Info about Touhou Hero of Ice Fairy: Prologue:

Official game description:
  
“Touhou Hero of Ice Fairy Prologue” is a "Touhou Project" 2D Fan game made of "Horizontal Action"+"Danmaku Bullet hell". In this BOSS RUSH game you play as the beloved Cirno, and embark on her journey to liberate the Gansokyo and save her dear one.  
★Once upon a time★
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There was a "Hero of Ice Fairy" who lived beyond the Misty Lake. Brave and wise she was, oathed to protect the "Princess of Misty Lake"  
Kind-hearted, beautiful and loving the Princess was, butterflies danced and birds sang, for her.  
The Hero had always took a shine to the Princess, and the Princess also grew a feeling toward her protector.  
Nontheless, a "Scarlet Shadow" bursted into the peaceful life of the two, and took the Princess captive, alway from the Hero.  
Agonized and angered, the Hero tied the Keepsake left by the Princess, and embarked on her journey to retrieve her dear one.  
★You will Expereince★
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■ High speed Bullet hell  
■ Refined Danmaku designed for horizontal shoot'em up  
■ Lovely animations and character arts  
■ Fun stories and dialogues
★Be Informed★
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This game is a prologue of "Touhou Hero of Ice Fairy".  
The level and story in the Demo will not be included in the full game.  
The full game will be a paid game.

Release date: 17 Dec, 2021

Categories: Bullet-hell, Boss Rush, Side-scrolling, Action Platformer, Single-player, Character Progression, Skill-Based Mastery


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Engaging and Polished Gameplay (weight 0.8): Players find the core gameplay, including movement, combat, and controls, to be highly polished, fun, and challenging. The game offers a thrilling experience with satisfying difficulty and a sense of accomplishment.
- Stunning Art and Visuals (weight 0.35): The game features gorgeous pixel graphics, detailed sprite work, and exquisite character art. The overall art style, level design, and visual effects are highly praised for their beauty and detail.
- Excellent Touhou Fan Game (weight 0.24): The game is highly praised as an excellent Touhou fan work, capturing the spirit of the series through its graphics, gameplay, music arrangements, and character features. It's considered one of the best recent Touhou fan games.
- Exceptional Soundtrack (weight 0.19): The game's music and sound design are consistently praised for complementing the atmosphere, being appealing, and enhancing the combat experience. The BGM is considered stirring and engaging.
- Accessible Bullet Hell Experience (weight 0.18): The game serves as a good entry point for the bullet hell genre, balancing challenge for veterans with approachability for newcomers. Its moderate difficulty allows novices to enjoy and clear the game.
- High-Quality Prologue/Demo (weight 0.18): The free prologue is lauded for its high quality, engaging content, and effectiveness as a demonstration of the main game. It's considered short, sweet, and leaves players eager for the full release.
- Innovative Dodge Mechanics (weight 0.11): The game's incredible and cool special dodge mechanics, including ground and air dashes with invulnerability frames, greatly enhance mobility and survivability.
- Easier Difficulty in Prologue (weight 0.11): The prologue is noted for being significantly easier than the full version, making it suitable for less skilled players and providing a more accessible entry point.
- Engaging Bosses and Fan Service (weight 0.1): Bosses like Remilia and Flandre are fun to battle, with appealing character art and exceptional defeat CGs that provide fan service. Their battle BGM is also highly praised.
- Cute Aesthetic (weight 0.08): Players appreciate the game's cute art style, characters, cutscenes, and story, contributing to an overall charming experience.
- Well-Designed Spell Cards (weight 0.07): The boss's spell cards are well-made, interesting, and visually gorgeous, adding to the challenge and aesthetic appeal of battles.
- Smooth Cirno Animation (weight 0.06): Cirno's animation is highlighted as smooth, and the character is generally perceived as cute, with a notable pairing with Daiyousei.

