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I found a pretty neat connection in one of the most unexpected places, in the PCSX2 Emulator for PS2. In this emulator, you can choose what theme to use (with a few built-in themes). What's the name for the red theme? Scarlet Devil. Am I overthinking this?

Moving on from Imperishable Night, the next game on the list, Phantasmagoria of Flower View, is a bit of a weird one, in that I love almost everything about it except having to actually play it. Like Touhou 3, Phantasmagoria of Dimensional Dream, PoFV takes on a 1-vs-1 gameplay format, with player 1 on the left side of the screen, and player 2 on the right, with the goal being to simply last longer than your opponent. By pressing Z, you can fire an uncharged shot, but by holding it, you can charge your shot by up to 4 levels. A level 1 charged shot is simply either a wider spread or more concentrated fire depending on the character, levels 2 and 3 clear out all bullets near the user and send a few extra bullets over to the opponent's side (the specific pattern is character-dependant), and a level 4 charged shot clears out all bullets on your side of the screen and sends a clone of the user over to the opponent's side, forcing them to engage in a boss battle against them. This boss battle event also sometimes just triggers by itself, though, and I haven't quite figured out what causes this. By default, you only have access to a level 1 charged shot, but by defeating enemies, a gauge that's split up into 4 bars fills up at the bottom of the screen; level 2 shots consume 2 bars of the gauge, level 3 takes 3, and level 4 takes 4. Level 1 charged shots don't cost anything to use, though. Now, I've never played the multiplayer for this game, which to its credit actually sounds like a fun time, but the singleplayer gameplay is, to be honest, quite bad. The main issue is that, while you can use charged shots to interfere with your opponent, there's no 100% guaranteed way to actually hit them, and you have no way of setting up any kind of aiming, so you have to be completely reliant on the AI making a mistake in order to be able to proceed. This means that, in practice, you're not actually fighting an AI-controlled character as much as you are surviving an inconsistent, poorly-organized mess of bullets until an invisible, randomly-decided time limit ends, which leads to PoFV quickly starting to feel like nothing more than a less fun version of normal Touhou. I can see what the aim was for this game, but the execution on a gameplay level just isn't there in the singleplayer. One aspect of this game I absolutely love, on the other hand, is the characterization. This game features 14 playable characters, the highest number in any Touhou game at the time until Scarlet Weather Rhapsody's 15 and still the highest number in any mainline game to this day (until Touhou 19 releases, anyway), and while I haven't played as all of them, from what I've seen, their characterization is excellent, even if there are some quite frankly bizarre inclusions here (why is Mystia in this game). For newcomers, we have Aya, Medicine, Komachi and Eiki, and aside from Medicine, I really like all of them, Aya and Komachi especially being some of my favorite characters in the series. Yuuka also returns from the PC-98 games, although this time she's much less one-dimensionally evil than her PC-98 counterpart. Don't interpret this as meaning I don't like PC-98 Yuuka, mind you, she is very much the fun kind of one-dimensional evil and I like her a lot, but I think this is an interesting progression for her character. Here, she's much calmer than before, seeking to just mess around with the other characters a little as opposed to beating them half to death, and is generally someone it's possible to get along with... until you damage her sunflower field, that is, in which case her violent side from before will come back in full force. My personal theory about this Yuuka is that in between the PC-98 games and this one, she decided to grow the sunflower field herself as a means to help herself calm down and become a bit less neurotic, which allows her to have semi-normal interactions with people usually, but also results in her becoming instantly enraged the moment anyone dares try to damage it. Returning characters are all written really well here too. Cirno in particular is finally able to grow from the disappointing non-character she was in EoSD to the lovable "strongest" idiot ice fairy most people are familiar with today, and while not everyone gets the same level of added characterization as her, they all feel like characters in their own right, and as someone who finds the large, varied cast of characters to be one of the main appeals of this series, it's really nice getting to see so many of them get a chance to just do stuff and be themselves in this game. I glossed over the newcomers earlier, but they're mostly all great too. Medicine is just eh for me, but even she actually has a defined character with personality traits to point to; she's not