東方剛欲異聞　～ 水没した沈愁地獄 Review Summary

Enjoyable and Creative Gameplay: Players found the game to be fun, creative, and addicting once they adapted to its unique controls and mechanics. The overall gameplay experience was described as refreshing and responsive, with a well-adjusted difficulty that provided a sense of accomplishment.

Stunning Art Style and Graphics: The game's art style, including character illustrations, pixel art, and backgrounds, received widespread praise for its beauty, creativity, and uniqueness. The ink-wash style, in particular, was highlighted as impressive and visually appealing.

Diverse and Unique Characters: The game features a wide array of playable characters, each with distinct movesets and controls, which greatly enhances replayability and prevents repetition. Players enjoyed the process of learning and mastering each character's unique playstyle, finding most of the cast satisfying.

Strong Appeal for Touhou Fans: The game is highly recommended for Touhou fans, offering a solid story, familiar characters (including playable Flandre Scarlet), and authentic Touhou elements. The game's design, including its boss rush nature, resonated well with the series' established themes.

Excellent Music and Soundtrack: The game's music, including original tracks and remixes of old songs, was consistently praised as excellent and a strong point. The soundtrack effectively enhances the game's world and keeps players engaged, with specific mentions of passionate BGM and catchy boss themes.

Excessive Difficulty & Unfinished Feel: Players consistently report the game is excessively difficult, unbalanced, and feels unfinished or rushed. The difficulty curve is steep, tutorials are insufficient, and the overall experience is more stressful than rewarding, lacking a beginner-friendly 'Easy' mode.

Character Control & Balance Issues: Each character has vastly different control schemes, requiring constant re-learning and leading to an inconsistent experience. Some characters are significantly harder or feel 'broken' against certain bosses, creating an unfair and unbalanced challenge.

Specific Character Difficulties: Marisa and Murasa are frequently cited as having particularly difficult, clunky, or counter-intuitive controls and gameplay. Their routes are often described as torturous, with specific boss encounters being exceptionally challenging for them.

Lack of Content & Progression: The game consists almost entirely of boss battles, lacking traditional stages, mid-stage saves, or opportunities to practice. This design, combined with limited character unlocks and a perceived lack of depth, makes the game feel expensive for its content.

Specific Boss Design Flaws: Certain bosses, particularly Matara and Captain Murasa, are highlighted for having frustrating or poorly designed spell cards and attack patterns. These designs often exploit character limitations or rely on unclear mechanics, leading to annoyance rather than challenge.

Unique Boss Rush Gameplay: The game is primarily a 2D boss rush experience, featuring intense battles in cramped spaces against enemies with multiple life bars and complex bullet patterns. It combines elements of fighting games and bullet hells, requiring players to adapt to a distinct combat system.

Streamlined Three-Button Controls: The game utilizes a simple three-button control scheme for core actions: attack, graze/dash, and water absorption/special attack. Many actions, including attacks, provide invincibility frames or bullet-clearing effects.

Innovative Graze & Water Mechanics: A core mechanic involves 'grazing' bullets by dashing or attacking through them, which converts them into water. This water can then be absorbed to charge a powerful special attack, adding a strategic layer to bullet evasion and offense.

Diverse Character Playstyles: Players can control multiple characters, each offering drastically different gameplay and control schemes. This variety changes how players approach the story and combat, requiring adaptation to distinct abilities and mechanics.

High Difficulty & Learning Curve: The game is designed with a medium to high difficulty, lacking an easy mode and demanding significant player skill and patience. Success hinges on memorizing boss attack patterns and understanding each character's unique tools.

Visual CRT effect noted: Players observed an unusual 'television CRT visual effect' during gameplay. This visual style might be intentional but was highlighted as 'weird' by some, suggesting it could be distracting or not universally appealing.

Mixed general recommendation: While some players recommend the game and find it fun, others strongly advise against purchasing it, citing issues like crashing. The recommendation often comes with caveats or is conditional.

Primarily for Touhou fans: The game is highly recommended for existing Touhou fans, with many suggesting it's a must-play for them. However, it is generally not recommended for those unfamiliar with the Touhou series, indicating a niche appeal.

Challenging and selective gameplay: The game is noted for its difficulty, appealing to players who enjoy hard action games. It is not considered suitable for everyone, especially those not proficient in action games, and some suggest an easier mode is needed.

Support for developer Tasofro: Many players purchased the game specifically to support Tasofro, expressing hopes for the developer's continued success and improvement. There's a sentiment of loyalty towards the development team.

Gameplay mechanics need refinement: There are suggestions for improving gameplay, such as adjusting boss spell cards and reworking patterns to better fit individual character playstyles. Some also wish for separate buttons for shooting and melee.

Mixed Reception on Difficulty/Length: Players have varied experiences with the game's difficulty and completion time, with some finding it short and easy to clear all characters on Normal, while others struggled to finish even once. The addition of an Easy mode in an update was noted.

Concerns about Tasofro's Future: There are strong rumors and concerns among players that this game might be Tasofro's last project, largely due to the severe impact of the pandemic on the development team and long delays. Players hope for future, more structurally sound games from the developer.

Desire for Extra Modes: Players expressed a desire for additional game modes, such as a boss rush time trial and a training room, to enhance replayability and practice.

Game in Early Access State: Many players perceive the game as being in an 'Early Access' state, with expectations for future updates and fixes. This sentiment is reinforced by the game's long and troubled development history.

Crashes and Bugs Reported: Some players encountered crashes during specific chapters, particularly with Reimu and Kanako. While not universally experienced, these bugs impacted gameplay for those affected.