Are the newest Touhou games the best?

[Anonymous No.]

I started playing Touhou in late 2012. First PCB, then EoSD wanting to play them in order (like it fucking matters). Played the rest until I finally picked up DDC in early 2014. The music, the playable characters, the mechanics all feel refreshing and fun. Now with the Touhou 15 demo I feel all of that all over again. And yet I hear alot of people complaining about the direction the series is taking. Moping about the days of SA and UFO.
Is it because Touhou isn't as popular as it once was? I honestly think the series is only getting better, but then again I'm a newfag. Any thoughts?

[Anonymous No.]

>>13734176
i'd say it's because you're a newfag. or maybe it's because most of us here are the wrong kind of newfag to enjoy the most recent touhou stuff. i and many others around here got into touhou around 2008-2009, which was just around the end of what i've heard described as a "golden age" for touhou with the funnest gameplay, most interesting characters and stories, etc. i'm thinking that a lot of us stopped caring with ten desires in particular because it started feeling really stagnant gameplay-wise and zun shifting the focus of the plot to japanese religion made it less enthralling for a western audience, even ddc going back to the old touhou kind of random unconnected incident happens type plot wasn't a good move either.
i'm actually super hyped about lolk because of actual creative new gameplay elements and a story that seems very interesting in comparison to the boring (imo) stuff that zun's been writing lately, so i think what touhou really needed was to actually move further away from the (better) older games
this is probably all just my thoughts that i'm projecting over a large demographic of this board but i've seen a lot of agreement with these ideas, and i'd be really interested to hear the perspective of a japanese player or someone who's been playing for a few years longer on the freshness of the newer touhou games

[Anonymous No.]

>>13734298
Thank you for the detailed response. Yes I am a new fag. Touhou was always something I just played by myself, I never bothered to see If anyone else liked it. Maybe I just felt attached to DDC for that reason, but I do sincerely find the mechanic of filing the screen and getting to POC to obtain fragments. But I can see how it might feel watered down (unnecessary?) when compared to the systems in the other games.
I'm glad there's hype for LoLK. It would be nice to enjoy this game along side others for once.

[Anonymous No.]

ZUN likes to experiment with game mechanics, which annoys some early windows era players.

[Anonymous No.]

>>13734176
My first Touhou was SA, but for me, I liked DDC better overall and I'll list comparisons between it and SA. Only my opinion though
Gameplay: DDC>SA. I find DDC much more polished in gameplay compared to SA and the rest of the series
Music: SA>DDC. Even tough I liked DDC more than SA, I find SA to have the best Ost in the modern windows era. I also can't stand the fucking guitar in DDC
Characters: DDC=SA. While I find the characters of SA really diverse and awesome, I'm extremely biased towards Seija and I feel the DDC characters are all relevant to the plot.
Setting: SA>DDC. While I think DDC has a better story, you just can't beat the atmosphere of going down to hell to kick some ass.
That's my opinion though. I can see why people like either one the most.

[Anonymous No.]

The current newest 2hu is 2hard.

I struggle to get to stage three, I doubt I'm going to 1cc this shit

[Anonymous No.]

>>13734674
Yeah, that guitar is midi as fuck. SA is awesome, though. All those crazyass characters you'll probably never play as but are too much fun not to (rei/aya).

[Anonymous No.]

the older touhou games had plots that were relatively simple and based entirely around easily digestible character interaction

the newer touhou games are a giant clusterfuck of religious conflicts and none of the new characters have personalities as strong as, say, Remilia or Youmu. they are defined by their religious affiliation/species above all else, whereas in older games you would have characters like Yuyuko who feel like an actual person, not just a cliche spirit

it just feels like in the new games the characters are vehicles for the plot, as opposed to the older games where they drove it

because touhou is an entirely character driven series it makes sense that the series is dying

[Anonymous No.]

>>13734724
>none of the new characters have personalities as strong as, say, Remilia or Youmu
this

I wonder if ZUN realized this and started adding old characters back in as a result (I'm lookin' at you, yuyuko and chirno).

[Anonymous No.]

>>13734724
DDC had a unique plot and LoLK looks to be the same. Also I don't know about you but more rabbits = more fun for me

[Anonymous No.]

>>13734747
This is basically wrong.

I would agree with PPC and onward, but EoSD is some of the more plotless games, especially compared to the newer religion games.

And Youmu got personalities after the ton of games and stories that come forward, in the original, she's just a clumsy swordsman.

[Anonymous No.]

