Favorite Themes (Read 1,763 times)

[lazulum]

Sort of an obligatory thread

Feel free to post:
Your favorite stage/character theme, official only (Hifuu counts)

Something about the song you post as well, if you want.


As usual, I'll start



Favorite from th13, the last game I really anticipated the release of and really got into. I think it's a great stage 4 theme that builds up to the final few segments and retains that distinct eastern feeling through some of its instrumentation.

I like it

[spongelevator]

I didn't play ten desires yet though desire drive is one of the best stage themes I've heard

most touhou songs tend to be quite nice though I feel a decent portion of them are like a base for remixes to improve on such as doujin music or ZUN's enhanced CD versions
so I'll put the official ones I enjoy more than most remixes

SPOILER: Click to show

{top 3 songs chosen by the sponge: you wont BELIEVE number 4}
I haven't heard nearly all of the official stuff so I just picked my favorite out of three categories
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKs1wYOSBp8
this one is best ZUN music cd song I say
the tune? melody? I dunno what it's called, but that identifying part where if you heard it in another song you'd think "oh yeah it is that one"
well whatever it's called I like that in there
the background noises also make it feel quite busy but not in a distracting way
so it's a bit like how an actual train station feels in that way
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpPlPKWW1Y0
favorite stage theme is the ol chinese tea
honestly most remixes aren't nearly as good as the original for some reason
I still remember trying to beat hon meiling on the crusty 2008 windows vista laptop in 7th grade
and I had little clue what a touhou was so I just kept saying I'd beat the chinese lady next time
weird memory but pretty good one lol
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tYWk6LQPNo
it aint the original version but ZUN remade it so it counts still
just kogasa's theme except the superior version
a very nice one
I'll hear it thus

[lazulum]

That's quite a good point, there are a lot of songs which do strike me as templates in a sense. I'd have to think about which ones I like more than most or any of the remixes out there. I'll post one if one comes to mind, I think Desire Drive is in that category for me in any case.

Retrospective

The first one has that distinctive style of the older OSTs, reminds me of how ZUN's style sort of evolved over time. There's a very perceivable difference between older and newer stuff. Which is a good thing, given how many songs he has to compose. I like that one, track one of Retrospective 53 Minutes.

China Theme

I had forgotten how nice her EoSD theme was actually. I overlook it a tad because I have not played that one in a very long time and she was a minor boss, but it's quite good.

Considering much of the fandom just called her "China", you were of similar mind haha

Kogasa Theme

I actually didn't know that ZUN did a remake of her theme. It really is leaps and bounds better than the original. It's really quite good, also very different in instrumentation from his older stuff too. If you told me it was an arrange, I might've believed you; although once it picks up I can detect a little bit of ZUN's style distinguish itself.

[Aeon]

desire drive is a classic, i've heard a lot of remixes in many genres with it. seiga is a boss like no other, and the spirit trance system or whatever goes really well with it. its also a real "uncovering the mystery" kinda track i think
one thing that is just incredible about a lot of the stage things that you can't get as well with the boss themes is the way they flow with the environment changes and ebb/flow of the minor enemies and especially midbosses
it's not dynamic music in the traditional sense because the stages are on-rails but because of that it can change more than just a few instruments to adjust to what is going on. haven't played 13 in a while but it's rad that it has it going on too
only games i've seen that can do it like this are kid icarus uprising and touhou games, and touhou games do it very well. perfect cherry blossom and imperishable night's stage 4s are the first things i can think of that do that super nicely
upon a bit of experimentation i also remembered legacy of lunatic kingdom stage 6. more chill but still flows very well with what's going on
(kid icarus chapter 6 air is actually incredible with that type of dynamic music) 

the kinda stuff that you can't just get by listening to it. very good and one of the best possible things onrails stages can have. music pausing when the game is paused is not only genius by zun for that reason but if i want to press escape and not have anybody know i'm trying to play games it is very convenient

now uh
actually on to my favorites. big post. oops

i picked

SPOILER: Click to show

{these}

for the touhou annual voting thing but i was kinda rushing
they say "wow touhou weird series has more girls than there were pokemon in red" but in reality the amount of girls is nothing compared to the amount of music so picking anything as the best is very difficult.
not to mention how much the remixes change how things are seen. even if it was boppin, you think i'm gonna remember the stage 3 track from lotus land story unless it was, you know
so i will simply talk about a few of the super cool ones

