So There's This Whole Touhou Thing...

So, I've been trying to understand the fascination behind the Touhou franchise, (by reading up about it and such), but I have no idea where I should start story/game wise. Anyone have any recommendations, or good starting points/ why everyone loves it so much?

Or..should I just stay away from it in the first place?

I want to know too actually. All I know about Touhou is from playing Subterranean Animism...

I wouldn't necessarily call it a bad thing. Just addictive.

It's a top-down space shooter type game. (Well- games).

But- yeah. The franchise is huge. There's even rumours of an anime being in the works.

Asides from being able to recognize several characters, I don't know a whole bunch about it- save that among other games of its kind, it can get damned intense.



I have so far kept the series at arms reach- but it constantly beckons.

You guys should actually look at fanbooks. Also Touhou doujin fighters, since it expands on the world of Gensyoko. Like Scarlet Weather Rhapsody.

What is the relationship between this and Ikuraga? They look exactly the same.

The simplest way to describe Touhou?

Bullet hell with cute girls with an ENORMOUS fanbase

I recommmend starting with IN EoSD PCB and come battle me on SWR. =P

If you ever need a download link, just send me a PM. As for why I'm a fan: fanart helps, but they are also just really good games. Hard, but nice.

From my stand point, I see the selling point for Touhou is the music and character personalities. While there are a fair amount of bullet hell games out there that are agreed as being "harder" than this series and possibly better, I haven't seen much substance within other top-down bullet hell shooters that more or less give you an objective and that's it. All the fan art and jokes come from extensive play and immersing one's self into the world known as Gensokyo.

As for a place to start...



That pretty much says my recommendation list. :I

There is no relationship with Touhou and Ikuraga.

For the Touhou let me help you with that Twiengie-onee-chan. Touhou games been made in 1996.

Touhou have 98-predecessor games, those are the first games that came first. Bit you don't need to think so much about it.

Windows games that people been playing now is Eos, Perfect Cherry blossom, ImP, Imperishable night, PoV, Shoot the bullet etc. There is so many touhou shooting games. And every games have a story in it. And those games have their own playable characters.
There is two fighting games too. And you can play most of the famous Touhou characters that is from touhou, it's over 40+ characters. It's only 10-15 characters that is playable, if I guess right. Every characters have their story lines. Those fighting games names "Scarlet weather Rhapsody" and "Unthinkable Natural Law". In the first one you can play 10 playable characters and everyone have their stories. But on the second fighting game, you can only play 4 characters stories "Sanae, Utshou, Suwako, Cirno(?) and Meiling" if I guess it right. But you can still play the other characters.

For the continue after the shooting games, there is some Manga that continue from there. So the manga is related to Touho. So I recommend you to play the games first, then read the mangas.

but like I told you last time, you should just read those Touhou backgrounds



Let's have some fun with that Haburi... remember the last time we had some fun?

You mean when I raped your ass? =P

Yeah I've been wondering too. I'll take those recommendations BTW.

Touhou have always confused me, way to many characters and shit. Even so I have only played Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and realized that I can barely make it past lvl 2 on normal. D:

Gotta get my hands on those fighting games though, they might fall more into my tastes.

Good starting point story-wise would be the windows era games starting from touhou 6 Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, and best if you played it sequentially until the newest to get to know the cast better. Why I didn't say to start from Touhou 1-5 (PC-98 era games)? It's because story began to build and majority revolves around cast in windows era, so you'll be good even if you started from touhou 6.

But gameplay-wise, my recommendation is to give touhou 7 Perfect Cherry Blossom a try first to practice its basics.

As for official manga and novel, you could enjoy it separately from the game since it revolves around new plot, but of course getting into game first would be very helpful to know background of some characters.

And why people love touhou? I can't speak for everyone, but main points for touhou would be its huge amount of cast accompanied by its catchy tunes in games, also as you can see, it has wide choice of doujinshis, and not limited only to hentai doujinshis since there's also significant amount of non-hentai doujinshi which tells alternate settings and interpretations of characters. Also not forgetting wide variations of remixes of themes from the games.



Don't worry it won't bite, so there's no reason to stay away...yet lol.

and finally...helpful link: Touhou wiki

*facepalm* I meant Touhou SWR...

but the opposite, I raped your pussy =P

Nah, I'm pretty sure I'm better at SWR.

Is that a challenge?

How about we take a fight when we get the chance?

@Kona - If you like to try against me...I don't mind

I would admit that at first, i am interested in Touhou only because its huge cast of characters with their own unique characteristics.
Cute characters or not is relative and based from each personal tastes. Though loli is not my thing to begin with. Their character attract me the most.

With a shameless attitude, i claim myself as a fans without knowing any about the story lol.
Try to get my butt on Touhou fighting games like SWR or Hisoten at first. But still, that's not explaining a lot.

Got persuaded by my friend Rin_Penelope here.
He told me that i should give danmaku play a shot because that's the real deal.
Well, i have no talent with it lol. Yet, i still like to play it because it's kinda challenging and insane .. worth to waste my time as well.
I played some and got the story .. though it's mediocre but it's still enjoyable.

At least, only in touhou you talked about tea and cakes at first before doing epic danmaku battle.

Like some have said, start with Touhou which for Windows platform first.
(Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Perfect Cherry Blossom and so on)
If you take yourself as knowledgeable enough to every character of touhou and its story. Perhaps you can try the doujins (preferably official ones).

In the end, it's all about personal tastes.

Thanks for all of the info, everyone. Another question though: I've never played a Bullet Shooter game before. Is there a certain game that is easiest for beginners to play, or am I just going to have to tough it out and learn?

It's tough and you need to learn it. There is no Touhou shooting game that is easy for beginners. But of course every shooting games has their level. So you can just choose "easy mode" then when you starting to get it, you can try a higher level.
Easy as that. Hope you'll have some fun