I kind of regret playing this as my first Touhou because its honestly just easily the best game in the series and the comparison has made it hard to get into the others for me. If you want to play a Touhou game this is the one though.

What makes Touhou appealing over other series is the fantastic art and music. Zun's portraits suck but his spritework and background work is fantastic, the bullet patterns themselves also have a beauty to them and make every boss encounter unique.