Touhou Project Fanclub

[Rolina]

Okay, first off - for those of you who've no clue what touhou is, check out this wiki.  Most games in the series are of the Maniac Shooter genre (better known as "Bullet Hell"), particularly from Lotus Land Story onwards.  However, the fandom has grown it into something much, much larger than just the games.  Many great remixes, doujins, and hell, Yukkuris found their origins in Touhou and its fandom.  So while the games make up the core of the series, the fandom's expansion is largely responsible for its success.  In fact, many things seem to have been adopted by the creator of the series, ZUN.

There are 12 games in the main series, which can be summed up in two distinct areas - Pre-Windows Era, and Windows Era.  For some reason, very few characters from the Pre-Windows Era have shown back up in the Windows Era.  Games that have an official number also have a commonly used English abbreviation. The games are:

Pre-Windows Era

TH01 東方靈異伝 〜 The Highly Responsive to Prayers (tHRP)
TH02 東方封魔録 〜 The Story of Eastern Wonderland (tSEW)
TH03 東方夢時空 〜 The Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream (PoDD)
TH04 東方幻想郷 〜 Lotus Land Story (LLS)
TH05 東方怪綺談 〜 Mystic Square (MS)

Windows Era

TH06 東方紅魔郷 〜 the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (EoSD)
TH07 東方妖々夢 〜 Perfect Cherry Blossom (PCB)
TH08 東方永夜抄 〜 Imperishable Night (IN)
TH09 東方花映塚 〜 Phantasmagoria of Flower View (PoFV)
TH10 東方風神録 〜 Mountain of Faith (MoF)
TH11 東方地霊殿 〜 Subterranean Animism (SA)
TH12 東方星蓮船 〜 Undefined Fantastic Object (UFO)

Additionally, there are many side-games.  They are:

Fighting Games -

TH07.5 東方萃夢想 〜 Immaterial and Missing Power (IaMP)
TH10.5 東方緋想天 〜 Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (SWR)
TH12.3 東方非想天則 〜 超弩級ギニョルの謎を追え 〜 Touhou Hisoutensoku

"Picture Taking" Bullet Hell -

TH09.5 東方文花帖 〜 Shoot the Bullet (StB)
TH12.5　ダブルスポイラー　～ 東方文花帖 〜 Double Spoiler (DS)

Other -

MegaMari - A Megaman clone, with Marisa fighting for her right to... steal Patchouli's books.
(more info to be added when I've got the time)

Print Works -

東方香霖堂　～ Curiosities of Lotus Asia
東方三月精　～ Eastern and Little Nature Deity
東方三月精　～ Strange and Bright Nature Deity
東方三月精　～ Oriental Sacred Place
東方文花帖　～ Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red
東方紫香花　～ Seasonal Dream Vision
東方求聞史紀　～ Perfect Memento in Strict Sense
東方儚月抄　～ Silent Sinner in Blue
東方儚月抄　～ Cage in Lunatic Runagate
東方儚月抄　～ 月のイナバと地上の因幡 (Inaba of the Moon and Inaba of the Earth)
The Grimoire of Marisa

Music -

蓬莱人形　～ Dolls in Pseudo Paradise
蓮台野夜行　～ Ghostly Field Club
夢違科学世紀　～ Changeability of Strange Dream
卯酉東海道　～ Retrospective 53 minutes
大空魔術　～ Magical Astronomy
幺樂団の歴史１　～ Akyu's Untouched Score vol.1
幺樂団の歴史２　～ Akyu's Untouched Score vol.2
幺樂団の歴史３　～ Akyu's Untouched Score vol.3
幺樂団の歴史４　～ Akyu's Untouched Score vol.4
幺樂団の歴史５　～ Akyu's Untouched Score vol.5
Immaterial and Missing Power OST
Scarlet Weather Rhapsody OST
Touhou Hisoutensoku OST

Personally, I've been into the series for a while.  I just recently got EoSD, and FINALLY (after several days of trying) got past Cirno (Stage 2 boss) on normal mode.  I could only get past China on easy... I also have been working on MegaMari for a while, and so far have been able to take out Reimu, Cirno, Remilia, and ALMOST Yuyuko...

