Now that I've actually finished the base game (I'll make headway into the postgame dungeons in a bit) I can actually talk about it in a much more deeper fashion. I've been a little disappointed personally speaking at the shift in direction that Shin Megami Tensei has taken with its third person press turn output for its mainline games. Little means little; I love Shin Megami Tensei V and consider it the second best of the series, but that small itch of wanting another classic, first person dungeon crawler with an emphasis on fusion and mapping. So in theory, ADiA should tick all those boxes, right?

I'd like to say that, but unfortunately. Artificial Dream in Arcadia actually goes beyond and above for what I wanted from a modern yet classic Shin Megami Tensei title. In very basic aspects, like its aesthetics, ADiA is an absolutely beautiful reimagening of Gensokyo and its surrounding terms, transforming a fantastic region to a fantastic but antiquated style. I would like to say that is ADiA's strongest aspect, but then I'd be wrong again, because what I do consider the best part of ADiA is not its beautiful graphics, but its mechanics.

ADiA takes queues from classic Megami Tensei, but more clearly does it take aspects from the modern renditions; most specifically, the way Sumireko is built with stats, skills, and affinities takes clear inspiration from Shin Megami Tensei V's handling, being able to use your Sleepers to inherit their affinities or their skills allows a much deeper variety of skills to be used, making Sumireko a real jack-of-all-trades. Byakuren's respec also allows the player to redo her as much as they want, so party building is never truly restricted to a single build. I personally went full World of STR, getting it to 99 by level 40 then juggling Luck, Agility, and Vitality (I had around 50 in Luck?), while then I had a dedicated healer/buffer, a pure magician, and a phys dealer/debuffer. However, because of its variety in not just Sumireko's building but also how Sleepers can also be constantly built upon and added upon by the sacrifice of other Sleepers, that ADiA is not as merciless with its requisites in fusion, and rather that it allows the player to use ANY units as they wish. I didn't do that; because I like fusion, so constantly changing my team was half the fun, however I do think with a New Game+ that using specific Grimoires and a specific team of your favorite Sleepers would be a fun exercise.

This does not mean that ADiA is a perfect game, despite feeling out of the base game completely satisfied with what it does achieve; there are some gripes I have with it. For one, hijacking's balance feels a little off. Some of them I found pitifully easy and I opted to specifically hijack to avoid fights due to the lack of an Estoma, but others (Izu and Yumemi come to mind primarily) are disgustingly difficult. Paired that with the lack of a clear hitbox makes hijacking somewhat unreliable. Worse off is the steep cost of Fast Hijacking, needing 75 SP to use. I understand the price, but when the discounted price of a base Hijack is 25, I'd rather take my chances than rely on Boosters or constant combat to regain that extra 50 SP. I'm also a little sad that the bracketed skills can't be gained through skill inheritance, because I simply never used one because fusing feels too closed off to be able to transfer these skills to the end, and because I used a physical oriented cast with three out of four Sleepers (including Sumireko) focusing on physical damage, that regaining SP was a hurdle due to the unreliableness of obtaining a crit. My fault? Sure, but it doesn't change the fact that I found SP to be unreliable despite the Special commands being debatably useful. I never used Pierce, for example, despite Pierce being an absolutely crucial skill in other Megami Tensei games and especially for physical builds. Part of it would also be that having elemental damage that scales off of Strength would have gone a long way in relying on SP and bracketed skills.

I'm also partially disappointed in a few concepts in the storytelling that didn't feel entirely done. Touhou 12 and 13 being just a small sidequest to unlock respeccing felt wasted, for example; I don't mind 13 not having much because it's not really a game that has the setup necessary for a pure dungeon crawl, but merging both of the games felt like writing a quick check to make sure no touhou game goes underrepresented. 7 also fell to this; the only part of it was the Prismriver mansion, which also falls under the same thing as 13 where it's the best that could have been done, but it's still a little sad not to see Youmu and Yuyuko properly have a role in the story. I'd extend this to 19, but it DID come out a month ago, so it would be unfair to have it as a gripe.

The TORIFUNE dungeon is another part that felt disappointing in a storytelling sense as it felt it had no real bearing on Gensokyo or its cast as the previous dungeons do. DO NOT take this as me not enjoying it because the Hifuu club stuff is my favorite thing that Touhou has made, but there's no real characters or dialogue or enemies that really fit TORIFUNE, especially since Trojan Green Asteroid makes a point that TORIFUNE is a lush enviorment filled with fairies. You could maybe say that the TORIFUNE in Gensokyo is the idea of what it is in the Outside World given shape, but... well, I like Renko and Merry, so not seeing them or being able to use them was a little sad.

