Embodiment of Scarlet Devil

Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is a vertically scrolling shooter. The game offers two playable characters to choose from, each having two shot types. Reimu Hakurei is more agile and can cover a wide area of the screen with weaker attacks, whereas Marisa Kirisame is more powerful to make up for her narrower attack spread. The player can enter "Focus Mode", which slows the player character to allow for more precision when dodging projectiles. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is the last game in the series that does not show the player's hitbox while in Focus Mode—this is remedied in Perfect Cherry Blossom. The player has the option to use bombs, which will grant temporary invulnerability, clear the screen of enemy bullets and deal immense damage; however, bombs come in limited supply, meaning they must be used cautiously. Bombs act differently depending on the character and shot type chosen. If the player is hit by an enemy bullet and uses a bomb within a six frame window, they can avoid losing the game. Bosses and minibosses appear at the end and middle of stages, respectively. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is the first entry in the series to utilize the "Spell Card" system. Each boss in the game uses various attack phases, or Spell Cards, of which all are given a name, unlike the previous games' random attacks. These are used in a specific order depending on difficulty and character choice. Each Spell Card has its own countdown timer – defeating an enemy Spell Card before time runs out will grant a point bonus, and a further bonus is given if they are completed without any lives lost or bombs used. Depending on difficulty, a positive or negative multiplier bonus is applied and given at the end of each stage. As with previous games in the series, an additional "Extra Stage" is unlocked in the main menu if the player completes the game without using a continue. == Plot ==

Setting and prologue The Touhou Project is set in a region sealed from the outside human world and primarily inhabited by anthropomorphic alongside a small number of humans. One of them is Reimu Hakurei, the of the Hakurei Shrine located within the Great Hakurei Barrier which separates the two worlds. The main protagonist of the series, she is often tasked with resolving supernatural "incidents" caused in and around Gensokyo. Marisa Kirisame, the other main playable character of the series, is a smug human who has become a magician through sheer hard work and generally prioritizes self-interest and her own kleptomania over the interests of others. The player chooses either to play as Reimu or Marisa, who each have separate scenarios. Reimu becomes determined to find the cause of the mist to prevent it from spreading to the human world, while Marisa sets out hoping the person responsible possesses valuable items to collect. Main scenario The heroine traces the mist to its source at the Misty Lake (霧の湖). Here, she encounters '''''' (ルーミア), a with the ability to manipulate darkness. Proceeding to the lake itself, the heroine faces the area's guardians, ' (大妖精, lit. "Great Fairy") and ' (チルノ), an ice fairy who freezes water and attacks with cold projectiles. The protagonist arrives at the Scarlet Devil Mansion (紅魔館), the source of the mist. Guarding the gates is '''''' (紅 美鈴), a wearing traditional Chinese martial arts attire. After defeating her, the heroine enters the mansion's underground library, defeating custodian ' (小悪魔, lit. "Little Devil") before confronting the librarian ' (パチュリー・ノーレッジ), an asthmatic magician who has lived for over 100 years and commands powerful elemental magic. As the heroine approaches the mistress's quarters, she is stopped by the head maid, ' (十六夜 咲夜), who manages the household and possesses the ability to manipulate time and space, allowing her to freeze time and throw innumerable knives. The heroine then confronts the lord of the mansion, ' (レミリア・スカーレット), a vampire who has lived for over 500 years. Remilia reveals she created the dense mist to block the sunlight, allowing her to move freely during the day. Upon her defeat, the mist clears, and Remilia compromises by using a parasol to shield herself from the sun. Extra scenario A few days after the incident, Remilia visits the Hakurei Shrine. However, a harsh rainstorm begins to brew around the mansion, preventing her return. Remilia realizes that Patchouli has cast the storm to prevent Remilia's younger sister, '''''' (フランドール・スカーレット), from escaping. The heroine returns to the mansion and discovers Flandre in the basement. Flandre has been confined there for 495 years due to her emotional instability and her terrifying ability to destroy anything she wishes. Flandre challenges the heroine to a battle; upon her defeat, Reimu promises a future rematch, while Marisa taunts her with quotes from the poem Ten Little Indians. ==Development==

