New Eden
Ascension to heaven
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- Seen Sep 20, 2014
The Touhou Project 06-08 Megathread
What's Touhou?
Touhou is a series of doujin (essentially the Japanese equivalent of indie) games that are mostly bullet hells made almost 100% by one guy. If you wanted to be a tryhard about it you'd end up encountering something like this
Too much? Well rest assured we aren't exactly doing that crap. The perception of Touhou's difficulty is mixed: in the shmup (shoot 'em up) community, Touhou is seen as "casual" and "a cakewalk" compared to some other games out there, which is actually true. It's a bunch of bullets at your face with very small hitboxes. The games are very popular in the otaku circles in Japan. It has the literal definition of a cult following (and thus it has one in the west too), but even with that the games are a lot of fun.
There are fourteen main games as well as multiple spin-offs (four of them being tournament fighters.) The first five were made for the now defunct PC-98 series of Japanese computers. It was a dying system when the games were released which causes their obscurity. Six and onward were made for Windows.
So what is the plot?
Basically the games take place in the world of Gensokyo (Land of Illusions), a region of Japan that was sealed off from the rest of the world in 1885 A.D. It has a large population of Youkai (Japanese mystical creatures), as well as humans. Due to the time it was sealed off, its culture is similar to that of feudal Japan, though outsiders sometimes find a way to squeeze in.
Located on the border is the Hakurei shrine. A small run-down Shinto shrine that lies in the mountains. It's unique in the fact that it can be accessed from both sides of the border. The only resident of the shrine is Reimu Hakurei, the shrine maiden (and main protagonist) who makes it her job to investigate any strange occurrences happening in Gensokyo.
A lot of Gensokyo's inhabitants are easy-going, but others are some of the cheapest bastards ever.
Why is this so popular?
First off, they're fun. It may seem like a love it or hate it kind of gig, but don't knock it 'til you try it. Second is the overall aesthetic. As noted prior, the main games are made entirely by one guy who goes by ZUN. Literally entirely made by him: programming, music, art, everything. They turn out pretty good too (with the exception of the art, but at least that has some sort of charm to it.) Plus, while the characters and plots, while not particularly deep, are still pretty neat. Surprisingly, Gensokyo has a lot of development put into it (for what it is, at least), and has a good amount of charm.
…Oh, and the music. It's just outstanding. It's to the point that there's a 1.3 Terabyte (and increasing) torrent floating around of fan-made, lossless music. Almost every genre has been done. Metal and electronic tend to be big ones though...so is eurobeat.
There are also gigantic piles of fan-made art, anime, silly videos (which propelled the games' publicity immensely), manga, t-shirts and games just to name a few.
Why is almost every character a girl?
Well why not? Back when ZUN was making the game, most shmups consisted of space ships and giant things in the name of manliness. ZUN figured "well, no one's really made a game with a shrine maiden protagonist, nor a ridiculous shooting game where the cast is dominantly female, so why not?!" and it stuck. There are only a few male characters within the actual cast: some are one-off mentions, one's a turtle, one's an old man cloud (yes. I'm serious.) Another's a giant catfish, and then there's Rinnosuke, who doesn't appear in a game (but in a canon series of side stories.)
So how's this Let's Play going?
I'm going to be going through games six through eight, as well as a bonus when I finish (with my attempted androgynous voice being a guide for each >_>), so somewhat three (or four) LPs for the price of one. I've decided on these three because they seem to be the ones people are most consistently introduced to the series with. If I decide I want to return to playing through the games, I may do one through five in the distant future.
Updates will be by stage, and will be done on normal (I suck.) I'll be using five lives instead of the usual three (spoiler alert: I don't waste enough to justify doing it) in order to get through the game without continuing. I will be doing mostly one character with live commentary, but I might also be doing other characters in a video with no commentary and totally uncut. (I can do this for six, as well as seven, but with eight I'll have to see what I can do.) Also if I sound like a nervous trainwreck it's because of personal reasons and the fact I haven't done a Let's Play in over two years.
Contents:
Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
Update 1: Backstory, and the Protagonists
Spoiler:
Update 3: Stage 2, Boss: Cirno
Update 4: Stage 3, Boss: Hong Meiling
Update 5: Stage 4, Boss: Patchouli Knowledge
Update 6: Stage 5, Boss: Sakuya Izayoi
Update 7: Stage 6, Boss: Remilia Scarlet, Reimu A End
Update 8: Extra Stage, Boss: Flandre Scarlet; Trivia
*will be updated as I move onward. Updates will be daily to ensure there isn't a huge gap in game posts...unless I manage to get enough time to record earlier than expected.
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