Info about Touhou: New World:

Official game description:
  
Isolated from the world by a mystical barrier, shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei and magician Marisa Kirisame live relatively peaceful lives in the land of Gensokyo, when they find themselves transported beyond the boundary and into the unfamiliar territory of the outside world. After a chance encounter with Sumireko, a human girl obsessed with Gensokyo and all its wonders, our protagonists eventually find their way back home—but now with an unexpected guest in tow. Sumireko's arrival not only heralds chaos for Gensokyo, but also for the outside world and beyond! It's up to Reimu and Marisa to unravel the mysteries that threaten their home and restore peace to the lands.  
From Ankake Spa, the team that brought you Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity, transcend the bounds of Gensokyo in this lovingly crafted Touhou Project fan-made game!  
KEY FEATURES
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**Shrine Maiden Skills and Magician Moves**  
Enemies may unleash fountains of projectiles, but you can counter them by inflicting heavy damage with spell cards, dealing powerful blows with purification rods, and slowing attacks with well-timed guards.  
**Get to Know Gensokyo**  
Help out friendly Gensokyo residents by finding lost souls, investigating strange areas, and engaging in mock battles. You’ll be rewarded handsomely, and you might learn a tip or two to aid you in your quest.  
**Customizable Action**  
Use your favorite skills in battle to level them up and upgrade essential stats like health and attack power to get tougher. Customize Reimu and Marisa to suit your playstyle and overcome the odds.  
**Don’t Forget to Accessorize**  
Every weapon, piece of armor, and accessory you find has randomized stats, so mix and match to make the most of them, or reforge equipment until it suits you.

Release date: 13 Jul, 2023

Categories: Action RPG, Bullet-hell, Character Progression, Character Customization, Equipment Customization, Open-World Exploration, Linear Progression, Mission-based Gameplay


- 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:
- Enjoyable Gameplay & Content (weight 0.64): Players found the game to be very fun and entertaining, offering a substantial amount of content and replayability. The combat system is satisfying, easy to learn, and a significant improvement over its predecessor, with many appreciating the overall polished experience.
- Excellent Touhou Fan Game (weight 0.41): The game is highly praised as one of the best Touhou fan games, appealing to both long-time fans and newcomers. It successfully incorporates Touhou lore, characters, music, and bullet hell elements, making it an accessible and enjoyable entry point into the series.
- Engaging Boss Battles (weight 0.4): Boss fights are a standout feature, described as challenging, fun, and well-designed with varied attack patterns. They offer a proper bullet hell experience and become more intense as the game progresses, making up for potential repetitiveness in regular levels.
- Excellent Music & Visuals (weight 0.28): The soundtrack is highly praised as amazing, great, and varied, with many 'bangers' that enhance the game's atmosphere. Visually, the game boasts beautiful graphics, clearer modeling, lively cutscenes, and well-made 3D environments, marking a significant leap in quality.
- User-Friendly Difficulty & Healing (weight 0.25): The game offers balanced difficulty that can be adjusted dynamically, making it accessible for beginners. The addition of active healing and a perfect guard/parry mechanic significantly improves combat flow and reduces stress, allowing for more mistakes.
- Improved Over Predecessor (weight 0.22): Reviewers consistently highlight that the game is a significant upgrade from 'Scarlet Curiosity' in nearly every aspect, including graphics, content, mechanics, and overall polish. It addresses many issues present in the previous title, offering a much better experience.
- DLC Adds Playable Characters (weight 0.18): The DLC significantly expands the roster of playable characters, adding many new options and increasing replayability. This variety in characters and skills provides strong motivation for players to continue engaging with the game.
- Varied Character Campaigns (weight 0.16): The game offers distinct campaigns for Reimu and Marisa, with differing plots and combat experiences. This provides replay value and allows players to experience the story and boss fights from multiple perspectives, enhancing the overall narrative.
- Good Story & UI (weight 0.13): The story is generally considered good, engaging, and functional, providing a reasonable context for the game's events. The UI is also simple and functional, contributing to a smooth player experience.
- Expansive Side Quests (weight 0.1): The game includes numerous side quests that offer additional content, currency, items, and stat-strengthening stones. These quests are a significant upgrade and feature changing NPC dialogues based on the protagonist, adding depth.
- Effective Skill Progression (weight 0.1): The skill mastery system allows skills to level up, increasing their power and range. This system, along with skill cooldowns, encourages diverse skill usage and provides a satisfying sense of progression as players strengthen their characters.

