What's Veeky Forums's thoughts on Touhou? Smug girls and lasers aside, Gensokyo is a pretty interesting fantasy setting...

smug has a quality all its own

Bonus points for me quoting the wrong person and having a file that ends in "gif.gif". Obviously meant for

It's a Korean visual novel series made by some fat guy named NUZ who's only notable for hating alcohol. The main character is a flying turtle called Genji who fucks every single one of the colorful cast of girls on his adventures.

>there are people on this board that don't remember when it was jokingly called /touhou games/

I'm joking.

well, it is an IP with a specific setting (a fantasy world in a parralel bubble dimension) thats basically fantasy life support.

There are specific characters, a shit ton of them, based on various monsters and gods from japanese myth's and legends.

The deal though is that the maker is pretty good at show don't tell stuff. With the music and variously named patterns of attacks the girls use, he managed to give each one an identity, simple though they were.

It's a series of "bullet hell" type games: you know, the arcade games where you fly a spaceship from the bottom of the screen upwards while dodging ridiculous amounts of lasers and missiles and shooting at enemies, before finally confronting a boss that shoots even more lasers and missiles. Only in Touhou the spaceships are replaced with lolis and lasers and missiles with magic lasers and magic missiles. The gameplay is good if you like those types of games, the music is good as well, but the official art is godawful.

Usually when people talk about Touhou, they don't talk about the games themselves, though, but the shitloads of fanmade stuff that exists. Touhou has for some reason one the most prolific fanbases out there, and there's a ridiculous amount of doujins, music videos, fangames (such as a Touhous fighting game), and even a fanmade animation with quality higher than a lot of actual anime.

Basically, all you need to know is that there are lolis who wear silly hats, they fly and shoot lasers, and will probably eat you.

I've been looking for a good shoot'em game like that. Are there a vast amount of upgrades, weapon choices/combinations, and power-ups?

No. The only thing that upgrades are bosses

Thats dependant on the game itself.

Some have a good deal of options depending on character choice, others are much more simplistic only giving a couple.

The earliest game most people play is EOSD. In it, there are 2 "heroines" to play as, Reimu and marisa. Each one has 2 shot types that power up as you get items for it, and a bomb for each type. Different characters get different bombs with different uses.

Other games will have more or less people to play as, more options, different mechanics, no one game is exactly the same. Even just between EOSD and PCB there is a good degree of difference, including seeing your hitbox when you hold shift to slow down.

So the answer is that you choose your shot type, and get it to full power. Past that, you are stuck with your choice until you fail or win, and choose a different shot type to try.

I've considered villains who go non-violent once they realize they aren't going to get their way, and eventually become passive, or possibly even allies. That whimsical quality where you sit down and have tea with the boss after defeating them is more what Touhou is about for me.

Gonna test it with my next group, which is 100% moralfags who are sure to leave every enemy stabilized at 0hp.

The fighting games have great art, though, so it works out.

All those traits you described are Euroshmup crap. 2hu is a pretty raw game, you usually have 2 or 3 shot types and the closest you get to a power-up is the Bomb, which is either a separate "item" by itself or is derived from your shot power from Th10 forwards.

>derived from your shot power from Th10 forwards.
really only in 10 and 11, dude.

checked

Well, yeah, but the art in those are done by some dude in Tasofro, so it doesn't really count torwards ZUN's art progression.

Oh ? I did play SA, but I've yet to play the others so I thought it stayed that way.
Can I also assume that you go back to needing MAX power to collect all points in the screen, then ?

Nope, in fact TH14 revolves entirely around collecting items from the top of the screen to get extra bombs and lives.

Why, of course, if it wasn't bad enough that Th10 is pretty much noextendslmao all along. One more question, are continues from MoF forwards the same as MoF (Start from the beginning of the stage) or do they go back to PCB style (Continue from where you died) ?

I'm pretty sure it went back to the way it once was but since I never use continues I'm not sure.

Oh right, thanks for the info I guess. I'm still trying to get past Stage 4 in MoF and these new features are killing me. Not only is it just as long as PCB S4, but now I can't power my way through and by the time I get to Aya I have a life left or something like that because like I said, extends are a dying breed here.
Needless to say, I'm still a shitter.

