It's a habit of mine to talk about this game series on whichever forum I go to. Mostly to inform people what's up with my obsession of it and sometimes to discuss stuff. So let's get started.
What is Touhou Project?
As you can partly see by the video above, the Touhou series is a vertical scrolling shmup-series that is since the Windows-era entirely crafted by a single person, ZUN. From design to music to patterns are all from his hand.
The first game was in 1996 on the Japanese NEC PC-9801 made by a small group of people. Up until the 5th installment they made these games, but with the PC-98 already in decline back then they were not well known.
This would change when the creator, ZUN, decided to split off from the group and start on his own with Touhou 6: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and released it for Windows in august 2002.
Ever since, the popularity skyrocketed and there has been tributes and references to it in a lot of places. From obscure anime to well-known anime/manga and even other video games like World of Warcraft (more on that later).
Currently there are 14 main games and 7 spinoff games made by ZUN.
It doesn't sound all that special, but the undeniable strong suit of the games is the music, which can be quite addictive. With a gameplay that revolves around trial and error, having a good OST is imperative and ZUN does not disappoint. A lot of fans of the series haven't even ever played a game. They just went with the music and found a lot of fan-made stuff around it later.
If there are several TBs of remixes on various torrents everywhere and at least a dozen circles creating new remixes every few months, you know there is something good in there.
There is for almost every taste something to like. Personal favorites of the OST include:
Primordial Beat. Touhou 14 Extra boss theme
Onigashima in the Fairyland. Touhou 7.5 final boss theme
A Tiny, Tiny Clever Commander. Touhou 12 first stage boss theme.
Necrofantasia. Touhou 7 Phantasm boss theme
Every now and then, ZUN also creates music CDs and encyclopedia. And there have also been quite a few official manga made. For anime, however, you'll have to go fanmade.
But those fanmade can be very high quality. The 2 most noteable are Memories of Phantasm (animation only. Fandubbed) and A Summer's Day Dream (a fanmade project that includes several Japanese voice actresses)
Story
There is mostly no overarcing plot in the games. It's focused on a shrine maiden, Reimu Hakurei, that has to keep order in a place called Gensokyo. It's the place where all spirits and youkai went to ever since modern ages people stopped believing in them. 9 out of 10 times a youkai gets bored and wants to do something to favor them only, only for it to be a major inconvenience for everyone else. So Reimu and her friend, Marisa Kirisame, set out to set things right.
Spoiler
The tone is mostly lighthearted, but the cast is not beyond making snide remarks to each other. I think this is best illustrated by the conversation of Touhou 8, stage 4.
If you pick the team of Alice/Marisa to play with, you will face off against Reimu Hakurei. This is their pre-fight banter.
Spoiler
Gameplay
It's in its core a very basic vertical-scrolling shmup. Each game as a small extra gameplay mostly related to the story. From finding essences of spring in Touhou 7 to capturing UFO's in Touhou 12. Each with their own tiny bonuses. As is normal in bullet hell shooters, your sprite is not completely vulnerable. You have a small round hitbox in the center of the sprite.
Of course, one hit and you lose a life.
To prevent life loss, you also have a limited number of bombs to your disposal. You can use these at any time to clear (most of) the screen.
The first 3 stages are always very much do-able, but difficulty takes a step up starting stage 4.
Stage 1,2 & 3 Touhou 12
Stage 4
If you clear a game on normal or higher without using any continue, you will almost always unlock an Extra stage. It's the longest stage in the game, mostly because the boss tends to have 10 special attacks. In part 7, you can also unlock a Phantasm stage which is canon-wise the hardest in the series. Though several extras are harder in my opinion.
Also, all Extra stages are much easier than trying to clear Lunatic runs with no continues.
There are a few exceptions to this general gameplay though.
Part 9 is a vs-type of shmup, where the screen is split in 2. The bullets you clear on your screen will appear on the screen of your opponent. And instead of a normal bomb, you can power up to summon an avatar of yourself on the opposing screen and try to kill them that way.
Parts 7.5, 10.5, 12.3 and 13.5 are even more different. These are 2D fighting games. Admittably, 7.5 is also the game that got me into this series.
These games also are not solely made by ZUN. Because graphics are not his strong suit, he worked together with several other for these games. However, the fighters are still very much bullet oriented.
Fan content
Like mentioned earlier, the sheer amount of fan content is overwhelming. If the TBs of music remixes would not be enough, there are still thousands of doujin works, PVs, flash movies and whatever you can think of. However, of special mention are the fangames.
Among the Touhou community there has been a saying that if it exists, Touhou can be in it. Sometimes we do not even have to do anything for it.
Like remember how I mentioned World of Warcraft earlier? Not too long after the release of Touhou 12, the first stage boss quickly became a fan favorite. Her name is Nazrin and she is a mouse youkai. Her theme song is named A Tiny, Tiny, Clever Commander.
And suddenly, this quest was added in WoW.
But as far as real fangames go, the highest profile are the following:
Megamari. A megaman clone starring Marisa and Alice.
Super Marisa Land/World. Marisa is a witch that loves mushrooms. Yeah. Almost all bosses are throwbacks to Mario enemies.
Touhouvania. Mostly centered around the cast of Touhou 6, seeing how the final and extra boss are vampire sisters.
Labyrinth of Touhou. An Etrian Oddysey style RPG. The 2nd installment (which was recently released) even includes FOEs.
Touhou Soccer 2. I have no idea how many watched the Shaolin Soccer movie, but it's basically absurd shooting. And...well...yeah...
And of course, with almost 200 characters, who would not see this one coming: Touhoumon most versions are a mod of Pokemon FireRed and the music is almost always a mix between the original Pokemon themes and Touhou themes. Also, the type chart tends to be a bit modified and one version even has entirely new typing.
Anyway, that's about it I suppose. I'm mostly in it for the music and the fangames. Though I do like to start up the normal games as well. I have beaten every game on hard and cleared the Extra/Phantasm stages and upload those Extra runs on my youtube account mostly because on the first forum I visited with this, they wanted to see me play.
So you can say I'm pretty much addicted to the series.
