PC-98 Games

Touhou Wondrous Tale ~ Highly Responsive to Prayers is the first entry of the franchise, which was finished in 1995, but released in 1997 for the PC-98. As opposed to every other mainline Touhou game, its genre is a variation on Breakout's formula, where the player has to actively deflect and control the ball (in this case, the Yin-yan orbs) via shooting projectiles instead of simply catching it.

The story involves Reimu Hakurei hunting the destroyer of the Hakurei Shrine across various strange lands. After every five stages a boss is encountered, all of whom are only named in the credits. The game plays out without any dialogue or location names, which along with the limited color palette and minimalistic computer generated backgrounds gives it a surreal atmosphere.

This was ZUN's first game and as such, it isn't exactly free of glitches, mismatched difficulty and malfunctioning gameplay mechanics. Nowadays it's more sought after as a curiosity or for its historical value for these reasons, especially since the PC-98 Touhou games are no longer sold officially.

Touhou Demon Sealing Records ~ Story of Eastern Wonderland is the first installment of Touhou Project that was a shoot 'em up. Once again, our protagnoist is Reimu Hakurei, who's trying to save her shrine from invading youkai with the help of his flying turtle, Genji. This game also marks the debut of the series deuteragonist, Marisa Kirisame, for now, a foe.

The genre change definitely favored this game. It might still have the issues of a "first", and so it might not be exactly user-friendly, but it very much has the charm that ZUN's games are known for. The banter might be more simple and less than lore-friendly, but it's funny and just an all-around good time. The endings too are very charming, if unhinged in places. Gensokyo without the spellcard rules is truly the wild west (or rather, east).

Reimu illustrations on the weapon select screen

Touhou Dream Spacetime ~ The Phantasmagoria of Dimensional Dream is the third entry of the franchise, which once again proposed a genre change, although it's not as radical as the previous one. It's still a shoot 'em up, albeit this time the aim is to fight an opponent on the other side of the double-screen by destroying small fry on yours. It has a 2 Player mode, too.

This time, we have many playable characters, as opposed to the one we already knew. According to the story, Reimu discovered ruins near the Hakurei Shrine. Only one person is allowed to enter it, and so, the characters attempt just that, one by one. In my opinion, this is where ZUN got the hang of graphics in the PC-98 era, the spritework is way more confident, even dynamic now. The story itself has an outlandishly funny conclusion, that has many of the pieces of ZUN's philosophy we'll see again in newer games.

I personally dubbed this genre of games "phantasmagoria games", as this isn't the final one of the franchise, the next one having the word "phantasmagoria" in its title as well.

Reimu and Marisa's character portraits and their alternative colors for 2P matches

Touhou Fantasy Land ~ Lotus Land Story is the fourth entry in the franchise. It returns to the genre established by Story of Eastern Wonderland, this time with two protagnoists: Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame. Everything about the shoot 'em up mechanics was enhanced, which since then became returning features (auto-collection, slow-mode, score-boosting collectibles).

According to the story, youkai have swarmed the Hakurei Shrine once more, and Reimu and Marisa are looking for the source of it. They find a mansion in a strange fantasy land under a lake in the mountains, which they believe to be the source of the youkai.

This is the first game to name Gensokyo, although here it refers to a location separate from where the Hakurei Shrine is, or Reimu, Marisa and the other characters live.

Congratulations screen with Marisa dressed as Sherlock Holmes. Each difficulty (except easy) completed without continues rewards the player with an illustration of their chosen character in various different clothes.

Touhou Bizarre Romantic Story ~ Mystic Square is the final PC-98 game of the Touhou franchise. Continuing, and cementing the genre of the games, once again we find ourselves in a shoot 'em up adventure. We have four protagonists this time around.

Besides Reimu and Marisa, we have Yuuka and Mima as well. Both of them went on to become beloved characters since then, even if the latter had no later appearances. This game also introduces Alice Margatroid, another beloved character who'll make more appearances later.

The story once again revolves around invading youkai, more specifically, demons, and the characters must travel to Makai to stop them. Although the story isn't exactly exceptional, the characters definitely carry the narrative on their backs.