[PC] Touhou 6 ~ Embodiment of Scarlet Devil - Lunatic ALL SHOT

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Published on October 20, 2024 10:00:31 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm7V0rDYONA

Game:

The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (2002)

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I decided to get this done, especially now that I'm finally starting to do Lunatic No Bomb runs in this game properly. Far from my best showing, both Marisa runs are actually from a while back. It's cool to put these out there for "archival" purposes though, as a bit of a "checkpoint" in my skill progression.

I haven't written a review for one of my videos in a very long time. I miss it. I'm sure someone out there is reading these. Even if not, I like reading these back later. So here's a stab at it:

The original run of the Touhou series consisted of 5 games released for the PC98 series of Japanese computers and they were what could charitably be called a "minor success". The series then went into what was then an indefinite hiatus, presumably as series creator Jun'ya "ZUN" Oota focused his efforts towards his job at Taito and his musical career.

In 2000, ZUN partnered with his colleague P.B.G. to co-develop a sister series to Touhou, called Seihou. Presumably inspired by the birth and continued development of that series and equipped with part of its engine, ZUN got back to the Touhou series with August 2002's Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

Although a modest success during its initial release at Comiket 62, the game very quickly spread through word of mouth and gathered a cult following which began to grow uncontrollably, still going strong to this day. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil became one of the most iconic and influential indie videogames of all time, comparable as somewhat of a 2000s analog of a game like Undertale, and the Touhou series was truly born here.

A bullet hell vertical shmup, EoSD wears its influence on its sleeve: this absolutely feels like the "next logical step" to its predecessor Seihou 1 as far as game feel and structure go, same as that felt like a logical progression from the PC98 games. 6 Stages, midbosses and stage bosses, a variety of characters with completely different stats and shots and an Extra stage for those who finish the game with only their starting credit. Most importantly, the uniquely "snappy" feeling of the series with a dedicated "Focus" button for instantly controlling your speed has been brought over, now with the additional feature of drastically tightening your shot while "Focusing", giving the movement a much more tactical feel as well compared to its predecessors.

Some would argue whether this game feels closer to the later Windows games or its PC98 brethren in design, and I feel like it truly is neither here nor there. EoSD kind of stands on its own, uniquely fast paced with extremely high damaging characters and a gauntlet of short yet immediately brutal and chaotic patterns. It is sort of applying the structure of the later games to a somewhat adapted interpretation of the design philosophies of earlier entries - an interesting midway point before the series would eventually settle on longer, slower and more elaborate patterns that ramp up over time instead.

Newer players would argue that this game hasn't aged very well. It is admittedly very feature-barren compared to later entries: it is almost completely devoid of any quality of life features and it lacks of any sort of special game-specific gimmicks the series would later define itself with. You don't even get to see your own hitbox, which is admittedly very hard to defend even for the time. There are some more serious design complaints you can raise as well, as the game relies a lot of sheer random spam for its difficulty in certain sections. While EoSD has some of the most interesting ultra-high level patterns in the series, they can't all be zingers and there absolutely is stuff here that is both very hard and not particularly interesting either. Speaking of which, this game does no favours to the series' reputation of having uninteresting stages; this being where the PC98 roots of this game are at their strongest for better or for worse. They're overall very easy or simple to route through, making the game act more like a glorified boss rush. There's a Practice mode, but it's sadly very limited and many eras of the game's competitive history were defined by attempts at making it actually useful.

Admittedly though, you are playing Touhou for that! The extremely iconic cast of characters, incredible music, unique gameplay and patterns with near bottomless potential for exploration and skill expression means this game will always have a reason to stick around, with longevity that surpasses even many of its successors. The more "dubiously designed" parts of the game combined with its many strokes of genius if anything only serve to add a very unique spice to each run - now THIS is a game that will always keep you on your toes. EoSD is to this day the undisputed king of the series popularity wise and that's unlikely to ever change, and I honestly believe it is very well deserved.

Timestamps:
0:00 Reimu A (Homing)
25:01 Reimu B (Needles)
47:50 Marisa A (Missiles)
1:10:57 Marisa B (Lasers)

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