This sounds like a joke comment in the vein of "eezee modo?", but anyways, I was thinking that now would be the perfect moment to quote Perceval: "Sire, you musn't take what we say seriously. You're well aware that we're morons, right?"
But ZUN's art and design is good though? his anatomy improved a lot and his style is unique and recognizable among the sea of generic anime titty girls in doujin culture
@@mariyannuism There is a guy who review Touhou 15.5, he said that he's glad that the game has no fanservice at all like other anime games he reviewed before.
15:15 actually there is a reason why ZUN doesn't make official translations. if I recalll correctly, he said in one interview that it is because he trusts his fan community better to make an accurate translation of the game than some random company. (at least that's what I remember)
yea was gonna mention that when i saw that part of the video i think it might also be that zun doesnt like the idea of companies working on touhou in general. i know definitely commercialisation is not allowed/minimised
as someone who has for years been loosely exposed to the touhou series while hardly knowing a thing about the games themselves, this was a really fascinating video! i liked learning about how those games differ from each other and have evolved over the years, with an actual person's thoughts on them all. also, i look forward for my youtube recommendations to be flooded with touhou just because i watched ONE hour-long video on the series all the way through, because thats how youtube rolls.
a few mistakes here and there 1 all translation is fan made and the reason why we don't have official ones is ZUN trusts the western fans more then the random shitty translations you normally see. and source code for the old ones is long gone so editing them is a pain in the ass. also the fan patcher is easly the most advanced overbuilt thing imaginable. 2. mountan of faith power stops at 4 when you are at 5 you get a free bomb. 3 12.3 is an expansion to a fighting game and unexpectedly is still alive to this day 11 years later somehow. 4. you got trance slightly wrong your immune in it. 5. worth noting DDC was accompanied by an engine upgrade so there's that. 6. legacy of lunatic kingdom to get the item its just a graze check nothing more nothing less. also reccomending ufo and lolk is pure evil they are 2 of the 3 hardest in the entire series and beyond what a new player should ever really want to deal with. also the Extra stages are about as difficult as hard mode lunatic is harder then the extra 95% of the time.
Having started with 11 (being a casual touhou fan) I'd say 12 is definitely among the easiest on Easy/Normal out there. While the patterns are complex they are at least relatively easy to read and memorize. Plus, like the author of the video mentioned, the UFO system can really help the newcomers to boost their life/spell meter early on. Having said that 17 is the easiest to start with 100%. UFO-like system + easier and not as dense patterns make it a no brainer when telling people what game they should play first if they are interested to just 'try it out'.
Actually, the 5 power level in Touhou 10 it actually boosts you power (you don't say), not in many shot types you see it but with Reimu C its more evident, you see a LIIIIIITTLE difference but its a difference
Been exposed to Touhou since probably the golden age of YT, around 2009, maybe even earlier, but only started playing last week. Kinda annoyed with myself for not jumping into this sub-culture earlier, but glad to be here now.
15:14: There is only one alcohol-driven person in charge of programming, music, art design and story development, and as he make the games for self amusement, he doesn't care about making localization easier. The Windows games are easier to translate because the dialogues are in own msg file, but the PC-98 ones are a literal hell because they were hardcoded.
Yeah, that makes sense. I know a lot of older games give fan translators trouble for exactly that reason and I'm impressed the PC-98 titles got translated to an understandable level at all. As for future projects, I think ZUN could easily outsource the localization work, especially since the dialogue is isolated. I'm sure that plenty of translation companies would be jumping at the chance considering the pretty massive international following Touhou has. Hell, he could easily get a publisher who could handle localization, foreign distribution, and marketing (the current strategy of just throwing the games up on Steam as-is isn't great. It can be a PITA to find them). Ultimately, if he just gives the OK to a reputable company (I find that individual companies are generally pretty consistent with their translation quality), I think that's more money for him and a higher-quality product for foreign fans. And he'd barely have to lift a finger.
"I find that individual companies are generally pretty consistent with their translation quality" Give me an example. "I'm sure that plenty of translation companies would be jumping at the chance" Translation company like who? Are these translation companies that really wants to *jumping at the chance* to translate ZUN's game? Does people want to play game that the arts looks like drawn by elementary school student? Let alone newcomers some of the Touhou fanboys hated it. "considering the pretty massive international following Touhou has" Nice assumption, if you think so ask people what Touhou is, if their answer are remixes, hentais, fanarts, "It's an anime, right?", that one character which is Jojo reference and said character fought DIO in One Minute Melee, you will wish you never ask them in the first place. "he could easily get a publisher who could handle localization, foreign distribution, and marketing" Wanna know what Touhou games that has been localized, foreign distributed, and marketed? They are Genso Wanderer, Double Focus, Genso Rondo, and Kobuto Burst Battle, nope they're not ZUN's games, they're fangames that has been localized by NIS America. Are people hyping on these games based on your "pretty massive international following" statement? Nope.
@@supreme_xenon ok, now say it without crying. it's ok dude, I've tried touhou and had a hard time as well, but unlike you I admitted defeat and still love the game + the plethora of content that appear thanks to its community.
When I first saw Touhou I thought "ah God its a weeb game isn't it" Now im here fighting Junko on Hard hoping I might survive lunatic difficulty and listening to touhou music almost everyday
@@tsg_frank it’s probably towards those stereotypical chinese mobile like games that have repetitive gameplay, over cluttered UI and menus, is usually pay to win, and generally uses an anime art style for their characters and whatnot. It doesn’t boaster well for games that utilize an anime art style due to this
@@D00000T I doubt that he's referring specifically to those Chinese products. He's, in general, talking about the copious amount of unoriginal anime games that bloat the market.
Here is a list of the background music’s names, because, and I’m quoting you, "the music is fucking amazing". 0:00 : TH06 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: Shanghai Alice of Meiji 17 (Hong Meiling's Theme) 2:36 : TH01 - Highly Responsive to Prayers (original): A Sacred Lot (every HRtP soundtrack has an original bit-tuney version and an HD version) 5:38 : TH01 - Highly Responsive to Prayers (original): Eternal Shrine Maiden The few examples (3) 6:53 : TH04 - Lotus Land Story: Bad Apple!! (well-known for its electro remix by Alstroemeria Records with an impressive black-and-white 3D shadow puppet animation by Anira. The story leading to its creation is interesting, I recommand learning about it.) 7:10 : TH09 - Phantasmagoria of Flower View: Flowering Night (Sakuya Izayoi’s Theme) (inspired a fast-paced electro remix by COOL&CREATE/BeatMARIO) 7:31 : TH06 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: U.N. Owen was her? (Flandre Scarlet’s Theme) (inspired the Ronald McDonald insanity meme video) 9:43 : TH01 - Highly Responsive to Prayers (original) - Highly Responsive to Prayers 10:16 : TH02 - Story of Eastern Wonderland: Record of the Sealing of an Oriental Demon ~ Pure Land Mandala 11:38 : TH02 - Story of Eastern Wonderland: Bet on Death 13:13 : TH02 - Story of Eastern Wonderland: Legendary Wonderland 15:27 : TH03 - Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream: A Dream Transcending Space-Time 18:20 : TH04 - Lotus Land Story: Bad Apple!! 19:40 : TH04 - Lotus Land Story: Alice Maestra 22:19 : TH05 - Mystic Square: Magic Formation ~ Magic Square 23:30 : TH06 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: U.N. Owen was her? (Flandre Scarlet’s Theme) 25:30 : TH06 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: Shanghai Alice of Meiji 17 (Hong Meilin’s Theme) 27:50 : TH07 - Perfect Cherry Blossom: Mystic Dream ~ Snow or Cherry Petal 30:35 : TH08 - Imperishable Night: Nostalgic Blood of the East ~ Old World 33:24 : TH08 - Imperishable Night: Love-Colored Master Spark (Marisa Kirisame’s Theme) 34:32 : TH09 - Phantasmagoria of Flower View: Oriental Dark Flight (Marisa Kirisame’s Theme) 37:59 : TH09.5 - Shoot the Bullet: Wind Circulation ~ Wind Tour 39:37 : TH09.5 - Shoot the Bullet: Sleepless Night of the Eastern Country 40:23 : TH10 - Mountain of Faith: Sealed Gods 42:50 : TH10 - Mountain of Faith: A God That Misses People ~ Romantic Fall 44:26 : TH11 - Subterranean Animism: Awakening of the Earth Spirits 47:02 : TH11 - Subterranean Animism: Green-Eyed Jealousy 48:13 : TH12 - Undefined Fantastic Object: At the End of Spring 50:54 : TH12.5 - Double Spoiler: Youkai Modern Colony 51:55 : TH12.8 - Great Fairy Wars: A Midnight Fairy Dance 54:59 : TH13 - Ten Desires: Night Sakura of Dead Spirits (the zombie girl is Yoshika Miyako, a Jiang Shi, Chinese zombies who suck the life out of the living) 56:56 : TH14 - Double Dealing Character: Mysterious Exorcism Rod 58:01 : TH14.3 - Impossible Spell Card: Raise the Flag of Cheating 1:00:10 : TH15 - Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom: The Space Shrine Maiden Appears 1:02:46 : TH16 - Hidden Star in Four Seasons: The Sky Where Cherry Blossoms Flutter Down 1:04:16 : TH16.5 - Violet Detector : Nightmare Journal (I skipped Wily Beast and Weakest Creature because even though I love the music and can hum it without any problem, except for Violet Detector probably since it’s pretty recent, I haven’t played any of the games myself, so I plan on starting that with WbaWC and don’t want music spoilers) Btw, Adze, if you read this, I was surprised that you did not mention the introduction of the "Enemy" hint mechanic at the bottom of the screen (PCB and after) that tells you where the boss is so that you can shoot her without having to look up. It looks like a very useful mechanic.
it's so rare to watch a video about Touhou that actually talks about the Touhou games, very fresh to see stuff like this. maybe this will get me to play more of them too. great work!
There are two types of touhou fans, the ones that enjoy the amazing fan content that originated from the basic story and badly drawn girls that ZUN made and those that actually play the games
Wow. I've been a Touhou fan for 6+ years and I still haven't tried Touhou 12.8 GFW yet. But the amount of praise you gave the game, might have just tipped me over the edge to finally try it. Thanks!
