Gri

The short one (th7.exe) is for the Japanese unpatched version, and the long one (Touhou7.exe) is for the patched version.

Have you tried LOLK? That one is the only one with the PointDevice mode. A mode where you must do a no-miss clear, but when you get hit, you restart at a checkpoint. Bombs are allowed, but limited so be careful to not use them or you'll be "softlock" at stage 5 or 6. It is also the only game that can save your progression. This feels more in line with what you are searching. Also, the option should be there for touhou 13> to retry from the beginning of the stage. You can use it. Touhou are arcade games, so you are expected to replay them over and over until you've "master them", which the original continue system encourage. The "satisfaction" comes from finally getting the good ending with 1CC. I would mind the other system less if you could still win after retrying a stage, as well as save your progression. It would mean the struggles on a specific stage would be rewarded eventually. As is it now, you might as well give up, start over from the beginning to get more resources and get a better chance at passing the later stages. The worse thing, is that it encourage you to play "in a bad way". Say you are on your last live, on the last spell of the stage 5 boss and still have some bombs, then you'll be very tempted to waste all your bombs and reach the "stage 6 checkpoint" (since you become tired after awhile of playing the same stage), rather than actually trying your best. Personally, I kinda wish Zun would have implemented PointDevice for every game after LOLK. The "issue" in LOLK was that the game was design with PointDevice in mind, so it is much harder than any other Touhou (and they are BS spell that kills you if you aren't in the correct spot before the attack starts. Not punishing with unlimited lives, very bad on Legacy mode).

Nope. As far as I am aware, no patch to do the reverse. The mods just skip the line that tells the game to reset the stage, so it was "easy" to implement. The reverse would be hard, since the code that reset the stage isn't really in the game (you have to recycle part of the Practice Mode and hope it somehow still works in the main game). Haven't try that option on touhou 13>, but there should be an option in the menu to start over the current stage. I am curious, what do you not like about that continue system? The only strength of the one from 10-12 I can see is that it makes clearing a stage for the first time more rewarding. On other playthrough, it's just an annoying waste of time. It forces you to grind a stage, when you might just want to move on to the next one (Not each play session has to turn into intensive training). Arcade game are nice because they are short (~30m-40m) and can fit in a busy schedules. That system just prolong the game too long when you're leaning the game, and may force you to quit (due to rage or lack of time). Not a pleasant feeling. In the "more popular" continue system, you get to choose whether to continue your run as a practice run where you practice each stage equally, or whether to stop and grind a specific stage over and over in the practice mode (or even grind a spell in Spell Practice). Of course, in both case, the moment you use a continue, you lost. So in my case, when I lose, I prefer the system that let's me choose how I want to practice, over the one that force me to grind RIGHT NOW. I'll manage my own training thanks. Note: Touhou8 has the worst system. You can use continues, but not in Stage6B, where you are very likely to use one.

Correction: A is for Aya

Yes there is. You used thcrap for getting the english patch? If yes, simply launch thcrap and when asked to select a language patch, look at the bottom-left for a "advanced" checkbox. Check it, then the full list of patch will be displayed. Search for "continue", then the continue patch for 10-12 will appear. This patch gives you infinite continues, but the moment you use one, you get the bad ending (like Touhou 6-8). If you haven't used thcrap, go download it from their website. Honestly, this is by far one of the worst choice Zun's ever made. It debatably makes the first playthrough more rewarding, since it takes more time to see a new stage, but it just makes all next playthroughs very annoying, since you may not want to grid a stage on repeat to practice (there's practice mode for that). Thank god he reconsidered from Touhou 13 and onward.

Now it makes sense. I wasn't too sure you were referring to fanon. Indeed, canon wise it makes no sense. Fanon likes to overly simplify characters and their interactions or even turn characters into common anime cliché (like Yuuka for instance, who just slightly troll people in PoFV but somehow became a typical Sado-dere in fanon). This is why I tend to avoid fan-stuff until I know about how things are supposed to be officially. Same thing happens with Satori (turned into a weak, frail and lonely person tortured by her ability, when in reality she uses her ability without asking permissions, turns people fear against them and rules over former-hell), and it makes me angry. While Touhou has a girl-only cast and the story is fairly light (nothing bad ever happens), it's never been about "waifus" (at least from my perspective). But, that's another topic.

Actually, this is my question on the topic: Are they still divided? I mean, yes they are from different religion, so they are competing for "faith", just like Reimu and Moriya Shrine, but they are not "at war" with one another. Even then, Byakuren's getting a lot of faith from youkais, so it's not like Miko has to work that hard to get the humans faith (no many human would want to hang around youkais, even if officially youkai stay "undercover" at the temple, rumors would keep most humans away). They are "divided" because of their religion, so they won't hang out together just for fun, but they can talk casually when meeting one another (much like business rivals) and work together when thing get serious like in AoCF. Haven't read the print-works/omakes, so I don't know where that part is coming from.

