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Stage

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An example of a stage introduction, this being the Uncanny Stage 4 of Imperishable Night

A stage ( Men) is a level in gameplay that contains obstacles, stage enemies, items, and the like. The player must pass a stage by defeating the boss at the end of each stage in order to proceed to the next stage or complete the game. Unlike other video games however, being a shoot 'em up, the Touhou Project contains the gameplay of danmaku, dodging bullets as the obstacles. The stages each have a unique theme and may also contain a midboss within the stage.

General Information

In a scrolling shooter such as Touhou, the player does not have the ability to freely travel around a stage. Instead, they wait for stage enemies and bosses to approach and shoot bullets at the player for them to dodge. Usually, when a player defeats the boss of a stage, the text "STAGE CLEAR" will appear. The backgrounds of stages in modern Touhou games are in 3D, whereas in PC-98 games, as expected, they are in 2D. Also, each stage is located at a location of some sort, and they're also given an actual title.

Most Touhou games consist of 6 main stages, as well as an "Extra Stage" which is separate from the main game. There are some exceptions, such as Highly Responsive to Prayers which has 20 stages, Story of Eastern Wonderland which has 5 main stages, and Fairy Wars which has only 3 main stages.

On a game's title screen, there is a "Practice Start" that allows the player to select a certain stage if they've either completed or accessed that stage in the main game, but this mostly exists on Windows games. There is also an "Extra Start" that has existed since Story of Eastern Wonderland which allows a player to access the extra stage if certain conditions are met in the main game. In addition, there is also a "Phantasm Stage" in Perfect Cherry Blossom.