I really don’t understand why this only has 3000 views. It’s really polished and well thought out. I think eventually the YT algorithm will bless your channel Edit: congratulations bro
From my perspective, the algorithm kinda is blessing me already. I'm growing insanely fast compared to how I used to (I'm literally 6x my average growth rate from 2020)
Really well done video! Deserves more views As a "long term" Touhou fan (if you can call 6-7 years long term in a series that's been going for nearly 25), I noticed a few hiccups here and there but that's understandable considering you're a lot newer and this is a quite in-depth video that even covers details that many fans wouldn't know. I decided to timestamp some notes below: 13:20 For the most part, the extra stages are a bit below hard difficulty, with a couple being in the hard-lunatic range. It's hard to compare because the 1 stage of an extra plays out quite differently than the 6 stages when going for a 1cc, so if you dedicate yourself to extra stages, you'd be beating most before being able to beat hard, or if you dedicate yourself to the normal game you might be getting your first lunatic 1cc before beating a few extra stages. 15:06 It's likely because he views it as a hassle for something that wouldn't pay off. There's a pretty funny video from a few years back of him discovering he has Chinese fans. It just hasn't really crossed his mind that he has fans around the world. Steam sales may have changed his views a little which may be why some things are more available to "western" (by western, fans typically mean anything west of Japan) audiences now. Only one correction here, 15.5 does have an official "translation", though that may be attributed more to Twilight Frontier (Tasofro) instead of ZUN and it's not a very great translation to the point where the fan translations are better anyways. 17:52 You should check out ZUN's Yuuka art from Seihou lmao 21:56 This isn't all the translator's fault. A lot of the jokes just don't translate well. PC-98 was significantly less story focused so you just see more of these jokes that don't translate well. Rumia's decimal joke from EoSD is an infamous example of this. 27:27 Misdirection is a great noob trap lol. All it requires is a little streaming and you'll beat it every time no problem. But if you aren't familiar with it, it misdirects your movement (hence the name) or makes you think you have to move faster than you do turning the whole spell card into a hell. 36:19 huh, I felt the same way, haven't really heard many others mention this. 39:03 don't blame you lol, I'd label StB as the hardest spinoff 50:39 12.3 is an expansion to 10.5, both of which are fighting games. It's kinda funny you messed this part up because 12.3 might just be the most popular official Touhou game having gained a decent sized following over the years and has appeared at a number of notable events, including EVO as a side event. 53:00 I'm not sure how familiar you are with the world of Touhou and the characters, but wanted to mention this cause it's a fun fact behind the reason why you have motivation and not lives. Fairies can't die so a life system doesn't make much sense for them. 16 does contradict this a little, but it's minor contradiction since consistency between characters is the more important part when it comes to a mainline bullet hell game 54:13 It's a "ch" not "s". Yeah, phonetically it doesn't make sense in English and it seems everyone gets this wrong at some point 59:46 Impossible Spell Card is much easier to complete (completion being beat using items) than 9.5 and 12.5. I'd actually recommend trying this one again as it's quite forgiving to beginners. Once you get the substitute Jizo a lot of them become much easier, although there will still be a decent number you'll want to use other items on. 1:09:27 lololol UFO is rarely recommended to beginners because it's one of the hardest ones for survival 1cc. LoLK is also one of the "hardest" (it's not once you learn how to bomb spam) but at least it has pointdevice mode which can be nice for beginners to improve their skills. 1:09:36 So am I. Wish ZUN would try out another mechanic like it sometime. GFW was actually a tie in with one of the official manga, the first official manga in fact, which follows the three fairies around with Cirno (and later Clownpiece from 15) also appearing. It's cute and has a story not meant to be taken too seriously, much like the game. The art starts out pretty meh, but improves greatly over time. You might want to check out the fighting games too. There's single player story mode as well which can be fun if you're not interested in the multiplayer scene. Unfortunately, if you go in order you're also going backwards in difficulty. It can be nice if there's any characters you liked in particular as well since there's only 1-2 new characters in each as opposed to the 6-10 new characters each game for the bullet hells. Although, if you like the characters and worldbuilding best source is the omake that comes with each game (you can find translations at the bottom of the character pages on the wiki) or the official literature. If you're looking to try out extra stages, 16 is the easiest to do if you understand how to use the mechanic properly, probably the only one where the difficulty would be somewhere between easy-normal (fitting that you can unlock it with an easy 1cc). 7 also has a fairly easy extra, and I'd also say 8, 10, and 12 have good extras to start out with.
Yes misdirection does seem like a trap for people who move way too much. Dispite me being a complete noob (only made to stage 6 on EoSD once while using all 3 continues) I noticed pretty quickly that you don’t have to move that much to beat it. However due to New players often panicking it’s pretty easy for them to get lost in the bullets and get hit.
@@fluffyfre Nver understood misdirection until this comment But it wasn't a problem since it was my second 1cc, so i was good enough to deal with that loss
@@fluffyfre absolutely, I think it's worth noting small movements are less natural on keyboard. These games really feel like they're made for arcade sticks, which is cool
@@adamofblastworks1517 He mixed up two games. Touhou 12.3 is an expansion to and references save data from Touhou 10.5 (not TH12) which is a fighting game. Touhou 12 and Touhou 12.3 have nothing to do with each other.
Yeah, when I was doing my research, the website I was looking at referred to the games and the expansion by number rather than name, so I guess I misread and assumed because 12.3 came right after 12 And considering I didn't play the fighting games or the expansion, I had nothing else to base it off of. I'm just happy that my biggest mistake in the video wasn't something that actually invalidated any of my actual points
@@Adze No you're all good. I think you did an amazing job highlighting each game and their mechanics. Besides, even when you didn't like something, you expressed why in a reasonable manor.
also while we're still on topic, the mechanics on touhou 8 of extra spell card after defeating the boss, is called "last spell" not "last word". last word is the even harder extra spells only accessible from spell practice.
@Dung Tran Quang WBaWC has hell in the EX stage: hard-to-see bullets. Still never going to be as bad about it as any game in the Len'en series though...
This reminds me of my project which was around half an hour long but I put my whole heart and soul to it and this video shows that you spent so much time and love which I appreciate 🤗
This video deserves to be better known for how well it is explained, I am from the Spanish language (I am not Mexican), I understood it very well and I liked your analysis a lot (I am so sorry for my English)
I'm surprised this channel is relatively small. While the Touhou games generally are kind of light-hearted and jokes around the lore for some characters are kinda sad. Anyway, I'm loving this channel so far this was a pretty well made video, props to you going through every main bullet hell installment!
Incredibly amazing video, you absolutely get my like. I don't think I've ever seen someone going this deep on a technical level as people will usual just talk of the gimmicks on a superficial level. I'm glad you liked it, it's an extremely addicting series. BTW, I noticed you said "they" a lot when talking about development. I can't remember if you mentioned it at the start of the video, but all of those games are made by one single guy. Except the fighters, of course.
I'm glad you liked the video. My whole thing is looking under the surface to figure out how exactly games work and it's nice to know that resonates with people. In my research, I came across references to both ZUN and "Team Shanghai Alice," as dev credits which gave me the impression that the early installments were solo projects while later titles were picked up by a studio with the lead position going to ZUN (I think it was the word "team" that really threw me off). I now realize that was a mistake on my part and I should have dug a little deeper, but I don't think overall it really impacted any of the points I wanted to make.
Alright I know this video is really out of date with the new Touhou games, but dame this video is very nostalgic to me now. This video helped me get into Touhou more when I was getting started. I may not be a big Touhou fan now, but I’ll always appreciate this video
About a year ago today, I took my first step into the Touhou series, played every official game, and I don't regret it one bit. Funny how this appears in recommended now...
I discovered Touhou because of one of the bands that I've listened to which is Unlucky Morpheus. I stumbled to a page about them in touhouwiki and it turns out, they were once a Touhou doujin circle. I ended up becoming curious about Touhou after.
I unknowingly listened to their Touhou arrangements from one of their albums titled Jealousy. All I thought was it was a homage to X-Japan's album Silent Jealousy since they also based the album art from that and also a track titled Jealousy of Silence.
I've been a fan of Touhou for ummmm 3 weeks now and I fell in love with the music, my favorite one is Night of Nights/Flowering Nights edit: If you guys are wondering I found the song in a rhythm game lol.
Shmups have always been a genre I've loved but never been much good at, especially bullet hells. That being said, I've just grabbed the demo for Wily Beast and if it plays half as good as it looks I'll be grabbing the full game when I can afford it! Always good to see a new video from yourself showing up in my sub feed :)
Well I very much appreciate your support (and your own content). Wily Beast is definitely a decent starting point though of course like any bullet hell, you've gotta put the time in. But in case you don't feel like waiting, I can definitely recommend any of the earlier games where I feel you can ethically pirate them. They may not have all the QoL, but they're still great in their own right.
What a neat video! I've been into touhou for the past decade and I still learned some things from this video (mainly how the passive game mechanics work.. obviously I knew that the meters at the bottom of the screen for games like Subterranean Animism were important but since I couldn't actively interact with them I didn't really bother to learn what they actually were doing lol). Since you're new to the series and a lot of this is just based on your own research and personal experiences I'm not going to be too hard on the errors. You've done a lot more research than a lot of other people trying to get into Touhou do, after all! This is the first gameplay heavy Touhou informational video I've seen, and if the goal was just to explain the mechanics, then I think you did a good job! But there were some game mechanics I'm surprised you left out, perhaps just because you only played a few stages into each of the games. You mention a few times about the unique attacks of the bosses, but I feel like the video would've benefited from actually showing some of those mechanics instead of just how the game plays as a whole. For example, how the Prismrivers in PCB attack you differently based on your character, how Reisen's lunatic eyes in IN change the bullet patterns, Yoshika regaining health, how Seija *flips the screen* !! I was really shocked that you didn't even mention that IN has two ending routes with different boss fights (and I believe HRtP does as well?) I feel that exploring those character gameplay quirks would have shown the personality of the games a bit more. As it stands, when the games are reduced down to "the same thing but the way you get points is different", I feel like it does the series a disservice. Even if the point wasn't to discuss the games' stories, a little blurb about the premise and the atmosphere of each game would have been a welcome addition to differentiate them from each other. You make mentions of the quirky dialogue, so spending a moment to highlight some characters would have been nice. The majority of Touhou fans like the series because of the characters, not because they're really into danmaku games, so when I can count on one hand the number of characters that were even named in the video... I'm not sure if this is the best intro for the main draw for the series. I think overall I have to echo the sentiment that it's difficult to place an audience for this video. It doesn't really work for people who have no idea what Touhou is about because it focuses almost entirely on the nitty gritty score multipliers and doesn't do much to show why the series is so beloved, and people who already play the games already will know most of this stuff. For people like you, who were already interested in the series and wanted to start playing it but didn't know how to start, I think this video is very helpful! You're right that Touhou is really bad at making game mechanics obvious, so having these game by game breakdowns is really useful, but I'm not sure if your goal was just to put out a strategy guide. I was also extremely surprised by your game recommendations for those looking to get into the series. UFO and LoLK for newbies?? Based on the gameplay footage you didn't make it past the 4th stage for most of these games (which is when the difficulty spikes) so I understand you honestly not knowing, but they have some of the most frustrating boss fights in the whole series. I'll be interested to hear your opinion on LoLK when you go up against Clownpiece lmao I want to reiterate that this was a very well put together video, and I enjoyed seeing the evolution throughout the years! Thank you for helping to make Touhou more accessible for new fans :) !
