Hidden Star in Four Seasons is the official 16th game of the Touhou Project series.

It's a vertical 2d shooting game where you control a character and try to dodge all the bullets fired at you while destroying enemies.

Primary controls :

• Arrows - Moves the character
  
• Z - Fires shots (keep pressed)
  
• X - Uses a bomb
  
• C - Releases sub-season power
  
• ⇧ Shift - Slows movement and shows your hitbox (keep pressed)

Menu controls :

• Esc - Pauses the game
  
• Q while on pause - Return to title screeen
  
• R while on pause - Restart game at first stage

You play by moving your character across the stage to dodge the enemy bullets, all while shooting to destroy them. A stage usually lasts 2 to 6 minutes, and at the end of it you'll fight a boss that has more life and fires more interesting bullet patterns.

A standard run of the game contains 6 stages that are always in the same order, and each one is a bit more difficult than the last.

Killing enemies and clearing some parts of the stage will drop bonuses that you can get by just touching them. You can differenciate bonuses from enemy shots by looking at their shape :

• Enemy bullets are generally circular (with some exceptions)
  
• Bonuses are squares :

You have a limited amount of lifes for all the run : You start with 3 lifes. You lose a life when you're hit either by an enemy bullet, or by an enemy itself.

When you feel you're going to die, you can use a bomb using X to clear the screen of all bullets. You also have a limited amount of bombs per life, so use them wisely.

You start with a Power of 1.00/4.00. Each Power Bonus adds 0.01 Power. At 1, 2, 3 and 4 Power, you fire extra shots at your enemies. You lose some Power when you die.

You can pretty much ignore scoring if you're just starting. Just know that certain score thresholds will give you extra lives.

At tany time, being in the top quarter of the screen automatically brings all bonuses to you. (Also called Point of Collection)

Fill the bar collecting Season Items (which appearance depends on your Sub-season choice). Raise your Season level by filling the bar. You can then release that power with the C key, clearing some bullets.

Moving near a bullet without touching it is called a "graze". It generates a Season Item that you can the pick up.

Here's what the screen looks like when playing Hidden Star in Four Seasons :

• 1 - HUD : Displays current player informations
  
• 2 - Player : The character you control
  
• 3 - Enemy bullet : Dodge these !
  
• 4 - Enemy : They fire bullets
  
• 5 - Player shot : Classic shots you fire at enemies
  
• 6 - Bonuses : Touch these to get more Power and Score
  
• 7 - Season item : Collect these to fill the Season bar
  
• 8 - Season level and bar : Fill bar → +1 Season level (max 6). Each level increases sub-weapon power

Graze is the number of enemy shots that were close to kill you.

• Game Start - Launches a classic run of the game.
  
• Extra Start - A special stage that you unlock by winning a complete run of the game without using any Continue.
  
• Practice - Choose a character ,and play any Stage you want with highest number of lifes.
  
• Spell Practice - Choose a character, a boss pattern, and play it how many times you like using only one life.
  
• Replay - View your sved replays.
  
• Player Data - View your best scores of the game with different settings.
  
• Music Room - Listen to any music of the game freely.
  
• Options - Change some options of the game.
  
• Manual - Informations about how to play.

You can choose between four playable characters in the game. For each of them you then choose one between four secondary weapon (called sub-season); each represents a season.

• Reimu Hakurei
  
• Cirno
  
• Aya Shameimaru
  
• Marisa Kirisame

Here are some links if you want to read further and know more about the game and its mechanics :

• https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Hidden_Star_in_Four_Seasons