Um ya, Touhou project, it's a series of... Many games. It's easy to lose track since there's 17 games, the 18th being made at the time I'm writing.
In this reveiw I will go trough the games 6, 7 and 8. I intended to write about 9, 10, 11, 12 and 12.8, but that'll take way too long time. I might edit this later and add more to this...
EDIT: Added Touhou 9
Should probally note that this is three of the bullet hell games I like to play.
Touhou 06 Embodiment of Scarlet Devil Touhou 6 is a danmaku game, a curtain fireing shooting game created by ZUN. One person. This is the first instalment of the Touhou series for Windows. Story It's about a summer in Gensokyo, however, someone made a scarlet mist to block off the sun. The heroines, Reimu Hakurei, and Marisa Kirisame, go out to find the cause. Reimu feels it's her responsability as a shrine maiden, and Marisa tought the villian would have some neat stuff to steal (Yes Marisa is a thief). On the way to the source of the mist, they meet Rumia in a dark dense forest, upon beating her, they find a huge lake. Fairies like to play here, they met one of them, Cirno. A little tomboyish girl, easily beaten the move on. They found an island in the middle of the lake, and on the island was a huge mansion; The Scarlet Devil Mansion. Hong Meiling (Meirin in game) guards the gates of the mansion. She's a Chinese girl, likes to sleep, so she goes down easily. The doors where closed, so they found an open window. The window lead to a huge library, seems bigger than the mansion it self! Deep down in the library, they found Pachouli Knowledge. A very smart girl, but because of her astma, she couldn't beat the heroines. Moving on to the hall, they meet Sakuya. The mansion's maid. She informs the heroines that the lady of the mansion was the one who cause the mist to appear. However, to get to her, you got to beat her. The Manipulator of Time Sakuya Izayoi, she's not an easy boss. Deeper in the mansion, you meet the Scarlet Devil herself, Remilia Scarlet. The little vampire informs the girls why she caused the mist to appear. She wanted to go outside of the mansion at day without the sun to kill her. With the mist up, she could move freely all time of the day. But Reimu said no to it,, and she wanted the warm summer weather back. While Marisa was just interested in some neat stuff as always. Beating her makes the game end. Extra stage If you beat the game on normal or harder without continues (losing all your lives). You unlock Extra mode. Reimu wondered if Remilia was up to something and went to the mansion. Marisa still looking for neat stuff. Upon entering the mansion, they find the whole place in a mess, Pachouli informs them that the younger sister, Flandre Scarlet, got out of the basement. Wondering who she was, they continued. Later in the mansion, they met her. The younger sister of the scarlet devil Flandre Scarlet. A girl sealed away because of her enourmous powers. She was sealed in the basement for 495 years. She eventually got mad and got out, spreading chaos in the mansion. Luckily she didn't get out of the mansion. Once she met the heroines, she started to wonder what they where. Because she's been sealed up in the basement for so long, she doesn't know much of the world outside of the basement. Beating her results in the game to end. Extra mode only have one stage. Touhou 06 is a danmaku shooting game, where you play as one character (Either Reimu or Marisa) who each got two specific spell cards. Both of wich are very useful during the game. Use Z to shoot, X to bomb and hold down shift to Focus. While focused you move slower, and easier to controll. Since the screen fills up with bullets so fast buring the last stages (4-Ex), focus is a must. Bombs are character specific spell cards. You choose two at the menu before you start. The point of the game is to see how far you can get without dieing. Completing the game without continueing results in the extra stage to be unlocked. Stage Ex is the hardest stage in the game, but more pattern based. While Story mode is more beautiful pattern based. (See any replay of stage 3) This game is special in it's series because it was the first Touhou game to come to windows. While 1-5 was on the PC-98. Music The music of this game is amazing. The only reason Touhou excists is because of the maker (ZUN) wanted to share his music with the world. He did so in the Touhou series. The song names may have many inside jokes with ZUN and/or puns and references to real life stuff. U.N. Owen Was Her? Is an exsample. It's a reference to the character (Flandre Scarlet) Being as she's sealed away in the basement, she was unknown. Or was she? Additional information Rumia had nothing to do with the story of this game. Cirno wanted to test her strenght against the heroines and has nothing to do with the story either. Hone Meiling is a Chinese guard who knows alot of karate... Unfortunately that's not the case of her danmaku... Pachouli Knowledge is very smart and very poweful, but because of her astma, she's limited to specific spellcards. That's the reason she uses different spell cards depending on what character you chose. Sakuya Izayoi is the maid of the house, but she wasn't born close to the mansion at all, she was a bounty hunter when she was younger. But Remilia got her over to her side when they met. She also seems like a reference to jojo's bizare adventures. I'm not sure about that..... Remilia Scarlet is a vampire. She wants to kill Edward. Flandre Scarlet is the one with the most secrets.
