Author Topic: How did you LEARN about Touhou? (Read 42025 times)

Ghaleon · « **on:** May 26, 2009, 08:57:59 AM »

I'm jealous I didn't know about this series sooner like the rest of you guys, so I'm wondering how you guys were introduced to the series.

I personally learned of it partially thanks to a internet flash gaming website known as kongregate. On the forums someone opened a thread along the lines of "hardest boss ever". Naturally I was interested because I'm always interested in hard games, I've beaten plenty of games that are known for being notoriously hard on its hardest settings such as Unreal tournament (godlike bots I mean not the actually setting on campaign, I haven't tried, the campaign sucks), ninja gaiden, I wanna be the guy (well very hard, I don't have the time for impossible, which is more about not screwing up once over a very long period of time more than anything), I wanna be the fangame, etc.

Someone posted a youtube link of some japanese shooter game (I forget the name, something futuri or something). Obviously this was sourced by being the #1 match in google for "worlds hardest boss", match #2's boss is actually from the same game and the boss afterwards which is only unlockable by beating the previous mentioned boss without dying, durka.

So I said to myself "gee that looks like fun, I gotta try it". But discovered it was for a japanese arcade that could not possibly be imported, or purchaseable with my resources.. So I said dang. But while researching this game I learned the term "danmaku", so I started looking for "danmaku" games that WERE accessable for me. Touhou it was >=).

So what's your story?

Kit Nezumi · « **Reply #1 on:** May 26, 2009, 09:28:27 AM »

About a year back, I was browsing the Something Awful forums. Out of pure boredom, I checked out the Touhou thread in their anime section. What I discovered was a relatively obscure shooter with a surprisingly strong fan scene.

The concept just really lit up my lights for three reasons:

1) I love derivative works. Remixes, fanfiction, stuff like that.
2) I love flashy bright things. The danmaku patters looked like a rave with more killing and less love (and also less college frat boys trying to pick up drugged out girls. natch)
3) I love challenging games.

I fell in love with the concept instantly and couldn't wait to download and play my first Touho-- wait.. Windows?

I failed at using WINE for emulation and didn't have access to Bootcamp at the time, so I couldn't run any Touhou games on my mac. Needless to say, I was a sad panda.

So for about a year I sustained myself on IOSYS videos and fan drawings. No real reason except they were enjoyable.

So, it wasn't until a couple days ago that I managed to snag a copy of Windows XP and Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and give it a shot. Actually playing the challenging and addictive curtain shooter opened my eyes and now I am slowly aquainting myself with my new obsession (and lots and lots of death).

Vile Lasagna · « **Reply #2 on:** May 26, 2009, 10:37:01 AM »

I bumped into this and then it was death by shiny

Helepolis · « **Reply #3 on:** May 26, 2009, 11:37:59 AM »

Doesn't this thread belong at the addict center?

Hmmm I don't want to rewrite entire story from the old forum. Basicly comes down to this:

- Helepolis decides to download MUGEN after a year hearing from a friend.
- Helepolis downloads tons of characters.
- Helepolis discovers Hatsune Miku.
- Helepolis plays hours to see all parody moves.
- Helepolis' interest is sparked by a bunny girl smirking, wonders who it is.
- Helepolis asks on a MUGEN forum about it.
- Helepolis gets directed to youtube for "Inaba Tewi".
- Helepolis bumps into IN Stage 4b replay.
- Helepolis normally hates these type of games but gets addicted to the song and pattern of the bullets.
- Helepolis does more research and finds Touhou.
- Helepolis downloads IN and plays.
- Helepolis gets addicted for the rest of his life.

Thank you ZUN.

trancehime · « **Reply #4 on:** May 26, 2009, 11:46:55 AM »

4chan's /w/ several years ago.

Yeah, pretty embarrassing, but whatever.

Gpop · « **Reply #5 on:** May 26, 2009, 12:30:59 PM »

Oh god I don't want to type this out again -_-.

*sigh*

Well what happened was that I was searching for characters on MUGEN when I found the Touhou characters through these videos. I was interested in them entirely. I decided to search up on the fighter that they appeared in, and discovered that they were from IaMP. I watched this and this video, and I decided to give them a try.

Of course I had lots of fun, and decided to search up for sequels/prequels of the series, until I found dracil's IN Extra Clear video. I was in awe at the game itself, the intense bullet patterns, and Mokou whom I mistaken for a guy at first.

I searched them up on Wikipedia, and found out that the first Windows game is EoSD. I decided to start with that game, and I did alright, starting on normal, and lost on Patchouli.

And that's how I discovered Touhou.

