Kage Ryu

Oh boy, I like this topic. Have I a tale to tell. For me, it started with Smash. Super Smash Bros. has always been my favorite game series (even over Touhou), and back in the Brawl days, I watched a lot of Home Run Contest videos. And I came across this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt77Y5saO2Y And later, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3rCqeMQooc (Well, not those specific ones; those are reuploads of the originals that I had watched at the time.) Basically, HRC videos with Touhou music. When it comes to music, my tastes are based heavily on nostalgia; even if the music is really great, if I can't associate it with something (a character, a level, a video, etc.), I will forget it much more easily. So the remixes in those videos stuck, because I enjoyed the content, and they went well with the visuals. Not sure of the details, but I had at some point learned where the music came from, and I believe my search led me to this very site to download some of the games. I had started with EoSD, since that was the first of the Windows games and origin of the remixes in that first video (I also got SA, which was the most recent at the time, but that's another story, and I'm only mentioning it to give you guys a timeframe). Never made it to Flandre because it was too bloody hard, but I absolutely loved the dialog of the characters, the music, and the art made me feel better about my own art while still being above what I generally accomplish. So while I thought the gameplay was terribly difficult, I loved pretty much everything else about it. But probably the biggest pull was learning about ZUN. Being a lover of games and wanting to make my own, ZUN inspired me (and still does). Because I learned through Touhou that if you have the right skillset (and circumstances), it is possible to be a sole developer for a franchise, which is pretty much my dream. I enjoy Touhou not only for its content, but because of knowing that it was generally created by a single person, and that type of position is where I aim to be in life.