After unexpectedly finding out that Shiri, like myself, is a fan of the Touhou series of danmaku shooters, I've decided to post this here in hopes of drawing out other Touhou fans so we may share in our common interest, and also to possibly introduce the rest of you to the games as well.

If you have never played a Touhou game, here is a replay of a typical stage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT-0Sij2OEY

To quote the comment of a friend of mine, "This theme is the cruelest in the series. All nice and calm and tame and peaceful, then Orin comes and JESUS CHRIST ARE THOSE FAIRIES OR GHOSTS OR OH MY GOD STOP KILLING ME."

In any case, I suppose Shiri will show up to check out this thread shortly. Maybe I'll post some of my own replays later on, who knows?

That looks awesome. I remember seeing a video of one on G4 a few years ago that I wanted, but I can't recall the name.

What system are most of these games on - PC or maybe the PS2?

What's one of the best ones you would recommend?

All the games are for Windows-based PC. Unfortunately, they've become rather difficult to find on this side of the Pacific, as no US-based retailers carry it and the only website that hosted mirror files has shutdown as of 2 months ago. I'll try and figure out a solution to this later.

As for titles that have been released, there are 11 official installments. The first five were released for the Japanese-only PC-98 system back in the 90's, they have since become semi-non-canon with the reboot of the series in 2003 with the release of the first Windows Touhou, Touhou 6 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. The other titles are...

Touhou 7 - Perfect Cherry Blossom
Touhou 8 - Imperishable Night
Touhou 9 - Phantasmogoria of Flower View
Touhou 10 - Mountain of Faith
Touhou 11 - Subterranean Animism

In addition, there are 3 sub-installments to the series, 2 of which are not shooters, but rather 2D fighting games that Team Shanghai Alice (Touhou's developers) co-developed with Tasogare Frontier.

Touhou 7.5 - Immaterial and Missing Power
Touhou 9.5 - Shoot the Bullet
Touhou 10.5 - Scarlet Weather Rhapsody

In terms of difficulty, it's always different for everyone, but I'd have to rank the main installments as such.

(Easiest) Imperishable Night > Perfect Cherry Blossom > Mountain of Faith > Embodiment of Scarlet Devil > Subterranean Animism (Hardest)

As such, beginners would probably be best to start with Imperishable Night.

There's also Castle of Shikigami III for the Wii.

Yeah, but that's not Touhou.

No, but it's similar enough that for someone looking for it on some different platforms, I figured it would be worth mentioning.

Wow. I have never heard of this game-type before but that sample video made me experience again those psychedelic moments when I first discovered Krakout with Commodore 64 as a 5-year-old kid. Ah, as an adult you need so much more to get that same feeling from something like video games.

I've been playing these after Shiri told me about them. Oddly enough, Imperishable Night seemed harder than Scarlet Devil to me.
Love it. Don't know much about the background info, but I enjoy the games.

What the- *eyeing difficulty comparison* Shiri had me playing Subterranean Animism first! Shiribot~

I was also addicted to this by Shiri. Where did all my free time go D:

They are somewhat, but their play styles really don't mix well. Shiri started me on Touhou last Thursday and I still find myself grazing excessively in hopes of amping up my standard shots, which is what would happen in Shikigami... but instead, I now end up missing power ups I need to get that general effect.

I have Castle Shikigami 2 for PS2, and I can only just barely beat the newbie intro demo that only goes to the 3rd level. It's so addicting, but waaaay hard.

Anyone else remember Sky Shark for the NES?

I have a link where you can find Touhou 1-9.5 inclusive, though as you say doujinstyle means 10 and 11 are harder to find these days. People can PM me for a link (and people with my MSN/AIM can ask me for bits of the OST they like, heh.) Also an english patch for IN that Silferras found.

Xiran be quiet I told you to start on imperishable night.

I disagree that SA is harder than EOSD, btw, EOSD is the only one I have yet to beat on normal.
EDIT: That said the bomb system on MoF/SA is incredibly unforgiving.

I wanted to start a thread about this earlier and post some replays since it helped Silferras to figure out from watching me that the "slowdown button" was not actually the "lag out my laptop button", but the forum won't let me upload .rars or the replay files so I dunno what to do about that

I knew it. Touhou is one of those infernal bullet-spewing bottom-to-top shooting plane scrolling games. I can never get the hang of such games. They do have pretty bullet patterns though.

They're well worth the practice, though, it's great watching yourself get better at them.

Also, Rin Kaenbyou's theme (the boss in that video), "Be of Good Cheer" is one of the cooler ones in the series. My favourite is probably Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke though, followed by "Faith is for the Transient People" and "Love Coloured Master Spark." The remix scene is very popular so there's a bunch of great music out there from it.

Hah, I've burned many a token on such games in the arcades, and they're no where near as infernal as Touhou looks like.

Just LOOKING at that game makes me want to re-install MAME....the oddly addicting polyphonic tunes, the intricate bullet-weaving, the nick of time powerups....*drool*


I remember my first game in that style. Aero Fighters. I used to be able to play from start to finish with 0 hits and 0 powerups.

Good times....

Bumping this thread to post some replays.

Firstly, my IN Extra Stage clear, which was the first time I ever cleared an Extra Stage. Took about two weeks of practice and attempts to finally finish.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=N5BJ8PS9

Keine always gives me trouble, so I just mostly bomb through her, and then of course, there's Mokou. Flaw of Forgiving Shrine... oh god... FLAW OF FORGIVING SHRINE. THERE'S NOTHING FORGIVING ABOUT IT. And then of course, there's Shiri's favorite card, Fujiyama Volcano. And then I just BARELY make it through Hourai Doll. All in all, a win by the skin of my teeth.

And another replay, my recent MoF Extra clear.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MQ7ICPCL

Surprisingly, I found this to be somewhat easier than IN Extra, and didn't take nearly as many attempts, only 5 or 6. The worst part is Suwako's survival cards. Survival cards suck.

As for future attempts, I was working on PCB Phantasm before I decided to try MoF Extra, but I've lost the rhythm I had built up through the 20 or so attempts I've made against Yukari so far, so I've decided to put that on hold and instead go for Flandre and the EoSD Extra Stage.

Now out with it, folks. Post up some replays.

Psh, I'm not getting a megaupload account or anything like that for this...if you can figure out how to get it to post on the forums that would be good though.

EDIT: Wow, you really did get owned by Keine, you just sat right in the way of that first one. Then again, I always do worse at the faerie sections, ugh. Also, Reimu's deathbomb time is so OP, I didn't realise how much I relied on it in IN until I tried Marisa. I think you're doing Xu Fu's dimension wrong btw...I did that part by hiding in the side section and just moving up and down to avoid spray.