Touhou: The Early Years
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- čas přidán 9. 05. 2023
- today's video is brought to you by Gexuma, fabled fan edit creator turned main channel editor! thanks very much for all their hard work on this project.
to anybody curious, the touhou series is divided into 2 different eras of games... the first 5 run on an old Japanese pc architecture that requires an emulator these days. these games rarely get talked about so I figured as a newcomer to the series it might be fun to actually start with the first few games as few Touhou players do!
watch the full VODs here! • [Full stream] - Touhou...
and yes, I know how it's pronounced... I am doomed to get comments anyway but oh well.
Want to get notified when I'm streaming? Follow my Twitch: / thegrayfruit
Or follow the grayfruitlive account on Twitter where I post every time I'm about to go live: / grayfruitlive
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Personal Twitter: / thegrayfruit - Hry
It’s official, grayfruit has played more touhou games than most touhou fans
the average touhou fan don't know its a game
we call them "secondaries" fyi
so true
@polinskitom2277 the games?
Thats me youre talking about
Seeing old, out of the way games like these being played is rather fun, it's like we're doing some archeology
You described it perfectly
More like modern anthropology
It’s like we’re going back to the past, to play some shitty games that suck ass perhaps
To be fair, while these games are a bit "out of the way", their association with the Touhou series pretty much guarantees nobody will forget them. The third, fourth and fifth games even have bit of a fanbase, considering.
@@FamilyTeamGaming Eeeeh, I mean, old games just don't get talked all that much after their time in the sun on release already passed.
Specially when the games are on languages not widely available to the western world and more obscure software that usually has less robust emulators like something like the NES.
When I played Evo Search for Eden for the pc98 I had to some manual fiddling to get the game to work and every time there's some little hurdles that say what you can do these days, of buying an old game in gog or steam or a virtual console you're losing bits of people who might be interested, but not interested enough to put the effort to fiddle with sometimes quite fiddly emulators.
While the pc98 games are more known because of their association with windows Touhou, I'd say it's fair to call them obscure because the barrier of entry for the average schmuck to get interested enough to play them is quite high compared to like, just finding a download of EoSD or buying the games on steam, as I'm sure there's a large contigent of Touhou fans themselves who aren't aware of these games aside from them existing if it wasn't because the series still counts them for the numbering and surface level info that is available on the various Touhou wikis.
I've never seen such a drastic variance in stakes in a game, where the bad ending might mean the end of the world, but the good ending might mean you smell good from now on.
I mean I would take the risk, world damnation versus saving $20/month on body care
that's pretty standard for the rest of the series
@@Mordecrox Nawww, I would rather choose World damnation over $20 per month, for body care
play Touhou
32:49 "bitch you in the most honk shoo pajamas I've ever seen" is one of the funniest things I've heard in so long.
The early Two-Whomst'ves really radiate that "experimental indie game" energy. Hell, even the basic breakout clone has a pretty unique identity to it.
i was absolutely NOT expecting greyfruit to play ANY of the touhou games, let alone decide to do them in order
Dude same.
It's GrAYFRUIT. Of course he'd do it in order.
ikr, last thing id expect is him starting with touhou 1
@@testhekid ikr? The majority of people believe that Touhou 6 is the first one
@@ironmaster6496 me included, lol
The Jerma joke was too real. Both him and Joel don't like shitting on bad games, it's real funny.
I feel like Dan from Gamegrumps is another example
I mean it depends on the game with Joel.
Here's a fun fact. Zun is a great artist when it comes to physical art. He just doesn't know how to make digital art very well, even now.
Also, the characters' ages are nebulous due to his art style. Though it's generally agreed that Reimu is an adult, because she drinks alcohol and Zun doesn't like underaged drinking.
Ages are very much a non-factor in Touhou because it is whatever Zun wants it to be. Sumireko still does not drink, even tho she should be an adult by now.(Unless it is a stated thing that Doppelgängers don't age)
@@lpfan4491 Drinking age is 20 in Japan, so even adults can't drink for a little while and Sumireko ain't THAT old. She's like 18 max.
@@mousysaint9143 She was like 15 when she entered the series and more than 5 years passed since then.
the l0li-looking characters are kinda umcomfortable, but other than that, i like playing Touhou
@@lpfan4491 wow
the funniest part of the toby fox touhou thing is that he says "indie games" with a japanese accent literally seconds before saying prawject
Toby breaks accent.