Getting to spellcard secrets and some other stuff. Flandre Scarlet is a vampire yes, but she never had any wings. However, she got manmade wings attached to her body. Instead of normal wings tough, she got crystals. It's said the crystals drain some of her power so it's possible to beat her in game. Most of her spell cards are references. Her second spell card: Lævatein, yes Lævatein. Is a weapon in norse mytology known for destroying the world. She carries a weapon called Lævatein. her 4th card; Four of a Kind is a joke on the kanji it's written with, I don't know that much Japanese so I don't know this one... Her 5th card. Maze of Love. Is said to be the hardest card in the game. Even tough the openings between the bullets are obvious. Starbow Break her 6th card tell something about how mad she is. She's crazy man, crazy! 9th card is the big one. And then there where none? This card is a reference to a book called "Ten little niggers" where in the end. The last one either get's married or hangs himself for then there where none. Dependent on what version you read. Being a survival card with multiple phases, you can kinda see the patter between this and the book. Her final card is a reference to herself. Q.E.D Ripples of 495 years. She realeases all the power she's been saving for 495 years.
The graphics of this game is about 6/10, it's an old game, and the art isn't perfect. You can see for yourself if you just see a replay. It has great replay value. As it has 4 different difficulties (Excluding Extra) Easy, Normal, Hard, and Lunatic. Beating Lunatic is something to be proud about. This game has a description for each difficulty. Easy: For people not used to this kind of game. Normal: For normal people. Hard: Arcade difficulty. Lunatic: For weird people. Seeing as Lunatic is below hard, it's obvious that Lunatic means very hard. This game is very memorial (for me atleast seeing it was my first Touhou game) and I give it 8/10. It's still not perfect!
Touhou 07 Perfect Cherry Blossom Touhou 7 plays like Touhou 6, but it includes a new playable character, Sakuya! This game aslo includes some new features too. The hitbox is now visible while focused, making dodgeing a bit easier as that's the spot you need to be hit in order to die. and the cherry points. Gonna talk about that later. Story A long winter had past in Gensokyo, it's was soon spring, however. The snow didn't show sign of melting. Wondering what this was all about the heroines, Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame and the new reqruit, Sakuya Izayoi started to look for the cause. On their way, they met Letty Whiterock, one who only appear in winter. She get's mad at the heroines for trying to get spring back, and attacks. Continuing on they found a isolated town. It looked deserted, but then they met the black cat of bad omens, Chen. Wondering what they where up to, she attacked them. She got easily beaten, but she wanted revenge. Later they met Alice Margatroid. She was lost and cold, she didn't trust nor know the heroines, so she attacked. After she was beaten, she remebered Reimu and Marisa from earlier times. Up in the skies, they tought they found their destination when they met the poltergeists: Merlin, Lyrica, and Lunasa, they where invited to flower veiwing. They where gonna play there. Beaten they informed the girls about the flower veiwing. They found a gate, high in the sky. Entering the gate wasn't very smart. The gate lead to the neatherworld. Where everyone would appear after death. As the spirits noticed humans, they went berserk. æthey found something that looked like a temple. Up the stairs, a girl was calming down some spirits. She noticed the heroines and attacked. It was the half human, half ghost gardener Youmu Konpaku. She controlled that area. She's very like Sakuya as she can manipulate time and she's not really easy to beat. Once beaten, they found their way to the top. On the top, there where almost over 9000 cherry blossoms, maybe this was the place for flower veiwing? Among the cherry blossoms, they met Yuyuko Saigyouji. She wanted the Saigyouji Ayakashi to fully bloom, but she needed more spring. She was the cause of the missing spring. When beaten, spring should return to normal (Depentent on if you beat it without continues or not) and the game ends. If you beat normal or harder without continues you unlock extra mode! And If I've heard right, if you capture enough spell cards, you unlock Phantasm mode! Extra Stage The extra stage has you going back to the netherworld. Spirits where escaping from there and invaded Gensokyo, so they went back and wanted to stop it all. However, this time trough, the spirits was alot more powerful and then Chen appears surprisingly. She wanted her revenge, and she may get some! Beating her will lead to more crazy spirits. Later you'll meet Ran Yakumo, a shikigami, she takes the heroines challenge and you got to beat her. As with Flandre Scarlet, she's not easy. (It took me roughly 90 tries, where on Flandre it took like 50 tries). As you beat her, she informs you that she doesn't not know how to fix this. Maybe her master knows? Phantasm mode Listening to what Ran said, the heroines returns abit later. This time, the spirits where more powerful than last time, but they attack in the same way. Instead of Chen, Ran appears, she informs that she does not want them to meet her master. Beating her continues the stage and later you'll meet Yukari Yakumo. She's alot harder than Ran (In hard, I mean that I've yet to beat her). She uses the same patters as