Touhou: Difference between revisions

[[File:touhou_img.jpg|frame|Clockwise from top left: [[Person of Mass Destruction|Flandre]], [[Ninja Maid|Sakuya]], [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampire|Remilia]], [[Cute Ghost Girl|Yuyuko]], [[Half-Human Hybrid|Youmu]], [[Marionette Master|Alice]], [[Cute Witch|Marisa]], [[Catgirl|Chen]], [[Kitsune|Ran]], [[Reality Warper|Yukari]], [[Miko|Reimu]]. [[Loads and Loads of Characters|A very, ''very'' small fraction]] of the [[Touhou/Characters|characters in the series.]]]]

 

 

 

Nearly all the games in the series have a plot along these lines: In the [[Magical Land]] of [[Fantastic Nature Reserve|Gensokyo]] - a [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink]] in Japan, which exists halfway inside [[Another Dimension]] thanks to a powerful magical barrier - some [[Anti-Villain]] with a lot of [[Applied Phlebotinum]] on their hands thinks messing with the laws of nature to fulfill a not really evil plan would be a good idea. [[Miko]] Reimu Hakurei or [[Cute Witch|magician]] Marisa Kirisame, due to annoyance and greed, respectively, must go out and fix the problem, occasionally with playable versions of bosses from previous games thrown in for kicks. They spend the first 2 levels wandering aimlessly and defeating random monsters/people that have no relation to the [[Big Bad]]. The third boss, however, happens to know something about the incident and points them in the right direction. The fifth boss is the Big Bad's [[Battle Butler]], and the sixth boss is the Big Bad herself. After defeating the Big Bad, the main character will have a [[Defeat Means Friendship|tea party]] with the Big Bad and their Battle Butler after which some other task arises, taking the form of the game's ultra-difficult [[Bonus Dungeon|extra stage]].

* TH 12.8 ''Yousei Daisensou ~ Touhou Sangetsusei'' <ref>''Great Fairy Wars ~ Eastern Three Fairies''</ref> <ref>Referred to by English-speaking fans as ''Great Fairy Wars'' or simply ''Fairy Wars''.</ref>

* TH 13 ''Touhou Shinreibyou ~ Ten Desires'' <ref>''Eastern Divine Spirit Mausoleum ~ Ten Desires''</ref>

 

<big>'''Sister Series'''</big>

** [[New Super Marisa Land]]

* [[Touhou Labyrinth]] (also known as ''[[Labyrinth of Touhou]]''; dungeon crawler in the style of ''[[Etrian Odyssey]]'')

* [[Touhou Ningyougeki]] (''[[Pokémon Fire Red]]'' [[Game Mod]])

* [[Touhou Pocket Wars Evolution]]

 

<big>'''Other (see the [[Touhou/Fanfic Recs|Touhou]] fanfic page for more)'''</big>

* [[Life of Maid]]

* [[Tag Dream]]

----

 

* [[Aesop Amnesia]]: Each of the character's storylines in ''Phantasmagoria of Flower View'' ends with them learning [[An Aesop]]. If you play as Eiki, however, which takes place after all of the others, it turns out that everyone forgot or misunderstood what they were supposed to learn.

* [[The Alcoholic]]:

** In ''Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream'' Chiyuri is Yumemi's research assistant in "comparative physics".

** ''Mystic Square'' and ''The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil'' both have [[Ninja Maid|Ninja Maids]] in the form of Yumeko and Sakuya, the latter being by far one of the most popular characters of the franchise.

** Eirin and Reisen from ''Imperishable Night'' both fit the part, being Kaguya's pharmacist and pet respectively.

** Komachi from ''Phantasmagoria of Flower View'' also counts, since her official job is to be [[The Ferry Man]] of the Sanzu River.

** In ''Mountain of Faith'' Sanae is the priestess of both the final and extra boss.

** ''Subterranean Animism'' reverses this trend by having the [[Big Bad]] and the stage 5 boss be the pets of the stage 4 boss.

