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brightphantasm3500 · 2 years ago

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Time for my first big post. Touhou is one of my greatest passions, and this is a good little(ish) overview of the various games of the series. This sounds like a good opportunity to get my own thoughts on the matter out there with some second opinions and some counterpoints. Overall, I'm generally in agreement with what OP says here though!

The General Pointers

I don't have much to say here. OP hits all the important points as far as general game flow goes. I do wish I could just play games on easy to say I cleared them, but I've been beating games on normal mode since the PC98 era, so I don't feel like I can stop now.

Highly Responsive to Prayers

So, when my friend got me into touhou around the time of UFO's release, I was adamant about starting at the beginning. The beginning beginning. I really enjoyed the game's unique breakout-style gameplay. Is it a poor start point? That depends, in particular, on what you want to get out of a foray into the series. If you're looking to witness firsthand the evolution of the series and its mechanics, then absolutely start here and go in numerical order. By doing this, you'll get a chance to see every mechanic that would become core to the series filtered in over time, while getting to experience some unique, interesting mechanical "trial runs" as the main drunkard himself experiments with a few different mechanical and game styles.

As an aside, partially because of starting with this game and partially because of OST track "Eternal Shrine Maiden", this continues to be among my favorite entries in the series, and probably the game I return to the most.

Story of Eastern Wonderland

While OP is absolutely right about the SoEW start being rough, if, as previously advised, you attempt to play the games in numerical order, you'll find that mechanically, things flow into each other surprisingly cleanly. The lack of focus mode, movespeed being based on shot type and having to mash the button to max your DPS are certainly dated, but consider this: the next entry in the series, you also have to mash to fire in and also doesn't have a slow-move, but character speeds are a little more static and reasonable. I also don't think the bullet patterns in this game are that bad, making it, with some effort, fairly reasonable to learn over a short amount of time once you find the shot-type you're comfortable with.

As an aside, I've never beaten an EX stage, so I'm not going to comment on them. I've tried, but I'm not that good at shmups, unfortunately. Decent, but not good.

Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream

Not a title to take seriously, and I already made my comment about mechanical flow in the previous entry. I think this is still my favorite of the Vs. Shooter titles, and chains of point-threshold-boss-attacks still crack me up to no end in this game in particular. I'd not suggest passing this one up if you're coming into this from SoEW, but mess around with the characters(most of which you'll never see again), beat Yumemi at least once without fear of continues because these games don't lock endings behind 1cc, and move on.

Lotus Land Story

Now we're starting to resemble the windows series. Now you can focus-move and now you can hold the button to fire without mashing. Mechanics for lives exist, though I don't remember them. Even this far back, we even have ZUN putting in one of his trademark gimmicks of making the Stage 4 Boss change depending on circumstances, in this case which character you are playing as. This is also the first time chronic protagonist Reimu appears as a boss. Unless Seihou came out before this, I forget.

Outside of the 1-to-current journey, I would say that this one is the most-enterable of the PC98 games, and probably the easiest touhou game in the series. The metric I use for how easy a touhou game is, is how long it took me to get my clear, generally. Which is to say, Lotus Land Story is the only touhou game I've cleared on normal with all characters and shot types, and I've never had a failed run. Yes, I got a blind 1cc my first playthrough. I don't know what it is about this game, but I just find it really easy. Shout out to stage 4 theme Alice Maestra.

Mystic Square

Probably the best game in the PC98 era. The mechanics are solid, the challenge is real, Mima and Yuuka are both really fun to play with great dialogue. This is the PC98 game that is going to most feel like a modern touhou game. You can really tell ZUN had the formula and what he wanted the series to be down pat at this point.

Embodiment of Scarlet Devil

If you follow the series on aforementioned game-1-to-current journey, EoSD is probably going to feel like Mystic Square But More with a fresh coat of paint. We're even going from one stage 5 Maid What Enjoys Bladed Implements to another. We have the beginnings of the modern side-HUD, and the first instance of your options migrating to the front of your character during focus mode. Still no visible hitbox, though. A lot of people have nostalgia for this title and it's hard not to see why. I find it a little rough, but enjoyable nonetheless. My 1cc of EoSD was with Reimu A. A perfectly reasonable entry.

