Windows

Microsoft Windows (Windows for short) is an operating system produced by Microsoft, available in several versions for personal computers, servers and tablets. It is the most widely-used desktop operating system in the world. "Windows" is also widely used as a term to describe the Touhou Project in general when excluding the PC-98 games.

There have been many versions of Windows, such as Windows 98 (not to be confused with the PC-98) and Windows XP. Windows 11 is the latest edition.

Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (Touhou 6) was the first Touhou Project game developed for this platform, able to play on Windows 98/SE, ME, 2000 and XP. Shuusou Gyoku was technically the first game for this platform, but it's part of the Seihou Project and wasn't directly developed by ZUN. All the games from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil on were made entirely for this platform. They are distinguished from "the PC-98 games" (Touhou 1 to 5) by being published by Team Shanghai Alice, it having been branched off from Amusement Makers.

Games for this Platform

Official Touhou Games

• TH06 東方紅魔郷　～ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (Team Shanghai Alice 2002)
• TH07 東方妖々夢　～ Perfect Cherry Blossom (Team Shanghai Alice 2003)
• TH07.5 東方萃夢想　～ Immaterial and Missing Power (Team Shanghai Alice/Twilight Frontier 2004)
• TH08 東方永夜抄　～ Imperishable Night (Team Shanghai Alice 2004)
• TH09 東方花映塚　～ Phantasmagoria of Flower View (Team Shanghai Alice 2005)
• TH09.5 東方文花帖　～ Shoot the Bullet (Team Shanghai Alice 2005)
• TH10 東方風神録　～ Mountain of Faith (Team Shanghai Alice 2007)
• TH10.5 東方緋想天　～ Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (Team Shanghai Alice/Twilight Frontier 2007)
• TH11 東方地霊殿　～ Subterranean Animism (Team Shanghai Alice 2008)
• TH12 東方星蓮船　～ Undefined Fantastic Object (Team Shanghai Alice 2009)
• TH12.3 東方非想天則　～ 超弩級ギニョルの謎を追え (Team Shanghai Alice/Twilight Frontier 2009)
• TH12.5 ダブルスポイラー　～ 東方文花帖 (Team Shanghai Alice 2010)
• TH12.8 妖精大戦争　～ 東方三月精 (Team Shanghai Alice 2010)
• TH13 東方神霊廟　～ Ten Desires (Team Shanghai Alice 2011)
• TH13.5 東方心綺楼　～ Hopeless Masquerade (Team Shanghai Alice/Twilight Frontier 2013)
• TH14 東方輝針城　～ Double Dealing Character (Team Shanghai Alice 2013)
• TH14.3 弾幕アマノジャク　～ Impossible Spell Card (Team Shanghai Alice 2014)
  • 弾幕アマノジャク　ゴールドラッシュ (Team Shanghai Alice 2014)
• TH14.5 東方深秘録　～ Urban Legend in Limbo (Team Shanghai Alice 2015)
• TH15 東方紺珠伝　～ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom (Team Shanghai Alice 2015)
• TH15.5 東方憑依華　～ Antinomy of Common Flowers (Team Shanghai Alice/Twilight Frontier 2017)
• TH16 東方天空璋　～ Hidden Star in Four Seasons (Team Shanghai Alice 2017)
• TH16.5 秘封ナイトメアダイアリー　〜 Violet Detector (Team Shanghai Alice 2018)
• TH17 東方鬼形獣　～ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature (Team Shanghai Alice 2019)
• TH17.5 東方剛欲異聞　～ 水没した沈愁地獄 (Team Shanghai Alice/Twilight Frontier 2021)
• TH18 東方虹龍洞　～ Unconnected Marketeers (Team Shanghai Alice 2021)
• TH18.5 バレットフィリア達の闇市場　〜 100th Black Market (Team Shanghai Alice 2022)
• TH19 東方獣王園　〜 Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost (Team Shanghai Alice 2023)
• TH20 東方錦上京 〜 Fossilized Wonders (Team Shanghai Alice 2025)

Doujin Games

• 秋霜玉 (Shunsatsu sare do? 1998-2000)
• トルテ ル マジック (Pietoro 2001)
• 稀翁玉 (Shunsatsu sare do? 2001)
• 五月雨 ～samidare～ (RebRank 2002-2005)
• 黄昏酒場～Uwabami Breakers～ (The Drinking Party 2007)
• 幡紫竜 (Shunsatsu sare do? 2008)
• And countless fangames...

Overview on the Touhouverse

Terminology

"Windows" or "the Windows games" as a term refers to anything from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil onwards in the Touhou Project by the Western community; this includes all games, music CDs and comics. This can also be called "recent Touhou works", "Today's games" or simply "The Touhou Project". The terminology is supposed to distinguish them from the PC-98 era that holds the first five games of the Touhou series. It's also used to reflect the modern music, graphics, complex stories and characters that occur in all the material, which is by many fans considered new or modern.

Setting

Main article: Canon: Canonicity and comparison between Windows and PC-98

Unlike the PC-98 era of the Touhou Project, many details are available regarding the setting of the Windows games. The project is set in Gensokyo and has many characters, ranging from humans to youkai.

The Windows games are often split into three generations, with Mountain of Faith being the start of the second generation and Double Dealing Character being the start of the third. This is because Mountain of Faith introduced a new game engine that has been used in every Touhou Project shooting game since. Additionally, the plots of the Touhou Project games starting with Mountain of Faith have become more connected to each other, up until Hopeless Masquerade. A unique plot was introduced in Double Dealing Character, making it the third generation for Windows.

Unlike incidents that have happened in the PC-98 games, the incidents that occur are more serious and somewhat complex, often involving a major change in the climate or some suspicious occurrence in Gensokyo. It's up to Reimu or whoever volunteers to go out and solve the issue.

Additional Information

• This platform was a fresh start for ZUN as he was no longer limited to 16-color graphics.
• The last main series game to officially work on Windows 98 is Phantasmagoria of Flower View. Shoot the Bullet and Mountain of Faith will run as well, but show some oddities like missing BGM. From Subterranean Animism on, the games depend on a newer DirectX 9.0c build not supported on Windows 98.
• The first game built with Windows Vista in mind was Undefined Fantastic Object.
• The first game built with Windows 7 in mind was Double Spoiler.
• The first game built with Windows 8 in mind was Double Dealing Character, which also doubled the resolution from 640×480 to 1280×960.
• The first game built with Windows 10 in mind was Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom.
• The first game to officially support Windows 10 at the time of release was Hidden Star in Four Seasons.
• All the games from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil to Phantasmagoria of Flower View are able to play on Windows Vista/7/8, but in some cases, the title screen won't display properly and won't show the image of Reimu Hakurei. For Windows Vista/7, enabling Windows Aero may help.
  • Embodiment of Scarlet Devil will sometimes stop working when launched. This sometimes only happens without Aero.
  • There is a Fullscreen issue for these games when running them on Windows 10. A third-party DLL converter is available that can fix this. See DX8 to DX9 converter.
• If using Vista or Windows 7, all the games from Double Spoiler onward will disable Aero and switch the theme to "Windows Vista Basic" or "Windows 7 Basic". Windows will switch back to Aero after exiting the game. There exists a patch for Ten Desires to prevent this and allow the game to play in Aero.

Fandom

• Windows characters are seen as separate from the PC-98 characters by many fans, excluding the few that returned.
• An unofficial tool exists to convert the .wav music of all games with ZUN's involvement to .ogg and patch the games to read from those files in order to save disk space.