* [[Berserk Button]]: The fandom has one in the question "What anime is this?" as well as when someone on YouTube claims that ''Touhou'' [[A Worldwide Punomenon|stole from]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssh71hePR8Q the McRoll.] For the uninitiated, the McRoll is based on Flandre's theme, ''not'' the other way around. Western fandom is also beginning to detest old memes ([[Hilarious in Hindsight|pads]], etc.).

** May the Lord have mercy on you if you tell Reimu she has awful night vision.

* [[The Cameo]]: ''Wild and Horned Hermit'' is absolutely covered in these. The story hasn't used many characters yet, but Azuma Aya seems to want to draw as many as possible.

* [[Carnivore Confusion]]: Gensokyo has a food chain. [[To Serve Man|You're not at the top of it]], since most non-human characters ''will'' attempt to eat helpless humans away from the protection of a village. The youkai cast often threatens to eat the player character, but they're empty threats - none of the youkai eat humans anymore. Per usual, fanon jacks this up to insane levels.

* [[Celestial Bureaucracy]]

* [[Cherry Blossoms]]: Present in ''Perfect Cherry Blossom'', [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|of course]]. They apparently contain the power of spring. Some of the bosses charge their spell cards by absorbing cherry blossoms.

* [[City with No Name]]: The Human Village (somewhat justified in that there seems to be only the one), and the Former District of Hell. Makai and Higan could be aversions if they contain actual cities. There's also a Tengu City somewhere up Youkai Mountain and a Lunar Capital on the Moon, but they may just be a product of people only talking about it indirectly (popular petnames).

** The Hakurei Shrine serves as a gateway between our world and Gensokyo, and has a traditional Japanese arch.

** The gate at the Netherworld (Hakugyokurou) is an subversion, in that it is placed at the entrance to the Netherworld, but it doesn't open. People just fly over it instead.

* [[Curtains Match the Window]]: All of the PC-98 characters have a same eye color as their hair (given that they're in their regular outfit). There is a fair share of Windows characters with this as well.

* [[Cut and Paste Translation]]: There is at least one instance wherein the English translators just made stuff up, namely the "only a stage 2 boss".

** Kasen however has a baby pet dragon and it's status as a [[Goo-Goo Godlike|godlike being makes itself known right away by causing a (very local) rainstorm]].

* [[Dream Land]]: The later stages of ''Story of Eastern Wonderland'' and the extra stage of ''Lotus Land Story''.

* [[Drunken Master]]: The creator of the games, ZUN, is a drinker, and [[Memetic Mutation]] has progressed it to the point where, much like Suika Ibuki, he is ''never sober''. This isn't too far from the truth. Practically every image of him seems to show a beer within arm's reach, and ZUN himself admitted being drunk during some of ''Imperishable Night'''s development.

* [[Elegant Gothic Lolita]]: A large chunk of the cast.

* [[Every Girl Is Cuter With Hair Decs|Every Girl Without]] [[Nice Hat|Nice Hats]] [[Every Girl Is Cuter With Hair Decs|Is Cuter With Hair Decorations]]

* [[Flying Firepower]]: ''Everyone''.

* [[Full-Contact Magic]]: At least in the fighting games, as well as in [[Doujinshi|fanworks]], the intense nature of spell card duels is portrayed as having a fierce physical combat aspect, especially for the more physically abled girls.

* [[Fun with Acronyms]]: Most of the games' names have both a Japanese portion and an English portion. The Western community refers to games by the acronyms of their English parts: ''Perfect Cherry Blossom'' - ''PCB'', ''Imperishable Night'' - ''IN'', etc. One wonders if ZUN took notice, as the 12th game's English name is ''[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Undefined Fantastic Object]]''.

* [[Gaiden Game]]: Anything with a decimal point in its number.

* [[Game Breaking Bug]]: In Ten Desires, the game will up and crash if you are not using a bomb, a valuable resource, when the Survival Card of the Extra Boss ends. This is the ''second last'' attack in the entire game.

** [[Resurrective Immortality]]:

*** All who drink the Hourai Elixir gain the resurrective type.

** [[The Ageless]]:

*** [[Witch Species|Magicians]] who become "complete" gain a this - [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|they stop aging]], but disease may or may not still kill them, as they're still [[Squishy Wizard|as fragile as humans]].