Common complaints:
- Excessive Asset & Content Reuse (weight 0.97): A significant portion of the game's content, including enemies, maps, music, and even boss fights, is directly reused or heavily recycled from its predecessor, 'Scarlet Curiosity.' This leads to a strong sense of déjà vu and a lack of innovation.
- Mediocre & Convoluted Story (weight 0.91): The game's story is widely described as mediocre, nonsensical, and confusing, especially for players unfamiliar with the Touhou lore. It lacks excitement, character development, and often feels like a patchwork of existing plots, with inconsistent character interactions.
- Repetitive & Sluggish Combat (weight 0.9): Players found the combat system to be sluggish, repetitive, and lacking in variety, with many enemies and boss patterns reused from the predecessor. The parry system is poorly integrated, and overall combat feels uninspired and often passive, leading to a monotonous experience.
- Unsatisfying Equipment System (weight 0.85): The equipment system is criticized for its lack of depth and impact. Most items offer only minor statistical changes, making collection and forging feel pointless. Randomized stats on reforging are often detrimental, and there's little meaningful progression or unique features.
- Inconsistent Difficulty Scaling (weight 0.7): The game's difficulty is inconsistent, with some finding it too easy due to free heals and others encountering instant-death mechanics or overly difficult early bosses. The initial difficulty selection is also seen as misleading.
- Poor Dash & Movement Mechanics (weight 0.66): The dash mechanic is problematic, described as delayed, 'floppy,' and difficult to control precisely due to forced directional movement and shared key bindings with other actions. This hinders fluid combat and traversal.
- Unimpressive Graphics & Design (weight 0.63): Despite being a modern release, the game's graphics are considered barely improved and visually unappealing, with character models and overall technical capabilities feeling outdated. The game design shows little progress from previous titles.
- Repetitive & Tedious Map Design (weight 0.4): Maps are often excessively long, repetitive, and feature mandatory combat sections that make progression a slog. Many maps are copied from the predecessor, and the overall design offers minimal exploration or new gameplay mechanics, leading to a boring traversal experience.
- Overpriced for Content Quality (weight 0.38): Players feel the game is overpriced, even on sale, given its short length, lack of new content, and overall quality. The perceived low effort in development does not justify the asking price.
- Useless Shop System (weight 0.11): The in-game shop is largely useless, selling only low-level, common items that offer no meaningful upgrades. Its primary function seems to be inventory clearing, and the UI is considered unfriendly.

Gameplay feedback:
- Multiple Playable Characters & Routes (weight 0.4): The game offers multiple playable characters, primarily Reimu and Marisa, each with their own story routes, dialogues, and unique gameplay nuances. DLC characters further expand the roster, providing varied experiences and replayability. While routes share some bosses, their contexts differ.
- Meaningful Side Quests (weight 0.23): Side quests are integral to character progression, offering currency, random items, and enhancement stones to strengthen stats and upgrade skills. Completing them can significantly ease the main quest difficulty, and many are unique per character, encouraging exploration.
- Varied Difficulty Options (weight 0.18): The game offers multiple difficulty settings, including Normal, Hard, and newly added 'Bullet Hell' and 'Bullet Hell+' modes. The difficulty curve generally starts easy and increases steadily, providing options for different player skill levels.
- Touhou-Inspired 3D Action RPG (weight 0.16): The game is a 3D action RPG set in the Touhou Project universe, featuring danmaku (bullet hell) elements, leveling, and various abilities. It builds upon the gameplay of its predecessors, offering a linear progression with semi-open world exploration and a mission-level system.
- Moderate Playthrough Length (weight 0.12): A single character's main story and all side quests typically take around 8-12 hours to complete. Achieving 100% completion for both main characters is estimated to take approximately 22 hours, offering a substantial amount of content.

Performance notes:
- Poor optimization and performance (weight 0.13): Many players report significant lag and low frame rates, especially when using integrated graphics or playing on Linux with Proton Hotfix. The game struggles during intense moments like large danmaku barrages, dropping to very low FPS.
- Integrated graphics issues (weight 0.08): The game performs poorly on integrated graphics, often requiring players to manually switch to a dedicated GPU to resolve lag and achieve playable frame rates. This suggests a lack of proper optimization for a wider range of hardware configurations.