[Ninja Steve]

MegaMari rings a bell, probably seen a video of it on YouTube. Looks like a blast, maybe I should play it...

[Rolina]

It's not hard to find and download them via google.  Since they're all actually Doujin Games, there shouldn't be any legal issues either.  In fact, ZUN, the creator, doesn't want the series to be commercialized, so feel free to download the games.  Just remember, even though it's a Megaman Clone, it's still Touhou Hard.

[Ninja Steve]

So yeah, I started playing it... I think this will sum up my reaction just fine...
,  ,  ,  ,  , 

[Rolina]

Finally beat a boss with that last one, eh?  Which game in the series?

[leaf]

I've always been a fan of touhou because of the music. In fact, I first found touhou because of a remix by Demetori. I've never tried to get one of the main games running on my comp, but when I tried running IaMP it wouldn't install properly, which was sad.

[Ninja Steve]

I be playin' MegaMari for now, since I happen to be awesome at Mega Man. My skillz didn't translate well, though 

Also, no, I still haven't even reached any bosses. I just find the game to be bizarrely satisfying despite my epic fail. I blame the music.

[Rolina]

Yes, touhou music is made of epic win, that's for sure.  Even in MegaMari.

You know, Cirno is EASY in MegaMari.  For example, by running into her, SHE gets hurt, not you!  But her stage on the other hand... uggh... it's one of the toughest to get through.

But yeah, if you get good at MegaMari, Megaman is NOTHING anymore...

[leaf]

So uh... difficulty-wise... how's megamari compared to IWBTG?

[Ninja Steve]

That's a hard call, but seeing as I was able to get somewhere in IWBTG...

[leaf]

Ok. This game scares me now.

[Rolina]

NO!  It's not THAT bad!  IWBTG is WAAAAAY harder!

[Ninja Steve]

I did play IWBTG a lot before I got good decent capable of doing anything, while I just started MegaMari. I'll probably get the hang of this sooner than I did IWBTG. Besides, it really isn't fair to compare much of anything to IWBTG.

[Rolina]

That's because MegaMari is essentially Megaman + Bullet Hell.  If you're good at Shoot-em-ups, you'll actually BENEFIT while playing megamari, simply because you'll know the hitboxes aren't as big as they look, and will quickly learn to exploit it.  Other than that, it's just basic pattern recognition - knowing what spawns where, what movement patterns are, etc... Just like a normal megaman game.

[Mion Sonozaki]

What? Touhou? Wur?
I'm such a big fan I'm making my own danmakufu y'know:
Well, specifically, I'm the spriter for a collaboration called Phantasmal Parade :P

Like my CtC style?

Here's a screenie

[leaf]

So I just got IaMP. Anyone here play?

[Mion Sonozaki]

I play th123 UNL/Hisoutensoku

I can start a hamachi channel for anyone interested.

[Tetsuya the Azure Blade]

So I just got IaMP. Anyone here play?

How do you get that to work? Only the Up and Down keys work on mine(so I deleted the .RAR file!). And I've been on a five hour Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream playin' spree earlier today, if you wanna know. Does anyone else play that?

[Rolina]

So I just got IaMP. Anyone here play?

How do you get that to work? Only the Up and Down keys work on mine(so I deleted the .RAR file!). And I've been on a five hour Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream playin' spree earlier today, if you wanna know. Does anyone else play that?

Step one:  Go to your local gaming store
Step two:  Purchase a USB controller
Step three:  PLAY WITH THE USB CONTROLLER.

Seriously, you'll want a USB controller for a wide variety of games - touhou games is merely a few of them.

[Tetsuya the Azure Blade]

Is there ANOTHER way of getting it to work? One that doesn't involve me blowing about 20 bucks on something that my idiot little brother will either break or steal and then sell for pot.