why do so many fans not play the games?

[Buwako]

i dont mean to sound rude when i ask this, but when people say they dont play the games, they usually defend themselves by saying that they cant get the games. which maybe 10+ years ago this would be understandable. however, in the recent years, touhou has been more available worldwide.

first off, steam. i dont exactly know when they got onto there, but its been some years since then i think. that already makes touhou much easier to obtain, but its not only that. some consoles like playstation and nintendo have a couple of the fighting games on there. nintendo has 15.5 and 17.5 (which both are in english, by the way.) and the ps4 have 14.5 and maybe 15.5 (im not sure if 14.5 came in english though.) so even if they arent the mainline bullet hells, they are still in the end touhou games that people can buy and play. you can also buy physical copies of the games. if you live in japan then you may be able to go to a local store and get some copies. although most of you probably dont. even so, sites like ebay you can buy copies, which is pretty much where i got all my physical copies. i think amazon used to sell them too, but they dont anymore for some reason. however, i heard you can get them from this website called something like akia hobby, and even amiami sells them too. theres definitely more websites to buy from, but those are just the ones i know. not to mention all the piracy sites like moriya shrine, which is probably the most trustworthy one as of now. theres still other sites where you can get games for free, like i think gensokyo.org had them. even if you dont have a computer or laptop at home, if you are at school, you can maybe download the games there. although in my case, i cant download many games since the school is missing a ton of dll files, i can at the very least play 6-9.5 (minus 9) and the pc 98 games. you might be luckier than me, if your school has the dll files needed to run games. and if you really wanna risk it, you can download dll files from online and implement them into the computer. and again, if you dont have a computer, touhou is still on the ps4 and switch. i've seen some tutorials on how to add touhou to your android phone, which even though it needs a computer, a school laptop might help you. if you are real lucky, maybe even a friend could help you. i have yet to find a way for an iphone to play touhou (thousand night anamnesis doesnt count, by the way) but if theres a windows emulator app i havent found yet, then maybe it just might be possible.

so if you took the time to read all that, theres definitely a number of ways you can get access to the touhou games. now sure, you can make up the situation where you dont have a laptop/computer, your school is super strict on games, so theres no way you can download them, you dont have a switch nor a ps4 to play the games, you dont have a friend who can help you get the games onto your android phone, or you have an apple phone and you havent found an emulator to help you play official touhou games.

yeah, maybe then you cant get your hands on the games, but think about it. there are a lot of people in this fandom that dont play the games at all. i doubt that all those people happen to be in that exact situation. so why are there so many people that still have never touched the games? again, im sorry if i sounded rude, but its hard to believe they cant play them at all with all of these options they have.

 

[Theolossus99]

It could just come down to pure laziness or just being very pretentious, I remember when I wanted to get into Touhou I used the excuse "I have a mac so the .exe file won't work" because at the time I didn't know that I could use an application like Crossover to play Touhou on there. But I suppose it's mainly due to the limitations like devices and other factors but then again, fandoms like Persona, Yakuza, and Undertale have people that never touched the games for a multitude of different reasons. Either way, I personally think that it's best to actively play the games through any way shape or form no matter the limitations, but that's just me. I fully understand your frustration and agree.

 

[Deliverer8099]

