Touhou Gensokyo ~ Lotus Land Story is a Bullet Hell Shoot 'Em Up video game developed by ZUN Soft and published by Amusement Makers for the PC-98 in 1998. It's the fourth installment in the Touhou Project franchise. Best known for being the game where Bad Apple!! came from.
Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame are going to the mountains to investigate a power surge that makes youkai appear.
The game returns to the vertical shooter format introduced two games ago, but with the addition of focused movement and a more complex scoring system (including the graze mechanic).
This game provides examples of:
- Anti-Frustration Features: For her boss fight in this game, Marisa brings back her orreries from Story of Eastern Wonderland. However, unlike in that game, where the orreries blocked all damage against her until destroyed, this time around Marisa can still take some damage when she has her orreries up.
- Ball of Light Transformation: Yuuka turns into a light ball twice during her Stage 6 fight.
- Characterization Marches On: This is the game where Marisa starts displaying her brash personality, which would go on to become one of her most distinctive character traits. Her connection to Mima also falls out of focus allowing her to stand completely on her own, with Mima being completely absent from this game, neither of them interacting or mentioning each other in the next installment, and Mima disappearing from the series afterwards. Lastly, and partially thanks to the previous point, she starts cementing herself as the series's Deuteragonist.
- Collision Damage: Naturally, stage enemies throughout the game play this straight, as is very much commonplace in the Shoot 'Em Up genre. However, all of this game's bosses, as well as the Extra Stage midboss, lack collision hitboxes, making for very rare aversions of the trope.
- Contractual Boss Immunity: This is the first game to introduce bomb shields for Extra Bosses. Since the Spell Card system doesn't exist yet, the bomb shield is in place for the entire fight rather than for Spell Cards only.
- Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Kinda; Orange tells Reimu she'll bang, shoot, and pop her noggin off.
- Dueling Player Characters: Reimu and Marisa square off at the end of Stage 4.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Downplayed with Yuuka. Her color scheme is the same as in the Windows games, but she wears trousers instead of a skirt and has longer hair.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- While "Gensokyo" is in the title, it wouldn't become the name of the series's setting until the Windows games.
- Focused movement was introduced, but focusing didn't alter the behavior of your shots until the Windows games, and it didn't make your hitbox visible until Perfect Cherry Blossom.
- Reimu and Marisa are the playable characters, but like in the previous game, and unlike in all later games, they both have the same movement speed instead of Marisa being faster.
- Deathbombing was introduced, but doing it didn't trigger the death sound effect until the Windows games.
- Yuuka debuts in this game, but her association with flowers hasn't been firmly established yet. The most she gets are a few vaguely flower-shaped bullet patterns. The next game would start solidifying this trait by making her shoot flowers.
- Fairies as stage enemies make their debut in this game, but they only appear in Stage 1, unlike the Windows games where they're the predominant stage enemy.
- Reimu's B shot type is a wide shot because her iconic Persuasion Needle wouldn't be invented until Windows, while Marisa's is a simple "rapid shot" because her iconic Magic Missile wouldn't be invented until the next game.
- Extra Bosses' newly introduced bomb shield is in place at all times, since there's no distinction between spells and nonspells yet.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: The first of a few games in the series where you can't unlock the Extra Stage or see the good ending by playing on Easy. Furthermore for this game, your run will end at the Stage 5 boss.
- Fighting Your Friend: Stage 4 has you fighting whichever character you didn't choose. Only Reimu and Marisa were playable here.
- Franchise Codifier: The previous three games all had different gameplay from each other. Lotus Land Story was the installment that committed to the scrolling shooter gameplay initially seen in the second game, as well as establishing many mechanics and other elements that would become core features going forward: Grazing, focused movement, deathbombs, Extra Boss bomb shields, the 6-Stage structure, and Marisa as the series Deuteragonist. note
- Game-Breaking Bug: If playing on Easy and the rank is low enough, the game will crash during Kurumi's fight as it will end up trying to divide by zero. A similar bug is present in Marisa's fight, where destroying the bits (that resemble the Orreries) on specific frames causes another division error and crashes the game
. - High-Speed Missile Dodge: The graze mechanic, inspired by games like Raiden Fighters and Spriggan Powered, makes its first appearance here, which grants score bonuses whenever you skim the edge of an enemy projectile without touching it.