We had a story when entire party initially created rule 63 of touhou characters,and GM,being a touhoumon thought it was intentional and expected us to get all of his references.

*We had a story ,when an entire party unintentionally created rule 63 of touhou characters,and GM,being a touhoufag ,thought that it was intentional and expected us to get all of his references.Shit was surreal.

PCB has the best story

>frilly ghosts have stolen Spring
>are you a bad enough miko/witch/meido to rescue Spring?

That's not MS
>friendly demons take a vacation in Gensokyo
>miko/witch/skeleton go off to the demon world to beat the shit out of Satan for doing nothing wrong
>alternatively play as flower girl, terrorize and bully the demons and threaten to commit demon shoah

>campaign where the PCs go on a righteous crusade to wipe out all the evil youkai of Gensokyo

Sounds fun desu

You've both spelled MoF wrong
>A god from the outside has set shop in Gensokyo and apparently you're a schizo, because voices are telling you to close your shrine
>Now beat the shit out of some 4 people completelyurelated to the incident for fun
And now that you've beaten said god you can go back to your empty donation box and sulk.

>The (((new gods))) have introduced nuclear proliferation!
>are you a bad enough miko/witch to initiate SALT 1?

still wrong
MS has the greatest 2hu story

It all makes sense, Reimu is BB and Kanako and the Moriya crew are the Patriots. Gensokyo is the Big Shell, an elaborate ruse mission setup by Yukari Shalashaskumo.

Don't forget
>If you play as flower girl you stalk witch and make the other witch in the game your meido to learn magic

I'll be honest, i like IaMP story.

>little oni girl makes everyone start having sick ass parties in the hopes of getting other oni to join in. No such luck. Instead starts squatting at the miko's house

Ugh, I'm getting flashbacks to Stripe Pattern simultaneously shrieking about how Byakuren and Sanae are actually evil psychos who genocide the earth daily and doing Urobotchi's stupidass campaign artwork

Does he still fucking do shitty doujin?

If he doesn't, someone does. Its an inevitability of such a large and dedicated fanbase.

Pay it no heed, for it is retarded.

>PCB
>not IN

Yeah, I remember Jiroo moved his emo doujin to Kantai, Zounose also does Kantai, too...

If anything, I'm glad there's less grimdark going around, but I left around the time SOPM's sequel got released and people were /pissed/ about the changes ZUN made.

>tfw nitori goes from shy kappa to racist, fedora-tipping antitheist, and capitalist asshole who brags about how she scams everyone
>tfw nitori became a libertarian

Yeah, kantai is much more easily viable for grimdark shit, despite touhou's fairly gritty backstory.

That, and boatfags actually thought they killed touhou at some point, which was hilarious, because 2 times they beat touhou in doujin sales.

The only really good thig to come out of botes are the abyssal designs and that only because biomech aesthetics are something I love.

>Still not an option to play as an abyssal fleet

Lunarian Master Race

I really loved fighting Suika in 7.5

I mean, for a start just getting to her is a stoneclad bitch on account of the fact that getting past Yukari without a continue is a fucking nightmare on account of how (accurately) broken she is.

So then you have a boss who doesn't just hit you, she also goes after your power bar, the timer and finally your health bar. So you're stuck there trying to deal enough damage as she summons forth the black hole like she's the final boss from Guyver or something.

The main draw with Touhou is the intricately designed bullet patterns on the bosses.
I mean, go looking for the level 3 (I think, might be 4) from Subterranean Animism where the Oni summons forth a fucking river of bullets, complete with trees and waves and you have to navigate your way through it.

>Reisen
>Hallucinatory Electromagnetic wavs
Wew Lad

I like it best when the more escosteric aspects are aknowledged like American space marines and their fairy allies from hell fighting against Lunarians and their Amazon-moon rabbit forces armed with the most advanced technology and magic known to man.

In fact, Gensokyo is one of the few settings where you can have a tribal shaman from the darkest reaches of Africa, an aged Japanese geurilla from World War II who still doesn't know the war ended, a fairy who manipulates ice, and an 80s robot given sentience by a magical red substance in the same party and it would somewhat make sense.

