HELLO! I WRI... I... I MAKE...

BYE BYE


Curious to know which one(s) I'd recommend as your first entry?

No? Well too bad! As a true Touhou Expert™ (not really) here are three worth considering!


Touhou 7 - Perfect Cherry Blossom

A classic all-rounder!

The second Touhou game for PC, it's a game that sticks to the core of the bullet hell genre with great execution. The unique mechanic for this one gives you a temporary shield from time to time, as you collect falling cherry blossom petals during gameplay. You need to think about it during gameplay, and it can be really helpful in a pinch!

With fun fights, simpler mechanics, and generous 1-ups, it's a great entry point that's more forgiving than usual for the series. And the music is incredible!

Perfect Cherry Blossom Gameplay, featuring spinning Chen!

Touhou 18 - Unconnected Marketeers

A modern romp with a roguelite twist!

This is the latest mainline release! As such, it's available through Steam, and has less risk of incompatibility oddities on modern PCs. That being said, you'll still want to patch a fan translation if you don't understand Japanese!

The game is quite unique compared to the classic core, but I love a lot of the changes made by Unconnected Marketeers. It has a kind of roguelite element to it, where you get to purchase an upgrade after every level. After your first time purchasing that upgrade, you can also select it as a starting upgrade for all future runs, giving it the most replayability of any game in the series. Plus, it makes you feel like you progressed even when you game over as a result!

Upgrades range from movement, survivability, additional attacks, etc. They give runs a unique flavor, and if you'd prefer to stick to the base gameplay, you can go for the hearts/bombs for sale after every stage instead.

This is more subjective, but I also think the backgrounds and bullet patterns in Unconnected Marketeers are some of the prettiest in the series. All around, I think it's an amazing entry -- plus the music is incredible!

Unconnected Marketeers gameplay, featuring a horrendous start oh no

Touhou 8 - Imperishable Night

Everyone's Here! Ready for Unexpected Team-Ups?!

Regardless of whether you start with Perfect Cherry Blossom or Unconnected Marketeers, I suggest this one as your follow-up! Imperishable Night is terrific, but it's also got a kind of victory lap feeling to it.

What do I mean by this? Well, for starters, it features unusual pairings of usual main characters working alongside bosses from previous games. It's got a lot of effort put into it, with the largest playable cast, two different final bosses, additional Last Word challenges, etc. It's Touhou at its most Season Finale.

Despite loving the game to bits, I recommend playing another game first because this one might get you bad habits! The unique mechanic in Imperishable Night rewards you for sticking to either unfocused shots or focused shots for a while instead of adapting, giving you an additional continue if you were consistent enough during a stage.

So while this is a little on the weirder side, the game as a whole is a blast, its stage 4 in particular has yet to be surpassed by any other game in the series IMO. Add the sheer amount of content on top, and you have a real winner. Oh, and the music is incredible!

Imperishable Night Gameplay


No matter which one you end up playing, I highly recommend using thcrap to translate the game to your display language of choice. You can download it here!

And that's all I got! If you end giving the series a shot I want to hear how it went!! :eggbug-pleading:


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in reply to @TheBlondeBass's post:

Yay I'm glad you made this its own post!! I took your advice and I'm playing 18! I really love it a lot! The colors are all so trippy, it's sometimes difficult to see what I need to dodge haha.

One thing I don't like is there doesn't seem to be any begining story? Like, I don't really know what's going on, the game just starts and theres only story moments at the end of levels. Is that normal? Just making sure I haven't missed a cutscene or something.

The story of most of these games is light! The common gist is that there is a strange happening in Gensokyo, the games' setting, and Reimu (and others) go investigate it.

In the main menu, you'll find a little intro under Manual > Story. In 18's case, there are mysterious cards being sold in Gensokyo that feature characters from Touhou history, and even appear to hold their powers? Sounds dangerous!

What's the furthest you got so far? ^^

Oh okay, that makes sense then :) Have you read any of the books? I don't know why but I really like reading books based on whatever I'm into at the moment haha. I'm sure the manga is easy to come by but do any of the light novels have English translations?

I can't remember the level number, but I believe I died at the one right after where you go down a big tunnel and she has to fly back out cause she can't breathe. It took all my continues to get there and I was on Easy mode 😅 I haven't played many games like this though. I think the closest I've gotten is some of Treasure's games.

Am I right in thinking you're supposed to look at your character most of the time and only sort of glance at the enemies? I'm assuming that's why some of your bullets home in so that you don't always have to have the enemy completely in your sights and still be doing damage as you dodge.

Yeah, focusing on your character is a good trick, especially as the number of slow moving bullets on the screen increases! Beyond Reimu's homing attacks, it's also why the game has an indicator at the bottom of the screen of where the boss is compared to you!

(Anither good trick is to use your bombs when you feel overwhelmed, you get reset to the default amount when you die anyway!)

I haven't read any manga/LNs for the series, to tell the truth! Let me know if you find something you like ^^