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mdct
Sep 2, 2011

Tingle tingle kooloo limpah.
These are my magic words.

Don't steal them.

The latest game is Touhou Kikeijuu ~ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature, the 17th main game in the series.
It's about how much capitalism blows.
Yee haw, pardner.

I've heard about Touhou before, but what is it?
Touhou is Japanese Discworld.
A franchise started as a series of shoot-em-ups made by a dude who calls himself ZUN. Set in a small pocket dimension called Gensokyo out in the Japanese boonies, girls shoot lasers at each other for sport and conflict resolution. Along the way, ZUN uses the setting as commentary and satire of the modern world, covering topics like income inequality and immigration through a fantastic lens and a whole lot of metaphor. If the writing part's not for you, it's easily ignorable, though I don't recommend that!
They originated on the PC-98 back in 1996, and has been going ever since. It has since expanded to standalone music, books, manga, different genres of games, and has a thriving fanbase that produces way, way too much content. That part's calmed down a lot in the last few years, but it's certainly not gone.
They're pretty good games and the official writing is great, but it'd be disingenuous to say that's the typical draw to the series. People mainly get into it 'cuz of the music, which is excellent, and the oodles of fanart of the characters, which can be really hit or miss.

Touhou has, in its over 20 years of history, managed to become exceptionally influential. It's in the official Guinness Book of World Records for something that's not actually representative of its reach, but it's very appropriate that it's there to begin with. It finds its way everywhere, and once you know what to look for, you'll probably start to notice it.
Just a few examples,
It pops up in manga a lot, since a lot of mangaka got their start doing Touhou doujins (hobbyist fan-comics.)
The character Lux from League of Legends is a whole-character reference to Marisa,
It's indie darling Undertale's second-biggest inspiration.

Sounds cool, where should I start?
I have no idea.
Like, no, really, there's no good place to start. You new to shoot-em-ups? Maybe 7, 8, 10, or 13. Experienced and want a challenge? 11, 12, 15. Want to start from the beginning? 6, although I don't recommend that one. You want to start from the real beginning? 1 is really weird, don't tell me I didn't warn you.

What about fighting games? Yeah, there's six fighting games. Really, if you want to play one, the latest, 15.5 is likely your best bet. This one's not listed with the main games in the link up there, since the fighting games are developed by a different group with ZUN's supervision. This one's getting a port to the Switch!

Or how about before you jump into the games, you want to do some reading? There's official manga and some books. The books can all be read on the wiki, and the manga is really easy to track down. One of them, Forbidden Scrollery, is one of the only official products to be released in English, and was excellent. I recommend picking it up.

Regardless, the official games are being released in an easily-purchasable way by ZUN himself, on Steam. If you click up on the logo up there or here, you can get all the ones that have been put on there already. They're easy to track down for free, but c'mon, toss him some support as you will. 6-9 aren't likely to be put up as the last few get tossed onto Steam, since he doesn't have the code for those anymore.

You mentioned fan stuff...
There's a lot of it. Like, way too much. But there's some good stuff, if you know what to look for.

Fangames

Luna Nights is fantastic. It's a very tightly designed metroidvania with fantastic bosses. Getting a port to the Switch soon with allegedly exclusive content. Highly recommended.


Fantasy Maiden Wars is Super Robot Wars, except Better. It features quality of life that the main series doesn't have, tightly designed maps, and interesting bosses (unique, as far as SRW goes!)
Currently only available in Japanese.

There's some real old, famous ones out there too, like Megamari and Super Marisa Land and whatnot. I don't recommend them; Touhou fangames have only learned qualities like "level design" in the past few years.

I'll update this with more new ones as they come out , because there's been kind of a resurgence of good fangames.

Music
Touhou keeps the doujin music scene alive, single-handedly. If you look up "touhou remix" anywhere you are likely to find hundreds. Have a good time. If you want specific recommendations, :justpost:

Art
"Touhou" is Pixiv's single largest media tag with more entries than literally anything else, so, have a good time, I guess!
Bkub is still supreme.


