So, I've recently gotten a shmup itch that needs scratching, and having never tried the Touhou series, am seriously considering finally seeing what it's all about.
So, what should I start with? The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil?
I might end up buying everything up to Undefined Fantastic Object, all in a big chunk to save on shipping... but I'm a little wary of it, because if I end up disliking or sucking at playing the series, it'll be a waste of like 100 bucks.
Played Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil, and liked what I saw. The player hitbox is tiny, which took a while to get used to. But it seemed not outrageously hard. (On Normal.)
I'm going for the Undefined Fantastic Object demo now. Let's see how it plays. Unless the difference lies solely on sharper graphics, I might start with the first Windows one after all.
Good lord do I love me some Touhou. It's very intense but the lack of obstacles and the empasis of 1cc play in order to beat the game means the difficulty curve flows nicely in every single game. It's the only game where 1cc feels natural. The difficulty is JUST RIGHT.
The visible hitbox has made me better at all other shumps.
When I say lack of obstacles I refer to things like in RType, Ikaruga and Gradius, and though I love those to death, the claustrophobic segments irritate me for the wrong reasons. Touhou is always open and free form.
Alright... the Undefined Fantastic Object demo sold me on the series.
Is the story interesting enough to warrant playing all of them in order? Otherwise I might just start with the latest one for now, since its controls seemed much smoother than Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.
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Dac VinS-s-screw you! I only listen to DOUBLE MUSIC!Registered Userregular
Alright... the Undefined Fantastic Object demo sold me on the series.
Is the story interesting enough to warrant playing all of them in order? Otherwise I might just start with the latest one for now, since its controls seemed much smoother than Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.
From Scarlet Devil up to Phantasmagoria of Flower View the stories are largely self-contained, and from Mountain of Faith onwards there's a slight continuity element, but overall the story is just an excuse for the heroines to beat stuff up, so not really. MOF brought with it a new engine though, so anything after it is a good starting point.
Alright... the Undefined Fantastic Object demo sold me on the series.
Is the story interesting enough to warrant playing all of them in order? Otherwise I might just start with the latest one for now, since its controls seemed much smoother than Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.
Ha. No. That said, they've all got their own unique little mechanics that do change a number of things.
EoSD is totally vanilla. Doesn't even have the boss indicator.
PCB has a separate counter for a 'cherry barrier' that gives you crazy points for grazing bullets while it's up and not getting hit through the whole barrier. PCB is also the only one with a second Extra mode.
IN has the time thing and a partner system. It's complex, but the basics are "focus fire is completely different" and scoring is heavily affected by whether you're in focus or not and what you're doing during those. It also has Last Words, bonus spellcards that bosses will use if you have enough Time when you beat them and a spell-card practice mode, along with a series of super-hard unlockable spellcards unique to that mode. It also has multiple stage 4s and 6s.
PoFV is a versus shmup like Twinkle Star Sprites. Shoot things -> Sends more bullets to the enemy side. Etc.
StB doesn't have real shooting. You have to take photos of the bosses. Also kind of hard to explain. Just look on youTube.
MoF is pretty much vanilla like EoSD, but with the minor quality of life upgrades and it uses the Power option things as your bombs. It has a scoring meter too, but it pretty much just goes up or down by collecting certain items/dying/bombing. The main change is that option behavior is a lot more varied from choice to choice. Also, that MarisaB is incredibly bugged. This is also the point where the games stop having variable stage 4 bosses.
SA gives each character-mode a unique ability. Like being able to scroll from one side of the screen to the other along with the 'cell phone' thingy where your scoring multiplier is higher by either grazing a shitload or staying close to the top of the screen.
UFO has the UFO system which you saw in the demo. Collect UFOs, get various bonuses depending on the color.
PCB has a separate counter for a 'cherry barrier' that gives you crazy points for grazing bullets while it's up and not getting hit through the whole barrier. PCB is also the only one with a second Extra mode.
It also added the visible hit box when you focus and the enemy indicator.
