Touhou Project NES Demakes

The ***Touhou Project NES Demakes*** (東方(とうほう)プロジェクトファミコンディメイク, **Tōhō Purojekuto Famikon Dimeiku**?) are a series of remakes of the first five *Touhou Project* games that were originally released on the PC-98 developed by Drillimation Systems. These remakes would be considered to be the first Windows releases of the games, as well as being the first international releases as they both support English and Japanese.

All of these games run on the same engine as the *Chuhou Joutai* games, and they all use the GameMaker Studio 2 engine.

## Overview

First announced in January 2020 and published until June 2022, the NES Demakes of the PC-98 *Touhou Project* games are intended to be remasters of their respective games. The graphics and sound are largely inspired by the Nintendo Entertainment System's hardware. The NES and Famicom had released before the PC-98 *Touhou Project* games had even released, which is why they bear the word "demake" in their names, as they were made to run on older hardware. All releases' soundtracks are also NES-inspired, using one of the Famicom's expansion chips. The first three games use the Famicom Disk System hardware, while the fourth and fifth games use the Namco N163 chip for superior sound hardware.

Most of the sprite work is heavily based on the original, though some original sprites were made. Everything was done by the Prophet Driller, the same man who also created the *Chuhou Joutai* series. The demakes also do not include some of the easter eggs that were present in the originals. Each demake also includes a remixed musical score heavily based on the original soundtracks by Jun'ya Ohta, as well as additional adjustments taken from later versions. The Prophet also composed a few original songs and arranges for the demakes, including a game clear jingle that is a slight remix of *Iris* from *Touhou 1: The Highly Responsive to Prayers*, and it appears in the *Lotus Land Story* and *Mystic Square* demakes. The stage clear jingle that was introduced in *The Story of Eastern Wonderland* demake went on to be remixed in *Chuhou Joutai 2: Paraided!*, and Kagami Ochiai's theme from *The Phantasmagoria of Dimensional Dreams* demake went on to be remixed as the stage 1 theme for *Chuhou Joutai 3: Three Nights of Scarlet Abscess*.

 *Touhou 5: Mystic Square NES Demake* | June 3, 2022

## Relationship to previous versions

With the release of the NES Demakes, this would mark the first time that anyone can play the PC-98 *Touhou Project* games on Windows without the need to configure an emulator. The demakes are considered the first Windows releases of the PC-98 games and are also the first international releases of the games as the originals were not released in any region outside Japan prior due to the PC-98 being a Japan-exclusive system. Although one of the PC-98's models was released in the West, it did not sell well in such territories.

## Version differences

Unlike the originals, the graphical architecture largely imitates the Nintendo Entertainment System. This required the sprites to be downsized in half to accommodate the NES's hardware limitations. The danmaku that is present is also largely different in order to have more balanced gameplay. Because Drillimation did not have access to the source code for the originals, they were required to remake them from scratch. Several bugs and issues, alongside unbalanced elements, have also been fixed to run on modern hardware. The demakes were all made on an engine designed to support features from all five games at once, and as a result, the overall game design is unified and resembles the gameplay present in the *Chuhou Joutai* series. This is strongly seen in *The Highly Responsive to Prayers* and *The Story of Eastern Wonderland* demakes, implementing mechanics from later *Touhou Project* games such as grazing and spell cards.

Additional features have also been added to the demakes to make them stand out from their originals. For example, just like in the *Chuhou Joutai* games, all four difficulty options for the Extra Stage can be selected as opposed to being on just one. In addition, Kagami Ochiai appears in the second and third installments of the demakes, being a boss in the third stage and playable character respectively. The fourth installment includes the Spell Card system that was first introduced in *Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil*.

Some notable differences between the originals and the demakes go as follows:

* The maximum power value has been lowered from 128 to 100, and the value given from large power items is reduced from 8 to 5.
* The graze limit of 999 has been removed, allowing unlimited graze counts.
* The maximum dream bonus follows the same value as the maximum power value.
* The Japanese versions do not use any kanji, partly due to the original Famicom's hardware limitations.

### Censorship

In an effort to stay true to Nintendo of America's content policies at the time, some parts of the demakes were subject to censorship, mostly for religious reasons:

* While the Japanese versions keep the original names for Makai and Hell, these were changed to Aether and Nether respectively in the international versions.
* Almost all references to Christianity, including crosses, were removed. There are some exceptions in the *Mystic Square* demake during the cutscenes involving Shinki.
* Most references to Shinto and Buddhism were kept, though most Shinto objects use their English-language names so that they can be understandable for Western players. Examples include miko being called shrine maidens and ofuda being called amulets. Additionally, an icon of a crescent moon and star used in the original version of *The Phantasmagoria of Dimensional Dreams* was removed as it resembled the one used in Islam, and the change was likely made to comply with Sharia law.
* Although most of the violence is comical and non-realistic, some instances of blood were censored out. For example, the bloodstain of Mima's knife in *The Highly Responsive to Prayers* was removed in the demake. The Lake of Blood in *Lotus Land Story* was renamed The Lake of Acid internationally.

During the 1980s up until the early 1990s, in the wake of a few controversial games hitting the Western market such as *Custer's Revenge* and *Leisure Suit Larry*, Nintendo developed a Hays Code-like system to ensure their brand would be kept family-friendly. Nintendo had the right to refuse licensing of a third-party title if its themes or subject matter were not in line with their guidelines. While these guidelines prohibited most forms of violence, sexuality, profanity, and drug use, religious material was also included due to religious feuds in the West at that time. A large majority of families who adhered to Catholicism or Protestant Christianity would view this as sacrilege or blasphemy.

Nintendo of America's guidelines have faced criticism from game directors and producers, claiming that it promoted censorship. During the 1993 United States Senate hearings on violent games in the wake of titles such as *Mortal Kombat*, former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman confirmed that video games were a form of expression protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. After the Entertainment Software Rating Board was founded the following year, Nintendo began to loosen their content policies and started allowing more mature titles to appear on their platforms, though they still censored religious material up until the seventh generation home consoles.

## Reception

The demakes have garnered a positive critical response. Despite this, the demakes have seen criticism over the lowered difficulty level and such.

## External links

* Official homepage on Drillimation's website