Probably the most well known and popular game in the Touhou series, I think its deserves the praise. It was my first official touhou game, but I always played fan games and bullet hells. A really good waste a time if youre bored btw, reccomend the genre. Anyway this game was the games that started the Windows era in Touhou. What a great start too, while I do think it gets better over time. The game is short, probably being able to be beaten with continues for the first time in a couple of hours. Following the next couple of run it'll take a shorter amount to time. The difficulty options add alot of replay value to the game, appealing to different skill levels. I think this is a solid start for begginers, although I recommend modding in the hitbox. You can find the game here and the hitbox here.

Its a bullet hell, a really good one at that. If you don't know what that is, think a shump but like 100x as many things on the screen that kills you in one hit. This is probably one of the harder touhou games from what I've played(6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14). One of reasons why I'd say it's harder is the lack of hitbox. You can focus but you can't see the hitbox unlike in later games. Which is really weird since it's a common feature in most bullet hells. Although I won't give it too much flack, especially since they added it to every game after and you can easily mod it. Other than that the bullet patterns are fun and the movement feels real nice and smooth. You can remap controls ofc but I usually just stick to the default layout. The gameplay is really rewarding especially when clearing with no continues, which I do need to upload my replay to BitView later lol. The gameplay is great and from what I 've played it continues on that road..

I feel like one thing that non touhou fans know about it is the banger music. This game does not dissapoint when it comes to that. It might be in my top three with the touhou osts. Zun my king...you truly know how to cook. My favorite tracks are........ The sfx are nice too, I really like when they have a nice cruch to them?? Its nice on the ears, sometimes when playing shumps the shooting sounds annoy me. But I like it in this game. I also like it when you deplete a bosses health to the next phase. The only thing I wish is that when you defeat the boss it has more of an explosive sound, I think it woulve added something good to it.

How I feel about Zun's art is how I feel about Ryukishi's art. Looking at it unbiased, its definetly shit and rough. But I really like the charm of it. I kinda dislike when Zun doesnt draw the portraits for the game. Its like with people redrawing the Ryukishi art for the Umineko and Higurahsi ports. Except The umineko ps3 sprites I'm pretty fond of them. Anyway the sprites for this game pretty much continuasly get reused for future game with minimal changes, its pretty funny to spot them. The background art is basic and doesnt have much to talk about. The ui design is pretty formulaic. Bomb and health bar with score on the side. I do think you somewhat benefit for a older monitor saying that it might look better lol.

The story is different depending on who you choose, either Marisa or Reimooo. The basics of the plot is a scarlet fog cover the world and marks it dark and cold. In Reimu's route you go to investigate and try to stop who ever is causing it, and in marrisa's you go to see if the person causing it has anything magical items. Its not the most complicated of the Touhou games, being pretty simplistic actaully. It's really the dialouge that I like about the story. The character interactings are short but are really funny to me. Especially if you know the lore.