I mean, he’s trying his best.
@@SlyHikari03 I'm sure that takes more effort than just staying in the accent.
@@sansprobus7209 yeah…
I mean..
You never know with Toby..
induru games
Yep the prawwjekk
Fun fact: in Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, the final boss, Yumemi, on lunatic difficulty, is programmed to never get hit until you die at least once. She is regarded as one of the hardest Lunatic bosses to this day.
neat
What about PoDD Lunatic NO MISS NO BOMB 1CC videos?
@@thedropperofdroppedItems you are still allowed to die
I'm sad that the Yuuka attempt was cut off the earliest, I feel like the reaction to her line of "Genocide is just a game" would've been... interesting
same that's my favorite line in the series
he completely missed it in the original stream
i was searching the comments to find someone talking about how unhinged yuuka was in the pc98 games and lo and behold i found someone with a matasoup yuuka pfp
heyo matasoup yuuka is hot as fu- i mean uh is based af
@@steepslopesmm2Mine is "Dog meat"
33:07 i really admire grayfruit's ability to finish his sentence with a perfectly consistent tone before reacting to some insane shit
The reason for the common perception of powercreep amongst Touhou characters is that within canon, we actually don't know for *sure* how strong anyone particularly is. Most characters are youkai, and want to come across as strong, so their powers are **self defined**. For example, the character Remilia Scarlet is a high class egotist vampire and claims she has the power to "manipulate fate". We have literally never seen this happen in any way, and she also lied about being a descendant of Dracula, implying she's inclined to lie.
All fights in touhou are essentially playfighting (maybe more akin to fencing?) where characters fight with spell cards, where every bullet is just like, an airsoft bullet. It's very rare we see anyone trying to actually KILL or anything.
but she might be telling the truth as her sister does actually have a really powerful ability. So both Scarlet sisters having busted powers would make sense.
The probable reason why Remilia never uses her ability is it would most likely be considered "cheating" in a danmaku battle
i hear you, but consider: it's funnier if she just straight up lies about it
@@FlippinEgg damn brat, tricking an adult
lying about your power, mesugaki vampire correction
💢💢💢😭😭
@@lyrebird5982 disgusting...
Meanwhile Flandre who definitly has the power to kill and just won't because she lives the basement neet-life:
I’d like to acknowledge that a portion of twitch chat was absolutely livid that grayfruit was playing the touhou games. It was very funny.
livid, why
@@commenteroftruth9790because touhou sucks
@@BorfieKai u smel
@@BorfieKaiL + Worship Hakurei
Nuh uh@@BorfieKai
i like how he noticed "totle" but not "HARRY UP" flashing on screen 18 times
If Touhou was so good why isn't there Threehou
Hello fellow Dunkey fan
@@skeetsmcgrew3282 Dunkey?
@@skeetsmcgrew3282 Dunkey!?
Drama Monday ?!
Threehee
5:05 You'll notice that this song ("Now Until the Moment You Die") from a game made in the mid-90s starts with the same lick as Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames" released a decade later.
Holy shit.
I’m not the only one that noticed that.
Even their names have similar energy to them
It's def not the same, but the first few notes are similar
Oh, I know it as "Time Will Tell"
" *Project.* "
- Toby Fox
Actually, he said it correctly; Touhou Project's official name doesn't use the japanese word for project (whichever it is), it actually uses "project" even in its original language. Moreover, this is weirdly common in Japan; Smash Bros in japanese still uses english terms too, such as "Game Set!" instead of simply "Game!" in english.
Grayfruit being bad at the game
The Game:
You Need to Kill Yourself **NOW**
Having heard so much about them, I just realized I have literally never seen a single clip of actual Touhou gameplay.
The bullets are eye candy for viewers, a hellish labyrinth for players. Both perspectives are enjoyable!
Either the YT algorithm or you're actually not that interested to search the gameplay
I guess I should formally welcome you to touhou! I hope you enjoy your stay☺
ps: don't forget to bomb
@@femboylover1 Or charge/trance/glitch-exploit, if available
Man, I wish more people covered the PC-98 era Touhou games. Most of the community sorta forgets about them until someone brings up Mima's existence.
well i mean, they are arguably non-canon even tho thats still debatable, and they are pretty easy compared to the later games more intense bullet patterns
@@Sleepy_Kitsune You say that its pretty easy but I legit wanted to rip out my fucking skin on Touhou 2's extra stage
@@RiYsmind i meant as compared to later games, bullet hells are always a challenge in general
It's also because out of the 5 games,
One of them is HRtP, which isn't even bullet hell, so most people ignore it on principle,
The next is, SoEW, which close to nobody likes,
Then PoDD, which.... Has a very small but dedicated fanbase but I'm really not entirely convinced many care outside of it care about it that much,
And then finally you get LLS and MS which are alright games, but still not many would play it because of the accessibility of even playing them to begin with, on top of the fact people might not necessarily care for how the design of the series still needed many layers of polish even that late on.
