Touhou Koumakyou: New Classic Remake Announced, Releasing September 10
The remake marks the first time a Touhou Project game has been officially rebuilt and released on consoles, solving a long-standing compatibility problem that had made the original unplayable on current hardware.
Reporting from 4 sources: GAME Watch (Impress), Automaton, Inside, Game Spark.
Shanghai Alice Reprise, a new circle formed by ZUN and AQUA STYLE representative JYUNYA, announced Touhou Koumakyou: New Classic during a Nintendo Direct broadcast on June 9. The bullet hell shooter is the first official remake of the 2002 Touhou Project entry Touhou Koumakyou. It launches September 10 on PC via Steam, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2. The standard edition costs 1,990 yen, and a deluxe edition with a digital soundtrack costs 2,966 yen. The remake upgrades the original to 1080p resolution with fully rearranged BGM by ZUN. It includes a Classic Mode that reproduces the 2002 game as faithfully as possible, plus a new mode with infinite lives and a Challenge Mode that tracks hits taken. New features include a player hitbox display and a boss position marker at the bottom of the screen. The original Touhou Koumakyou had become unplayable on modern Windows due to frame rate issues. A programmer from AQUA STYLE independently created a Switch-compatible version, which ZUN saw and called amazing, leading to the full remake project.
The remake project began when a programmer from the doujin circle AQUA STYLE independently analyzed the original game and created a version that ran on Nintendo Switch. When shown to ZUN, he said "Amazing, it plays normally." ZUN then rearranged the BGM, and a graphic artist from the doujin circle Twilight Frontier refined the visuals.
During a June 9 announcement stream, the team described the development process. A DVD containing backups of some Windows Touhou Project data was found at ZUN's home, which helped create new character portrait illustrations. The portraits were made in multiple patterns supporting 4K resolution, with checks on "how far is recognized as ZUN's art style."
ZUN created the BGM with the insistence that it is "primary creation, not secondary creation." The newly arranged stage 1 mid-boss theme "Red Soul as Red as a Ground Cherry" was previewed in the stream. The main mode's hitbox display and boss position marker were implemented by the programmer's eye-copying, not using ZUN's current methods. A blur phenomenon that appeared after fixing what seemed to be a bug in the original was deliberately recreated.
Shanghai Alice Reprise is a circle formed with the purpose of making Touhou Project games playable in the current environment. JYUNYA of AQUA STYLE serves as representative, and ZUN participates as a member. ZUN is treated as the primary creator, and the guidelines for secondary creation remain unchanged after this release.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 4 cited sources below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.
Sources
- GAME Watch (Impress) 「東方Project」より「東方紅魔郷」が初リメイク！ 「東方紅魔郷：New Classic」9月10日発売【ニンダイ速報】
- Automaton 『東方紅魔郷』リメイク『東方紅魔郷：New Classic』発表、9月10日発売へ。「東方Project」初のリメイク、ZUN氏自身が作り直してコンソールにも登場
- Inside 24年の時を越えてついに蘇るリメイク版『東方紅魔郷』新生にあたっての苦労をZUN氏ら語る―バックアップDVDの発掘や目コピなど
- Game Spark 24年の時を越えてついに蘇るリメイク版『東方紅魔郷』新生にあたっての苦労をZUN氏ら語る―バックアップDVDの発掘や目コピなど