*** Toyosatomimi no Miko and company were seeking this, as was Byakuren.

* [[Immortal Immaturity]]: Practically everyone. Notable exceptions are Kaguya and Yuyuko, when she's not busy harassing her guardian.

* [[Informed Ability]]: Due to how danmaku battles work,<ref>they're essentially a formalized dueling system designed to level the playing field and reduce lethality</ref> most characters' stated abilities have very little relevance to their gameplay performance.

* [[It Amused Me]]: Bored characters do a lot of crazy things in this series and are occasionally responsible for the entire plot with no further motive than to shake things up. Many extra stage fights are along these lines on the part of both protagonist and boss. This is the entire reason why Tenshi comes down in ''Scarlet Weather Rhapsody''.

* [[Justified Trope]]: ''So'' many. The Spell Card Rules, drafted by Reimu, justify [[Non-Lethal KO]], [[Let's You and Him Fight]], [[Super Move Portrait Attack]], the ability to have crazy semiregular incidents while maintaining [[White and Grey Morality]], and even the use of the [[Bullet Hell]] genre ''itself''... because the tropes are the law. And for very good reasons: it lets youkai do what they do best, lets Reimu easily resolve the incidents, and lets youkai fight back without fear of killing Reimu, which would be a very Bad Thing.

* [[Kicking Ass in All Her Finery]]: Almost everyone wears pretty frilly dresses.

* [[Leitmotif]]: Each boss in the main series gets a unique song for her [[Boss Battle]], which naturally becomes her [[Leitmotif]] in fanworks.

* [[Let's Fight Like Gentlemen]]: The [[Justified Trope|justification]] for the danmaku combat system.

* [[Mooks]]: Fairies, in addition to the lesser-used Fuzzballs and Doofy Ghosts. Fairies are [[Suicidal Overconfidence|suicidally overconfident]], weak, and effectively immortal (regenerative), though the last [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|doesn't manifest in the games]], probably because they "respawn" somewhere safe offscreen. These factors combine to make them pretty much perfect mooks.

* [[Multiple Endings]]

* [[Mundane Utility]]:

** Turns out that ghosts make excellent air conditioners.

** Similarly, there's an entire pool on Danbooru of Cirno being used for mundane ends, such as chilling drinks.

* [[Parental Abandonment]]: Mr. Kirisame is the only parent of a canon character who is not dead, missing, or otherwise unaccounted for. And even then, he's only mentioned, and Marisa quickly ignores and attempts to change the subject.

* [[Pettanko]]:

** The [[Fighting Game]] installments of the series have really muddied the waters here, as the art was done by an artist who is perfectly capable of and willing to draw girls with busts.

* [[Poor Communication Kills]]: In ''Imperishable Night'', the [[Let's You and Him Fight|boss fight with either Reimu or Marisa]] is the result of one or both sides either not understanding what's actually going on, or outright ''refusing'' to listen. When the Ghost Team tries to mention the Moon to Marisa, Marisa says "this has nothing to do with the Moon!" and if Magic Team brings it up to Reimu, she turns around and blames them for the Moon as well!

* [[Schizo-Tech]]: There are actually four different technology levels in Gensokyo: humans and youkai, who are pretty much at medieval level; items that come from the modern world outside (and, in the PC-98 games, came with the Outsiders themselves); the kappas, who are tinkering and working on [[Magitek]], including Optical Camouflage and Hellfire-powered geothermal power plants; and the Lunarians, who top the tech tree in canon and have futuristic technology, which in ''Silent Sinner in Blue'' is revealed to be a Japanese version of [[Crystal Spires and Togas]]. Even the ''outdated'' technology that the renegade Lunarians displayed in an exposition in Gensokyo is far more advanced than anything on Earth.

* [[School Swimsuit]]: Fairly common in fanart in general. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUqeBa36UDM Touhou] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=527Anv-Ne00 EWI] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0tOLOodEF0 series] by WINN, has the girls play their themes and fire danmaku at the same time [[Captain Obvious|while wearing school swimsuits]].

