The Touhou Project | ResetEra Community Thread
Artist's Pixiv Page
(Thanks to shockdude for the part 1 image, and both upandaway and LeleSocho for the original community thread!)
Welcome! This thread is here to talk about anything Touhou, whether it's your experience with the main games, news, fan content, hamburgers, and MIDI trumpets.
But I know Touhou is about creepy porn/waifus and impossibly hard bullet curtains for masochists. That's not for me!
Well, wait a second. When you hear "Touhou" on the internet, it's probably about the fanbase or fan content, and the characters are sometimes naked… and after that there are the ridiculous bullet-filled screenshots/videos that try their hardest to intimidate outsiders, but that's only the end if you want it to be! The image of Touhou in the eyes of passing observers is not even half of it. The games are really good, even if you aren't very good at danmaku bullet hells, on Easy and Normal - those crazy Lunatic-difficulty videos are intimidating, but if you ever played games like Gradius III, Touhou isn't in an entirely different universe. The art and story are PG-rated innocence, charm and fun, the music is great, and the gameplay is tight and arcadey and refined to the maximum degree year by year since 1995.
Beyond any fan material or ridiculous Lunatic 1cc runs, I think the games can stand on their own as a great franchise. It's a bit of a shame that onGAF ResetEra and most places, Touhou is only associated with porn and moe - the main series goes a long way back and it's super fun and is worth the attention! This OP is here to hopefully present this subtler side of Touhou for the people who don't know about it, or just satisfy the curiosity of whoever cares. Give it a try!
But I don't know what Touhou is!
Touhou, or the Touhou Project as it is officially known, is a series of 2D Shooters (abbreviated STGs), all made by 1 person commonly called ZUN, from art, to music, to coding. Originally, the games were made with inspiration from DoDonPachi and Darius Gaiden, designing shooters around a greater number of bullets in beautiful patterns. All games have difficulty levels, the easier ones being more like old school shooters if you'd add some more bullets and make them slower, and the harder ones completely filling the screen with fireworks.
ZUN makes repeated comments that the Touhou games attempt to fight the persisting trend of STGs overly complicating themselves with options and features, opting to let players simply have fun dodging bullets. And true enough, the series remains fairly simple and consistent throughout.
The charming art, setting and dialogue, and captivating bullet patterns and music, caught on with the Japanese doujin scene and Touhou became the subject of trillions of fan works, including music, manga, games, videos, cosplays, conventions, tropes, graffiti on abandoned walls in Mexico, and every other man-created division of entertainment. Some of them retain the original innocence and charm of the original series and some of them don't. It's safe to say that there are as many types of Touhou fan entertainment as there are types of entertainment in general.
THE CHARACTERS
The Touhou Project series currently has very large number of characters. Due to the nature of the series, not all of these characters are terribly important (with most serving as filler characters) but as far as the official works go, these are the two to be aware of:
THE CREATOR
He's called ZUN (actually Junya Ota), he likes to drink beer, his music has trumpets. His art is terrible in a good way. He made all the main games by himself! His circle is called Team Shanghai Alice and he's the only member. He's collaborated with other circles and artists to produce other official works (like the fighting games and the print works).
Part 1: The Main Games
Artist's Pixiv Page
The main games are generally divided into the Retro Era (1-5), Modern Era 1 (6-9), Modern Era 2 (10-13), and Modern Era 3 (14-Present)
The series follows Reimu, a shrine maiden in Gensokyo, as she cruelly beats youkai into submission for messing with her. Sometimes she just beats people for no reason, too, but the important part is that they always deserve it. Each game follows a different incident.. but that's the gist of it. The stories are always fun and the dialogue is hilariously silly and charming. Whether you read up on it or get it through playing the game, it's enjoyable.
And you can buy them! Classic Era and up, there are plenty of places selling them physically (the Touhou Wiki has a purchasing guide here!). They're not too expensive, but obviously more expensive than they are in Japan. The games are also available on Steam now! As of mid 2020, all games starting from Touhou 10 can be bought from there (except for Touhou 14.5). Fair warning: all of ZUN's shooters lack official translations... English patches are available, however!
For any newbies: Scher had a short beginners' guide for the Touhou games back in the old thread. This MotK post is also a bit more comprehensive.
