Question: What is Touhou?

[Grandy]

I've been seeing this name everywhere lately.

i know it's a game, and a shoot-em-up at that, but other than that, nothing. Is it for PC? Who made it? Why is everyone I know about so obssessed with it?

[fruckert]

It's a PC game with a gigantic fandom, as far as I'm aware.
Other than that...I have no bloody clue.

[zuhane]

It basically challenges your gaming ability to a ridiculous extent. It's some anime-based woman cute girl
something or whatever and it's really Japanese. It's one of those scrolling shooters like Gradius or Ikaruga,
but the amount of bullets on-screen becomes overwhelming.

I imagine you have to be Asian and have a high potassium diet to be good at it.

[Grandy]

So basically it's the Prinny games, only a shooter version of it?

[Natako]

Touhou owns your soul. It's so damn hard that you feel like a masochist playing it, but it's so fun that you don't care that you die 99% of the time. I think it's the illusion that you can actually beat it that keeps you playing it. Seriously, just look one of the gameplay videos up on youtube. It's pretty insane.

But yeah, it's a ridiculously-hard series of bullet hell games.

Edit: Here's a gameplay video from the highest difficulty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQLIaZUOnBU

[Legacy of Elecrusher]

My original reaction to Touhou way back when I had it on my computer

I demand it's name be changed to "Unreasonable Butteryfly Storm"

[Grandy]

Touhou owns your soul. It's so damn hard that you feel like a masochist playing it, but it's so fun that you don't care that you die 99% of the time. I think it's the illusion that you can actually beat it that keeps you playing it. Seriously, just look one of the gameplay videos up on youtube. It's pretty insane.

But yeah, it's a ridiculously-hard series of bullet hell games.

Edit: Here's a gameplay video from the highest difficulty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQLIaZUOnBU

That seems like that minigame from No More Heroes 2. So much it makes me thing NMH2 made that as an homage.

[Cerebus]

It's anime-style Space Invaders!
I have Perfect Cherry Blossom (or something) and actually enjoyed it.. but damn, some battles are ridiculously hard. And I've seen video on YouTube with some even more ridiculously hard battles. But it's pretty good, yeah. Oh, and the music are generally pretty good.

[SaiKar]

Sounds like it's pretty good. And also ridiculously hard.

[Grandy]

Ya, I downloaded it. Apparently there's an english patch or something BUT I CANT MAKE IT WORK so I'm glancing at the hiraganas and kanjis an giggling like a pre-schooler girl whenever I see a word I recognize.

And yeah, up to the 5th game it's good (I got them all at once, sue me), but ridiculously hard. The first one not so much, I guess they were REASONABLE back in 1996.

BUT WE CAN'T HAVE THAT.

 The OST is not bad either.

 BUT!

 I still don't know what's the whole fuss about it. Yeah, it's nice and hard, but not enough to warrant so much attention from EVERYONE and THEIR CATS.

[SaiKar]

My cat only has a passing interest.

[Archem]

I still don't know what's the whole fuss about it. Yeah, it's nice and hard, but not enough to warrant so much attention from EVERYONE and THEIR CATS.

My thoughts on the matter, exactly.

[Natako]

It's one of those things where a great deal of it is the fanon for many people. I mean, look at all of the videos on youtube devoted to it. It's kind of like one of those underground things with a lot of inside jokes, such as a particular character being stupid because of something that was once written in an instruction manual.

Personally, I just play it because it's addictive and quite fun. Even if it does cause me to exclaim some very colorful words at my computer from time to time. And by "from time to time", I mean about every 0.3 seconds. It does strange things to your brain, though. My first Touhou game was number 6 (Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil) and I seriously binged on that game for like a month. My brain started to compare the spaces between letters in Microsoft Word to the spaces between bullets. It was...pretty weird. I don't play Touhou nearly as much as I used to (haven't played it in a while, actually), but it's still a heck of a lot of fun, especially when you get into the higher difficulties.

I will admit that some of the publicity it receives is a bit baffling, though. I agree with you on that. Maybe it's because I'm a heterosexual female and I don't understand the allure of watching cute magical girls blast each other to death. It's just a fun game, and quite good for squashing boredom.

[Grandy]

It's one of those things where a great deal of it is the fanon for many people. I mean, look at all of the videos on youtube devoted to it. It's kind of like one of those underground things with a lot of inside jokes, such as a particular character being stupid because of something that was once written in an instruction manual.

Personally, I just play it because it's addictive and quite fun. Even if it does cause me to exclaim some very colorful words at my computer from time to time. And by "from time to time", I mean about every 0.3 seconds. It does strange things to your brain, though. My first Touhou game was number 6 (Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil) and I seriously binged on that game for like a month. My brain started to compare the spaces between letters in Microsoft Word to the spaces between bullets. It was...pretty weird. I don't play Touhou nearly as much as I used to (haven't played it in a while, actually), but it's still a heck of a lot of fun, especially when you get into the higher difficulties.

I will admit that some of the publicity it receives is a bit baffling, though. I agree with you on that. Maybe it's because I'm a heterosexual female and I don't understand the allure of watching cute magical girls blast each other to death. It's just a fun game, and quite good for squashing boredom.

The also make elaborate dance sequences to the ost.

And the way the brain stuff you mentioned reminds me of how mine would act after playing Ouendan/EBA 24/7. as in I'd sleep and see small circles closing and closing and being unable to pop them. I also would faintly hear "osu!" from time to time.

and i wouldn't call the touhou girls "cute". they are chibis, but... well they look like doodles.

[Avnas]

Touhou is a series of ~13 shoot-em-ups made by ZUN, one guy who composed the music and decided to make a game around it.

Touhou is known for its quirky art style, all-female cast, amazing music and ridiculous difficulty. As aforementioned, there is a huge fanbase filled with memes and tonnes of remixes of the game music (you might know of Marisa Stole the Precious Thing, Overdrive and Cirno's Perfect Math Class. The famous Ran Ran Ruu video with Ronald McDonald,also known as McRoll, is also based on a Touhou song - it's UN Owen Was Her from Touhou 6). In fact, fancruft makes up most of the characters' personalities! Of all of the songs in the games, the most famous are UN Owen and Native Faith, which you might have heard in my terrible game that Drak reviewed

Best game to start with, in my opinion, is 11: Subterranean Animism, or 10: Mountain of Faith (remember, only schoolgirls play EASYMODO). I did a sort of introduction to the series in the former which you can see at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44A15n91Iqk but it's not very good

You can download English versions of the games at www.doujinstyle.com