I started the games and they're really hard!
Yep. Playing on Easy is fine, don't let anyone cow you into think you're a worse person for it. 6 has a penalty for playing on Easy, but 16 is completely fine with it.

Reimu should be in Smash, right?
Exactly correct.

mdct fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Dec 28, 2019

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Nages
Dec 31, 2011

Just yell at her like you always do. Bitch, get out of the way!
mima

iospace
Jan 19, 2038


Mina is dead, forever

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.
I was vaguely hoping for a poll asking which goast gang you'd join.

WarpedNaba
Feb 8, 2012

Being social makes me swell!
If I can't join Yuyuko's, what's the point?

Nook
Jan 27, 2015

put reimu in smash

Dirt Road Junglist
Oct 8, 2010

We will be cruel
And through our cruelty
They will know who we are

Nook posted:

put reimu in smash

I just played a Smash game for the first time in like a decade last night.

There are so many characters :ohdear:

But I would probably just keep picking Reimu if she was in it.

bare bottom pancakes
Sep 3, 2015

Production: Complete
Posting to say that goast gangs are... Good.

Wark Say
Feb 22, 2013

by Fluffdaddy

Nook posted:

put reimu in smash
Put Meiling and Sakuya in Project x Zone 3.

Also Alm and Celica, but that's another fandom entirely. :shobon:

Meeko
Sep 15, 2017

That's right! I'm the counting sheep, Meeko. And I'm a proper sheep youkai!

DLsite's english side has all four Fantasy Maiden Wars games (the complete box is not currently on sale on any digital platform), and they're 50% off until the 17th.

https://www.dlsite.com/eng/fsr/=/language/en/keyword/sanbondo/age_category%5B0%5D/general/order%5B0%5D/trend/per_page/30/from/fs.header

You can use Paypal (and i guess like, 3 credit card options) too, which makes this probably the most accessible option to acquire them right now.

Few fangame recommendations from me:




Fantasic Danmaku Festival Part II is a extremely pretty sort of remake of Perfect Cherry Blossom, and is worth the buy for the visual/audio experience alone, but it's pretty solid as a shump.



Hollow Song of Birds is polished and faithful enough to pass off for a mainline touhou game while doing its own cool things, probably the most accessible of shump fan games, and is free. Soundtrack's on bandcamp if you wanna support the creator after.



Tempest of the Heavens and Earth is a 2d sidescroller action game that's pretty intense, if a bit on the short side.Definitely good for the asking price.

Takanago
Jun 2, 2007

You'll see...
Doujin music owns. And Akatsuki Records is p great imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N03WobKfdlY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P8iFYvnJOE

sb hermit
Dec 13, 2016





CuddlyZombie
Nov 6, 2005

I wuv your brains.

This is a drat good op. Also, hooray for a new game release!

Ammat The Ankh
Sep 7, 2010

Now, attempt to defeat me!
And I shall become a living legend!
I claim this thread in the name of the Almighty and Humanitarian Taoist, Toyosatomimi no Miko.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwvXV097fXc

fluffyDeathbringer
Nov 1, 2017

it's not what you've got, it's what you make of it
Setz also does good 2hu fanarts (warning: safebooru, in case that's necessary)

SyntheticPolygon
Dec 20, 2013

Clarste posted:

I was vaguely hoping for a poll asking which goast gang you'd join.

Otter gang supremacy imo. Though I guess technically they are turtle gang or sneaky predator gang.

bare bottom pancakes
Sep 3, 2015

Production: Complete

Ammat The Ankh
Sep 7, 2010

Now, attempt to defeat me!
And I shall become a living legend!
Are otters sneaky predators IRL? I just thought they grabbed shellfish and smashed them open. Not a ton of subterfuge involved in that.

