Touhou Fuujinroku

What is it?

This game is the 10th installment of the Touhou shooting game series (Touhou means "oriental" or "eastern" in Japanese). People may refer this series as Touhou Projects or simply Touhou. In this game, player play as one of the two heroine---Hakurei Reimu and Kirisame Marisa to solve the problems of the Gensokyo (meaning "imaginary world") through the battle of "danmaku" (In Japanese, Dan means "Bullet", and Maku means "Veil". Two words together, and we have "Veils of Bullet").

Most of the Japanese Kanji pronunciation is kind of hard to some people, so I will refer this game as touhou10 in this blog.

Mechanics and Dynamics:

As you play as one of the two playable characters, each of them 3 different attack pattern, which can be homing attack, front laser, or wide angle spread. The main goals for this game is just the same as the other shooting games: finish the game, don't die, and see the best ending. The game comes in 4 difficulties, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Lunatic. Once finishing Normal without continues, you can unlock the Extra Mode.

Words can never describe a shooting game for its difficulty; video replay is the only way. This is one of the stage in Lunatic mode in Touhou10:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uic04v7Chvc

For each enemy you defeat will drop items for point and/or power up. If you sense that you are in danger of getting hit, the bomb mechanic will create a circle that convert bullet into point, and also make you temporary invincible.

Well, this replay video may look impossible, but deep inside of every touhou game, it's all about study the pattern and BURN YOUR LIFE INTO IT TO PASS IT!

In several previous Touhou games, you have only limited number continues. No more continues mean game over and bad ending. In Touhou10, player has unlimited times to continue, but each continue will make player restart that stage he continued on. This adds the dynamic that player would want to pass that stage and don't have to worry about restart the entire game.

Aesthetic:

Touhou10 and other Touhou installments of this entire series is huge and great on art and creativity. All the game programming, character design, and music compose is created by one single person named Zun. The series itself was nominated for Japanese Digital Media Culture Award of 2007, along with Wii and others.

Fantasy:
Everything happening in this Gensokyo is all about imagination of Zun. This series have never been officially published in business; meaning Zun never signed any contract with any production company. This allows the creation of Touhou doujin (products that made by fans of this series), which includes custom manga, novel, and music remix. The essence of this entire series is just imagination.

Sensation:
Almost everyone, when I introduce them this game, they all stunned by the attack pattern and saying OMG, wtf, or any other exclamation adjective. The graphic has come a long way from "not so great" to production quality. The music in the video above, is also considered one of the best touhou music. Colorful bullet and beautiful music will give player a mesmerizing experience.

Challenge:
My personal opinion, the best part of the game itself. The difficulty is the part that makes this series fun. I'm at the level where 1 or 2 continues to pass Normal. Lunatic? No, don't even think about it. That level is for Japanese only.