Retro Era
The Retro Era games were all made for a computer called NEC PC-9800/01 (or short PC-98), which means it's nigh impossible to find them, much less run them authentically. There are emulators to emulate the computer, provided the games (if you go that route, please use the emulator T98-NEXT, because it's the only one that can do the audio properly). The games have also been translated into English, so don't forget to download the English patch!
Modern Era 1
One innocent day in 2001, Touhou 6 - EoSD got released on Windows (finally!), and shortly after, all previous games stopped being sold. It was a serious reboot, with only 4 PC-98 characters appearing ever again, no more cheeky ghosts, an entirely separate canon, and much higher quality art, music and gameplay. This is where Touhou started growing to what it is today. As far as the grand majority of fans are concerned, Touhou started here and the previous games don't exist. From here on, every game has tons and tons of characters that are everywhere in the fan content. You'll recognize them all instantly if you look anywhere else Touhou-related.
Most people will tell you that games 6-7-8 are the "golden trilogy" of Touhou, introducing most of the popular characters, being everyone's favorite games in the series, with really good music and gameplay. You could say the combo of those 3 games one after another (and yearly, at that) is what made Touhou explode so big. These are the games to check out if you want to see a snapshot of what Touhou is, although for the most part, the whole series is consistent.
Modern Era 2
There were some notable changes from this point on. Starting here, bombs get critically changed, 1cc becomes doable to more people, and the game-specific features start to get a more involved. Some of the games are liked more than others, some more than the classic trilogy of games, and others less so. Also from Touhou 10 onwards, there is a conscious effort to connect the games, with the events of Touhou 12 and 13 being caused by the domino setup in Touhou 11.
Modern Era 3
The current Era of Touhou. This Era has continued to be a bit more inter-connected than the classic games (with the new benchmark being "a manga-only character becoming playable in one of the official games). With that said, it's still Touhou, so the games are still light on plot and not too continuity heavy.
This Era is also the most accessible Touhou has ever been. Whether it's the canon mainline games or the fan made titles, more Touhou games have been made available outside Japan. Specifically, you can now buy (most) Touhou games from Steam. As of this edit all Modern Era 2 and 3 shooters are available on Steam.
And in case you're not sure with what game to start, here is a useful video:
Artist's Pixiv Page
(Thanks to shockdude for the part 1 image, and both upandaway and LeleSocho for the original community thread!)
Welcome! This thread is here to talk about anything Touhou, whether it's your experience with the main games, news, fan content, hamburgers, and MIDI trumpets.
But I know Touhou is about creepy porn/waifus and impossibly hard bullet curtains for masochists. That's not for me!
Well, wait a second. When you hear "Touhou" on the internet, it's probably about the fanbase or fan content, and the characters are sometimes naked… and after that there are the ridiculous bullet-filled screenshots/videos that try their hardest to intimidate outsiders, but that's only the end if you want it to be! The image of Touhou in the eyes of passing observers is not even half of it. The games are really good, even if you aren't very good at danmaku bullet hells, on Easy and Normal - those crazy Lunatic-difficulty videos are intimidating, but if you ever played games like Gradius III, Touhou isn't in an entirely different universe. The art and story are PG-rated innocence, charm and fun, the music is great, and the gameplay is tight and arcadey and refined to the maximum degree year by year since 1995.
Beyond any fan material or ridiculous Lunatic 1cc runs, I think the games can stand on their own as a great franchise. It's a bit of a shame that on
But I don't know what Touhou is!
Touhou, or the Touhou Project as it is officially known, is a series of 2D Shooters (abbreviated STGs), all made by 1 person commonly called ZUN, from art, to music, to coding. Originally, the games were made with inspiration from DoDonPachi and Darius Gaiden, designing shooters around a greater number of bullets in beautiful patterns. All games have difficulty levels, the easier ones being more like old school shooters if you'd add some more bullets and make them slower, and the harder ones completely filling the screen with fireworks.
ZUN makes repeated comments that the Touhou games attempt to fight the persisting trend of STGs overly complicating themselves with options and features, opting to let players simply have fun dodging bullets. And true enough, the series remains fairly simple and consistent throughout.
The charming art, setting and dialogue, and captivating bullet patterns and music, caught on with the Japanese doujin scene and Touhou became the subject of trillions of fan works, including music, manga, games, videos, cosplays, conventions, tropes, graffiti on abandoned walls in Mexico, and every other man-created division of entertainment. Some of them retain the original innocence and charm of the original series and some of them don't. It's safe to say that there are as many types of Touhou fan entertainment as there are types of entertainment in general.
