Favourite to Least Favourite Touhou Fangame Shmups

[Andrew]

Not long ago someone made a thread for best to worst official games, so I decided to make one for Touhou fangame shmups, since I'm curious about people's opinions on them. I narrowed it down to shmups because games from different genres like platformers and rpgs cannot really be compared to each other, and shmups is the genre that most of the official Touhou games are in. So, of the Touhou fangame shmups you've played, how would you rank them from favourite to least favourite, and why? I'm aware that there are quite a few danmakufu scripts, so if you've played more than 10 Touhou fangame shmups, list your top 10 favourites, followed by most overrated/underrated if applicable.

I haven't played any Touhou fangame shmups yet, but I'll be interested to see how games like Concealed the Conclusion, Marine Benefit, Phantasmagoria Trues and Mystical Power Plant will rank among each other, and other less well known fangame shmups.

[cuc]

I heard Magical Singularday (Absolution) is an excellent blend of Touhou and arcade sensibilities.

[Zil]

Phantasmagoria Trues is the only one I've ever really enjoyed. Fascinating mechanics with lots of supergrazing and explosions and bullet cancelling and awesome. I should play it more someday.

Marine Benefit looks pretty good too but I could never get it to run properly.

[Elysia]

Marine Benefit is right up there with the canon games, in my book. Going by my list in the canon games ordering thread...it'd be either #4 or #5 overall, out of 11. Hard to decide, but that's very good either way.

Unfortunately, it's the only one I've gotten to try, because Danmakufu just refuses to work for me. I've tried hard to avoid any Mystical Power Plant spoilers, so I can blind-run it once I figure out the program, but from what I've heard it's like The Last Comer with a somewhat better resource system which sounds really cool. Phantasmagoria Trues, though, I've seen a lot of and it looks so amazing aaaaaaaaaah I want to play it right now.

[Darkness1]

Of all the fangame schmups existing, I've only played like 5 (Alternative Age, Concealed the Conclusion, Marine Benefit, Mrs Estacion, Phantasmagoria Trues). If I had to choose, I would probably put Phantasmagoria Trues at the top, just because I like the gameplay style and patterns so much. Well, there's also another reason, but I won't say it as it is a pretty dumb reason to favor a game :V.

[Ghaleon]

I haven't played many, and most of those I forgot about cuz I didn't really care for them. There were only 2 that really wow'd me.. By far the best was phantasm romance, I just love how the danmaku in that game is pretty to look at. Most fangame shmups seem to fail at capturing the "oooh... pretttyyyy" element that I love in my shmups. I forget the name of the other one. Was a script made here where you play as some kinda super rumia who throws TNT. That was just 1 stage though qq.

I have tried concealed to conclusion, and while it's balanced and full length, I just didn't think it was very fun. I think it's a shame everyone loves it and ignores phantasm romance, I seriously don't get why nobody likes phantasm =(. Someone far better than me at shmups told me it was bs hard. But I 1cc'd it's hard difficulty with all bonus stages in like a dozen attempts soo.. err... I just can't see how. I don't even think it requires much memorization!

[chirpy13]

Phantasmagoria Trues - The best.  Better than most of the official games.

Magical Singular Day - Like half a dozen Cave games rolled into one.  Very well designed, but I didn't really like the chaser bullets when you hypered.  Having to be constantly moving while trying to dodge is a bit annoying.

Mystical Power Plant - Good stuff, difficulty is all over the place though and it might be a bit too easy.

Re:F/Rain - It's okay but it's only 3 stages and the first two stages aren't that great.

Concealed the Conclusion - Not very good.  I didn't like it much

Marine Benefit - Has some interesting things but as a game it's pretty terrible.

I forget the name of the other one. Was a script made here where you play as some kinda super rumia who throws TNT. That was just 1 stage though qq.

flanchan.zip

[Sakurei]

Magical Singular Day  is, for me, the best fangame. well designed stages, fun bosses, cool system. better than some of the official games, imo

phantasmagoria trues is also really good. amazing stages, explosions, lots of grazing, all sorts of good. it's right behind MSD

then come mystical power plant and marine benefit. I don't like either much, but I can't really call them shit.

stuff like CtC or the last comer are complete shit. don't play this. extraordinarily bad.