** Subverted in both ''Lotus Land Story'' and ''Imperishable Night'', when the character you didn't select shows up as one of the bosses.

** Naturally averted in the versus shooters and fighting games where you get to fight most of the characters you didn't pick. ''Phantasmagoria of Flower View'', ''Scarlet Weather Rhapsody'' and ''Hisoutensoku'' even have everyone's story canonically happening in some order.

* [[Shout-Out]]: Many characters are [[Shout-Out|Shout Outs]] to one thing or another. Full details on all of them on [[Touhou/Characters|the character page]].

** Many, ''many'' references to ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'', including a character named Alice.

** Three different characters have references to the works of [[Agatha Christie]].

** In the same title, there's also a [[Shout-Out]] to [[Super Mario Bros.|Mario]].

** Makai in ''Mystic Square'' is basically one big [[Shout-Out]] to John Milton's ''[[Paradise Lost]]''.

*** Additionally, [[The Power of the Sun|Utsuho Reiuji]]'s sprite animations greatly resemble those of Souther. [http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/File:Utsuho_Similarities.png See for yourself].

** In the fangame ''Concealed the Conclusion'', one of the characters gives the following line:

* [[Sleeper Hit]]: Even the fandom is baffled at how a simple shooting game got so popular.

* [[Slice of Life]]: Very common in official written works, especially the manga ''Eastern and Little Deity'' / ''Strange and Bright Nature Deity'' / ''Oriental Sacred Place''<ref>yes, that's one series with title changes</ref> and the short story serial ''Curiosities of Lotus Asia''. This tends to put off some fans [[Genre Shift|who are used to the combat-heavy games]], though others enjoy the laid-back view of Gensokyo.

** The second Arc so far represents every version released for Windows, with a new villain every time. Also, games after ''Touhou'' 10 have a plot that is kick-started by events in the game before.

* [[Stronger Sibling]]

* [[Stronger with Age]]: A general rule of the setting. Animals will turn into youkai if they manage to live long enough, and something similar appears to apply to humans, going by the immortals we've seen.

* [[Stupid Statement Dance Mix]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB5IIsX0wS4 ''It Stops at the Affected Area and Immediately Dissolves ~ Lunatic Udongein'',] best known for its [[Ear Worm]] (O-Over Dr-drive! O-O-Over Dr-Dr-Drive!) is a prime example, but quite a few of [[IOSYS]]' ''Touhou''-inspired songs could easily count.

** Might be the case for some unexpected creatures. In one chapter of one of the manga, it's suggested a couple of times that a mysterious egg may be from a ''cat youkai''.

** The same chapter also confirms crow tengu having eggs, and while they're related to birds, the two examples we've seen of that species look basically human.

* [[White and Grey Morality]]:

** Those who are [[Designated Hero|good]] are [[Somebody Else's Problem|apathetic to everything]] unless it affects either their interests or Gensokyo itself.

* [[World of Action Girls]]: Yup.

* [[World of Badass]]: Pretty much.

* [[Youkai]]: Makes up a very large portion of the cast, even when not taking the minor stage bosses into consideration.

** [[Moe Anthropomorphism]]: A lot of the characters are actually humanoid representations of abstract concepts.

** Kanako's and Tenshi's ''shimenawa''.

 

* [[Air Jousting]]: Marisa's broom charge attacks in ''Scarlet Weather Rhapsody''.

* [[Amazing Technicolor Battlefield]]: From ''Lotus Land Story'' onward, bosses will change the background.

* [[Artificial Stupidity]]: The fighting games. Highlights include not particularly understanding if the character is melee or range oriented, using moves that can't possibly hit, virtually never using cards,<ref>Arcade mode only. Story mode AI doesn't have cards to use.</ref> and difficulty selection in arcade mode doing nothing. This was bad enough for people to start work on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcBtCUEV-K0 an AI hack] but the project seems to have died since.

* [[Awesome but Impractical]] / [[Difficult but Awesome]]: Depending on who you ask, certain shot types are straight on unwieldy or rather useful but take some getting used to.

*** MarisaA in ''SA'' isn't too bad, and she still has enough power in her focused state to still deliver hurt to enemies up front.

