Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (Drillimation)

Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, known in Japan as Touhou Koumakyou (東方紅魔郷) and the Super Nintendo as Touhou 6: The Embodiment of the Scarlet Curse, and often referred to as Touhou VI or EoSD, is a 1992 maniac shooter game developed by the newly-founded Team Shanghai Alice branch at Drillimation Studios and published by Namco. The game was released in the arcades in June 1992 followed by a home console port for the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and home computers in Japan on July 10, 1992, and the rest of the world on August 11, 1992. Nintendo also released a port for the Game Boy Advance as part of the Touhou Advance series.

It is also the first game in the Touhou Series to use the Driller Engine 2 engine and the first in the current canon from the Driller Engine 2 Era. The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil also depicts Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame in their brand new outfits as seen from the extra ending in Touhou 5: Mystic Square and the 1990 short film Touhou 5.5: Mima's Great Defeat.

Blurb
"Welcome back to bullet haven!"

- Official attention grabber

A red mist from a mansion on an island in a lake is being emitted and spreading all over Gensoukyou, blinding you and the sun, making the summer gloomy and chilly! In the eastern land of the scarlet demonoid, you take on the roles of Reimu Hakurei, the shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine or Marisa Kirisame, the magician and friend of Reimu. If you haven't seen them yet, it's been four long years and before that time, both Reimu and Marisa have undergone a complete makeover. When you finally meet both Remilia and Flandre Scarlet, you'll be in the fiercest battle ever yet. They're young in sight, and your place in history is 1692, four years after the previous adventure. Don't wait until Flandre, because she has been sealed for nearly five centuries.

Gameplay
Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, or abbreviated as EoSD, features two playable characters to choose from, each having two distinct attack types. Reimu Hakurei covers a wide area of the screen with weaker attacks, whereas Marisa Kirisame relies on her speed and power to make up for her thinner attack spread. The bombs ("Spell Cards") also show different behavior and damage depending on the character and type chosen.

Some important gameplay features that Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil introduces over its predecessor Touhou 5: Mystic Square are automatic item collection, which allows the player to collect all items on screen by moving to the top of the screen at full power; and the counter-bomb system, which allows the player to negate an enemy hit by pressing the bomb button immediately after contact with the enemy projectile. Also, this game is the first Touhou game to feature Touhou's iconic "Spell Card" system. Each Spell Card is a particular bullet pattern and is given a name. A bonus can be earned if the player does not use a bomb or die during any particular pattern.

Plot
The game is set in 1692, roughly four years after the events of Touhou 5: Mystic Square. Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame have cut their hair short and changed outfits permanently to avoid being hit with Yuka's Virus. Everything during that time has seemed peaceful and quiet after the defeat of vengeful youkai Mima. However, on the verge of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, a vampire named Remilia Scarlet is unable to go outside due to the sun shining, and with enough strength, emits a large red mist that covers the sky of Gensoukyou, blocking out the sun and perilously dropping the temperature to start autumn early and prevent the villagers from exiting their homes.

The duo then adventure out to the mansion to defeat Scarlet but are interrupted by battles with Rumia and Cirno. Hong Meiling refuses the two to be admitted inside the mansion, and when they defeat Meiling, Sakuya Izayoi, the head maid of the mansion, is angry over the defeat of Meiling and Patchouli and uses time-stopping spell cards in an attempt to kill the duo. When they finally get to Remilia, the two face off in a dangerous battle that nearly defeats the duo, but manage to escape it. When Remilia is finally defeated, the mist slowly fades away as the duo return home.

Development
Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil began development after the release of Touhou 5: Mystic Square in early 1989 for the Driller Engine 1000 board under the title of Touhou 6: Eastern Scarlet Teahouse (東方紅茶館). The game was in development for three and a half years before being released. After ZUN acquired the Driller Engine 2000 board and development kits, development of the game shifted to the new board.

ZUN's general goal when creating Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was to remove the systems appearing in newer shoot' em ups, which he thought overly complicated the games, and to let the player have fun simply dodging bullets. The original name was a reference to the stage 3 theme. However, engineers at Drillimation Studios felt the name didn't match the game's story, so Hiroshi Takajima, very politely, asked ZUN to change the name to make it match the story.

As the first Driller Engine 2000 game, a new engine was written from scratch using the new programming functions that Driller Engine 2 offered - with help from a few libraries from Amusement Software after it went defunct the previous year due to improper sales management - and ZUN apologizes for the seeming lack of creativity with things like grunt enemies, citing a lack of manpower while concentrating on building up libraries and tools himself. The engine would later be used for the games Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom, Touhou 8: Imperishable Night, and Touhou 9: The Phantasmagoria of Flower View. The engine was also used in the main Drillimation games including Super Lucky Star 4, Star Trigon: The Arcade, Angry Video Game Nerd: The Arcade, and Lucky Star Bloodlines.