Tenbatsu! Myon Rabbie · « **Reply #6 on:** May 26, 2009, 04:02:13 PM »

It was some clip collection of AMV Hell, with Pokemon + Marisa stole the precious thing. After that, well, u know.

theshirn · « **Reply #7 on:** May 26, 2009, 06:08:36 PM »

A U.N. Owen/Sho Minamimoto mix. Followed to the original source music, then to Kefit's replay of Flandre, then HOLY CRAP MUST TRY, then suffering.

Ghaleon · « **Reply #8 on:** May 26, 2009, 07:05:18 PM »

Yer, I thought Help me, Eirin! might not be the best place to start this thread. BUT, when I thought about it it seemed like an obviously similar thread to "your first touhou experience". So I guess I should stuff it in the same catagory since nobody seemed to question the placement of that thread.

I heard about Mugen about a year ago now but I'm not a big fighting game fan so I never really bothered to try it. Doh.

Kanako Yasaka · « **Reply #9 on:** May 26, 2009, 09:55:27 PM »

I've typed this out like 10 times so I'll just shorten it up.

Arrange of EoSD title theme and History of the Moon (+various touhou songs) were on FFR.

Stuff happened.

The end.

Gpop · « **Reply #10 on:** May 26, 2009, 10:14:44 PM »

Quote from: Kanguya Yaraisan on May 26, 2009, 09:55:27 PM

I've typed this out like 10 times so I'll just shorten it up.

Arrange of EoSD title theme and History of the Moon (+various touhou songs) were on FFR.

Stuff happened.

The end.

And they are STILL the only songs I play on FFR (when I DO play once every month =/)

Alfred F. Jones · « **Reply #11 on:** May 26, 2009, 10:24:32 PM »

i found touhou while searching for nanoha yuri

true story

Doomsday · « **Reply #12 on:** May 26, 2009, 10:46:07 PM »

this, then this, then this

Gambit · « **Reply #13 on:** May 27, 2009, 12:57:07 AM »

I was watching speed runs one day and happened to stumble across one of MegaMari. I became intrigued with the characters and music in the game, so I pretty much started looking at various Touhou videos on youtube such as this and this.

I ended up getting hooked on the music and characters, but didn't bother to try the games at the time since they looked intimidating. Then when I finally listened to centennial festival for magical girls and watched a let's play of EoSD on Normal, I told myself that I had to play the games.

Cadmas · « **Reply #14 on:** May 27, 2009, 01:08:21 AM »

Bro showed me Marisa stole the precious thing.
Some random asked who that character was.
Some dude says its Alice from Touhou.
Goggle Touhou.
Touhouwiki.
? ? ? ? ? ?
Profit

Sodium · « **Reply #15 on:** May 27, 2009, 01:10:08 AM »

Youtube browsing gaems

Mizuki-chan · « **Reply #16 on:** May 27, 2009, 02:30:32 AM »

Jan-san showed me Touhou. First game played was PCB. Been hooked ever since.

Helepolis · « **Reply #17 on:** May 27, 2009, 06:17:13 AM »

Quote from: Cadmas on May 27, 2009, 01:08:21 AM

Profit

How can a game, that ruined 90% of people's lives, be called profit?

Hououin Kyouma · « **Reply #18 on:** May 27, 2009, 07:16:37 AM »

1 Went to court records
2 Found a Apollo Justice version Miku Hatsune
3 Found a link to a video which got related to Phoenix Wright version of IOSYS's Oyome ni Shinasai
4 Found a link to the original version
5 Went through comments to know what anime it was
6 relised it was game and it was called Touhou
7 Found links leading to Marisa stole the Precious thing, Overdrive and You should drink cucumber flavoured beer by IOSYS
8 saw video of the gameplay
9 found it interesting
10 Tried to find a download but found Touhou wiki which i didn't go to because i had no idea what it was
11 watched Touhou videos without even knowing they were Touhou videos
12 After a while went to the arcade and played a STG
13 Watched Touhou videos
14 realized that Touhou is a STG
15 Download Touhou

nintendonut888 · « **Reply #19 on:** May 27, 2009, 07:35:15 AM »

I saw it through browsing of Youtube in the past, but only after watching a video by LuizPrower which had Odenpa Love Girl, which led to to watch the full video, got me interested. Downloaded the MoF demo, loved it, got linked to THE SITE on GameFAQs, and the rest is ~~spell card~~ history.

Drayen · « **Reply #20 on:** May 27, 2009, 09:03:19 AM »

Someone linked this video on a wc3 forum:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nb5Ohbt1Sg

thought it was awesome, did my research, and played IN away for months.

that was like 3.5 years ago.. wow its been awhile >.<

Tengukami · « **Reply #21 on:** May 27, 2009, 09:08:35 AM »

Someone posted Suigintou Stole the Precious Thing in Desuchan's /alice/ board in 2006 I think. Googling IOSYS>IOSYS music>IOSYS backstory>teh gaems.

