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.

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.




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.

Touhou (along with FF8) is my favorite game soundtrack of all time. I literally have a playlist with just OST's of some of the songs from both games (along with some of my favorite mixes).

I haven't played a ton, only beaten PCB on Medium and Imperishable Night on Hard, its just a game I like to pick up from time to time when I'm bored.

That said, I should try some of the fan-made spinoffs, I haven't looked into those at all!

I tried the easiest game but it was too hard for me and not fun. The story is okay though, and the Yuri subtext is delicious.

http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Fangames

Good luck <_<

The only Extra I have yet to beat is:



I can get towards the attack around 9:30. But that's it.

The opinions of which game is easier is very different and depends on what you are looking for. The only thing almost every Touhou fan agrees on is that Touhou 11, Subterranean Animism, is the hardest one.

6, 7, 8, 10, 12 all have some things that can make it seem the easiest one.

6, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil doesn't have a visible hitbox, but it also has the biggest gaps in the bullets. If you patch it for newer textures you actually get to see your hitbox and stuff gets pretty easy.
7, Perfect Cherry Blossom, has a gameplay feature that gives you a protective border so you can get hit without losing a life. A lot of bullets are also aimed at you, so as long as you're careful in your movements stuff is pretty good manageable. It does have one of the bigger jumps from stage 3 to 4 though.
8, Imperishable Night, has 4 teams. So depending on playstyle you should be able to find your pick. For beginners, the Border team (Reimu/Yukari) uses homing bullets, a smaller than average hitbox and a really big opportunity to deathbomb (bombing just as you get hit by a bullet to safe your life). It's disadvantage is that said window is so large, it can throw you off from the other games of the series.
10, Mountain of Faith, has a huge amount of bombs available. Every bomb costs a quarter of shot power, so it's easily replenished as well. It's a great game to get used to the style of bombing prematurely.
12, Undefined Fantastic Object, has the collectible UFOs which create a giant UFO that clears the screen of bullets without using any other resources. If you get a hang of that it's smooth sailing.
It also follows the hardest part and that complaint was adressed by ZUN in this game.

Also, though not completely translated yet, Touhou 14 is also manageable. One of the playable characters (Sakuya A) has a bomb that clears all bullets and then also gives a protective border which clears all bullets again if hit. That's abusable as well and is how I beat the Extra boss after only 8 tries instead of the usual 30 <_<

I simply don't like the idea of how you become good at touhou. Basically just memorizing attack patterns and junk. I guess I just don't like bullet hell. And trying to be forced to like these games in the last just made me hate them more. Which is also why I hate a lot of other things

Yeah, the genre is basically very arcade oriented where you would throw in a lot of quarters to get further, hence why it's slowly been disappearing in the west.

And that's indeed not for everyone.

Oh I just realized you're from the Netherlands, which is where the friend who tried to get me in is from. I think I knew it was popular there though. But yeah, I'm just a baby and losing over and over does not make me try to get better, it makes me sad

I only know 6 other people that still play this game in the Netherlands. I don't think it's too populair here, but I did introduce the series to a dozen or so on a Pokémon forum 6 years ago that got a bit of visitors (still has an active thread with over 2k posts in it, mostly ontopic) so it could have spread a bit.

But even if you don't like the main games, there's a ton of other stuff you can do with the series. I mean, you think of it and someone probably made it.
One of the most read comments of Touhou-youtube stuff is "what anime is this", because of all the anime-style PVs there are. And that's even the smallest amount of fan-content.


Or just the music. That is pretty much 70% of the fanbase (a poll on the 2 biggest communities showed 70% of the fans never having touched a main game)
Even CNN made an item about this one (which became an urban legend within the Touhou community because they messed up, renaming them the Cirno News Network. Cirno is the canon idiot of the cast)

Do you know nekomithos?

Nope, name doesn't ring a bell. Though he may use other aliases as well.
After all, my current name is also only used on this site and on Wizards' site. In other communities I'm pretty much the only Magic player and go by the name of Baron Sengir, since that's the very first legend I ever opened.

I feel the need to respond to this because while I haven't played Touhou, I just got home from Anime Weekend Atlanta, where ZUN made his first American appearance...I think ever. He also designed the shirts for the con, and people went nuts over them.

i dont understand

Just a spambot. Already reported it.

no reason we cant have a little fun

ive seen two so far have there been more?

Ten, so far.

My poor topic, why me?

Thus topic needs more Chen.

How about the origin of CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN?

A serie of CDs that are pretty much the Touhou characters acting out a Manzai tournament. Ran Yakumo and Chen (her shikigami) entered in the 2nd edition and ended up winning the tournament with this:


Or Chen playing soccer?


Or we could do a bit more normal:



Or we could celebrate some other cats instead:

A surprise announcement from ZUN last month, including a trailer (for the first time...ever for him)

Touhou 14.3: Danmaku Amanojaku ~ Impossible Spell Card


To be released this weekend during Reitaisai 11.
My understanding of Japanese is marginal at best, so no real information out of the text. But due to the trailer there can be some calls made:

The main character, Seiga, is the main antagonist of part 14 (she's the one who put the idea of overthrowing civilization in the head of a kid with a magical hammer).
The gameplay seems to be Shoot-the-Bullet-like a.k.a. achievement clearing using more difficult attacks than in normal games.

Seiga gets the abilities of several other Touhou characters to accomplish her tasks. The ones I can definitely recognize are:
Reimu Hakurei (using Orb to teleport)
Yukari Yakumo (using the edge of the screen to appear on the other side)
Marisa Kirisame (magic bomb)
Aya Shameimaru (photographing bullets away)
Yuyuko Saigyouji (turning into a ghost to pass through bullets)

In the 2 minute mark you can see more icons, but not all of them are recognizable to me. But there is a big chance the remaining abilities are from:
Mamizou Futatsuiwa (tanuki youkai. Raccoon tail spotted at icon on 3 o' clock)
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna (T14 final boss. Owner of Miracle Mallet. A yellow hammer at the 10:30 mark)
The last 2 items seem to be a doll and a cloth, though their primary users are unknown to me.

Enemies seem to primarily be focused around T13 and T14-characters, though a character that hasn't appeared since part 8 has also been sighted. It would seem like this is a gamble until the game comes out.

More information will follow when I get my hands on the game myself...