What is Touhou?

Ok First of all I don't think any Touhou Blog is complete without explaining visitors what is Touhou and what makes a doujin game (independent game, not made by a huge company) stand out among commercial games, let's start with the genre of game, the Touhou series is composed by mostly shooters, but not any shooter Touhou defines a kind of shooter that is not common in our continent, the Danmaku, Curtain shooter, Bullet Hell, Call it as you want, you don't get what this means? Well here is an example (hosted by shrinemaiden.com)

Yes indeed, the tiny sprite in the bottom is your character and the objective is to dodge all those beautiful bullets while shooting the enemy, is it so important to dodge? Why yes, differently from other games where you have a life gauge in touhou one bullet touches you and that's the end for you, this makes the level of difficulty in touhou really really addictive, this level goes like this:

[not so] easy (for humans, try to clear it without continuing)
[not really] normal (for hardcore gamers, clear it without continues and you are worthy)
[ultra] hard (for real gamers, I havent even cleared 2 stages in this mode XD)
lunatic (no really... you will cry)
extra (Im not kidding)

Another important point to mention in touhou is that all the characters are cute girls (except for a turtle, a shopkeeper, a cloud.... well you get the point) And trust me cute girls will kick your butt quite a lot in these game, uncountable "expert" gamers have suffered with Touhou like no other games, gamers who cleared "hard" games, like Ninja Gaiden, Gears of War, Castlevania, Metal Gear, Resident Evil, Halo (specially Halo since they think it's unique) will find themselves crying over the first stage of any Touhou game in the Hard mode. Ok going back to the girls, They all have something in common, are based on mythical figures, are super cute, and got quite a charming personality.

We have all kinds of characters like Mikos (shrine maidens), witches, demons, ghosts, youkais (japanese mythical creatures), fairies, scientists, proffessors, warlocks, maids, vampires, spirits, shikigamis (familiars), nekomatas (split tailed cats), puppeteers, poltergeists, samurais, onis, kyubis (nine tailed fox) hakutakus, bunny girls, bunny girls from the moon, princesses, phoenixes, reapers, judges, tengus, goddesses, kappas, psychics, nuclear powered crows, captains, magicians, nues (a kind of chimeras...) phew... and yeah, all these are represented by cute girls.

Anyway, now for a little bit of history, Touhou music, graphics, character designs, programming and all, is made by a single genius known as ZUN, lover of beer, creator of lolis, this man has gotten one of the largest fanbases in japan (expanding in the world) inspiring fans to create all kind of stuff related to touhou, like plushies, figures, cellphone straps, pillows, doujin mangas, touhou inspired games, games combining touhou and other games (megamari: touhou+megaman, super marisaland: touhou+Mario Land, Koumajou densetsu: touhou+Castlevania, MariAri: touhou+Wario's woods, Cirno climber: touhou+ice climber, Splinter Cell Code R: pretty obvious, and the upcoming Cirno racing: touhou+mario kart) and one of the most succesful ones, the bands that dedicate their music making remixes of touhou themes and the best part is these pieces are really good and enjoyable making some people want to know where those awesome songs came from, I admit I wanted to know more about Touhou after listening to and watching the video of "Marisa stole the precious thing"


The video that started it all (in my case)

Well, this is the first real entry in the blog I hope you enjoyed it and well, I'll keep updating the blog with more info on the games, the fan games, the music, umm stuff? and if you got any suggestions let me know! n,n!

D@nDLion!