Common complaints:
- High Difficulty & Lack of Options (weight 0.6): Many players found the game excessively difficult, citing issues with mastering mechanics, inconsistent difficulty curves, and the need for extensive pattern memorization. The absence of varied difficulty levels or a 'baby mode' was a common complaint, making the game unfriendly to newcomers and those with less skill.
- Poor Controller Support (weight 0.25): Controller keybinds are not customizable, leading to inconvenient default assignments like jump and dash on long-travel trigger keys. Several players reported issues with specific buttons (LT/RT) not working, indicating a lack of robust controller support.
- Limited Content & Repetitive Gameplay (weight 0.23): Players felt the game offered too little content, with only a few fights and unlockable spells. The gameplay was described as repetitive and formulaic, lacking variety in boss attack patterns and overall stages. The absence of practice modes or BGM/CG appreciation modes also contributed to this sentiment.
- Inconsistent Invincibility Frames (weight 0.13): The invincibility frames (i-frames) for the dash ability were a point of confusion and frustration. Players found it difficult to judge their timing, noting that i-frames either ended too soon or were inconsistently applied, making dodging unreliable.
- Localization & Language Issues (weight 0.08): The English text contained numerous typos and translation errors, impacting the clarity of the story and overall player experience. Additionally, the game reportedly lacked Japanese language support, which was a concern for some players.
- Dash Mechanic Issues (weight 0.07): The dash skill itself was criticized for not feeling good to use. Its distance was often too long, making it hard to control and leading to unintended movements, which is problematic in a bullet-hell game.
- Mouse Control for Dodge Problems (weight 0.07): Using the mouse for dodge direction sometimes resulted in incorrect movements. The dual input system (keyboard and mouse) for dodging made it challenging to ensure precise and correct dodge directions during intense gameplay.
- Inconsistent Hitboxes (weight 0.06): Players reported that some boss bullet hitboxes felt strange and inconsistent, particularly for diagonal lasers. This lack of precision made dodging more frustrating and less predictable.
- Useless Jump Mechanic (weight 0.06): The jump key (spacebar) was widely considered useless, with players stating it had no practical application in gameplay. This suggests a mechanic that either serves no purpose or is poorly integrated.
- Technical Issues & Crashes (weight 0.06): Players reported various technical problems, including game freezes, white screens after the start menu, and crashes during specific boss fights (e.g., Remilia), which prevented progress and negatively impacted stability.
- Insufficient New Player Guidance (weight 0.04): The tutorial and HUD were deemed insufficient in explaining all important game mechanics. New players felt a lack of comprehensive guidance, making the initial learning curve steeper than necessary.
- Suggestive Art Style Feedback (weight 0.04): Feedback on the suggestive art style was mixed; some felt it lowered the game's image, while others desired more 'sexy' defeat CGs, indicating a divergence in player expectations regarding aesthetic choices.
- Poor Checkpoint System (weight 0.04): The absence of a good checkpoint system was frustrating for players, leading to significant time loss upon defeat and contributing to a less enjoyable experience.
- Confusing & Unengaging Story (weight 0.04): Some players found the game's story confusing and expressed a lack of interest in the narrative or characters, suggesting it failed to captivate them.
- Dialogue Skip Issues (weight 0.03): The dialogue system lacks a one-button skip function, forcing players to wait for dialogue to play out even with acceleration. The 'Press Start' prompt during dialogue was also confusing, as it only opened the pause menu without offering a skip option.
- Desire for More Movement-Based Patterns (weight 0.03): One player wished for more boss battle bullet patterns that required strategic movement rather than just dashing, suggesting a desire for more varied and engaging combat mechanics.

Gameplay feedback:
- Varied Difficulty & Replayability (weight 0.34): The game offers a flexible difficulty curve, being easy to clear casually but challenging for no-damage runs, which contributes to high replay value. Players can easily finish the game, but achieving perfect runs requires significant practice and multiple attempts.
- Effective Spell Card Usage (weight 0.25): Spell cards are crucial for clearing bullets, dealing damage, and executing strategic maneuvers. Different spell cards, such as shield and multi-ice, offer distinct tactical advantages, with some enhancing normal attacks or being unlocked through challenges.
- Complex Boss Mechanics (weight 0.22): Bosses feature multiple phases and distinct attack patterns that require memorization and precise dodging. Some bosses have up to eight stages, and new updates have added additional boss encounters, increasing the challenge.
- Bullet Hell Core Gameplay (weight 0.19): The game is a 2D bullet-hell action game focused on dodging intricate bullet patterns. It serves as a good introduction to the genre, allowing players to gradually discern and master complex bullet formations through practice.
- Prologue Difficulty Discrepancy (weight 0.18): The prologue's difficulty is perceived inconsistently, with some finding it harder than the main game while others find it easier after playing the full version. It can be quite challenging and take a couple of hours to complete perfectly.
- Dash & Invincibility Frames (weight 0.1): The dash and air dash mechanics provide invincibility frames, making them more useful for grazing and avoiding damage than the flight mechanic. The normal dodge is also considered more effective than the special dodge.
- Short Game Length (weight 0.1): The game is described as short, with the demo providing a quick showcase of gameplay. Despite its length, it offers a challenging experience.
- Responsive Control Scheme (weight 0.09): The game utilizes a standard twin-stick shooter control scheme, with the left stick for movement and the right stick for shooting direction. Specific buttons are assigned for jumping and special moves like all-directional dodges.
- Side-Scrolling Action Format (weight 0.08): The game is a 2D side-scrolling action game, adapting traditional shooting game elements into a platformer/boss rush format. This distinguishes it from conventional vertical or horizontal scrolling shooters.
- Stage-Specific Enemy Patterns (weight 0.07): Later stages introduce unique enemy types and attack patterns, such as bats with projectile waves and laser attacks. Players need to adapt their strategies and spell card usage to overcome these specific challenges.
- Limited Demo Content (weight 0.06): The demo offers a small introduction to the main story, featuring four battles and some exclusive content. It provides a brief glimpse into the game's narrative and mechanics.
- Character Progression & Power-ups (weight 0.04): As players collect crystals, their character's bullets become stronger and gain auto-tracking capabilities. This energy level enhancement provides a sense of progression and increased combat effectiveness.
- Touhou Character Integration (weight 0.04): The game features popular Touhou characters like Cirno and Flandre, presenting a chaotic adventure story reminiscent of other challenging titles.
- Accessible Restart System (weight 0.04): Players can restart from the same stage after losing, which helps mitigate frustration from frequent failures and encourages continued play.
- Challenging Tutorial (weight 0.03): The tutorial can be surprisingly difficult and time-consuming, with some players taking over an hour to complete it. This suggests a steep learning curve even at the game's introduction.

