New to Touhou!

[shrimper]

hello everynyan! i have been considering getting into touhou for a while because i am a vocaloid / beatmario / bullet hell fan and the whole combination piqued my curiosity, what touhou game should be my first?

 

[wrigglenightastic]

Depends a lot on your experience with bullet hell, though for beginners in general I usually like to recommend Imperishable Night (8th) and Perfect Cherry Blossom (7th) which are relatively on the more generous side on terms of difficulty and also a good starting point to get to know the more popular characters, but if you don't mind the difficulty I also do like Mountain of Faith (10th), it was one of my first ones but I did struggle with it quite a lot lol. Though I still recommend you start with 7 or 8 which I'D SAY are the most comfortable ones and then slowly start building up

 

[SateriCat17]

Depends a lot on your experience with bullet hell, though for beginners in general I usually like to recommend Imperishable Night (8th) and Perfect Cherry Blossom (7th) which are relatively on the more generous side on terms of difficulty and also a good starting point to get to know the more popular characters, but if you don't mind the difficulty I also do like Mountain of Faith (10th), it was one of my first ones but I did struggle with it quite a lot lol. Though I still recommend you start with 7 or 8 which I'D SAY are the most comfortable ones and then slowly start building up

Definitely do agree that Perfect Cherry Blossom and Imperishable Night are probably being the best games for beginners.
Aside from being more generous with difficulty, they also give you plenty of lives and resources, and both games have slow modes as well.
Regardless, I'd also recommend to play on easy unless the poster has indeed played bullet hell games before.

 

[shrimper]

I have done some bullet hell stuff in the past, you knowww gungeon, lots of deltarune and undertale (ik they are not bullet hell, i classify it bullet hell adjacent, practice for proper stuff yk) although i cannot say i am skilled much at all, lolol
Difficulty / struggle i don't foresee being much an issue to me as i am pretty resilient but i am sure staring off with the easy stuff will get me accustomed to the series ^^

 

[Napechi97]

hello everynyan!

Hello! Also how fast i caught that reference

what touhou game should be my first?

I recommend either of these 4
Touhou 2: Story of Eastern Wonderland - Compared to other Touhou games that have 6 stages, Touhou 2: SoEW has only 5 stages + it's the only game where you can shoot more bullets than normal by spamming rather than holding the Z button
Touhou 3: Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream - Easiest patterns to dodge, and you dont need to ultra focus all the time, just when opponent uses attacks on you which costs mana (or whatever is this) + you wont get one hitted (although you have half screen space, and you have only 3 lives or so) + after each stage your bombs are reseted back to 2 even after using all of them in previous stage
Touhou 4: Lotus Land Story - Almost Everyone says it's the easiest
Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom - It's the only canon game among ones i mentioned (PC98 have their own canon) + you can deathbomb (unlike in PC98) and you have ability to use focus mode (you're slower and your hitbox is visible, unlike in PC98)

What i don't recommend is Touhou 1: Highly Responsible to Prayers because it's not even bullet hell and is difficult asf, you can try tho if you're curious about it and have enough patience

 

[SateriCat17]

Touhou 3: Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream - Easiest patterns to dodge, and you dont need to focus all the time, just when opponent uses attacks on you which costs mana (or whatever is this) + you wont get one hitted (although you have half screen space, and you have only 3 lives)

Hardest of the Phantasmagoria-style games for me. Like, good Lord, stuff can be hard to dodge in there.

 

[Napechi97]

Hardest of the Phantasmagoria-style games for me. Like, good Lord stuff can be hard to dodge in there.

Idk i though it's pretty easy game, even easier than LLS
Perhaps im because it's the only Phantasmagoria-styled game i have ever played (besides Touhou Daisenjou ~ Arcadian Colossuem on roblox) and i played it on easy only, i did struggle tho, especially on Yumemi who just dodged everything until i lost all lives the first try

 

[SateriCat17]

Idk i though it's pretty easy game, even easier than LLS
Perhaps im because it's the only Phantasmagoria-styled game i have ever played (besides Touhou Daisenjou ~ Arcadian Colossuem on roblox) and i played it on easy only, i did struggle tho, especially on Yumemi who just dodged everything until i lost all lives the first try

Well, I haven't tried the Story Mode yet, but at the very least with the match mode, I think it could be a combination of some of the smaller bullets flying at you too fast (sometimes seemingly even faster than they can in PoFV) and the characters' movements feeling a bit wonky.
The patterns of the opposing character also seem too concentrated for it being fast-paced as well.

 

[Napechi97]

Hardest of the Phantasmagoria-style games for me. Like, good Lord, stuff can be hard to dodge in there.

Now that i played it on normal, it's pretty easy for me, honestly even easier than Touhou 4 (although Yumemi's attack seem impossible for me to dodge so i have to use bombs and hyper mode every time)

 

[SateriCat17]

Now that i played it on normal, it's pretty easy for me, honestly even easier than Touhou 4 (although Yumemi's attack seem impossible for me to dodge so i have to use bombs and hyper mode every time)

Well dang, you must be soulmates to that game or something. lol
Also, changed your pfp to Sekibanki now, eh?

 

[Napechi97]

Well dang, you must be soulmates to that game or something. lol

Yes because Yumemi

Also, changed your pfp to Sekibanki now, eh?

I felt like changing it for a while, i dont like having one pfp for too long