If I see one more person call the UFO system "unfair" then I will personally come to your house and force you to 1CC this game. It is now clear to me that ZUN made Touhou 13 piss easy out of spite alone.

Anyway, Touhou 12's pretty good. It's much more ambitious than its Second Windows Era predecessors with... mixed results. Touhou 10 and 11 are better games overall, but 12 hits pretty hard when it isn't pulling its punches.

Obviously, I like the UFO system. In terms of "gimmicks," they are probably the best system mechanics ZUN has ever made up to this point. Their implementation into the game encourages a lot of fundamental shoot 'em up skills: taking control of the middle of the screen, offensive bombing, smart stage routing, that kind of stuff. All of which is great! The "unfairness" complaint becomes very silly when you spend enough time in TH12 to understand that UFO's are basically entirely deterministic. Everything about their spawn conditions is static. The major difference between each run is you, the player, and when you shoot the UFO fairies down. Plus, TH12 is actually very generous with its resources, too. You can screw up quite a few UFO match-3s before things start to become problematic. It's not a perfect system--- I think it makes scoreplay too linear, and those same blue UFOs that give you points being useless for survival feel incongruent with the rest of the system. But if I--a colorblind dude--can enjoy the gimmick, then it's probably pretty chill.

The actual spellcards are where I find TH12 to be weak, though. There's some pretty cool stuff in this game. Unzan and his hitbox are awesome and I'm particularly fond of the calm and calculated way Shou's fight functions as if you're really fighting a (Buddhist) tiger. But otherwise this game's kinda boring with it, IDK. I don't have much to say about most of the other fights: they're solid but not special. This is especially damning for Byakuren who the game sets up as a bigger deal than she feels like she is, unfortunately.

The presentation in TH12 is similarly simple, but I think the game leverages it way better. The first half of the game spent in Gensoyko's skies gives the world good texture, (ala Touhou 10) and the descent into Makai is genuinely hype. I locked in immediately when I heard Fires of Hokkai play for the first time. It's easy to see why people thought this would lead into more PC-98 content returning. To treat this area from it with so much respect and then to do nothing with it would be such a tease...

Like I started with, Touhou 12's pretty good. Not my favorite game in the series-- I'm not even sure if it holds a candle to 11, honestly. But it's a fun time, and clearly shows how ZUN has improved since the early 2000s.

It's an okay game that has a HUGE amount of potential. Ultimately, I'm glad I grabbed this while it was free since I'd probably feel a bit disappointed if I paid for it

Essentially, it's Lethal Company but you're Youtubers, so the enjoyment of the game largely comes down to you and your friends being funny, which is fine, these types of games can be great! I like that you're forced to confront the monsters to do good, instead of always running away, even if a lot of them just kinda stun lock or instakill you

My main issues are:

- The Ragdoll physics add a ton of comedy but the way your camera view wobbles a bunch for just turning your mouse or moving slightly is kinda unpleasant/nauseating
- The camera doesn't have a whole lot of battery with seemingly no way to upgrade it, but I get you wanna keep the videos short
- The dungeons you go into are pretty bland, with the same texture usually laid over everything. They're also super huge, which kinda makes me miss Lethal Company's incentive to search for items. Generally monsters appear without a whole lot of warning too, so it's a lot of stumbling around an empty environment until sudden jumpscare noise
- Voice chat is generally pretty quiet. Promixity chat is one of the best parts about these types of games but in CW, you basically need to all be on top of each other to hear and even then, it can still not be enough. This is especially noticable when you play back the videos you make, where a lot of the funny jokes you made can barely be heard

That being said, I think this game is a few updates away from potentially being super amazing. The ideas and core gameplay loop are fantastic