finally getting back around to my touhou adventures when i need a break from all the visual novel-ing. mountain of faith is another absolute gem from the one-man team shanghai alice, and as far as presentation goes, zun is almost at his absolute best here. the aesthetics, soundtrack and visual appeal of the fights has driven a lot of my favoritism with the touhou series thus far, and that's a good deal of the reason why mountain of faith sits second only behind perfect cherry blossom for me so far. where titles like the aforementioned cherry blossom or imperishable night went for very rustic or spiritual aesthetics in their design, mountain of faith bursts with psychedelic color with moments like the bright red leaves of stage three giving way to the cool browns and blues of its river brook backdrop just wowwing... enough to get you caught in danmaku your first few goes around. and this HAS to be the best soundtrack yet, bar none. "romantic fall" blows the first stage competition out of the water, but "the gensokyo the gods once loved", "fall of fall", "youkai mountain", and the debut of sanae to "faith is for the transient people"... jesus christ. it's zun at full power, track after track.

maybe it's the fact that i was playing on hard, but one of my few complaints with mountain of faith is how heavily i felt it goaded me into using bombs, particularly during the kanako fight. there's nothing wrong with using bombs, and in a pinch i'll throw one out if i have to, but i generally like the feeling of knowing i can get through even the toughest 1cc runs bombless if i play my cards right. maybe i need more practice, but it felt like there were more times than normal for me in a touhou game where the solution to a predicament during a spell card was a bomb. but if that's the biggest complaint i have about the game, then it's hardly anything to get too hung up over. mountain of faith gives me a lot of hope for this new generation of touhou - excited to see how zun follows this one up.

TLDR- I Always forget how quality this game is until I come back to it, super fresh feeling and not too difficult so a good starting point considering this is the first entry in the second windows generation.

In the omake of Mountain of Faith, ZUN stated that STG’s were becoming stagnant, and should make changes for the betterment of the genre and games as a whole. ZUN’s thoughts were brought to life in the game he had just made. Mountain of Faith is for sure a Touhou game, bullets everywhere, religious clashes, the works, but it is an important turning point in the series. Touhou 6-9 (I guess 1-5 too for that matter) were mostly self-contained stories with recurring characters, like a cartoon. Mountain of Faith however is where the series turns from being one off stories to a series with an overarching plot and connectivity. The events of this game story wise set off the entire continuation of events that make up the second windows generation (10-13). I think ZUN realized after 10 games in the series that it was due for an update, and that is shown in the sudden investment in world building and bold changes gameplay wise. This game limits the character choices to only Reimu and Marisa, 3 shot types each compared to the last traditional Touhou which had (technically) 8 characters. This in my opinion was a smart move, with a revamping of the world that this game introduced, getting old characters involved that aren’t the main two will clutter the new vision. Gameplay wise, the first thing you’ll notice this game doesn’t have traditional bombs, you can sacrifice 1.00 of your power to do a circular explosion that will go up the screen. I’m pretty indifferent to this change gameplay wise, the game is balanced around you bombing way more in this game than others, with harder patterns through the game so a bomb you can spam and refill makes sense. On an aesthetic level, it’s a disappointment, Reimu and Marisa lose one of their unique traits with a uniform bomb like it is in this game. I don’t believe that making the bomb the same between them really accomplishes much outside of a loss of flavor in the game. But going back to the ability to spam bomb, the game gets put in an interesting limbo where the attacks and patterns are overall more difficult than average, but with that crutch to avoid most difficult attacks in this game, it makes it an excellent starting point, especially with the focus on world building this game introduces. The characters in this game are a HUGE plus point, Nitori, Aya, Sanae, the Moriya’s are all extremely prevalent in canon, and are all great characters on their own, leading this game to have one of the best casts in the series. The plot of this game is also nice in it being rather simple and a logical starting point for the new world building. The stages in this game are also a strong suit; beautiful scenery, for all stages, musical syncing with stage elements, warm fall colors and theming, the stages in this game are a great showing and none really fall flat. The Extra stage is probably the biggest let down for me in this game, partially because the theme of the game and overall tone of it don’t really lend to an epic extra stage, but that’s probably the point with how carefree Suwako and her fight are. Musically, the assignment was again, understood, so many classics, The Gensokyo the Gods Loved, Fall of Fall ~ Autumnal Waterfall, The Primal Scene of Japan the Girl Saw, Faith is for the Transient People, The Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field, Tomorrow will be Special, Yesterday was Not are my personal favorites. Ultimately, this game succeeds more than it fails in the changes implemented that are different from the Touhou norm, it sets a precedent of the series willing to tinker, change mechanics and gimmicks to keep the gameplay and danmaku fresh.

A great Touhou game; not much to say aside from that it's a fun addition to the series with some great stages and fantastic music, but almost every installment has these things. Unfortunately, the lives system isn't great. It forces you into playing with only 3 lives, and continues to boot you back to the beginning of the level rather than where you were, but you get an infinite amount. This sometimes numbs some parts, particularly the final stage, which is much harder than the rest of this game. But aside from how hard the final stage is? This installment is fantastic in every other aspect.

Touhou 10 is a game that just is filled with Touhou. Its a feeling thats hard to explain, in a series more than 25 games strong, mainline or otherwise, Touhou 10 is the one that embodies the series the most. When I think "Touhou" and what the series embodies I inevitably come back to MOF. With its jawdropped beautiful score, cosey & warm autumn aesthetic and themes of Gods, Faith, the connection of the past and future. It is the perfect Touhou game...

