does anybody have any recommended Touhou games?

[Evelyn]

just looking for some touhou games to play because im bored and im kind of new and dont know which ones to start playing :)

[PriestOfPain]

For a beginner, I would recommend either 7 or 8. These games aren't too crazy so a newer player can ease into them and branch off from there. Some of the more recent games (16, 17, and 18) are also easier compared to other entries in the series, but they heavily involve a unique gimmick so I wouldn't recommend them as a first game. If you're into fighting games, then check out Hisoutensoku as I would consider it to be the peak of the spinoffs.

[_.Mevs]

I recommend Touhou 8, is a really good one and was one of the first games of the series to have the death bomb (use bomb before dying so you don't die) and also because is really beautiful and has a great soundtrack!

Is also my favorite xd

But i also recommend Touhou 15.5, because is one of the most different official projects since is a fighting game!

Is so beautiful and you can even choose the songs to the fights!

[SoundOfRayne]

I'm gonna assume you're looking for the shooter-type games, so I'd split my recommendations between whether you want to play the official games or fangames.

Of the official games, I'd recommend TH7: Perfect Cherry Blossom, TH8: Imperishable Night, or TH18: Unconnected Marketeers as the most beginner-friendly games in the series.

• TH7 uses a lot of what I call "Arrow Bullets." They're thin projectiles with an arrow pattern, so not only are they very forgiving to squeeze between, but they're incredibly easy to read as far as where they're going; much easier than the standard circle bullets. It also has the Supernatural Border, which acts as a one-time shield for less experienced players and a handy tool for generating resources for more experienced players.
• TH8 has the empowered death-bomb, where you can get a significantly longer period when hit to bomb before dying and prevent losing a life, but at the cost of using 2 bombs instead of 1. I play Touhou very stubbornly and try not to use my bombs often, so stockpiling them and using them 2 at a time better fits how I play.
• TH18 brings with it the "YuGiOh" mechanic, where beating a boss lets you purchase ability cards with money you earn alongside points and power items. These ability cards can significantly change the way you play the game by affecting your damage output, giving you access to more resources like life and bomb fragments, or giving you active or passive utility moves to make the game easier. The best part about it is that when you buy a card, it becomes available in the starting menu to bring with you in any future playthroughs.

On the fangames side of things, a lot of games have made adjustments to mechanics to make Touhou more approachable for beginners, and I really appreciate them for it since I suck. These games are generally easier than official Touhou titles.

• Fantastic Danmaku Festival Part 2 is incredible and I am definitely not biased in any way, shape, or form. It's a sort of remake of Perfect Cherry Blossom with a revamped Supernatural Border. It's more closely tied to resource gathering, since I don't think you get extra lives by point items anymore, but you get it much more frequently, making it a huge boon for bosses. The soundtrack is a nice mix of original tracks and remixes from PCB, and the art is crisp and clean. I'm in the camp of people who don't really like ZUN's artwork, so I'm a big fan of these new character portraits. This was my second Touhou shooter after the first Fantastic Danmaku Festival, and it was the game that got me to be a fan of Touhou in the first place. But again, definitely not biased.
• Azure Reflections is a weird case, where it does so many things right, especially for new players, but makes one major change that I can't adapt to since I played this after other standard shooters. First, the good. The characters model being in 3D look really good. Like, a lot better than I thought they would have. The game is also fully voice-acted. It really enhances the more light-hearted tone this game has, and I have to talk about the perfect casting choice to have Yuka Iguchi voice Cirno. Oh my god, it's so good. Cirno's playthrough is just mwah, perfection. I also wanna give extra props to the translators. Most Touhou dialogue is just word soup. It's hard to get much meaning out of them because of the awkward way they're translated. Not a problem here. Not that the story here is anything complex, but the character interactions are given some much-needed energy. I'm not skipping dialogue because it's actually fun to read. Azure Reflections also has some neat gameplay changes. For one, you don't die in one hit. When you get hit, you're knocked back and stunned for a few seconds, but you can move very slowly to dodge further attacks. Get hit again before the stun wears off, and you lose a life, or survive until then and you're back in the game with no consequence. It also introduces a cool new Barrier mechanic. You can activate a barrier for a few seconds that protects you from damage, but you can also ram yourself into your enemy to do massive damage based on the number of bullets you blocked. Also, similar to TH18, you can buy upgrades for your characters between playthroughs using the points you get from playing. These upgrades range from shorter stun recovery, extra lives and bombs, better barriers. You can change a lot to make future playthroughs easier. It's very beginner-friendly.
  Now for the part I hate. Standard Touhou is a vertical shooting game, with the actual moveable area only taking up a little less than half the screen. This is good, since you need to keep the entirety of the play area in your view to read where bullets are moving. Azure Reflections is a horizontal shooter that covers the entire screen. It is so, so, SO much harder to keep tabs on everything, and I cannot for life of me adapt to this new way of playing. It undermines all these wonderful things about this game when I'm ultimately not having fun having this on my screen. But I always tell myself that if I were a Touhou newbie, and I wasn't so accustomed to playing shooters a certain, this would be one of the best games in the series for me. I really want to know how people who aren't already used to Touhou feel about this one.
• Of all the Touhou games I've played, I'd say Elegant Impermanence of Sakura and Blue Devil in the Belvedere had to be the easiest. They're also two of the flashiest. What these games lack in tight, memorable level and boss design, they make up for in spades with sheer spectacle. These are both such a treat for the eyes and ears, I can't not recommend them. But for all the visual overload, they're still remarkably easy thanks to a very forgiving deathbomb window in EIoS and the Power Overwhelming mechanic in BDitB. It's hard to recommend them for easiness alone, but given Touhou's reputation for its difficulty, I think these are fine options if you feel overwhelmed by other titles and want something easier.

I wonder if I made it too obvious how much more stock I put in fangames over official titles...

If you're curious about other non-shooter-type games, I can always come back to talk about some of those too.

[Nekofire]

For shooting games I highly recommend you Touhou 08 but the other comments recommended you pretty good shooting games so I guess that it wouldn’t be interesting to repeat what had been already said

So for the fighting games Touhou14.5/15.5 are really good because of the gameplay, story mode and graphics

For the first/old fighting games, Touhou 7.5 is super good but super hard, it requires too much tenacity to win without using continues, Touhou 10.5 gets harder and Touhou 12.3 is easier but kinda empty in the story mode. Touhou 13.5 is good but feels kinda empty 

 

There is a fan game I really recommend you : Mystical Chain, no need to describe why I love this game, it’s purely perfect

[adzi]

For the canon games, PCB seems to be the best pick... you might try EoSD, although it's more difficult and a bit janky.

[Evelyn]

thank u everyone :)

[Eulogous]

I'd recommend Double Dealing Character (TH14). Every Windows Touhou game barring EoSD has a gimmick to an extent, so it's more just finding what feels right for you.