last occultism is an absolutely incredible track that deserves to heard at the end of nearly every fighter's story in urban legend in limbo. the instruments and the stage its played on make it really distinct from so many other tracks because it's the outside world baybee. the greatest threat to youkai, the fully illuminated nighttime cityscape is in full view as sumireko plays this from her offscreen bluetooth speakers
if we get a touhou in smash this has gotta be in. no nintendo remix nonsense, all original

necrofantasia (magical astronomy) is just simply perfect. so is night falls ~ evening star (15.5 is pog but 7.5 has gotta be the best) but necorfantasia is very
yukari-like. i can only articulate so much about one song i suppose

satellite café terrace is a wonderful one with an incredible sense of exploration. hifuu game? has to have this as a main theme. the perfect track for a magical college club where you can relax with coffee, tea, and extraspacial enigmas

spongelevator
i usually leave my retrospective 53 minutes in a music cd player a couple feet away from my desk. sometimes i will accidentally kick it and it will play neo super-express as it is the first track. never a bad thing especially with how smoothly it starts with the train sounds. incredible audio mixing

chinese tea is a very clean and great stage theme. just like with keine, it's usually remembered more than meiling. not a problem, i wish i could have such a track on my name
my guy doin touhou on vista. probably less crusty than on windows 10 with the speedup glitches

gonna be honest, i don't really remember kogasa's original theme but i really remember the 17.5 one you sent. so good. reminds me of sonic unleashed a bit, and unleashed has some incredible music. when the demo came out for 17.5 i got stuck on kogasa for no small amount of attempts as i tried to figure out how the game worked and this made those attempts a bit more pleasant

lazulum
yeah, zun's style has been pretty versatile especially recently. compare 15, 16, and 17 and you'll see so many different things going on. if you haven't checked out much since 13, you'll find it's worth catching up for music alone.

[lazulum]

Aeon

I know exactly what you mean, that's something that boss themes cannot quite do. Almost by necessity because boss themes need to reflect the different situation and often the personality of the boss itself. In Touhou the themes need to reflect the demeanor of the boss and the gravity of the threat to an extent too.

I remember Mountain of Faith handling it as well, another stage theme that I quite like, one of my favorites is the Gensokyo the Gods Loved.

Another shmup that handled the stage transitions perfectly was Hellsinker. There's one bit in segment seven where the music slows down and picks up to its main, energetic melody as a wave of spawns quickly fly across the screen filling it with bullets.

Reach for the Moon

That one is a fantastic theme and one of the reasons I used Mokou so much in Gensou Taisen was that I liked hearing her theme, even if a remix.

Phantom Ensemble

I always really quite liked that one as well. I remember a remix for it was used for the promotional material of the first Memories of Phantasm, and when that first was advertised it really quite blew my mind. I remember waiting for the release and then it getting delayed, and delayed again until finally coming out haha. Right around when YouTube had a little snow button you could toggle, incidentally.

There's just something about the main melody that you can pick up immediately, quite catchy too.

I'll probably mention Gensou for all of these too heh.
I really liked that gimmick where you could have the three Prismrivers with their own themes individually, but they had the special ability to form one strong, special unit that played a remix of this theme.

Border of Life

That was one of those songs that really got the name of Touhou spread by word of mouth a lot. The song attracted a lot of people to the series back in the day I remember. Looking at the videos on YT now, one with a million views, another with 500k, etc.

That's one of those themes that really communicates the gravity of the threat while also preserving the character of the boss. You can tell it's a dire situation listening to the theme alone without much context.

On a side note, I liked the remix in Gensou that plays when you use her strongest/special attack.


I'll have to check the later games out one of these days.
I have 15 sitting right on one of my shelves, I can see the darn box. Will get to it one of these days. Looking forward to hearing the new themes definitely.

Edit: I'll get to the other posts in the morning
About 2am here, a little difficult to read and think at the moment

[Aeon]

the gensokyo the gods loved is very good, a lot of people say it's the best. i think it was also the base for one of the memories of phantasm openings, which is pretty cool
just checked out a video of hellsinker and found it on steam, looks like a pretty rad danmakugame. awesome that they took care of things like music to that extent

i probably picked reach for the moon in the voting thing because of mokou being very cool, but it is fantastic regardless. very nice piano and is very strong material in any rhythm game

phantom ensemble, i mean they're music youkai. one of the gensokyo's three magical bands, of course the song is gonna be boppin. i still gotta get past the first few chapters of gensou taisen to at least check out the cool beats

border of life: theme of the first time anyone broke the spellcard rules ingame. timed perfectly with its spellcard and a simply neat expansion to yuyuko's first track

[lazulum]

Do they? Well I can see why, one of those themes that even now is easy to recall. Septette is another one of those songs that really caught on with the fans. I like it but I wouldn't call it a favorite of mine.