THE CHARACTERS
The Touhou Project series currently has very large number of characters. Due to the nature of the series, not all of these characters are terribly important (with most serving as filler characters) but as far as the official works go, these are the two to be aware of:
- Reimu Hakurei
The Shrine Maiden of Paradise
The shrine maiden at the Hakurei Shrine and the main main character, and her job is exterminating or sealing off youkai, but with her easygoing attitude she ends up befriending whoever she defeats. She's cheeky and really full of herself and youkai troll her endlessly. Solidly the most popular Touhou character (evidently). She and Marisa are BFFs.
Her shot type is usually homing or high spread, and she's pretty balanced overall, great for beginners in most games.
- Marisa Kirisame
The Ordinary Human Magician
A human magician who lives in the Forest of Magic. It's kind of a major point that she's a "normal" human in the sense that she wasn't born with crazy powers like Reimu, and isn't a magician by species like Alice. She's childishly condescending and obsessively likes to steal or gather interesting things for no reason (her signature laser Master Spark was copied/stolen from Yuuka).
In the games, she's always one of the fastest characters with high attack power and penetration but extremely small spread, so she's usually used by more advanced players.
THE CREATOR
He's called ZUN (actually Junya Ota), he likes to drink beer, his music has trumpets. His art is terrible in a good way. He made all the main games by himself! His circle is called Team Shanghai Alice and he's the only member. He's collaborated with other circles and artists to produce other official works (like the fighting games and the print works).
Part 1: The Main Games
Artist's Pixiv Page
The main games are generally divided into the Retro Era (1-5), Modern Era 1 (6-9), Modern Era 2 (10-13), and Modern Era 3 (14-Present)
The series follows Reimu, a shrine maiden in Gensokyo, as she cruelly beats youkai into submission for messing with her. Sometimes she just beats people for no reason, too, but the important part is that they always deserve it. Each game follows a different incident.. but that's the gist of it. The stories are always fun and the dialogue is hilariously silly and charming. Whether you read up on it or get it through playing the game, it's enjoyable.
And you can buy them! Classic Era and up, there are plenty of places selling them physically (the Touhou Wiki has a purchasing guide here!). They're not too expensive, but obviously more expensive than they are in Japan. The games are also available on Steam now! As of mid 2020, all games starting from Touhou 10 can be bought from there (except for Touhou 14.5). Fair warning: all of ZUN's shooters lack official translations... English patches are available, however!
For any newbies: Scher had a short beginners' guide for the Touhou games back in the old thread. This MotK post is also a bit more comprehensive.
Retro Era
The Retro Era games were all made for a computer called NEC PC-9800/01 (or short PC-98), which means it's nigh impossible to find them, much less run them authentically. There are emulators to emulate the computer, provided the games (if you go that route, please use the emulator T98-NEXT, because it's the only one that can do the audio properly). The games have also been translated into English, so don't forget to download the English patch!
- Touhou 1: Highly Responsive to Prayers (1996) Wiki / Video
Technically finished in 1995 and released in 1996, it was only really made available alongside the second game in Comiket 52 (1997). Combined with the fact it's a completely different game from the rest of the series, this game is easily forgotten or just never discussed with the others to begin with.
The story follows Reimu as she looks for the culprit who wrecked her shrine, and the game plays a bit like Arkanoid. Notably it has the surprisingly good pixel art for the bosses, it's hard as hell, the music is catchy, and.. it's the start of everything. It's a neat little game. And even though it's really hard, the very very useful bombs lighten the pain significantly.
- Touhou 2: The Story of Eastern Wonderland (1997) Wiki / Video
It's generally regarded as the weakest "proper" (excluding HRtP) Touhou game, but it's not bad overall. It introduces most of the ground the entire series stands on. Like with HRtP, you probably won't see it mentioned anywhere ever again.
In the game Reimu investigates the sudden increase of monsters in her shrine, fights Marisa (who then stays next to Reimu as pretty much the second main character), and re-fights Mima who appeared as a small boss in HRtP. And it introduces these lovable ghosts:
- Touhou 3: The Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream (1997) Wiki / Video
Once again a completely different game from the previous two! A versus shooter in the vein of Twinkle Star Sprites, PoDD features multiplayer, lots of characters and endings, and.. insane difficulty. The computer is a notorious cheater, the gameplay is unnecessarily complicated to an apathetic level, and the RNG decides who wins and dies. But even so, it's a really fun shooter, especially in multiplayer.
