Touhou #10: Mountain of Faith

Yesterday, I downloaded the demo for this new shooter that recently came out from Team Shanghai Alice called Mountain of Faith (which was made by one guy by the name of ZUN). It is the 10th in the series of "Touhou" games, which revolve around a number of shrine maiden characters. They seem to be popular with the anime crowd, and the games are PC-only. Personally, the only other game from this series I've played was a demo of Perfect Cherry Blossom, and I got into that years ago after reading about it on the boards.

I love the music in this game. It brings back the joy of playing something new and exciting when I was a kid. The gameplay feels so much more polished than Cherry Blossom, and it feels less amateurish. I played this game for the first time using a stick, and I got my ass handed to me so many times. Although once I got used to it, the game began to get easier. I cleared the demo (just 3 levels) on normal with a little over 41 mill. Lunatic mode is where it's at. That mode really gets me feeling more alive. I remember playing Progear right after this, and while it felt weird at first, I felt so much more comfortable with the stick (remember, I was weaned on controllers).

I like this game a lot, and I'm looking forward to getting the full version.

You can download the demo here.

Make sure you have DirectX 9 and have the file d3dx9_31.dll in your game folder after installing. You can obtain that file here.