That's right, Hellsinker is on Steam now, forgot about that. There was a span of several years where I would mention that game but people outside of Japan could never get their hands on it. Was never distributed for a long while. It is a one-of-a-kind game, worth playing. One of the best shumps out there and what I would consider my favorite game in general.

Reach for the Moon is a great theme, I'd have to re-listen to it though. Moukou is a cool character, definitely.

Prismrivers are a cool trio, cool names too. They're underhyped characters I think, quite cool but never really featured much in fan works (or even official works). In the first Memories of Phantasm, they were a cameo that lasted all of three seconds or so I remember

[spongelevator]

I shall edit later but I tried to played pcb and yeah primsriver theme is good and I died on stage 4 again
ok this will be live edits many edits will come
alright the edits have been slayed no more
yeah some stage themes are real nice when actually playing
stage 3 EoSD and stage 4 MoF come to mind and also stage 4 IN after I knew what was coming up ahead
I like them alone but it really only comes together when I actually am playing the stage
I dunno the context of kid icarus 3ds chapter 6 though when comparing how the music sounds to the pretty packed looking gameplay it fits quite nicely in a way
also it has the nice instruments lol
yeah there are so many musics I end up remembering the one part where the songs do the thing instead of their names
like when maiden's cappuchino does the thing in a remix I think "oh yeah it's uuh the that one"
I didn't play 15.5 though sumireko theme sounds quite different from the songs I heard so far
one part reminded me of MGR kinda lol
necrofantasia and satellite cafe terrace are like evidence that music CDs are peak ZUN
best version of yukari theme as well as very pleasant theme with a good "the thing that I recognize"
those two and  neo super express+greenwich in the sky and there's a strong top four best
hard to beat em especially with all the nice piano remixes and stuff
windows vista EoSD actually ran way better than windows
I still have the laptop and it gives like 5 security errors whenever I open firefox but at least I do not have to find patch to fix windows 10 with its 900fps so sometimes I just play it on there lol
still I can only beat meiling half the time on normal so I remember her well lol
I have heard kogasa's original theme many times because I can't even beat stage 2 consistently though all I remember was the beginning with the zunpets
17.5 version and remixes are peak kogasa
I usually like the stage themes more than the boss themes except on stage 6 if I ever reach there
it may just be because stages are longer and have music for going from A to B instead of defeating a boss though 
some stage tracks I can remember random massive amount of projectiles coming out of nowhere by the amount of times I die when that part of the song arrives lol
fall of fall especially because of that one part with the weird water-looking formations though I quite enjoy that track because it made me never reach past stage 4  
stuff like septette (not pathetique) and border of life I always heard before I even knew what a touhou was but it was stuff like broken moon and phantom ensemble that really hit hard
I always heard them everywhere but never associated any character with them so they were always " the touhou music" until the answer appeared
finding out these things is very unique experience lol would certainly recommend 
I didn't even get past stage 1 in my first attempt but the stage theme
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ_r-Fwl4kA
I actually heard before in like 3 or 4 remixes and it seems many of them use different sections of the whole stage theme which is quite different from what I've seen before
first time hearing in its original form though and it's surprisingly nice 
I'd happily die to yuyuko stage 1 again if it means I can hear this more
MoF stage 1 had a nice theme but this one is way too good man

[carpet]

my favorite theme in the touhou soundtrack goes as such.

𝄞|♪♪♪♫|♭♪𝄾♬♪𝄾♫|♪♪♪♫|♭♪𝄾♬♪𝄾♫|♪♪♪♫|♭♪𝄾♬♪𝄾♫|,
𝄞|♪♪♬♪𝄾♫|♪♪♬♪𝄾♫|♪♪♬♪𝄾♫|♪♪♬♪𝄾♫|♪♪♬♪𝄾♫||

Number 2, 3, and 4 are the same as Ongeelevator's top 3. Thanks.

[TSUN]

This ain't necessarily my favorites to listen to, but the most interesting. A major part of making it on this list is "no remix can replace this." In essence, this means that the instrumentation and context of the game (or album) make this iteration special.