IN has the time thing and a partner system. It's complex, but the basics are "focus fire is completely different" and scoring is heavily affected by whether you're in focus or not and what you're doing during those. It also has Last Words, bonus spellcards that bosses will use if you have enough Time when you beat them and a spell-card practice mode, along with a series of super-hard unlockable spellcards unique to that mode.
IN has a lenient way of cheating death where if you use a bomb shortly after getting hit your partner will use a stronger version of their bomb, and it consumes two bombs from your stock. You still have your standard death-bombing available if you have the reflexes for it.
Another thing it adds is the ability to focus above the POC (point of collection) to auto-collect items when you're at less than full power.
MoF is pretty much vanilla like EoSD, but with the minor quality of life upgrades and it uses the Power option things as your bombs. It has a scoring meter too, but it pretty much just goes up or down by collecting certain items/dying/bombing. The main change is that option behavior is a lot more varied from choice to choice. Also, that MarisaB is incredibly bugged. This is also the point where the games stop having unique stage 4 bosses.
The characters also don't have unique bombs, whereas in previous games you had separate bombs by character, type and whether or not you were focused.
Another big change that wasn't terribly popular with fans was the removal of grazing, which returns in the next game (SA).
SA gives each character-mode a unique ability. Like being able to scroll from one side of the screen to the other along with the 'cell phone' thingy where your scoring multiplier is higher by either grazing a shitload or staying close to the top of the screen.
When the communication gauge is maxed you also auto-collect items. Unique bombs by character type also come back.
UFO has the UFO system which you saw in the demo. Collect UFOs, get various bonuses depending on the color.
And curving lasers.
ffffffffffffffffffffffff
Barrakketh on
Rollers are red, chargers are blue....omae wa mou shindeiru
I'd personally start with EoSD since it's kind hard to go back to after you play some of the later games (lack of visible hitbox and boss indicator being a couple factors). The PC98 part of the series is still pretty fun too.
For some non-touhou shmups, I really like the stuff Platine Dispositif has done, the TWINs series and Hellsinker/Radio Zonde.
So, I played all of the demos, except for Shoot The Bullet, which I couldn't find. After playing them all for a while, I narrowed my choices down to five games.
Perfect Cherry Blossom
Imperishable Night
Mountain of Faith
Subterranean Animism
Undefined Fantastic Object
I initially was going to get Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, but the lack of a visible hitbox in Focus Mode was a deal-breaker. It also didn't help that I thought the art looked irredeemably awful in this one. Starting from Perfect Cherry Blossom, it looked much better, even though ZUN's style isn't my cup of tea.
Phantasmagoria of Flower View annoyed me with the way I had to hammer the Z key if I didn't want to charge my attacks. I also didn't quite like the split-screen mode, which really cramped up the playing field.
Shoot The Bullet sounded interesting, but since I couldn't find a demo, I decided to save it for later. It's probably for the best, since my order was already getting quite expensive. :P
Re:PoFV
There's a setting in the options to change that and use the focus button for charging shots. Kind of useful for some of the scopes I guess. Full constant fire isn't generally the best idea anyway though.
So, I played all of the demos, except for Shoot The Bullet, which I couldn't find. After playing them all for a while, I narrowed my choices down to five games.
Perfect Cherry Blossom
Imperishable Night
Mountain of Faith
Subterranean Animism
Undefined Fantastic Object
I initially was going to get Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, but the lack of a visible hitbox in Focus Mode was a deal-breaker. It also didn't help that I thought the art looked irredeemably awful in this one. Starting from Perfect Cherry Blossom, it looked much better, even though ZUN's style isn't my cup of tea.
I didn't think the art in EoSD was particularly bad. PCB is the best until UFO, and after PCB is goes downhill. You'll have to quote this/use preview since I'm jailed, and I included the IaMP/SWR art (different artist) since it was relevant for the quote tree that originally made me post these (copy + pasting):
PCB - IN - PoFV manual - PoFV - IaMP - SWR:
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
Marisa in particular looks terrible (IMO) in SubAni, but I was just picking the above games so I could also include Sakuya. Some of them look like they have a touch of Down's.
