Touhu games - questions

[darkbulb]

I've heard some here about 'touhu' games and looking them up on wiki and youtube they seem to be very fast moving shoot 'em ups...but I also read somewhere that they have a storyline.

So are these games worth looking into?
There seems to be a TON of them (I'm only looking for PC games/versions). Any thought on which one to to try out to get a good sense of them?

Is there a 'storyline' in them?

[ausdoerrt]

Weeeellll, the storyline is mostly weak and chunky, you only get a few lines of text here and there... Not even all of the recent ones are translated, either. There's a basic skeleton, but most of the stuff that makes it famous comes from fan efforts - doujin manga, music arranges, even related games in different genres. Just try one out and see if you like it, pretty much. Any of 6-8 are good ones to start with (Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Perfect Cherry Blossom, Imperishable Night).

Also, here's a link to a forum post elsewhere with extensive info about the series: www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=51219

[schlagwerk]

If you're looking for a very fast moving, bullet hell shmup, there are a bunch of games out there with higher production quality than Touhou. Though I'll admit Touhou is pretty well focused on what it does: major boss fights with complex bullet patterns. But it doesn't do much else. There are tons of other shmup series out there (mostly by Cave if yer looking for bullet hell) that have deeper gameplay and scoring systems and equally manic boss fights, but aren't as focused on just the bosses like Touhou. Touhou is also easier to get ahold of if you're on a budget, but MAME is supporting more and more games these days ;P
Also I'll admit I like the music in Touhou even if it suffers Ys VI syndrome where the compositions are good, but the instruments sound too crude and MIDI.


If you're playing for story... WHY ARE YOU PLAYING SHMUPS FOR STORY?! ;P
Nah really.. I guess Touhou has that, though the fan base provides much of details because the games are very vague and confusing. Hell, the fans even dictate the personalities of characters to a point and have gotten characters changed through their interpretations of them.
Castle Shikigami has a bunch of talking heads, and if you play the US release of Castle Shikigami 2 or 3 you're in store for some of the most laughable bad scripting/voiceacting this side of House of the Dead 2!

"Big Bro!"
"Little Bro!"
"Dead, but still bros!"

[darkbulb]

Jan 15, 2010 13:50:28 GMT -5 schlagwerk said:

If you're looking for a very fast moving, bullet hell shmup, there are a bunch of games out there with higher production quality than Touhou. There are tons of other shmup series out there (mostly by Cave if yer looking for bullet hell) that have deeper gameplay and scoring systems and equally manic boss fights, but aren't as focused on just the bosses like Touhou.

Castle Shikigami has a bunch of talking heads, and if you play the US release of Castle Shikigami 2 or 3 you're in store for some of the most laughable bad scripting/voiceacting this side of House of the Dead 2!

I don't think Cave ever did any PC games (apart from an MMORPG) but I'll check into Castle Shikigami (but I THINK you need to use something like Dolphin to play them?).

Thanks

[schlagwerk]

Jan 15, 2010 15:13:31 GMT -5 darkbulb said:

I don't think Cave ever did any PC games (apart from an MMORPG) but I'll check into Castle Shikigami (but I THINK you need to use something like Dolphin to play them?).

Yeah, for any of the newer Cave stuff or Castle Shikigami console ports are the way to go (well technically arcade cab setups are "the best" but have fun finding those outside of Asia). MAME runs some older stuff though

So for ease of getting into bullet hell/danmaku shmups, Touhou is pretty simple

[gamesbloke]

Touhou as a series is extremely deep and at the same time the majority of the titles are deceptively simple 'bullet hell' shmups!!

touhou.wikia.com/wiki/Touhou_Wiki

Go above for a great place to start on your Touhou collection...

I am rubbish at 'bigging up' games to make them sound good. So whenever I get asked about Touhou I always show them this shot: -



Thats usually enough to whet people's appetite!!!