Touhou game recommendations?

[bananacoffee]

I am very new to touhou and have only been playing touhou 6 (I'm not very good yet I only can get to stage 3 on normal without continues). I have been enjoying touhou so far and was wondering what other touhou games or media I should try? Or just a favorite touhou game you recommend? Any advice is welcome.

 

[MrFrogingtonTheSecond]

Not a offical touhou game, but luna nights was a fun metroidvania that I enjoyed. You play as sakuya and go around trying to collect pieces of your power while figuring out what the world and story is about using timestopping and or abilities to travel about. It uses the setting of Touhou 6 which should make it recognizable to some degree. There are some characters from different touhou media, so do keep that in mind. I recommend it if your looking for a metroidvania that stays in line with touhou 6, while having fun gameplay. Blah blah, give it a shot if you want.

 

[Mi0ink]

Out of the two official touhou games I've played so far (14 and 17.5) I'd recommend them both.

17.5/Sunken Fossil World, it's a little hard but fun. It's a horizontal side scroller bullet hell where you have to basically smack the boss with your weapon, there's also a water meter you fill from sucking up the water the boss or bullets make, when it's max you send out a spell card. If you like spamming the z and x keys this is the game for you. (It also has Yuuma in it so that's another reason)
(17.5 gameplay example)

Also you can try 14/Double Dealing Character, too. It should be a little easier than 6. (Never played 6 though) You have to build up as many item blocks before going to the top of the screen (or bombing) to get bonus bombs and lives. If you like being greedy and getting dopamine this is the game for you.
(14 game example)

 

[SateriCat17]

Two unofficial Touhou games I'd highly recommend are Sapphire Panlogism and Mystia's Izakaya. Sapphire Panlogism is a danmaku game like most of the official Touhou games (though it may be somewhat hard), and Mystia's Izakaya is a sort of "cooking simulator"/part adventure game. If you've ever played or know about Stardew Valley, Mystia's Izakaya is similar to that. Of the official Touhou games, I'd recommend Imperishable Night or Perfect Cherry Blossom for the danmaku games and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, Urban Legend in Limbo, or Antinomy of Common Flowers for the fighting games.
Anyway, enjoy your stay!

 

[yee]

touhou 7 is a pretty good next step after touhou 6 (woah really) but honestly just go for whichever games interest you the most (official or not) since chronological order dosen't really matter in touhou.

also, try touhou 9. it's very different from most other touhou games but once you learn it it's so fun

 

[YuyuFumo]

I recommend all beginners start with Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom as their first game. It's a relatively easy game for Touhou standards, with the main gimmick being a respawning shield that allows you to absorb a hit or be detonated like a bomb to clear the screen. Character hitboxes are also pretty small in this title, with Reimu's being the smallest in the entire series. Touhou 8: Imperishable Night is also a great place to start, as it has even easier patterns than PCB and hands out bombs like candy. The time mechanic is somewhat convoluted, though, so I'd recommend reading up on how to collect time orbs before playing.

I'll also recommend thprac, which is the practice tool most the community uses. It lets you skip to specific stages sections or spell cards at your will, letting you practice tricky sections to your heart's content. Word of the wise, though, using it for EoSD requires a locale emulator to run the game in Japanese, so do keep that in mind.

Once you start getting good at the games, I'd wholeheartedly suggest Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism as the best game in the series to try out. Fair warning, though, it's a very difficult entry, even by Touhou standards. Once you master it, though, it becomes a blast and a half to play.

 

[YuyuFumo]

Also you can try 14/Double Dealing Character, too. It should be a little easier than 6. (Never played 6 though) You have to build up as many item blocks before going to the top of the screen (or bombing) to get bonus bombs and lives. If you like being greedy and getting dopamine this is the game for you.
(14 game example)

I've yet to 1CC DDC, but I always found it to be more challenging than EoSD with the required risk to get resources and Seija's controller flipping shenanigans. Quite the fun game, though, and best Kobito princess being the final boss is the cherry on top.

also, try touhou 9. it's very different from most other touhou games but once you learn it it's so fun

I would very, very strongly recommend you also look up a guide on how to play PoFV, especially if you're going to go through the gauntlet that is the game's story mode. Long story short opponents get rigged AI halfway through the experience and require pretty technical knowledge of the systems to beat. Even on normal difficulty, Eiki Shiki is still one of my top contenders for most difficult fight in the series.