Saying that the new games suck and praising the glory days of old is a meme here. Just watch when a new game comes out we get 5 threads a day that 2hu is declining/dying/whatever. It's just people wanting to sound like old veterans or something.
>Moping about the days of SA and UFO.
when I joined /jp/ UFO came out and people were complaining about the newhus and how PCB and IN were the best. Maybe in a few years people will say that DDC and LoLK were the golden days. New games just need some time to settle in.
I agree though that the religion war dragged on a bit too long, especially when hopeless masquerade was hyped on as a religious war but then kinda wasn't.

[Anonymous No.]

>>13734881
SoPM was the end of the religious war, and it's a worthwhile read.

[Anonymous No.]

DDC was pretty fun, and LoLK is looking promising. They're both certainly better than TD, UFO, and MoF in my opinion. IN is still, and will always be, the very best.

[Anonymous No.]

My favorite Touhou games
Plot: DDC/PCB/SA, can't decide
Music: LLS for PC98, SA and TD for windows. Although my favorite ZUN ost is Seihou 1
Characters: SA with MoF really close behind
Gameplay: DDC/IN for simplicity
Also really excited for LoLK

[Anonymous No.]

>>13734927
>Music: LLS for PC98
You can't deny the majesty of MS
>>13734900
I would agree if it wasn't the game that began Marisa's descent into failure

[Anonymous No.]

I personally get the feeling that, while the games themselves aren't getting in any way worse (rather, they seem to fluctuate in terms of quality, so far with TD probably being the lowest point) as much as the overall interest for the series seems to be progressively waning. I guess maybe the series has started to reach its saturation point...

But are the new games getting in any way worse overall? I highly doubt it. Taking into consideration the spin-offs, ISC is one of the most underrated games of the series yet, and its soundtrack blows that of some games even prior to TD out of the water...

[Anonymous No.]

>>13734997
TD was hard to get in to. I gave up on trance mode and just powered through as best I could.

ISC was crazy, but it was the only game I managed to get my friend to play and actually enjoy. Loads of ways to approach the puzzle, pointless achievements to unlock (in Japanese at the time, but fuck it).

Also the GR fangame would be great for a caravan style tournament. Just sayn'

[Anonymous No.]

I still like the newer games, but I think there's something about the first 3 windows integer games that makes them stand out beyond just nostalgia. Playing EoSD for example, it's not as polished but it feels like it has so much heart put into it. That having been said, I still think the newer games are quite good. The music in particular is one area I don't believe has declined in the slightest. For me, Little Princess is right up there with Septette and the other classics.

For me, personally:
Gameplay - SA
Music - IN
Characters - EoSD
Plot - SA

[Anonymous No.]

>>13734724
>the older touhou games had plots that were relatively simple and based entirely around easily digestible character interaction
Try delving into Eirin's backstory or the full circumstances of Kaguya's exile and their life on Earth. There's a reason we have an entire book dedicated to that.

>none of the new characters have personalities as strong as, say, Remilia or Youmu. they are defined by their religious affiliation/species above all else, whereas in older games you would have characters like Yuyuko who feel like an actual person, not just a cliche spirit
What? The religionhus don't really represent their religion well at all. Kanako is into technological revolution, Byakuren tried to extend her youth with black magic and used deception to make youkai and humans equal. Miko certainly doesn't follow the taoist doctrine of letting things be and instead meddles with everything and fancies herself as a fabulous emperor and ruler. And there are people of all shades of morality, from pretty evil people like Seiga and Murasa to quirky zealots like Futo, flawed paragons of virtue like Shou or imagination-driven weirdos like Sanae, none of whom is even close to being defined solely by their religious doctrine. I don't believe into categorizing 2hus into "religionhus" and "non-religionhus" at all, because they're not really that different (as in, all of them are unique).

[Anonymous No.]

>>13734176
All these years and EOSD is still the best

touhou13 sucked, touhou 14 sucked

gameplay is great, but the music and characters are simply inferior to what used to be

[Anonymous No.]

>>13736772
>people don't care to follow the teachings of their religions

welcome to life

[Anonymous No.]

>>13736792
I thought you were better than this, Remiposter.

[Anonymous No.]

My problem with the all the new touhou games is that they introduces waaaay to many new characters and stories to the series.
It really becomes kind of a bother to keep track of all the characters and lore now when there so much to keep track of.
Also by introducing so much it makes it so that older character are forgotten

[proREMIRIAt Elite Force Comman(...) !rSDMROXTB. No.]

Nostalgia googles.

