Whoever said that Hong Meiling is really weak for a youkai is completely full of shit. I always lose a life against her in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, and I always play on the easy mode! If she's "weak", I don't even want to imagine what the Scarlet sisters are like.
But yeah, since I found out that you can download the retail versions of Touhou games off of Doujinstyle.com for free, I've been taking advantage of that. Gives me a chance to immerse myself in the world of Touhou even more. By the way, in some of the games, you can choose to listen to either WAV versions of the music, or MIDI versions of the music. Curiously enough, some of ZUN's music actually sounds better on MIDI than on WAV. The first stage BGM of Perfect Cherry Blossom particulary sounds much better on MIDI. On the other hand, Mokou's theme in Imperishable Night is forgettable on MIDI, but kicks ass on WAV.
By the way, my favorite Touhou game that isn't a fighter is IN. Some complain that it's "too easy." I say that's precisely why I like it. Keep in mind, I'm not really a fan of "shmups." The only Shmup I ever loved was Galaga for the arcade. You remember Galaga, the Space Invaders clone Namco made way back in the early 1980's? Well, imagine me going from Galaga to Touhou, which has hundreds of shots onscreen at once. Yeah. Not a very pleasant introduction, mind you.
Oh, also, some of the games that can be downloaded from Doujinstyle come pre-played. What do I mean? Well, imagine my surprise when I unzipped IN, and found that all of the lockables were already unlocked: the levels, the extra stage, the music, and every character. Isn't that nice? To be able to acquire a game, and its unlockables are already unlocked, and you don't have to use a GameShark to achieve that effect? Sure, it defeats the fun of unlocking content, but it also saves me a lot of frustration. Of course, whoever last played my copy of IN set some insanely high scores, making it practically impossible for me to set a high score for any character the previous player didn't play to death. Oh well.
By the way, I've been downloading more Touhou music. I now have Tsurupettan on MP3. The sound quality is so much better than the sound quality in the video. And I can sing along to it! Well, I can only sing, "Pettan, pettan, tsurupettan." "Youjo, youjo, tsurupettan youjo." and "Suika, Suika, tsurupettan Suika." The other lines go too fast for my English-speaking ears. The only other Japanese song I can sing part of is the 1st opening of Cardcaptor Sakura. Soon, I will become fluent in Nihongo!
(Sarcastic side of me: that will never happen. Considering how disastrous my attempts to learn French were, it's likely I'll be only able to speak English and very basic Spanish for the rest of my life.)
I can't think of anything else to write right now. Maybe I'll come back when I think of something.
