The First Touhou Game has Been Brought to Steam

Touhou Project, alternatively titled Project Shrine Maiden, is a long running series of bullet hell shooter (also refereed to as danmaku) games with an extensive fan base within Japan and a strong, and steadily growing, fan base within Western societies. Now, with the most recent edition to the series being available for purchase on Steam, is it time for this almost legendary series to receive a much wider recognition from a wider audience now that is much more easier to obtain a copy of one of the games?

The series is the creation of Team Shanghai Alice, however despite being called a team, it only consists of one member, a man who uses the pseudonym of ZUN. ZUN creates all the assets for the main series games, including the coding, sound, and story. An impressive feat for someone who has created a series that has lasted for little over 20 years.

The main character of the series is Reimu Hakurei, the shrine maiden of the Hakurei shrine and a playable character in all of the main series games. She, more often than not, is the easiest character to use and is favoured by newcomers and veterans alike. She is often accompanied by Marisa Kirisame, a magician who is also Reimu's best friend and fellow youkai exterminator when the job is called for. She is harder to use than Reimu, though she is a very popular choice once people get the hang of using her. They are not the only two playable characters, as there are other characters who appear every now and then, however they are the most reoccurring ones.

The first ever Touhou Project game, Highly Responsive to Prayers, was released in 1996 on the Japan only platform, the PC-98. This game did not follow the traditional style that is seen in all the other games, the typical danmaku format first arose in the second game in the series, Story of Eastern Wonderland. The following three games after SoEW were also only to be available on the PC-98.

And then we come to the 6th game in the series, the first game in the Windows era of Touhou Project, and the game that brought the series to the rest of the world. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil had far better graphics, sounds and playability than the previous games, likely due to the improvements found in the platform it was played on. EoSD was the game which garnered the series its substantial Western fan base.

The series continued, however at the end of 2004 the first of the spin-off series was released, Immaterial and Missing Power. This game and it's sequels differ from the main series in the sense that they are not bullet hell shooters, but rather 2D fighter games. Another differing aspect is that Team Shanghai Alice does not work on these games alone, they are done collaboratively with the developer Twilight Frontier. The spin-off's were also very well received by the fan base, evidenced by the fact that Team Shanghai Alice and Twilight Frontier still collaborate on games for the series to this day.

To this day, there are 16 games in the main series with 10 spin-off games. On top of the games to play, there are also music CDs with remasterings of songs and original sound tracks, as well as various manga series. Though, if this is not enough for you then there is a vast range of fan games for you to find and enjoy, including games that follow the same bullet hell format or games that cross with others, such as Mario and Castlevania (Touhouvania is an enjoyable game that is equal parts brutal). You can also find some very well done fan-anime online, and I am not saying that lightly. If you look at fan-anime or fan-made animations of other works and compare to the quality you find in Touhou's, you'd see that even the works made by fans of larger and well known games pale in comparison.

So, for such a large series rich in games, music, manga, and fan works, how easy is it to get into? The answer would be very easy. There is little need to know about previous games to get into the series, you could go to Steam, buy the 16th in the series and play it without having to know a single thing about the series whatsoever. All you need to do is open it and pray, because bullet hell games can be relentless, even on 'easy' difficulty.

What can you expect from a series such as this?:

• All female cast, no fan service. There are males in the Touhou Project universe, but they mainly appear in the manga series.
• Outstanding musical scores. You have probably heard music from this series without even realising it (Bad Apple, U.N. Owen was her?, Flowering Night).
• Enjoyable, yet challenging game play.
• A fan base who haven't taken it too far. We don't need to name names, but we can all think of a few gaming fan bases that have gone way over the line.
• An overall great experience.

It would be a great pleasure, as a fan of this long running series, to see it get more recognition for what it is, and with the decision by ZUN to have the latest one available on Steam, and the extremely positive reviews it is currently receiving, the series could reach all new heights and can continue to be one of the longest game series out there, all despite being orchestrated by a single man.