SmokaDustbowl
Feb 12, 2001

by vyelkin
Fun Shoe
clownpiece

SmokaDustbowl
Feb 12, 2001

by vyelkin
Fun Shoe
touhou is about ordinary witches



as a totally normal witch, I recommend Touhou Shoot the Bullet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R5zSM0QMH0

SmokaDustbowl fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Aug 13, 2019

Meowywitch
Jan 14, 2010

Clownpiece, but with her own very big game

Captain Invictus
Apr 5, 2005

Try reading some manga!


Clever Betty
I made a bunch of touhou music collections from an old 30 gig megatorrent of stuff that was on...the original nyaa I wanna say, and while I haven't updated it in a long time it's still handy, if you're able to afford it and like some of the stuff in there consider buying the albums of the associated artists!

quote:

MUSIC POOOOOOST

June 29th 2018: IT HAS BEEN A LONG TIME since the last one but this one is a fuckin' doozy and has 1250 tracks or so, so enjoy! https://nyaa.si/view/1052036

March 2017: Hey so do you want some more music here's 260 or so more tracks ok enjoy
https://nyaa.si/view/911716


feb 2015: Hey so I procrastinated on this poo poo for like 3 months and wound up making it uh, a lot bigger than it was supposed to be, so here's Touhou Lossy Music Collection #24, with over 250 mp3s in it

https://nyaa.si/view/660748

I deleted a good 10 gigs worth of bullshit making this one. It'd be nice if I could sort albums by which are actually midis disguised as mp3s, it'd let me cut down the overall size quite a bit since those fuckers both sound awful and take up far too much space for what they are.


edit: Alluvion exploded(edit: june 29th 2018 SO DID NYAA.SE!!!). I've reuploaded the entire current music collection(1-23 + Booby Prize Folder) to Nyaa

Collection 1 is all the really large mp3s, more than 10 or 15 megs each, the rest are in alphabetical order and collections 1-8 lack descriptions as I hadn't started doing those for each collection yet. I have gone through roughly 10,000 MP3s so far out of around 28,000 in the initial collection I grabbed, so about one in every 7 MP3s is kept (this is skewed by certain artists who are entirely poo poo and get deleted and certain artists who are entirely awesome and have their whole folders copy/pasted into the collection). This is not the final collection, I haven't even gotten through all the artists that start with an "H" yet. The total collection will probably clock in at around the 4k-5k mp3 mark at this rate.

Here's a quote from the old thread with a bunch of descriptions of what's inside, lumped together in one giant mass of words:

quote:
Hey. Merry Christmas. Allow me to give you the gift of an 8-months-late, absolute slog to get to this point, double-sized collection #20. Fuckin' Iemitsu. 199 MP3s.

Collection 18: The second part of the Golden City Factory collection finishes it off, the next collection will resume with the next artists following GCF. This torrent has some less than stellar pieces, but overall plenty of good techno and a surprising amount of slower paced stuff is included. Bugbeard, one of the artists involved, has both frantic techno and slow jazzy works. There's a few, in particular one by "Lucy a.k.a. Ky" that are pretty beep boopy and disjointed, but even those can be good when done right, and this is a good example. It doesn't stick to it but changes rapidly and is better for it. Bugbeard also did a Nuclear Fusion track, embedded below, that I REALLY enjoyed. It surprised me because I am of the opinion that it is next to impossible to pull off a "slow" Nuclear Fusion, but he made a...well, the best way I'd describe it is as a "jaunty stroll" version, and he does the same thing with Emotional Skyscraper which works pretty well. There's some excellent piano versions of tracks included too. Guri has next to no presence in this collection as I specifically did most of their stuff in the first one.

Collection 18: Golden City Factory dominates this one. In fact, there's so much GCF, I had to split it into two parts just for them! Techno and synth are the name of the game, and Guri is my favorite of the group. They are definitely a love or hate group, so just know that going in. But there's some interesting tracks they've put out and some of them are among my favorites of ALL Touhou remixes, such as Guri ~ Evening Star.

Part 15: An average collection. About the only remarkable stuff in here is Gatling Cat(because their name owns), Girl's Short Hair for having drat good male vocals, and Ginrei who do some decent synth swing. There was a colossal amount of crap aside from this, so if you think this stuff is bad, just imagine what got thrown out! Also why I wanted to start the next collection off with Golden City Factory, because I love their stuff.