I think the video makes more sense when you consider the angle I was approaching it (which I admittedly didn't explain too well in the video). Basically, I wanted to take a look at the series with a focus on how it changed from game to game. I feel like the progression of a series is something that not many video essayists have seriously tackled and I wanted to try my hand at it. Plus, it gives me an excuse to force myself to play through a series I'd been putting off. I plan on doing this same kind of thing with other series' in the future (though I'll admit that starting off with a 22 game series was ambitious, even for me. Probably going to stick to series' with 3-5 installments) The way I prepped for this video was by basically marathoning the series over the course of a week (I had vacation time). I recorded the first hour or so of each game for footage and then I'd play a bit afterwards. For the most part, I tried to at least get to the final bosses on normal just so I had a general idea of what the game has in store for the player. It's just that since I only recorded the first hour or so, I don't really have footage of any later stages (and I'm well aware of the difficulty spikes. I'm currently trying to 1CC EoSD and Sakuya keeps kicking my ass). I recommended LoLK and UFO because those were two of the games I enjoyed the most. I found both of their unique gimmicks to be incredibly satisfying and engaging. And maybe I didn't quite internalize the difficulty spike because at that point, I had a few dozen hours of gameplay experience with the series as opposed to the zero hours I had when I first started recording. Regardless, players who are having trouble can always drop the difficulty down. And I will say that I had a ton of fun making this video and I was honestly surprised at how consistently polished the games are. When I play through a series, especially one as old as Touhou, I expect the first installments to be pretty janky. But even though there were some visual and design issues, the core mechanics and movement was always surprisingly tight, even before the changes that improved it further (the switch to Windows and the engine work that happened with MoF) I'm glad you liked the video. After the many hours I put into it, it feels good that people are having a good time watching it.
@@Adze The thing about the difficulty is that both UFO and LoLK are among the hardest games in the series and that the difference between Easy and Normal is actually pretty massive, if people go from Normal to Easy they might find themselves disappointed because it would feel too easy, that's why not many people recommend UFO or LoLK as the first game to start with (especially UFO) and that's also why many people recommend IN, the difficulty is good, it gives you a lot of resources and it has a really cool mechanic: Bullet deletion
Such a great comment to add to the video! Personally, this is the kind of video I want to see to understand what a thing is about. The game mechanics of a primarily video games focused fandom/series are really important to me. Even if this video didn't help me understand Touhou as a phenomenon/fandom, this helped me to understand where that all originates from, which I find valuable. Just my two cents :)
Love your meticulousness, attention to detail, and clear cut division between objectivity and subjectivity. I've been going back and replaying 6, 7, and 8 for about 2 years now but now you've made me want to play EVERY single game in the series Kudos ^_^
You earned a new subscription. YOU DID A FANTASTIC JOB WITH THIS MASSIVE REVIEW OF GAMES. Thank you for opening the door to the touhou universe in an understandable manner!!!!. I am definitely going for all of the touhou games available on steam.
Awesome video. Thanks to it I learnt more about Touhou and made me want to try any game of the series, even though I have zero experience with bullet hell games.
Commenting to give this video favor with the algorithm. This is astonishingly high quality for a video from a user with under 1k subscribers and I’ll definitely be checking out your other videos.
My favortie thing to come out of the Touhou series is by far all the melodic death metal doujin bands, that either later became real bands, or formed a band. Spetsnaz, Wooming, and Sawacy is everywhere.
A great intro and quick review of every game packed in a nice video essay package. Really good stuff! Hope you get some more traction! 30:35 One additional thing for Imperishable Night, on the topic of mechanics introduced and quickly discarded, there's the familiar system. Many enemies will fire or generate familiars, usually wispy sorts of orbs though they can change for bosses (Reimu's yin-yang orbs and Marisa's little magic circles come to mind). These can only be shot and destroyed while human, but can be passed through as youkai. Familiars can unleash bullets as part of the pattern and if destroyed they can clear bullets in a small radius. If the enemy generating the familiars is destroyed, all of their familiars go poof too. There are some patterns that get easier with well timed enemy destruction and their familiars clearing gaps. 40:25 Not very important in the grand scheme, but I did miss the distinct spell cards for the player's bombs for this game. Here we just have a circle with minor differences between Reimu and Marisa. No Fantasy Seals or Master Sparks here unfortunately. Subterranean Animism also doesn't use spell cards as bombs, but at least they have some flavor with the different shots. 51:55 Most people are quick to bring up ZUN as being the sole developer for the series. For 12.3, the art is much nicer at this point for the portraits as the artist for an official tie-in doujin is recruited for this game. This being the Touhou Sangetsusei comic series. The story is by ZUN, with a couple illustrators doing the art. It starts with Eastern and Little Nature Deity with another illustrator, Nemu Matsukura, then it is handed over to Makoto Hirasaka (the one for this game) for Strange and Bright Nature Deity, Oriental Sacred Place, and Visionary Fairies in Shrine. The story is all about the fairies doing their things with plenty of banter and plucky fun. 56:55 Also not so important, but the shot selection ties in with the story. The available characters; Reimu, Marisa, and Sakuya, have their main device/weapon act up and sort gain a mind of their own. The shot type decides whether you are bringing your seemingly cursed but powerful item, or relying on your character's abilities on their own. Reimu's gohei flies around and smacks things as well as expands for the bomb, Marisa's Mini-Hakkero turns into a flamethrower, and Sakuya's new dagger also flies around and stabs things (plus her knives slow down time for her enemies?). As for an "Evolution of..." recommendation, I'm always a sucker for Ace Combat games. I was unable to play the PS1 series, but lucked into stumbling into the PS2 "Holy Trinity" as those came out. There's mobile console games and at least 1 phone game if I remember, but there was quite the gap in time between games for the late 2010s. AC7 has revived the series in a grand way. Further, Project Wingman was an indie game heavily influenced by Ace Combat and started during the big time gap. It had a successful Kickstarter and I feel is a great love letter to the series. Likely not the easiest games to get your hands on, or even a series you'd enjoy at all. But one can hope.
i always loved touhou for the music and the characters, and i always wanted to become better at it, but due to my colorblindness and the backgrounds and bullets i never really can get far into a game since i dont see the god dam bullets comming at me. Love the indept video, was pleasantly suprised when you covered all the games instead of only the windows era, or the most popular ones.
THE most comprehensive Touhou guide out there so far. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for making this game make more sense! I didn't even know or understand more than half of those mechanics before watching this video. Literally, my reason for playing Touhou and being a Touhou fan was "haha curtain fire go brrr". This makes things so much nicer!
Yeah, the information is definitely out there, but it's really poorly explained in-game. If it weren't for me doing research for this video, I wouldn't know about half the mechanics either
Oh man, this video was so good! Your voice is nice to listen to, the videos were informative and perfectly depicted the differences between the games (to me, at least, I'm not a Touhou pro, I barely even got to Sakuya on Easy Mode in EoSD - Tewi and Reisen are definitely gonna laugh at me). I've been on a sort of Touhou meme video binge lately, and your video was a nice 22-course-meal-sized snack.
I gotta say this was a very enjoyable video, props to you for playing all these games even if I'm a bit sad that you didn't attempt to complete at least one extra stage for it considering that they're pretty much the most memorable part of the game usually (beating Yukari or Flandre in their games are huge highlights of my experience with EoSD and PCB) and that you didn't cover the fighting games since they are as much of an official touhou game as the bullet hells are and they make some fun uses of the danmaku mechanics from the mainline games. Maybe for another video you could cover fan games since, in my opinion, the biggest and most important part of touhou are the fan creations and there's some bangin games for any genre imaginable. You have luna nights for metroidvania, fantasy maiden wars for strategy rpg, labyrinth of gensokyo and genso wanderer for dungeon crawler rpgs, puppet dance performance being the best pokemon game I've ever played despite being fanmade and not having anything to do with pokemon aside from the gameplay, and who can forget visual novel classics like "Sakuya gives you life advice and dabs".
I did actually attempt one of the extra stages, but it was just way above my capabilities for the time being. I didn't do the fighting games for two reasons. Firstly, I suck at 2D fighting games, so I don't think I'd be able to fairly represent them. Secondly, at 22 games played as-is, the scope would have been a bit much even for me. I'm not against checking out some of the fan games. That's one thing I really do like about ZUN. Since he doesn't really care about protecting his trademark, it opens the door to a lot of awesome derivative works. I do think I'd like to dive more into Touhou lore in my own time beforehand so I can properly appreciate the writing.
Dude, seriously, you need more views and subscribers. Ever since I watched your Katawa Shoujo video, I know that you’re a great youtuber, you’re so underrated man
Honestly, Touhou is probably _the_ best multimedia-franchise I've ever encountered with BY FAR AND AWAY the best fan community. I'm so so grateful to have gotten into it more than a decade ago.
Touhou 12 has another quality of life change that you didn't mention. In all previous iterations before TH12, you had to stay above the "Item Get Line" in order to receive the current max point values for each point item that gets magneted to you. That means (in Touhou 6 - Touhou 11) when rushing up the screen to collect all point items, you'd have stay up there for a second to make sure that every item collected will be at max point value. If you triggered the magnet but then immediately rush back under the Item Get Line, all the remaining items that you are still magneting to you will not be max value. Touhou 12 was the first game were that was changed. From Touhou 12 and onward, you can move to top screen and quickly move back down to safety. All the point items on screen you collect from that will be at max value, not matter where you are on screen at that moment.
I am truly fascinated by your explanations and very grateful you took all that time to analyse ever single one of this games. What a great video! You deserve thousands of subscribers.
You deserve way more subs and views, this is actually better than a lot of the stuff I see on RUclips. It sucks that a lot of smaller RUclipsrs like you haven’t gotten the recognition they deserve. Also, I like how you refer to Cirno as “Little Shit Fairy”.
Completely insane video , really simple to understand how the games works and your voice is clear and helped me a lot understanding everything you said + 1 follower
I really love how ZUN takes the favourite characters of the fanbase and makes them playable. Sakuya being playable in TH 7 and 18, Cirno being playable in TH 16 and literally having its own game, Sumireko and Seija having their own games, and so on. It's just so warming to have a developer that puts so much trust in its fanbase overall, at a point where the notions of copyright and fanmade don't really exist :D
@Charles Michiru Gallo 100% agree. original game is fun. original music is awesome. original art is cool. fan game is also fun fan music is great(thank you iosys) fan art is very good. perfect content.
I remember watching this video 2 years ago while i was getting into touhou. Now three 1'ccs later i came to thank you for the introduction to the series. 💜
watching hour long video essays on franchises i havent played or ever shown interest in, ahh... good times. forreal though--great video! :D tysm for making it!
Fantastic video! One of the best and most in depth videos I've seen on Touhou. If you're still looking for video suggestions have you thought about covering the Touhou fighting games? They are considered official games as ZUN helped work on them.
Fantastic video! Very thorough, and I feel it's great for people trying to get into the series. I remember I found Touhou about a decade ago when I was in high school. I just remember discovering the music, and being like, "hey, where's this from?"