The game's data files show the name Satsuki Rin near the other playable characters. Associated with her are the attack types Flower Sign and Wind Sign. These suggest that this girl was planned as a playable character, but got scrapped during development due to time constraints. The unused character exists within the game's files, but can only be accessed through hacking and cheating devices. When asked about it, ZUN didn't remember her.

Differences between the Japanese and International releases

 * The Super Nintendo version of the game is called Touhou 6: The Embodiment of the Scarlet Curse, as Nintendo of America had policies regarding the use of religious referencing. After the ESRB was founded, the game's original title was restored.
 * Several sprites had to be altered for the international release. There were numerous sprites depicting a Star of David, as well as a spell card with the same name. They were changed to the emblem used in Lucky Star to avoid sparking controversy in European countries.
 * Several lines of dialogue had to be censored after being translated:
 * There were a couple of instances of cannibalism within the game's dialogue. The line "I have no problem with you - grabbing them and eating them for dinner" said by Rumia was changed to "I don't have a problem here - we take you and eat dinner with us". The line "Is the person in front of me the edible kind?" said by the same character was also changed to "Do you want to eat any of our treats?" Reimu's line "And who makes food out of humans in your household?" was changed to "And the one who steals people's souls here!"
 * Several religious references were removed as well. Rumia's arms were lowered in the international version as it resembled a crucifix in the Japanese version. Rumia's line "The saint was crucified on the cross" was changed to "The queen was killed by a dark wizard", referencing Lucky Star respectively. Flandre's line "This is the power of those who serve gods!" was changed to "And that's the power of shamen who serve the world!"
 * Marisa's line "If you're alone, does that mean you'll hang yourself?" was changed to "Since you're lonely, how about you go kill yourself?", as the term "hang" was considered offensive in western territories. Subsequent uses of the word in the poem that Flandre recites were also changed.
 * The voiceovers used in the arcade and PC versions of the game are different in the international release.

Marketing
Like with almost all Drillimation games, the game was marketed in North America under a Reverse Kirby Effect. The North American box arts for the arcade and home console ports depict Flandre Scarlet with an evil grin, usually to make it look cool. However, the original revision has Scarlet smiling evilly but was changed with her mouth shut but with a peaceful look to it. This was to avoid scaring off children from trying to buy the game.

Unused Content

 * In the Super Nintendo version of the game, the music room has a Driller Engine 2 rendering of the overworld and invincibility themes from Super Mario Bros.. The invincibility theme is written in three different keys, being C Major, D Flat Major, and D Major.

Reception
The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was met with positive reviews upon release. Critics praised the gameplay and story but was criticized for Reimu and Marisa's new appearances as well as the voice acting in the arcade and PC versions. GamePro stated that "Touhou 6 is great with the soundtrack but the voice acting sounds cheesy and feel like little kids voiced them. It wasn't until the Driller Engine 4 Era where they finally got it right." The SNES and Genesis versions did not have the voice acting, primarily due to system limitations and the fact parents thought voiced video game characters would be "lame". EoSD was also met with criticism for the arcade version's controls, with Nintendo Power stating "It's a lot better with a d-pad, rather than the arcade joystick".

Many characters that debuted in The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, including Cirno, Hong Meiling, Patchouli Knowledge, Sakuya Izayoi, as well as the Scarlet sisters of Remilia Scarlet and Flandre Scarlet, became very popular among American players. The songs Septette for the Dead Queen and U. N. Owen Was Her!?, as well as the stage 3 songs Shanghai Teahouse ~ Chinese Tea and Shanghai Alice of Meiji 17 were recognizable by 84% of all gamers, as well as 91% of all non-gamers. The recognitions of these songs caused the game to become ultra successful, selling more than 10 million copies worldwide. In an interview with Time Magazine, Susumu Takajima made the following comments:


 * Touhou 6 was the first Touhou game in the Driller Engine 2 Era in the early 1990s. Many kids told us that Touhou 6, besides Touhou 7, was the first Touhou game they played in their entire life. The song in-game, called U. N. Owen Was Her!? was very popular and was one of the songs that introduced a lot of teenagers into tracker music. Almost all music in Touhou Project is tracker-based, and there are thousands of remixes on the internet. It was because ZUN created something he loved and put it out to Drillimation Studios.

Behind the Scenes

 * There is an easily known mistake on the logo in the International version of the game, with the first "T" in the romaji name being bolded, while the rest is unbolded. The romaji is not bolded for the in-game logo, however.