** ''Undefined Fantastic Object'' is actually pretty good with avoiding this, with all-around great shot-types... and MarisaB.

*** Overall, typical wide-spread shot types suck in these games. It's usually better to just take [[Homing Projectile|Homing Amulets]] instead.

** Marisa's Master Spark bomb in ''Undefined Fantastic Object'' definitely falls under Awesome But Impractical. The massive speed penalty it saddles her with makes it nearly impossible to collect a UFO that isn't flying almost directly at you. Timing color changes is even worse.

* [[Beam Spam]]: Every single character.

* [[Beyond the Impossible]]: The whole series could be characterized as "And here, ZUN thought if you can win after 20 tries, the game is too easy".

* [[Computers Are Fast]]: Not present in the normal Shoot Em Up games, but have fun beating [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x8cs2V2-Bg Lunatic AI] in the two-player games.

* [[Cosmetic Award]]: Clearing a scene with a high enough score in ''Shoot the Bullet'' or ''Double Spoiler'' unlocks commentary from Aya or Hatate. Score has no other purpose.

* [[Desolation Shot]]: In ''Mystic Square'', the [[Amazing Technicolor Battlefield]] disappears when you dispel Shinki's penultimate spell and blast her wings off. The background of the battle's final phase is a slow pan down over Makai, which is now on fire as a result of the fight.

* [[Difficulty Spike]]: Most games seem to have one, usually around stage 4.

** Sunny Milk, Luna Child and Star Sapphire in ''Fairy Wars''.

** Seiga and Yoshika in ''Ten Desires''.

* [[Dynamic Difficulty]]: 4-6 have a system where the bullets become faster and denser over time. In the case of 4 and 5, it's somewhat tied to how well you're doing, but in 6 it just keeps going up until you die, which resets it.

* [[Early Installment Weirdness]]/[[Oddball in the Series]]: ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieDudS_yi24 Highly Responsive to Prayers]'' isn't even a danmaku game. It's more of a weird ''[[Breakout]]'' clone, with some [[Shoot'Em Up]] elements in boss fights.

* [[Expansion Pack]]:

** ''Touhou Hisoutensoku'', an add-on to ''Scarlet Weather Rhapsody'' that introduces a new storyline and playable characters, including [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Meiling and Cirno.]]

* [[Failure Is the Only Option]]: Any first completion of most games. To get the proper ending, you must not use any continues and not be on easy mode. Given the [[Bullet Hell|genre]], this is borderline impossible. And in the case of ''Imperishable Night'' it's completely impossible, since you have to get the normal ending before the good one.

** You could get the ex stage in ''Subterranean Animism'' on easy, but a bug relocks it.

** It was repeated in stage 4 of ''Imperishable Night'', which has you fighting either Reimu or Marisa, depending on the team you choose.

** Much of the story of ''Immaterial and Missing Power'', ''Phantasmagoria of Flower View'', and ''Scarlet Weather Rhapsody''.

* [[Follow the Leader]]: ''Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream'' was made shortly after [[Twinkle Star Sprites]].

** Seihou was rather obviously inspired by Touhou.

* [[It Got Worse]]: Most final bosses' and extra bosses' final spell cards start out fairly simple, even elementary... then it gets faster, or stacks more components simultaneously over time/damage. By the end, the spell is an all-out nightmarish mess that fills the screen or moves very quickly, or both.

* [[Kaizo Trap]]: After beating bosses, it takes a second before the projectiles turn into tokens. So if you aren't careful, you can win, but still die.

* [[Marathon Boss]]: By shmup standards, anyway. Each game has a [[Bonus Boss]] which typically takes 8-10 minutes to defeat.

* [[Mercy Mode]]: After running out of continues a few times in ''Imperishable Night'', the game's options allow you to start with a few additional lives. "A few" ultimately resulting in a continue's worth of lives totaling 8, where most other games only let you have half as many. Perhaps another reason for [[Easy Mode Mockery]] specifically in ''IN''. Somewhat played with - continuing after a certain point gets you a bad end and the inability to continue.

