I figured that considering how often 07th Exansion references Touhou, it would be a good off-topic discussion!
I’ll start if off with some questions.
Have you ever played any of the games? If you have, which ones? If not, do you intend to play them? How did you find out about Touhou?
Who is your favorite playable character of the Windows Era (the fighting game characters don’t count)? Favorite Touhou character overall? Favorite in-game theme? Favorite fan arrange (if you have one?)
I’ve played Impossible Spell Card and I’m still playing Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom. Both are challenging, and I’m doing LOLK on Point Device Mode because doing those patterns on Legacy Mode is insane. I’m playing on Normal Mode! Way back when in high school, I discovered a lot of Touhou memes and music, and I’ve been fond of the series since.
My favorite playable Windows Era girl is Sanae (though I have a Marisa plushie). Sanae is a big nerd and I love her. I think my overall favorite is Sagume Kishin from LOLK, since she has a lot of features I adore visually, is a character from a myth I’d like to know more about, and she’s proof that ZUN will never escape JoJo Hell. I’m a sucker for the versions of Magus Night and Hartmann’s Youkai Girl (and the new music album version of Pandemonic Planet). I’d say my favorite arrange is one of Heian Alien called Vanished Truth. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=expbCljvfjc
I played a bit of Touhou back in the day, not so much any more. My favourites were Imperishable Night and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody / Hisoutensoku. I don’t usually do 2D fighters but those were crazy fun!
Having recently gotten into the series, I’ll answer these questions as I go, since I don’t have solid opinions on everything Touhou yet.
I’ve played 1-14 of the whole-numbered titles, and 7.5 of the decimal titles. I don’t have any definite favorites, but the one I played the most is Imperishable Night.
Technically my first encounter with Touhou was with a Let’s Play of Touhouvania and its sequel, but it didn’t ignite any sort of interest in me, even though I watched the entire thing. As to how I actually got into Touhou…
I regularly obtain game and anime music from a site whose name I will not disclose for the sake of upholding the rules. I’m not a major hoarder of music, since my computer can only hold so much gigagigas, so I try and pick out any brands that look familiar or with interesting covers. I came across an album that looked like this:
I knew next to nothing about Touhou at the time, so my first impression was ‘A loli playing piano? Sign me up!’ and I downloaded the album. The music that met my ears was a sound to cherish, sixteen wonderful arrangements of various pieces of music from various Windows Era Touhou games. I still listen to the album to this day, and one day I intend to purchase it for myself.
As to how I found the games, well…after listening to the album, I was curious about Touhou’s music. I went to the PC-98 soundtracks first, and I loved them to death, especially the first two games’ OSTs. I found it a little hard to jump immediately into the Windows Era of music, so I resolved to play the games in chronological order. I found it interesting to see how the series progressed in terms of graphics, game mechanics and musical quality.
Marisa, hands down. I would say Reimu because I’m a complete casual, but Marisa offers some pretty unique shot types and her personality, as light as it is, is pretty entertaining to boot. I like her character design, too. :3
Marisa aside, I think Yumemi Okazaki left a huge impression on me when I played Phantasmagoria of Dimension Dream. She’s a very close second for me.
Ooh, this is a hard one. I’ll list my favorites by specific theme, so as to avoid confusion on my part. XP
Title Theme: A Sacred Lot (The Mystic Square arrangement specifically, since the original music for the first game grinds my ears. XP )
Stage Theme: Hakurei ~ Eastern Wind (by a hair, there’s quite a few stage themes that are just as worthy ^^ )
Character/Boss Theme: Dullahan Under the Willows (Sekibanki was such an awesome boss fight~ :3 )
Extra Stage Theme: The Centennial Festival for Magical Girls (Like I said, I’m too much of a casual, so I haven’t made it to enough of the extra stages to really think of anything else… ^^; )
Extra Boss Theme: U.N. Owen was Her? (People say it’s overrated, but when ZUN calls a song lolitastic, I can’t unhear the lolis. )
Rendition of the Touhou Theme: Awakening of the Earth Spirits (I really like Subterranean Animism’s title theme, so I wanted to include it somehow.)