Waxing poetic, GO!!
-
Eternal Shrine Maiden is just kinda OK in the original game, but the Mystic Square/Akyuu's Untouched version is just so beautiful. Mystical & melancholic, this track is one of the most emblematic of Highly Responsive to Prayers, the world of the PC98 games, and possibly even Touhou as a whole. It's a shame that the Dolls in Pseudo Paradise version is the one most remembered, as it changes much of the song.

-

Story of Eastern Wonderland's soundtrack is hit or miss for me, but oh my gosh do the hits hit hard. End of Daylight has some amazing atmosphere; IMO it's even better as a song for sunrise. Complete Darkness is a whirlwind that surrounds you in this dark, imposing side of Mima. And I cannot put my feelings on World of Empty Dreams into words; sure, I could talk about it for house, but the feelings this piece gives off are just so damn beautiful, that simply describing what you hear would do it a disservice.
-
Strawberry Crisis!! One of the most unapologetically METAL songs in Touhou. It's so good, especially during the epic Phantasmagoria gameplay. And of course, hats off to Yumemi Okazaki. A not-so-normal teenage girl from outside Gensokyo who storms in and becomes fascinated by this crazy world full of magic, and then proceeds to beat up everyone with the power of SCIENCE!! She's one of the coolest characters in Touhou, and completely unlike anyone that came before or after her.
-
You know Alice's theme from PCB? Why why why why why miss you a lot forever?? Romantic Children is like an earlier, better version of that song. It's got nearly the exact same progression & melodies, and it even plays in Alice's stage. It's one of the better melancholic themes in PC98, and PC98 has a lot of melancholic themes.

also haha weird name

"Romance" isn't just the lovey-dovey stuff though. It can mean an ideal of mysticism in everyday life. And "Romantic Children" implies nostalgia and whimsy. Which fits not just flying through Makai City, but also the atmosphere of the PC98 games.

-

Bloom Nobly, Ink-Black Cherry Blossom ~ Border of Life

WHY ARE THE ZUNPETS CRYING

ZUNpets get meme'd a lot for being obnoxiously loud and blaring, and... okay, yeah. But oh my Shinki, this track is the most perfect use of them. With the song's composition, the game's build-up to this moment, and the context of Yuyuko's storyline, these screeching MIDI trumpets sound like... crying, I guess. Like ugly, uncontrollable wailing in pain and grief. My little headcanon is that the calmer sections are the carefree Yuyuko we know today, and the ZUNpets are the Yuyuko that comitted suicide over 1000 years ago. Along with the blooming of the Saigyou Ayakashi, the emotions from so long ago are finally waking up.

These fricking ZUNpets show us Yuyuko's tragedy in such a uniquely striking way that I can't imagine Border of Life without them; every single cover sounds like a totally different song.

-

Gensokyo Millennium and Lunatic Princess bring out some the clearest, most striking feelings & concepts of anything before Mountain of Faith. Both themes emanate the idea of "fighting an inconcievably old & powerful being that is overwhelming you in every way but they don't take the fight seriously because you are little more than a speck of dust to them." They do this in different ways.
-
I slept on Eirin's theme for a while even after playing. The fight wasn't my favorite, exacerbated by the fact that it wasn't the "true" final boss; and, dumb as it sounds, Eirin's ZUNart doesn't really convey the same meaning that the song does.

Gensokyo Millennium is surprisingly... relaxed? Kinda like Remilia's theme, but... different. Remi's theme feels like a villain's song from a Disney Renaissance musical; charming, prideful, powerful, yet somewhat petty and childish. Eirin's theme is simply recounting the hundreds of millions of years she has spent. She has seen, done, and been more things in a thousanth of her lifetime than you ever will.

Creation, gods, stars, the moon, water, birth, family, war, death, land, animals, inventions, alliances, building of societies, mountain-breaking disasters, mass extinctions, chain reactions, countries standing tall and falling apart, trillions of lives over the course of all existence living and dying, Gensokyo, and you. It all just washes over you as you pass through a long, long history.

It starts out menacing, but slowly becomes more mystical. It's an intense song, not from Eirin's feelings towards you, but from what she is and what she has been through.
-

Kaguya's theme is more about UNLIMITED POWAAAAA and the joy of fighting you. Well, maybe not power, but... eternity. Kaguya is eternal, and damn, does she show it.