I'd like to note something about Double Dealing Character that makes it one of my favourite games, and that's Marisa B. Her bomb is a a circle that slowly moves up the screen, dealing damage and erasing bullets of course, just like any other bomb. What makes it special though is that if it erases bullets, it converts every 5th bullet absorbed into a power item. This is only really applicable for Lunatic and Extra stages, but its extremely fun being able to throw yourself at the enemy, bomb, and reap the benefits of multiple lives at a time. The only time this doesn't work is during spellcards. So stages and non-spell cards on bosses work just fine The other shot types are really fun and ridiculous too, but Marisa B feels more like a puzzle, figuring out when to bomb and when to die to reset your bomb counter to maximize the amount of free life pieces you can gain. This is absolutely broken imo, but it is kind of balanced by how stupidly hard the bosses can be. The stage 3 boss on lunatic feels like a stage 5 boss. The stage 5 boss flips the screen, 6th messes with your hitbox, so overall, 'cheating' like its Impossible Spell Card feels just Also it's not seer-no, it's cheer-no chiruno Great video
This was a really fun ride! I'm a fan of Touhou for a bit more than a year, and boy, it sure has lots of content! I really like 12.8 and 17, but what I really enjoy about the series is the lore and the immense creative freedom ZUN gives to the community. In fact, I would really like to see more people talk more about the fangames of the series! If I had to recommend some of them, I'll suggest Luna Nights, Azure Reflections, Third Eye, Tale of Beautiful Memories, Yoriyami Dancer and New Super Marisa Land I really like how you presented your video, so I'll be sure to stick around!
May I point out a few mistakes made by the author? well, as a Lunatic player, I want everyone to have correct knowledge of the game mechanics (and flex with my knowledge, hahaha) leeeets gooo Touhou 1 you seem to be infinitely better at arkanoids than me. 19:34. "Most"? SoEW, LLS, EoSD, MoF and HSiFS, two of these don't even have grazing. 25:50 It's not new, it's been around in LLS as well and in MS Extra stage. 40:40 Grazing does NOT affect the bar and MoF only has 4 power levels, 5th is just a free bomb that does not increase your power. 48:49 11 seconds* 49:32 They do not. You need 4 pieces for a life and only 3 for a bomb, so there IS a difference. 50:48 first serious mistake 12.3 is a damn fighting game which has NOTHING to do with UFO's plot. 55:45 Trance is effectively godmode, it does NOT go down with a hit, it just makes you invulnerable for 10 seconds. 59:41 the easiest to clear. I am serious. A full (with items) completion took me only 5 hours or so back when I was a normal player. Just... uh... think a bit until you've unlocked the torch and the substitutes, then combine it with a doll and clear pretty much all the spells without dodging. All the non-hidden achievements took me about 9 hours, except the one that is unlocked upon playing for 10 hours (it was kinda boring) 1:01:50. No, you do not get up to 5 graze if you just stay, you just get that 5-graze item for staying next to a bullet for 2 seconds. 1:03:50. Was that a sarcasm? If yes, I am deeply sorry. If no, then... uh... the releases are the most broken, abusable and cheesy system out of all the special game mechanics.
Great video, and since I noticed someone pointing out the error with 12.3, I'll just say something you've missed: in EoSD there's a hidden difficulty rank point system that makes the game harder or easier based on how well you're doing, increasing when staying alive, grazing, picking up items and gaining a life, while reducing when getting hit, bombing or missing items
32:24 Tiny but significant error you made there which many people actually do, so let me explain. In this game there are so called "Last Spells" as well as so called "Last Words", both of them have absolutely nothing to do with each other and need to be differentiated. The "Last Spell" is what you were talking about there at the given timestamp, it is also often called the bonus spell and as you explained, it is an optional spell that you may fight if you meet the time orbs requirement of the stage, but without the risk of losing lives and bombs if you happen to fail it. But Last Words on the other hand are a special kind of spellcards that you do not face in the regular game at all, no matter what you do. They are instead first needed to be unlocked by achieving specific conditions, like for example "complete xyz difficulty with xyz", and afterwards they appear in the game's practice mode where you specifically chose them to get the opportunity to face them. It's just one single spellcard at a time that is meant to pose an especially difficult challenge of a bullet pattern. Every character that appears in this game has exactly one Last Word including the playables and they all have different conditions you have to meet to get the option to select them in the practice mode. People regularly get this mixed up because it's two similar sounding new mechanics that both first and last appeared in this exact game, so no worries, but I felt the need to clear this up.
@Ching Chong Yes, this only appears in Imperishable Night. When you select one of the Last Words to start attempting them, ingame you will see the term "Last Word" in the place where normally the chosen game difficulty is shown. Ten Desires has a similar mechanic under a different name though. There it's called "Overdrive" which is basically a collection of a few chosen spellcards you see in the maingame, but in a changed form where they are much harder than the Lunatic version.
thanks for this video it informed me a lot about this series and now I'm interested in it (also now I realize that touhou has been everywhere in my life without me realizing it before)
An extremely well-made video. Thank you for making such a great project! Strength needed to carry on with a Touhou-related video of mine has been restored.
I disagree that the art is "ass".... The quality can vary from game to game....... but I genuinely feel that ZUN's art has a lot of charm, and is often very cute........ UFO imo has the best set of portraits. There definitely is BAD art in Touhou (Sakuya in EoSD ...... lol....... Satori in SA....... ect) but I think you should've given it more credit than you did!
At 23:30, right as U.N. Owen kicked in, I knew what was about to happen. I'm pretty new to Touhou, and I started playing Th6 a few months ago, without ever really playing any of the others. Th6 is my first Touhou game and it holds a special place in my heart. I haven't finished it due to being poo poo and bullet hell games tho. This was a great video and it helped me feel like I am really starting to be a part of the Touhou community. My only real complaint about Touhou is that I feel like I'm late to the party, but everyone is really welcoming and I'm glad to be here in the first place. Sorry this is so long and probably wasted your time, but I just wanted to say something and thank everyone for helping me get into Touhou, because I probably would not be here of it weren't for everyone being really nice and helping me feel like I fit in. Again, sorry about the length and personal stuff, but great video!
One thing I think you should have mentioned is the ranking system that was in Touhou 4 and Touhou 6. Where the entire game gets more difficult the more lives you have. This is separate to the "Easy" "Normal" "Hard" and "Lunatic" difficulty selection before a run starts. In the ranking system, the difficulty shifts while you are playing. This does two things, it gives struggling players who have few lives left more forgiving bullet patterns and speeds, and it rewards skilled player (who don't take damage) an opportunity to take on an even greater callenge. (And of course, more bullets = more graze and more points collected from finishing bosses = more points.) I absolutely love the ranking mechanic. It's super fun to pull a perfect in the early game to be rewarded with more callenge. I even find myself reseting only after taking a single hit because I want to play the more difficult version of the run. This is why find myself going back to Touhou 4 more than Touhou 5 when I wanna go back to the PC-98 titles. I was disappointed to see you didn't mention it. If you never noticed the adjusting difficulty, let me give you a tip on the easiest way to see it. Play Touhou 4 (normal mode should be good enough) make it to stage 3 less than 2 lives. Then make it to sage 3 again without taking a single hit (also on normal mode). You should be able to notice that all the bullets will be faster and more plentiful. I'm just gonna keep on adding new comments when I have something new to say. (Because I'm too lazy to write out a whole essay)
Can we talk about how...uh, distinctive...the music is for this game series? Every time I play a ROM hack of another game that has custom music in it, I'll hear music I've never heard before that has a certain, distinctive feel to it and think to myself "that's from a Touhou Project game, isn't it?" If a music list is attached to the hack, I might then check it to confirm my suspicion, and only rarely have I been wrong. ^^
Shit video, I'm glad it barely got any views. You should've 1cc'd each game, or you didn't get the proper experience.
Pfffffffffft, okay, Adze, this is actually funny. Props to you man :)))
lol
the pin of shame
You know, you could of instead of just bitching... and just hear me out, Said some actual Criticism instead of "Git gud" lmao
This sounds like a joke comment in the vein of "eezee modo?", but anyways, I was thinking that now would be the perfect moment to quote Perceval: "Sire, you musn't take what we say seriously. You're well aware that we're morons, right?"
I'm a Japanese who doesn't speak English
️ ️ ️ ️ Your love for 東方 was transmitted
Thanks for the great video!
Thank you for watching! It's very exciting to see that this video has reached the other side of the world!
@@Adze I’m chinese and I speak English, my name is 陈世恒
@@Adze Im french and my name is Léandre ( the pinned comment guy is probably french too )
@flint2.0 Hehe, deez nuts
im russian and im speak english my name is Андрей
Zun failing to make good art but nailed the character design is honestly one of the driving factor why there's so many fan art.
And people keep complaining because his art is not your generic anime style, including this guy
But ZUN's art and design is good though? his anatomy improved a lot and his style is unique and recognizable among the sea of generic anime titty girls in doujin culture
@@mariyannuism There is a guy who review Touhou 15.5, he said that he's glad that the game has no fanservice at all like other anime games he reviewed before.
Yo the replies are both 20 likes, epic
@@mariyannuism agreed heavily
15:15 actually there is a reason why ZUN doesn't make official translations. if I recalll correctly, he said in one interview that it is because he trusts his fan community better to make an accurate translation of the game than some random company. (at least that's what I remember)
@@joebidenVEVO manga and spin off fighting games are diffrent
That's why I love ZUN. He just put so much trust in his fanbase.
yea was gonna mention that when i saw that part of the video
i think it might also be that zun doesnt like the idea of companies working on touhou in general. i know definitely commercialisation is not allowed/minimised
@@MMenyan ye don't forget the illegal touhou anime
@@princesstinklepanties2720 which one is that?
"little shit fairy"
what a way to sum up cirno
:(
Why ?
Cirno is cool
@@poledra4153 hahaha i get it she's an ice fairy and she's cool
“Little sh*t fairy”
That can sum up my experience with anime lol
@@poledra4153 because she's a baka baka
as someone who has for years been loosely exposed to the touhou series while hardly knowing a thing about the games themselves, this was a really fascinating video! i liked learning about how those games differ from each other and have evolved over the years, with an actual person's thoughts on them all. also, i look forward for my youtube recommendations to be flooded with touhou just because i watched ONE hour-long video on the series all the way through, because thats how youtube rolls.
just as planned
a few mistakes here and there
1 all translation is fan made and the reason why we don't have official ones is ZUN trusts the western fans more then the random shitty translations you normally see. and source code for the old ones is long gone so editing them is a pain in the ass. also the fan patcher is easly the most advanced overbuilt thing imaginable.
2. mountan of faith power stops at 4 when you are at 5 you get a free bomb.
3 12.3 is an expansion to a fighting game and unexpectedly is still alive to this day 11 years later somehow.
4. you got trance slightly wrong your immune in it.
5. worth noting DDC was accompanied by an engine upgrade so there's that.
6. legacy of lunatic kingdom to get the item its just a graze check nothing more nothing less.
also reccomending ufo and lolk is pure evil they are 2 of the 3 hardest in the entire series and beyond what a new player should ever really want to deal with.
also the Extra stages are about as difficult as hard mode lunatic is harder then the extra 95% of the time.
Yeah, I was just about to comment that 12.3 is not an expansion to Undefined Fantastic Object, but to 10.5, but then I saw your message.
UFO is great fun for new players. They won't get far, but they'll have a blast.