I would say design wise its not bad in general, but the fanbase can get really uppity about dumb shit.

Not that touhou's doesn't, but touhou doesn't tend to attack other fandoms.

Not even just electromagnetic. Any type of wave, really, can be manipulated by her. Sound for example. She's unique in that regard among moon bunnies.

>I like it best when the more escosteric aspects are aknowledged like American space marines and their fairy allies from hell fighting against Lunarians and their Amazon-moon rabbit forces armed with the most advanced technology and magic known to man.
secondaries get out reeeeeeeeee

...

...Okay, maybe the Americans and fairies didn't actually fight the Lunarians at the same time, but that doesn't sound as cool. I've 1CCed EoSD, honest.

>When you're the guy that tells Secondaries all the lies that they procede to parrot because it sounds cooler than actual history

>Any type of wave, really, can be manipulated by her. Sound for example.
What's stopping her from hitting the resonance frequency of everything to break things apart on an atomic level?

magic

>So, just to make sure the point on this is too fine, even if the frequency is dialed in perfectly, most things can not be destroyed by resonance.
Touhou Guide

Magic .

Resistance. Things do still have inertia despite her ability, and do resist it as a result.

>When arbitrary limitations are placed on your abilities but the power to destroy everything is given to a child with no strings attached

There are actually strings attached. She can't use her ability without her hands, its just that most people in gensokyo aren't specialized in hand to hand

How did Flandre get her abilities anyway? It can't be because she's a vampire, since other vampires don't seem to have that amount of power.

Flan isn't even that powerful, if you want to see absolutely broken abilities talk to Yuyuko "I can "invite" anyone to die" Saigyouji, though I'm sure she's more than mature enough to understand the consequences and the fact she shouldn't use it.

...

She is and does. Its why she never has. Thats actually been outright confirmed.

Flan and remi are unique to themselves. Its probably their unique abilities due to being as powerful as they are.

Have you seen the sheer amount of aura they can emit at will?

What about radiation? Stuff is melt-proof?

Yuyuko is a very-much needed failsafe in case Reimu or any of the other S-listers were to go bananas and start abusing their powers. She has exactly the personality needed to ensure her abilities aren't abused, which makes her actual danger level relatively low unless you're intentionally being needlessly evil.

Oh no, not at all. But it does resist it. Reisen does have that ability in SWR and hisoutensoku. Its one of her average abilities, even.

But things will resist it, through inertia or sheer magical aura.

Frankly, thats more up to eiki. Even then, the system is set up so that the S-listers would fight each other should any one go insane.

That and most of them are elder youkai that know whats up in general, and realize it'd be a bad idea. Mamizou, as an example.

>She has exactly the personality needed to ensure her abilities aren't abused, which makes her actual danger level relatively low unless you're intentionally being needlessly evil.
From your point of view

From her backstory. She suicided to prevent her power from killing others for no reason.

His description isn't wrong, and its been pretty much confirmed that she does indeed reign in that ability because she doesn't like killing people.

>implying that killing anyone will stop them from just beating the shit out of Komachi and coming back as a ghost to carry on doing whatever they were doing
Tenshi shits over shinigami all the time and Komachi's only the ferrywoman.

Komachi is lazy, not weak.

That describes 3/4 of the characters.

>Komachi is lazy, not weak.
Komachi please.

What
Said. That and the fact that if anyone is really up to no good, like, going so psycho that Reimu can't solve it tier, that person would be going against a lot more than just Yuyuko and the Ministry of Right and Wrong.
You have to remember that aside from Yukari and crew, there's still the SDM, the tengu and Youkai Mountain people (Aya being confirmed to have gone easy on Reimu), the celestials, and so on.

So, what was plan B in SA if Reimu hadn't been able to put down Nuclear Powered Yatagarasu? Just have Yukari create a boundary between her and the nuclear power she was using or something?

Youmu would have been last line of defense as the Prophecy foretold

>Eternal Nuclear Winter in Gensyoko

CIRNOS TIME HAS COME

>CIRNOS TIME HAS COME
Sadly no.

Reimu's power is always winning if something becomes an [incident], so she is the Plan A, and the Plan B.

