The Touhou Project series is an incredibly vast rabbit hole I jumped into recently with no regret in the slightest. Touhou is not only a franchise about weird female characters wearing weird headgears and great music, this series also contains some of the most engaging and motivating games I’ve played in a long time and introduced me to the incredibly fascinating bullet hell genre.
In this review I especially want to talk about Touhou 6 – Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, because after playing trough most the titles, I consider it not only the best game of the series but also the best starting point for beginners.
Once you hit start you explicitly choose Normal Difficulty, because having gamer pride will inevitably just cause frustration before you have even learned the gist of the game and that’s dumb. After that, you can either choose shrine maiden Reimu or magician Marisa. I recommend starting with Reimu because of her lower speed and therefore easier to control movement. Then choose the shot type of your interest, all of them varying in range and strength, contributing to either more evasive or aggressive strategies.
The control scheme is fairly simple: The player can move in 8 different directions (vertical, horizontal and diagonal) and switch between an unfocused and focused mode. While unfocused your bullets have a wider range making it therefore easier to hit more enemies. While focused (by holding the designated button pressed) the bullets form more or less a straight line, concentrating on one spot. The player is also slower, making it easier to dodge slow bullet patterns. Switching between these two modes during the right circumstances is the key to success.
The game gives you some time to get comfortable with the controls and take in the information on the right side of the screen (High Score, Player Lifes, Bombs, Power level, …) Even the first few enemy waves are having no attack behavior attached to them to make things easier.
The Power Level of a shot type increases with each red enemy drop collected and the player loses some of that power after losing a life. The lost power can still be recollected on screen except for three points which makes sense: The moment the power reaches max, the current enemy bullets on screen get deleted. In a no-hit playthrough this happens only once. But for each life you lose and with just a slight decrease in power the player can purposefully decide during what moment they want to collect the remaining power again.
A limited amount of bombs, also referred to as spell cards, are last resort items to delete enemy bullets, deal damage and make the player invincible for a short amount of time. Bombs also allows the player to save themselves if used within a few frames after getting hit. This is in many situations enough incentive to risk not using a bomb instead of chickening out. The bombs also reset to an amount of three each time the player loses a life even if you have more than three of them available. This is what makes losing them more frustrating, because the player decided to save them for later purposes.
Touhous’ main appeal gameplaywise, as simple as it sounds, is dodging. It’s not only the barrages of thousands of bullets and beautifully designed patterns the player need to correctly interpret and survive each playthrough. Every aspect in Touhou 6 seems committed to make dodging and repositioning as interesting as possible.
The riskier the player dodges the higher the score at the end. The graze mechanic detects when the player barley dodges a bullet and rewards them with bonus points for doing so. The blue collectibles dropped by enemies also raise your score but the more they fall down on the screen, the less points they are worth. Also, if the power level reached the maximum, the player can immediately collect all items on screen whenever they cross the item get borger line, which covers around 1/4th of the top screen. Thus, due to the fact that most enemies spawn on top of the screen, getting a lot of points gets very risky. Beating boss phases within a time limit and without using spell cards also grants you score bonuses.
Shooting is as simple as it possible can get to allow more difficult enemy bullet patterns. During stages the only time you might remove the thumb from the shoot button is during dialogues to skip them. Even as a newcomer in this genre, I’ve already played other shmups with more interesting mechanics in that regard (for example Sol Cresta or Deathsmiles). Touhou gets, if at all, just slightly more interesting shot types in later entries but mechanically shooting never amounts to more than holding your thumb down 90 % of the time.
Even the bosses and enemies are nothing more than just one moving hitbox after another with the only distinguishing feature that they spawn different variations of bullet patterns increasing in complexity with game progress. Bosses only tend to move to force the player to reposition. If I directly compare this with Ikaruga’s boss design, which includes different hit boxes or weak points, Touhou looks completely flat in that regard.
The most important aspect however is the for bullet hell games typically very small player hitbox. Its the reason that leads to many different kind of strategies to deal with bullet patterns, to last second dodges through fast thinking what makes nearly every predicament still survivable, to one essential decision one after another... It’s also what makes this game insanely fair because most of the time there’s still a possibility to manage the situation in your favor.
Which leads us to the interesting aspect of Touhou shmups: The bullet patterns themselves.
Each stage in the whole series is physically the same. There are never physical obstacles or other non-moveable hindrances that are located during certain parts of stages. The only difference in each stage are the enemies used, their movement behavior and the bullets they shoot. The bullet behavior is either fixed, randomized or depends on the player position. They also differentiate in their speed and size, which leads to all kinds of combinations, which are seemingly infinite. I am still astonished how fresh each new installment of the series feels because of that.