ran, but alot faster and harder. Once beaten the heroines learns that they got to fix this them self, and leaves it on Reimu. This game plays alot like Touhou 6, so maybe reading that would be smart. That Phantasm was included ups the replay value, as it's alot harder. Cherry points! Cherry points is the gimmic of this game. With Phantasm, they made the game somewhat easier. giving you borders. Borders are like a free life and a free bomb all at once. But in a limited time. If you bomb with a border, you'll lose it, and then you don't have a free life. If you get hit with the border, it will be canceled, and the same as a bomb happens now too. With a border, all point items will be drawn too you at max value. Making it easier to get high scores with them. You get them by grazing, and collecting cherry tabs. All power tabs will turn to cherry tabs at full power. Grazing was not included in the previous reveiw, I'll tell you here. When crazing, you let a bullet get get very close to your hitbox, but it doesn't touch it. You get more points for grazing. And it has it's value in some of the games. There's not many secrets in this game, so there's not much to talk more about. The grapchics in this game has improved by alot since last game! It's closer to 8/10 now. Still room for improvement tough. Music is as good as ever. And the replay value upped since the last game because of Sakuya and Phantasm. That's all about Tohuou 7, and I'll give it a fair 8/10, yet again. It's very good, and it's more fun than Touhou 6. It still has its flaws, and I don't like it so much, but very good game none-the-less!
Touhou 08 Imperishable Night Touhou 08 Imperishable Night is much like the others above. And is suposed to be the easiest in the series. This game is abit special for instead of 2 or 3 characters, in this game you're able to play with 8 different characters! You're suposed to use the 4 different teams with the characters. But after you've played trough, you'll unlock solo character challenge. It's the same as with a team but with only one of them. Story The moon has been stole! Just what the heck is that suposed to mean?! The moos has indeed been stolen. And in replacement, they put fake moon up. Wandering around with a partner, the heroines start looking for culprit. Meeting some new people and some familiar people. First they meet is Wriggle Nightbug, a firefly, she's much like Cirno and wants to test her strenght, however, she's weaker. Next up is Mystia Lorelei, she's a nighsparrow, and likes to make people go blindly in the forest by making everything around them darker. She likes to sing, and that's how she met the heroines. Out on an open field, they met Keine Kamishirasawa, she yells at the herpines to go away, because this empty field is where the human village is at day. Keine guards that city by night because of the monsters around in the forests around. Beating her will lead you to the bamboo forest. Trough the forest you'll meet either Reimu, or Marisa dependent on what team you chose. Beating her will reveal a new house, they went inn. Inside the house, they met a rabbit. A moon rabbit, she had something to do with the moon incident. She likes to hypnotise people, and because of that she's not that easy. Beating her result in a two way split. Go the wrong way and meet Eirin Yagokoro, another one who's in for the moon incident. But beating her doesn't do any good. You got to go the other way, to Kaguya Houraisan. She's the responsible. Beating her without using continues will trigger an adiotional message: "Will you challenge the trials of guts for me?", this unlocks the extra stage. The trial of guts (Extra stage) The extra stage has you go back to the bamboo forest and hunt down a person. Once you get alittle trough the forest, you'll meet Keine yet again, but this time, in her Hakutaku form! She's more stronger now, but still easy to beat. After a while you'll meet Fujiwara no Mokou, the only character to wear pants in the Touhou series! She's immortal, and manipulate fire. Because of her immortal-ness thingy, her spell card names may be abit sad (honest mans death and flaw of forgiving shrine) Beating her result in the game to end as always. This game took away the phantasm mode, but added a Spell Practice mode, with over 200 spellcards to practice! You got to unlock it first tough... This game is special in it's own way, as for unlocking extra, you got to beat normal TWICE with the same character/team. There's a new gimmic in this game, replacing the cherry gimmic of the previous. This time it's time. In order to beat the game, you got to beat it before the time reaches 5:00 AM. Collect time points by killing enemies, capturing spell cards and grazing. If you run out of time, the game ends. You start the game at 11:00 PM Characters and teams This game came with this new function. Teams. The teams are as followed: Reimu Hakurei and Yukari Yakumo is one team. Marisa Kirisame and Alice Margatroid is one team. Sakuya Izayoi and Remilia Scarlet is one team. Youmu Konpaku and Yuyuko Saigyouji is one team. Each of which have their own upside, and downside. The art of this game has been upgraded alot, and now is more cuter. The characters looks more chibbi like now than before. The music is alot better now. With new instruments added to get the feel of losing time and all! And the replay value upped AGAIN! Becuase of the spell card practice, you can now practice up to 200 spell cards! Capture them all with all teams is a pain! Overall, this game gets a 9/10! Mokou was a bit overdone...