Marisa was harmed the least until SA at which point she joined the rest of the cast in awfulness. I do think the M on her apron in UFO is stupid, though.
Barrakketh on
Rollers are red, chargers are blue....omae wa mou shindeiru
Dac VinS-s-screw you! I only listen to DOUBLE MUSIC!Registered Userregular
edited November 2009
Since you only played the demos I should mention that the overall difficulty jumps rather dramatically from stage 4 onwards in all the games excepted maybe PoFV. Don't be surprised if they end you.
But anyhow, out of your list I recommend playing IN and/or SA first - IN is the easiest of the series (Thanks mostly to the VERY forgiving deathbombing window and the ability to practice every spellcard individually) and SA is my personal favourite out of them all, even if it's really damn hard. goddamned orin
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited November 2009
I've found IN the hardest. I can almost clear EoSD in one credit, and I'm getting better at PCB(my favorite), but IN always breaks me. The Reimu fight is insane, not to mention the endgame.
I've found IN the hardest. I can almost clear EoSD in one credit, and I'm getting better at PCB(my favorite), but IN always breaks me. The Reimu fight is insane, not to mention the endgame.
I've found IN the hardest. I can almost clear EoSD in one credit, and I'm getting better at PCB(my favorite), but IN always breaks me. The Reimu fight is insane, not to mention the endgame.
IMO Marisa is more difficult than Reimu, and I find Eirin to be harder than Kaguya. The latter is a pretty fun fight.
Orin in SA is a rather nasty stage five boss (Youmu isn't bad other than part of the non-spell attacks), and Aya's stage + Momiji (mid-boss) + Aya herself makes for one hell of a stage four. Actually, Aya isn't all that bad aside from Peerless Wind God and her theme is
Staying near the side of the screen makes Peerless Wind God much more manageable.
Barrakketh on
Rollers are red, chargers are blue....omae wa mou shindeiru
I've found IN the hardest. I can almost clear EoSD in one credit, and I'm getting better at PCB(my favorite), but IN always breaks me. The Reimu fight is insane, not to mention the endgame.
I've found IN the hardest. I can almost clear EoSD in one credit, and I'm getting better at PCB(my favorite), but IN always breaks me. The Reimu fight is insane, not to mention the endgame.
Pfft. Use a better team.
Marisa / Alice.
Everybody loves the Malice Cannon. Not quite so broken against Reimu iirc.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited November 2009
They have the best sequence of dialogue in the entire game.
IIRC, before the Reimu fight:
-Why don't you just talk to her like you always do? "Bitch, get out of the way!" Like that?
Marisa's shots are so slow that if you quickly pulse the focus button, you end up combining her and Alice's shots into one horrible stream of death.
I'd say that compensates for their lackluster power for how narrow their attack is.
Marisa and Alice have some humorous dialogue in SA:
M: How many floors to go until we're underground?
A: (There aren't any "floors" in a cave.)
M: Really? I thought places like dungeons always had floors.
[...]
M: Hey, didn't we just bump into you before? That means you're the boss of the dungeon, right?
A: (Yes, she's the boss.)
P: I wouldn't recommend that you treat going underground like a game. You might be trying to get experience points, but you'll just be wasting time in the end.
[After fight]
M: Yeah, I guess I've been wasting time. I didn't get much at all for that.
And then Sanae ends up breaking the fourth wall in UFO:
Secret treasure... ?
Are you talking about those charms with "P" and "point" written on them?
Barrakketh on
Rollers are red, chargers are blue....omae wa mou shindeiru
So, Himeya Shop should be shipping my discs any day now. But thanks to the Miracles of the Internet™, I can play Perfect Cherry Blossom while I wait!
