Touhou 2: the Story of Eastern Wonderland - Tōhō Fūmaroku

The second game of the Touhou Project series and of the five games released in the obsolete PC-9821 Japanese computers, and the first to introduce the vertically-scrolling shooter gameplay we all know and love today. This is the Story of Eastern Wonderland, also known in its shortened acronym SoEW by the Western fandom.

SoEW was released in August 15, 1997 along with the very first game Highly Responsive to Prayers (HRtP) under the name of ZUN Soft (the Team Shanghai Alice name is not born yet) in the 52nd Comic Market (or Comiket) in Japan. It's different from the previous game in terms of gameplay. While SoEW features a curtain-fire (or danmaku in Japanese) type of playing, HRtP is more like Arkanoid. SoEW also needs a beefier 486 CPU clocked at 33 MHz in contrast to the first game that only requires a 386 (though a 486@33MHz is recommended). Both requires and uses an FM sound board (with SoEW requiring the PC-9801-86 soundcard, which uses a Yamaha YM2608 sound chip), which all PC-98 computers at the time should already have one built-in.

Gameplay

This game features only one playable character: Reimu Hakurei the shrine maiden. She has three shot types to choose from: Highly Mobile, Defensive, and Offensive. The first shot type has the highest movement speed but the weakest attack power. Offensive is the opposite. Defensive is balanced between the two, and has homing shots when at full power (this will become a staple of Reimu in future games).

SoEW features five continuous stages and an extra stage (being the first game to do so). The Extra stage is unlocked when you clear the earlier five stages in one go with no continues (called a "one credit clear" or 1cc by the community) in any difficulty and in all shot types. This is unlike some Touhou games which requires you to 1cc in at least Normal difficulty (some even lock you out of the final stage when you're on Easy!), which may be daunting for new players. Every other game also doesn't require you to 1cc in all shot types too (but the Extra will only be available to shot types you've cleared with), perhaps due to the increased minimum difficulty for unlocking.

This is also the only game to feature only five stages in normal play. Newer games will have six stages for you to clear in one go. The Extra stage is also brutal compared to the other Extras, not because its difficulty is Lunatic-level (this is standard for all games, except maybe for the seventh game Perfect Cherry Blossom where its Extra is more like Hard and the Lunatic equivalent is called Phantasm), but because of the initial bombs you get: only one per life. I haven't cleared any Extra of any game yet so I can't review this part properly, but I can say for sure that you will have to definitely memorize every bullet pattern in this stage. And that's just before you can get to the boss!

Like the sixth game Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, you only get three continues each play when you run out of lives. And like all other games (except the ninth game Phantasmagoria of Flower View, that one is special), you will get the bad ending if you cleared all stages but used a continue. Might be better to just play all three shot types in Easy if you just want to unlock the Extra stage.

Compared to later games, SoEW is pretty barebones in its danmaku. You can shoot and bomb like you would in EoSD, but gameplay features that has been in the foundation of newer games are missing in this game, which are:

• Deathbombing, which is a mechanic where the game gives you a very short time window where you can still bomb when you get hit and therefore survive the hit. Introduced in the fourth game Lotus Land Story.

• Focus mode, where holding a certain key (which in the keyboard would be the Shift key) will slow down your movement. Useful when micrododging a heavy barrage of slow bullets (or fast ones which has a clear pattern) and you need precise movement. Introduced in LLS.

  Later on in PCB, the series' gets a new feature where you get a visible hitbox on your character while in focus mode.

• Grazing, where you get bonus points each time you get close to a bullet but not close enough to get hit. Introduced in LLS.

• Bullet clears other than bombing, which was first introduced in LLS. Getting a "life extend" (or 1up if that's more familiar to you), "bomb extend", or a full power up will clear all bullets on the screen. This may be useful strategically in parts where you want to save a bomb but still want to skip a hard bullet pattern.

• Point of collection line, where going on a certain area on top of the screen will magnet all falling items and give you the highest point value of that item. This is to reward players for risking their life towards the top where you're more likely to get hit by a bullet.

  Introduced first in EoSD which only activates when you're in full power. The PoC line which is always activated was introduced in the eighth game Imperishable Night, but only for the Magician Team pair. The PoC line which is always active will only be available to all characters starting in the tenth game Mountain of Faith.

• Spell cards, which are the bosses' attack patterns which have names and will give you a score bonus when cleared without bombs or misses (another term for "getting hit" or "losing a life"). Introduced in EoSD.

• Boss life bar. Introduced in LLS.

• Enemy indicator, which shows you the current horizontal position of the enemy below the screen so you don't have to constantly look upwards to track the enemy. Introduced in PCB.

There's also an unusual bomb mechanic where if you're on your last life, you will get two extra bombs. So if your initial bomb count is at 3 (the default), you will get 5 bombs once you're at your last life. This wasn't reintroduced in newer games.

Story and characters

You are Reimu Hakurei, and you just found out after a session of training that the Hakurei Shrine is being thrashed by ghosts and yōkai! Together with your trusty flying turtle and mentor Genjii, as well as your handy Yin-Yang Orbs, you ride on his back and seek out the mastermind of this invasion.

Enemy bosses

1. Rika - A human engineer who can create tanks, and is responsible for the ghosts (called bakebake in this game). She can't use magic, but she compensates for that with her deadly tanks. She controls the Shrine Tank in the middle of the first stage, and the Flower-Tank in her boss fight.

   She is also the extra stage boss of this game, which in-game is what happens if Reimu chases her down instead of proceeding to stage 2. In the Extra stage, she commandeers the Evil Eye Σ, which is also a tank but stronger and better than the previous Flower-Tank.