Every game feels like an improvement over the previous one (except for the drawing department)

I feel like the music, characters and gameplay have been progressing steadily.
(Still, gameplay is more of a hit or miss for each player. I found the UFO system to be interesting)

>>13736792
EoSD may have the best cast and kickass music, but you can feel the improvements compared to the newest games.

Remi testing Sakuya's strength as a stage 1 boss when.

[Anonymous No.]

>>13738175
>new touhou game introduces waaaay to many new characters and stories to the series
You mean like in pretty much every Touhou game, where we got at least 1 new character per stage?

[Anonymous No.]

>>13738246
I don't mean that the new games introduces more characters than the older games, but with newer games it will just become more and more characters overall.
Like every game introduced around 3-4 relevant new characters to the series overall, that was ok with the first games because there was not many characters overall.

But now when there is already a large number of characters in the game introducing more and more characters on top of that is just overkill imo.
That way there is no way that older characters will be as relevant again, because they are just 1 of 100 other characters now, it would be better imo if there was just a stable number of characters in the series and that new characters would be introduced at a much slower pace.

[Anonymous No.]

>>13738215
Are you kidding?
Touhou 14, 13 and 12 have vastly inferior music compared to the previous ones.
Also, the characters are all literally who tier and their design sucks. Like, really. I never felt so much satisfaction beating the shit out of touhous as I did in th14, simply because of how shit and silly they looked like.

The fighting games are okay though.

>>13738297
I just want ZUN to bring back Mima. Her theme is called Reincarnation, right?
So reincarnate her already!

[Anonymous No.]

>>13738317
>and 12
No.

[Anonymous No.]

>>13738323
Yes.
You can't seriously say that the UFO's ost can stand up to EoSD, PCB or IN.

[proREMIRIAt Elite Force Comman(...) !rSDMROXTB. No.]

>>13738317
I meant in the technical department m8, I don't think ZUN hasn't upgraded his music-making equipment at least once in all these years.

We fucking used midi-like shit at some point.
If you like or don't the new music is just your opinion.

Fuck I'd rather listen to the super mario jingle than some modern videogame OSTs.

[Anonymous No.]

>>13738317
I always find the new music refreshing and special though. I also find it difficult to compare them to the old ones because they are kinda different somehow, like ZUN has become more fluid and flexible over time. I think the new ones have this subtle charm that will grow on you while the old ones make a stronger impression.

[Anonymous No.]

>>13738411
I like the midis of pc-98 era

[Anonymous No.]

>>13738297
Don't hold it against ZUN that he still has time and motivation to diversify the cast. You can play your SDM sluts in literally every fucking fangame there is.

[Anonymous No.]

I don't like th13's extend system, really not my cup of tea.

[Anonymous No.]

>>13738215
>Nostalgia googles.
This, actually.

I don't have a problem with people liking EoSD and having it as their favourite 2hu game, but when people start saying it's objectively superior to the likes of DDC in every department, THEN we have a problem.

[Anonymous No.]

>>13738788
I really enjoy the danmaku in EoSD compared to other games though. I think there are fewer gimmicks and more just raw dodging.

[Anonymous No.]

>>13738788
Of course it is superior! Even graphics are better

Blurry backgrounds>detailed backgrounds

And Zun's artstyle was better back then. Compare eosd Sakuya with DDC Sakuya and you'll see that

[Anonymous No.]

Honestly, only EoSD and MoF can be called to have a simple plot.

But EoSD is the simplest of all, it nearly has no plot (just a really random incident of a certain vampire that just wants to have fun above the need of others). The characters of EoSD are fleshed out way more in later games and manga/literature.

MOF is just a religious invasion but it serves as the trigger for SA, UFO and TD.

[Anonymous No.]

>>13739624
How is MOF a trigger for SA?

[Anonymous No.]

>>13739982
Kanako.

[Anonymous No.]

>>13739982
If Kanako doesn't come to Gensokyo, Okuu never gets the power of the sun god. If Okuu never gets the power of the sun god, Byakuren's disciples and the Palanquin aren't freed from underground. If the Palanquin is never freed, the Myouren Temple isn't built over the Hall of Dreams' Great Mausoleum, triggering the events of TD.

Alternatively, given Remi's whimsical nature and her supposed ability to manipulate fate, this could all just be her doing in order to entertain herself by making Gensokyo an even more interesting place.

[Anonymous No.]

>>13738317
>>13738351
>You can't seriously say that the UFO's ost can stand up to EoSD, PCB or IN.
You don't like Murasa, Shou or Hijiri's themes or their stage's themes? I quite like them. Nazrin's are pretty good, too, even though it's the first stage.