One reason I think is that is that Touhou has other strong points not directly related to the games. Some people may not enjoy bullethells, but there's a bunch of music to listen to (also fan music), for which you don't necessarily need to play the games. Then there are also a bunch of fan manga, and animations, memes - a whole bunch of things. I think Touhou's greatest strength is its community. It has a lot to offer, while the main games are only bullethell. Furthermore, it can be a bit hard to understand how to start playing the game. If you're getting a patched version from this site, it's not too hard, but first you gotta find out about this site, which, maybe for the better, isn't the easiest. A sensible person has to confirm the site is trustworthy somehow. And if you get it from Steam, and you want to play it in English, I think it takes considerably more effort to get the game running as you'd like, because you'd want to set up thcrap somehow. You would also need to understand thcrap to some extent, possibly also Vpatch if you wanna apply it. Then for the older games that use DirectX 8, they can be problematic on modern systems without using something to convert DirectX 8 into something more modern. Plus, you might even have to update your Touhou game if you get a version from somewhere that isn't the most up-to-date, for the sake of enhancing it, and possibly also even to enable thcrap to work. If your install doesn't come bundled with the patches, you need to get them yourself. If it does come, I'm not sure how problematic they are to apply on Windows, but I know they are problematic on Linux (still solvable, but it was hella hard to figure out how). That made me think, MacOS users also probably have to go through hassles. On top of the previous things, you might also have to emulate Japanese locale! And Touhou 6-8 isn't even on Steam, even though I think those are the most popular games, I would even say "most important," because I think they introduce most characters that are commonly found in fanworks. Sidetracked a bit, but so, the people who want to play the games linearly aren't encouraged too much to start the series if they wanted to get it on Steam, since 6-8 isn't on there, also technically PC98. By the way, HUGE props to Moriya for making playing the Touhou games so easy.
But on the Moriya side, people commonly get concerned (and thus discouraged) from the Virustotal scans that have some false positives. I hear it's because of the patcher, since it inserts itself into other programs to do the translation, which is malware-like behavior, even if it doesn't do anything malicious. But I also heard that ZUN's coding itself has triggered false positives before!

You could get CDs, but wouldn't those be somewhat expensive, including the shipping cost? Not everyone would want to pay that much, perhaps especially if they haven't even played the games yet. Also, not everyone would have a disc reader nowadays.

Touhou 14.5 and 15.5 may be available for PS and Nintendo, but they still exist in their own niche, like the bullethell games. I'm not sure how encouraging it would be for someone to buy those games there and then not be able to continue with the series unless they start playing on another platform - which as I said above, can be troublesome and still discouraging. Also, if they're gaming on Nintendo or a PS4, that might hint towards them, ON AN AVERAGE, not being as computer savvy as a computer gamer, and it could discourage them more potently facing all that trouble.

As for playing at school, you COULD, but I don't think most schools would be fine with some kid installing games probably from piracy sites. If not that, you would either bring a CD (PC might not necessarily have a reader), logging into Steam or something from a school PC (bad idea because keyloggers or cookie stealers exist, plus you'd also have to install steam), or I guess perhaps bringing your games from a USB, perhaps having downloaded it from your phone or something. But even then, from the school's perspective, you'd be running a game from a still technically unknown source on the school PC while they might want you to be learning or something instead (though that's not always the case).

Also, I have heard that there is a way to run WINE on Android, which I think you could use to play the Touhou games, but I heard a while ago that WINE on Android isn't very mature. I won't vouch for it, but Winlator exists, with 13k stars on Github.

P.S. I myself play the bullethell games sometimes, but not the fighting games. I skipped over the first one because I really wanted to play PCB and get to know the characters better to better engage with fanworks (I think I learned only Suika was a new character in 6.5), plus I think one of my smaller excuses was having to learn how to play the fighting game would be pretty time consuming for the reward (of getting to know one new character) when I already knew how to play the bullethell and it would have offered so many new prominent characters to get to know. Also, I'm not sure if I tried to play it, but I remember my friend trying to play it, and they ran into many issues and starting the game was so confusing, so that made me kinda wanna avoid the fighting games as a whole, but it could be that only Touhou 6.5 was that bad, or that the Moriya patch got better since then. Still, I don't think I like fighting games enough to start playing them, also considering that I'm uncertain of their quality, but mostly the fact that I don't really like those sort of fighting games. Maybe in the future I'll check some out, hopefully also with a friend though.

 

[Kriartt]

Personally, i didn't play the games cause i mainly sucked at bullet hells. Even so i think touhou is more then just it's games. Some of the people i know only got into touhou through the music or the fan animation, so you can even be a fan of only a specific portion of the touhou community. It does frustrate me when someone calls a fellow touhou fan a "poser" just cause they haven't played the games. Cause i think touhou has become something beyond it's games. like how FNAF has a ton of fans even tho they have only watched YouTube videos of it.