Recommendations:
- Wait for a Sale (weight 0.42): A significant number of players recommend purchasing the game only when it is on sale or at a discounted price. Many feel the full price is not justified, suggesting it's a better value at a lower cost.
- Primarily for Touhou Fans (weight 0.39): The game is highly recommended for existing fans of the Touhou Project, especially those who enjoy seeing their favorite characters in an action game. New players to the Touhou universe might find it a decent introduction, but some suggest other titles as better starting points.
- Mixed Reception (weight 0.29): Overall sentiment is mixed, with some finding the game 'good' or 'acceptable' for an indie title, while others do not recommend it, especially to casual players or those expecting a similar 'exhilarating feeling' to previous games.
- Consider Previous Titles (weight 0.13): Several reviewers suggest playing 'Touhou Scarlet Curiosity' or other Touhou fangames as alternatives or prerequisites. Some even recommend Scarlet Curiosity over this game, especially if buying at full price.
- Character Playthrough Order (weight 0.08): There are mixed recommendations regarding which character to play first, with some suggesting Reimu for new players and others recommending Sakuya or Marisa. Players are encouraged to try multiple character routes.
- Gamepad Recommended (weight 0.06): Players strongly advise using a gamepad or controller for a better and more comfortable control experience, indicating that keyboard play might be less optimal.
- Difficulty Settings (weight 0.05): Feedback on difficulty varies, with some suggesting a fixed Normal difficulty initially and others recommending 'Bullet Hell' for a challenge. Players should consider if the game's estimated 20 hours and perceived 'child's play' difficulty suit their preferences.
- Developer Trust Issues (weight 0.02): One reviewer explicitly stated they would not buy from this manufacturer again, indicating a potential issue with developer trust or satisfaction with their products. This is based on limited feedback.
- Hopes for Future Growth (weight 0.01): One piece of feedback expresses a desire for further growth and improvement in the developer's future works, suggesting there is room for enhancement.