Perfect Cherry Blossom

Now we're re-starting the habit of old stage-5 bosses as playable characters, and shot types change, usually in power and intensity, when in focus mode, and finally, we have a visible hitbox. OP already mentioned the cherry border which can act something like a second bomb if you need it. I know that the "meme" is to tell people to start with the next game, but PCB was the one I always remember people saying was the most comfortable starting game. Of the first windows games, this one took me the longest to get a clear with, and my clear was on Sakuya A.

Imperishable Night

Alright, time for hot take number 1. I think imperishable night is hard. IN normal, by my count, is no joke. I can't wrap my head around most of Reisen's patterns. Is it my fault for adamantly staying away from the Reimu/Yukari pair? Maybe. If you like that team, I don't know what it is about them, but it's easy mode for normal mode. I eventually got my clear with the SDM team, this after trying Reimu/Yukari once and instantly clearing.

I would argue, personally, that there's just a little too much going on in this game to say that it's a good start point. Special mechanics that don't show up anywhere else in the series are all over the place here, with the time system and spirit familiars being what you need to play around in order to even have a chance of getting to the end. Another case, however, where OP has it very right on several fronts; this game has a lot of replayability and a great atmosphere. I'd just recommend working up to it first, myself.

Who knows, maybe I'm just bad at remembering to use my bombs.

Phantasmagoria of Flower View

I'm going to say very similar things here to what I said about PoD.D. Mess around with the characters, beat Eiki a few times with people you like and move on. This game has an even worse problem than PoD.D did of just not having nearly the fun factor it does if you're playing against real people that can actually mess up. If you're bored, set up a Lunatic CPU vs. CPU match sometime and watch just how hard they cheat.

Shoot the Bullet and Double Spoiler

I'm lumping these two together unlike OP because of personal experience. One thing that I think OP really didn't impress that they should is the amount of skill demanded by these two games. They are in fact great for their bite-sized nature, but the fact that each of the myriad stages in these games covers 3-10 pictures of a single bullet pattern with variations, means that ZUN drove up the difficulty far above what my brain can parse starting about halfway in. I have hundreds of tries before success on some stages as early as StB's Level 3. It'll certainly teach you to recognize patterns and play around them, but later it'll give you patterns you must circumvent with the main mechanic of the game in order to survive. In this way, I would suggest being more wary of calling these games to start on. Maybe put your nose to the grindstone later on, once you've gotten some handle on the series so that you can better learn the habits these games will try to teach you.

Mountain of Faith

Finally, someone said it. Yeah, I get it; you can strategically abuse the free 5-power bomb over the course of the game to trivialize it. That's incredibly unintuitive and requires routing the game and being consistent at most of the game in the first place. No, the game isn't easy. The normal-mode patterns starting at stage 4 can get downright headache-inducing. I eventually got my clear with Reimu C.

Subterranean Animism

The first Touhou game in the series I haven't cleared. Maybe I should just sit down and grind out easy-mode-playthroughs one day instead of being adamant about clearing on normal. I didn't actually know (or remember at this point) how exactly the life system worked, and that makes a lot of sense. It always frustrated me how aggravatingly stingy the game was with life fragments, and now I get it. It's another case of you already have to be reasonably consistent in order to succeed. That said, OP nailed pretty much everything here. SA is one of the big fan-favorites, standing out with the first 3 windows games, in terms of broad character popularity and musical quality.

Incidentally, as this is another game that uses a similar pair-system to Imperishable Nights', once again, Reimu/Yukari is the easy mode for some reason. My preferred shot types are Reimu/Suika or Marisa/Patchouli, personally. No, that has no bearing on who I like to ship with whom.

Another note I want to make is that with Mountain of Faith and Subterranean Animism, we have both the start of ZUN making his stories more interconnected, and ZUN getting into his pattern of making his games with tonal hopskotch. Mountain of Faith was a lighter game in musical and visual style, Subterranean Animism is a darker game. ZUN will continue to generally alternate between lighter and darker games in tone and theme starting here for most of the rest of the series' lifespan.