This arrangement of Ghostly Band ~ Phantom Ensemble:
I’ve played 6-14 of the Touhou games. I’ve never beaten any of them though (well sort of 9 but I don’t exactly feel that that’s much of an accomplishment on my part) because I’m terrible at them. I’m hoping that at some point I can pick up 15 and maybe even the earlier ones. I found out about Touhou through a rather long osu song compilation. Somebody had made a compilation of Demetori remixes and I was obsessed with it. The rest is history.
Favorite playable character would probably be Sakuya Izayoi. I have a thing for knife-throwing badasses it seems. As far as my favorite overall character goes, do the Prismriver sisters count as one entry? I just love that you can experience that fight in so many different ways. Their song is not bad either.
Uggh I hate having to pick a favorite song. There’s just too many fantastic ones. I really like The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field but most of the other final stage bosses have some great music too.
The same problem with picking a touhou song goes to the problem of picking a fan arrange. I’ve been listening to Yuumeikyou wo Wakatsu Koto by RD-Sounds recently as well as other pieces of their work. 六十年目の神速裁判 ～ Rapidity is a Justice by AQUAELIE is amazing as well. I always love just about any remix of U.N. Owen was Her. In terms of cover artists I feel like Foreground Eclipse, Demetori and IOSYS are probably my favorite ones to listen to.
U.N. Owen Was Her? will always have a special place in my heart just because it was my gateway into Touhou, but I’m also a fan of Heian Alien, The Tiger-Patterned Bishamonten, and Phantom Ensemble. Again, there are too many great ones for me to pick just ONE favorite.
And for fan arranges, my favorite group is probably C-Clays, who do some amazing vocal versions. This one in particular is a favorite of mine:
Yup. 7, 12, 12.5 (iirc), 14, and 15 at least. I’ve also played 1 and 2 once or twice.
I was only able to reach the bad end of 7 though. Everything else I failed at.
Oh, I did beat 12.5 though. Not that the fighting games count.
I do intend to play more. To be honest though, I prefer the Touhou universe and the fan works.
The rhythm game osu! was the earliest I remember. There were some Touhou maps that I happened to play without realizing they belonged to Touhou. At first I thought it was a genre of music or something, then I did a search and learned it was its own thing. (Though I do usually set “Touhou” as the genre still when I tag the arranges in my library…)
There were probably other Touhou references that flew right over my head before I played osu! though.
“Windows era?” So basically everything after the PC-98/DOS days? Reimu is a top-tier safe bet. Unless that bet is on the roulette of whether she’ll ever get a donation. Hakurei Shrine no Naku Koro ni.
I almost picked her, but if I consider the play mechanics I think I prefer Reimu a bit. That might just be because I’m more used to her though.
Yuyuko Saigyouji is my favorite. The main reason for this is her backstory.
As an aside, I’ve been meaning to write up a fan story about her. I’d say “fanfic” but then I’d be dooming myself to writing her adventures with her loli Youmu. Rather, I’d like to write up a reinterpretation of her backstory, similar in spirit to Pluto being a reinterpretation of a story from Astro Boy.
I recently ordered their newest CD, Parallel Cross. Hopefully it arrives soon~
Then again, how could anyone say no to U.N. Owen was Yee?
Also, Higurashi x Touhou
and this one:
Anybody else got Touhou merch? I’m waiting on some other orders to arrive, but so far all I’ve got is a CD and a certain fairy that protects my subwoofer:
I’ve mentioned it before, but I have a Marisa plushie! I go back to Southern California every year to visit family, and last year, the big fair was on and Reimu and Marisa plushies were on sale! I put her next to a plushie I had as a baby that I left at my grandfsther’s house. Marisa’s hat comes off.
Played touhou 6-7-8-9 and a few fangames.