Performance notes:
No performancepoints

Recommendations:
- Strong Recommendation & Value (weight 0.45): Many players highly recommend the game, often suggesting it's worth playing even if only for a short duration or as a trial. There's a strong sentiment that the game offers good value, especially the base game or prologue, and has a promising future.
- Prologue as a Gateway (weight 0.28): The prologue is frequently highlighted as an excellent entry point to test the game's difficulty and style before committing to the full version. It's seen as a strong indicator of whether the main game will appeal to players.
- Appeals to Specific Genres (weight 0.21): The game is highly recommended for fans of bullet hell shooters, the Touhou series, or those looking for a challenging experience. It's also suggested as a good starting point for newcomers to the bullet hell genre.
- Anticipation for Full Game/Content (weight 0.21): Players express significant excitement and anticipation for the full version of the game and future content, including DLC. Many intend to purchase the full game upon release and support its continued development.
- Improvement Suggestions (weight 0.08): Players have specific requests for future improvements, such as controller key remapping, improved jump mechanics, and changes to mouse control for dodge direction. There's also a desire for more content and achievements.
- Gamepad Recommended (weight 0.02): One player specifically recommends playing the game using a gamepad for a better experience.
- Player Strategy Sharing (weight 0.02): One player hopes their shared strategies will assist other players, indicating a helpful community aspect.