REMOVE YOUKAI remove youkai
you are worst oni. you are the oni idiot you are the oni smell. return to SDM. to our ningen cousins you may come our contry. you may live in the zoo….ahahahaha ,youkai we will never forgeve you. cetnik rascal FUck but fuck asshole oni stink youkai sqhipere shqipare..oni genocide best day of my life. take a bath of dead youkai..ahahahahahMORIYA WE WILL GET YOU!! do not forget ww2 .gensokyo we kill the king , scarlet manor return to your precious castle….hahahahaha idiot oni and youkai smell so bad..wow i can smell it. REMOVE YOUKAI FROM THE PREMISES. you will get caught. hakurei+kappa+tengu+marisa=kill moriya…you will ww2/ rinnosuke alive in gensokyo, rinnosuke making album of gensokyo. fast rap rinnosuke gensokyo. we are rich and have gold now hahahaha ha because of rinnosuke… you are ppoor stink oni… you live in a hovel hahahaha, you live in a yurt
rinnosuke alive numbr one #1 in gensokyo….fuck the moriya,..FUCKk ashol oni no good i spit in the mouth eye of ur flag and shrine. rinnosuke aliv and real strong wizard kill all the oni farm aminal with rap magic now we the hakurei rule .ape of the zoo presidant yukari yakmo fukc the great satan and lay egg this egg hatch and gensokyo wa;s born. stupid baby form the eggn give bak our clay we will crush u lik a skull of pig. Hakurei greattst shrine

IT WILL BE A SILENT SPRING

The thing about it is, okuu is not the strongest being in gensokyo. Any number of elder youkai can counter her. She's basically fire cirno on crack, so she's not terribly hard to deal with. Even cirno was able to fight against her for an extended period, and thats cirno's natural enemy.

Gensokyo is built on a really thin balance of checks and balances where its a free for all stand still.

>reimu's power is always winning

This actually isn't true. Its stated that she has lost and retried several times, and will continue to until she does win.

She does have unfair techniques, but nothing outright broken.

You Speak of Lies. The Prophecy spoke of a Human Goddess.

>Did you ever hear the tragedy of Al Gore "the wise"? I thought not. It's not a story the Mikos would tell you. It's an Outside World legend. Al Gore was a Vice President of the Outside, so powerful and so wise he could use technology to influence the environment and preserve life... He had such a knowledge of the science that he could even keep the ice caps, such as the type your ice fairy relies on, from melting. Technology is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful... the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. It's ironic he could save the environment from death, but not himself.

Is it possible to learn this power?

Not from a Shrine Maiden.

Funny thing is, cirno doesn't seem to rely on the environment like other fairies.

She can act at full capacity despite environmental effects.

The art is a very interesting case of "Let's see YOU do better!"

ZUN is good at one thing: He makes each instantly recognizable. That's how this works so well: youtube.com/watch?v=9lNZ_Rnr7Jc

He's great at character design, just...not at closing the deal. But other people picked up on it, and ran with it.

Also, if she tried that, Reimu takes off the kiddy gloves.

You don't want that.

No one wants that.

Indeed. Let us not forget the time she fought Okuu in a reactor before finally leaving of her own accord.

Back when I first started coming to this board, it was not uncommon to refer to Veeky Forums as standing for Touhou Games.

So I 'm gonna say at least the smug lolis have some history here.

and then went on to fight goliath, no worse for wear.

He's also really loose with the IP, and welcomes fan works at a level most would think insane, even going so far as to add certain fan interactions into the games, albeit on his terms.

Its created a really connected and generally nice community.

This, seriously. 90% of Gensokyo's named residents can destroy everything if they actually used their powers to their full extent. That's why everything is handled with comparatively tame bullet hell danmaku battles and spell cards: any two characters going all-out against each other is likely to be apocalyptic.

>Are there a vast amount of upgrades, weapon choices/combinations, and power-ups?
No, this is cancer for babies. Open your heart to CAVE's DonPachi series (and everything else they made) and you will see the light. otherwise Gradius 3/5 is what you want

Sauce?

>Not even just electromagnetic. Any type of wave, really, can be manipulated by her.
That sounds pretty damn hax if you really think about it. Hell, at the quantum level EVERYTHING is a wave to some extent.