 

[Idioms21]

This is just my hunch as a guy who is a hardcore fan of a certain niche genre of games that also no one wants to play but i think people just don't like to play bullet hells. The thing that i always picture in my mind when I think of touhou gameplay is a clusterfuck of glowing balls and the player moving around like a mosquito somehow not getting hit, so touhou already has a sort of reputation as a hard game (even tho easy mode exists[and we even have a meme making fun of people playing on it]). And from what "I" have been seeing is that vast majority of gamers aren't into difficult games and just wanna play to unwind after a tiring day and a game that so demanding in memorization, practice, and reaction speed isn't exactly gonna be a good way to relax.

And as the other guys have mentioned, there is more to touhou than just the main games, and I'd even say the fan works are more culturally impactful than the original games. So even if they never touched the bullet hells and only know touhou from the memes, music, fanarts, etc. its fine since the IP has pretty much been carried by fan made works and word of mouth anyways.

 

[Idkism]

I'd say that you don't need to be "good at shmups" to play the games, just understanding the general loop and flow of things is enough to find your enjoyment in it, besides, Touhou doesn't have the problem of only being a bullet hell series; it's a fighter, a beat-em-up on one game, and a dumb gacha on the other, and that's not even counting the heaps of fangames that are around, spanning across all genres.
The point is, there's a growing culture of people not engaging with the media and then calling themselves "fans", i'm not saying that you should LNB every single goddamn game, what i'm saying is that it's pretty dumb.
For me, i'd say that it's a mix of 2 things; general laziness, like c'mon it's not hard to search things for what's basically a cultural icon (and the games themselves aren't hardware intensive, plus we're in an age where you can use your phone as a gaming device), and also this trend of being a passive fan; someone who doesn't engage with it yet wants to be labeled a fan, again i'm not saying that you gotta go above and beyond, but please at the very least, just interact with what you like...
Side thing, but this is why i think we have severe cases of flanderization for characters, they don't even engage with their stuff so they don't know what's a running gag made by the community, and what's actually there.

 

[Buwako]

Side thing, but this is why i think we have severe cases of flanderization for characters, they don't even engage with their stuff so they don't know what's a running gag made by the community, and what's actually there.

i think not reading any profiles or the books and stuff also contributes to this. i mean if you arent gonna play the games, im sure you can read those. touhou wiki is there for a reason!

 

[Idkism]

i think not reading any profiles or the books and stuff also contributes to this. i mean if you arent gonna play the games, im sure you can read those. touhou wiki is there for a reason!

Their point of reference is a shitty bundle of memes that's been beaten over and over for decades now, what do you expect?

 

[Bhrjr]

but this is why i think we have severe cases of flanderization for characters, they don't even engage with their stuff so they don't know what's a running gag made by the community, and what's actually there.

This may be a hot take, but I've been reading whatever canon material I can find, and the character interactions are so bland 90% of the times that I'd actually wish they were acting like their flanderized selves.
And the "what's actually there" is only present in very few situations like finding needle in haystack. So here are some insights of whatever canon traits I found that got brushed off by so-called flanderizations; tell me if you know any other:

• From her article in Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red and as seen in SSIB, Sakuya can be a bit of a blockhead, seeing how she was gathering a spinning top, pipe, turtle's blood, and a hakkero for SDM rocket. But in recent works, like in 18 UM, this trait is only everso reminded by her ignorance of oxygen.
• In AOCF, Shion was perfectly willing to go along with her sister's stealing schemes; she was just tired of her sister bossing around her. Even when Jo'on somewhat renounced stealing
  Spoiler: Spoiler

  when fighting dream Kasen
  , Shion still wanted to steal, claiming that she'll do anything to embetter her poor standing even if it's at the expense of the others. I've never seen anyone mention this facet.
• -WAHH ch 27 shows Kogasa repairing Reimu's needles, showing her smithing skills.
• -In Grimoire of Usami, Shinmyoumaru teams up with Seija and is the one that suggests terrorizing the bystanders. This one was actually really egregious because it's ZUN straight-up ignoring all that happened in ISC, where Shimmy talks about how she won't terrorize people anymore.

