Video Game / Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil

The game that brought a revolution.

If we suppose the mist is the work of a human, one could say that the human must have eaten belladonna flower.
In the very center of it all is an island, rejected by mankind simply because they could not live there. On that island is a mansion; one of few windows.
Inside the mansion that knows neither day nor night, "she" was there.

—From the prologue

Touhou Koumakyou^note "Scarlet Devil Land" ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is a video game created by Team Shanghai Alice for Windows computers in 2002. It's the sixth videogame installment in the Touhou Project franchise, and the first in the Windows series.

The remote mountain region of Gensokyo has become covered by a strange mist that chokes out the light of day. Shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei and witch Marisa Kirisame see that it's coming from an island on the lake, and head there to investigate.

The first game for Windows PCs, EoSD was designed as a fresh start from the PC-98 era, trimming down the cast to protagonists Reimu and Marisa,^note The former of whom also had the spelling of her name changed from 靈夢 to 霊夢 renaming the setting from "Eastern Country" to "Gensokyo", and introducing the iconic Spell Card mechanic. However, it wouldn't be until its sequel that the modern Touhou franchise was fully formed.

The game's official website can be found here (in Japanese).

---

This game provides examples of:

• Analogy Backfire: When Marisa asks Remilia how many humans she has consumed blood from, the latter draws a comparison by asking how many slices of bread Marisa has eaten in her life. Except Marisa can actually answer that: "Thirteen. I prefer Japanese food".
• The Battle Didn't Count: If you beat Sakuya on Easy difficulty, she mocks you for it and tells you she's still not letting you see Remilia.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • Flandre tells Marisa that she can't use a continue.
  • If you try to beat the game on easy, Sakuya won't let you go any further simply because you're playing on easy. Cue bad ending.
    • Later, she mentions wanting to make you waste a bomb before Remilia gets mad at her.
• Contractual Boss Immunity:
  • The bomb shield, which was previously exclusive to Extra Bosses, is now also present during the final boss's final Spell Card. This would also be the case in several other Windows games.
  • With the introduction of the Spell Card system, Extra Bosses from this game onwards only have a bomb shield during Spell Cards, leaving their nonspells vulnerable to bombing.
• Creatures by Many Other Names: The omake.txt comments for the song "Lunate Elf" indicate that "Elf" is another way to say fairy:
  The elf that's referred to here is not the one with the pointy ears but the fairy. There's no meaning to this. Is spirit that's not a fairy not charming?
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Many of them, some of which cause this game to have more in common with the PC-98 era than even the next game.
  • Reimu's hitbox is the same size as Marisa's, rather than slightly smaller. ^note Reimu's smaller hitbox was a series mainstay for over a decade, but was dropped in Touhou 16 onwards, so EoSD is no longer unique in this regard.
  • You can't see your hitbox by focusing, and your focused shot is simply a narrow version of the unfocused shot.
  • While this game introduces the Item Get Border Line that draws all items on screen towards you when you go above it, it only works when you're at max power. It's not until the tenth game that the item border is always active without any conditions.^note Albeit the seventh game had it always active in the Extra and Phantasm stages, while the eighth game had it always active when in focused movement or when playing as Magic Team.
  • Practice mode has been introduced, but it gives you your default starting resources, instead of giving you maxed out resources like later games do.
  • There's no Spell Practice. That will be introduced in the eighth game, then go missing again until it returns for good in the thirteenth game.
  • The concept of the Great Hakurei Barrier hasn't yet been introduced - Reimu's profile describes her as keeping youkai from wandering outside Gensokyo, and keeping humans from wandering in. The scarlet mist is also described as going past the shrine, in direction of a human settlement.
  • The location of the Scarlet Devil Mansion is described as an island on Misty Lake. In later depictions it's instead along the shore.
  • The antagonists are mostly European-themed, in contrast to the Japanese youkai that the series later puts more focus on.