** Most games give you a character-specific bad ending for beating the game after using a continue. The ''Phantasmagoria'' games don't care, and ''Fairy Wars'' just doesn't give you an ending if you continue. ''Mountain of Faith'' also gives you one regardless of continues if [[Easy Mode Mockery|you played on easy]].

*** And in ''Lotus Land Story'' and ''the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil'', [[Easy Mode Mockery|after beating the fifth stage in easy mode, you proceed to the bad ending directly]].

** The games that have route selections give you an ending based on which route you take.

** ''Imperishable Night'' combines the two above into something odd. You get a Bad Ending for ''running out'' of continues. You get a normal ending for facing Eirin as the final boss, who you'll be locked into fighting if it's your first time playing with that character or if you continued.

** Games 10 through 12 made things worse by having continues send you back to the beginning of the stage (thankfully reverted back in ''Fairy Wars'') and removing the option to increase your base lives above three (this one still stands).

** God help you if, for some weird reason, you want to beat [[Harder Than Hard|the extra stage.]] Even its in-game description is something to the effect of "Are you out of your mind?"

** And if that's not challenging enough for you, ''PCB'' has the lovely phantasm stage after the extra and ''IN'' has the last word spell card section. Even unlocking these is next to impossible. Actually beating them requires more effort than the rest of the game combined.

** All of the above are put to complete and utter shame by the [[Gaiden Game]] ''Shoot the Bullet'', which is 11 levels of the most sadistic, multi-layered spell cards in the whole series. Unlike any of the other games, you have no extra lives, no bombs, you lose when you time out, your only weapon is a camera that needs to be charged and manually aimed for long distance attacks, and some bosses are only vulnerable for a fraction of a second. Lastly, the difficulty ''is not adjustable at all''. You do take on each spell card individually and have infinite retries, but the incredible difficulty makes clearing it impossible for most people.

** And of course for the really crazy people, there's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je-mu6z532E Ultra mode hacks,] or cranking up the framerate to play at [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDUdRryiE78 150% speed...]

* [[Normally I Would Be Dead Now]]: An in-game feature later games gives you a very tiny window after you are hit to bomb, thereby preventing a loss of a life. The eighth game actually makes an entire gameplay mechanic based around this, although that instance is more of a [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment as the teammate of the one that was hit comes in and uses the bomb.

** All [[Bonus Boss|extra and phantasm stage bosses]] have this effect for all spellcards, except in ''Fairy Wars''. In the versus shooters they are completely invincible for certain period of time.

* [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]]: standard for [[Bullet Hell]] game protagonists. Curiously enough, when you meet playable characters as bosses they gain [[Super Toughness]] instead.

** The bosses' attacks are all on timers, and it's possible to beat them just by outlasting them. They'll even blow up at the end regardless of whether you fired any shots at them. Since this requires inhuman dodging skills on some of the harder attacks, it has become a favorite [[Self-Imposed Challenge]] for ''Touhou'' gamers. Given the [[Nintendo Hard|difficulty]] of the games to begin with, this kind of challenge is usually considered another sign that ''Touhou'' players are insane.

** Most of the extra bosses actually have a secret difficulty on their last (or second-to-last, in Yukari's case) spell card, triggered by attempting to go pacifist. Normally, those spell cards start off easy, but get harder as the boss loses HP. [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|To prevent cheesing the game]] and trivializing what should be a climactic end by just waiting, the spell card will have an extremely hard pattern, even harder than the normal final pattern, starting at 30 seconds left if the boss has not lost enough HP.

* [[Parabolic Power Curve]]: It's generally accepted that the stage 5 boss will be harder than the final boss, or at least as hard. The reason for this is that stage 5 bosses tend to have more experimental or random patterns, with fewer bullets but much trickier dodging. Final bosses are all about large quantities of bullets at all times, but because they're fired in easily predicted patterns, they're not nearly as challenging for experienced players, even if it's their first time fighting that particular boss.

* [[Recursive Ammo]]

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:The Nineties]]

[[Category:Iyashikei]]

[[Category:Fighting Game]]

[[Category:Collectible Card Game]]

[[Category:Fantasy Video Games]]

[[Category:Vertical Scrolling Shooter]]