Collection 14: Free-Logic is more buzzy techno. Fromadistance is very Japanese-style, lots of Japanese instruments, what sounds like Taiko Drums and those little Japanese string instruments, and often lots of whooshing and whistling sounds. FromCSZ is techno/metal, their Crystal Blossom track is a classic. There is a LOT of FRONTIER CREATE, and duplicates of many tracks. They took a fun approach with their albums, creating the same track lists both in orchestral and metal versions(there was a third, Techno one, but they suck at techno, sadly). They are top-notch. FRONTIER RECORDS are extremely good too, spanning many genres compared to most other groups, notably the artist "Succubus", who really nails basically any genre they're given. Almost all the accompanying vocals were poo poo though, glad they included instrumentals with everything. Frontier彩, basically "The Touhouvania Music Dudes", have some of the best Touhou remixes out there, period. If nothing else, download the torrent for their stuff, because seriously. The best. I think I only removed one, maybe two tracks from their stuff, the vocals.

Collection 13: FALSE & TRUES I consider to be "light techno"(and all karaoke versions because the vocals are poo poo). Most everything has subdued boomtisk. Not really thumping like other stuff. FENNEL SEED is just nice, solid rock. Not spectacular, but not bad. I included the FIGHTING DREAMER track because even if you don't like it, it's still better than 99% of male vocal tracks. Five-seveN's only included track is a Nuclear Fusion one, which I rarely delete because it's so hard to gently caress up Nuclear Fusion and Emotional Skyscraper. Flap+Frog is about being as chillax as possible. Floor-6 is buzzy techno. EB-Train's Flowering Night 2006 is one of the aforementioned 1% wonderful male vocals, I believe they're the same folks who did the Eientewi song, or sound similar if a bit "lighter". Fluid Stance's stuff is atmospheric. Forest 306 is some good ol' guitarin'. Great stuff, basically a lesser Diverse System. Fourtale's stuff was largely non-Touhou, with a single track for Deep Mountain, but I liked their remixes of some particular Final Fantasy remixes(especially Kefka's final theme) that I tossed'em in. More the merrier! FOX RAVEL VS KINZOK ON's single inclusion is a doozy, a seven minute piece of frantic techno. And finally, the fucker who wound up having almost 400 MP3s in its album folder, [Fragile Online]. Again, a bunch of non-Touhou, but hopefully you'll forgive their inclusion since it's some great Earthbound stuff(8 Melodies, New Age Retro Hippie) and I think even Adventure Island is there. Their stuff is all over the place, fast, slow, classical, techno, a bunch of different genres of music. Good stuff.

Description for Collection 12:
Included are 93 files, with a ton of FactoryNoise & AG, when I started into their stuff I thought were outstanding, but by the end of it only some of their tracks are really top-notch, as they're made up of a lot of artists. But it's still mostly good to great quality. Also has a group called Fall Village, who will be a love/hate thing for most folks, I included them so people could make their own decisions, as they're not really BAD, per-say. Included the entire "Reverie" album by Everfades, good for more classical Touhou. Half a dozen tracks by ES=s/o.k.o.G4, they are good depending on your tolerance of buzzy techno. En-Flan has some exceptionally good vocals for Touhou arranges. One or two mixes by Emroots were included in the original Touhou torrent I made years back. Specifically, Neon Sign, which was then one of my favorite Touhou remixes. E-MP is similar to ES=s/o.k.o.G4 in the buzzy department. I think I covered just about everything included, enjoy!

Description for Collection 11:
Included in this collection is a shitload of EastNewSound, which are outstanding trance/techno but I suspect some folks might not like them, as well as Einherjar Records who are also excellent. This is almost entirely trance and techno, however there's some non-techno in here, like some of Ego☆Trip's stuff. The collection hit 99 just as I finished Elemental Records's albums so I threw in an 8-bit version of Kero Destiny and "The Hydrogen Bomb", one of my favorite Nuclear Fusion remixes as padding to tip it over to 101 MP3s. Enjoy!

