Welcome to the world of actual raw gaming. No saving where you left off, no “beating the game on the first try,” no mercy. “Touhou Project” (東方, or Eastern Project) is the hardest game you will, ever play (except for QWOP and Sumotori, but those aren’t serious games).

“Touhou Project,” or commonly known as just “Touhou,” is a ‘bullet hell shooter’ or ‘danmaku’ game that was created by “Team Shanghai Alice,” or ZUN, in 1995. ZUN is actually one guy, by the way. Yes, one single Japanese man created 20 games, 15 of which that were created for Windows, within his own series; he basically made his own “team” and declared himself the sole member. He’s still making these games; I wonder when that poor man will keel over.

Here’s the gameplay: Basically, your main character, or playable, is either the shrine maiden (Hakurei Reimu) or the ordinary magician (Kirisame Marisa). In other games, you have more of a variety of who you can play as, not just those two. They’re petite girls. All of the characters are petite girls– the enemies, protagonists, etc. All of them.

Even though there are 20 games, the last title released was “Touhou 13- Ten Desires” (English). That’s because the whole entire series isn’t danmaku, the ‘in-between’ games such as “Touhou 10.5- Scarlet Weather Rhapsody” and “Touhou 7.5- Immaterial and Missing Power” are fighting games. The ‘whole number’ games are the actual bullet hell games.

Depending on the game, your character has to fight through six stages of the storyline. Every stage is a step closer towards the climax of the plot. In each stage, the boss is shooting at you with colorful, multi-sized “bullets” that have a hitbox of its own. The objective is to not get hit by the bullets that the boss and fairies throw at you. Sound easy? Well it’s not.

There are four difficulties, or modes, all of which are hard. There’s Easy, which is a total lie because it’s not easy; there’s Normal, which is hard; there’s Hard, which is extremely hard; then, there’s Lunatic– the hardest difficulty of them all. Only lunatics play on lunatic.

On most spellcards (or, for those who are not familiar with the game, player moves), the entire computer screen is covered with what you’re trying to avoid– bullets. And no, they’re not bullets that come out of a gun. See the picture for what they actually look like. Dodging that with only the  arrow keys, Shift, Z and X is an absolute knee in the face.

Despite its insane difficulty and demand for concentration and hand-eye coordination skills, “Touhou” is probably the best thing I’ll ever do in my life. One– it’s fun. Once you get the hang of it, the frustration goes away and it gets super enjoyable. Two– there are an estimated 100 characters in the entire series, almost all of which have distinct personalities, dialogues and special abilities. Each of the characters also receive tons of fan artwork everyday, which is always pleasing to look at.

The characters, in my opinion, are the best thing about the “Touhou” series. The characters that aren’t humans are either youkais (Japanese folklore creatures), animals, vampires, goddesses or bugs. However, they all look human. It may seem girly, yes, but in reality, there are more male players than female players, most of which are in Japan.

However, what draws people most to “Touhou” is the brilliant music. ZUN composes his own music for the games, and fans deem him to be the ‘best video game music composer ever.’ Each stage has two songs that are played– one of which is the stage theme, and the other is the boss theme. There are literally thousands, possibly millions, of fanworks out there on the Internet dedicated to the music that ZUN created– covers, remixes, orchestral renditions, piano mixes, vocal mixes and doujin circles. Everyone has a favorite song.

Some “Touhou” fans even make their own danmaku games, and in Oct. 2010 the Guiness World Records awarded the series with being the “most prolific fan-made shooter series” ever.  There are even whole conventions in Japan dedicated to “Touhou,” and the series has more or less made their way into many internet forums and image boards; some of which are dedicated entirely to it.

Despite all of the cute fanart and little-girl characters, “Touhou” is actually an intense game. 50-year-old men don’t stand a chance against the raw obstacles that are the bullets on the screen.

By: Morgan Loxely