For the premise, many different ladies in Gensokyo independently discover a cave, and decide to fight among themselves for the right to investigate. The game is second only to HRtP in how the plot and characters are ignored by the fandom, so anything you see there will stay there.
- Touhou 4: Lotus Land Story (1998) Wiki / Video
Either this or Mystic Square are regarded by most people as the best Retro Era Touhous, and more often than not, this one edges the other out. It has really good music, almost as many gameplay foundations as SoEW (such as focus and grazing), it made score more competitive/relevant, and is pretty replayable. All in all, as dated as it is, it's a good game. Also, this is the game with the original Bad Apple that was famously remixed here!
As the story goes, youkai swarm the shrine area, and both Reimu and Marisa go off separately to give the culprit a lesson. Yuuka is introduced here and she appears later on too.
- Touhou 5: Mystic Square (1998) Wiki / Video
The final Touhou for the PC-98, and it's a pretty big send off. The gameplay is smoothed out, the stages and bosses are unique and fun, there's a bunch of playable characters, and all-in-all it's the shiniest and sleekest Touhou for the PC-98, although it's somewhat limited by the hardware. Like mentioned above, for most people it's a close choice between this and LLS for the best PC-98 Touhou game, just for perspective.
Once again, demons and monsters flood out of a cave, prompting Reimu, Marisa, Mima and Yuuka to confront the one behind it all. Alice appears here first, too.
Modern Era 1
One innocent day in 2001, Touhou 6 - EoSD got released on Windows (finally!), and shortly after, all previous games stopped being sold. It was a serious reboot, with only 4 PC-98 characters appearing ever again, no more cheeky ghosts, an entirely separate canon, and much higher quality art, music and gameplay. This is where Touhou started growing to what it is today. As far as the grand majority of fans are concerned, Touhou started here and the previous games don't exist. From here on, every game has tons and tons of characters that are everywhere in the fan content. You'll recognize them all instantly if you look anywhere else Touhou-related.
Most people will tell you that games 6-7-8 are the "golden trilogy" of Touhou, introducing most of the popular characters, being everyone's favorite games in the series, with really good music and gameplay. You could say the combo of those 3 games one after another (and yearly, at that) is what made Touhou explode so big. These are the games to check out if you want to see a snapshot of what Touhou is, although for the most part, the whole series is consistent.
- Touhou 6: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (2002) Wiki / Video
Even among the Windows games, it's a lot of people's favorite Touhou game. The extra stage boss music, U.N. Owen was Her, is one of the most popular Touhou tracks (on the western side, at least), with crazy remixes left and right. The patterns, music, dialogue, are all amazing, and it's a really fun game. In terms of features, it introduces auto-collect and counter-bombing (bombing on death to avoid it), both really important features. It's a great complete package all around, and there's even a patch to make it slightly more up to date with the latter games.
Reimu and Marisa set off to find the source of an (annoying) red mist blocking the sun. They notice a very suspicious mansion...
- Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom (2003) Wiki / Video
It's somewhere around being the most referenced Touhou game in general. The most gameplay videos, the most fan content, the most everything. It's safe to say that it slightly edges out EoSD and IN in being everyone's favorite, too. If you can only check out one Touhou game, make it this one. Score is really competitive, music is great with one of the largest OSTs in the series, the story and characters are iconic, the player choices are diverse, two extra stages, and the first instance of a Touhou game having a game-unique feature... it's all here! Also notably, the first Reitaisai (Touhou convention) happened in 2004 after the game's release, with a score attack competition of the game's extra stage, and things snowballed from here.
When winter has gone on longer than normal, Reimu, Marisa and Sakuya realize it must be an incident. It's worth mentioning that Alice, originally from Touhou 5, returned in this game. Also let it be known that the villains of this game caused everything by stealing the essence of Spring itself. No, seriously.
- Touhou 8: Imperishable Night (2004) Wiki / Video
It might have a tiny tiny bit less of a following than EoSD and PCB, but it's still the most refined of the 3 of them, with the biggest and most diverse/unique player selection in the series, and is generally regarded as having the best gameplay in terms of stages and bosses. Plenty of people confidently swear by it as being the best Touhou game, bar none. There are two stages which have 2 versions, depending on how you play, so it's really fun. Also introduced here is the Last Spell system which, in boss battles, is a no-risk, hard pattern for points and bonuses if you clear it, and for the player, it's just a more powerful counter-bomb that uses two bombs instead of one.