The saddest thing is that it has arguably the best villains of the series: Yumemi, Shinki and obviously Mima.
And i mean actual villains not misguided or literal antagonist (they're still great characters nonetheless, just not evil)
For anyone confused about the story, all touhou bullet hell fights are a special type of non-lethal duel between yokai to settle disputes.
. . .in hind sight, this seems to why, in Undertale, the monsters release magic bullets as communication, and can't hurt one another with them.
well, that lore is only established in the Window era. In the PC-98 one however, it's the fucking free-for-all hellscape no-rule-allowed kind of bullshit there.
fix the typo before its too late.
>nonlethal
Definitely not in the PC98 games buddy, they shoot to kill in those games
as @residentfacehead3465 says, the typo needs to be fixed @strikermodel since that is a not nice parody name of Undertale. I can't say more ok? Just know that typo is unfortunate.
It's too late... 💀
Can’t wait for thouhou the prequel to fouhou
Don't forget houhou and souhou!
8:48 so we’re just gonna ignore the game told us to “Harry Up”
Good old engrish.
This… was a crossover I didn’t expect.
He’s mentioned the series offhandedly on occasion in VODs, so I did figure he’d get to the Touhou games eventually; but somehow seeing him play them still feels strange… excited to see what he thinks of the windows-era games, though, and if he’ll try any of the spin-offs/fighting games and such. Probably not, but you never know.
It's so cool that they made a whole game series based off of that one music video
And that it, itself, has good music
TOUHOU?!
The notificación appeared and I literally got jumpscared
I can't belive Grayfruit is playing Touhou, im so happy
Edit: Funny Video, loved it, I hope Grayfruit continues,my fav games are probably not coming soon but I sure hope my boy enjoys the next games enought to make more 2hu content
dont worry, he played the bad ones.
@@gremlinman9724 💀
I have never seen someone type 2hu and that's amazing.
The two-hoo thing is ironic, right? Like, I cant tell whether or not people know it isn't pronounced that way
I hope the "smell good" ending becomes a running joke in grayfruit
Pretty convenient timing; the demo for Touhou 19 released a few days ago, and it actually brings back the 2-player gameplay style from Touhou 3 (and 9) into a more modern game.
2:25 I _think_ it's a super compressed and zoomed-in section of either the Mandelbrot set or a cross-section of the Julia set (some kind of fractal pattern, there are many online explorers if you want to find the exact location). Not biological or anatomical, but similar structures do arise in nature.
That's the gate to Makai, the demon world
As someone with no attachment to this series, besides being a fan of early YPTMVs and hearing a ton of U.N. Owen covers, I'm excited to go on this ride and see what the buzz is about.
I say this with complete sincerity, I love Touhou 1's visuals. The whole game is so enthralling but those visuals are what I live for.
I like that gray now puts visual aids of references he makes. Very good, very helpful, less esoteric
Oh boy, Gexuma and Touhou, along with Grayfruit? A delicious mix for certain
grayfruit isn't going to rest until he's gone through every series in chronological order
although i have to say, i think this might take a bit longer than metal slug or street fighter
I was not expecting grayfruit Touhou, but i'm not complaining. It's also nice to see PC98 again, it's been a while since I've played these games...they're quite charming for their place in the series.
Holy Grayfruit Gexuma crossover! Love their fan edits, glad to see them become a main channel editor!
Gexuma, I don't know if you'll see this, but this is some seriously solid editing
I thought the first games were like lost to time and unplayable at this point, holy shit
I love that Zun was already a good composer
Nah, they're still up there if you know where to look. Some people even went the effort to get the actual PC-98 series computer.
They argubly should have been, really. Touhou 1 and 2 in particular barely sold and they are the least popular of these games. Under the same circumstances, many other games would have become lost media, they got lucky.
