The Touhou Project universe (東方Project, Eastern Project) refers to the Smash Bros. series’ collection of characters, stages, and properties that hail from the indie-developed shoot-’em-up video game franchise created by one-man game developer Team Shanghai Alice. The player assumes the role of a suite of playable characters that vary throughout each installment, mainly shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei and magician Marisa Kirisame, as they set off to resolve various incidents that occur in the mystical wonderland of Gensokyo. The franchise is comparable to the likes of Dragon Quest in the sense that it’s a cultural phenomenon in Japan with a small yet passionate fanbase everywhere else in the world, with the main difference being that Touhou Project has been known for its expansive field of fanworks, from manga to fanmade anime to even fully-endorsed fanmade video games bearing the Touhou moniker, such as Genso Wanderer and Luna Nights.
Franchise description[]
In 1995, ZUN began the development of the first Touhou Project video game, Highly Responsive to Prayers, for the NEC PC-9800 computer, utilizing its 16-bit color graphics and 6-channel FM synthesis audio systems, and was released in 1997 at Comiket 52. At the time, Highly Responsive to Prayers was a side-scrolling brick-breaker video game, as opposed to later titles that would don the familiar shoot-‘em-up gameplay style.
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