Having started with 11 (being a casual touhou fan) I'd say 12 is definitely among the easiest on Easy/Normal out there. While the patterns are complex they are at least relatively easy to read and memorize. Plus, like the author of the video mentioned, the UFO system can really help the newcomers to boost their life/spell meter early on. Having said that 17 is the easiest to start with 100%. UFO-like system + easier and not as dense patterns make it a no brainer when telling people what game they should play first if they are interested to just 'try it out'.
Actually, the 5 power level in Touhou 10 it actually boosts you power (you don't say), not in many shot types you see it but with Reimu C its more evident, you see a LIIIIIITTLE difference but its a difference
@@AkiRa22084 That's cruel, lol. SA was what broke me, though.
EOSD music is so nostalgic, despite the fact I was a decade late to get started on it
sorta same for some reason
Been exposed to Touhou since probably the golden age of YT, around 2009, maybe even earlier, but only started playing last week. Kinda annoyed with myself for not jumping into this sub-culture earlier, but glad to be here now.
Same there, It's gonna be a ride isn't it?
most 2 decades now
(Laughs in almost 2 decades later)
15:14: There is only one alcohol-driven person in charge of programming, music, art design and story development, and as he make the games for self amusement, he doesn't care about making localization easier.
The Windows games are easier to translate because the dialogues are in own msg file, but the PC-98 ones are a literal hell because they were hardcoded.
Yeah, that makes sense. I know a lot of older games give fan translators trouble for exactly that reason and I'm impressed the PC-98 titles got translated to an understandable level at all.
As for future projects, I think ZUN could easily outsource the localization work, especially since the dialogue is isolated. I'm sure that plenty of translation companies would be jumping at the chance considering the pretty massive international following Touhou has. Hell, he could easily get a publisher who could handle localization, foreign distribution, and marketing (the current strategy of just throwing the games up on Steam as-is isn't great. It can be a PITA to find them). Ultimately, if he just gives the OK to a reputable company (I find that individual companies are generally pretty consistent with their translation quality), I think that's more money for him and a higher-quality product for foreign fans. And he'd barely have to lift a finger.
"I find that individual companies are generally pretty consistent with their translation quality" Give me an example.
"I'm sure that plenty of translation companies would be jumping at the chance" Translation company like who? Are these translation companies that really wants to *jumping at the chance* to translate ZUN's game? Does people want to play game that the arts looks like drawn by elementary school student? Let alone newcomers some of the Touhou fanboys hated it.
"considering the pretty massive international following Touhou has" Nice assumption, if you think so ask people what Touhou is, if their answer are remixes, hentais, fanarts, "It's an anime, right?", that one character which is Jojo reference and said character fought DIO in One Minute Melee, you will wish you never ask them in the first place.
"he could easily get a publisher who could handle localization, foreign distribution, and marketing" Wanna know what Touhou games that has been localized, foreign distributed, and marketed? They are Genso Wanderer, Double Focus, Genso Rondo, and Kobuto Burst Battle, nope they're not ZUN's games, they're fangames that has been localized by NIS America. Are people hyping on these games based on your "pretty massive international following" statement? Nope.
Oh my. Angry manchild hold who hates touhou clicked on a touhou video. Imagine that
@@supreme_xenon ok, now say it without crying.
it's ok dude, I've tried touhou and had a hard time as well, but unlike you I admitted defeat and still love the game + the plethora of content that appear thanks to its community.
@@wesleysavage9490 What are you talking about?
When I first saw Touhou I thought "ah God its a weeb game isn't it"
Now im here fighting Junko on Hard hoping I might survive lunatic difficulty and listening to touhou music almost everyday
What does "weeb game" even mean in this context? lol
@@tsg_frank anime game maybe, idk either man.
@@tsg_frank it’s probably towards those stereotypical chinese mobile like games that have repetitive gameplay, over cluttered UI and menus, is usually pay to win, and generally uses an anime art style for their characters and whatnot. It doesn’t boaster well for games that utilize an anime art style due to this
@@D00000T I doubt that he's referring specifically to those Chinese products. He's, in general, talking about the copious amount of unoriginal anime games that bloat the market.
same
Here is a list of the background music’s names, because, and I’m quoting you, "the music is fucking amazing".
0:00 : TH06 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: Shanghai Alice of Meiji 17 (Hong Meiling's Theme)
2:36 : TH01 - Highly Responsive to Prayers (original): A Sacred Lot (every HRtP soundtrack has an original bit-tuney version and an HD version)
5:38 : TH01 - Highly Responsive to Prayers (original): Eternal Shrine Maiden
The few examples (3)
6:53 : TH04 - Lotus Land Story: Bad Apple!!
(well-known for its electro remix by Alstroemeria Records with an impressive black-and-white 3D shadow puppet animation by Anira. The story leading to its creation is interesting, I recommand learning about it.)
7:10 : TH09 - Phantasmagoria of Flower View: Flowering Night (Sakuya Izayoi’s Theme)
(inspired a fast-paced electro remix by COOL&CREATE/BeatMARIO)
7:31 : TH06 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: U.N. Owen was her? (Flandre Scarlet’s Theme)
(inspired the Ronald McDonald insanity meme video)
9:43 : TH01 - Highly Responsive to Prayers (original) - Highly Responsive to Prayers
10:16 : TH02 - Story of Eastern Wonderland: Record of the Sealing of an Oriental Demon ~ Pure Land Mandala
11:38 : TH02 - Story of Eastern Wonderland: Bet on Death
13:13 : TH02 - Story of Eastern Wonderland: Legendary Wonderland
15:27 : TH03 - Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream: A Dream Transcending Space-Time
18:20 : TH04 - Lotus Land Story: Bad Apple!!
19:40 : TH04 - Lotus Land Story: Alice Maestra
22:19 : TH05 - Mystic Square: Magic Formation ~ Magic Square
23:30 : TH06 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: U.N. Owen was her? (Flandre Scarlet’s Theme)
25:30 : TH06 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: Shanghai Alice of Meiji 17 (Hong Meilin’s Theme)
27:50 : TH07 - Perfect Cherry Blossom: Mystic Dream ~ Snow or Cherry Petal
30:35 : TH08 - Imperishable Night: Nostalgic Blood of the East ~ Old World
33:24 : TH08 - Imperishable Night: Love-Colored Master Spark (Marisa Kirisame’s Theme)
34:32 : TH09 - Phantasmagoria of Flower View: Oriental Dark Flight (Marisa Kirisame’s Theme)
37:59 : TH09.5 - Shoot the Bullet: Wind Circulation ~ Wind Tour
39:37 : TH09.5 - Shoot the Bullet: Sleepless Night of the Eastern Country
40:23 : TH10 - Mountain of Faith: Sealed Gods
42:50 : TH10 - Mountain of Faith: A God That Misses People ~ Romantic Fall
44:26 : TH11 - Subterranean Animism: Awakening of the Earth Spirits
47:02 : TH11 - Subterranean Animism: Green-Eyed Jealousy
48:13 : TH12 - Undefined Fantastic Object: At the End of Spring
50:54 : TH12.5 - Double Spoiler: Youkai Modern Colony
51:55 : TH12.8 - Great Fairy Wars: A Midnight Fairy Dance
54:59 : TH13 - Ten Desires: Night Sakura of Dead Spirits (the zombie girl is Yoshika Miyako, a Jiang Shi, Chinese zombies who suck the life out of the living)
56:56 : TH14 - Double Dealing Character: Mysterious Exorcism Rod
58:01 : TH14.3 - Impossible Spell Card: Raise the Flag of Cheating
1:00:10 : TH15 - Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom: The Space Shrine Maiden Appears
1:02:46 : TH16 - Hidden Star in Four Seasons: The Sky Where Cherry Blossoms Flutter Down
1:04:16 : TH16.5 - Violet Detector : Nightmare Journal
(I skipped Wily Beast and Weakest Creature because even though I love the music and can hum it without any problem, except for Violet Detector probably since it’s pretty recent, I haven’t played any of the games myself, so I plan on starting that with WbaWC and don’t want music spoilers)
Btw, Adze, if you read this, I was surprised that you did not mention the introduction of the "Enemy" hint mechanic at the bottom of the screen (PCB and after) that tells you where the boss is so that you can shoot her without having to look up. It looks like a very useful mechanic.
What a madlad
@@--8594 indeed
1:05:59 : TH17 - Wily Beast and Weakest Creature : Silent Beast Spirits
Doin gods work
An hour of history of Touhou video? Nice
:D
Hello there
@@dava8058 Lol, you're the one from megapig9001
it's so rare to watch a video about Touhou that actually talks about the Touhou games, very fresh to see stuff like this. maybe this will get me to play more of them too. great work!
Then you haven't watched AspreyFM
There are two types of touhou fans, the ones that enjoy the amazing fan content that originated from the basic story and badly drawn girls that ZUN made and those that actually play the games
But what if i'm both?
@@tantejunko then you're an algamal that must be erased :)
@Moonlight he is actually good at drawing... when its hand-drawn and not digital art
“little shit fairy” is the best thing i’ve ever heard anyone call cirno nfidjsifns
Wow. I've been a Touhou fan for 6+ years and I still haven't tried Touhou 12.8 GFW yet. But the amount of praise you gave the game, might have just tipped me over the edge to finally try it. Thanks!
I really don’t understand why this only has 3000 views. It’s really polished and well thought out. I think eventually the YT algorithm will bless your channel
Edit: congratulations bro
From my perspective, the algorithm kinda is blessing me already. I'm growing insanely fast compared to how I used to (I'm literally 6x my average growth rate from 2020)
@@Adze yeah i have legit no idea who you are, your being blessed by the youtube god
29K views already
now 43K but there simply are not that many people who want to dedicate an Hour of time to watch a video about a very niche genre
@@Adze Guess what randomly got recommended to me
52:12 That's a REALLY good description of her
Really well done video! Deserves more views
As a "long term" Touhou fan (if you can call 6-7 years long term in a series that's been going for nearly 25), I noticed a few hiccups here and there but that's understandable considering you're a lot newer and this is a quite in-depth video that even covers details that many fans wouldn't know. I decided to timestamp some notes below:
13:20 For the most part, the extra stages are a bit below hard difficulty, with a couple being in the hard-lunatic range. It's hard to compare because the 1 stage of an extra plays out quite differently than the 6 stages when going for a 1cc, so if you dedicate yourself to extra stages, you'd be beating most before being able to beat hard, or if you dedicate yourself to the normal game you might be getting your first lunatic 1cc before beating a few extra stages.
15:06 It's likely because he views it as a hassle for something that wouldn't pay off. There's a pretty funny video from a few years back of him discovering he has Chinese fans. It just hasn't really crossed his mind that he has fans around the world. Steam sales may have changed his views a little which may be why some things are more available to "western" (by western, fans typically mean anything west of Japan) audiences now. Only one correction here, 15.5 does have an official "translation", though that may be attributed more to Twilight Frontier (Tasofro) instead of ZUN and it's not a very great translation to the point where the fan translations are better anyways.
17:52 You should check out ZUN's Yuuka art from Seihou lmao
21:56 This isn't all the translator's fault. A lot of the jokes just don't translate well. PC-98 was significantly less story focused so you just see more of these jokes that don't translate well. Rumia's decimal joke from EoSD is an infamous example of this.
