Touhou Gensoukyou ~ Lotus Land Story (東方幻想郷 ～ Lotus Land Story) is the 4th game in the series, released for PC-98 in the summer of 1998 for the 54th Comiket. Despite most of the current Touhou lore considering most of the PC-98 era games not as deeply linked with the series' canon in Windows games, this is the first game to make an official mention of the Gensokyo (lit. 'Fantasy Land') as part of its title, although it would earn its meaning as the name of Touhou games' world only with the not-PC-98 releases.In this game, a large group of youkai have begun to lay waste at the Hakurei Shrine, and it's up to recurrent shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei to repel the attack and discover its source. The powerful broom-riding magician Marisa Kirisame is also after this source of youkai in a separate route than Reimu's, both of which will ultimately lead to a lake behind the mountains that acts as a teleport to the Mugenkan (夢幻館), a manor from where the powerful youkai Yuuka Kazami (風見幽香) is sending her troops to the Hakurei Shrine.
Being the second game in the series with multiple characters, Lotus Land Story lets the player choose between Reimu's weaker attacks that cover a larger area and Marisa's power-heavy attacks which aren't as wide-spread. Both characters can also throw character-linked versions of bombs (which from this game can also collect items), as well as move slower in the vertical playing field by holding the Shift key on the keyboard. This title also saw some significative additions to the scoring system, which count a non-trivial scoring multiplier that is increased by collecting the so-called 'dream items' and bonus point progression for eliminating the enemies' bullets. According to ZUN, the game ultimately sold between 2k-3k copies overall.
With the current music representation from this game's arranges being short on the rhythm gaming side, Lotus Land Story's Bad Apple!! has been the base for one of the series' most popular remixes, as well as one of the two original Touhou debut songs in Taiko gaming. Shortly behind said arrangement is an event-winner track that has only being made available to play during one of the first Hakurei Shrine Reitasai editions with Taiko no Tatsujin gaming's appearance.
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 -Lotus Land Story songs- | ||
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