If you wanted a more somber Touhou Project experience without going full-scale Darker and Edgier, this might be what you want.
A brainstorm by Skyknight, Gensokyo Senshi is a planned (or rather, imagined) series of games that takes some traits from the obscure Data East game Makyou Senshi (hence the name). In terms of plot, the series was inspired by one of the Touhou databooks mentioning that one of the reasons Yukari tacitly approves of spellcard duels is that it keeps Gensokyo's denizens sharp in case particularly powerful youkai want to try and conquer the place.
Well, that's now happening. Except rather than youkai, it's the nastier members of the Ars Goetia who've set their sights on Gensokyo.
Traits include the following:
- There are actual ground-based enemies now—and some of them act like the "
sniper tanks" from Toaplan and Seibu Kaihatsu games. Thankfully, for when you want to head upscreen to catch non-crystal bonuses at once, the sniper constructs are almost all mid/low-screen. - Defeated enemies drop stationary crystals with a number value. These can be collected to be able to "buy" Option Weapons found lying around in the stages, much like Makyou Senshi itself. Option Weapons have a limited stock; when depleted, the previous Option Weapon becomes available.
- Each player-character comes with an "option character". She's invulnerable, but can only use the Option Weapons (while you can only use your standard shot setup). An option character can be "locked" to face in any of eight directions, and will fire the most recent Option Weapon in that direction.
- Bullet patterns are not quite as danmaku-oriented, since that gets in the way of picking up Option Weapons. They're somewhere between standard danmaku and manic shooters like Raiden and Air Gallet.
- The main games' stage count isn't six; it's eight. And yes, there's a bonus stage like the main Touhou games.
- Adventure Duo: What you play as. Four are available in the first game—Reimu/Cirno, Marisa/Alice (although Alice is using Shanghai Core for a proxy), Sanae/Suwako, and Remilia/Sakuya. The second game gives Reimu Suika for a partner instead, with Cirno going to Halphas, and placing two more new dyads in the form of Yuugi/Yamame and Kaguya/Reisen.
- Arms Dealer: Eligos.
- Background Boss: A variant exists with Ipos. Shortly after the second game's sixth stage begins, a shadowy winged figure will fly into the dark background, then reveal a swathe of eyes on his wings. The eyes will then emit beams that blast into the foreground with only a landing reticule to warn you, and sometimes move the beams around in a further attempt to blast you. Ipos will be trying to fry you constantly throughout the stage until you reach the end, where he'll fly into the foreground for a proper boss battle.
- Batman Gambit: Although Raum kidnapping Patchouli was a goal, it was priority B for her, Andras, and Dantalion's incursion. Priority A was taking control of Flandre for Valefor. Catching Patchouli first was simply a way to get Remilia and Sakuya out of the way long enough for Dantalion to infiltrate the SDM.
- Battleship Raid: The seventh stage of the first game.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: The reason why Bune decided to guide Solomon's reincarnations. Solomon was uncertain about whether he actually needed to be bound—he only did so at Dantalion's insistence—and so treated him with far more respect than most of the other Goetics. It was actually the first time Bune had been treated anything resembling nicely by a mortal.
- Berserk Button: Thieves for Andromalius. Which, of course, means he and Marisa get off on the wrong foot immediately.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Belial and Asmoday.
- Boss Subtitles: The first game:
- Doom of All Thieves, Andromalius
- High Captain of the Mezuki, Orobas
- The Siegemaster, Halphas
- Gozuki Alchemist, Haagenti
- The Strifebringer, Andras
- The Ruinous Saint, Raum
- Infinite Face, Dantalion
- Possessed Vampire, Flandre Scarlet
- Crazy-Prepared: Buer carries samples of practically every plant oil in existence to coat his arrows, which are made of almost every gemstone in existence, and he knows the magic effects of every combination. This is how he's able to flatten Yorihime—his first salvos, with their shattering arrows, were to create a field of gem/oil mist hopelessly repugnant to any kami she tried to summon.
- Dark Is Not Evil: As a general rule, if you face a Goetic demon in the first half of the game or the bonus stage, you're probably facing one of the good-aligned demons. Late-game demons aren't necessarily evil in turn, though; just look at Buer, who's the seventh boss of the second game.
- Defector from Decadence: Ronove is effectively in political asylum in Gensokyo, being unwilling to stay in Cartagra while Belial, Vine, and Asmoday have the lion's share of influence.
- In the backstory, Vassago, Seere, Dantalion, and Andromalius were also this in their bid to help Solomon bind the demons overrunning Mesopotamia. The only problem being that Dantalion was only pretending to be a defector.
- Demonic Invaders
- Distressed Damsel: Patchouli in the first game, animating eight of her friends/frenemies to save her. Just as Raum and Dantalion hoped.
- Dragon with an Agenda: In the third game, Eligos thinks selling Cartagran weaponry to the hags is just business as usual on his part. However, the stinger reveals that his assistant Crocell, on Asmoday's behalf, and Jenny Greenteeth are plotting a joint operation to invade Gensokyo.
- Everyone Has Standards: Even Marisa isn't sure she wants to steal any powers from Raum (too vile) or Ipos (too much risk of going as Ax-Crazy as him).
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: The heroines are pretty unsettled with all the eyes studding Andras's wings. It gets repeated in the second game with Valac and Ipos.
- Fallen Angel: All of the Goetic spirits were originally servants of the various Mesopotamian gods until Asmoday and Beleth incited them with various pretexts to rebel. They've been exiled ever since.
- Gender Flip: The grimoires describing the Goetic spirits made them all male. Many of them (so far: Halphas, Raum, Seere, Valac, Marchosias, Valefor, Ronove, Leraie, Vassago) get this reversed in the games.
