's got a fighting game too, but I don't know much. I've read a Wiki once, but I still don't get a lot of it, since they don't tell you where all stuff is.

Lastly, I really know next to nothing about what all games in the series were shmups, which weren't, and which were good, so getting opinions would help. Thanks!

[BulletMagnet]

Apart from the Wiki you mentioned, you might want to paw around this forum for more Touhou info.

For a few quick answers, no, the games are only available on the PC, and yes, there is a fighting game or two in there, though those are technically "offshoots" of the main series, since ZUN approved them but didn't actually program them IIRC. Pretty much all of the "main" entries made for the PC are shooters, though; as for "which ones are good", that depends on who you ask, though their gameplay style can vary rather widely, from the Twinkle Star Sprites-esque Phantasmagoria of Flower View to the "non-shooting" Shoot the Bullet. As you said, there are demos and videos out there, so go down the list and see which ones appeal most to you.

[rancor]

..And if you do see something you like, be sure to keep my site in mind (see the sig.)

I have all of the Touhou shooting games as well as one or two of the spin-offs available.

[cj iwakura]

The first 'ZUN' Touhou game is Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (6), and is a good place to start.

The games start looking pretty around Perfect Cherry Blossom(7), and downright professional at 8(Imperishable Night, arguably the best one).

The easiest one is definitely EoSD, so you should start with that and work your way up. The later ones like UFO(12) and Mountain of Faith(10) started adding rules like continuing from the start of a level, so they can be a lot more frustrating. You only can get a true ending if you 1cc, so there's lots of inspiration to get good at it. And with practice(lots of it), you will.


I prefer Marisa, since she has a high power, narrow range shot, but many prefer Reimu because she has homing shots.

[RNGmaster]

IN is by far my favorite (beautiful visuals, and it incorporates ideas that other STGs could learn from, like practicing individual patterns) but it's heavily memorization-and-safespot based. If you liked R-Type or Image Fight, go for it. Subterranean Animism is the most difficult (Lunatic mode is actually on par with some harder CAVE titles) but gives a crapload of extends as usual for the series. Scoring is least intrusive in SA.

[Cthulhu]

The PC games from Scarlet Devil on are awesome. I like the characters and the music and such, but the fandom for the series tends to go a little... um, nutty. Enjoy the PC games for sure, maybe try some of the offshoot games, don't stress to much about "learning" the canon for the series or anything like that.

[njiska]

The PC games from Scarlet Devil on are awesome. I like the characters and the music and such, but the fandom for the series tends to go a little... um, nutty.

Scary part, I know nutty Touhou fans who've never even played the games and don't know what an STG is. You'd hope the series would at least draw a few people into shmupping.

[greg]

Funny you mention that, njiska. I have a friend who used to be bored with shmups. He tagged along with Undamned and myself when we spent a week in Tokyo and he just didn't care for shmups. He's a bit of a tongue-in-cheek lolicon, and now that he's into Touhou, he's starting to like shmups.

So which of these games features the "Pettan Pettan Tsurupettan" song? My 2 year old daughter loves the video on Youtube and keeps asking me to play it over and over again (that and the Domo vs Mean Kitty vid). She can even sing along with it a little.

[EPS21]

Funny you mention that, njiska. I have a friend who used to be bored with shmups. He tagged along with Undamned and myself when we spent a week in Tokyo and he just didn't care for shmups. He's a bit of a tongue-in-cheek lolicon, and now that he's into Touhou, he's starting to like shmups.

So which of these games features the "Pettan Pettan Tsurupettan" song? My 2 year old daughter loves the video on Youtube and keeps asking me to play it over and over again (that and the Domo vs Mean Kitty vid). She can even sing along with it a little.

None of the games feature that song, its a fanmade video and the song is from the circle Silver Forest, who do J-Pop'y touhou remixes. If you know Japanese and what that song is about, its amusing and maybe somewhat scary your little girl likes it so much

[Taylor]

Flat, flat, smooth and flat.

[greg]

If you know Japanese and what that song is about, its amusing and maybe somewhat scary your little girl likes it so much

My wife is Japanese, and so my daughter speaks primarily Japanese consequently. She doesn't quite understand the words yet, I don't think. My wife, who is fairly DFC herself, watched the video and liked it. She thought it was cute and funny.

[Reaper gI]

The first 'ZUN' Touhou game is Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (6), and is a good place to start.

No it isn't, that's the first Windows title, the entire series (except the two fighters) is by ZUN.
It's the first Shanghai Alice touhou project title.
The first 5 are by Amusment Makers and for PC-98 (emulation mentioned is probaly to do with these)


Playing for score is ill advised on most of the games to start with. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil has a sane system, as does Imperishable Night, you can score there without needing to memorise quite so much. Others tend to involve lots of suiciding/bomb spam to rack up multipliers; which makes survival a lot harder, despite the normaly huge resources.

[Aliquantic]

Embodiment of Scarlet Devil has a sane system, as does Imperishable Night, you can score there without needing to memorise quite so much. Others tend to involve lots of suiciding/bomb spam to rack up multipliers; which makes survival a lot harder, despite the normaly huge resources.

Oh, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is one of the worst of the lot if you're playing it for high scores! Get graze early in the stage and then bomb a lot to turn bullets into star items for lots of points since their point value depends on your graze counter. MoF is the closest thing to a "straightforward" scoring system there is in the series, or you can just play casually for score and ignore the suicide angle (which is what most people have to do on harder difficulties anyway).

I'd recommend Perfect Cherry Blossom because it's so pretty and relatively straightforward myself, or the latest, Undefined Fantastic Object because it's faster paced and potentially more approachable. If you're playing EoSD or PCB, though, make sure you download the vsync patchs or the games have pretty atrocious input lag on some computers.

[ncp]

Every shmup player should play Mountain of Faith at some point in their life.

edit:

Oh, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is one of the worst of the lot if you're playing it for high scores! Get graze early in the stage and then bomb a lot to turn bullets into star items for lots of points since their point value depends on your graze counter.

And just to add to this silliness, only SOME of those star items for bombing are based on graze, while some are worth a measly 100 points...

[Reaper gI]

Oh, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is one of the worst of the lot if you're playing it for high scores! Get graze early in the stage and then bomb a lot to turn bullets into star items for lots of points since their point value depends on your graze counter. MoF is the closest thing to a "straightforward" scoring system there is in the series, or you can just play casually for score and ignore the suicide angle (which is what most people have to do on harder difficulties anyway).

I'd recommend Perfect Cherry Blossom because it's so pretty and relatively straightforward myself, or the latest, Undefined Fantastic Object because it's faster paced and potentially more approachable. If you're playing EoSD or PCB, though, make sure you download the vsync patchs or the games have pretty atrocious input lag on some computers.

They're 100 during a bomb, if you collect them after the bomb finishes (canceled bulet was far away and drawn near the end of the bomb) or due to other bullet cancel (beating spelcards) they're worth that.
PCB scoreing is more complex, you need to push the cherry max up. That means unfocused grazing with the barrier up (saving them for when there's enough to graze), and bombing to raise cherry+ if you'll not have a barrier at certian points (sections with lots of streaming). At least the(everyone forgets it) Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is just graze absolutely everything, finish paterns with lots on screen, and bomb (before) paterns that draw very fast, no need to worry about watching the cherry+ meter as well.