Immaterial and Missing Power (Touhou)

[purplemo]

Lately I've been addicted to this game. For those of you who don't know, the Touhou games are danmaku (bullet hell) version of cult otaku game franchises like Key (Kanon, Air, Clannad) and TYPE-MOON (Tsukihime, Fate Stay Night). The Touhou games are bullet hell taken to the extreme (see below)

and have really funky names like Highly Responsive to Prayers (Touhou 1) and Phantasmagoria of Flower View (Touhou 9). I'm not much for the bullet hell Touhou games (I'm more into bullet hell games like TWINS), but it's got an amazingly expansive world that is easily as in depth as worlds like Shakugan no Shana or even Junni Kokki (quite amazing for bullet hell games).

Anyways, I'm here to talk about Touhou 7.5, Immaterial and Missing Power. This is a 2D fighting game that melds bullet hell to fighters. I didn't think it would be good, but it's addictive as hell. Here's some vids.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfeZT5xBoNA
Marisa v Yukari
Story Mode, Bad Music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-W2Nt2vYHE
Sayuka v Remilia
Best example of how crazy a fight can be, even if Remi's not really a bullet-hell character. (sorry, but there just aren't good youtube vids)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXrUA2fvkpw
Suika v Remilia
Drunken loli (yes, even the lolis drink in Gensokyo) v Vampire loli

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amN-_QefztU
Patchouli v Yukari
Someone playing on easy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JujLGd768Iw
Sayuka v Meiru
A good fight between my two favorite characters. Shows some good bullet-hell fighting.

I'd recommend checking it out for those who like wacky Japanese 2D fighters and those who want to see another franchise of otakudom.

Here's wiki's Touhou page. As you can see, Touhou is one of the oldest doujin franchises out there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touhou

[OverLord01]

Well thats interesting! I never seen or heard of a games like these. My hat goes off to you for tell us this.
It looks like a pretty cool game.

[Dark_Sage]

2chan's obsessed with this series. From the image threads there and the videos on Youtube (this and this), I can safely say the characters are freaking sweet.

I've never bothered to download it, but I may do it soon. Where'd you pick it up?

[meromex666]

i'll give it a try as well too.

[purplemo]

Originally Posted by OverLord01

Well thats interesting! I never seen or heard of a games like these. My hat goes off to you for tell us this.
It looks like a pretty cool game.

I've got a whole lot of quirky Japanese games. You should check out

M.U.G.E.N. (over 200 fighters from Touhou, Key, Type-moon, Nintendo, Capcom, MARVEL, DC Comics, SNK, and even others like Fat Albert the movie)
Eternal Fighter Zero (Moon, One, Kanon, Air girls in 2D fighter)
Blood Over (Fun side scrolling shooter, sad ending)
Melty Blood ReACT (crazy 2D fighter)
Higurashi Daybreak (crazy Super Smash Brothers on 3D field)
Combat DX9 - Kinryu vs. Xentex (customize your doll and KILL!!) Hoihoi franchise
Acceleration of Suguri (weird 2D fighter played on a circle)
Duo Princess (fun LONG, for doujin, adventure game with Thread of Fate princesses)
Guardian Heroines Final (kinda like IaMP, but side scroller)
Haruran (Haruhi characters in Daybreak fighter with items like mallets, bats, etc)
TWilight INSanity (the only bullet hell game I really like) It's TWINS.

Originally Posted by Dark_Sage

2chan's obsessed with this series. From the image threads there and the videos on Youtube (this and this), I can safely say the characters are freaking sweet.

I've never bothered to download it, but I may do it soon. Where'd you pick it up?

Touhou's got a MASSIVE otaku following. I'd daresay it's as big as Key's, if not bigger (especially 'China's'). You can get it on ^$* or @# (use the number of letters as a hint). Sorry, but you know what this forum's like. Google and you shouldn't have a hard time finding it on @#. Plus, even though it's in Japanese, you don't need to know it to figure out how to play. You just miss out on the story, which isn't all that great. It basically runs down to drunken loli (Suika) is causing hanami (flower viewing drinking party that you all know) to happen every day even after spring and a bad aura is spreading in Gensokyo every day. So everyone goes and tries to find the source and lo and behold, it's drunken loli's fault. Actually the Touhou games tend to begin serious, but usually it gets light at the end. The girls don't really hate each other as much as have fun picking on each other.

You should see the insane number of doujins out there for this series too.

FYI, while most versions now have the patch, if you get a copy without it just dl it direct from the game's site (not hard to find your way there if you don't know Japanese). That'll give you the worst character, Meiling, the one everyone picks on.

[purplemo]

I forgot, even though I am not allowed to tell you where to dl the games (if someone tells me sothis doesn't mind then I'll tell), you can download the demos at http://www.tasofro.net/. Just click on the game you want. I HIGHLY recommend IaMP (duh!! What's this thread about?), EFZ, and Higurashi Daybreak (2nd demo should be better). MarisaLa's a Mario clone with Marisa as the lead. Mega Mari is a Mega Man clone. The top game, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, is Touhou 10.5 and is the sequel to IaMP.