Aha. Of course I wouldn't notice. There's 18 mainline shumps games (not counting HRtP), and once I'll Lunatic clear all of them (currently about halfway through), I'll take a break of shumps for a while, so I have no interest in shumps fan-games (yet). Well, he's the one that pop-up in my recommendation. You know the algorithm goes: the more popular you are, the more popular you'll get. I also watch Suwako when the topic is interesting (no gameplay video, I hate his) as well as MegaPig, and Tenkko since he advertise his channel here (and he covered fan-game I haven't seen before). For gameplay, there's Jaimers, as well as a few other. Mostly use them for guides. Also, I don't watch twitch. I prefer playing games myself, so I do know much streamer.

The only game I am aware of that was recently released is this Touhou/SMT crossover fangame (played the demo). Other than that, I keep a lookout on Asprey's streaming for new fan-games (I don't watch them. Just take a peek to see what the fan-game is about). Of course, official reviews are better. Honestly, it's hard finding a good fan-game, since there's a lot of fans who would buy anything with the "Touhou" brand. It's hard to tell whether it's actually good, or just carried by the Touhou name.

You can't really blame the Western community to think that Zun won't listen to them. Despise the demand for it, Zun has never bother to add english translation to the game (either by doing it himself or by hiring someone). This alone shows that Zun has little interest in Western community. In the end, yes you are are right, they could try to reach him, but we would need a great number of people sending "proper" email to Zun regarding issues with the last game, and we would need the japanese community to do the same. This part is another topic completely. I wouldn't say that "Touhou remix" are less popular, more like some fan have heard enough (there's only so much remix of "UN Owen was her" you can heard before being tired of listening to the same tune). For fan games, that's up to the dev to announce their game. I haven't play much fan-game, but I make sure to leave review and talk about the game if it is good (which is what people should be doing, but there a lot of "passive" fans which just listen to music and look at artwork. You can't force them to be "active"). Playthrough of a game and stream are actually a very good way of making a game known. This is actually an idea I had when seeing how UDoALG was "unfinished" and "broken", and when seeing the many comments of "Why is character X not there?". The community could come together and try to make a truly good, competitive Touhou VS game. Not need to wait for Zun to do it, he won't (this requires maintenance and updates, which Zun never do aside from very rare post release patch). This would be a BIG project though, since it would "serve" the whole community (so, a lot of pressure to whoever will want to do it). Mods are all well and good, especially for making old game playable, but for new game it just feel like doing the work that Zun should have done in the first place (Modding takes a lot more effort than simply changing the game's original source code). Paying for a game you have to "patch" yourself turns off a lot of people, even if thcrap is easy to use (there's always the possibility of breaking something with too much mod). Pirating is an option, but always risky which turn off more people. So, even with Mods, you can't fix all of UDoALG issues. Only minors ones. For things like missing Extra, Replay and Score, even asking Zun wouldn't work, since he'd never implement these feature post release, since this is how that game was designed. He'll only consider this for the next game, and I doubt it will be a VS game, making the whole thing a bit pointless. I am curious: do you know how the japanese community is reacting to Touhou 19, and if they tried to get things fixed? EDIT: On another note, thanks for sharing the mod list with everyone.

The returns of the bingos (Yeah. I really got nothing to say about Rika)

Quick question: What is the GameEngine most commonly used during GameJams? I have a fair share of experience using RPG Maker, and little using Unity, but I am wondering if people uses things like GameMaker. In my case, I am a programmer, and I might be interested in a GameJam once I get used to some of the tools uses for such short project. My job is to program, so I don't think starting a real Game project is a good idea, as I would be programming all the time (and I need my daily break). In a GameJam at least, it is just "once in a while", and you only focus on making a small and simple gameplay loop.

No worries. They are tons of characters left, so of course you can't upload for +200 days straight (especially if you want to write how you feel about each character along the way).