 

[SoxBox]

I'm a big fan of Touhou 9 but it's not the traditional touhou experience but it was my first step into the bullet hell side of Touhou. Imperishable Night (Touhou 8) has great characters and themes. I;ve heard Touhou 13- Ten Desires is also a good place to start but I don't know how true that is.

Fan game wise... Touhou Fantastic Danmaku Festival Part 3. 1 and 2 are also good but 3 is one of the best Touhou fan games I have ever played.

 

[Napechi97]

If you only want recommendations for danmaku (bullet hell) games then i recommend Touhou: Servants of Harvest Wish (SoHW).
I consider it the best pick for beginners for few reasons:

1. Difficulty - touhou fangames are in general pretty easy comparing to official games

2. Deathbombing - in this game you have way more time to use bomb after getting hit (like 0.5s-1s) while in official games you have 0.1s (133ms), i dont say you should deathbomb there (because in official games its barely impossible even if you practice it a lot) but you have more chances of not losing a life if you happen to not use bomb before getting hit

3. Extra Stages - even if you beat the game on easy difficulty you can play Extra stages, what is even better, there is Easy Extra, Extra and Lunatic Extra (or Hard Extra... idk i forgot), you can also access all extra stages for all characters even when you beat the game with just one character

4. Power - you don't collect p-items to get max power unlike in official games... well... because there are no p-item, instead there are small green stars that don't do anything at all (so dont bother even trying to collect them), anyway, p-points are absent because you have max power at the start, therefore you can also collect every item on the screen by going up (idk if its in touhou 6 even with max power)

5. Bombs - Everytime you close graze points, you have same effect as touhou 7 supernatural border which is temporary thing that collects every item on the map and if you get hit during that you dont lose a life, but in echance you can't use bomb because if you try so you instantly lose that effect, everytime the effect ends without you getting hit or clicking the X button you will get a green unfilled star, 8 of those gives you free bomb. (just so you wont get disappointed when you try touhou 7, you wont get free unfilled star points after supernatural border ends, in fact SoHW is the only game that contains unfilled star points)

TD;DR
I recommend Touhou: Servants of Harvest Wish because its easier, you have more time to use bomb after getting hit, extra stages have easy difficulty, max power on start, sometimes you get free unfilled star points and 8 of these give you free bomb

Bonus: you can skip frames if the section is too boring (for example at the beginning of the levels nothing happens for few seconds) by holding the S button

If you're looking for official games only then i'd say Touhou pc98 games are way easier (except for Touhou 1 and Touhou 5) than Windows Touhou games, the con of pc98 games is that they're not canon to windows era games

 

[SateriCat17]

touhou 7 is a pretty good next step after touhou 6 (woah really) but honestly just go for whichever games interest you the most (official or not) since chronological order dosen't really matter in touhou.

also, try touhou 9. it's very different from most other touhou games but once you learn it it's so fun

Ah. Yeah, I'd definitely recommend Touhou 9 too! It's one of my favorite Touhou games.

 

[SateriCat17]

I recommend all beginners start with Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom as their first game. It's a relatively easy game for Touhou standards, with the main gimmick being a respawning shield that allows you to absorb a hit or be detonated like a bomb to clear the screen. Character hitboxes are also pretty small in this title, with Reimu's being the smallest in the entire series. Touhou 8: Imperishable Night is also a great place to start, as it has even easier patterns than PCB and hands out bombs like candy. The time mechanic is somewhat convoluted, though, so I'd recommend reading up on how to collect time orbs before playing.

I'll also recommend thprac, which is the practice tool most the community uses. It lets you skip to specific stages sections or spell cards at your will, letting you practice tricky sections to your heart's content. Word of the wise, though, using it for EoSD requires a locale emulator to run the game in Japanese, so do keep that in mind.

Once you start getting good at the games, I'd wholeheartedly suggest Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism as the best game in the series to try out. Fair warning, though, it's a very difficult entry, even by Touhou standards. Once you master it, though, it becomes a blast and a half to play.

For Perfect Cherry Blossom, I'd suggest playing as Sakuya A for beginners, as she does tons of damage to most enemies.