- Genre Shift: Somewhat. While the first game is a standard vertical scroller, the second game is a horizontal scroller.
- A God Am I: Valefor regards herself as the God of Vampires—pretty justifiable, since she's the one who invented Romanian-style vampirism. Remilia, however, wants nothing to do with her.
- Good Is Not Soft: Andromalius and Halphas have their own fashion of keeping the youkai's anthropophagy manageable—They drag particularly vile people who are consistently escaping human justice into Gensokyo, and place mystic marks on them so hungry youkai can find them swiftly. Yukari knows, and approves—that much less work for the chefs to do.
- Half-Identical Twins: Agares and Vassago. They also happen to hate each other, being on opposite sides of the good/evil divide (Vassago's the good one).
- He Knows Too Much: Agares traps Ipos in a dimensional prison after the second game lest he discover and reveal to Cartagra that Dantalion conspired with Agares and Belial to set up the current regime with Solomon's unwitting help.
- The Heavy: Dantalion isn't just the main factor behind the formation of Cartagra's current political structure. He's also involved in just about everything the heroines get involved in in the series. Valefor manipulating Buer into invading the Moon? Dantalion helped work out the best timing, and was the one who suggested Ipos be involved as an extra chance to "resolve" Solomon's incarnation. Eligos selling Cartagran technology to the English hags? Crocell was the one who suggested it, and he actually works closely with Asmoday and Dantalion.
- Irony: One thing Seere didn't count on for whether Halphas would be a good pick for the ambassador to Gensokyo—most activities there involve alcohol consumption. Which leaves Halphas out a lot, on account of her being alcohol-intolerant.
- Large and in Charge: Even if Valefor is effectively manipulating the invasion for her own purposes, Buer definitely counts— A twenty-feet tall lion-taur with two extra legs.
- My Country, Right or Wrong: Vine's only concern is the well-being of Cartagra. Which made it very easy for him to fall under Belial's spell.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Valac and Buer are not happy with themselves for being manipulated into a possibly unnecessary invasion of the Moon by Valefor.
- Andromalius, Vassago, and Seere are also likely to go through this, once they realize that Dantalion, Agares, and Belial duped them and Solomon into assembling the Monarchia Daemonum in the first place.
- My Rules Are Not Your Rules: One thing that becomes abundantly clear when the heroines face Andras is that the evil Cartagrans aren't even trying to abide by spellcard rules. For starters, they're using live attacks (as the luckless Meiling could easily attest, having been left bleeding to near-death by Raum). The good and neutral Cartagrans, meanwhile, have no problem using spellcard rules when facing off against Gensokyo denizens.
- The Paranoiac: Halphas's feelings of guilt over her role in the original rebellions have spiraled to the point that they've resulted in her suffering insular paranoia. It's very difficult to get her involved in something without Andromalius, Orobas and/or Haagenti, all of whom she still trusts strongly, also being involved. Unusually for the trope, Halphas thinks all the conspiracies she sees against her are justified in their motive—her only qualm is that she thinks everyone wants to over-punish her. As a result, she doesn't hate her imagined oppressors, she's just terrified of them. Seere's idea of a cure is to make her Cartagra's ambassador to Gensokyo—one of the few places in existence where she can be confident barely anyone could possibly hold a grudge against her.
- People Puppets: The eighth boss in the first game is Flandre after Dantalion takes control of her body. Thankfully, Flandre's putting up enough resistance to keep him from using her eyebreak powers. All her other powers, on the other hand...
- Plaguemaster: Marbas. Yamame despises him for his role in the corruption of the majority of the tsuchigumo pre-Gensokyo.
- Reincarnation: Solomon's current incarnation is Sanae. Murmur, Bifrons, and Bune are responsible for this; they've been adjusting how and where Solomon incarnates in a fashion expressly meant to keep Ipos from finding him. They weren't expecting Leraie to identify Sanae, though.
- Revenge Before Reason: Revenge on Solomon is pretty much Ipos's sole priority, and the only reason he joined Buer in the attack on the Moon. Ipos knows Solomon's current incarnation isn't there, but Valefor assured him that the reincarnation in question would be convinced to pop up in response.
- Secret Identity: Other than the SDM crew and Yukari's retinue, Gensokyo doesn't know that Ronove's taking refuge amongst them. The only way they could possibly know her, after all, is as Koakuma...
- Soapbox Sadie: Valac. Even Buer—who wants to overthrow Tsukuyomi because he considers the Lunarians' retreat from Earth as them being willfully derelict in their divine duties to mortals—thinks she can overdo it at times.
- Sword Beam: Andras's sword doubles as a lightning blaster. Orobas, meanwhile, uses a Halberd Beam.
- Tank Goodness: Andras alternately fights within and in tandem with a large wolf-motif tank.
- The Unfought: Leraie, Belial, Asmoday, and Vine...thus far, anyway.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Dantalion. During the fight with him, he transforms into each option character in turn to use modified versions of their danmaku.
- Weaponized Exhaust: The sky carrier in the first game's seventh stage will sometimes use its side thrusters like this. You get a warning for the first time it does this, but not afterwards.
- Willfully Weak: Orobas is only using enough strength to make sure that the heroines have a chance at surviving what he knows Raum and Andras brought to Gensokyo with them. His full power is shown at first sighting, when he obliterates about a hundred constructs with one blast from his halberd.
- Valac, boss of stage one in the second game is clearly holding back. The decisive proof? She re-appears as the stage seven mid-boss.
- Xanatos Gambit: Even if Buer's invasion is thwarted, Valefor made sure she got what she really wanted outside of the Moon falling under Cartagran rule—preparing gates to allow for easier travel between Cartagra, Earth, and the pocket dimensions. Only Agares and Marbas knew the invasion was mostly to buy her time to actually create the gates.