From my experience with the demo a few days ago, I remember I loved playing Sakuya the most. Those homing knives made life so much easier during boss fights.
Now, I intend on going through on Normal, but someone mentioned the difficulty ramps up considerably after the first few stages. Is Easy a safer bet for the first playthrough of a newbie to the series? I didn't seem to have any trouble on Normal, but then again, I only played the demo.
(Just from checking out Practice mode, I can already tell that the WAV music makes a ton of difference. Pretty catchy tunes.)
So, Himeya Shop should be shipping my discs any day now. But thanks to the Miracles of the Internet™, I can play Perfect Cherry Blossom while I wait!
From my experience with the demo a few days ago, I remember I loved playing Sakuya the most. Those homing knives made life so much easier during boss fights.
Now, I intend on going through on Normal, but someone mentioned the difficulty ramps up considerably after the first few stages. Is Easy a safer bet for the first playthrough of a newbie to the series? I didn't seem to have any trouble on Normal, but then again, I only played the demo.
(Just from checking out Practice mode, I can already tell that the WAV music makes a ton of difference. Pretty catchy tunes.)
No. Normal is just right. A shocking feature for a shump. The drawing of hitbox makes you get better at other shumps. Another nice touch.
All Touhou games are designed to be a 1CC game. The difficulty is perfect and flows perfectly between stages and difficulty settings.
Also, Perfect Cherry Blossom is the easiest in the series.
So, Himeya Shop should be shipping my discs any day now. But thanks to the Miracles of the Internet™, I can play Perfect Cherry Blossom while I wait!
From my experience with the demo a few days ago, I remember I loved playing Sakuya the most. Those homing knives made life so much easier during boss fights.
Now, I intend on going through on Normal, but someone mentioned the difficulty ramps up considerably after the first few stages. Is Easy a safer bet for the first playthrough of a newbie to the series? I didn't seem to have any trouble on Normal, but then again, I only played the demo.
(Just from checking out Practice mode, I can already tell that the WAV music makes a ton of difference. Pretty catchy tunes.)
ReimuA has homing shots too, and a smaller hitbox along with finer control. And lower penalties for bombing. Although her cherry increase and death penalties are both worse than Sakuya's.
I still don't understand how people can call it hard. The game itself as a whole isn't easy, but relative to the other Windows games it's the easiest of the lot. Marisa and Reisen will take some practice (normal for stage 4+ bosses), Kaguya is simple (and fun) once you've seen her spell cards two or three times (I beat her on my first try), and the Eirin isn't too bad other than Astronomical Entombing but she's still harder than Kaguya. And IN gives you two things to help you get by that aren't in the other games: Last Spells and spell practice.
1CC is going to take some practice like any other game, but IN is very forgiving.
From my experience with the demo a few days ago, I remember I loved playing Sakuya the most. Those homing knives made life so much easier during boss fights.
ReimuA has homing shots too, and a smaller hitbox along with finer control. And lower penalties for bombing. Although her cherry increase and death penalties are both worse than Sakuya's.
:whistle:
I like SakuyaB. Solid power, extra bombs (Private Square is good for scoring and has a good duration), and I rather like her aimable attack. IMO ReimuA is a better choice than SakuyaA...the latter just feels weak in comparison to any of the other characters.
Barrakketh on
Rollers are red, chargers are blue....omae wa mou shindeiru
Posts
So, what should I start with? The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil?
I might end up buying everything up to Undefined Fantastic Object, all in a big chunk to save on shipping... but I'm a little wary of it, because if I end up disliking or sucking at playing the series, it'll be a waste of like 100 bucks.
Now I do! :P
I'm going for the Undefined Fantastic Object demo now. Let's see how it plays. Unless the difference lies solely on sharper graphics, I might start with the first Windows one after all.
The visible hitbox has made me better at all other shumps.
When I say lack of obstacles I refer to things like in RType, Ikaruga and Gradius, and though I love those to death, the claustrophobic segments irritate me for the wrong reasons. Touhou is always open and free form.