2. Meira - A human samurai who wants to obtain the "power of the Hakurei" and is blocking the way to the World of Fantasies. Reimu mistakes her gesture as a romantic one and also thought she's a man. This has become one of the hilarious dialogues in the Touhou series, and is the only dialogue where Reimu explicitly becomes romantic. We will probably never see this again, after all she's pretty immature at the time.

3. Five Magic Stones - Literal set of stones. They guard the entrance (which is at the end of the World of Fantasies) to Reimaden, the place where the mastermind lives. They're the only boss which truly scared Reimu out of all games, probably because they're the only boss which Reimu couldn't talk to. This also shows Reimu's immaturity at the time.

4. Marisa Kirisame - A human magician. She's one of the mastermind's underlings (and also an apprentice) tasked with keeping out Reimu. She's pretty strong, and has very annoying occult balls that spin around her.

   As we will all know later, she became a recurring character and eventually became one of the series' protagonists.

5. Mima - An evil spirit and a master in magic. The mastermind. Her wrecking of the Hakurei Shrine is part of her plan of "vengeance on the human race". We don't (and still don't) know exactly why she's revenging on humanity. Mima knows the "true power" of the Yin-Yang Orbs.

   Mima was actually from the previous game, where she was a regular stage boss. Apparently she was sealed by Reimu after the events of HRtP, only to break out later and cause the incident we see here in SoEW.

   Mima will later return in newer games, first as a playable character in the third game Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, as a cameo in the fourth game Lotus Land Story, and as a playable again in the fifth game Mystic Square. She didn't appear in the Windows games newer than MS, which led to a cult following of Touhou fans wanting her back in a modern game (I'm one of them. Bring back Mima ZUN!).

   Being one of ZUN's favorite creations as shown by her consistent appearance in the five PC-98 games, it makes sense why it takes so long for ZUN to bring her back. He's probably unsure of how exactly he can fit Mima to the modern Gensokyo we know, and he doesn't want to disappoint. Hell, from one of his comments in his music in PoDD he doesn't even get Mima's personality! We've seen Alice from MS and Yuuka from LLS changing their personalities when they're reintroduced in PCB and PoFV respectively. What if fans don't like how Mima will change in the Windows canon?

If you haven't used a continue, you can continue on to Mima's second phase of her fight. After defeating her, Reimu seals her up for good.

If you've used a continue, you will be locked out of her second phase and get a bad ending, where a depressed Reimu decides to retreat and is forced to training by Marisa, with methods differing depending on the shot type you used. But all three methods are quite torturous for Reimu. One of them even have Marisa burn Reimu in a stake, which is hilarious and ironic.

Either way however, Mima still gets away. In the good ending, Mima breaks out of her seal anyway. It seems Reimu's training is not yet complete.

The game has three good endings, all of them explaining the "true power" of the Yin-Yang Orb but in different ways. The first ending says the orbs gives Reimu the ability of "eating sweets and not getting fat". The second one explains that the ability is "to smell like your favorite scent". The third is pretty cute: the orb can turn into a cat. Needless to say, the plot of this game is very unserious. :P

Music

SoEW has a total of fifteen tracks. Each stage has its own theme, as well as each boss fight. All tracks can be listened in the game's music room. Each track has two versions: FM and MIDI. In order to listen to the MIDI versions as ZUN intended, one has to use a Roland SC-88.

The music of the game overall is superb, despite the iconic trumpets (aka ZUNpets) introduced by PCB not being here yet. Each version is also great in its own way, especially if you listen to the MIDI with a real SC-88 (someone has recorded all of ZUN's MIDIs in a real SC-88Pro in the Maidens of the Kaleidoscope forum).

The title screen theme makes a great first impression.

Stage 1's theme is a good example for other stage 1 themes to follow; gotta hype up the player in their first playthrough! Rika's theme is meh, but not bad.

Stage 2 is fantastic, along with Meira's theme.

Stage 3 is also great. The theme for the Five Magic Stones is repetitive, but I don't get tired of it, and it's a good example of keeping the pressure on the player (since the difficulty increases here).

Stage 4 reminds me of Final Fantasy, also hypes up the player for the upcoming boss fight, and symbolizes the difficulty spike which will become an infamous feature in all games. Marisa's theme is great, though a bit incomplete if compared to the much better known Master Spark remix in Imperishable Night.

Stage 5 is okay, but kinda forgettable. It's a good theme for the dialogue between Reimu and Mima though (since the final stage is short, this will become a staple in the series too).

The ending theme is well, ending-like. You can interpret it either as a calming victory or a depressing defeat, depending on whether you 1cc'd or not. The stage roll music is great and really makes you feel good about clearing the game (or pushes you on to retry if you got the bad ending).

The Extra stage theme and boss theme are fantastic. Both of them share a motif which is really catchy.

Conclusion

So... Is this a game I would recommend to those new to Touhou? Probably not, due to the barebones gameplay. And I'd recommend them to play a Windows game first like Perfect Cherry Blossom (or Lotus Land Story if they insist on PC-98).

But once you're familiar with how the games work? Absolutely! The gameplay may not have aged well, but the music is really something you shouldn't miss out on. And it may be the hardest game to 1cc for your first Normal run, but conversely this is also the easiest game to 1cc for your first Lunatic run, due to having only five stages instead of six.

Playing SoEW is also a great way to appreciate the development of Touhou throughout the years. You'd definitely wish you would be able to deathbomb that hit from Marisa's balls.