Ridiculous ammounts of effort and soul packed into 160 megabytes, a full on love letter to classic SMT, JRPG's and Touhou itself, an infectiously entertaining dungeon crawler that even finds the way to sneak in the bullet hell origins of the franchise. The story and characters are simple but the learning curve for its mechanics are perfect: Easy to learn, but takes time and patience to master. And you better master the teambuilding, the buff-debuff system, the hijacks, the items, the strengths and weaknesses with each encounter, because this game does not fuck around, especially in the second half. The last three day stretch of me tearing through its last sections gave me that special feeling of exhilaration that I get from beating a challenge worth taking on.

Touhou Artificial Dream In Arcadia is one of the most addicting games i’ve ever played. It’s rare to see megami tensei fan games that actually make it out the door, and it’s INSANE how well done this game is. Not only does it perfectly capture the look and feel of those classic super famicom entries into the series but it also improves on the gameplay systems already present extremely tastefully. the combat takes a lot after some of the newer games while still feeling like the older ones. It kind of plays like how you always wished SMT I and II played, and it’s phenomenal. While this game doesn’t have too much of a story to it, what’s here is enjoyable and lots of fun even if you don’t know anything about touhou. I went in knowing nothing about the series and came out loving this game and then downloading touhou 6. I mean this with all my heart, if you like the classic smt games then this game is a must play. you might not find the gripping themes, atmosphere, and post apocalyptic setting that was present in those games, but what you will find is a game that would easily be top 5 if atlus officially made it. you won’t find a dungeon crawler with more gripping gameplay out there. from the expertly crafted dungeons to the fine tuned challenging combat, this game is 50 hours of no nonsense straight up gas for the entire run time. oh, and by the way, the music kicks ass too.