the difference between the old games and the new ones

I think I finally figured it out. The difference between the mood of eosd pcb and the mood of newer titals like mof and UFO. I personally think the old games are TRADITIONAL, and the newer ones feel more modern and almost URBAN.

I thought the whole appeal of Touhou vs Seihou was that Touhou represented the traditional aspects of eastern civilization.

No idea what seihou is, but I mean in UFO you hitchhike a flying ship into a specific circle of hell. Vs PCB where you cruze along the country side and simple vialagers

UFO also has the myoren temple which actually happens to be a real location in japan, which is very traditional.In the newist game the new location (Castle of shining needles) was a japanese palace, similar to eientei. or hakugyokurou. There are a few modernish things in the later games like hisotensoku and the nuclear powerplant, but thats all coming from roughly th same people (Kanako, Suwako, Sanae, Okuu, Nitori and whoever else i'm forgetting)

So while there are a few games with a few more modern aspects to it the maajoraty of the games do revolve around traditional Japanese mythology and urban legends.

Seihou is/was a sister project to the Touhou series:
http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Seihou_Project

I wouldn't say that Touhou has slowly become less and less traditional over time, as the entire project always had some western themes about it also (So it isn't all Touhou!). I mean yeah, youkai and so on are really common in Touhou but this is also the same series that has a European based mansion which is run by a European based vampire. I'd say what mostly differs one generation of the project from the other one is how it's been portrayed.

Like EoSD to StB had rather simple backgrounds with rather simple colours (unless you count spellcards and character designs), where as with MoF to HM have a lot more backgrounds with a lot more stuff happening in them. Why did I not mention DDC? Because those games are going to be part of a new generation which right now seems to be a mesh of old and new.

So yeah there's my little take on it. Wish I could think of another word that isn't generation, but the wiki has it listed like that.