Undefined Fantastic Object

By now, I'm starting to get tired of the statement "You must already be consistent with the game." I'm not done saying it, but I'm getting tired of having to do so. OP pretty much echoed all of my feelings on this entry already. Fun shot types to play with, Nails-bitingly difficult patterns on normal as early as stage 3 in my experience. Heck, I'm pretty sure Kogasa still gets me with the umbrella train on bad days.

Once, someone tried to defend the game at me, telling me they'll just give me a route to follow with UFOs and stuff. Frankly, this just frustrated me. Partly because I'm stubborn and don't like being given handouts, but mostly because, If I can't even consistently get past Ichirin, how the hell am I supposed to be able to consciously follow a route? Like a route is going to magically make me normal 1cc the game every time.

That being said, this is another incredible entry on the subject of music and character additions. There's a lot of musical favorites for a lot of people in this one, and Byakuren has become one of the more popular characters at this point.

Ten Desires

Back in the day when Ten Desires came out, everyone around me seemed to be having a great time with it, and I didn't get it. No matter how hard I tried, no matter who I played as, I couldn't get a handle on the game. I don't think I knew for a while that trance mode allowed for double-pickups. It reminded me of my problem with SA, that it felt like after the first one or two extends, lives were nigh-impossible to get your hands on. And, once again, now I understand. The game is just built to force consistency. Everyone around me seemed to be having a great time with the game, but I could never get past Futo on a good day. Maybe it's because I insisted on playing Youmu, I dunno. I don't have anything else to say here that the OP hasn't said.

Also, I skipped GFW because I truly do not have anything to say about it. It's fun but too much for me.

Double Dealing Character

See OP's statement. We feel very similarly about this game; this is easily in my top 3 favorite titles in the series. I love the music, I love the characters, I love playing this game. Lives being tied to autocollection just feels so natural, I love it. Late-stage Normal Mode isn't easy, either, but I enjoyed the struggle. I enjoyed the struggle to the point that I actually gave this game's extra stage some really serious attempts for a while. They didn't go anywhere because I'm bad, but, they actually happened, which is more than I can say for most of the other games. My characters of Choice are Reimu B and Sakuya A.

Impossible Spellcard

I have not given this game the attention it deserves. It's fun, Seija is fun, read OP's words because they're better at this one than I'll be.

Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom

Earlier, OP said that Ten Desires was a divisive entry. I tend to agree with that. But hoo boy, if you asked me, Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom here is easily the most divisive entry in the series. One of my favorite fun-facts about this game and Point-Device mode, is that ZUN has literally gone on record by saying "Yo, I Wanna Be The Guy was cool, how would I replicate that in a shmup? But games like IWBTG never explain how the character can just instantly retry, so I'mma change that."

I'm fairly sure that this is a rare case where ZUN's mad drunk scientist mind to experiment with his series informed the story of the game, rather than the other way around as it usually is. As far as the game's divisiveness, I see what OP here is saying, I've heard similar things from other people, then I see how popular this game's cast is in more western fanworks and I've even seen videos of people new to touhou that are going through the series and giving their thoughts on each game, say that they really liked Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom and want to see ZUN do pointdevice mode again in another game. It's frankly wild to me how not consistent this game is with any given person.

This is the only game I've cleared with Marisa. Usually, I find Marisa too difficult to manage, between her speed (though that was changed? could've fooled me), narrow area of attack, lasers that don't feel like they do enough damage and need for higher levels of precision. However, I feel like Marisa in particular gains a very unique advantage in PointDevice mode here. Because her focused fire does the most damage (I sure fucking hope it still does, anyway) of player characters in the game, it means that she has a greater chance over her friends of shaving off the seconds needed to survive over the many tries you'll likely be taking on any given pattern. I was stuck with Reimu on Clownpiece's card Flash and Stripe, but as Marisa I was able to damage her fast enough as well as have the focused movement speed to keep pace with the moving lasers; a perfect storm that made what felt like an impossible card reasonable.