All right, full post about the concept now: This could actually be a very nice game that combine various gameplay from the mainline game. For example, there's a series of "scene" that are related to the UFO incident, so during those scene you have to play around UFO token to get through (whether aiming for score using blue one, or surviving use red/green, or even trying to break as many as you can). Another example would be the "season" incident, where you have to use you're season release to survive/score as many point as you can. You could even have "survival" challenge where you must last a specified amount of time (much like PoFV). I am getting hyped just thinking about the possibility, image this one: Cirno having to use her GFW ice power to protect an ally (that doesn't move, so there's no annoying random). Or having to use "cherry border" to survive deadly spells (collecting cherry item + unfocus shot to charge it). Having smaller incident also make it easy to justify having a larger cast, and I like the idea of having only some character available for some scene. It can play pretty well into the story, as well as offering some variation into the gameplay. I do think the game should force the player to try out each character at least once, in a kind of "invisible tutorial" way where you force the player to do ~2 scene, but the first one is easy and builds of the character strength (ex: Youmu can take out multiple "strong" fairy in a single charged slash), and the second increase the difficulty a bit using the character's weakness (ex: Youmu's has to get closer, so the player must now learn when to get close, and when to get away). Regarding accessibility, I think simply having difficulty setting would be enough. Currently, this is what makes the Photo games inaccessible to newcomers (only ISC is good since you can "choose" your difficulty depending on which item you use, or not). Maybe give the option to increase the amount of lives for longer survival-scene / boss-scene, or have broze-silver-gold ranks for score-scene. Such game would take a lot of work, depending on the number of character, scenes and difficulty/rank. One can dream (thanks for sharing that dream).

This. So tired of seeing so called "Christians" that are forgetting one of their religion's main pillar: Forgiveness. It ain't just about sin & punishment, only extremist fools will think that way (unfortunately, some churches just LOVE using that to scare people into worship, since many are afraid of the afterlife and facing consequences, which in this case is "hell". Fortunatly, some churches actually help people into finding forgivness). Nobody is perfect 24/7, and nobody can expect anyone else being perfect. It's all a cycle: You live, you make mistakes (sins), you suffer from the consequence of your sin (therefor, it's your punishment), then you seek/ask for forgiveness if the burden is too great to bear alone. Then you continue to live, and strive to not make the same mistakes. Sinning without punishment means you do not realize your are making a mistake, and some punishment will inevitably "strike" you at some point (either you realize your mistake, or someone tells you). Punishment without forgiveness means you're standing still, hurting yourself without learning, growing and moving forward. Honestly, you're the only one to blame for "perverting" your perception of Touhou. How you live with that now is up to you (in other word, how you get forgiveness for that is up to you), but calling out others on doing the same like you did before is just being an hypocrite, and it won't remove the guilt you have, it will just make you feel worse because by judging others you are also judging yourself.

The thing with Wakasagihime (and the rest of the grassroot youkai), is that she only appear in DDC, and she's under the effect of the Miracle Mallet, so we don't really see her with her real personality (all we know is that she's usually shy/not-aggressive). Much like other Stage 1 boss, she's just there to serve as a boss, rarely used to move the story forward. Another thing is that there's practically no other water-youkai (aside from Kappas), so it's hard to have a setting in which Wakasagihime fit for fan-content. It could be interesting to explore Gensokyo's underwater at some point. In general, interest in characters after Touhou 12 in generally pretty low, which is a shame, but understandable since character from Touhou 13+ practically never comes back outside of mangas (or photo spin-offs). Design wise, it cool to see a different design from the typical mermaid, though I am pretty sure Zun's pick that design from somewhere.

Short post (may post more later): This sounds like a neat concept at glace. Careful. Many of those who are saying this just don't play because they hate losing. To them, losing = they are bad. They prefer saying they are bad, when losing once or twice is perfectly normal for arcade game like those. One of my friend, who had never played any shmups and isn't that good in video games managed to get to PCB stage 3 without using continue on Easy (the game closed because of sticky keys, unfortunately). Pretty sure anyone that actually bother playing the game can 1CC on Easy fairly quickly (probably in about 3 runs). Sure, having a PointDevice mode like LoLK makes the game much more accessible, since anyone with enough persistence can get to the end, without losing progress. A bit of randomness is necessary to keep the player on their toes. Otherwise, when you memorized the game, it become boring pretty quickly. Sure, there can be BS random, but that's what bombs are for. The games aren't that bad with BS random, until you start playing on Lunatic where some part are too tight (like you sometime get in a spot where if you don't move, you get hit, but if you move, you move pass the gap and hit the next bullet. This happens especially with Marisa fast speed and fat hitbox).

Couldn't agree more. I really prefer when she's written in a way that she ACT jealous, rather than her simply TELLING she's jealous over and over. Not that I have seen much fanworks, but I can easily see people falling into that trap.

Who? Seriously, I just don't get her so called "fans". Officially, she gets 0 personality. No line of dialog, no portrait, no spell card (excluding the photo spin-offs). Just a sprite like Daiyousei and Koakuma. All we know is she's a wolf-tengu and she's guarding Youkai Mountain along with the other tengus. How do we know if she's serious, kind, mean, clumsy, etc... ? What do we know about her relations with other character ? Any "fans" of her are actually just fans of whatever made-up personality other fans have given her, meaning a someone could both like/dislike Momiji depending on what personality she has. This is why having a minimum of official content is important, otherwise the character is just an empty doll that people will turn into their "waifu" (filling it with any personality traits they like).