Finished 8, imperishable night, at hard difficulty with no continues (team Reimu/Yukari and Sakuya/Remilia), that’s my greatest success I guess.
6-7 at normal.
Didn’t really like 9 so didn’t bother much.
Will most likely try to play 7 more and may one day move on to newer games.
Also my favourite characters would be Marisa and Cirno.
I’ve played Perfect Cherry Blossom to death, decided to go back to Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and am now trying to beat Flandre. Once I’ve done that I’ll move on to Imperishable Night. 0 lives left, 0 bombs left, Flandre defeated, BOOYAH. Now moving on to Imperishable Night.
Has anyone heard of Yuuhei Satellite? They seem to be all about Touhou vocal covers, and they even helped with the music for that fanmade Touhou anime, Fantasy Kaleidoscope. Anyway, the covers I heard from them so far are pretty great, like this one of Ghostly Band ~ Phantom Ensemble. :3
I have never played Touhou, but it is impossible to like anime and be on the internet without being aware of it. When NISA licensed Genso Rondo I decided to pre-order it out as show of support for a gutsy license, so when that comes out next month I will be playing for the first time. The only bullet hell game I have really played is Death Smiles, and I am generally not good at twitch reaction games, but I am looking forward to it anyways.
Has anyone played the one NISA licensed and know how it stacks up?
I’ve been involved with Touhou for a few years, though it is mostly an on-off relationship by now. I personally care little for fanart and fanfiction, most fan games bore me after a while (Genius of Sappheiros being one of few exceptions), and personally don’t care too much about characters (although I do like the setting itself). I cannot possibly decide for favorite fan music, but from among ZUNs own songs I do enjoy Satori’s themes, Keine’s stage theme, Suika’s boss theme in 7.5 and the Witches Ball (also 7.5, one of Marisa’s songs) the most.
I did however play most of the main games (up to 13). At my “height” I was at an frustrating point: on the cusp of being good enough to 1cc lunatic mode. On the mere cusp. However, after several “incidents” maybe possibly involving the last spellcard and me screwing up really hard repeatably in both EoSD and MoF I dropped out. It is hard to keep the motivation going when you consistently hit your head against the very last thing (and in MoF, the chance of unlocking practice mode for the last stage is the highest when you actually have a good 1cc-potential run, which is kind of backwards).
Lately I managed to at least finish the Great Fairy Wars on lunatic again (thankfully it is less about dodging and more about using your ice power at the right time), and I heavily recommend the Extra stage of this game, my personal favorite in the series actually. One of the few extra stages where even the stage portion is fun to me.
My favorite shot type is sealing needle (MoF), a reliable compromise between range and power. Additionally, Marisa is too damn fast to deal with (in some of the games at least). … so much for favorite player characters I guess!
This mess began for me with the old IOSYS videos. At some point I wondered what even goes on in these videos. Worst (or best?) decision of my life.
I haven’t even made it to Sagume yet, honestly. I really feel sorry for the Legacy Mode players since LoLK was made with Point Device Mode as the forefront.
At least with the release or ULiL for consoles, we’re getting Reisen!
(A friend and I jokingly say that her urban legend is the fanfic My Immortal and thus she’s the most powerful because her opponent faints from shame.)
It was actually Ringo who was a challenge, Doremy to me was pretty fun once I figured out the tricks to her spells. xD Stage 4 is so far trying to devise a good strategy that won’t put me at a disadvantage when the next wave of orbs comes in (which is stressful since I really like Sagume the most, since she’s a walking JoJo reference.)
Well honestly in all fairness Sagume and her entire stage are damn hard. Much about her is harder then your average spellcard of extra stages.
It’s just, they will sound easy far too soon… -plays jaws music-
Oooh boy, when I finally get past Sagume’s stage, I can’t wait to get absolutely SLAUGHTERED on Clownpiece’s battle. I guess my friend wasn’t kidding when she said it’s the hardest game since IN.
)
