Heya, so I got to take the game out for a spin and boy do I have a LOT to say about this game.
I actually managed to 1cc it on my first ever run with Youmu Wolf, before pulling another first time 1cc with Marisa Wolf as well as well. I've nearly managed to do so as well for the extra stage where I ended up in the final spell with 2 or 3 millimeters of healthbar remaing cuz brainfarts. So yeah, I'm kinda inclined to agree that this game is one of the easier entry of this series. I do play on Hard difficulty, but still this is a first for me. I gotta say, if you're going for a casual run, meaning one where you use bombs, hypers, and even die, you will quickly notice that the strategy where you collect the appropriate goasts while bombing is very, VERY strong strategy
.
Proper use of the Beast can be compared to a stronger PCB border, and the fact that
Game is VERY cheesable, and I'm only speaking from a casual perspective here
Anyway, outside of these, game's got a lot of static patterns and the life-or-death-deciding RNG consists for the most part of movement RNG for the main game, and seems to me to be the 1st and 7th spellcards for the extra stage boss. It's more bearable and more reasonable compared a LOT of the recent entries for the main games, and arguably even some of the not so recent ones. And not only are the patterns not heavily dependent on RNG, but they're also colorful and pretty watchable (as in, not too much purple, none of those old looking bubble bullets, ...). I found it pretty nice and even engaging.
The game might take the not-so beloved parts of UFO and TD and make something very solid of off them, but personally, with how the aesthetic of the game and the design of the patterns are, I honestly got more of a PCB vibemoreso than UFO or TD (the part where you try to not die during your Hyper to not only maximize the rewards it give you (shot boost and probably PIV for score runners but also additional beasts))
And speaking of aesthetics ... boy, HOO BOY does this game blow its predecessors out of the water :
Spoiler:
it's got far more stage background transitions than you would probably consider as necessary : stage 5 starts off dark, than you get to view the city, then you still get to view the city but up from above, with that delicious looking veil of mist, AND THEN you find yourself faced to that keyhole shaped garden. AND LEVEL 6 ! It's got something I've hardly ever considered for Touhou : that futuristic look. It honestly give a better vibe of a place with advanced tech than the Moon ... AND the Moon is the place with the best technology ... (disregarding their aesthetic choices but I digress) You get into this sci-fi futuristic looking place, then this, uh, glowy escalator-like road (?) thingy becomes obvious, then everything gets red and move in the other direction as you fight the boss, then you still get to see that BUT from a little bit ABOVE as the fight progress, THEN you get out of that place and in front of the Garden but with a DIFFERENT VIEW compared to what you get in the stage 5 boss battle ... ZUN put far more work than usual in this game. Also I quite liked the general look of Hell. I personally expected there to be some kind of super windy Hell, and boy, do I find that cool. My game doesn't even lag when I bomb that stage with Marisa, which is an issue I got in HSiFS stage 4 when I Master spark my way out of trouble.
Now as for the music, I like it a lot too for this game. Since DDC, we had those ZUNtars riffs and, to be honest, those hardly ever managed to impress me whenever they're used as some random riffs that get thrown at you very very fast, and it is also no exception this game. Likewise for some high pitched tracks. For me, HSiFS had the best use for ZUNtars, particularly Aunn's theme, where it the previous instrument transitions smoothly into it in such a refined, elegant manner. But a soundtrack is not comprised of a single instrument, and personally, I generally liked how they work for this game. I was quite neutral for stage 4 ost's opening part (which sounded like a certain part of Cootaka's theme but with riff variety of ZUNtars, but I quite liked that fun bassline and how the feel of the song in general was. Tbh the main reason why I'm ok with this particular track is because it struck me as something that could fit NToJ tracks. Anyway, my favorites songs for this game are definitely in the later stage plus extra, specifically, stage 6 boss, extra boss, stage 5 and 6 and stage 5 boss, along with the coo-l little bonus of Cootaka's theme.
And as for the characters, I like how the cast turned out this time. The way I see it, there's 2 main things to consider in Touhou games characters : How workable are they by 1/themselves and 2/in relation with certain other characters. Say HSiFS for example : while I do not believe they're bad, they unfortunately work well at being what they're supposed to be : folks that you don't get to interact with and don't attract a lot of attention : they're isolated among themselves for there to be "families" of characters, and the only faction's got two characters whose main schitck is being with together (not an individuality friendly kind of thing, this is), while the most distinctive character is pure enigma with a very vague source material. Touhou 17's cast however does put a number of factions :
And even the early game's 3 girls's got thing going on for them and stuff that makes possible associations that can be made with other characters : Eika's got that stone stacking thing for her but also the fact that she was, uh, kinda cancelled before her time (which got her some associations with mommahus or ... Seiga ; Urumi who freaking runs a DINOSAUR SELLING FISHERY BY THE RIVER OF THE DEAD AND SHE'S SMUGGLES PEOPLE INTO THE AFTERLIFE AS A SIDE HUSTLE, and finally Cootaka, who aside from being one of the surprisingly popular avian type, got a MASCOT on her head, and is also on the Hell administration side.
Regarding character designs, my favorite definitely go to
She's so damn round and huggable. Easily one of ZUN's better art imo. I'm not so sold on that light blue thing on
tbh, but neither am I for Utsuho and Hecatia's look, and I've seen a NUMBER of fanarts that made them look pretty dang good with their designs, like, good enough to make me like their original design by ZUN. I hope that's also gonna be the case for
.
Story
Also, this is the first game in a LONG (and I mean
LONG) while that didn't get released concurrently with a fighter game nor a manga in the running (VFiS doesn't count cuz its final chapter was already in the works), so it is quite the lonely release ... they're obviously getting in Strange Cow one of these days, but I'd like them be a bit more illustrated in a more visual manner than in an interview or a novel.
And finally, on various stuff :
-Pressing R for retry doesn't work (for me)
-Hyper shots, specifically all of Reimu's and Eagle Marisa, have some serious visibility issues : white bullets or clear bullets that lack a dark outline can get hidden very easily by the bullets you're sending during these hypers
-You can practice a particular spellcard of a particular difficulty with ANY characters, which is cool (dunno if that's how it was as well for the previous games)
-
-Achievements !
All in all, I'm very satisfied with this release, and I hope that this kind of attention is gonna be brought to future Touhou games down the line. I'm no score runner nor a survivalist, so important points pertaining to those particular playstyles would obviously elude me, and I'm interested in the point of view of people who are into these
