Reimu Hakurei (Touhou) — Shrine Maiden Profile & Guide

Overview

Reimu Hakurei is the protagonist of Touhou Project: the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and serves as the maiden of the Hakurei Shrine. The official character profile identifies her weapons as ofuda and Yin-Yang Orbs, and describes her ability as flying through the sky. Players select Reimu from the character selection screen alongside Marisa Kirisame, then choose a weapon configuration before starting a run.

Character Profile and Role

The original manual describes Reimu as relaxed and notes that she lives at a shrine where almost nobody visits. She is portrayed as being out of touch with the world, simply brushing off trouble that comes to her. This behavior effectively fulfills her function of keeping Gensokyo residents from going to the human village and preventing humans from straying into Gensokyo.

Gameplay Mechanics and Controls

The original 2002 release uses keyboard controls where cursor keys handle movement, Z shoots or confirms, X activates a bomb or cancels, and Shift enables slower movement. The basic-rules page lists three starting lives and three bombs. Contact with an enemy bullet or enemy body causes a miss, costing one life. Unspent bombs are lost when the player misses. Score-based extends grant an additional life at 10, 20, 40, and 60 million points; the manual excludes score-based extends from the Extra stage.

The character profile's ability to fly is separate from these collision rules. It does not mean enemy bullets automatically miss Reimu during ordinary play. Players still need to move around attacks and use the game's shooting and bomb controls. These controls and progression rules describe the original EoSD, rather than every Touhou entry or the New Classic remake.

Progression and Endings

The game consists of six main stages plus an additional Extra stage. Easy mode concludes after stage five with a forced bad ending. The official manual designates Normal as the standard difficulty, where a no-continue clear results in a good ending. Continuing at any point leads to a bad ending. Players can continue up to three times before facing a game over. To unlock the Extra stage for a specific character, the player must clear Normal difficulty or higher without continuing using that character.

Practice Mode and Weapon Selection

The selection screen allows players to choose between Reimu and Marisa, followed by a weapon choice. Practice mode restricts stage access based on progress; players can only select stages they have already cleared with the specific difficulty, character, and weapon combination. The manual notes that continues are permitted for unlocking practice stages, allowing players to advance stage access even if they must continue during a run.