Chuhou Joutai 3, One Year Later

Today marks one year since the third Chuhou Joutai game released, and the end of an era. A couple months prior, the Touhou Project NES Demakes completed development.

First of all, I really enjoyed working on the Chuhou Joutai trilogy. This was something that had been in my head since high school, and after I graduated, this was past due, and the first game immediately began development after buying a new laptop. Both sagas are different. The Chuhou Joutai trilogy began in the summer of 2018 while the Touhou Project NES Demakes began in late 2019. All the games came out during the COVID-19 pandemic.

My aim with the Chuhou Joutai trilogy was to appeal to all ages, and adults who grew up playing games from that era. One advantage with Chuhou Joutai over the Touhou Project NES Demakes is while still being inspired by Touhou Project, they take place in the present day rather than the Edo Period and earlier. I like leaning toward modern-day settings with my games, but this was something I couldn’t do with the demakes as well as Touhou Kourinden ~ Mythos of Phantasmagoria.

Chuhou Joutai also has the upper hand of being more accessible to players who’ve never played a danmaku game before. I would’ve wanted to release these in the arcades. If I did, encouraging arcade patronage would’ve been difficult because the first game release right when the world was locked down, the second game was when we started getting back to normal, and the third game was after we fully recovered and returned to normalcy.

I always go bananas when developing games, and it was really challenging to sit through developing the whole trilogy without jumping out of my chair. Seeing a parent play the game with a child would be a whole different level with the game catering toward the latter. Not to mention the length would also help as well. They are not long and one playthrough only takes 40 – 60 minutes. Experiencing the whole game though, would take 2.5 – 4 hours since they would need to unlock the extra stage and completing the extra stage would take 15 minutes.

The entire trilogy can be wrapped up in between 2 – 3 hours when played as a marathon. It was impressive to see how much stuff I was able to cram in. It was designed to entertain while still being a fast-paced game.

In terms of genre, specifically their plots, the action is focused on a linear path, despite having unique endings for each character. In general, all three games have the typical male otaku teaming up with his favorite local female idol to thwart some plot. It’s basically a mix of the buddy and romance genres. If the Chuhou Joutai franchise ever gets a movie, I would direct and create the romantic buddy genre. The first game features a plot that could work well with a film.

When it came to creating a present-day Gensokyo, hardly the world you know from Touhou Project is shown. Some players didn’t care about Chuhou Joutai taking place in the present day, and wanted Gensokyo’s historical setting. The Touhou Project NES Demakes got it right, immersing you in the Gensokyo as you know. Chuhou Joutai still does the same thing, and the real world settings that inspired the locations are fictionalized without using their actual names. Some players can’t believe it took over a quarter of a century for a modernized version of Gensokyo to be created, and the first five Touhou Project games to be remade and released westward.

I guess waiting that long was a blessing in disguise, since there was a great wealth of material that could be referenced in Chuhou Joutai. When it came to the main character, who was better? Susumu Takajima or Reimu Hakurei? Chuhou Joutai breaks away from Touhou Project‘s mostly girly atmosphere by introducing a male character that could be appreciated by players of both genders.

The villain of Chuhou Joutai also stood out from other danmaku games. Frederic Sam Fawkes and Hearthcliffe are essentially modeled after the classic Saturday morning cartoon villains that are both evil and funny at the same time. Their choice of words made them feel intimidating while still maintaining their sense of humor. One day, you might see the former sing at one point.

When it comes to the humor, jokes about popular culture as well as Touhou Project can be found at all angles. There may have been one or two instances where the background music may drop out after a critical line that may be humorous (I can’t remember). Most of the humor was centered around Hearthcliffe and Fred Fawkes, with the former’s broken English giving most of the impressions.

All three games are part of the action genre, with danmaku being its main focus. It’s very easy to get desensitized by a game that focuses on one objective of dodging bullets and defeating the bosses. And yes, it can get boring when it is overused, but the experience is still fun.

For the music, it took me a while to obtain the same motifs the Touhou Project games have. Working on the Touhou Project NES Demakes helped me learn ZUN’s compositional techniques. I pretty much struggled on some tunes in the first and second games, not having the motifs found in the Touhou Project games. In the third game – I ran circles with the score.

In short, I had found every space to reference everything mandatory from the Touhou Project games. Future games will learn from that. I’m looking forward to creating more games after Touhou Meijinka ~ Song of Divine Tempest releases. It may have taken so long, but it was better late than never. For many years, western players were afraid to play danmaku. Sometimes, doing things that are niche or not very popular in a certain territory can be a smart choice.