what do you mean the touhou games aren't a series of breakout-likes




This is the first "true" touhou game as it's all about that classic danmaku shootin and it's pretty solid all things considered! This game marks the debut of key Touhou characters like Marisa and the turtle that Reimu rides in every game (she does ride a turtle in every game, right?). There are 3 different good endings to get depending on which gameplay style you choose at the beginning of the game (speed-focused, balanced, and attack-focused), and using a continue at any point gets you the bad ending which is kinda blegh imo but that's just the way things are. Luckily unlike supposed later touhou games you don't need to play on a particular difficulty to get the good endings so at least that's something, I was able to squeeze out a clear on the normal difficulty. Gameplaywise it feels like the game took the progressive powerup system and goofy between-stage banter of the Cotton games, threw them in a vertical bullet hell with a panic-button bomb system, all with the yokai and shrine maiden aesthetics of Kiki Kaikai. The music also bangs as per always. Sometimes there can be so much shit flying around on screen that it can become a bit of a sensory overload especially on lunatic mode where killing literally anything sends hordes of bullets at you, but with enough practice things become manageable. For some reason I keep hearing people say that ZUN's art for the games themselves is mediocre/bad but really I thought the visuals and character designs were quite expressive and good! Overall it's a good foundation that I'm sure the future titles will continue to build and polish upon as the series begins to understand its own identity.