I have had quite a few more discoveries since my last post about Touhou and Seihou trials and betas, finding about the existence of more obscure ones and preserving many myself. I still find preserving this history fascinating and important; it's too bad many people in Japan do not wish to dump these to the public themselves... (but I'm grateful for some at least documenting them decently :)).

First of all, as mentioned in the many edits of my first post about these betas, I have been able to upload many of these to archive.org myself! So far, the only official mainline Touhou game trial I have left to get (or see) archived is Touhou 8's (update: now finally found!!). I will continue posting updates on these uploads to that first trial post. However, Seihou is a largely different story...

Recently, I have primarily discovered the existence and looked more in-depth into various Seihou betas. One of the first notable ones I've found was the Comiket 60 early Seihou 2 (Kioh Gyoku) trial! It seems it had WAV recordings of the MIDIs on their intended Roland SC-88Pro sound module rather than the re-arrangements of the final game. Most importantly, it also looks to have had completely different character art and ending images! This one sadly seems especially rare to come by. I've only come across a record of one listing, and the disc being sold was rotted and unreadable... It still sold for $1000!!

(Images and info from Romantique Tp and ronronmilk at https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php?topic=18989.30 and https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,18989.msg1346277.html#msg1346277)

Furthermore, although it doesn't technically count as "pre-release", I feel it's very important to mention the many, many different versions of Seihou 3 (Banshiryuu) released across different Comiket events in Japan. There are the more early prototypes released around C62-C64 (the 0.01 I dumped was from C62!). Almost every Comiket from 2003-2008 got its own update of Seihou 3! It's so much that it's sometimes hard to tell which specific version a certain copy has. Specifically, there are versions from C65, C66 (1.000), C67 (1.100), C69, C70, C71, C72, C73, and C74 (3.000 or 3.100). The C74 3.100 release is the latest one and is most commonly distributed today, with its physical release seemingly including bonuses such as the C64 trial and the C67 1.100 version. It's an archival nightmare, I would say...

(C64 cover from Suruga-ya)

(C65 cover from Suruga-ya)

(C71 cover from Suruga-ya)

Overall, it's starting to seem Seihou has the most unique trials... For example, many of the early trials of Banshiryuu are completely different from each other! Maybe someday, someone that cares about these as much as I do will care enough to assist in ensuring they're preserved.