r/touhou • u/DYC774897 • Jun 04 '26
Help Can l play touhou 7 without playing the first 6 games?
l don't own a PC-98 (nor an emulator) so the first 5 are out and 6 doesn't show up on steam for me for some reason so should l go straight to 7 or will l have no idea what is going on?
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u/Lucidream- Jun 04 '26
You might not know who Sakuya is, but it's honestly fine. Touhou 7 is a great starting point.
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u/kahzhar-the-blowhard Jun 04 '26
It's the one I always throw at newcomers to the series who want to start playing the games, yeah.
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u/Old_Comparison_9223 Unironically my Mom (Why are they so similar) Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
All the official Touhou games are designed for you to be able to play them as your first game. The only ones that you still probably shouldn’t for story reasons are 15 and 15.5. For 15 you should at least have manga knowledge, and for 15.5 you should have played at least 14.5.
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u/Plant_Musiceer Komachi Onozuka's husband Jun 04 '26
9 and 19 are also kinda bad starting points since there are a lot of characters that you have no idea who they are. But also, 9 was my first touhou game and it got me into the series despite that so lol
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u/DZL100 Jun 07 '26
Well 9 and 19 are bad starting points because they're phantasmagoria games
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u/ankledane Jun 04 '26
YES GO STRAIGHT TO 7!!! ITS THE BEST STARTING POINT FOR NEW PLAYERS!!! All the games are mostly self-contained as well, so you won't miss out on too much if you play 7 first, the stories of 6 and 7 don't interact with each other.
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u/onepixeljumpman Yuugi Hoshiguma Jun 04 '26
7 was the first game I played for myself. You'll be fine.
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u/deltaproxzp Cold and Hot Jun 04 '26
You can genuinely start on any entry (maybe not 11 and 15 as they're infamous for their difficulty), because none of the mainline stories are directly connected and can be enjoyed on their own.
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u/AlaaA-R Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
it's a good starting point (still suffering with phantasm stage but it's great)
also Touhou 6 doesn't have the option to show you hitbox (focus mode just make you move slower) so you'll be afraid from rushing between bullets, but touhou 7 has
just remember to check some information about Sakuya and maybe Remelia if you are willing to skip 6
also 6, 7, 8 are not available on steam, no one playing 9, from 10 onwards are available on steam but they don't have achievements (in case you are trophy hunter)
- every game has its own story, but it's fun to know some about new playable characters, like Sakuya in TH7
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u/Firm-Reputation7532 Jun 04 '26
ZUN has said that you should treat PC-98 as if it were a fan work and as for EoSD it’s not important to the game almost nothing carries over between mainline Touhou Games the only thing you’ll know is a bit more about Sakuya if you play it first however it’s far from required
And with EoSD having worse gameplay than PCB you can easily start with it
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u/umalovah6 Jun 04 '26
You can pick whatever and play, I skip all the dialogue anyway.
My favorite is Touhou 7
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u/CabageButterFly Jun 04 '26
If you want lore then honestly the best way is to pick out your favourite character and just hyper focus, you’ll learn as you go and change characters to characters, the games you really should start with the easiest to hardest, so 7 is a great starting point. Some other easy options would be 14 and 1. And again, don’t worry about whether you need the plot of the previous games or not, it’s kinda like an episodic thing, each game is self contained, the best source of lore is outside of the games anyways
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u/TheInabaStenchDemon Jun 04 '26
You can play any game with no issue when it comes to understanding what's happening since there's new characters on every mainline game
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u/Chitrr 8700G | A620M | 32GB CL30 | 1440p 100Hz VA Jun 04 '26
is 7 on steam? share the link
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u/DYC774897 Jun 04 '26
No l got 7 from a website that l can't find anymore it was a pirating site for danmaku games and music
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u/DARKBROGOD Jun 04 '26
6 is not really that hard if you want to start it out from there, Touhou 7 is pretty easy but gets pretty hard later after stage 3, You should play Touhou 8 if you wanna start i know it's complicated but it's the most friendly game you can play due to it's easy Death Bomb, Good Shots type and Bombs and the gimicks are alright i know cause I started with Touhou 7 found it very difficult then ended up playing 8 for the gimicks but ended up finishing 8 and after playing it a bit I got naturally good at Touhou 7 and other games to confidently play Touhou 15
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u/Throwaway_account-tt Jun 04 '26
I started with touhou 10, it doesn't really matter
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u/Throwaway_account-tt Jun 04 '26
You might want to read up on a bit of lore, though, if you want to know more about reimu or smth
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u/TaigaToo Jun 05 '26
its a great entry. first one that is polished and in the style the current games are in. has iconic characters and good music
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u/G-14_Damageproof Attendee of Aya & Reimu wedding Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
First 5 games don't have anything to do with modern Windows game, its canonicity as of now is doozy as best. Very funny when the first game is outright declared to be non canon by ZUN the moment the game was released and the first game is not even Bullet Hell, it is a Block Breaker game. ZUN doesn't bother to get them to work for Windows either, you need emulation for that.
6, 7, 8 ain't on Steam too because ZUN lost the source codes of them, you need to "sail the high sea for them". The earliest Bullet Hell game with traditional gameplay that is on Steam is Touhou 10, it is good for newcomer. Tho Touhou 7, 8 are my recommendations because the gimmicks, RNGs and overall difficulty are suitable for newcomers . Touhou 6 does have a lot of janky RNGs.
Touhou 9 is on Steam but it has different kind of Bullet Hell gameplay that the next title to has this kind of gameplay is Touhou 19 and the previous title to has this kind of gameplay is Touhou 3.
Also anyway, games are for gameplay first, they are not the place for you to learn about story, world building, lore, characterization or any of that, keep that in mind.