This time, somebody has replaced Gensokyo's moon with a fake moon. No, that is not a joke. Though it's fooled the human population, Touhou's setting has many non-humans who don't buy it. Four separate youkai who have noticed the incident team up with their human allies to investigate the Fake Moon incident.
- Touhou 9: Phantasmagoria of Flower View (2005) Wiki / Video
More multiplayer! In structure it's really similar to PoDD (the only other game in this style) , except.. even harder. You will live and die by the AI's whims. With all the enhancements of the Classic Era, and with tons of characters (a whopping 16, almost double of PoDD), it's a fun game. Just like PoDD, the gameplay system is completely over the top complicated, but it's a good game nonetheless. There's also a patch to play this over LAN or over the internet.
In what is the complete opposite of Touhou 7, there is now too much Spring. Flowers bloom everywhere, and that's really annoying, so everyone set off to see what's going on. Yuuka makes the jump from PC-98 in this game, being the 4th and currently last character to do so.
Available on Steam
Modern Era 2
There were some notable changes from this point on. Starting here, bombs get critically changed, 1cc becomes doable to more people, and the game-specific features start to get a more involved. Some of the games are liked more than others, some more than the classic trilogy of games, and others less so. Also from Touhou 10 onwards, there is a conscious effort to connect the games, with the events of Touhou 12 and 13 being caused by the domino setup in Touhou 11.
- Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith (2007) Wiki / Video
By consensus it is the easiest of the Windows games, and it's a good entry game into the series. Bombs are completely spammable (as you can see in the video), and 1cc isn't really any harder than beating it with continues. It has some really cool spell cards and stages, so it's a fun game. If you're not very good and are looking for a Touhou game you can 1cc, this would be your best bet.
Reimu is at her (declining) shrine when a mysterious stranger threatens Reimu to quit or be crushed. Reimu takes this as well as you'd expect, and flies off to the new shrine she believes is responsible. Oh, and I guess Marisa is here too, despite not having any personal stakes. This game introduces Reimu's job rival, Sanae. Sanae, and the Shrine she is associated with, is a big player in this era of Touhou.
Available on Steam.
- Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism (2008) Wiki / Video
As far as consensus goes, this one is considered on par with 6-7-8. Great music and bosses (insane final boss), interesting player diversity, et cetera. One nice thing about it is that you can play through all stages and endings by playing on Easy, so it's very accommodating. Also noteworthy, is that this game has a really important graze system for score - score is all about grazing. Grazing is this game's soul. It makes for some very funny and intense 1cc runs on the internet.
A suspicious geyser pops up, and with the help of Yukari, Reimu and Marisa go underground while communicating with their partner youkai. The setting and story is somewhat popular in the fandom, and for good reason; it's really neat!
Available on Steam.
- Touhou 12: Undefined Fantastic Object (2009) Wiki / Video
As Touhou gets older, modern games get more and more involved game-specific mechanics, and UFO has a pretty noticeable one. You collect combinations (in 3s) of UFO things to get various rewards for it, either letting the UFO absorb power or just shooting it down. It's a fun mechanic, and the music and stages are not bad, but it's mostly regarded as a weaker Touhou. Important to say, the old bombs come back for this game, which is a nice change. Also, bombs and lives are collected in pieces, and this trend is here to stay.
A strange flying thing appears in the sky and either out of curiosity, to plunder it, or to beat the one responsible (who knows which, really!), Reimu, Marisa and Sanae launch at it.
Available on Steam.
- Touhou 13: Ten Desires (2011) Wiki / Video
With lots of new characters and very diverse player choices, it's more Touhou, and they say it's a good one. The mechanic involves collecting Divine Spirits from fallen enemies, which grant points and the Trance Gauge, which is like a temporary boost.
Lots of spirits show up, but something seems a bit off about them, so the heroines (including Reimu, Marisa, Sanae and Youmu) go looking for answers.
Available on Steam.
Modern Era 3
The current Era of Touhou. This Era has continued to be a bit more inter-connected than the classic games (with the new benchmark being "a manga-only character becoming playable in one of the official games). With that said, it's still Touhou, so the games are still light on plot and not too continuity heavy.