I've never beaten one on Lunatic though.
Is the story interesting enough to warrant playing all of them in order? Otherwise I might just start with the latest one for now, since its controls seemed much smoother than Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.
From Scarlet Devil up to Phantasmagoria of Flower View the stories are largely self-contained, and from Mountain of Faith onwards there's a slight continuity element, but overall the story is just an excuse for the heroines to beat stuff up, so not really. MOF brought with it a new engine though, so anything after it is a good starting point.
Ha. No. That said, they've all got their own unique little mechanics that do change a number of things.
EoSD is totally vanilla. Doesn't even have the boss indicator.
PCB has a separate counter for a 'cherry barrier' that gives you crazy points for grazing bullets while it's up and not getting hit through the whole barrier. PCB is also the only one with a second Extra mode.
IN has the time thing and a partner system. It's complex, but the basics are "focus fire is completely different" and scoring is heavily affected by whether you're in focus or not and what you're doing during those. It also has Last Words, bonus spellcards that bosses will use if you have enough Time when you beat them and a spell-card practice mode, along with a series of super-hard unlockable spellcards unique to that mode. It also has multiple stage 4s and 6s.
PoFV is a versus shmup like Twinkle Star Sprites. Shoot things -> Sends more bullets to the enemy side. Etc.
StB doesn't have real shooting. You have to take photos of the bosses. Also kind of hard to explain. Just look on youTube.
MoF is pretty much vanilla like EoSD, but with the minor quality of life upgrades and it uses the Power option things as your bombs. It has a scoring meter too, but it pretty much just goes up or down by collecting certain items/dying/bombing. The main change is that option behavior is a lot more varied from choice to choice. Also, that MarisaB is incredibly bugged. This is also the point where the games stop having variable stage 4 bosses.
SA gives each character-mode a unique ability. Like being able to scroll from one side of the screen to the other along with the 'cell phone' thingy where your scoring multiplier is higher by either grazing a shitload or staying close to the top of the screen.
UFO has the UFO system which you saw in the demo. Collect UFOs, get various bonuses depending on the color.
It also added the visible hit box when you focus and the enemy indicator.
IN has a lenient way of cheating death where if you use a bomb shortly after getting hit your partner will use a stronger version of their bomb, and it consumes two bombs from your stock. You still have your standard death-bombing available if you have the reflexes for it.
Another thing it adds is the ability to focus above the POC (point of collection) to auto-collect items when you're at less than full power.
The characters also don't have unique bombs, whereas in previous games you had separate bombs by character, type and whether or not you were focused.
Another big change that wasn't terribly popular with fans was the removal of grazing, which returns in the next game (SA).
When the communication gauge is maxed you also auto-collect items. Unique bombs by character type also come back.
And curving lasers.
For some non-touhou shmups, I really like the stuff Platine Dispositif has done, the TWINs series and Hellsinker/Radio Zonde.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHMQkIhASRQ
Samidare, by the same team I think, is also pretty damn good. Main game is only three stages long, but it's basically a prelude to the Extra.
Perfect Cherry Blossom
Imperishable Night
Mountain of Faith
Subterranean Animism
Undefined Fantastic Object
I initially was going to get Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, but the lack of a visible hitbox in Focus Mode was a deal-breaker. It also didn't help that I thought the art looked irredeemably awful in this one. Starting from Perfect Cherry Blossom, it looked much better, even though ZUN's style isn't my cup of tea.
Phantasmagoria of Flower View annoyed me with the way I had to hammer the Z key if I didn't want to charge my attacks. I also didn't quite like the split-screen mode, which really cramped up the playing field.
Shoot The Bullet sounded interesting, but since I couldn't find a demo, I decided to save it for later. It's probably for the best, since my order was already getting quite expensive. :P
There's a setting in the options to change that and use the focus button for charging shots. Kind of useful for some of the scopes I guess. Full constant fire isn't generally the best idea anyway though.