Gexuma moving on up in the world!
so glad grayfruit is playing TEE HEE that's awesome
MICHAEL IS
COMING
Was waiting for the first edit, thank you for this Gexuma
Greetings fellow gungeon fan
Saw the Beetlejuice musical last night, HIGHLY recommend.
I know nothing about Touhou but yeah it was pretty cool I have a Sandworm friend now :)
Idk what that has to to do with anything but I'm so proud of you Flaherty
@@moxy1296 It doesn't because I know nothing pertinent to the video's topic
Also thanks I will water them every day :D
Im genuinely so happy Gexuma has became an editor of your channel, I've been watching their videos for eons now
The "Live Reimu Reaction" killed me on the spot. That was funnier than it had any right to be.
Good to see grayfruit dipping his toes into the early days of the toohoos! Touhou 3 has one of the best final boss themes in the entire franchise, don't @ me.
Dimension of Reverie from 4 is highkey a top tier Touhou song as well
eyyy Gexuma got hired
Congrats on your first ever 1CC! ❤ Interestingly enough, you're the second person I'm aware of whose first 1CC was in the third game.
While I wish I had been there to advise you, as I know a lot about these games, I'm glad you decided to start with the PC-98 Era, they need more spotlight. ❤
it is impressive how u maintain commentary while playing these games
I know Grayfruit said that he won't play ALL of the Touhou games because that would be completely unreasonable, but I hope that he gets Lark to play the Touhou fighting games at some point, like their street fighter streams.
It's amazing how much jump in quality there is to touhou 6.
Also amazing to see ZUN's art style completely change as the century turns. Touhou 5's is all dark, sharp, vibrant, and 90's anime style; Touhou 6's is soft with whites and pastels, almost looking like watercolor to an extent.
at long last! The grayfruit touhou video.
31:07 ah yes, I too remember the tiktok dance that was literally *just* standing on a boat!
Actually, this is sarcasm, but that would be kinda funny, “the newest trend in fashion is the sit down and shut up.”
Finally a Touhou streamer who doesn't bombard me with useless information about how a character's decapitated head is allegedly a huge meme in japan
Yukkuris?
Hey man, take it easy!
Its not decapitated, its just a head, the same way a smiley face isn't a decapitated head
I promised myself to never interact with Touhou content ever so I could make a game called "Touhou but I've Never Played Touhou" and this video released while it was in development and I am so finally glad that after finishing the game I get to watch yet another Grayfruit masterpiece.
Cap or real?
@@lpfan4491 second thing on Itch if you search for "Touhou", somehow.
Wowza
The second game really just said "oops she died. oh well, time to bury her."
Always love seeing Grayfruit indulge in his love of all things shmup/danmaku.
22:58
I don't know about TH3, but the later vs. danmaku games in the Windows era have it so that the CPU characters just die on a timer, with very little care for what happens in between that timer ending. Sometimes, you can even see the CPU going through bullets, because they're only set to die after hitting that timer.
3 is like that too. It's worth noting that certain characters have attacks that confuse the AI and can score "unplanned" hits, though, which can end fights prematurely.
In this game, those are Reimu's yin-yang orbs, Rikako's gears and Yumemi's crosses.
I always forget how different and experimental the early touhou games are, and then 6 onwards zun solidified his style and it's more or less always been the series we know and love from there. Hope you keep playing and I'm glad you had fun with the early entires of the series ^^
6:17 Also Asriel shares the name of Azrael from the bible, which is an angel of death, along with Sariel.
compliments to the editor, i live for the funny cut-ins
Very excited to see more!
I'm gonna be that weirdo SHUMP fan and recommend some supplemental material:
For those interested in the music, I'd strongly recommend Akatsuki Records. Really killer vocal track arrangements of several character themes. Gave me whiplash hearing Sariel's theme in it's PC 98 rendition and being able to recognize it.
If the idea of the weird VS SHUMP gameplay of Touhou 3 interested you, I really recommend Twinkle Star Sprites. It's on Steam and Switch and is a blast in local VS.
I love me some Touhou "PROJECT"
33:00 "I think I can dodge things."
Laser beam fills the entire screen.
The first Touhou actually aged really well I gotta say. It's style is very distinct and the pixel art looks good. Not to mention the bullet patterns look really cool. I especially like the one that looks like raindroplets.
there's no way we just watched the same video
while i agree on the whole style thing and it aging well (enough), that is still a game i would absolutely not touch with a 10ft pole. out of respect.