Other player notes:
- New Player Experience (weight 0.07): Several new players were introduced to the Touhou series through this game, indicating its potential as an entry point for the franchise. The game's plot progression also felt like a blend of various Touhou works.
- Combat Recovery Mechanics (weight 0.06): Players suggest that health, skills, and spells should fully or partially recover before and after combat, especially if combat is a core focus. Additionally, successful 'Just Guard' executions could recover skills, spells, and healing.
- Itemization and Rerolling (weight 0.05): Feedback suggests making golden items rarer but significantly more powerful to enhance their value. Players also desire the ability to reroll all stats at the smith for improved character customization.
- Positive Impression from Low Expectations (weight 0.04): One reviewer had low expectations for the game, which ultimately led to a more positive impression, resulting in a 7/10 score. This suggests the game exceeded their initial, perhaps conservative, hopes.
- Potential for Improvement (weight 0.04): Despite some positive aspects, the game is seen as 'almost really good,' indicating it's close to excellence but has areas needing refinement. The overall framework is considered relatively complete.
- Desire for More Characters (weight 0.02): Players expressed a hope for additional playable characters to be introduced in future DLC, suggesting a desire for expanded roster options.
- Story Canon Discrepancy (weight 0.02): The game's story conflicts with established Touhou canon, but players are willing to accept it as an 'alternate world' scenario, given its nature as a fangame.
- Sumireko's Inclusion (weight 0.02): The game features the character Sumireko, which might be a point of interest for fans of the Touhou series.
- Promotional Efforts in China (weight 0.02): SEGA China engaged in promotional activities, including releasing videos and establishing an official Chinese website, indicating marketing efforts in that region.
- Clear Japanese Pricing (weight 0.01): The pricing for the Japanese version of the game has consistently been clear, suggesting transparency in that market.
- Keybinding Configuration (weight 0.01): Keybindings can be adjusted through the 'Configuration' option after starting the game, providing customization for controls.
- Asset Reuse Expected (weight 0.01): Players anticipated extensive reuse of map and monster assets, which might indicate a common practice or a perceived limitation.
- Nostalgia for Koukishin (weight 0.01): One reviewer had a soft spot for 'Koukishin' (红辉心), indicating a positive past experience with a related title.
- Unexplained Comparison (weight 0.01): A reviewer inexplicably thought of 'Monkey King: Hero Is Back' while playing, which is an unusual and unelaborated comparison.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.23): Players are satisfied with the game's quality as a Touhou fan game, often highlighting its entertaining gameplay, functional story, and balanced difficulty. The extensive character roster, replayability, and overall improvements over its predecessor, including better visuals, music, and new mechanics, contribute significantly to this positive sentiment. The game successfully fulfills the desire for a Touhou action RPG, offering enjoyable boss fights and a generally fun experience.
- Disappointment (weight 0.22): Disappointment stems from the game not living up to its predecessor, often due to underrealized RPG elements, a mediocre story, and extensive reuse of content and assets. Players feel the game lacks innovation, is overpriced for its content and quality, and suffers from poor damage feedback, a messy equipment system, and technical performance issues. The limited skill variety, short length, and lack of significant graphical improvement also contribute to this feeling.
- Frustration (weight 0.18): Frustration is primarily caused by poor controls, sluggish combat, and repetitive stages with uninteresting items. Players are annoyed by unbalanced characters, difficult late-game bosses, and flawed enemy design, alongside a problematic equipment system and new elements being locked behind DLC. Technical issues like poor optimization and low frame rates, especially during danmaku barrages, also significantly contribute to player frustration.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.07): Players express enjoyment from the overall fun gameplay experience, often despite acknowledging some flaws. Specific elements like the story, music, engaging combat, and new parry/guard mechanics contribute to a generally positive and fun experience. The game provides an enjoyable time traversing levels and engaging with boss patterns.
- Excitement (weight 0.05): Excitement is generated by the game's unique gameplay, story elements, and overall quality, with players looking forward to new scenarios and future content. The game's overall improvements, amazing soundtrack, gorgeous art, and expanded combat are significant drivers. The addition of playable characters via DLC and the addictive action gameplay also contribute to a sense of anticipation and hype.
- Boredom (weight 0.03): Boredom arises from repetitive levels, limited skills, and monotonous combat experiences, particularly during specific character playthroughs like Reimu's. Excessive expository dialogue and the ability to brute force combat without much challenge also contribute to stages blending into a monotonous mix.
- Appreciation (weight 0.03): Players appreciate the game's outstanding quality, clear graphics, beautiful UI, and dazzling danmaku designs, especially how well boss danmaku reproduces original Touhou character characteristics. The game is seen as an excellent fan work, suitable for the Touhou theme, with a plot that is a major highlight and is very friendly to newcomers. The quality of the music arrangements is also highly valued.
- Joy (weight 0.02): Joy is experienced through the game's overall fun and addictive gameplay, leading to players having a blast and finding happiness even when losing. The game's ability to evoke laughter and provide a generally enjoyable experience contributes to this emotion.
- Annoyance (weight 0.02): Annoyance is caused by specific design choices, such as the final boss's appearance, reused assets, and the 'idiotic' random stat changes in the forging system. Difficult chase missions, controller vibration when health is not full, and a high price also contribute to player irritation.
- Confusion (weight 0.02): Confusion stems from Reimu's plot interactions, a lower positive review percentage compared to the previous game, and weird bits in the translation. The plot's progression feeling like a mix of different Touhou works and confusing marketing/sales strategies also contribute to this sentiment.
- Anger (weight 0.02): Anger is primarily directed at the game's perceived poor quality and value, with players suspecting laziness from the development team due to extensive reuse of assets and low effort. This leads to feelings of being a 'sucker' for purchasing the game.
- Anticipation (weight 0.01): Players express anticipation for future works from the developer, looking forward to playing with new DLC characters and the overall growth of the series. This indicates a positive outlook on the game's future trajectory and content.
- Hope (weight 0.01): Hope is centered on wishing for developer improvements in future titles, including more games and additional playable characters in future DLC. This reflects a desire for the series to evolve and address current shortcomings.
- Concern (weight 0.01): Concern arises from potential optimization issues, particularly on Linux, and the need for strengthened optimization to address wildly dropping frame rates. Players worry about the game's technical performance and insufficient innovation.
- Regret (weight 0.01): Regret is felt by players who purchased the game, even on sale, due to its overall quality, lack of meaningful additions, and poor value compared to its predecessors. This indicates a feeling of buyer's remorse.
- Nostalgia (weight 0.01): Nostalgia is triggered by the game's similarity to 'Youyou Kengeki Musou' and being a long-time fan of Scarlet Curiosity. Players also feel nostalgic for missing movement mechanics from the previous game, indicating a longing for past experiences.
- Amusement (weight 0.01): Amusement comes from specific story elements, such as Reimu running errands, and the game being perceived as a fun, mindless action RPG. Some parts of the story are noted for making players smile.
- Relief (weight 0.01): Relief is experienced by players who do not encounter optimization issues mentioned by others, and from the addition of key remapping. This suggests a positive reaction to the absence of expected problems or the inclusion of desired features.
- Sarcasm (weight 0.01): Sarcasm is used by players to express dissatisfaction with the poor story and the developers' approach to reusing content. This indicates a critical and mocking tone towards perceived shortcomings.
- Stress (weight 0): Stress is caused by difficult and repetitive stage progression, combined with unforgiving combat mechanics. This suggests that certain gameplay elements create a high-pressure and demanding experience for players.}