- Hitbox Dissonance: Your grazing radius is slightly off-center from your actual hitbox due to an oversight, making it easier to graze bullets to your right than to your left. This was fixed in all subsequent games.
- It Amused Me: In Marisa's endings, Yuuka admits that her reason for starting the incident was that she simply had too much free time.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Sorta. During the pre-battle dialogue with Elly if you're playing as Reimu, the former refers to Marisa as "it" rather than "she".
- Nerf: Marisa's orreries, compared to her fight in Story of Eastern Wonderland. In that game, they prevented all damage to her until all were destroyed, but this time around, Marisa can still be hit through them, albeit they do absorb some of the damage.
- No Final Boss for You: You can't proceed to Stage 6 if you've already used continues, or if you're playing on Easy.
- Off with Her Head!: The first boss, Orange, seems to be trying threaten Reimu with this; she tells her that she'll bang, shoot, and pop her noggin off.
- One-Hit Polykill: Marisa's iconic Illusion Laser, which pierces through enemies (and through Elly's scythe) makes its debut as a full-fledged shot type. note
- Point of No Continues: Continues, which are allowed for the first five stages, are disabled in the final stage. Losing your last life there instead results in a Non-Standard Game Over.
- Run, Don't Walk: The first game to include the Focus mechanic, allowing the player to move more slowly while holding the Shift key. However, it doesn't yet double as a Secondary Fire/Stance System like in later games.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: In Reimu's good ending, she seals all the demons she's encountered into a bottle. Marisa sneaks into her room that night and removes the cork.
- Sequel Non-Entity: This is the only PC-98 game in which Mima does not appear. She also isn't mentioned or alluded to in any way, shape or form, despite her former dragon Marisa playing a central role.
- Sequential Boss: In the Extra Stage. You first run into Mugetsu and face her in a rather simple (yet challenging) fight consisting of only two phases. Then her sister Gengetsu shows up to avenge her and takes you on, making for a longer fight with several phases.
- Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: The last three enemies before the Final Boss give you a bomb, a 1-Up and full power.
- Tempting Fate: Guess what happens after Elly tells your Player Character (Marisa or Reimu) she won't lose to her. She loses to her.
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: In both of her fights, Yuuka has an attack more or less guaranteed to kill you the first time you see it. In her first fight, there's her so-called "Master Spark"; it's very obvious that she's about to do something, but there's no indication that you need to be on the side of the screen to survive. In the second fight she has an attack that places a shrinking circle under the player: Gamer instinct is to get as far away as possible... and the attack hits everywhere ''except'' in the circle.
- Unbuilt Trope: Mugetsu and Gengetsu, the Extra Bosses of this game, were the first of many pairs of sisters that would appear throughout the series. However, in future pairs such as Remilia and Flandre, Shizuha and Minoriko or Satori and Koishi, the younger sister is usually the stronger one, whereas here it's the other way around, so they look like an inversion of the trend in hindsight.
- Underestimating Badassery: Before fighting her, Orange seems to think Reimu was doing this as she tells her she shouldn't underestimate her.
- Woken Up at an Ungodly Hour: In Stage 5, Yuuka is disgruntled at the player character for noisily busting into her mansion "at this hour". It's not specified what time it is, but Yuuka has a drowsy expression and is wearing a nightgown, so it can be surmised that it's late in the night/very early in the morning.
- Would Rather Suffer: During an exchange with Yuuka, Marisa reveals she'd rather die than live a longer but more boring life.