Background in 2016|alt=|thumb After the release of the previous Touhou Project game, Mystic Square in late 1998, ZUN, creator and developer of the series, graduated from university. Mystic Square was intended to be the final Touhou Project installment with ZUN "sealing" his doujin activities – he had originally planned to stop with Lotus Land Story. He would go on to work at Taito as a game developer, and also composed music for various games created by members of Amusement Makers, the publishers of the previous five Touhou Project games, like the Seihou Project. ZUN left Amusement Makers in 2001, but continued to work at Taito until 2007, meaning each Touhou Project game until Mountain of Faith was developed concurrently with ZUN's work at Taito, which include Magic Pengel: The Quest for Color, Bujingai, Graffiti Kingdom and Exit, as well as other games that were ultimately cancelled. ZUN would reenter doujin activities by establishing his own doujin circle, changing his developer team name from "ZUN Soft" to Team Shanghai Alice, although initially the circle was not meant to develop games. ZUN applied to Comiket 61 under the name as a music circle, but was rejected. An announcement was then made on ZUN's blog promoting the game. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil marked the first time ZUN programmed a Windows application from scratch. As ZUN was more familiar with APIs and DirectX and was relatively unfamiliar with the application level, he spent considerable time creating libraries and tools for the game. Some libraries were borrowed from the Seihou Project; Ponchi, a member of the Seihou Project's development team, is thus given a credit as "Program Support". As a result, little time remained to improve the game's presentation, and ZUN resolved to focus on improving the next game. The game engine developed for Embodiment of Scarlet Devil would later be reused for the games Perfect Cherry Blossom and Imperishable Night. In 2013, ZUN stated fragments of code from the game were still being reused in Double Dealing Character. This also allowed the game's plot to be contained within its own narrative – Embodiment of Scarlet Devil does not mention or feature any PC-98 era characters bar Reimu and Marisa. Now regarding his past works as juvenilia, the jump from PC-98 to Windows represented a "clean slate" for both ZUN and the series: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil essentially serves as a soft reboot. ZUN has since remarked how the general theme and direction of the Touhou Project only started to come together during the development of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. Some references are used from other material, mainly from the 1939 Agatha Christie mystery novel And Then There Were None for symbolism and dialogue in the game. ZUN also had interest during development in making a bullet hell game in which the player could switch between two characters easily during gameplay, as he believed there were few games that incorporated such a system. He would ultimately decide against this, believing that having playable characters who had not been previously introduced would be unnatural, and so this system was reserved until Imperishable Night, when he had determined enough characters had been introduced to the series. A demo version containing the first three stages was also distributed online on June 10, 2002. ZUN has stated his intention to re-release Embodiment of Scarlet Devil on Steam, but due to compatibility issues when running the game in full screen on Windows 10 or later, the frame rate does not have a limit, causing the game to move at abnormally high speeds and rendering it unplayable. A similar bug was known to ZUN upon the game's release. Character design and cultural references The game's characters were designed to fit the Western theme while maintaining specific gameplay roles. ZUN designed the Stage 1 boss, Rumia, to be the weakest boss in the game, intending for her "strong-sounding" ability to manipulate darkness to serve as an opening "punchline." While the mid-bosses of Stage 2 and Stage 4 were initially left unnamed in the game, fans nicknamed them Daiyousei (lit. "Great Fairy") and Koakuma (lit. "Little Devil") respectively, names which ZUN later adopted in fan responses and data books. Several characters draw inspiration from other media. The head maid Sakuya Izayoi was heavily inspired by the character Dio Brando from the manga ''JoJo's Bizarre Adventure'', specifically his time-stopping abilities and knife-throwing attacks. Flandre Scarlet's dialogue and her theme song, "U.N. Owen Was Her?", reference the 1939 Agatha Christie mystery novel And Then There Were None. Music The game's soundtrack was originally composed for the Roland SC-88 Pro sound module; ZUN decided to arrange and re-record the soundtrack in WAV format using a Roland Edirol SD-90 he had recently purchased, just before the game was released. As a result, two versions of the soundtrack exist; however the original MIDI files will only play correctly on an SC-88 Pro, meaning the WAV version of the soundtrack is by far the most recognised. and that Remilia Scarlet's theme "Septette for the Dead Princess" and Flandre Scarlet's theme "U.N. Owen Was Her?" were the songs he most thought of as representative of the game. == Reception and legacy ==

102 Upon release at Comiket 62, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil sold considerably better than previous entries in the series. Because of this, initial circulation of the game was limited, later being sold through online CD retailers. In 2013, ZUN stated that Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was the overall best-selling Touhou Project game. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil has become well-known for its music. Cirno's boss theme "Beloved Tomboyish Girl" was later remixed by doujin group IOSYS into "Cirno's Perfect Math Class" in 2008, a song which ridiculed the apparently unintelligent nature of the character, leading to her becoming an Internet meme. Flandre's boss theme "U.N. Owen Was Her?" is notable for creating an Internet meme and spreading the popularity of the series in the West. It has been remarked that the 2008 viral video "Ronald McDonald Insanity" or "McRoll'd" which remixed the song with samples of Ronald McDonald was the first contact with the Touhou Project for thousands of Western Internet users – the two videos share over 21 million views as of July 2021. It is also known for its use in the rise of the Black MIDI scene, which involve MIDI compositions that contain extremely high numbers of notes. Arrangements of the game's music have appeared in other video games, such as Touhou Luna Nights, Music GunGun!, and Groove Coaster, while Konami released a remix album for Sound Voltex titled Sound Voltex Ultimate Tracks -Touhou Koumakyou Remix-. Beyond music, the game's characters have achieved significant popularity, resulting in commercial collaborations and starring roles in derivative works. Cirno's popularity, bolstered by the "Perfect Math Class" meme, led to a collaboration with McDonald's Japan in 2021 to promote their beef stew pie. A second collaboration followed in 2024, featuring a new music video where the lyrics of "Perfect Math Class" were humorously changed to "Burger Burger." She also appears in the rhythm game Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! and is the protagonist of the fan-made roguelike Mystery Adventure of Cirno! 2. Rumia, despite being the Stage 1 boss, has maintained a dedicated fanbase, resulting in her inclusion as a DLC character in the licensed rhythm game Touhou Spell Bubble and high-end merchandise such as watches produced by fashion brand SuperGroupies. She is also the lead character in several action fan games, including Yoiyami Dreamer and Nage-Rumia. The residents of the Scarlet Devil Mansion—Remilia, Sakuya, Patchouli, and Flandre—appear frequently in secondary games, such as the 3D action RPG Touhou Koukishin: Adventures of Scarlet Curiosity and the RPG Horafukiyama no Marisa, where the four characters serve as commentators on the player's actions. Unofficial anime have also been made for the game. by the circle Manpuku Jinja adapted the plot of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil to anime form, while characters from the game also appear in . == See also ==