Hidden Star in Four Seasons

When I was describing my experiences with LoLK just now, that was actually a very recent playthrough. both that and this game, HSiFS, released during a lull in my attention toward Touhou and I didn't actually play them when they came out. I wouldn't play them properly for a long time after, even. I would make a proper comeback to the shmups when the next game comes out, but for a very long time, HSiFS was an enigma to me, all I really knew was that it gave us tan cirno, reimu's new catdog who I love, Narumi, two dancers and yellow yukari. Generally, me and my friends don't look particularly favorably upon the additions to the cast from this entry starting after stage 4, and we struggle to even remember the Yamanba from stage 2.

I can't comment on the mechanics, but as I have played it a little bit, I can say I'm not super fond of the seasons gimmick, and I haven't cleared it yet, but Aya is my character of choice, mostly because of lore reasons, I think Aya's story in this one is really neat.

Violet Detector

I love this game. I love this game a lot. Mostly because I am one of those insane people who's gone slightly nuts over following Sumireko's story between the 14.5 and 15.5 fighting games. A photography game with difficulty that I can generally handle even later on. I only managed to clear a little over enough of the last chunk of game to see the ending, but hey, that's an improvement over the other true photography games. This could even be a fun place to start, but story-wise, you'll be very confused if you haven't played touhou fighting games Urban Legend in Limbo and Antinomy of Common Flowers first.

Wily Beast and Weakest Creature

Another more notable shift toward tonal darkness, this is another game I absolutely love. I wouldn't recommend it as a start point over Double Dealing Character, but I do really like this game. This is the first touhou game since DDC where I really like every single character introduced in this game. I don't know how ZUN did it, but despite bringing back the UFO mechanic, it works really well here. The beast spirit mechanics, I would say combine the UFO system and the TD Trance system moreso, though I guess you can't be hit by bullets during a manual trance in TD? Anyway, I love this game, I loved another change to play with Youmu's weird charge-slashes shot type again, and combining that with the Wolf Spirit was some of the best fun I've had in this series. I've also cleared with Eagle Reimu, mostly so that I could unlock the extra stage with someone using an eagle spirit to get Saki in the extra stage dropping Yuuma's last name for a friend as a leadup into Gouyoku Ibun.

Unconnected Marketeers

Yet another resounding I love this game, I love all the characters introduced here, I think the roguelike ability card mechanic is really fun for ZUN's hopscotch back to a tonal lightness after WBaWC. This is the only windows game I cleared with every playable character, though as usual for me, I had an awful time of it with Marisa. I think this could be an alright starting point for someone getting into the series, though you're probably not building good habits here.

Also Social Commentary. ZUN is a big fan of lacing social commentary in his works.

Black Marketeers

I have only opened this game a couple of times, sadly. I really should try more, but I have some slight issues with the game, namely in its difficulty. I just can't handle some of the lunatic and boss patterns. I know I can circumvent that with the right cards, as this game exists as an extension of UM's roguelike gimmick, but, at present, whenever I think of Black Marketeers, I see one of those roguelikes where you must expect that any given run will likely fail, and I dunno, I feel like I'd rather play something like Slay the Spire where I can at least get a decent run most of the time. Fact of the matter is, the difficulty the game reaches in its later parts just sits at a point where I just can't rely on my own skill to push forward.

That's what I have to say on every shmup-centric touhou game. I do apologize if this was unwanted, but I haven't gotten a chance to voice my thoughts on a franchise I do love dearly before. Since the conversation was on the subject of a combination of personal preference and imagining how a game would work for a new player, I thought a point of view from someone who is, let's say, Not Great at these baby shmups might be helpful and constructive. OP really has a lot of good things to say on the subject, and I'm glad they made this post.