27:27 Misdirection is a great noob trap lol. All it requires is a little streaming and you'll beat it every time no problem. But if you aren't familiar with it, it misdirects your movement (hence the name) or makes you think you have to move faster than you do turning the whole spell card into a hell.
36:19 huh, I felt the same way, haven't really heard many others mention this.
39:03 don't blame you lol, I'd label StB as the hardest spinoff
50:39 12.3 is an expansion to 10.5, both of which are fighting games. It's kinda funny you messed this part up because 12.3 might just be the most popular official Touhou game having gained a decent sized following over the years and has appeared at a number of notable events, including EVO as a side event.
53:00 I'm not sure how familiar you are with the world of Touhou and the characters, but wanted to mention this cause it's a fun fact behind the reason why you have motivation and not lives. Fairies can't die so a life system doesn't make much sense for them. 16 does contradict this a little, but it's minor contradiction since consistency between characters is the more important part when it comes to a mainline bullet hell game
54:13 It's a "ch" not "s". Yeah, phonetically it doesn't make sense in English and it seems everyone gets this wrong at some point
59:46 Impossible Spell Card is much easier to complete (completion being beat using items) than 9.5 and 12.5. I'd actually recommend trying this one again as it's quite forgiving to beginners. Once you get the substitute Jizo a lot of them become much easier, although there will still be a decent number you'll want to use other items on.
1:09:27 lololol
UFO is rarely recommended to beginners because it's one of the hardest ones for survival 1cc. LoLK is also one of the "hardest" (it's not once you learn how to bomb spam) but at least it has pointdevice mode which can be nice for beginners to improve their skills.
1:09:36 So am I. Wish ZUN would try out another mechanic like it sometime. GFW was actually a tie in with one of the official manga, the first official manga in fact, which follows the three fairies around with Cirno (and later Clownpiece from 15) also appearing. It's cute and has a story not meant to be taken too seriously, much like the game. The art starts out pretty meh, but improves greatly over time.
You might want to check out the fighting games too. There's single player story mode as well which can be fun if you're not interested in the multiplayer scene. Unfortunately, if you go in order you're also going backwards in difficulty. It can be nice if there's any characters you liked in particular as well since there's only 1-2 new characters in each as opposed to the 6-10 new characters each game for the bullet hells. Although, if you like the characters and worldbuilding best source is the omake that comes with each game (you can find translations at the bottom of the character pages on the wiki) or the official literature. If you're looking to try out extra stages, 16 is the easiest to do if you understand how to use the mechanic properly, probably the only one where the difficulty would be somewhere between easy-normal (fitting that you can unlock it with an easy 1cc). 7 also has a fairly easy extra, and I'd also say 8, 10, and 12 have good extras to start out with.
Yes misdirection does seem like a trap for people who move way too much. Dispite me being a complete noob (only made to stage 6 on EoSD once while using all 3 continues) I noticed pretty quickly that you don’t have to move that much to beat it. However due to New players often panicking it’s pretty easy for them to get lost in the bullets and get hit.
@@fluffyfre
Nver understood misdirection until this comment
But it wasn't a problem since it was my second 1cc, so i was good enough to deal with that loss
@@fluffyfre absolutely, I think it's worth noting small movements are less natural on keyboard. These games really feel like they're made for arcade sticks, which is cool
50:38 The biggest OOF of the video. But you're probably already aware by now.
What's wrong with it? I'm not in the know.
@@adamofblastworks1517
He mixed up two games. Touhou 12.3 is an expansion to and references save data from Touhou 10.5 (not TH12) which is a fighting game. Touhou 12 and Touhou 12.3 have nothing to do with each other.
Yeah, when I was doing my research, the website I was looking at referred to the games and the expansion by number rather than name, so I guess I misread and assumed because 12.3 came right after 12
And considering I didn't play the fighting games or the expansion, I had nothing else to base it off of. I'm just happy that my biggest mistake in the video wasn't something that actually invalidated any of my actual points
@@Adze
No you're all good. I think you did an amazing job highlighting each game and their mechanics. Besides, even when you didn't like something, you expressed why in a reasonable manor.
also while we're still on topic, the mechanics on touhou 8 of extra spell card after defeating the boss, is called "last spell" not "last word". last word is the even harder extra spells only accessible from spell practice.
All in all fantastic video, but recommending LoLK and UFO is just plain evil
he deffo didn't add for new players on those for a reason, christ almighty...
Its fineeeee The first touhou game I played was LoLK and I only died 0/+99 times to clownpiece
@Dung Tran Quang WBaWC has hell in the EX stage: hard-to-see bullets. Still never going to be as bad about it as any game in the Len'en series though...
@@danielokit1619 my friend made me go on a trial by fire and boy i died to the first enemy and it wasnt even the boss
This reminds me of my project which was around half an hour long but I put my whole heart and soul to it and this video shows that you spent so much time and love which I appreciate 🤗
This was a very long video essay. It's not for me but I recognize the effort you put into this. Great stuff!
I feel the same, was hoping they would talk about the stories of the game as well not just mechanics
This video deserves to be better known for how well it is explained, I am from the Spanish language (I am not Mexican), I understood it very well and I liked your analysis a lot (I am so sorry for my English)
Holy shit man this was a really good video. You deserve so much more attention.
I'm surprised this channel is relatively small. While the Touhou games generally are kind of light-hearted and jokes around the lore for some characters are kinda sad. Anyway, I'm loving this channel so far this was a pretty well made video, props to you going through every main bullet hell installment!
Incredibly amazing video, you absolutely get my like. I don't think I've ever seen someone going this deep on a technical level as people will usual just talk of the gimmicks on a superficial level. I'm glad you liked it, it's an extremely addicting series.
BTW, I noticed you said "they" a lot when talking about development. I can't remember if you mentioned it at the start of the video, but all of those games are made by one single guy. Except the fighters, of course.
I'm glad you liked the video. My whole thing is looking under the surface to figure out how exactly games work and it's nice to know that resonates with people.
In my research, I came across references to both ZUN and "Team Shanghai Alice," as dev credits which gave me the impression that the early installments were solo projects while later titles were picked up by a studio with the lead position going to ZUN (I think it was the word "team" that really threw me off). I now realize that was a mistake on my part and I should have dug a little deeper, but I don't think overall it really impacted any of the points I wanted to make.
5:00
Hakurei orb is the true final boss. This is an undeniable fact of HRtP.
Now more true than ever.
@@MaxArceus misumaru is balling
@@mrrp405 i hate Misumaru's Balls. Literally-
@@OkamiKai6980 You mean Jimbo?
@@HyperVanilo oh yeah Jimbo. Actually nah not him, But his siblings.
Alright I know this video is really out of date with the new Touhou games, but dame this video is very nostalgic to me now. This video helped me get into Touhou more when I was getting started. I may not be a big Touhou fan now, but I’ll always appreciate this video
About a year ago today, I took my first step into the Touhou series, played every official game, and I don't regret it one bit. Funny how this appears in recommended now...
I discovered Touhou because of one of the bands that I've listened to which is Unlucky Morpheus. I stumbled to a page about them in touhouwiki and it turns out, they were once a Touhou doujin circle. I ended up becoming curious about Touhou after.
I unknowingly listened to their Touhou arrangements from one of their albums titled Jealousy. All I thought was it was a homage to X-Japan's album Silent Jealousy since they also based the album art from that and also a track titled Jealousy of Silence.
I've been a fan of Touhou for ummmm 3 weeks now and I fell in love with the music, my favorite one is Night of Nights/Flowering Nights
edit: If you guys are wondering I found the song in a rhythm game lol.
I've been a fan for 4 years
@@SnowzZeroIsCool
I’ve been a fan for 8 years lol, damn time flies...
ive been a fan for about a year now and best theme is apparitions stalk the night ofc
Been a fan since 09, I feel old
I don't even know what touhou is why am i watching this on 3am
Shmups have always been a genre I've loved but never been much good at, especially bullet hells. That being said, I've just grabbed the demo for Wily Beast and if it plays half as good as it looks I'll be grabbing the full game when I can afford it!
Always good to see a new video from yourself showing up in my sub feed :)
Well I very much appreciate your support (and your own content). Wily Beast is definitely a decent starting point though of course like any bullet hell, you've gotta put the time in.
But in case you don't feel like waiting, I can definitely recommend any of the earlier games where I feel you can ethically pirate them. They may not have all the QoL, but they're still great in their own right.
What a neat video! I've been into touhou for the past decade and I still learned some things from this video (mainly how the passive game mechanics work.. obviously I knew that the meters at the bottom of the screen for games like Subterranean Animism were important but since I couldn't actively interact with them I didn't really bother to learn what they actually were doing lol).
Since you're new to the series and a lot of this is just based on your own research and personal experiences I'm not going to be too hard on the errors. You've done a lot more research than a lot of other people trying to get into Touhou do, after all!
This is the first gameplay heavy Touhou informational video I've seen, and if the goal was just to explain the mechanics, then I think you did a good job! But there were some game mechanics I'm surprised you left out, perhaps just because you only played a few stages into each of the games. You mention a few times about the unique attacks of the bosses, but I feel like the video would've benefited from actually showing some of those mechanics instead of just how the game plays as a whole. For example, how the Prismrivers in PCB attack you differently based on your character, how Reisen's lunatic eyes in IN change the bullet patterns, Yoshika regaining health, how Seija *flips the screen* !! I was really shocked that you didn't even mention that IN has two ending routes with different boss fights (and I believe HRtP does as well?) I feel that exploring those character gameplay quirks would have shown the personality of the games a bit more. As it stands, when the games are reduced down to "the same thing but the way you get points is different", I feel like it does the series a disservice. Even if the point wasn't to discuss the games' stories, a little blurb about the premise and the atmosphere of each game would have been a welcome addition to differentiate them from each other. You make mentions of the quirky dialogue, so spending a moment to highlight some characters would have been nice. The majority of Touhou fans like the series because of the characters, not because they're really into danmaku games, so when I can count on one hand the number of characters that were even named in the video... I'm not sure if this is the best intro for the main draw for the series.
I think overall I have to echo the sentiment that it's difficult to place an audience for this video. It doesn't really work for people who have no idea what Touhou is about because it focuses almost entirely on the nitty gritty score multipliers and doesn't do much to show why the series is so beloved, and people who already play the games already will know most of this stuff. For people like you, who were already interested in the series and wanted to start playing it but didn't know how to start, I think this video is very helpful! You're right that Touhou is really bad at making game mechanics obvious, so having these game by game breakdowns is really useful, but I'm not sure if your goal was just to put out a strategy guide.
I was also extremely surprised by your game recommendations for those looking to get into the series. UFO and LoLK for newbies?? Based on the gameplay footage you didn't make it past the 4th stage for most of these games (which is when the difficulty spikes) so I understand you honestly not knowing, but they have some of the most frustrating boss fights in the whole series. I'll be interested to hear your opinion on LoLK when you go up against Clownpiece lmao
I want to reiterate that this was a very well put together video, and I enjoyed seeing the evolution throughout the years! Thank you for helping to make Touhou more accessible for new fans :) !