  • The game ends prematurely at the end of Stage 5 if you are playing on Easy. Subsequent games let you play to the end on any difficulty.
  • The game being a Continuity Reboot was only something established retroactively in the next game, with Reimu and Marisa's profiles still directly referring to them as being the same characters in the PC-98 games.
  • The tone of the game's dialogue is extremely farcical, with many exchanges consistently entirely of intentionally nonsensical wordplay and Shout Outs. While the first generation of Windows games has somewhat different tone compared to later games, EoSD stands out even amongst them. This would gradually be phased out over the following games in favour of more straight exposition.
  • Characters were as disposable as in the PC-98 games. ZUN would later regret that he "hadn't really put any thought into" either Koakuma or Daiyousei, especially since the fandom had to invent their personalities for him.^note Unnamed midbosses would make infrequent appearances after EoSD, but were made non-humanoid. The shortage of characters in the canon following EoSD had fans uniquely latch onto humanoid Koakuma and Daiyousei.
  • The backstories in the extra material are short and bare bones even for those strongly associated with the incident, in contrast to the walls of text that such characters get starting with the next game.
  • Patchouli refers to Remilia as The Ojou, like Meiling and Sakuya, rather than directly by the name, as seen immediately in the next game.
• Easy-Mode Mockery: If you play on Easy, the game ends when you defeat Sakuya, who tells you to come back when you're stronger and sends you to the bad ending, just like Yuuka did in Lotus Land Story.
• Homage Derailment: During her path, Marisa asks Remilia how many humans she's sucked blood from, only for Remilia to respond by asking how many slices of bread Marisa's eaten in her life, mimicking a similar exchange between William Zeppeli and Dio Brando in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood. This quickly gets turned on its head when Marisa responds, "Thirteen. I prefer Japanese food."
• Lost in Translation: Flandre's dialogue saying "coin ikko" (Which is a "Blind Idiot" Translation that Atari made in STUN Runner's Japanese version) was simply translated to "One coin".
• Merging the Branches: While Reimu is the one who solved the incident, it's canon that both Reimu and Marisa set off to the Scarlet Devil Mansion during the events of this game; the book Perfect Memento in Strict Sense states Reimu solved the Scarlet Mist Incident on her own, but in Imperishable Night, it's implied in the Spell Practice flavor text that Marisa based her Non-Directional Laser on Patchouli's nonspells from this game, meaning she stormed the mansion on her own as well and at the very least fought Patchouli.
• No Final Boss for You: You can't access Stage 6 if you play on Easy; Sakuya tells you to come back when you're stronger and the game proceeds to the bad ending.
• No Name Given: Since this game (like past ones) doesn't show the boss's name during gameplay, and the Stage 2 and 4 midbosses do not have any dialogue to introduce them, this leaves those bosses canonically nameless.
• Our Elves Are Different: Stage 2 is "Lake Elf ~ Water Magus", and its soundtrack is "Lunate Elf". The omake.txt comments for "Lunate Elf" indicate that the "Elf" being referred to is a fairy, probably Cirno, the stage boss.
  The elf that's referred to here is not the one with the pointy ears but the fairy. There's no meaning to this. Is spirit that's not a fairy not charming?
• Pointy Ears: Referenced in the "Lunate Elf" The comments for "Lunate Elf" in the omake.txt connect elves and pointy ears:
  The elf that's referred to here is not the one with the pointy ears but the fairy. There's no meaning to this. Is spirit that's not a fairy not charming?
• Powerup Magnet: EoSD introduces the series's staple "Item Get" mechanic, where the player auto-collects items if they move above an invisible line on-screen while at full power.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: In Marisa's scenario, when Marisa asks Remilia how many people's blood she's drank, Remilia asks Marisa in return how many times she's eaten bread (this is taken almost word-for-word from Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Phantom Blood). Marisa replies "thirteen", since she prefers Japanese food.
• Shipper on Deck: After defeating Flandre, Marisa suggests setting her up with Reimu:
  Marisa: Why don't you do as the real song says?
  Flandre: The real song?
  Marisa: Wait, you don't know? She got married and then there were none...
  Flandre: Marry who?
  Marisa: I'll introduce ya to a girl at a shrine.

---