Recently, Shanghai Alice Reprise announced new details about Touhou Koumakyou: Classic Edition. This title is a faithful remake of the original Touhou Koumakyou, launched alongside the modern remake, Touhou Koumakyou: Shin Ten. Surprisingly, this version supports transferring save and replay data from the original Touhou Koumakyou released 24 years ago, and adds features such as accelerated replay playback and the ability to assign a "Confirm" button in key configurations.
Touhou Koumakyou was originally released in 2002 as the sixth main entry in the Touhou Project series and its first title for Windows. Although the game can still run on modern PCs, it suffers from several issues: it tends to run at abnormally high frame rates, causing boss battles to begin almost instantly and making the entire game play much faster than intended. Despite fan-made patches, the original Touhou Koumakyou is practically unplayable on modern PC environments without these modifications.
Against this backdrop, Touhou Koumakyou: Shin Ten has been released as a modern remake, supporting 1080p resolution and featuring rearranged music by the original creator, ZUN. The remake also introduces a new challenge mode (unlimited lives) and an option to display the protagonist's hitbox. It also marks the first official English localization in the game's history, with support for 11 other languages.
Bundled with this remake is the aforementioned Touhou Koumakyou: Classic Edition, which faithfully recreates the 2002 original, including the original UI and character sprites. Although it is listed as a separate application on Steam, it cannot be purchased individually and is unlocked for free by owners of the remake.
According to a post by JUNYA, representative of Shanghai Alice Reprise, all replay and save data from the original Touhou Koumakyou Ver. 1.02h can be transferred to Touhou Koumakyou: Classic Edition. Since Classic Edition is a standalone remake rather than a re-release of the original, save files are typically incompatible. Nevertheless, the developers clearly put in extra effort to make this feature possible.
Touhou Koumakyou: Shin Ten and Touhou Koumakyou: Classic Edition are now available on Steam, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.