Prody · « **Reply #22 on:** May 27, 2009, 10:23:57 AM »

Quote from: Doomsday93 on May 26, 2009, 10:46:07 PM

this, then this, then this

First link = yay.

Anyways, it was Pockethouse which got me into Touhou. It was way long ago then. I think I played the game for many months before I knew there was a community.

Rabbit · « **Reply #23 on:** May 27, 2009, 01:37:58 PM »

Flash vids, mostly. Research followed and so began my masochism odyssey. Yeah, I can't be bothered to type it all out. Mostly because it's not even that interesting.

SONIC BHOCOLATE STRIKER · « **Reply #24 on:** May 27, 2009, 03:44:59 PM »

EveryExtend. Seriously. I was playing EveryExtend and wanted more games like it - found out that they were referred to as "shmups" (I never say that word, though, I just type out shoot-em-up), and googled the word. Found http://shootthecore.moonpod.com and decided to download every game with a gold badge, and immediately noticed that Touhou was not only the best of the bunch, but a whole series. I looked it up and I was hooked.

Iryan · « **Reply #25 on:** May 27, 2009, 05:45:40 PM »

Tehe, that was quite the coincidence.

So, even if you have never heard of touhou, video game musik rocks, right?

So I often surfed on www.vgmusic.com on a quest for more awesome stuff. Games and consoles I had never heard of, too. I noticed that several midi renditions of music from the Ys games (which I have never played) were liquid awesome. These were all done by the same person, named "Justus Johnston".

So I took the site specific google search for Justus Johnston. Found a couple of more good midis, but also a single overclocked remix by him. Unusual enough, it was a song played by a quartet of strings, all played by himself. The song was nice, but what cought my attention was the description of the rendition.
The song was, so the description, from a really obscure game, a "doujinshi shmup" called "Perfect Cherry Blossom". My first reaction was "what the heck is a doujinshi?", directly followed by "what the heck is a shmup?" (yeah, I know).

Looked for "Perfect Cherry Blossom" on Wikipedia. The article didn't quite satisfy me and I managed to miss the link to the touhou wiki, too.

So I entered Perfect Cherry Blossom into YouTube and found a Phantasm replay in two parts. My two thoughts were "this is insane!" and "wow, the music is awesome". Too stupid to check out related videos, I stuck with having this very video play in the background while I played other games, just for the music.
One time I checked some of the comments. Naturally, one asked where he could get the game, and naturally another one told him to go to the certain site. Of course I followed the link.

So it turned out that a new game of the series was just released, Mountain of Faith. I downloaded it, and yeah.

I managed to get to Nitori on easy mode but failed to pass her, no matter the continues. Figures not knowing there is a focus button makes things a little more difficult.

With the shift key as a new weapon I managed to get up to Kanako. Many tries later, 1cc on easy. Many, MANY tries later: 1cc on normal. Many, MANY, MANY tries later: Extra clear. By then I got around to get the other games, one at a time, and 1cced them.

I didn't get into the fandom until late 08, though. I thought the non-gameplay videos that came up when I searched for YouTube were something else entirely. :V

Gpop · « **Reply #26 on:** May 27, 2009, 05:47:58 PM »

Quote from: Prody on May 27, 2009, 10:23:57 AM

Anyways, it was Pockethouse which got me into Touhou. It was way long ago then. I think I played the game for many months before I knew there was a community.

Ah yes it was Pockethouse that got me into the doujin.

It was pretty awesome back then. This was when Wong decided to upload a doujin daily, and before his PC/laptop or something crashed since he had Vista.

Ghaleon · « **Reply #27 on:** May 27, 2009, 06:41:44 PM »

Seems like alot of people really like Flandre's theme, or learned about the game because of it. Fairly satisfying cuz I find her music alone makes the fight so much fun, not to mention it suits it so damn well.

nintendonut888 · « **Reply #28 on:** May 27, 2009, 07:55:33 PM »

I actually got into Touhou BEFORE Mcroll'd was spawned into this world by almost exactly a month (11/30/07 was the date I first played Touhou), so I'm fortunate enough to see Mcroll'd as U.N Owen instead of the other way around.

Cadmas · « **Reply #29 on:** May 27, 2009, 07:57:09 PM »

Quote from: Helepolis on May 27, 2009, 06:17:13 AM

How can a game, that ruined 90% of people's lives, be called profit?

I profit from the pain and confusion I cause when I would post overly cute touhou loli on the old WoW forum I hung around.

Author Topic: How did you LEARN about Touhou? (Read 42025 times)

Kit Nezumi

Gpop

Kanako Yasaka

Gpop

Gambit

Mizuki-chan

Gpop