This theme hit me like a truck my first time. The intro is slow, elegant, and pleasant. Sorta like what one might expect from "the beautiful & refined Princess Kaguya from the oldest surviving Japanese tale". But once it's over, that impression fades away, and it becomes like U.N. Owen crossed with Necro-Fantasy. A fitting theme for Kaguya of Touhou Project.

The ZUNpets are nothing like Yuyuko's theme. These are deafeningly intense, yet controlled. Kaguya may be playful, but she is no Flandre. Her attitude of "living in the present" is conveyed so well in the music. The ZUNpets overwhelm you, playing the same melody over and over. With each repeat, eternity hits you all at once. And then once more. And then once more. And it keeps going, increasing in energy beyond all probability, because that's what eternity does. Until finally going down to a somewhat manageable level after a stupidly long ZUNpet screech. But that "manageable" part is nowhere near relaxed, and the looping song gets right back to the ZUNpets with barely a break. Kaguya is not done, and she will never be done. The polar opposite of Eirin's progression and mood in nearly every way.

Also, my idea of Kaguya may differ a lot from yours. I took stuff in the game's endings as more indicative of her personality than her pre-fight dialogue or depictions in fanworks. In the endings, she's very playful and sociable with the earthlings, in a somewhat condescending way. Also uh, the Studio Ghibli movie definitely played a part.

-

Holy shit uh

sorry about the verbosity

[carpet]

May 10, 2021 23:12:53 GMT TSUN said:

This ain't necessarily my favorites to listen to, but the most interesting. A major part of making it on this list is "no remix can replace this." In essence, this means that the instrumentation and context of the game (or album) make this iteration special.

Waxing poetic, GO!!
-
Eternal Shrine Maiden is just kinda OK in the original game, but the Mystic Square/Akyuu's Untouched version is just so beautiful. Mystical & melancholic, this track is one of the most emblematic of Highly Responsive to Prayers, the world of the PC98 games, and possibly even Touhou as a whole. It's a shame that the Dolls in Pseudo Paradise version is the one most remembered, as it changes much of the song.

-

Story of Eastern Wonderland's soundtrack is hit or miss for me, but oh my gosh do the hits hit hard. End of Daylight has some amazing atmosphere; IMO it's even better as a song for sunrise. Complete Darkness is a whirlwind that surrounds you in this dark, imposing side of Mima. And I cannot put my feelings on World of Empty Dreams into words; sure, I could talk about it for house, but the feelings this piece gives off are just so damn beautiful, that simply describing what you hear would do it a disservice.
-
Strawberry Crisis!! One of the most unapologetically METAL songs in Touhou. It's so good, especially during the epic Phantasmagoria gameplay. And of course, hats off to Yumemi Okazaki. A not-so-normal teenage girl from outside Gensokyo who storms in and becomes fascinated by this crazy world full of magic, and then proceeds to beat up everyone with the power of SCIENCE!! She's one of the coolest characters in Touhou, and completely unlike anyone that came before or after her.
-
You know Alice's theme from PCB? Why why why why why miss you a lot forever?? Romantic Children is like an earlier, better version of that song. It's got nearly the exact same progression & melodies, and it even plays in Alice's stage. It's one of the better melancholic themes in PC98, and PC98 has a lot of melancholic themes.

also haha weird name

"Romance" isn't just the lovey-dovey stuff though. It can mean an ideal of mysticism in everyday life. And "Romantic Children" implies nostalgia and whimsy. Which fits not just flying through Makai City, but also the atmosphere of the PC98 games.

-

Bloom Nobly, Ink-Black Cherry Blossom ~ Border of Life

WHY ARE THE ZUNPETS CRYING

ZUNpets get meme'd a lot for being obnoxiously loud and blaring, and... okay, yeah. But oh my Shinki, this track is the most perfect use of them. With the song's composition, the game's build-up to this moment, and the context of Yuyuko's storyline, these screeching MIDI trumpets sound like... crying, I guess. Like ugly, uncontrollable wailing in pain and grief. My little headcanon is that the calmer sections are the carefree Yuyuko we know today, and the ZUNpets are the Yuyuko that comitted suicide over 1000 years ago. Along with the blooming of the Saigyou Ayakashi, the emotions from so long ago are finally waking up.

These fricking ZUNpets show us Yuyuko's tragedy in such a uniquely striking way that I can't imagine Border of Life without them; every single cover sounds like a totally different song.