boring because she's not a character, she's boring because she isn't one that appeals to me, and unlike every other time I've called someone boring in one of these posts, I could actually see someone disagreeing with me on her. Aya, on the other hand, is my favorite character in the series, and feels almost like she was made to appeal to me specifically. I always love characters whose whole thing is being able to go really fast, so I was going to like her regardless, but even putting that aside, she's just a genuinely fun character to watch, being 100% neutral in basically every conflict and motivated exclusively by what would be the best story for her newspaper, leading to various moments of her just being a general annoyance for the other cast in the best way possible. Eiki and Komachi are also great, and I enjoy their dynamic a lot. Eiki is the Yama, the one responsible for judging people who've died and deciding if they get to go to Heaven or Hell, and as a result, has a tendency of intensely lecturing the living about the morality of their actions. She often comes across as an annoyance who never shuts up to anyone who encounters her, but at her core, she's a genuinely good person who just doesn't want to be forced to send those around her to Hell; she's a character who's easily and undebateably a "good person" who's motivated purely by helping others, but is still flawed not just in spite of that but as a direct result of it, which is a surprisingly rare and interesting thing to see. Komachi, on the other hand, kind of just doesn't want to work. She's this series' "not-Charon" character who ferries the souls of the recently deceased over to Hell, but has a tendency to slack off, leading to her being consistently berated by Eiki. Aside from just being a generally entertaining character, she's also the first penultimate boss character in the Windows series who distinctly doesn't fit into the trope of the dedicated servant to the final boss. Her loyalty isn't to Eiki as an individual, it's to the Yama and her job as a Shinigami, and even that loyalty is questionable; if Eiki was somehow overthrown and her position was taken by someone else, Komachi probably wouldn't go that out of her way to help Eiki and would likely just continue as she had before, something which can't be said of Sakuya, Youmu or Reisen. I don't inherently dislike any of those characters, mind you, it's just nice to have some variety. It might seem strange that I've just written 3 paragraphs about just the characters, but they're a large part of what I like about this game, so I felt it was deserved. Anyway, onto the actual story. Basically, some kind of unspecified event has happened in the outside world, causing dead souls to flood into Gensokyo at an unprecedented rate; this incident also happens to coincide with Komachi not really feeling like working on that particular day, so the souls end up possessing various flowers around Gensokyo, causing an unusually large amount of them to bloom, something which whoever the player chooses to play as immediately goes out to investigate. After a bit of running around, they run into Komachi, beat her up for being lazy, and then are confronted by Eiki. There's a quick battle with her, and then the game ends, and you get to see your character's ending, which focuses on a different aspect of the story depending on who you choose. It's fairly simple, and I don't have much to say about it, but it works, and it doesn't have any obvious flaws, so I like it. It's really here more to give an excuse for gameplay and character interaction than anything, and that's something it does a good job at. I will say that I really like the character endings, though, the ones I've seen (Cirno/Reisen/Aya/Komachi/Yuuka) are all great. Lastly, the soundtrack; unlike the last two games, I really don't have a whole lot to say about this one, it's just a generally pretty good soundtrack. It is mostly remixes, which is understandable, but the handful of new songs added to the game are all really good, and have a very particular feel to them which I quite enjoy, even if there are none which stand out enough to me for me to mention them individually. Also, while I'm here, I'd like to mention before ending this post that I actually really like this game's art style. Most ZUN art is pretty hit or miss for me, and I generally prefer the newer stuff, so it's surprising to me that I like the way the character art looks for this game as much as I do. It's not perfect, mind you, I loathe Reisen's portrait in particular here (although that could be partially down to the fact this game is responsible for getting rid of her cool black coat), but most of it is really nice, I like it. So, that's PoFV! This one is a bit weird, and my thoughts on it are a bit mixed, but in spite of the fact I don't enjoy playing it, I actually quite like it for what it does with the various characters of the series, and for the fact that it introduces two of my favorites in Aya and Komachi. Overall, very strange game, but a good one nonetheless, I approve.