Danmaku as a genre is pretty difficult to get into. Danmaku games tend to be very arcadey, so unless you’re clearing them you’ll spend a lot of time getting beat up in the first half, which isn’t very fun. It takes quite a while to get the hang of it and to develop a sense for how things work. There are a lot more danmaku games outside of Touhou, but that’s what I know and what I want to talk about. No wasps and screens full of purple here. Not usually, anyway. I’ll go over some general pointers for people new to the genre and then evaluate each game according to how good of an entrypoint it is.

Keep reading

#touhou #long post #really sorry if this was unwanted #I love this franchise to death

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jenny-ate-ink · 1 month ago

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CW: Sonic Movie 3/Sonic 2024 spoilers

Click away and block the "#sonic movie 3 spoilers" "#sonic movie spoilers" "#sonic 2024 spoilers" and/or "#sonic spoilers" tags if you do not wish to be spoiled

Imagine you wake up on a strange new planet, so green, with not a memory of who or what you are. You wake up surrounded by these beings who look nothing like you, and they take you quickly into a metal facility where wires and clips are put on you. Where test after test is run.

They find a power within you. A power they want to channel, to harvest. You make them their power.

But none of them look at you kindly. There is weariness in their eyes. A hesitation in every touch. You are alone. You do not know what you are. Who you are. You have no family. You have no friends.

Then she appears like starlight during a cloudy night. A girl, blond and blue with roller skates. She touches the canister in which you have been placed, and you scowl at her before she scowl at you because everyone scowls at you. Why bother with a smile.

But she mocks you instead with so much humor in her eyes.

It goes all so fast after that. Too fast. You forever look back, wanting, longing. It isn't fair.

She looked at you kindly. She called you her friend. Through her, her grandfather came to like you too.

You would pull her on her skates down the halls and listen to her laugh. You would listen to and sing songs with her. You used to watch movies with her. Shared a pillow fort with her. You once even snuck out to see that green world you landed on again, to stare at the moon and the stars you came from with her. She talked about stars and light lingering on. You looked at her and saw one. Saw your star. Your sun. Your light.

You were happy.

It didn't last. Of course it didn't last. What did you expect? What else did you deserve?

They came for you. For your power. Her grandfather pulled both of you along, running, alarms blaring. She looked so scared.

A gun aimed.

"They're children!"

A gun shoved, a bullet redirected.

An explosion.

You remember it, even now, like it just happened. You relive it every time you close your eyes.

She lies too still on the ground, surrounded by rubble. Broken and burned. You hesitate to touch her, to confirm that this is real. You look up to meet her grandfather's teary eyes. She's gone. Your star is dead.

Your name makes sense now. It suits you well. For you may not have been the one to pull the trigger, but it still was your power that caused the explosion. It was your power that lured them in, your power that killed your star and now leaves the world in shadowed in grief.

You're nothing but a shadow. The darkness in the night. The monster under the bed. Your power killed her, which means you killed her, however indirectly.

She said you aren't a monster and you proved her wrong.

You didn't even fight as they ripped you away from her still warm body. You didn't do anything. You couldn't do anything. You just stared at your hands as they took you away and put you to sleep.

For fifty years you relive it. Over and over again. They made a hell just for you.

They took her from you. Your power, harvested and explosively unleashed, killed her.

You are angry. So angry. It consumes you. It festers like an infection, spreading. It fills you down to the marrows of your bones and pumps through you like blood.

You wake up in a world without her. In a world you don't want to exist. In a world you don't want to exist in.

You go to the only place you think of. The old facility. The only place you ever lived in. The place where she died, where your powers snuffed her out.

You find her grandfather there. He speaks of grief. Of anger. He wants revenge, has a plan of how to get it all laid out, and you are the key to its success.

The world that stole her will burn like she did. Your powers will be harnessed and then explosively unleashed. It will kill you, he tells you. It will kill him. A small price to pay.

It's justice that you die by your own powers, by the same powers that stole her away.

You agree. You want revenge. You want it more than anything. And it the end, you'll be with her again. It's perfect. You want this darken world to feel the same pain it has caused you. You want this pain to end. More than anything, you want to see her again. To feel her light on your fur again.