I didn't think the art in EoSD was particularly bad. PCB is the best until UFO, and after PCB is goes downhill. You'll have to quote this/use preview since I'm jailed, and I included the IaMP/SWR art (different artist) since it was relevant for the quote tree that originally made me post these (copy + pasting):
Marisa in particular looks terrible (IMO) in SubAni, but I was just picking the above games so I could also include Sakuya. Some of them look like they have a touch of Down's.
Marisa was harmed the least until SA at which point she joined the rest of the cast in awfulness. I do think the M on her apron in UFO is stupid, though.
But anyhow, out of your list I recommend playing IN and/or SA first - IN is the easiest of the series (Thanks mostly to the VERY forgiving deathbombing window and the ability to practice every spellcard individually) and SA is my personal favourite out of them all, even if it's really damn hard. goddamned orin
Pfft. Use a better team.
IMO Marisa is more difficult than Reimu, and I find Eirin to be harder than Kaguya. The latter is a pretty fun fight.
Orin in SA is a rather nasty stage five boss (Youmu isn't bad other than part of the non-spell attacks), and Aya's stage + Momiji (mid-boss) + Aya herself makes for one hell of a stage four. Actually, Aya isn't all that bad aside from Peerless Wind God and her theme is
Marisa / Alice.
Everybody loves the Malice Cannon. Not quite so broken against Reimu iirc.
IIRC, before the Reimu fight:
Marisa's shots are so slow that if you quickly pulse the focus button, you end up combining her and Alice's shots into one horrible stream of death.
I'd say that compensates for their lackluster power for how narrow their attack is.
Marisa and Alice have some humorous dialogue in SA:
And then Sanae ends up breaking the fourth wall in UFO:
From my experience with the demo a few days ago, I remember I loved playing Sakuya the most. Those homing knives made life so much easier during boss fights.
Now, I intend on going through on Normal, but someone mentioned the difficulty ramps up considerably after the first few stages. Is Easy a safer bet for the first playthrough of a newbie to the series? I didn't seem to have any trouble on Normal, but then again, I only played the demo.
(Just from checking out Practice mode, I can already tell that the WAV music makes a ton of difference. Pretty catchy tunes.)
No. Normal is just right. A shocking feature for a shump. The drawing of hitbox makes you get better at other shumps. Another nice touch.
All Touhou games are designed to be a 1CC game. The difficulty is perfect and flows perfectly between stages and difficulty settings.
Also, Perfect Cherry Blossom is the easiest in the series.
That's widely regarded to be Imperishable Night, an opinion that I agree with. I still find PCB to be my favorite of the bunch, though.
ReimuA has homing shots too, and a smaller hitbox along with finer control. And lower penalties for bombing. Although her cherry increase and death penalties are both worse than Sakuya's.
:whistle:
I still don't understand how people can call it hard. The game itself as a whole isn't easy, but relative to the other Windows games it's the easiest of the lot. Marisa and Reisen will take some practice (normal for stage 4+ bosses), Kaguya is simple (and fun) once you've seen her spell cards two or three times (I beat her on my first try), and the Eirin isn't too bad other than Astronomical Entombing but she's still harder than Kaguya. And IN gives you two things to help you get by that aren't in the other games: Last Spells and spell practice.
1CC is going to take some practice like any other game, but IN is very forgiving.
I like SakuyaB. Solid power, extra bombs (Private Square is good for scoring and has a good duration), and I rather like her aimable attack. IMO ReimuA is a better choice than SakuyaA...the latter just feels weak in comparison to any of the other characters.
Back to practicing Satsuki combos.
I want an Actress Again version for the PC already.
I want my netplay, Goddamnit!
(And no one plays Act Cadenza anymore. Ugh.)
I play Act Cadenza!
Still, I tried AA once and its awesome. Full or waning moon Nanaya / pretty much any Ryougi
http://www.siliconera.com/2009/12/09/rockin-android-porting-doujin-shooters-to-playstation-3/