Weird coincidences in Touhou games (Touhou 16 speculation)

[PabloHijiri]

Hello, I'm new in MoTK, sorry if my english is bad. I've found out a lot of coincidences between Touhou games, so I think we could speculate about Touhou 16.
First, Touhou 9 PoFV. 9 is 3*3, and Touhou 3 was PoDD, so we had another Phatasmagoria game. Touhou 4 LLS. 4 is 2*2, so we had another shoot 'em up. Remember tha the first 3 touhou games were all different, so we could have an Arkanoid instead of a shoot 'em up. So, I think Touhou 16 could have a gimmick like LLS, because 16 is 4*4.
The * indicates a multiplication, at least in my country, so it may confuse you.

14 is 7*2, so we had Sakuya in DDC, just like in Touhou 7 PCB. So, Touhou 16 could have playable characters like Touhou 8, teams of characters from the most recent fighting game, ULiL. Touhou 12, UFO, had a more proper relation with the PC-98 than EoSD, again, 12=6*2.

Anyway, it's also possible to have Reimu and Marisa as the Stage 4 bosses, like Touhou IN, and LLS.

So, I guess Touhou 16 would have a relation with the PC-98, have teams of playable characters from the most recent fighter, have Reimu and Marisa as the stage 4 bosses, may need to do a 1CC to see the good ending, may have relation with Mugenkan or the Lunar plot, may have Last Words, and may have a returning character, from PC-98 or Windows; if there is a plan rather than just coincidences.

[Boomer]

Not a bad speculation.  I'm rather glad to see that I was not alone in drawing the parallel between Touhou 3 and 9.  I kind of stopped using the multiplication as a basis though seeing as I have been unable to make anymore comparisons through multiplication (that and I have yet to play all of the official games).  In any case, I would definitely like to see the team system from Imperishable Night make a return.  Now assuming it does have that, why do we have to think only of characters from the recent fighters when it could also have characters playable from 15?  After all, just about all of the phantom sides in Imperishable Night(excluding Remilia) were bosses from Perfect Cherry Blossom.

[Drake]

literally every new game

[PabloHijiri]

Not a bad speculation.  I'm rather glad to see that I was not alone in drawing the parallel between Touhou 3 and 9.  I kind of stopped using the multiplication as a basis though seeing as I have been unable to make anymore comparisons through multiplication (that and I have yet to play all of the official games).  In any case, I would definitely like to see the team system from Imperishable Night make a return.  Now assuming it does have that, why do we have to think only of characters from the recent fighters when it could also have characters playable from 15?  After all, just about all of the phantom sides in Imperishable Night(excluding Remilia) were bosses from Perfect Cherry Blossom.

But they have their shottypes and bombs based on Immaterial and Missing Power. Yukari has the IaMP dress, and all the playable characters appeared in IaMP.
I really want to have Yuuka as a playable character again, but, with the new and incomplete Lunar Plot part 2, Chang'e or the Watatsuk's (Even if Zun said that they will never appear in a game) can make an appearance.

[Tengukami]

literally every new game

To expand on what Drake's saying here, speculations are a murky area to wander into. The evidence they are based on spans a spectrum from plausible to fantastical. Plausible evidence for speculation might include hints ZUN has dropped in interviews, tweets and blog posts about what he has planned. The fantastical unfortunately covers a lot more ground.

The math game here is neat to look at, but is a classic example of making the data fit the hypothesis. It presumes that ZUN has a flow chart of these number relations hanging up on his wall, and is planning his games accordingly. I think this is highly unlikely, even if people bring up some kind of clever numerology about the Touhou games literally every time a new game comes out. They have not, to date, ever proven true. Many people used numerology to speculate we would get a new phantasmagoria game this time around, which didn't happen. Others used it to speculate Marisa would die, or change into a youkai, or undergo some other tremendous transformation, which also didn't happen.

Underlying this is a whole lot of wishful thinking. We care a lot about the cast, some characters especially, and want to see them again. So some people project their wishes onto cherry-picked data to support their hypothesis. Several years ago, someone here posted a wall of text about why Mima not only should but absolutely had to return. Today, "bring back Mima" is a running joke in the fandom, but we still see the same dynamic - fans of Character X will decontextualize data to support their hypothesis that Character X is overdue to come back in the next game. Even if ZUN expressly states that this character is not going to appear in a game.

The really beautiful thing about Touhou Project is that the entire franchise is built upon the whims and efforts of a single person, and so the cast, settings and mechanics of new games will always be a mystery. Human beings are chaotic, inconsistent, and unpredictable. The best we can hope for in terms of speculating what is around the corner where these games are concerned is what this person has hinted at or said may probably happen, and even that's not entirely reliable.

I hope you don't take this as me crapping all over your hopes and dreams for Touhou 16. No one will deny you the right to want particular characters, settings or mechanics in the next game. We all have those. I'm just trying to provide you with some historical context when it comes to fans making speculations about what the next game will entail.

[PabloHijiri]

The really beautiful thing about Touhou Project is that the entire franchise is built upon the whims and efforts of a single person, and so the cast, settings and mechanics of new games will always be a mystery. Human beings are chaotic, inconsistent, and unpredictable. The best we can hope for in terms of speculating what is around the corner where these games are concerned is what this person has hinted at or said may probably happen, and even that's not entirely reliable.

I hope you don't take this as me crapping all over your hopes and dreams for Touhou 16. No one will deny you the right to want particular characters, settings or mechanics in the next game. We all have those. I'm just trying to provide you with some historical context when it comes to fans making speculations about what the next game will entail.

No, my dreams aren't destroyed. Huh, I think I just tried to apply common sense in Touhou. And there isn't such thing as common sense in Gensokyo. That's why I don't named the post 'Touhou 16 predictions/speculations', because I knew Zun can do anything he wants with his games. You're right. Even if fans want to make a manifestation if they don't have X or Y characters, that character will only appear if Zun says so.

[FamilyTeam]

This is neat speculation, sure, but I think it's perhaps a tad early to speculate about the next game. Like Tengukami said before, people are unpredicable and some of these speculations are farfetched, even if they're fun to think about.
We'll see, we'll see. For the most part we get either one or two years between each main game., I wouldn't expect news about a new one until late next year.

BTW Quick note: * is the symbol that represents multiplication in most modern calculators and a whole tonne of programming languages (definitely all C-based languages) so it's used more than you think.

[Abraham Lincoln]

Ten Twenty FIFTY bucks bets that Mima will not make an appearance as a boss or player in Touhou 16.

[PabloHijiri]

Well, I hope for Yuuka rather than Mima. Yuuka already appeared as a Windows character.

I think I should only put the Touhou 3-Touhou 9 relation, and not a Touhou 16 speculation. It has the same probability to have Yuuka or the LLS plot than having an Egyptian or Greek plot