But a family stands in your way. Something red, something yellow, but mostly something blue. How annoying. How infuriating. They have what you lost, and you want to take it from them. It isn't fair.

You see him. Commander Walters. He was there, he was with them the day she died.

Rage. Deep, sickening rage. You strike him down.

Except... he isn't Walters.

Blue. Eyes carrying the same pain you do glare into your soul.

"What did you do?"

You tell him the truth.

"What I had to."

Revenge awaits.

Is this the right thing to do? Is this what she would've wanted?

No. No. They deserve for taking her. This is revenge. This is what you want... right?

You're so angry. Of course it's what you want. It's what you need.

You power the machine. Let it harvest your power.

You're aren't surprised when blue turned yellow, stronger than ever, comes for you. Of course he would want revenge, too. He is the same as you. He understands your pain. The pain you caused him.

He pins you down. You let him. The world will burn regardless, at least now, you will see her sooner. You can be rid of this pain sooner. You can let him get rid of his pain. You owe him this, don't you? This a mercy upon the both of you.

He hesitates. It angers you. You point to your chest.

"Do it! I'm right here!"

The look in his eyes changes. You no longer see your pain and your rage reflected back at you.

He tells you that revenge doesn't fix anything.

Something shaky within you breaks. You fizzle out. Your anger fizzles out. You realize anger had only ever been the secondary emotion. The mask.

You are consumed with grief. Painful, inescapable grief.

You sit with him and look at the world your powers are going to destroy.

It's blue, like she was. Blue, like he is.

He tells you the pain never goes away, but you learn to grow love around it.

The sun, yellow like her hair, warm as her smile, rises.

It clicks.

You remember it, what she told you all those years ago. How the light still lingers even when the star is gone.

She was, is, your star, and through you her light travels forward even now in her absence.

You are the shadow casted by her lingering light. You are her love preserving. Everything she is, everything she was, you decide now with every action. You are her legacy. Her light still shining.

You were, you are, her shadow. You were always meant to follow her, even now.

You let your anger and grief lead you astray. You should have followed her love from the beginning.

She wouldn't want this.

You wish you could tell her that you're sorry, for everything.

You look at the blue, and he offers his hand.

You take it.

It's time to right your wrongs. To follow the path you were always meant to.

You aren't happy. You're still hurt. And you're still angry, still grieving.

But this feels right.

Even as you redirect the bullet of your power aimed at the Earth, there is a strange peace. A feeling of justice. A knowning that you are doing right by her memory. Acting in her honor rather than your grief.

Blue falters, but you persist. You persevere. You push your mistake further away. You can not, you will not, let your pain hurt anyone else anymore. It isn't what she would've wanted. It isn't what you want. Not anymore.

You can hear her laughter even now. Soft and warm like starlight. You can almost hear her telling you to keep going, to just push it a little further.

Maria.

Is she waiting for you?

Your power engulfs you just like it did to her all those years ago.

Maria.

Is she proud of you?

You close your eyes and welcome it.

Maria.

You'll miss her forever, won't you?

#jenny posting #sonic cinematic universe #sonic movie 3 #sonic 2024 #sonic movie 3 spoilers #sonic movie spoilers #sonic 2024 spoilers #sonic spoilers #okay so I'm going to ramble now #i love tragedy #be it tragic back stories tragic ending whatever #so shadow has always held a soft spot in my heart in general #as he witnessed his home be destroyed and his best friend shot #there's no way that he doesn't have some level of survivors guilt in general #but movie shadow??#oh boy #oh boy oh boy oh boy #sure he didn't watch maria get shot #but he did watch as the containers of his power explode #and he watched as that explosion of his powers killed maria #so while he didn't pull the trigger he still played a part in her death #and so i personally headcanon that due to this added layer in his survivors guilt #on the moon scene shadow not only wanted sonic to straight up kill him to justify his desire of revenge to himself but to also just die #anyways I'm drunk so ignore any typos or weird grammer #it's also tumbr.com and I'll kill your god before ever proofreading my posts on here.#<3 #sonic franchise #shadow the hedgehog #movie shadow #semi fic?

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