Updated version of the guide I made... two years ago? to show the unlock requirements for the various endings & extra stuff in the mainline Touhou games.
I also added a column for the number of extra lives the player can start with (for the games that have that feature), how many continues one can use to get the good end in each game, extra information about the game and it's unlock requirements, and a list of playable characters (plus some extra notes).
Like I said in the last post, Imperishable Night and Perfect Cherry Blossom are still the best games for beginners, as both are usually seen as the easiest games in the series, and each have many characters that show up frequently in other games. Similarly, Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom, Undefined Fantastic Object, and Subterranean Animism should be avoided as a starting point if you've never played touhou, and/or if you aren't very good at danmaku games. Also I would not recommend Embodiment of Scarlet Devil as a starting point either, as it's rather janky and relatively difficult compared to games from the same era.
Fossilized Wonders, the newest Touhou Game, seems to be rather difficult? The game only came out yesterday (as of me making this post), but it seems many agree that it's a difficult game (though the game is rather generous with life and bomb fragments). (Might edit this later as I and others play through it some more.)
Like the diagram says, games prior to Mountain of Faith allow you to select the amount of starting lives, though you get a penalty towards your total score if you do.
Like I said in the previous post, The PC-98 games (Touhou 1-5) are for the PC-98 series of computers, and as such require an emulator to be played on modern computers. The early windows games (Touhou 6-9, though mostly Touhou 6: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil) may have some trouble running properly on modern computers.
Three of the games listed here (Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, Phantasmagoria of Flower View, and Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost) are split-screen versus games, and play differently compared to other games in the series.
Most spinoff titles, such as the fighting games, generally lack penalties for using continues, or don't really have endings/are built around infinite retries in the stages (the photo games, etc.).
Also like I said last time, the best manga/print work to start with is Forbidden Scrollery, however, all of the print works, aside from the hifuu cds and Dolls in Pseudo Paradise, require at least some knowledge of the setting and characters.
Lastly, all Touhou Games, aside from the five PC-98 games, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Perfect Cherry Blossom, Imperishable Night, and most of the fighting game spinoffs apart from Antimony of Common Flowers, can be purchased on Steam.