 

[violet november]

this is a response after a long gap, but I haven't had time to be on the forum in months so...

bhjrj, sorry to single you out here, but your post touched on something I think is worth addressing. I think an issue is that you might be only looking for specific characterisation, and when things don't fit your expectation you might subconsciously write them off.*
shinmyoumaru getting into more trouble isn't zun ignoring previous stuff; it's showing that she'll go back on her word if she thinks she can have a fun enough time with seija. maybe it's unexpected or even disappointing, but it is in fact how she is, and is interesting to many people.
Sakuya also isn't simply 'a blockhead'; I think she's rather interesting in that she seems to always be playing mind games where people can't be totally sure she's messing with them by pretending to be ignorant or offputting or if she actually is just being weird or stupid, and I don't think UM went against that. in fact, UM managed to show an all-new side of her. the fact that she apparently has a rock-climbing hobby is kind of wild (she's a hard worker and she can fly. but also, she can stop time, so she does have all the time for hobbies she wants). that's fun! that's new! it shows that she has her own life that she leads just for herself, which we never get to see as a contrast to the dutiful maid

touhou official works don't have much space for characterisation, outside of the manga. they can't compete with fan depictions in sheer volume, that's for sure, but I think if you pay attention to what's there you can get interesting pictures

now I do think some fanworks offer takes on the characters that are in fact very interesting and full of depth in ways that can sometimes surpass the soruce, and those are fun. but as much as I'll incorporate some of them into my own personal ideas for some characters, I think it's important to engage w the only common ground we all have: the source material. even if you reject parts of it, I think it's worth at least knowing

and the source material can in fact have a lot of depth when you look into subtext. yuyuko and yukari's whole deals in PCB and bougetsushou rely heavily on subtext, but you get a really interesting picture on how a close relationship can simultaneously last an unimaginable length and also still be dealing with the grief of loss of one of the people involved. the mending of yukari and okina's relationship after some sort of unspoken past rupture that left bad blood that begins after HSi4S is also something you get little glimpses of that paint a picture when put together. a lot of the time it is in fact just little details, but if you pay attention to them and read between the lines they can end up very interesting

as an aside:
"(even tho easy mode exists[and we even have a meme making fun of people playing on it])"
legitimately I think this is a big contributor to people not engaging with the games. on the one hand it gives a very mean and elitist reputation to the playerbase, and on the other, it pushes people away from approaching the games at their most accessible. starting at easy can lead to getting really good at the games eventually, but if (even as just an old running gag) playing easy mode is made fun of, people aren't going to get in on the ground floor to put in the effort

*maybe my guess is wrong, and I apologise if I'm being presumptuous. but if I'm not, maybe it's a way to find more joy in the source material instead of frustration, perhaps

 

[CirnoIsVerySmart>:(]

In all fairness, touhou has long since extended past the games. Fans of bad apple might not even know they're a touhou fan, lol

But I think another reason is the availability of some of the early games. I remember back in my previous short lived touhou phase I spent hours looking for a working download of EOSD only to turn up nothing. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the turn off for a lot of people.

 

[jellosaur]

Personally, for me its as simple as my mac not being able to handle the games, they all run at 5 fps for me and I aint got time for that. I don't know every other individual situation though.

Rambling ahead, I guess im seeing this like someone claiming to be a Pokemon fan without playing the main games.There's multiple avenues to get into the series now (anime, tcg, side games, manga..) so its nbd nowadays as it would've been maybe back when gen 1/2 were new. Ironically Pokemon as a franchise has survived this long because there's just so many different ways to become a fan of it, and it's not just locked into one method.

Think by now there's just so many different ways to get into Touhou that it's not really as big of a deal anymore if someone hasn't played the games (as long as they're not arrogant about the fact that they haven't and think they're some big shot fan or w/e).

If someone else can get into Touhou from reading the entire wiki/mangas etc. then why not let them have that? It's great to know/be familiar with the actual source material of the thing that you claim to love, of course, but most people tend to worship the fanon characterizations of the characters even after learning everything there is to know unless you're super anal about characterization.