I think the video makes more sense when you consider the angle I was approaching it (which I admittedly didn't explain too well in the video).
Basically, I wanted to take a look at the series with a focus on how it changed from game to game. I feel like the progression of a series is something that not many video essayists have seriously tackled and I wanted to try my hand at it. Plus, it gives me an excuse to force myself to play through a series I'd been putting off. I plan on doing this same kind of thing with other series' in the future (though I'll admit that starting off with a 22 game series was ambitious, even for me. Probably going to stick to series' with 3-5 installments)
The way I prepped for this video was by basically marathoning the series over the course of a week (I had vacation time). I recorded the first hour or so of each game for footage and then I'd play a bit afterwards. For the most part, I tried to at least get to the final bosses on normal just so I had a general idea of what the game has in store for the player. It's just that since I only recorded the first hour or so, I don't really have footage of any later stages (and I'm well aware of the difficulty spikes. I'm currently trying to 1CC EoSD and Sakuya keeps kicking my ass).
I recommended LoLK and UFO because those were two of the games I enjoyed the most. I found both of their unique gimmicks to be incredibly satisfying and engaging. And maybe I didn't quite internalize the difficulty spike because at that point, I had a few dozen hours of gameplay experience with the series as opposed to the zero hours I had when I first started recording. Regardless, players who are having trouble can always drop the difficulty down.
And I will say that I had a ton of fun making this video and I was honestly surprised at how consistently polished the games are. When I play through a series, especially one as old as Touhou, I expect the first installments to be pretty janky. But even though there were some visual and design issues, the core mechanics and movement was always surprisingly tight, even before the changes that improved it further (the switch to Windows and the engine work that happened with MoF)
I'm glad you liked the video. After the many hours I put into it, it feels good that people are having a good time watching it.
@@Adze The thing about the difficulty is that both UFO and LoLK are among the hardest games in the series and that the difference between Easy and Normal is actually pretty massive, if people go from Normal to Easy they might find themselves disappointed because it would feel too easy, that's why not many people recommend UFO or LoLK as the first game to start with (especially UFO) and that's also why many people recommend IN, the difficulty is good, it gives you a lot of resources and it has a really cool mechanic: Bullet deletion
That's a lot of info to tackle, and i think i can't read it in a single night without dozing off ngl
@@--8594 it was like three paragraphs
Such a great comment to add to the video! Personally, this is the kind of video I want to see to understand what a thing is about. The game mechanics of a primarily video games focused fandom/series are really important to me. Even if this video didn't help me understand Touhou as a phenomenon/fandom, this helped me to understand where that all originates from, which I find valuable. Just my two cents :)
"you can't reactively deathbomb"
me in IN: nervous sweating
Love your meticulousness, attention to detail, and clear cut division between objectivity and subjectivity.
I've been going back and replaying 6, 7, and 8 for about 2 years now but now you've made me want to play EVERY single game in the series
Kudos ^_^
And I must say that listening to you do this, you have a passion for it and if you wanna carry on doing them, go right ahead sir
You earned a new subscription. YOU DID A FANTASTIC JOB WITH THIS MASSIVE REVIEW OF GAMES. Thank you for opening the door to the touhou universe in an understandable manner!!!!. I am definitely going for all of the touhou games available on steam.
I literally just downloaded TH6 and 12.3 this morning and I already love it
Awesome video. Thanks to it I learnt more about Touhou and made me want to try any game of the series, even though I have zero experience with bullet hell games.
How does this boi only have 600 subs this is a really well made analysis vid
Commenting to give this video favor with the algorithm.
This is astonishingly high quality for a video from a user with under 1k subscribers and I’ll definitely be checking out your other videos.
Much appreciated. This video took a lot of time and effort to make, so I'm really glad people are liking it.
My favortie thing to come out of the Touhou series is by far all the melodic death metal doujin bands, that either later became real bands, or formed a band. Spetsnaz, Wooming, and Sawacy is everywhere.
A great intro and quick review of every game packed in a nice video essay package. Really good stuff! Hope you get some more traction!
30:35 One additional thing for Imperishable Night, on the topic of mechanics introduced and quickly discarded, there's the familiar system. Many enemies will fire or generate familiars, usually wispy sorts of orbs though they can change for bosses (Reimu's yin-yang orbs and Marisa's little magic circles come to mind). These can only be shot and destroyed while human, but can be passed through as youkai. Familiars can unleash bullets as part of the pattern and if destroyed they can clear bullets in a small radius. If the enemy generating the familiars is destroyed, all of their familiars go poof too. There are some patterns that get easier with well timed enemy destruction and their familiars clearing gaps.
40:25 Not very important in the grand scheme, but I did miss the distinct spell cards for the player's bombs for this game. Here we just have a circle with minor differences between Reimu and Marisa. No Fantasy Seals or Master Sparks here unfortunately. Subterranean Animism also doesn't use spell cards as bombs, but at least they have some flavor with the different shots.
51:55 Most people are quick to bring up ZUN as being the sole developer for the series. For 12.3, the art is much nicer at this point for the portraits as the artist for an official tie-in doujin is recruited for this game. This being the Touhou Sangetsusei comic series. The story is by ZUN, with a couple illustrators doing the art. It starts with Eastern and Little Nature Deity with another illustrator, Nemu Matsukura, then it is handed over to Makoto Hirasaka (the one for this game) for Strange and Bright Nature Deity, Oriental Sacred Place, and Visionary Fairies in Shrine. The story is all about the fairies doing their things with plenty of banter and plucky fun.
56:55 Also not so important, but the shot selection ties in with the story. The available characters; Reimu, Marisa, and Sakuya, have their main device/weapon act up and sort gain a mind of their own. The shot type decides whether you are bringing your seemingly cursed but powerful item, or relying on your character's abilities on their own. Reimu's gohei flies around and smacks things as well as expands for the bomb, Marisa's Mini-Hakkero turns into a flamethrower, and Sakuya's new dagger also flies around and stabs things (plus her knives slow down time for her enemies?).
As for an "Evolution of..." recommendation, I'm always a sucker for Ace Combat games. I was unable to play the PS1 series, but lucked into stumbling into the PS2 "Holy Trinity" as those came out. There's mobile console games and at least 1 phone game if I remember, but there was quite the gap in time between games for the late 2010s. AC7 has revived the series in a grand way. Further, Project Wingman was an indie game heavily influenced by Ace Combat and started during the big time gap. It had a successful Kickstarter and I feel is a great love letter to the series. Likely not the easiest games to get your hands on, or even a series you'd enjoy at all. But one can hope.
i always loved touhou for the music and the characters, and i always wanted to become better at it, but due to my colorblindness and the backgrounds and bullets i never really can get far into a game since i dont see the god dam bullets comming at me. Love the indept video, was pleasantly suprised when you covered all the games instead of only the windows era, or the most popular ones.
Amazing video. Keep up the good work. We dont really get long form touhou content like this often so this is really appreciated.
wonder how many times im going to question my sanity while playing these
I sold my sanity for clearing 3rd week of Violet Detector
i sold my sanity trying to beat clownpiece in lolk in easy mode
THE most comprehensive Touhou guide out there so far. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for making this game make more sense! I didn't even know or understand more than half of those mechanics before watching this video. Literally, my reason for playing Touhou and being a Touhou fan was "haha curtain fire go brrr". This makes things so much nicer!
Yeah, the information is definitely out there, but it's really poorly explained in-game.
If it weren't for me doing research for this video, I wouldn't know about half the mechanics either
We need more people creating Touhou video essays. Great job!
Oh man, this video was so good! Your voice is nice to listen to, the videos were informative and perfectly depicted the differences between the games (to me, at least, I'm not a Touhou pro, I barely even got to Sakuya on Easy Mode in EoSD - Tewi and Reisen are definitely gonna laugh at me). I've been on a sort of Touhou meme video binge lately, and your video was a nice 22-course-meal-sized snack.
I gotta say this was a very enjoyable video, props to you for playing all these games even if I'm a bit sad that you didn't attempt to complete at least one extra stage for it considering that they're pretty much the most memorable part of the game usually (beating Yukari or Flandre in their games are huge highlights of my experience with EoSD and PCB) and that you didn't cover the fighting games since they are as much of an official touhou game as the bullet hells are and they make some fun uses of the danmaku mechanics from the mainline games.
Maybe for another video you could cover fan games since, in my opinion, the biggest and most important part of touhou are the fan creations and there's some bangin games for any genre imaginable. You have luna nights for metroidvania, fantasy maiden wars for strategy rpg, labyrinth of gensokyo and genso wanderer for dungeon crawler rpgs, puppet dance performance being the best pokemon game I've ever played despite being fanmade and not having anything to do with pokemon aside from the gameplay, and who can forget visual novel classics like "Sakuya gives you life advice and dabs".
I did actually attempt one of the extra stages, but it was just way above my capabilities for the time being.
I didn't do the fighting games for two reasons. Firstly, I suck at 2D fighting games, so I don't think I'd be able to fairly represent them. Secondly, at 22 games played as-is, the scope would have been a bit much even for me.
I'm not against checking out some of the fan games. That's one thing I really do like about ZUN. Since he doesn't really care about protecting his trademark, it opens the door to a lot of awesome derivative works. I do think I'd like to dive more into Touhou lore in my own time beforehand so I can properly appreciate the writing.
Dude, seriously, you need more views and subscribers. Ever since I watched your Katawa Shoujo video, I know that you’re a great youtuber, you’re so underrated man
It sucks to be late at the party, especially if the party was like 11 years ago!
But we still live for it
Don't worry I just started getting into touhou like last month, you're not alone...
just hop in the fandom 5 month ago lol
@Ching Chong yeah but the memes and musics mostly from 2011
7:55 HARRY UP!
Oh God, I love that game. Sariel's music and Eternal Shrine Maiden are so epic.
I watched this WHOLE VIDEO before I had to clean the mansion!
Honestly, Touhou is probably _the_ best multimedia-franchise I've ever encountered with BY FAR AND AWAY the best fan community.
I'm so so grateful to have gotten into it more than a decade ago.
Touhou 12 has another quality of life change that you didn't mention. In all previous iterations before TH12, you had to stay above the "Item Get Line" in order to receive the current max point values for each point item that gets magneted to you. That means (in Touhou 6 - Touhou 11) when rushing up the screen to collect all point items, you'd have stay up there for a second to make sure that every item collected will be at max point value. If you triggered the magnet but then immediately rush back under the Item Get Line, all the remaining items that you are still magneting to you will not be max value. Touhou 12 was the first game were that was changed. From Touhou 12 and onward, you can move to top screen and quickly move back down to safety. All the point items on screen you collect from that will be at max value, not matter where you are on screen at that moment.
I am truly fascinated by your explanations and very grateful you took all that time to analyse ever single one of this games. What a great video! You deserve thousands of subscribers.
my mind immediately gave me the lyrics when you played bad apple and it wasn't even the right version
EVER ON AND ON
commenting for the algorithm because the effort put into this is very respectable and it deserves more attention
nice job
You deserve way more subs and views, this is actually better than a lot of the stuff I see on RUclips. It sucks that a lot of smaller RUclipsrs like you haven’t gotten the recognition they deserve. Also, I like how you refer to Cirno as “Little Shit Fairy”.