[chirpy13]

stuff like CtC or the last comer are complete shit. don't play this. extraordinarily bad.

Right, I forgot about The Last Comer.  Yeah, that game is terrible.  Take everything bad about TD and make it worse and you get TLC.

[Critz]

Out of those which I've player, Mystical Power Plant  is the best. The effort put into making the story and characters seem so canon-like, the stunning visual effects, the playable roster, level-up system and the stunning soundtrack make it more pleasant to play than the official games. The CAVE mode is awesome too. I'm taking into consideration the game is not yet complete and there is an extra stage to try too. The only issue I have is some patterns being downright impossible before you memorize them, such as Momo's final card or Tenmu's square.

Marine Benefit I played less, but that one is also very creative both with shot types, original characters and soundtrack, all while keeping the marine theme intact and varied. It's much less polished than MPP by virtue of some shot types being crap (SanaeC) and some being able to break the already lenient and moderately creative resource system in half. Oh, and Kasumi & Megumi battles are hella fun, but it's kinda balanced by Mikoto being way too piss easy.

Concealed the Conclusion  is pretty meh on patterns, but I give it tons of points on the grounds of multiple routes and the soundtrack, especially the CD themes. And the story is just incredible.

Never got to play The Last Comer  myself, but it's right there with MPP in terms of soundtrack and the game's take on the Christianity theme is just mind-blowing. From what I've seen though, the star barrier system breaks the game pretty bad  :ohdear:.

[ふねん1]

I think it's a shame everyone loves it and ignores phantasm romance, I seriously don't get why nobody likes phantasm =(.

I like it too, for pretty much the same reasons you gave, difficult patterns that also look amazing.

I'm actually glad to see I'm not the only one who didn't like Concealed the Conclusion. It tries to be like IN by focusing a lot on trick patterns, but it ends up suffering a lot because of it. Also the vast majority of the soundtrack really grates on my ears.

The only other fanmade shoot-em-up I've played is The Last Comer. I wouldn't say it's all bad, as a handful of attacks are fun to play, and the soundtrack is all right in its own way. But yeah, there's still quite a bit that's bad, ranging from shot types that are pretty much unusable to Meteor Mode being even more broken than TD's Trance Mode, if you can believe that.

[chum]

Resurrection of Heaven's Liquor is everything Touhou wishes it could be. A masterpiece.

[Zengar Zombolt]

Pah. Periphery of Power takes the cake here. You must be delusional.

[Quukii]

Concealed the Conclusion is probably my favorite. I think it's a pretty well designed game overall, and multiple routes is cool.

Phantasmagoria Trues and Magical Singular Day are great as well. They have a very different feeling from the normal Touhou games (especially the stages) but the patterns are just so well designed in both games. I just wish that MSD had some music.

Marine Benefit is alright: nothing too exceptional, but not bad either.

At first glance Mystical Power Plant looks pretty good, but there's just way too much filler-ish stage sections that make the game excessively long, and the slight lag hampers my enjoyment somewhat.

[Nyyl]

I think Mystical Power Plant is my favorite, in spite of the awful lag and somewhat repetitive stages. It had great music, art, and visual effects, and the bosses are a lot of fun in my opinion
I really liked Phantasmagoria Trues,  it's quite a bit more fast-paced and "action"-y than the main games. The needlessly huge scores are fun too :V
I honestly don't like Marine Benefit at all. It's just my opinion, but I found the gameplay and music to be very dull, and it looked pretty awful
The Last Comer is hard to place for me, since the soundtrack is alright and it's not ugly, but I didn't really like playing it. Just kind of a bad system with bad difficulty management, if that makes sense

[Jaimers]

So many fangames, so little time.

Magical Singular Day Absolution
The best in my opinion. It has very good stage design and bosses have very fun patterns to dodge. However the real fun starts when you start scoring and make the rank go nuts. The extreme speed and cancelling during hypers is extremely exhilarating. Especially the herding of the homing suicide bullets.
I?d place it on par with some of Cave?s shooters.

