- Excellent music and art direction
- Highly enjoyable and accessible gameplay
- Appealing characters and story
- Strong replay value
- High overall difficulty
- Problematic bomb system
Emotions
Players felt satisfied due to the game's accessibility for beginners, often serving as an excellent entry point to the series. This was coupled with appreciation for the high-quality music, balanced difficulty, and the sense of personal achievement from overcoming challenges or mastering gameplay mechanics. The overall positive experience, including engaging characters and aesthetic appeal, also contributed significantly to this emotion.
Frustration primarily stemmed from the game's high difficulty, particularly for beginners and on higher modes, with specific bosses like Kanako Yasaka being frequently cited. Technical issues such as input lag, small window size, and incompatibility with newer operating systems also hindered the player experience. Limitations in practice modes and a challenging continue system further exacerbated feelings of frustration.
Excitement was generated by the game's overall high quality, including its engaging bullet patterns, excellent soundtrack, and compelling characters. Players expressed enthusiasm for the thrill of dodging bullets, the game's accessibility for newcomers, and the satisfaction of achieving difficult milestones. Strong recommendations and the game's release on Steam also fueled this positive emotion.
Players found enjoyment in the game's fun gameplay, captivating music, and immersive atmosphere. The appealing character designs and engaging bullet patterns were also significant contributors. Even when facing difficulty, players expressed enjoyment in the overall experience and the stylistic elements of the game.
Disappointment arose from technical limitations, such as input lag, poor resolution, and incompatibility issues, which prevented players from fully enjoying the game. The lack of official language support (e.g., Korean, English subtitles) and perceived high price also contributed to this feeling. Additionally, some players were disappointed by less forgiving mechanics, limited character variety, and the removal of features from previous games.
Verdict
Mostly positive
Summary
Positive 91% · Negative 9%. Score: 9 / 100
Positives:
- The game's soundtrack is frequently highlighted as a masterpiece, with many tracks being 'god-tier' and highly memorable. Combined with charming character designs, vibrant stages, and beautiful bullet patterns, the aesthetics create an immersive and pleasing experience.
- Many players consider this game their favorite in the Touhou series, often citing its overall quality, music, and accessibility as reasons for its standout position among other entries.
- Players consistently praise the game for its fun, engaging, and dynamic gameplay. It offers a 'delicious' and balanced difficulty, making it enjoyable for both beginners and experienced players, with many finding it easy to pick up and get hooked.
- The game features well-balanced difficulty levels that scale gently, motivating beginners while still offering a good challenge for more advanced players. Normal mode is often cited as 'just right' and achievable for many.
- Players appreciate the game's charming, unique, and attractive character designs, with specific mentions of Sanae, Aya, and Marisa. The story, rooted in Japanese culture, also adds to the overall appeal.
Negatives:
- Many players find the game exceptionally difficult, even on 'Easy' mode, especially newcomers to bullet hell games. Specific stages and bosses, like Kanako, present significant challenges, leading to frustration and extended playtimes without success.
- The bomb system is criticized for consuming power, which reduces damage output and punishes learning players. Additionally, bombs lack character-specific personality and are identical across all shot types, making them feel uninspired.
- Players are frustrated by the inability to practice specific stages or sections without first clearing them. This limitation, combined with the lack of mid-stage saving, hinders effective learning and improvement.
- The game lacks official support for languages like English and Korean, requiring community patches for dialogue and story comprehension. This creates a barrier for non-Japanese speaking players.
- The continue system is punitive, often returning players to the main menu or the beginning of a stage with limited lives. This system also locks players into a bad ending, discouraging its use and adding to the overall difficulty.
Gameplay:
- The game offers two playable characters, Reimu and Marisa, each with three distinct shot types. Reimu generally has a smaller hitbox and homing options, while Marisa features piercing lasers and wider shots, with specific shot types like Reimu C being noted as 'strange'.
- Players find the game challenging, with many struggling to clear Normal difficulty initially. Easy mode is recommended for beginners to familiarize themselves with stages, as higher difficulties feature complex bullet patterns and require significant practice and skill development.
- The game features a 'Faith' meter that primarily influences scoring, acting as a multiplier for point items and determining extra lives. It's maintained by collecting specific items (stars, green circles), killing enemies, and clearing bullets, but drains over time or when using bombs/losing lives.
- Bombs are integrated into the 'power' resource, consuming 1 power level per use instead of being a separate stock. This allows for frequent bomb usage, especially at max power, but can weaken shot strength. Bombs also clear bullets and collect items.
- A significant glitch exists with Marisa B's unfocused shot when her power level is between 3.00 and 3.95, making her damage output extremely high. This 'God-Slaying Cannon' allows players to quickly defeat bosses and clear difficulties like Normal and EX.
Performance:
- The game defaults to a small windowed mode on Windows 11 and stretches horizontally in fullscreen due to a lack of widescreen support. This significantly impacts the visual experience for many players.
- Players reported significant input delay, especially at slower game speeds, leading to ignored key presses. This issue negatively affects gameplay responsiveness and precision.
- Playing the game at 0.1x speed results in extremely low frame rates (around 5 FPS). This makes practicing or playing at reduced speeds frustrating and unplayable.
- NVIDIA GPU users can manually correct the stretched fullscreen issue by adjusting scaling settings in their control panel. This workaround is not intuitive and requires player intervention.
Recommendations:
- The game is overwhelmingly recommended by players, often receiving perfect scores and 'Game of the Year' accolades. It's frequently cited as an excellent starting point for both the Touhou series and the bullet hell genre due to its accessible difficulty for beginners, while still offering a challenge for experienced players.
- While beginner-friendly, the game's higher difficulties (Hard/Lunatic) are noted to be significantly challenging. Players are advised to practice specific stages and prepare for a demanding experience, especially if aiming for higher difficulty levels or the EX stage.
- Several reviewers explicitly recommend purchasing the game to support the creator, ZUN, often with a lighthearted mention of buying him a beer.
- A significant concern for some players is the language barrier. It is strongly recommended to use the Community Patcher to play the game in English, which enhances accessibility and understanding.
- New players are advised to prepare a controller in advance, suggesting that it might enhance the gameplay experience or be preferred over keyboard controls for this type of game.
Miscellaneous:
- The game, being originally in Japanese, benefits greatly from fan-made language patches, especially English. These patches are widely available and recommended for non-Japanese speakers to enhance their understanding and enjoyment of the game.
- Players express a strong desire for more older Touhou main series games (e.g., Th6, 7, 8) to be released on Steam.
- Specific game mechanics, such as the faith meter setting, the return of the graze system in the next game, and the 'God-killing cannon' exploit, are noted. Lore details like the 'Moriya Trilogy' and character backstories are also highlighted.
- Players frequently encounter issues with modern controllers, such as PS5 or Xbox gamepads, leading to continuous input or incorrect D-pad functionality. Solutions often involve disabling the Steam overlay, using Big Picture Mode, or adjusting controller configurations.
- The game is recognized as an older title, with some UI quirks being acceptable due to its age. It evokes strong nostalgia for players who experienced it around its original 2007 release.
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