Out of the official touhou Games, which is the best designed

[ScarletCyro]

Personally, i think Touhou 7 is the best designed, but only because it feels the most traditional out of the games, it has things that make it different, but it does those things well, and the spellcards are fun too me, though all of them feel really similar. 

[Canaranjo]

Title is a bit anbiguous there, OP. For a moment I thought you meant which touhou fangame is best designed xD
(thank god it's not that discussion though, otherwise we'd die on that hill)

I'm a big casual so I won't really include information about spellcards, patterns, pacing, rng, or the like, but here goes:

Personally, contrary to the opinion that has been shared with me by other people, I quite like the minigames introduced in the recent installments of the series (Wbwc's and UFO's special power-ups; the cards in unconnected marketeers...) they help the game feel fresh.

If we're talking traditional touhou, however... I will always say Mountain of Faith. The thematic progression in that game is absoulutely stellar, every stage feels fresh and memorable. The difficulty progression feels smoother than other games (aside from a spike in the waterfall stage) and each boss has a different flavor of danmaku going for them, so it doesn't get too repetitive.

[ScarletCyro]

Im inclined to agree with MoF because mountain of faith just fits so well together and the Danmaku styles always change. Also, you can just call me Scarlet/Aubrey. I do also enjoy the minigames in the more recent games, and we totally would've died on that hill if it was fan games

[White L]

14.3 aka impossible spellcard imo.

Cool and unique spellcards for the most part. The way you can challenge every level with different items makes it so that you dont actually play them all the same way, finding the best item for a scene and how to use it, overall pretty solid mechanics as well as every soundtrack being pretty good.

[ScarletCyro]

I haven't played touhou 14.3 before actually,  i think soundtracks play an important part in everything. 

[Tenkko]

I'm... actually gonna go with SA. Yeah it is one of the hardest games, and until recently it was the only game I didn't have a normal 1cc on, but after actually giving it some time I found it's like, real good. It has varied shot types that suit different playstyles (and offer a lot of dialogue options), the spellcards are challenging but fun to play through, the stages are very learnable, and it's actually really generous with resources.

[ScarletCyro]

1 hour ago, Tenkko said:

I'm... actually gonna go with SA. Yeah it is one of the hardest games, and until recently it was the only game I didn't have a normal 1cc on, but after actually giving it some time I found it's like, real good. It has varied shot types that suit different playstyles (and offer a lot of dialogue options), the spellcards are challenging but fun to play through, the stages are very learnable, and it's actually really generous with resources.

As an SA and utsuho lover, i totally agree, Touhou 11 is amazing too, and yeah it is pretty learnable. Though i think it's slightly overrated in difficultly and it's all round a good experience 

[Turbonator]

Touhou 7.

[Eulogous]

For the mainline games, I'd have to go with MoF.

MoF is a very solid experience throughout and, even though I'm not big on how Bombs/Spirit Attacks are handled in 10 or 11, I like that you damage cap at 4.00 with the extra working as a sort of Bomb reserve. The difficulty progression is pretty good, but I sometimes struggle with Stage 4's Midboss and a few Kanako patterns.

Out of the other games, I'd say Impossible Spell Card.

I like the equipment system it has going on, it lets you tackle the different scenes how you want. Since items level up when you use them in scenes, it can encourage the player to go back and try out different sets, or clear it without cheat items to level everything you have. The puzzle-like approach to patterns is something that really appeals to me, and the ability to solve it in almost any way I'd like is fun imo.

[_.Mevs]

In my opinion, Touhou 7

It has a unique art style and is really nice to look at =D