This was a great experience that managed to evoke the sense of child-like wonder that I had when I explored and experienced Pokemon games when I was younger, while also being in a format that stayed engaging and especially challenging for me all throughout. It's got all of the perks of your average Pokemon game, and more. The puppets are cute, varied, and fun to use, and Gensokyo is fun to traverse with a seemingly endless well of secrets, and, of course, the music consists of a bunch of great remixes of Touhou songs. There's a few greatly appreciated QoL features here too, compared to Pokemon. EVs and IVs are extremely streamlined; IVs are always visible, and investing in EVs is as simple as distributing points. Hold items are replenished at the end of fights (even in single player). TMs are infinite use, and you can forget and re-learn moves at your leisure. HMs don't need to be taught to your puppets to be used.

Perhaps the best thing about the game, though, are the bosses. Gone are the type-focused, underleveled pushovers of the main Pokemon series with poor AI and teams so weak that they could be swept by one type-advantageous mon. The Mokou fight in Eientei is the first real wake-up call of the game. TPDP bosses can be intimidating as fuck, sporting balanced teams of strong puppets with good type coverage, whilst employing effective strategies and using strong (and sometimes precognitive) AI to counter your own. It makes for a much more engaging game when the story demands that you form a well-balanced team and use the mechanics to their fullest to progress, especially in the post-game.

I'd highly recommend the game if you're a Pokemon and Touhou fan, even moreso if you're a big PC-98 fan, because man, especially compared to most Touhou works (and even the official games), there is a LOT of respect and reverence towards the PC-98 gang.