Touhou - Highly Responsive to Prayers (PC-98)

The first game in the series was released on August 15, 1997, at Comiket 52. ZUN began development in 1995 and first showcased the game in November 1996 at the 20th Hatoyama Matsuri, the annual fair held at the Hatoyama campus of Tokyo Denki University. It features the first appearance of series protagonist Reimu Hakurei, the miko of Hakurei Shrine (博麗神社 Hakurei Jinja). After the destruction of the shrine, she charges through a gateway to another world, intent on locating and punishing those responsible. It features gameplay similar to Arkanoid and differs from the vertically-scrolling format of later games. Players direct a Yin-Yang Orb (陰陽玉 Onmyō-gyoku) by side-kicking, swinging Reimu's purification rod (御幣 gohei), and firing amulets (御札 ofuda), with the goal of using it to overturn all the cards in a level. If the player runs out of time, bullets rain down from the top of the screen until the player either completes the level or dies. There are 20 stages, with every fifth stage being a battle where the player must use the orb to deal damage to a boss. After completing Stage 5, the player is given a choice between two routes, Makai (魔界, lit. "Demon World") and Hell (地獄 jigoku), with each featuring distinct stages, bosses, and endings. It introduces the last-resort "Bomb" system, present in some form in all subsequent games, as well as the four levels of difficulty that would become hallmarks of the series: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Lunatic. According to ZUN, 30 copies of the game were sold.