Completely insane video , really simple to understand how the games works and your voice is clear and helped me a lot understanding everything you said
+ 1 follower
I really love how ZUN takes the favourite characters of the fanbase and makes them playable.
Sakuya being playable in TH 7 and 18, Cirno being playable in TH 16 and literally having its own game, Sumireko and Seija having their own games, and so on.
It's just so warming to have a developer that puts so much trust in its fanbase overall, at a point where the notions of copyright and fanmade don't really exist :D
Sakuya is playable in 7, 8, 9, 14, and 18
Hey, Adze, there are 32 games in the Touhou Project Series from 1996 to now: that is 5 PC-98 games and 27 Modern-day Windows Games
海外でも東方愛されてて嬉しいよ。
@Charles Michiru Gallo 100% agree.
original game is fun.
original music is awesome.
original art is cool.
fan game is also fun
fan music is great(thank you iosys)
fan art is very good.
perfect content.
I remember watching this video 2 years ago while i was getting into touhou. Now three 1'ccs later i came to thank you for the introduction to the series. 💜
Kinda the same may I got into touhou
i'm glad the most popular one of these videos is by someone that actually *gets* the ufo system
watching hour long video essays on franchises i havent played or ever shown interest in, ahh... good times.
forreal though--great video! :D tysm for making it!
48:04 yo a Parsee kick
This is such a good video on the touhou series i started playing since touhou 7 insanely good and underrated series
Fantastic video! One of the best and most in depth videos I've seen on Touhou.
If you're still looking for video suggestions have you thought about covering the Touhou fighting games? They are considered official games as ZUN helped work on them.
That is one very great research! I enjoyed it very much, thank you for it.
How'd this pass my radar gdi, a 1 hour ToeHoe Essay. Hell yes!
:D
Fantastic video! Very thorough, and I feel it's great for people trying to get into the series.
I remember I found Touhou about a decade ago when I was in high school. I just remember discovering the music, and being like, "hey, where's this from?"
Glad you're a fan of Touhou bud! I made sure to sub; hope you're doing well.
53:39 "Little Shit Fairy" such a great nickname for Cirno.
great fairy wars was so good, the freeze mecanic was so fun and rewarding to play with tbh
Lil' Shit Fairy is the best name I have ever heard for Cirno and I'm all for it. Great video!
I'd like to note something about Double Dealing Character that makes it one of my favourite games, and that's Marisa B. Her bomb is a a circle that slowly moves up the screen, dealing damage and erasing bullets of course, just like any other bomb. What makes it special though is that if it erases bullets, it converts every 5th bullet absorbed into a power item. This is only really applicable for Lunatic and Extra stages, but its extremely fun being able to throw yourself at the enemy, bomb, and reap the benefits of multiple lives at a time. The only time this doesn't work is during spellcards. So stages and non-spell cards on bosses work just fine
The other shot types are really fun and ridiculous too, but Marisa B feels more like a puzzle, figuring out when to bomb and when to die to reset your bomb counter to maximize the amount of free life pieces you can gain. This is absolutely broken imo, but it is kind of balanced by how stupidly hard the bosses can be. The stage 3 boss on lunatic feels like a stage 5 boss. The stage 5 boss flips the screen, 6th messes with your hitbox, so overall, 'cheating' like its Impossible Spell Card feels just
Also it's not seer-no, it's cheer-no
chiruno
Great video
This was a really fun ride!
I'm a fan of Touhou for a bit more than a year, and boy, it sure has lots of content!
I really like 12.8 and 17, but what I really enjoy about the series is the lore and the immense creative freedom ZUN gives to the community.
In fact, I would really like to see more people talk more about the fangames of the series!
If I had to recommend some of them, I'll suggest Luna Nights, Azure Reflections, Third Eye, Tale of Beautiful Memories, Yoriyami Dancer and New Super Marisa Land
I really like how you presented your video, so I'll be sure to stick around!
May I point out a few mistakes made by the author? well, as a Lunatic player, I want everyone to have correct knowledge of the game mechanics (and flex with my knowledge, hahaha)
leeeets gooo
Touhou 1
you seem to be infinitely better at arkanoids than me.
19:34. "Most"? SoEW, LLS, EoSD, MoF and HSiFS, two of these don't even have grazing.
25:50 It's not new, it's been around in LLS as well and in MS Extra stage.
40:40 Grazing does NOT affect the bar
and MoF only has 4 power levels, 5th is just a free bomb that does not increase your power.
48:49 11 seconds*
49:32 They do not. You need 4 pieces for a life and only 3 for a bomb, so there IS a difference.
50:48 first serious mistake
12.3 is a damn fighting game which has NOTHING to do with UFO's plot.
55:45 Trance is effectively godmode, it does NOT go down with a hit, it just makes you invulnerable for 10 seconds.
59:41 the easiest to clear. I am serious. A full (with items) completion took me only 5 hours or so back when I was a normal player. Just... uh... think a bit until you've unlocked the torch and the substitutes, then combine it with a doll and clear pretty much all the spells without dodging. All the non-hidden achievements took me about 9 hours, except the one that is unlocked upon playing for 10 hours (it was kinda boring)
1:01:50. No, you do not get up to 5 graze if you just stay, you just get that 5-graze item for staying next to a bullet for 2 seconds.
1:03:50. Was that a sarcasm? If yes, I am deeply sorry. If no, then... uh... the releases are the most broken, abusable and cheesy system out of all the special game mechanics.
Great video, and since I noticed someone pointing out the error with 12.3, I'll just say something you've missed:
in EoSD there's a hidden difficulty rank point system that makes the game harder or easier based on how well you're doing, increasing when staying alive, grazing, picking up items and gaining a life, while reducing when getting hit, bombing or missing items
32:24
Tiny but significant error you made there which many people actually do, so let me explain. In this game there are so called "Last Spells" as well as so called "Last Words", both of them have absolutely nothing to do with each other and need to be differentiated. The "Last Spell" is what you were talking about there at the given timestamp, it is also often called the bonus spell and as you explained, it is an optional spell that you may fight if you meet the time orbs requirement of the stage, but without the risk of losing lives and bombs if you happen to fail it.
But Last Words on the other hand are a special kind of spellcards that you do not face in the regular game at all, no matter what you do. They are instead first needed to be unlocked by achieving specific conditions, like for example "complete xyz difficulty with xyz", and afterwards they appear in the game's practice mode where you specifically chose them to get the opportunity to face them. It's just one single spellcard at a time that is meant to pose an especially difficult challenge of a bullet pattern. Every character that appears in this game has exactly one Last Word including the playables and they all have different conditions you have to meet to get the option to select them in the practice mode.
People regularly get this mixed up because it's two similar sounding new mechanics that both first and last appeared in this exact game, so no worries, but I felt the need to clear this up.
@Ching Chong Yes, this only appears in Imperishable Night. When you select one of the Last Words to start attempting them, ingame you will see the term "Last Word" in the place where normally the chosen game difficulty is shown.
Ten Desires has a similar mechanic under a different name though. There it's called "Overdrive" which is basically a collection of a few chosen spellcards you see in the maingame, but in a changed form where they are much harder than the Lunatic version.
thanks for this video it informed me a lot about this series and now I'm interested in it (also now I realize that touhou has been everywhere in my life without me realizing it before)
33:13 I think they did that because of the spoilers
also I think it made for High-Scores not to beat the game
Your style of commentary hooked me throughout the entire video. Watched the whole thing in one go without getting distracted once.
Me: *Just chilling listen to video doing other stuff.*
*SA and LOLK main theme start playing*
Me: *start having PTSD*
I've been playing for years but still didn't know how a lot of mechanics worked until now! Excellent video!
got this in my recommended after spending 8 hours beating a song called "we hate touhou" LMAO
beat saber?
@@AllVoiceHowdy yep
Same, but after listening to Tewi-ma park on a loop.
An extremely well-made video. Thank you for making such a great project! Strength needed to carry on with a Touhou-related video of mine has been restored.
I broke down laughing when Cirno was called "Little shit fairy"
"ARROGANT, DITZY LITTLE SHIT OF AN ICE FAIRY AND I FUCKING LOVE HER."
I lost my shit at this line
This video is criminally underviewed and underappreciated. Keep up the stellar work.
I disagree that the art is "ass".... The quality can vary from game to game....... but I genuinely feel that ZUN's art has a lot of charm, and is often very cute........ UFO imo has the best set of portraits.
There definitely is BAD art in Touhou (Sakuya in EoSD ...... lol....... Satori in SA....... ect) but I think you should've given it more credit than you did!
At 23:30, right as U.N. Owen kicked in, I knew what was about to happen. I'm pretty new to Touhou, and I started playing Th6 a few months ago, without ever really playing any of the others. Th6 is my first Touhou game and it holds a special place in my heart. I haven't finished it due to being poo poo and bullet hell games tho. This was a great video and it helped me feel like I am really starting to be a part of the Touhou community. My only real complaint about Touhou is that I feel like I'm late to the party, but everyone is really welcoming and I'm glad to be here in the first place. Sorry this is so long and probably wasted your time, but I just wanted to say something and thank everyone for helping me get into Touhou, because I probably would not be here of it weren't for everyone being really nice and helping me feel like I fit in. Again, sorry about the length and personal stuff, but great video!
The only exposure I had to Touhou is the music and the, uh... other art...
One thing I think you should have mentioned is the ranking system that was in Touhou 4 and Touhou 6. Where the entire game gets more difficult the more lives you have. This is separate to the "Easy" "Normal" "Hard" and "Lunatic" difficulty selection before a run starts. In the ranking system, the difficulty shifts while you are playing. This does two things, it gives struggling players who have few lives left more forgiving bullet patterns and speeds, and it rewards skilled player (who don't take damage) an opportunity to take on an even greater callenge. (And of course, more bullets = more graze and more points collected from finishing bosses = more points.) I absolutely love the ranking mechanic. It's super fun to pull a perfect in the early game to be rewarded with more callenge. I even find myself reseting only after taking a single hit because I want to play the more difficult version of the run. This is why find myself going back to Touhou 4 more than Touhou 5 when I wanna go back to the PC-98 titles. I was disappointed to see you didn't mention it.
If you never noticed the adjusting difficulty, let me give you a tip on the easiest way to see it. Play Touhou 4 (normal mode should be good enough) make it to stage 3 less than 2 lives. Then make it to sage 3 again without taking a single hit (also on normal mode). You should be able to notice that all the bullets will be faster and more plentiful.
I'm just gonna keep on adding new comments when I have something new to say. (Because I'm too lazy to write out a whole essay)
mmmmmmmm zun's drawings are perfect actually
Can we talk about how...uh, distinctive...the music is for this game series?
Every time I play a ROM hack of another game that has custom music in it, I'll hear music I've never heard before that has a certain, distinctive feel to it and think to myself "that's from a Touhou Project game, isn't it?" If a music list is attached to the hack, I might then check it to confirm my suspicion, and only rarely have I been wrong. ^^
Isn't this the game with the funny meme music and a metric f*ckton of hentai?