All of these factors are leading to different kinds of strategies in how to avoid certain bullet patterns. Stage 4 for example features lasers that ultimately limits the space the player can dodge. In Stage 5 a barrage creates a grid-like pattern that is easier to avoid if the player just moves tiny steps at a time to safely reach the blind spots of the grid. The players’ success always depends on how they read this situations and on their ability to think ahead and correctly predict blind spots. There are many ways to manipulate bullet patterns in your favor.
Most of the boss bullet patterns are so uniquely designed that it is possible to identify some characters based on the compositions of bullets alone. Rumia has more fixed and simpler patterns, Cirno includes some random aspects in her phases and Meiling always uses a combination of fixed and random bullets. Patchouli, the 4th stage boss, is where most players definitely kick the bucket the first time around. Not only does she use new elements like lasers and way bigger bullets, she also incorporates random patterns in her phases kinda like Meiling the stage before.
And Patchouli is also the first boss where I had to appreciate how aesthetically pleasing Touhou’s bullet patterns and color schemes are. The unique designs are a huge influence in my enjoyment and engagement with these games, sometimes reminding me of Mandala art. Touhou games are unironically one of the most visually pleasing experiences I had with games particularly because how much you deal with it gameplaywise which makes a lot more fun to avoid all that stuff on the screen. It makes dodging look so much more graceful somehow. This is also a reason why memorizing those patterns becomes easier, which makes later playthroughs a lot more encouraging.
Before I started my Touhou journey, I’ve always thought of it more like a game series of memorizing fixed patterns and as incredibly punishing. Whereas it is more a series about making one quick decision and reaction after the next, thinking ahead and reading the situations correctly and adapt to them. Touhou 6 is also one of the most fair games I’ve ever played even on harder difficulties while also providing a huge challenge to master. I can count the situations on one hand where I didn’t know exactly which bullet hit me or what mistake I made and had to blame the game instead. The way the Power level and Bombs are working contributes to that fairness, giving the player a helping hand each time they lose a life. I never really felt punished while playing this game. There are so many ingenious factors which makes 1CC-ing those game so much fun. Not at least the short amount of playtime each playthrough takes what makes Touhou 6 so easy to pick up again.
Touhou 6 quickly became one of my favorite games ever and opened the door to a lot of interesting bullet hell games I can’t wait to play. And if those are even remotely as good or even better I am going to have a blast for sure.
In this review I especially want to talk about Touhou 6 – Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, because after playing trough most the titles, I consider it not only the best game of the series but also the best starting point for beginners.
Once you hit start you explicitly choose Normal Difficulty, because having gamer pride will inevitably just cause frustration before you have even learned the gist of the game and that’s dumb. After that, you can either choose shrine maiden Reimu or magician Marisa. I recommend starting with Reimu because of her lower speed and therefore easier to control movement. Then choose the shot type of your interest, all of them varying in range and strength, contributing to either more evasive or aggressive strategies.
The control scheme is fairly simple: The player can move in 8 different directions (vertical, horizontal and diagonal) and switch between an unfocused and focused mode. While unfocused your bullets have a wider range making it therefore easier to hit more enemies. While focused (by holding the designated button pressed) the bullets form more or less a straight line, concentrating on one spot. The player is also slower, making it easier to dodge slow bullet patterns. Switching between these two modes during the right circumstances is the key to success.
The game gives you some time to get comfortable with the controls and take in the information on the right side of the screen (High Score, Player Lifes, Bombs, Power level, …) Even the first few enemy waves are having no attack behavior attached to them to make things easier.
The Power Level of a shot type increases with each red enemy drop collected and the player loses some of that power after losing a life. The lost power can still be recollected on screen except for three points which makes sense: The moment the power reaches max, the current enemy bullets on screen get deleted. In a no-hit playthrough this happens only once. But for each life you lose and with just a slight decrease in power the player can purposefully decide during what moment they want to collect the remaining power again.
A limited amount of bombs, also referred to as spell cards, are last resort items to delete enemy bullets, deal damage and make the player invincible for a short amount of time. Bombs also allows the player to save themselves if used within a few frames after getting hit. This is in many situations enough incentive to risk not using a bomb instead of chickening out. The bombs also reset to an amount of three each time the player loses a life even if you have more than three of them available. This is what makes losing them more frustrating, because the player decided to save them for later purposes.
Touhous’ main appeal gameplaywise, as simple as it sounds, is dodging. It’s not only the barrages of thousands of bullets and beautifully designed patterns the player need to correctly interpret and survive each playthrough. Every aspect in Touhou 6 seems committed to make dodging and repositioning as interesting as possible.