This Era is also the most accessible Touhou has ever been. Whether it's the canon mainline games or the fan made titles, more Touhou games have been made available outside Japan. Specifically, you can now buy (most) Touhou games from Steam. As of this edit all Modern Era 2 and 3 shooters are available on Steam.
- Touhou 14: Double Dealing Character (2014) Wiki / Video
The unique mechanic of DDC has to do with how many points you can collect with auto-collect, but for the most part, the game was purposefully kept simple in the face of danmaku games getting more and more complicated.
Youkai start rebelling, things get crazy in chaos, and Reimu, Marisa or Sakuya take their weapons and march ahead to settle whatever's happening.
Available on Steam.
- Touhou 15: Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom (2015) Wiki / Video
Inspired by the likes of "I Wanna Be The Guy", Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom does away with conventional lives, now using checkpoints for its main "Pointdevice" mode. Though this sounds very forgiving, the game compensates by having a much higher base difficulty than normal. While the game does have a classic "Legacy" mode, it is sadly not re-balanced, making this shooter one of the tougher ones in the series
This game's plot is kicked off when Gensokyo's otherworld neighbor, the Lunar Capital, is attacked by a mysterious third party. While it's not the worst thing ever (the Lunarians are kind of jerks) it becomes our heroine's problem when the Lunarians start invading Gensokyo as their backup plan... With the aid of Ultramarine Orb (i.e. the in-story reason for Pointdevice mode), the four heroines set out to settle things.
Available on Steam.
- Touhou 16: Hidden Star in Four Seasons (2017) Wiki / Video
Hidden Star in Four Seasons is themed around Seasons (doi!). More seriously, each character is associated with a Season (e.g. Spring for Reimu and Summer for... Cirno?!) and gameplay revolves around collecting Season Items and "releasing" their power. The exact effect of these releases depends on which other, Sub-Season you specialize in. Basically, you can pick (Spring-themed) Reimu and give her a Spring shot, or a Summer shot etc.
The Seasons are once again out of control. Fairies (who embody nature) are going berserk and there are extreme weather events, like Spring at Reimu's Shrine, Winter near Marisa's House etc. The protagonists, including longtime favorites Cirno (Touhou 6) and Aya (Touhou 9), set out to find the cause. The game has a fairly unique twist on Touhou's typical six stages + extra structure...
Available on Steam.
- Touhou 17: Wily Beast and Weakest Creature (2019) Wiki / Video
Wily Beast and Weakest Creature is like a mashup of Touhou 7's Cherry System, and Touhou 12's UFO system. You collect Spirit Items (which are like UFOs). And collecting enough Spirit Items puts you into Roaring Mode (which is like Supernatural Border). The unique spin here is that Roaring mode also powers up your character, offering a defensive or offensive boost, depending on your SI combo.
Anyway, all is well in Gensokyo when Beast Spirits begin to pour in from Hell, warning of a plot to take over the surface world. Reimu, Marisa and Youmu decide to join up with three Beast Spirits (Otter, Wolf and Eagle) to curb this threat… but are things really as simple as they say?
Available on Steam. (Fun fact: Toby Fox personally asked ZUN to release a demo of this, and ZUN obliged)
- Touhou 18: Unconnected Marketeers (2021) Wiki
Instead of Point Items (the usual blue tokens), bosses and enemies in Unconnected Marketeers drop Currency (the yellow tokens). You use Currency at the end of every stage to buy Ability Cards, which can do anything (like give extra lives/bombs, grant you passive boosts and even give you extra abilities to play with). The more Cards you buy, the more options you have at the start of a run, and the Cards really let you hone the game's level of challenge.
This time, Magical Ability cards based on real people in Gensokyo have become popular. Four veteran heroines, Reimu, Marisa, Sanae and Sakuya, all set out towards Youkai Mountain to find the ones responsible...
Available on Steam
- Touhou 19: Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost (2023) Wiki
Like Touhou 3 and Touhou 9 before it, Unfinished Dream is a Phantasmagoria / Versus style shooter. The plot is surprisingly continuity heavy for a Touhou game, but long story short: the "plot to take over the surface world" that was talked about in Touhou 17 is finally happening due to the events of Touhou 18.
Besides Reimu, Marisa and Sanae, the game features longtime fan favorites like Rin, Ran and Suika and generally features a lot of Beast themed characters from recent games. The Animal Realm spirits from Touhou 17 and 17.5 are particularly important to the plot.
Available on Steam
And in case you're not sure with what game to start, here is a useful video:
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