Resized to 43% of original (view original)
konpaku youmu, mario, and boo (touhou and 4 more) drawn by mazume

Artist's commentary

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    Myon, age 11

    Youmu has been playing recent games quite a lot...

    Her heart is young, so I hope this does not adversely affect her.　She is half ghost, after all...

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    jedi1358
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    I added commentary. I hope my translation is good enough (Does check_translation apply to commentary?)

    It looks like it is referring to the seemingly racist/insensitive anti-ghost violence seen in Super Mario World for the Super Famicom. Oh, and I think that's supposed to be Pac-Man on the floor, another game featuring violence against ghost. (Snickering at "Nitorindo Super Kappacom")

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    • Moonspeaker
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    jedi1358 said:

    I added commentary. I hope my translation is good enough (Does check_translation apply to commentary?)

    Not sure, but I gave it a once-over anyway.

    It looks like it is referring to the seemingly racist/insensitive anti-ghost violence seen in Super Mario World for the Super Famicom. Oh, and I think that's supposed to be Pac-Man on the floor, another game featuring violence against ghost.

    Said Pac-Man is also sporting a familiar blue-mob-cap-with-triangular-headpiece ensemble...

    (Snickering at "Nitorindo Super Kappacom")

    Likewise. I didn't even spot it (or Pac-Man's headgear) until I viewed the image at 100%.

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    • game2009
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    Eterya said:

    SNES was before my time, and I've never even seen a PC-98, but judging from emulators it looks like they have similar graphics/processor (correct me if I'm majorly mistaken). So I guess SNES Touhou would look/play similar to the (regrettably non-canon) PC-98 games, though I got no idea how on ewould map the controls. On a related note I think it's really too bad that the PC-98 games aren't canon anymore, they had a couple of interesting characters(Mima, Shinki) and designs (Kikuri, Yuugenmagan, Sariel, Evil_Eye_Sigma), like post #1404048.

    ZUN never said the PC-98 games are no longer canon. He simply said they're no longer relevant to the Windows series.

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    • TheKid965
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    jedi1358 said:

    It looks like it is referring to the seemingly racist/insensitive anti-ghost violence seen in Super Mario World for the Super Famicom.

    That's a possibility, but another way to interpret it could be that Youmu, who canonically has at least a mild phobia about ghosts (despite being half-ghost herself), might notice the resemblance between her own spirit half and a Boo and develop a complex, thinking it'll try to kill her every time she takes her eyes off it. (Or, since Youmu's a lot younger in this pic, maybe this is the artist's take on how she developed her phobia.)

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    • bitofhope
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    Eterya said:

    SNES was before my time, and I've never even seen a PC-98, but judging from emulators it looks like they have similar graphics/processor (correct me if I'm majorly mistaken). So I guess SNES Touhou would look/play similar to the (regrettably non-canon) PC-98 games, though I got no idea how on ewould map the controls.

    Nerdy Pessimism

    Both are 16-bit. That's a good start. The touhou games were made in the late 90's, near the end of PC-9801's lifespan. The later PC-98 models were way more powerful than the SNES (4 megs of RAM in PC-9821 from 1992 vs 128K on the SNES +64K+64K for audio and video, respectively). The CPU in one -92 model of PC-9801 is 16MHz 80386SX according to Wikipedia, so I'll use that as a measuring stick, even though it was four years old when HRtP came out. The SNES technically had a 21MHz beast in it, but in reality the speeds were way, way lower because of the low speeds for accessing the memory registers.

    {EDIT: When Touhou came around, PC-98s were all 9821 and used Celerons. Easily more powerful than a SNES.}

    However, I doubt the Touhou games were particularly demanding for the time. I also don't know how well the machines were optimized for these types of tasks. I've seen more impressive-looking shmups on the SNES and the NES could already handle Recca-levels of bullet density. (Granted, the people who made Recca are some sorts of programming geniuses.) Even if the Touhou games were a bit over SNES's abilities, creative application of low-level programming (Assembly was mostly used with SNES anyway because the speed was vastly superior to high-level languages and there was no need to account for differences in hardware.) could bring the speed up to standard. This is nostly speculation, and someone nerdier than me might be breaking into my house to dope-slap me right now for my wrongness.

    Controls are easy. A to shoot, Y to focus in LLS and MS, B to bomb, start to pause, D-pad to move and equivalents for HRtP. Maybe even X to auto-fire in PoDD.

    But here's where it all falls down: the sound. SNES has no support for FM synthesis, and that's bad. Good luck trying to enjoy Bad Apple!! when just the shot effect is a shitty bleep. And no midi either. The SNES sound chip is a fine piece of hardware, but ZUN's FM music is what makes Touhou Touhou. For once, the Mega Drive's sound could be better for something.

    Bottom line: Trying to port Touhou 1-5 on SNES would probably result in some shitty ports and we wouldn't want that, would we?

    Updated by bitofhope

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    • TheKid965
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    L_of_Shame said:

    I feel like it couldn't support all the bullets.

    It probably could pull off a PC98-style Touhou, something like SoEW or PoDD, though it'd strain and wheeze in the process. Games like Mystic Square and later would be well beyond its capabilities, however.

    Updated by TheKid965

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    • bitofhope
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    TheKid965 said:

    It probably could pull off a PC98-style Touhou, something like SoEW or PoDD, though it'd strain and wheeze in the process. Games like Mystic Square and later would be well beyond its capabilities, however.

    Also, like I said in my long-winded post above, SNES didn't have FM synthesis. IMHO Touhou isn't really Touhou without ZUN's signature music (Although people like Hertzdevil do make good arguments that Nintendo sound suits TH just fine.)

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    • FJH
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    Leonmitchell said:
    triangular headpiece ? where is that

    One of the cartridges on the floor is Yuyuko as Pacman. We know it's Yuyuko because of the distinctive headwear. Personally, I think the detail is too miniscule to use the tag, and it's hard to tell that it's even triangular just by eyeballing it.

    Updated by FJH

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    • Moonspeaker
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    FJH said:

    One of the cartridges on the floor is Yuyuko as Pacman. We know it's Yuyuko because of the dinctive headwear. Personally, I think the detail is too miniscule to use the tag, and it's hard to tell that it's even triangular just by eyeballing it.

    It's easy to tell if you view the image at 100%.

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