-

Gensokyo Millennium and Lunatic Princess bring out some the clearest, most striking feelings & concepts of anything before Mountain of Faith. Both themes emanate the idea of "fighting an inconcievably old & powerful being that is overwhelming you in every way but they don't take the fight seriously because you are little more than a speck of dust to them." They do this in different ways.
-
I slept on Eirin's theme for a while even after playing. The fight wasn't my favorite, exacerbated by the fact that it wasn't the "true" final boss; and, dumb as it sounds, Eirin's ZUNart doesn't really convey the same meaning that the song does.

Gensokyo Millennium is surprisingly... relaxed? Kinda like Remilia's theme, but... different. Remi's theme feels like a villain's song from a Disney Renaissance musical; charming, prideful, powerful, yet somewhat petty and childish. Eirin's theme is simply recounting the hundreds of millions of years she has spent. She has seen, done, and been more things in a thousanth of her lifetime than you ever will.

Creation, gods, stars, the moon, water, birth, family, war, death, land, animals, inventions, alliances, building of societies, mountain-breaking disasters, mass extinctions, chain reactions, countries standing tall and falling apart, trillions of lives over the course of all existence living and dying, Gensokyo, and you. It all just washes over you as you pass through a long, long history.

It starts out menacing, but slowly becomes more mystical. It's an intense song, not from Eirin's feelings towards you, but from what she is and what she has been through.
-

Kaguya's theme is more about UNLIMITED POWAAAAA and the joy of fighting you. Well, maybe not power, but... eternity. Kaguya is eternal, and damn, does she show it.

This theme hit me like a truck my first time. The intro is slow, elegant, and pleasant. Sorta like what one might expect from "the beautiful & refined Princess Kaguya from the oldest surviving Japanese tale". But once it's over, that impression fades away, and it becomes like U.N. Owen crossed with Necro-Fantasy. A fitting theme for Kaguya of Touhou Project.

The ZUNpets are nothing like Yuyuko's theme. These are deafeningly intense, yet controlled. Kaguya may be playful, but she is no Flandre. Her attitude of "living in the present" is conveyed so well in the music. The ZUNpets overwhelm you, playing the same melody over and over. With each repeat, eternity hits you all at once. And then once more. And then once more. And it keeps going, increasing in energy beyond all probability, because that's what eternity does. Until finally going down to a somewhat manageable level after a stupidly long ZUNpet screech. But that "manageable" part is nowhere near relaxed, and the looping song gets right back to the ZUNpets with barely a break. Kaguya is not done, and she will never be done. The polar opposite of Eirin's progression and mood in nearly every way.

Also, my idea of Kaguya may differ a lot from yours. I took stuff in the game's endings as more indicative of her personality than her pre-fight dialogue or depictions in fanworks. In the endings, she's very playful and sociable with the earthlings, in a somewhat condescending way. Also uh, the Studio Ghibli movie definitely played a part.

-

Holy shit uh

sorry about the verbosity

touhou 8

[spongelevator]

I'd say that post is far too large to warrant a response of only "touhou 8" by the obscure true mascot of our forum, carpet

it may be 6 months old post that I did not respond to but I'm responding to it anyway
yes

I can't really get a whole lot out of the pc98 ost because I literally cannot tell what it's supposed to sound like for some reason half the time
but eternal shrine maiden is one of those exceptions because I actually remember what it sounds like
is very good
DiPP is kinda a god album but I honestly did not recognize that I was hearing eternal shrine maiden the first time I heard it until it did the thing like a minute in
not to say it is ass though both are great

I had to hear like ten different versions of strawberry crisis multiple times over the span of the past year to be able to actually tell what the thing in my ear is
it was worth it though because now I can actually hear what half of the pc98 stuff is supposed to be
very nice