(Got the guess right, yay!) No more bingo card?

True. Having an open-mind is important to uncover interesting character integration. In another post, someone wanted to make a fan-game with Mike, but people weren't interested because that character doesn't have much going on officially so it was "shut down". Depending on the game idea, it could have worked (like, we know she want to sell cards to the player, so she might be a merchant. Or maybe she just like making money and use the cards as an opportunity. Either way, you can make a game where you have to handle her shop). You have to be careful though to not mix what's in the official games (which often leave some gaps), and your imagination of a character. For instance: Elly. Officially, she's just another "guardian" that's get beaten by both Reimu and Marisa, and there's no connection between her and Yuuka other than they are in the same world. Imagination is fine, but not everyone will imagine the same amount of depth for character like these that get very little screentime. Worse, some people may imagine negative things about a character. There's a reason why characters that appear often, and therefor usually better defined (like Aya that has 2 spin-off games, playable in 2 main-line, and appear a lot in print works due to her being a tengu and a news-writer), are generally popular. You can't really blame people for choosing whichever character left a bigger impression on them (and having a character returns multiple time is of good way of doing that, like Mima did during the PC98 games) and not giving as much attention to a lesser-defined character that could be interesting with a bit of imagination when there's +100 more characters in the series. Maybe for those who have been in the community for a long time it's different and they are tired of seeing the same character over and over in fan-works. Here's what I remember about both Elly and Mima without doing any research, as well as quick stuff I can imagine from that: Elly: She's a guardian. Has a scythe so maybe(?) is related to death. Live's in Mugekkan (sorry for spelling) or maybe (?) between Gensokyo and Mugekkan , so maybe (?) connected to Yuuka. Was beaten / let slip Reimu/Marisa, so maybe (?) clumsy Mima: She's a vengeful spirit (can imagine various relations with the other spirits, as well as her having the ability to posses someone). She was sealed (can imagine it was by Reimu or the previous Shrine Maiden. Can imagine she has a grudge against the Hakurei familly, or maybe her grudge is something else), but breaks free then fights against Reimu, but then becomes somewhat friend in the ending of MS (much like other Yokai in windows game). She's stronger at night (can imagine she's somehow related to the moon). She often lies and is mean to other people, making fun of them without losing her cool. She teached Marisa magic (can imagine many thing of that). For me, it's easier to see Mima as a more relevant character than Elly given how many official stuff she has going for, and this it turns makes it easier for me to imagine various scenario involving Mima. It could be different for you. I picked Elly as a mere example. Btw, I sort-of written my previous message as "If I had to pick only ONE character to represent PC98, who would I pick" (forgot to actually mention it though). I don't want to turn this post into "Mima's good, actually", just that there is some merit behind Mima being one of the more popular PC98 character (other than the meme, of course)

I am curious: who would be better choice than Mima? The only other ones I can think of that could come back are Yumemi (if we need someone from an outside "futuristic" world) and Shinki (since she's important to Makai). And even then, And even then I think those are a bit of a stretch. Shinki doesn't have enough screentime, so she doesn't have time to do anything interesting. For Yumemi, her story feels closed so it's hard to see her come back (unless she try and study/kidnap yokais for research) Mima's a no brainer: She's the antagonist of SoEW, a playable character in PoDD (which slightly add interactions between her, Reimu and Marisa), and a playable character in MS (who this time around has a lot more dialog. ). I exclude HRtP since she doesn't talk, and there's no plot in that game anyway. Yeah, she's evil, but that doesn't make her a bad character. And to be clear, that's only hypothetically if PC98 becomes relevant. I am not in the "Bring back Mima, lol" gang.

Yeah, those "fan" just echo the most popular memes to show they are part of the "gang" too (some fan also can't let go). Best to ignore them. I do think that if PC98 somehow becomes relevant, then she's a must. "She’ll never show up again": This title can be applied to pretty much 95% of the PC-98 cast. Tough now that I know you're opinion of her, the title makes more sense. So far, I am bad at guessing (only go the "limited winter event" so far).

Good to hear Zun had something to release patch. Now, whether or not he'll address the issues, we'll see.

Same here. Not only that, but Zun's increase the price despise clearly rushing the game for Comiket. I wish he would postpone the game for the next Reiteisen or Comiket, rather than rushing, releasing and praticaly-never patching the game. This is an issue with physical format: you can't send updates to fix the game. You only get one shot, and since Comiket is a big deal for Doujin developer like Zun, it's hard skip it.