Other player notes:
- Effective Prologue/Demo (weight 0.2): The game successfully functions as a free, short prologue or demo, introducing players to the larger adventure and story before the full paid game. Players are eager for the full release.
- Supportive Player Base (weight 0.15): Many players are willing to purchase DLC and supporter packs to show appreciation and support the developers, indicating strong positive sentiment towards the game.
- Cirno Character Engagement (weight 0.07): Players show strong engagement with the character Cirno, enjoying her portrayal as powerful, her theme music, and expressing interest in her defeat CGs.
- Story and Defeat CGs (weight 0.06): The game has a story setup with text or voice plot, and characters have defeat CGs, which are also included in the DLC.
- Localization and Pricing (weight 0.05): The game includes built-in Chinese localization, and the DLC is priced at 8 yuan. However, it lacks Japanese language support.
- Unique Prologue Content (weight 0.04): The prologue features two boss fights that are not present in the main game, offering unique content despite some overlap in boss assets.
- Low System Requirements (weight 0.04): The game has a small file size (under 100MB) and basic configuration requirements, making it accessible to a wide range of systems.
- Broad Player Suitability (weight 0.03): The game is deemed suitable for teenagers and adults, and is described as 'kidney-friendly,' implying it's not overly demanding or stressful.
- Dodge Mechanic Comparison (weight 0.03): The dodge mechanic is compared to Dead Cells, with players noting that less frequent dodging can still be effective against boss health.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.29): Players feel satisfied by the game's polished gameplay, aesthetics, and immersive atmosphere, including good music, visuals, and fluid combat. Achieving challenging feats like no-damage runs and mastering boss patterns also contributes significantly to this emotion, alongside the overall high quality of the game's design, art, and controls.
- Frustration (weight 0.13): Frustration stems from the game's high difficulty, especially for newcomers and during no-damage run attempts, with issues like unforgiving checkpoints and challenging bullet patterns. Inconvenient controls, particularly problematic mouse input for dodging and ineffective jump mechanics, also contribute to player annoyance and difficulty in progression.
- Excitement (weight 0.09): Excitement is generated by discovering new content, the game's fun and challenging platform bullet hell mechanics, and the prospect of sequels or DLC. Players are also thrilled by the high quality of the prologue, engaging story, and appealing art style, leading to strong recommendations and anticipation for future updates.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.08): Players experience enjoyment from the game's fun gameplay, engaging boss battles, and overall high quality. The replayability, appealing graphics, and background music further enhance this positive feeling, making the game a pleasant and relaxing experience despite potential language barriers.
- Disappointment (weight 0.05): Disappointment arises from various game flaws, such as minor technical issues, unpolished music, and a perceived blandness in some aspects. Players also express disappointment over the lack of voice acting, game crashes, translation errors, and the limited operational improvement due to simple controls, alongside a useless jump mechanic.
- Challenge (weight 0.04): The game's high difficulty, particularly in boss fights and during no-damage attempts, is a primary cause of the 'Challenge' emotion. Players are engaged by the demanding combat, with some comparing it to titles like Dark Souls, and find the prologue itself to be a significant test of skill.
- Anticipation (weight 0.03): Anticipation is driven by the desire for future content, including DLC for the full version, new characters, and story updates. Players eagerly await the opportunity to engage in specific challenges like no-hit Flandre fights and the official release of the full game.
- Joy (weight 0.03): Joy is experienced through the game's aesthetic appeal, the fun gameplay, and the personal satisfaction of achieving difficult feats like no-hit runs. Players also express joy in finding a game that perfectly aligns with their preferences and in their affection for specific characters.
- Admiration (weight 0.02): Admiration is evoked by the game's excellent design, overall high quality, and charming aesthetics, including beautiful art and cute character depictions. Players are particularly impressed by the visual presentation and the polished nature of the demo or prologue.
- Appreciation (weight 0.02): Players appreciate the developers' visible effort in the game's design, effective gameplay mechanics like low-altitude flight and laser weapons, and the appealing visuals. The cute art style, background music, and combat graphics also contribute to a strong sense of appreciation.
- Hope (weight 0.02): Hope is expressed for the game's future, including potential improvements, new characters, and the full game's success. Players also hope for practical additions like a practice mode and English subtitles or interface to enhance accessibility.
- Amusement (weight 0.02): Amusement arises from self-deprecating humor, often related to personal skill levels or comparisons to other challenging games like Cuphead. The humorous portrayal of characters, particularly Cirno, and the generation of fan-fiction ideas also contribute to this emotion.
- Support (weight 0.02): Players show support for the game's creator and the game itself by purchasing DLC, supporter packs, and music packs. This indicates a desire to contribute financially to the ongoing development and success of the title.
- Helpfulness (weight 0.01): Helpfulness is demonstrated by players who provide gameplay tips, detailed strategies, and recommendations to others. This indicates a community-driven effort to assist fellow players in overcoming challenges and enjoying the game.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion stems from unfamiliarity with the Touhou series, questioning its perceived exclusivity, and issues with unclear dodge direction using mouse controls. Initial difficulty with controller shooting controls and ensuring correct dodge input with dual methods also contribute to this feeling.
- Desire (weight 0.01): Players express a desire for specific game features, such as an easier difficulty mode due to the current challenge, and additional content like R18 patches or specific character outfits and 'sexy' CGs.
- Engagement (weight 0.01): Engagement is driven by the game's challenging gameplay, particularly the goal of completing stages without getting hit, and the strategic depth offered by its mechanics. The overall difficulty of the game keeps players actively involved and focused.
- Anger (weight 0.01): Anger is caused by significant frustrations such as the inability to progress past the tutorial, the game causing high stress levels, and a perceived lack of developer attention to persistent controller issues.
- Suggestion (weight 0.01): Players offer suggestions for improving beginner accessibility, refining gameplay mechanics, and adding more content. These ideas aim to enhance the overall player experience and address perceived shortcomings.
- Concern (weight 0.01): Concern is expressed regarding the potential for excessive difficulty in the full version and during no-hit runs, as well as the possibility that a long dash dodge distance might make the game too easy, impacting the intended challenge.}