gonna go into the somewhat off-topic no no zone but eh no moderation means fun zone
I don't know about 1-3 because I barely touched them (all I really know is mima's lines to see why people keep wanting her back and also I saw those images about how ZUN took entire character designs and put them into his game or the one image showin all the SMT influences and stuff)
but 4-9 or so all felt to me like they fit that description of "romantic children"
it's all dreamy and absurd like a fairy tale or something but it was 20+ years ago
back when gensokyo didn't feel "complete" and ZUN could just keep tossing in new characters and locations and ideas and stuff so gensokyo felt limitless and mysterious
and at the end there's a drinking party and nobody has a care in the world
of course I wasn't there at the time but man
in that age you'd get stuff like "go to a mansion in some weird ass location to beat up a sleepy flower lady" or "beat up the moron who stole spring to try and revive a demon tree fueled by her dead corpse"
but these days you get like
political commentary gang war
not to say that's ass or anything and I get it can't be that way anymore because this is literally the result of natural series progression
but I do miss that feeling of gensokyo being a place where common sense is thrown out the window and you can fly to the moon with a cobbled together mix of science and religion
or where a vampire can turn the entire gensokyo misty red because she wants to go outside and no other reason
even if fandom of those games is ass I have found that canon 4-9 and the other stuff released in that time period has aged like wine and must be savored
aint heard anything like those crying zunpets or voyage or got anyone like the millions of years old moonies and immortals in a long time
last time we went to makai though and ZUN finally used the heartbeat he wanted though that was pretty damn nice

ok now so this isn't a treash post
DiPP best music cd but retrospective 53 minutes best full package
strange oriental discourse sounds too much like rydeen for me to listen to that for more than two minutes (except the DiPP version)
TD best game ost
voyage best stage 6 theme chinese tea best stage 3 theme uhhhhhhhh
yuuka has best themes probably
all four are good but lovely mound of cherry blossoms best

[rys]

I can see what you mean, since earlier games had a lot more freedom with the setting, which I think is a big reason why characters from the classic era stay popular. Still, I don't think the bigger/more serious plots are a bad thing, it's a good way to give some more background and depth to characters who don't have the boon of 20 years of games, side works and fan stuff.
On topic: 17's stage themes have been growing on me; Electric Heritage is great for build up before Keiki, and stage 4 has lots of bits and pieces from Memento of Living Things, which is neat after playing 17.5.

[spongelevator]

quite so
earlier stuff ranged from like
european vampire mansion in japan to lunalien eternal mansion and once he stopped doing that he plopped three different religious organizations right into gensokyo and had them fight (though honestly I wish he went more into that than he did)

these days every new group aint in gensokyo though (the moon and hell)
so I am hoping ZUN has some sort of way to make those characters relevant
since they're not in/from gensokyo most events and characters in the series are gonna be separate from them
I'm not sure but that could make it more difficult to incorporate them into fanworks as well
so far in the new mangas I don't recall any wbawc characters showing up (it's okina three times in a row instead rip yukarin) and I would like to see fetus child and cow mom again thank you very much

honestly I am not sure what to expect but ZUN did say he prefers to make new characters than use old ones so I will probably have to get used to seeing one panel only


one day they will come back

one day...


yeah wbawc has some good stage themes
honestly I can't say I remember much of the boss themes (17.5 has some wacky stuff though) but the stage music is up there
there is one boss theme though

[Aeon]

cannot believe carpet just ate tsun's post and ended the thread for so long. arbiter of entropy

spongelevator
pc98 i know a few great ones like reincarnation, aforementioned eternal shrine maiden, the sariel one with the long name, and whatever plays in lls stage 3. i forget what its called

gensokyo, or at least how we can see it, has really gotten less abstract ever since BOOM moriya shrine is here we do Religion Now and later BOOM okina is here there are Political Power Struggles Now. takes the mystery outta it, huh?
although i don't think it will necessarily stay like this because there is still a lotta mysteryzone when it comes to touhou even if gensokyo has already been fully mapped in minecraft
think about makai or the moon or dreamzone let alone hifuutime for a bit and theres a lotta uncertainty and a lotta things to explore. basically this is why im paying so much attention to sumireko because shes only like intersecting with gensokyo and does a bunch of other stuff too
although addendum for 17.5 because that one seems to just make space instead of fill it with all the different perspectives and the coolass shot of the nuclear fusion reactor and the new secret hell below hell (this is the third hell if you are keeping track)

i will maybe. advertise len'en a bit again
because len'en 1-3 feels like classic windows touhou except again and more from everything to freeform incidents to the most shrill zunpets you can imagine (good thing) and 4 starts takin it in a different direction than zun did entirely

also as rys said: the stuff after ten has had the bigger plot bits that span multiple games which i think are very cool even if i really have no idea what toutetsu was trying to accomplish.
17.5 has some good tracks but i cannot recall any specific ones at the moment despite having been stuck on every boss for at least half an hour

td best game ost thats a pretty unexpected pick. i'll probably have to go with soku or imperishable night because mmm likey