I'm going to talk about a series of videogames. The name of this series is "東方Project" also known as "Project Shrine Maiden" or only "Touhou". This is a japanese production made by Team Shangai Alice, whose sole member, known as ZUN, is responsible for all the graphics, music, and programming for the most part.

The games are focused on bullet hell shooters. What is bullet hell shooter? Is a game based in evade a hundred and hundred of colored bullets. This genere is also know as Danmaku. The game is famous for its difficulty, the focus on dodge through complex patterns coming from anywhere hundreds of bullets, and the strong focus on the characters rather than the other similar shooters.  Bullet hel

Touhou has a total of 19 deliveries, as 13 of the official series, and 3 are versions fighting games and 3 vertically without vertical scroolling. The first 5 deliveries were programmed for a Japanese computer called PC-98. The following 14 were programmed on windows.


Touhou is a particular game, especially for his music, which does not seem like video game music. It also differs from other games to have much focus on the characters, taking 124 characters. Also, Touhou is a doujin game, I mean, "fangame". So it is a free game, it can be downloaded at no cost.


Touhou 6 Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. Extra Boss: Flandre Scarlet:

A example of last Touhou's music played on guitar: (U.N. Owen Was Her?) (Touhou 6 EoSD)

 

Now, the game itself has 4 levels of difficulty (Easy, Normal,Hard and Lunatic) and 6 stages to overcome. You might think that is a fairly short game, and it is, but not a linear story game, thus, can not be saved, like Mario Bros. The shortness of the game is offset by his gracious difficulty, that from the 3rd Stage, usually gets very hard. The principal characters are: Reimu Hakurei, the Shrine Maiden; and Marisa Kirisame, a Ordinary Magician. The other characters varies for each delivery. Reimu and Marisa 

Reimu Hakurei (Left) and Marisa Kirisame (Right)

PC-98 era:

  • TH 1 ~ Highly Responsive to Prayers (1996)
  • TH 2 ~ The Story of Eastern Wonderland (1997)
  • TH 3 ~ Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream (1997)
  • TH 4 ~ Lotus Land Story (1998)
  • TH 5 ~ Mystic Square (1998)

Windows era:

  • TH 6 ~ The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (2002)
  • TH 7 ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom (2003)
  • TH 7.5 ~ Immaterial and Missing Power (2004), fighting game joint project with Twilight Frontier.
  • TH 8 ~ Imperishable Night (2004)
  • TH 9 ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View (2005)
  • TH 9.5 ~ Shoot the Bullet (2005)
  • TH 10 ~ Mountain of Faith (2007)
  • TH 10.5 ~ Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (2008), second joint project with Twilight Frontier.
  • TH 11 ~ Subterranean Animism (2008)
  • TH 12 ~ Undefined Fantastic Object (2009)
  • TH 12.3 ~ Touhou Hisoutensoku (2009), third joint project with Twilight Frontier.
  • TH 12.5 ~ Double Spoiler (2010)
  • TH 12.8 ~ Fairy Wars (2010)
  • TH 13 ~ Ten Desires (2011)

The next thing is to talk about the fans. Touhou not be the same without fans. It is one of the games that have fandom. In fact the Guinness World Records in october 2010 rewarded him for being the "most prolific fan-made shooter series". Touhou, being a doujin game, has no problem with copyright in so fans can make their own basing on Touhou games, as long as not monetize what they are doing. For this there are other versions touhou games like Megaman, called MegaMari; Pokémon, called Touhoumon; Age of Empires, called Age of ethanols, etc.

A very important part of the Touhou's experience is made by the music. Each stage of touhou has its own music composed specifically to give a feeling of ambience own stage. And each boss has its own song, which is usually quick but calm. The fans have much appreciation of the Touhou music. Because of this there are many arranges for each song of Touhou.

A cover of Necrofantasia with Vocal, Violin and Piano: (Link to original) (Touhou 7 Perfect Cherry Blossom):

ZUN is the father of whole this proyect. He is seen to be rather reclusive, and is very little  known about him, except that he's very fond of beer. He was employed by Taito Corporation, and had been involved in the production of various Taito titles. His real name is Jun'ya, he was born on March 18, 1977 in Hakuba, Nagano.

ZUN's Face

ZUN's Theme: Kid's Festival ~ Innocent Treasure: (Right)

 

 

My experience with Touhou Project: 

I met Touhou by one of the games made ​​by fans: Touhoumon. Then I played the Touhou 11 Subterranean Animism, this is the one I think that has the best music because the 1st stage song motivated me to learn to play the piano (The Dark Blowhole). The game is one of the most difficult touhou series, which makes me to have much appreciation and is my favorite of the series. The first game I won was Touhou 9: Phantasmagoria of Flower View. I never win in Touhou without continues. My favorite song in Touhou is Nostalgic Blood of the East ~ Old World. My favorite song made by fans is Usatei.

The Dark Blowhole: Touhou 11 SA (Original)