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Touhou Bunkachou ~ Shoot the Bullet.

By Carl David Dayagdagp / September 25, 2007

Introduction

The Touhou series is already almost a decade old. It started out on NEC's PC-98 computers (which were essentially PCs with a few NEC-specific hardware standards, thus rendering them somewhat incompatible with other PCs of the time), and then moved on to Windows-based platforms.

The first game was an odd though interesting Arkanoid clone. The second was an STG. The third was a Twinkle Star Sprites clone. Games 4-8 were STGs, with the sixth being the first one developed for Windows under the company name "Team Shangai Alice". The ninth game (though codenamed TH07.5 for consistency in the universe's timeline) was a unique take on the fighting genre, designed by the creator of the series (who composed some of the music) in collaboration with another doujin circle that was responsible for the bulk of the development. Phantasmagoria of Flower View, the tenth game, was another Twinkle Star Sprites clone, except the amount of firepower directed at you in that one makes playing Twinkle Star Sprites on the Dreamcast without slowdown look like a cakewalk.

Aside from TH07.5, the Touhou series is created single-handedly by someone who calls himself ZUN. Yes, this is the same guy who writes the plot, draws the graphics, does the character designs, composes the music, and creates the bullet patterns. What's even more crazy is the fact that his games rival the quality of most big-budget STGs: The music is simple yet catchy, the storyline is good (if at times far-fetched), the graphics are not only aesthetically pleasing but also technically competent (without requiring the latest PC hardware to run), and the bullet patterns are both challenging to navigate and a sight to behold (although trying to do both at the same time is a sure way to get yourself killed) -- not to mention that these games retail for under twenty dollars (if you don't count the obscene shipping costs, that is).

ZUN has traditionally released one Touhou game every year, but Shoot the Bullet broke this tradition. Then again this one's special in a way: it's supposed to be a supplement to an illustrated fan book that was published in August 2005 called Touhou Bunkachou: Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red. ZUN wasn't happy with publishing a Touhou product without a shooting game to go along with it, so he released Shoot the Bullet in time for Winter Comiket 2005 in order to complement it.

Story

(The land of Gensokyo has a lot of history for a mostly-STG series. If you want to find out more about it I'd recommend checking out the Touhou Wiki linked at the bottom of this review.)

Based on what translated material I managed to come across for Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, it seems that one of the contests the Tengu hold in Gensokyo is to see which one will have the best newspaper publication. Aya Shameimaru doesn't want to lose again this year, so in Shoot the Bullet she wanders around the land taking photographs of the bosses from previous Touhou games, presumably in order to win such a contest.

Graphics

I was actually surprised that ZUN was able to improve upon his Touhou engine in less than six months. Also, unlike Phantasmagoria of Flower View, where some of the character designs looked really, really odd (though the corresponding sprites were very good and were not recycled from previous games), Aya's design is a step back in the right direction. The menu screen has a style which is pretty hard to describe, but the overall effect is reminiscent of an old black and white film -- except that everything's in color, if that makes any sense. The bullets are sharper, crisper, vibrant, and nowhere near as dull as in previous Touhou games. ZUN even goes crazy with nice parallax and transparency effects for some of the boss spell cards. Although there's still no TATE support (the screenshots in this review have been edited for aesthetic reasons), the game makes good use of the sides of the screen by placing there your photos of the various bosses.

What's great is that even though this is the best-looking Touhou game yet it seems to also be the most well-optimized, since it runs at a smooth 60fps even on my laptop's outdated Radeon IGP 320M (which can't even run Warcraft III at anything more than 20fps at the lowest detail settings, if you want a comparison, and even Imperishable Night suffers from dreaded slowdown, even with all of the detail settings at minimum). Although again I had to set the graphical details as low as possible, I still didn't see much of a difference after trying the game with everything maxed out on my desktop PC.

Sound

If you've played any of the Windows Touhou games before, you'll have noticed that ZUN has a preference for pianos and synthesized trumpets that play at an unrealistic pitch. Another of his signature traits is that his music always fits the mood of whatever's going on, and even though it's all synthesized, the melodies are pretty darn good. It's the same case here, but the quality has reached the point where it reminds me of SFC JRPG music. "Tengu's Notebook ~ Mysterious Note", the title theme, is carried over from previous games, except here the melody is preceded by the sound of falling rain ("This time I tried to give it a bit more of a dark and retro feel, as well as a bit of youkai. That raining noise is a youkai mystery. No, there's nothing wrong with your monitor or speakers, so relax.").

The one problem I have with the music is that there's not enough of it. In a normal Touhou game there are usually more than ten tracks, with two of them used per stage. Including the title theme, Shoot the Bullet only has six tracks, though it has way more than six stages (each of which having its own subset of scenes). One track is used for three entire stages, for example, so if you die a lot expect to be listening to the same tune for quite a while.

System

This is pretty straightforward. At the beginning of each scene, one of the bosses from previous Touhou games will appear. You need to wait until your camera's charge gets to 100% (think Giga Wing) and then move close enough to take his picture. If successful, the shot will be added to your collection for that photo session. Repeat until you've taken enough pictures, making sure to accomplish this within the time limit. However, there are a few things to take into consideration before you go trigger-happy with Aya's camera:

1. Taking pictures when the camera's charge is at 100% is your one and only attack. There's no forward shot, no homing shots, no options, bombs or power-ups of any sort. The good news is that your camera can also be used to clear any bullets or other obstacles in your way by capturing them in a photograph. Later scenes will have you clearing out bullets before you can even get close enough to the bosses to take their picture. Also, shots containing a lot of bullets help start off your camera's charge at a higher percentage instead of just resetting to zero as normal.

2. If you get hit by either a bullet or the boss you have to start the scene over from the beginning. Sometimes you'll end up having to take more than five pictures of the boss in order to finish the scene, and each successful picture will most likely increase the complexity of the boss's bullet patterns, but ZUN assumes that we're all as great as he is and that we can complete the scene without dying even once.

3. Don't worry if you can't clear a particular scene on your first few tries. Scene progression isn't linear, so if one is giving you trouble you can opt to try another one within that same stage, or even go for any of the scenes in the next stage (assuming you've cleared enough previous scenes to unlock it, of course). So don't be afraid to jump all over and pick the scenes you're able to finish, since sometimes more advanced scenes are actually easier than earlier ones.

Longevity

After unlocking every stage (which isn't an easy task -- this is one of the hardest Touhou games yet), playing for score and showing off your replays are the only reasons to continue retrying the various scenes. If you're obsessed with getting all of your pictures during the most intense parts of the bullet patterns, the game will reward you with extra points. Grazing bullets and performing other risky feats while capturing a shot will also result in higher scores. Moreover, your very best shot will be saved for each particular scene, even if you failed to complete the scene at the time you took it, giving you one more reason to go into suicidal mode every now and then.

Final thoughts

With Shoot the Bullet ZUN attempts to try something new with the danmaku subgenre, by introducing a mechanic which is a cross between Giga Wing (can't use your special ability until it's fully charged) and, to a lesser extent, Ikaruga (bullet "capturing" helps increase your score and chances of survival). So if you want to try out something experimental within this subgenre give this little gem a try. I guarantee you won't be disappointed, and your wallet will definitely be happy about it.

Dracil has posted several nice Shoot the Bullet replays. Check also the Touhou Wiki for more information on the series in general.