Description for Collection 10:
Collection 10. A normal sampling this time. 74 mp3s in this one. Example of some of stuff included:

Description for Collection 9:
This contains nearly all of Diverse System's stuff, barring a commentary track and an mp3 or two that are boomtisk with chipmunk DJ voice clips that I hate so very much. Other than those, everything DS makes is top notch, two entire albums are left untouched in this torrent. Also features the excellent Demetori, of whom I didn't delete a single track. I think I like Demetori more than I like CROW'S CLAW.

Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 11:51 on Aug 13, 2019

Herbotron
Feb 25, 2013

Ryza
Mar 15, 2012

Disco Thunder
I would pay real cold hard dolla dolla bills for a Yakuza touhou fangame.

WarpedNaba
Feb 8, 2012

Being social makes me swell!
I remember that trailer for a touhou fanime that had Reimu and Sanae as rival landlords with a yakuza motif. Pity it turned into a jiggle show about 10 seconds in.

FractalSandwich
Apr 25, 2010
The /toʊhoʊ/ Project.

Ammat The Ankh
Sep 7, 2010

Now, attempt to defeat me!
And I shall become a living legend!
More art of Miko riding Saki for the new thread:

https://twitter.com/kagewaka/status/1161164891937497088

https://twitter.com/potetojpg/status/1161153589659574272

https://twitter.com/Potentialplate1/status/1161013751757320195

Space Flower
Sep 10, 2014

by Games Forum
persuasion needle melts these newhus like butter. i wonder how fast youmu's times are if you are better than me and dont die

Rectus
Apr 27, 2008

The cowboy is good

https://twitter.com/kelbremdusk/status/1160968118388318208/photo/1

Argona
Feb 16, 2009

I don't want to go on living the boring life of a celestial forever.

i've been feeling the urge to play a mystery dungeon game, hows touhou gensou wanderer?

also i support the cowboy

Meeko
Sep 15, 2017

That's right! I'm the counting sheep, Meeko. And I'm a proper sheep youkai!

Argona posted:

i've been feeling the urge to play a mystery dungeon game, hows touhou gensou wanderer?

also i support the cowboy

it has a lot of content, the voice actors are cute, and the cutscenes are cute (but inane) if you're into that sort of thing.

there's a lot of dlc, it's all character options but it does feel a bit sleez/much, only one worth grabbing if you just want one is sakuya since that comes with a dungeon, otherwise they're varying degrees of good but mostly relegated to postgame stuff.

game has a bit of a pervy doujin problem at times. not a especially pervasive one, but it happens enough to be noteworthy if that's a instant turnoff.

all in all prob a 7.5ish/10 above average but not truly spectacular, worth it for the current price or on sale if you really like touhou, shiren, and are willing to look past the faults. this coming from someone who particularly likes it and is probably more willing to look past its faults than i should be.

ElMaligno
Dec 31, 2004

Be Gay!
Do Crime!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5gef0AputM
I might no longer play these games as much as i do, but i still love the franchise.

Meowywitch
Jan 14, 2010

Amen brother

AdorableStar
Jul 13, 2013

:patriot:


Touhou Thread 8 - The return of Mima

sb hermit
Dec 13, 2016





AdorableStar posted:

Touhou Thread 8 - The return of Mima

mima has always been here

El Burbo
Oct 10, 2012

You know what’s good?

Oni

a cartoon duck
Sep 5, 2011

I choose to believe Saki is one-armed and nobody can tell me otherwise.

Nages
Dec 31, 2011

Just yell at her like you always do. Bitch, get out of the way!

el dorito posted:

mima has always been here

iospace
Jan 19, 2038


a cartoon duck posted:

I choose to believe Saki is one-armed and nobody can tell me otherwise.

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Black Mage Knight
Jan 25, 2012

stop biting my cape
The question of just being Zun art or being a design choice is always a question for the ages.

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