To me, it's clear.If you have any brains and have actually looked into this stuff (even something as simple as the release dates), it's obvious that EoSD-PCB-IN were to be a sort of complete "Touhou Trilogy" that concluded with PoFV as a neat little coda.MoF was a soft reset for the series, sort of like the transition from PC-98 to Windows, although without the complete break in canon. It's why people used to categorize the franchise into "PC-98", "Classic Windows" and "Windows 2.0" eras (Windows 2.0 starting at MoF).SA and MoF were the last games to have any sort of real juice to them. These are the last two games for which pretty much all characters and music had a big impact and were (and remain) popular with the fanbase. After SA, it's all been hits and misses, with increasingly more misses than hits as time went on.UFO was okay-ish as a game (although also the beginning of the true 'gimmicks'), but was also a bit stale and bloodless and showed the first signs of ZUN "going through the motions".DDC was UFO, but even moreso.LoLK was the last Touhou game I consider truly memorable. I mean, it basically did the thing that every over-extended franchise does: JASON IN SPAAAAAAAAAACE!!! Everything after that can only be a downgrade.And so began the whimpering...
HSiFS felt like a conscious effort to "go back to the roots" - another thing franchises and authors past their prime try doing. Still, the gimmicks didn't cease.WBaWC was the last nail in the coffin. I think at this point it's become clear to most fans (even if only subconsciously) that "newhu" is going to just be 'this' for the rest of time: A new batch of uninspired characters, repetitive stages, music that sounds like ZUN ripping himself off, every two years, like clockwork, forever. At this point there was still *some* attempts at trying to make this work (Yachie and Keiki were reasonably popular for a time), but the writing was on the wall.Then came UM... Released during COVID and completely blanked in my mind. I can only barely recall any characters, much less songs or stages or spell cards. It doesn't help that more than half of the characters are rehashes of older concepts. The feeling of "going through the motions" has truly set it. The sort of style Touhou developed around DDC-LoLK has been perfected, and it's clear it won't be iterated upon. I don't think anyone gives a single shit about UM.Th19 felt like another attempt to give the series a sort of creative recap or reset or whatever. But unlike PoFV, it felt unearned. Less like tying things in a neat bow, and more like desperately scrapping failed manuscripts. (Old-)newhu favorites like Nazrin and Orin made a comeback, but literally NONE of the new characters introduced gained any sort of traction. Everyone is just tired of this bullshit.
And so, here comes FW. Th19 finally put a wrap on the MoF-UM "arc", so this was ZUN's last chance to show he still got it. A clean slate, some 4 years since the last "proper" game. Let's see where he takes the series. What can you even DO with Touhou at this point?The answer turned out: Nothing. Just rehash.And nobody cared.FW came and went, and it barely registered. I think we all played it out of obligation more than anything. It's telling how heavily it leans on nostalgia for past games and then ends with reheated IN-LoLK leftovers. Maybe ZUN, too, realizes that he's been wheelspinning.I don't blame ZUN or wish to dunk on him. Touhou has been going for 30+ years at this point. It outlived the doujinshi culture that gave birth to it, and then several more cycles of cultural (d)evolution, especially in the anime/manga/game otaku world. Ideally, the best time to wrap it up was after PoFV. Realistically, it was about ten years ago. Now Touhou is on life support that does it more harm than good, just waiting for a some sort of wrap-up to finally kill it off. It won't really die, of course, the old stuff will remain popular for potentially decades to come, but newhu is a pale shadow of its legacy, and must be put down while ZUN still can do it with any sort of remnants of grace.
tl;dr
secondary
>WBaWC was the last nail in the coffin>I don't think anyone gives a single shit about UM>FW came and went, and it barely registeredwhat is it with retards and thinking that nobody cares about the newer games just because they don'tif SA wasn't made back then and came out today instead you would disregard it and say that it's forgettable out of pure biasit's okay to think nu-hus aren't as good but this "it came and went without anyone caring because i represent everyone" shit is gay as fuckif you weren't riddled with nostalgia-based AIDS and expected every game to be IN again you'd see that FW for one is pretty enjoyable and plenty of people who gave it the time liked itoh wait i forgot the soundtrack doesn't have enough views on youtube and there aren't enough memes so touhou is dead and you can't enjoy it my bad
>>50985800>you'd see that FW for one is pretty enjoyable and plenty of people who gave it the time liked itNot OP but I have tried it and it was mid at best Not everyone who doesn't like newer touhou games is "riddled with nostalgia-based AIDS", there are legitimate reasons to dislike them.
>>50985816Though either way, claiming that "touhou is dead" because of that is idiotic. Just play the games you like, I really don't understand why people feel the need to express that they dislike something to the point of writing paragraphs justifying it.
If you're looking at it from a quality standard, 2hu 20 is easily one of the most well regarded Touhou games ever, even by renowned LoLK hater Jaimers, so noAnd if you're looking at it via popularity standards, several newhus are more popular than 2hus from older 2hu games, you can easily tell via the popularity pollfrom most popular to least popular, Shion, Okina, Megumu is ranked higher than characters like Orin, Nitori, Kasen, MystiaYuuma is more popular than characters like Byakuren, Chen, Keine, Nazrin (and that's after ranking much lower for this year)Chimata, Keiki, and Nareko, and Tsukasa are all higher ranked than Komachi, Akyuu, Hatate, Murasa, Yuugi, Letty, and way more oldhusSo nah, you're both overestimating how popular several oldhus are due to how old they are and how much already existing fan content they already have, and underestimating how popular several newhus are and how much attention they're getting, especially since scanlation in the english part of the planet is almost deadI get inundated with Beast trio fancontent all the goddamn time
>>50985816that's fair of course, you can genuinely think it's not that good what's gay is the blatant disregard people like OP have, "it's shit literally nobody likes it toho dead nao lol" is different than "i tried it and it was mid" >don't understand why people feel the need to express that they dislike something to the point of writing paragraphs justifying it.their opinions are based on vibes, as with most of the fandom, but they don't want to admit that for whatever reason so they write textwalls that just amount to "thing bad because it's bad and i don't care about it"
>>50985826The animal realm girls were a breath of fresh air for me, even if you have people that very vocally hate the overall arc from 17 to 19 or how poorly 19 managed things. I know ZUN is THE Shinto guy, but a break from shinto god as a cute girl, as much as I like Chimata myself in that span of games, was welcome.
Retards have been dooming like this every release since at least UFO (I don't remember SA catching this kind of shit aside from being too hard)>>5098555720 is fun, kill yourself out of my hobby. I'm sure the gacha threads would love another retard like you bankrolling china goodbye
>>50985550>DDC was UFO, but even moreso.>LoLK was the last Touhou game I consider truly memorable.
>>50985550Anything past th 15 isn't real
>>50985550I think you are retarded