IMPERISHABLE NIGHT IS SO PEAK AAAAAAA- Ok, calming down for a moment, I really like this game. I'm not sure if I'd call it my favorite game in the series, but it's by far my favorite of the early Windows games. Apparently, ZUN's plan was to end the series here, and given that this feels like a culmination of everything Windows Touhou has been up until this point, it's easy to see why he would choose this as an ending point. The game features 8 playable characters, split up into 4 teams of 2, and follows whichever team the player selects on a mission to find out what's going on with that strange fake moon in the sky; the playable teams are Reimu/Yukari, Marisa/Alice, Sakuya/Remilia, and Youmu/Yuyuko. But, how does it play? Well, that's kind of a hard question to answer, as this game features various bizarre gimmicks which it never makes any attempt to explain, but which only impact your score and nothing else, and as a result, can largely be ignored. I didn't actually understand how these gimmicks worked until I did some research for this post and was fully able to enjoy the game without them, and I can't imagine my newfound knowledge having any impact on future playthroughs, so I'm just going to speed through them. Time orbs! These are a thing you collect by doing Things™, and if you get enough, time doesn't advance as much once you clear a stage (the less time has advanced by the end of the game, the more you score). There's also a human/youkai gauge in the bottom left, which is influenced by a thing I'll go over later, and if it's below -80% or above 80%, collecting time orbs becomes easier. Additionally, if you collect enough time orbs by the end of a stage, the boss will activate their Last Word, an extra-powerful spellcard which you get one chance to dodge, and can't use bombs during. If you get hit, you don't lose any lives, and the Last Word simply ends and you move onto the next stage. These are kind of cool, admittedly. Beyond that, there is one new feature to this game which actually does impact the way you'll play it, and that's the team system. As mentioned earlier, you're technically playing as a team of two characters, and this manifests as your human character (Reimu/Marisa/Sakuya/Youmu) being used while you're unfocused, and switching out to the youkai character (Yukari/Alice/Remilia/Yuyuko) once you start holding the focus button. In the moment, this doesn't feel that different from how focused/unfocused shot types usually work, but depending on which character you're using, the gauge at the bottom left from earlier will move more towards either the human or youkai side, and the attention to detail with how each shot type corresponds to the character's personality is particularly nice. Reimu's homing shot fits her nicely as a no-nonsense youkai exterminator, while Yukari mostly just sits back and has Ran do all the work for her, and Marisa's (relatively) wide angle, lagging secondary shots and fast movement encourages the player to move as fast as possible and blow up everything in sight, a playstyle which suits her nicely and contrasts Alice's much more controlled, forward-facing laser shot. Additionally, Youmu's admittedly poor area coverage is balanced by her having potentially the most damaging shot type in the game, allowing her to easily cut through everything in front of her, while Yuyuko's beautiful yet dangerous all the same wide spread shot covers almost the entire screen, delivering an indiscriminate death to all of her enemies. I can't quite work out what Sakuya or Remilia's shot types have to do with their characters, though, those two are kind of the exception here. Your bombs will also be different depending on which character you're currently using, although with the exception of Youmu's straight slash being very effective during boss fights but largely not worth using anywhere else, this doesn't impact how you play the game too much. This game is also by far the hardest of the early Windows games, making it the first of many I'll be forced to admit that I've never been able to 1cc on normal, but it's also notable for being particularly creative with its bullet patterns at times. For one, there are now these strange glowy things I can't seem to find a name for anywhere which disappear when you switch to the youkai character but shoot bullets and can be destroyed by the human character, adding an extra layer of depth to many bosses' spellcards, as you need to decide between going straight for the boss but having to survive a much harder attack, or targeting the glowy things and lengthening the amount of time you spend on the spellcard but making it easier to survive. The balance between which of these options is better or worse varies between spellcards, too, ensuring that you consistently need to weigh up the options each time. Additionally, individual bosses also get quite creative here, in particular Mystia, who can darken the screen and make you unable to see far-away bullets, and Reisen, who does something very strange which I'm not quite sure how to describe but which is nonetheless really cool and makes her one of my favorite bosses to fight in the series. Other bosses in the game also vary the types of attacks they use greatly, ensuring a sense of variety between fights, and this type of creativity isn't 100% unique to Imperishable Night, but I felt it was worth calling attention to