Phantasmagoria Trues
Phantasmagoria Trues has everything. Hypers, rank, suicide bullets, grazing, alternate paths,  extra stages, Last Words and a ton of alternate modes. The amount of content is pretty amazing.
Very good stage and boss design  with very interesting patterns. The hyper mechanic is also interesting in its risk/reward factor for chaining invulnerability through point items.

Phantasm Romance
The Prequel to Phantasmagoria Trues. PT can somewhat be called PR 2.0. Still a very good game with great stage and boss design.

Suwapyon 2
Suwako?s Jumping and Shooting game. The jump mechanic gives a very new interesting aspect to the dodging. It?s also extremely fun to play.

LASERREIMU
LASERREIMU

LittleLittleLegions
Hitogata Happa clone but without the suiciding. 

Re:F/Rain
Very good stage design and bosses. Even though almost all of it is stolen. (　；∀；)

Incredible Daily Tale
Good stage design coupled with an interesting border mechanic. Sort of a predecessor to Magical Singular Day.

Scarlet Meister
Very complex design with the hyper chaining and character switching and jumping. It?s also one of the legitimately hardest things I?ve ever played.

Fairies of Sorcery
Similar to Fairy Wars but without the ice mechanic and with a hyper mechanic instead.

War of Fox and Badger
Interesting stages with a shield chaining mechanic and being able to select stages in an order that you want.

Trick and Treat Night
Fun touhou fangame with a hostile Pumpkin UFO mechanic.

UFO bossrush
Nope not the actual bossrush! This is a danmakufu game complete with extra stage where you fight against the UFO crew and where you summon hostile UFO?s.

Mystical Power Plant
A step up from The Last Comer. It?s pretty decent for what it is.

The Phantom Called Lunasa Prismriver
Fun little fangame where you fight against a giant skeleton. 

Marine Benefit
Pretty decent with very interesting spellcard concepts. However the concepts, as interesting as they look, aren?t always as interesting to play.

The Last Comer
Very rough in design but still fun.

Luminous Dream
Decent touhou fangame with fun stages and bosses.

Concealed the Conclusion
I wouldn?t call CtC bad, however it?s pretty meh as far as fangames go. Stages in particular are really bad.

Uniting Barrage Action
UBA gets the award for the most flashy touhou fangame out there. Unfortunately the gameplay leaves a bit to be desired.

The Story of Eastern Wind
Remake of Touhou 2. It gave you all the abilities of modern touhou games but left the patterns as they were in the original. This sort of messes things up and they botched some of the patterns as well. Replacing the original characters was really lame as well.
It?s more playable than the original but I?d still rather play the original over this. :V

Mythical Mirror
Terrible pattern and difficulty balancing, off-center hitboxes and bugs and glitches that make it almost unplayable.

Resurrection of Heaven's Liquor
Obligatory joke entry.

[cuc]

Suwapyon 2
Suwako’s Jumping and Shooting game. The jump mechanic gives a very new interesting aspect to the dodging. It’s also extremely fun to play.

I was under the impression by going from isometric to 3D with the second game, they greatly reduced the game's precision. Is that not the case?

[Choco Beam]

Moedan was awwright

[Jaimers]

I was under the impression by going from isometric to 3D with the second game, they greatly reduced the game's precision. Is that not the case?

I can't say I've ever had issues with precision. I like the second game a lot more than the first in any case.

Also I think I've discovered a few more good fangames in the time between my previous post and this one.  :V

[commandercool]

I've only ever played Marine Benefit and never really got it working quite right, but it seems pretty good. The soundtrack is very good and some of the concepts are cool. I found most of the shot types to be obnoxious. The look of it varied wildly from stage to stage, with the backgrounds in the first couple of stages being exceptionally pretty and in some of the later stages eye-hurtingly ugly. Mechanically it seemed kind of broken. Lives and bombs seemed to come way too easily. Probably worth checking out, but I don't have anything to compare it to.

[Kaze_Senshi]

I don't have played a lot of fangames but my favorites are:

* Marine Benefit (DAT extra boss);
* Mystical PowerPlant.
* Last Comer.


I am playing RefRain too but is it really a Touhou Fangame