In all but gameplay. Its not bad naturally but the usage of only two characters and the odd bomb system push it down a little for me in how its played. The Marisa glitch is absolutely amazing though.

I cannot stress enough how much I adore this game's presentation and personality. Every Touhou game has a unique mood, tone, and themes. They range from viewing pretty flowers to accidently creating surveillance states. But this simple little game about faith and fall and the beauty of nature just wins me over like nothing else

Пока зачистил на изи на 1СС с первой попытки, лол.

Мне довольно трудно докапаться до игр в серии Тохоу. Почти каждая часть, в которую я играю, так или иначе, приносит тонну удовольствия. Будь то музыка или геймплей или даже корявый, но забавный арт-стайл спрайтов - радует всё.
Эта часть не стала исключением.
Управление теперь более гладкое, паттерны пуль всё такие же хаотичные, но менее рандомные (этот момент под вопросом, но по крайне мере я знал откуда меня атакуют и умирал в основном по своей вине, а не из-за того, что микро-пуля слилась со стальными и после прострелила мне коленную чашечку).
Я так понял, что это ребут серии, но за сюжетом я не слежу в этих играх, поэтому пофиг.
Думаю, что это хорошая часть, чтобы познакомиться с этой серией игр.

My favorite in the series. As a soft reboot in the series, I found that it did a great job!

I would describe this game as simple. The plot is very simple, and the gameplay itself is simple. There's no (intrusive) gimmick this time around, it's purely just shooting and dodging. The difficulty of this game is great too, starts easy, and gets progressively harder, but not to a point where it'll frustrate you. It's definitively the game I'd recommend most people start with

There's one thing I hate about this game: The bomb system. God I'm glad power bombs never stuck around, it's not a fun thing to consider when playing.

OST is an absolute banger. One of my favorites in this series

Sidebar: I wonder what ZUN is trying to say, if anything, about the material nature of having a parental support structure when writing about the Moriya and Hakurei shrines. It is common to interpret Kanako and Suwako as Sanae's mothers. On the other hand, Reimu's god is distant to the point of irrelevance, and coincidentally she has no mothers. Obviously Reimu DOES have people that support her, but having a family name that is both as old as the ground itself, and also has influence in the modern world, means Sanae has access to things Reimu can not. Same as actual people.

Anyways, there's nothing that incredible in this one, but all together it hits this vibe that really works for me. Its a mountain worth climbing at least once, even if Kanako kicks you all the way back down the first chance she gets. 3.5 stars

Another one of my fav touhou games visually!!! This one took me a minute to beat ADMITTEDLY (kanakos nonspells.....what the fawk....) so im havjng a hard time finding nice things to say without getting war flashbacks but this game is really good i promise!!!!!!!! It felt VERY fast paced in comparison to other games in the series which i think contrasts really well with how serene the game is in terms of backgrounds & music, a lot of the danmaku is visually pleasing too while still being difficult man i dont know how he does it. Ive seen people complain about how you can only play 2 different characters but You get to pick which shot type you want bro come on is that not cool....Just close your eyes and pretend its youmu or something idgaf. The only thing i can agree with is how weird the bomb system is (instead of collecting spell pieces it takes away a full point from your shot power) like there was no reason for that Mr zun and u know that...Anyways this game is TOO GOOD other than that i would recommend it as your second game instead of first solely because thjs game has weird ass mechanics and if you want a good normal touhou game to start with you should play pcb (i am booed off the stage)

The game-play is a lot more smoother than previous entries, where moving around actually feels pretty clean and faster which is a massive step up from the previous entries in the series leaving a very good first impression for the second windows era of Touhou Project. The patterns are a lot more consistent and varied unlike previous entries, the visuals are cleaner and easier to look at, being beautiful yet not distracting, and it clearly has a consistent theme, using a lot of warmer colors to represent autumn which I really enjoy. I also have to compliment the pacing of the game, the transition between each stage is much more smoother, with none of them feeling too long nor too short.

Something that makes this game stand above many others besides the presentation though, is its very wonderful and memorable cast of characters. Each character is full of personality and their own personal identity, whether that be the confident and nerdy Sanae Kochiya or the greedy yet formal Kanako Yasaka, this cast of characters might be the third or fourth most memorable cast of characters yet.

Overall, I believe this is one of the more stronger Touhou games to come out and that I highly recommend this game for beginners just because of how much easier it is to play, and how memorable each character is in this game.

Touhou's second Windows Era trilogy starts off quite strong with Mountain of Faith. While the game is mechanically simple, it runs pretty far with Touhou's basic ideas by having some of the best bullet patterns and especially pacing in the series thus far. The gameplay has had some changes still-- the way the continue system works is better than the previous games (an infinite amount; must restart the stage when using one) and encourages having a more intimate knowledge of the stage, which is great. However, I'm not a big fan of the bombs in MoF. They're too good and easy to abuse. Could've been done better.

The thing that puts this game above the others for me as a whole though is the presentation. It is consistently incredibly strong: the backgrounds are pleasing, the soundtrack is easily my favorite in the series to date, and the cast of characters rivals even Touhou 6's. Their sense of identity is very strong and while the series has always been good at this, it feels more realized than usual in this case. I particularly love Kanako, her concept as a greedy god is raw as hell.

All in all, game's great and I'm quite excited to see how Subterranean Animism will follow it up.