nonetheless. Additionally, this game's character writing is also excellent. Reimu being very tired but begrudgingly having to put up with Yukari's Yukari-ing anyway, Remilia being basically a child who's just here because she felt like it and Sakuya having to spend the whole game babysitting her while still sincerely caring about her, and Yuyuko just being consistently very very strange, much to Youmu's confusion, are all great dynamics, but my favorite pair by far here is Marisa and Alice. I love their dynamic of Marisa wanting to just go full unga bunga mode and blow up everything in front of her and Alice trying to be the responsible one and actually proceed with some amount of logic, while at the end of the day, they're still both friends who care about each other a lot, it's great. They're also the only pair in the game where both characters are on roughly equal standing with each other, which also gives their interactions a unique feel when compared to the rest of the game's cast, the others being teams of master/servant, master/servant, and whatever Reimu and Yukari's relationship is. That's not to say any of the other pairs aren't great too, though, I love all of them. The interactions with either Reimu or Marisa in stage 4 are also great, although I kind of wish there had been alternate Sakuya or Youmu fights during that stage for the other two teams, even if I understand why that wasn't done. Speaking of which, that whole fight is really great, it reminds me a lot of the Reimu/Marisa fight in LLS, only way cooler because of the banger chase sequence that happens halfway through. The new characters are a bit more of a mixed bag for me, though. I quite like Keine and especially Kaguya, and Tewi is just a mid-stage boss with no actual dialogue here, but I like her later PoFV characterization, but beyond that, I don't have any characters here I'm all that fond of. Wriggle is just annoying, Mystia is barely a character, and Reisen here is just the same "stage 5 boss who's a dedicated servant to the stage 6 boss" trope we got in the last two games, without anything to really distinguish her from Sakuya or Youmu. I'm not super familiar with her characterization in other media, so maybe she's more interesting elsewhere, but she seems to be a very popular character, and I can't for the life of me understand why. The black coat thingy she has here does look really cool, though, I wish ZUN would let her wear it again. Eirin is also kind of just a whatever character for me, although I do really like the moment at the beginning of Final A where she explains exactly how she's successfully trapped the main characters, that was cool. Overall, this game's cast doesn't do nearly as much for me as PCB's, and while they are "better" than EoSD's in the sense that they actually have some amount of personality in their dialogue, EoSD still has a lot of characters like Cirno, Meiling or Remilia who would go on to be much more well-written than their first appearances, and who are more likeable to me than anyone introduced in Imperishable Night (ignoring Kaguya). Actually, while re-reading this, I'm noticing that I somehow managed to forget that Mokou, one of my favorite characters in the series, was introduced in this game, so I'm just going to add this little bit at the end to say that Mokou is great and I love her, 10/10 character. Lastly, I want to talk about the soundtrack. As you can generally expect from this series, the soundtrack is fantastic, and while there isn't any one song that jumps out at me as exceptionally outstanding like Border of Life did in Perfect Cherry Blossom, there's still a lot here to love, and the entire soundtrack has this really distinct vibe to it which I can't quite describe, but which sounds unlike anything else in the entire series. For specific examples, Illusionary Night immediately does a great job of establishing this game's whole feel and tone right out of the gate, and Deaf to All but the Song is this game's resident "goes far too hard for how early in the game it plays", and while I don't have a lot to say about Plain Asia, it's another one I really like. Maiden's Capriccio and Love-Colored Master Spark are also both great at selling that feeling of a battle between old rivals, and Cinderella Cage fits the feeling of finally having reached the source of the incident perfectly. Lunatic Eyes ~ Invisible Full Moon, on the other hand, isn't one I'd ever go out of my way to listen to, and to be honest I'm not a huge fan of it by itself, but I will admit that it works really well as a battle theme for Reisen, having a waving, uncertain quality to it, as if you can't quite understand what it is you're even fighting. Also... Voyage 1969. I really love Voyage 1969. I'm not sure how to describe why exactly, I just like it a lot. Overall, Imperishable Night is a great game, one of my favorites in the series, and while it does have things I don't really like all that much, like the bizarre time orb system or the 50/50 new characters, it definitely delivers on being a fun, engaging bullet hell with varied boss patterns, a banger soundtrack, and a wide variety of great returning characters, which is really what I, and I'd imagine most of you, are fans of this series in the first place for. This game, to me, more than possibly anything else in the series, embodies what Touhou is, and that's why I love it so much.