@@18themxxn_ It has aged about as well as a NES game, which can be either a compliment or a roast depending on which NES game we compare it to. All things considered, I too would say it has aged well; not exceptionally so, but it's still perfectly enjoyable nowdays.
Lmao, in the first game it actually says 'HARRY UP' instead of 'HURRY UP'
Glad to hear that about Gexuma she* makes excellent edits !
Does that mean there won't be fan edit of grayfruit on the other channel ?
I still plan to continue making fan edits! I've made a couple since the King's Field video, the main reason there hasn't been more is just because I have a lot to do at the moment and less time to do them in.
ZUN: don't upload the endings to the internet.
The fandom: Why?
ZUN: _Uh…_ Because they should be earnt by beating the games by yourselves…???
The endings: *Somehow, Reimu being crucified by Marisa*
Zun:"Fans should translate the games, I know I couldn't."
Also Zun:"Fans are not allowed to upload the endings online, even in textform."(Which is required for fantranslations)
Fans:*Hurt in confusion*
@@lpfan4491 To be fair, uploading a translation patch isn't quite the same as uploading the endings online, since you still have to beat the game to watch them.
Holy shit Grayfruit and Touhou, literal match made in heaven
Also fun fact, Reimu doesn't really know what god her shrine holds. It's possible that Reimu IS that god.
Been trying to go out of my way to rate all of the games tracks from the beginning thanks to these streams
Its nice to go back and look at ZUN's first works glad to see you playing the games!
grayfruit's skill at adapting and learning a game's mechanics is terrifying. Dude could legitimately be a speedrunner, but I'm thankful he uses his abilities to be a variety streamer. I love watching him go through a bunch of random stuff.
this is so good hopefully we get more content like this
This is crazy just yesterday I was watching one or the pizza tower vods and in that he spoke of his plans to play touhou from the first game on, and here it is. Thank you fruit man
If it ever happens, I would love to see grayfruit’s reactions to the Touhou 6 art.
Thank you grayfruit for this wonderful treat.
At 5:08 that theme sounds dangerously similar to "Through The Fire And The Flames"
Am I going insane or did it say "HARRY UP" in touhou 1
Hell yeah another Gexuma officialized edit!
The OSTs of these old ass games have no business going as hard as they do
Seeing the Funny Peggle streamer play the very game series I've been obsessed with since I was literally a child is awesome. These games are so fun even if I suck at them.
I remember I loved the first game when I started getting into it at that age, as I thought it was so edgy and cool how 'mysterious' it was. Nowadays I just laugh at it because of the hilarious typos(i.e. "TOTLE" and "HARRY UP")
What a neat surprise to see Touhou on your channel! Would love to see you play some of the later games in the series at some point!
embodiment of gray fruit
holy shit just started watching you recently and now you play my favourite videogame series
loving the frequent uploads
Great editing Gexuma!
this is great to see!! i'm so glad someone is exploring touhou, especially starting with the PC98 games :]
i'm also glad someone told you that most of the girls are adults despite the art style (at least in the windows era)
i hope if you get to the windows games you enjoy them even more !!
thank you so much GrAYFRUIT, i would never gotten to touhou myself, so this was a lot of fun
gexuma goated editing as always
Looking forward to you playing the rest of the series
Playing touhou in order is quite a novelty
finally. Touhou Project Grayfruit THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME
this was a treat to watch
the farther the series goes the more sense the stories make, and the stories of the first 5 games are basicaly not part of the cannon past touhou 5
8:47 it says HARRY UP
I was already shocked enough to see you playing this series to begin with let alone you going out of your way to play the pc-98 games, but an edit too??? Damn, my expectations were shattered. If you keep going, do brace yourself for the 6th game's art. It'll probably make you laugh your ass off. Great video.
40:08 For how long has the Touhou fandom existed and with how many English-speaking people are in said fandom, it's surprising that I've only seen like two or three "fanarts" (Deviantart edits) that actually use that joke.
I justed finished rewatching your dead god video and went back to my sub feed to find a freshie! Love u fruit man!
This video is the most I will ever learn about Touhou
Ayy, congrats for Gex! (Not that one, the other one)
seeing this pop up in my notifications felt like a slap in the face, but like, a good slap. i love the PC98 games and im so happy grayfruit is checking them out. i mean he could do eosd first like everyone else but he didnt, which rocks
I’ve been looking for a way to get into this series for a while, be my vessel, GrAYFRUIT