Touhou 09 Phantasmagoria of Flower veiw Touhou 9 is not like the above, it's a Danmaku, but it's not like the three above. Touhou 09 is a multiplayer Touhou game! Unfortunatly, I haven't gotten online to work for me right now... Playstyle With Touhou 9 being different, it's important to note the key differences. 1. There's two screens, you're on the left. And opponoment at the right. 2. The goal is to survive and make the opponoment lose all of her life. 3. This game is that you die after THREE hits, not just one like the previous. 4. This game is longer and includes alot of characters. Story A day in Gensokyo, the flowers seemed to grow at an unusual rate, there where millions of them after just an hour! Curious what was happening, the heroine sets off to find the solution.
The solution seemed to be cause by Komachi Onozuka, slacking off at her job of ferrying spirits to Higan. Since she was slacking off, the spirits made their home in the flowers of Gensokyo, making millions of them sprout! The reason there where so many flowers this time was because of an accident of the outside world (Our world). However, it's not specified what happened. But it was too much for Komachi and then fell asleep on the job. Getting to explain the differences between the controls. In this game there's a new feature, the charge feature, however. This makes it so you lose your rapid shot. Press Z to rapid shot, hold to charge. If you have enough power, you can charge up a bomb, the more power, the stronger! X does exactly what it does in previous games, but this time it depleedes the power meter to 0, and places a bomb at the level of the power. (Charged shot) Shift focuses as always. But for some weird reason, this game is easier without focus... Characters Wonderful shrine Maide of Paradise: Reimu Hakurei Ordinary magician: Marisa Kirisame Perfect and elegant maid: Sakuya Izayoi Half Human and Half Ghost: Youmu Konpaku Moon rabbit of Insanity: Reisen Udongein Inaba Little Ice Fairy: Cirno Poltergeis Violinist: Lunasa Prismriver Poltergeist Pianoist: Lyrica Prismriver Poltergeist Trumpetist: Merlin Prismriver Mysterious Nightsparrow: Mystia Lorelei White Rabbit of good fortune: Tewi Inaba Traditional reporter of Fantasy: Aya Shameimaru Little sweet poison: Medicine Melancholy Flower Master of the four seasons: Yuka Kazami Ferryman of the Sanzu river: Komachi Onozuka Highest judge of the court of Paradise: Shikieiki Yamaxanadu
Aya, Medicine, Komachi and Shikieiki are new to the series. Yuka was from the PC-96 series, but returned here.
In order to beat this game and unlock extra mode, you have to unlock every character (Except Lunasa, Merlin, Shikieiki and Komachi) You unlock them as you progress through the game. The game plays through 9 different stages. Why 9? I don't know. The final stage is with Shikieiki. She's the hardest final boss I've ever met. Extra is quite different too, if you play the game, you'll notice that screen fills really fast with bullets. That's the point of this game, however. In Extra, that is doubled and to top it off, you only got one life to play on. No continues either! This extra is also special with that you have to play it with Komachi and through all 9 stages. Ending off at Shikieiki. This games art is quite boring, ZUN mostly used the same picture for everyone, but mildly changed them to show off emotions. Music of this game is either revisions, or remixes of older songs. Or new themes. (Sakuya and Yuka got a new theme) They are still as awesome as before! This game can be quite bland, where you play through the same story with all the characters, and then you're done. However, because of the online net-play, this game is more awesome than the others. I say this get's a 10/10. It is my second favourite Touhou game, only reason it's not my favourite is because of one character.
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