The riskier the player dodges the higher the score at the end. The graze mechanic detects when the player barley dodges a bullet and rewards them with bonus points for doing so. The blue collectibles dropped by enemies also raise your score but the more they fall down on the screen, the less points they are worth. Also, if the power level reached the maximum, the player can immediately collect all items on screen whenever they cross the item get borger line, which covers around 1/4th of the top screen. Thus, due to the fact that most enemies spawn on top of the screen, getting a lot of points gets very risky. Beating boss phases within a time limit and without using spell cards also grants you score bonuses.
Shooting is as simple as it possible can get to allow more difficult enemy bullet patterns. During stages the only time you might remove the thumb from the shoot button is during dialogues to skip them. Even as a newcomer in this genre, I’ve already played other shmups with more interesting mechanics in that regard (for example Sol Cresta or Deathsmiles). Touhou gets, if at all, just slightly more interesting shot types in later entries but mechanically shooting never amounts to more than holding your thumb down 90 % of the time.
Even the bosses and enemies are nothing more than just one moving hitbox after another with the only distinguishing feature that they spawn different variations of bullet patterns increasing in complexity with game progress. Bosses only tend to move to force the player to reposition. If I directly compare this with Ikaruga’s boss design, which includes different hit boxes or weak points, Touhou looks completely flat in that regard.
The most important aspect however is the for bullet hell games typically very small player hitbox. Its the reason that leads to many different kind of strategies to deal with bullet patterns, to last second dodges through fast thinking what makes nearly every predicament still survivable, to one essential decision one after another... It’s also what makes this game insanely fair because most of the time there’s still a possibility to manage the situation in your favor.
Which leads us to the interesting aspect of Touhou shmups: The bullet patterns themselves.
Each stage in the whole series is physically the same. There are never physical obstacles or other non-moveable hindrances that are located during certain parts of stages. The only difference in each stage are the enemies used, their movement behavior and the bullets they shoot. The bullet behavior is either fixed, randomized or depends on the player position. They also differentiate in their speed and size, which leads to all kinds of combinations, which are seemingly infinite. I am still astonished how fresh each new installment of the series feels because of that.
All of these factors are leading to different kinds of strategies in how to avoid certain bullet patterns. Stage 4 for example features lasers that ultimately limits the space the player can dodge. In Stage 5 a barrage creates a grid-like pattern that is easier to avoid if the player just moves tiny steps at a time to safely reach the blind spots of the grid. The players’ success always depends on how they read this situations and on their ability to think ahead and correctly predict blind spots. There are many ways to manipulate bullet patterns in your favor.
Most of the boss bullet patterns are so uniquely designed that it is possible to identify some characters based on the compositions of bullets alone. Rumia has more fixed and simpler patterns, Cirno includes some random aspects in her phases and Meiling always uses a combination of fixed and random bullets. Patchouli, the 4th stage boss, is where most players definitely kick the bucket the first time around. Not only does she use new elements like lasers and way bigger bullets, she also incorporates random patterns in her phases kinda like Meiling the stage before.
And Patchouli is also the first boss where I had to appreciate how aesthetically pleasing Touhou’s bullet patterns and color schemes are. The unique designs are a huge influence in my enjoyment and engagement with these games, sometimes reminding me of Mandala art. Touhou games are unironically one of the most visually pleasing experiences I had with games particularly because how much you deal with it gameplaywise which makes a lot more fun to avoid all that stuff on the screen. It makes dodging look so much more graceful somehow. This is also a reason why memorizing those patterns becomes easier, which makes later playthroughs a lot more encouraging.
Before I started my Touhou journey, I’ve always thought of it more like a game series of memorizing fixed patterns and as incredibly punishing. Whereas it is more a series about making one quick decision and reaction after the next, thinking ahead and reading the situations correctly and adapt to them. Touhou 6 is also one of the most fair games I’ve ever played even on harder difficulties while also providing a huge challenge to master. I can count the situations on one hand where I didn’t know exactly which bullet hit me or what mistake I made and had to blame the game instead. The way the Power level and Bombs are working contributes to that fairness, giving the player a helping hand each time they lose a life. I never really felt punished while playing this game. There are so many ingenious factors which makes 1CC-ing those game so much fun. Not at least the short amount of playtime each playthrough takes what makes Touhou 6 so easy to pick up again.
Touhou 6 quickly became one of my favorite games ever and opened the door to a lot of interesting bullet hell games I can’t wait to play. And if those are even remotely as good or even better I am going to have a blast for sure.
1 Comment
I've been playing for months and I never realized there was a slow down button lmao. Thanks for the info
OppositeWinner
1 year ago