I do make a point on how TORIFUNE is represented because outside of that, I actually think this is a pretty well written game? I have some gripes with how some characters are represented, it's not perfect with how I see them, but there's a genuine hilarity to the stark contrast that is Gensokyo against Sumireko's contemporary outlook. It might not be something that ages well, but to be fair, Sumireko isn't someone who would age well as a character. And that's fine; for now, the time period we are in, she's a very fun lead with that twinge of cringe you'd expect from a high school zoomer, and the dialogue options that go full with that are really fun. I did also really like the ending, which I won't get into because the dev said not to spoil, but all that's really needed to be said is that it's a very nice ending to who Sumireko is as a character and how that works with the ending character as well as just Gensokyo, which was the strongest part of Artificial Dream in Arcadia and just the process of exploring Gensokyo and the cast at large.

The only thing to really conclude with is that it's kind of a crime this costs 10 dollars. Having finished it at 25 hours, the amount of mechanical depth and unit variety with exceedingly great dungeon design is something that really deserves to cost, like, 20 dollars? I'd pay for that. It's what I wanted from a modern Shin Megami Tensei, delivering in even more spades than what I had originally wished for. I'm still gonna hound Atlus to stop making Persona 6, though.

Polaroid's Mega Rush to the 2023 End!! Game 5
Finished: December 24th

I don't really hold much interest in Touhou, nor had I for most of my life, although I've certainly known about it for most of my life- since I first started getting into gaming really. Outside of playing Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil, I haven't really dabbled in the property or read into the lore of Touhou proper...but I do know my Megaten.

What you have here is a best case scenario revival of classic Megami Tensei gameplay, while painting everything with the flair and mythos of the Touhou series. A combination I didn’t really expect yet blends surprisingly well once I started getting into the later sections of the game.

Generally when going back to older SMTs I appreciate them for establishing such strong, abrasive worlds- sending casts into wastelands of a familiar world, getting caught in dogmatic wars fought on loop for time indefinite and metaspace infinite. There’s not a lot of mythos as convoluted and cool as Megami Tensei in the gaming industry and I’m glad that it's persisted as long as it has (if overshadowed by a golden Morgana idol in ATLUS’ office building, but I'll take it).
The issue would just arise from how oddly paced or cryptic some of these games could get. Shin Megami Tensei difficulty remained prevalent throughout the series, however modern gaming design would help alleviate or spice up the monotony. The advent of the 'Press Turn' mechanic along with other unique combat mechanics helped to further distinguish SMT from other franchises with a new array of ways to exploit waves of demons. The older games, by comparison, just get to a point where the combat feels a bit too thin for my liking while dungeons get actively more complex by comparison (or in other cases way too simple if you just Divine Judgment everything).

Where classic SMT remains, a new take on the formula helps breathe some life into the idea, from Touhou of all things. Touhou: ADiA takes many of the mechanical ideas and elements found from the first Digital Devil Story to Strange Journey in 2009- and makes a game that well encompasses while actually avoiding some of the pitfalls I feel these titles all too often dig themselves into.

The general gameplay style reflects the usual first-person dungeon crawling of the older Megami Tensei games, with sparse bases surrounding a dungeon rife with enemies, treasures, NPCs and other opportunities. Your equipment and stats are a mix of several games throughout the series- you don't have to buy individual types of bullets separate from the guns you wield although armor will often come with their own unique properties outside of boosting defense/attack. You generally have less armor than the usual SMT title but there's enough distinguishing from certain armors that you might prefer the cat ears that give a giant AGL boost to something that might have more DEF, but lack that agility boost. Your main character, Sumireko gains abilities and resistances/weaknesses off your Sleepers (demons), however you have to sacrifice them in order to gain them, so use these wisely (or just grind money for database splurging).

The use of Grimoires to toggle on 'risk/reward' type passives is a very cool addition to the mix, and can be well exploited if you know when to turn on certain Grimoires. These can range from 'expands your Map discovery radius but gains less SP throughout battle' to 'Damage against a Sleepers' weakness is further increased, but you otherwise deal less damage' they're a fun way to spice up your dungeon crawling. I would recommend against using the explorer grimoire, alongside a careful use for the ‘Map’ item. Both of these help clear up the map and fully exploring a map does get you a monetary reward, much like Strange Journey. These are fine in practice, especially with clearing out dungeons that are much more obnoxious, although part of the manual cleanup without these tools gains you additional battles with which to gain exp. Exp isn't everything in this game- especially if you're better than I am at party building but its always nice to have the level advantage at all times.

There's maybe a few hiccups in difficulty although I think this happens quite often in these kinda games. Where you have a strong party going through a dungeon or two but run into a snag where you wanna fuse your guys into stronger 'Sleepers' but something about the party composition just isnt giving you the 'Sleepers' you want. I never memorized or figured out a pattern(?) for how you should fuse demons and would often run into this problem of never having a new wave of demons to fuse into, usually just stuck with results that were the same as sleepers from the dungeon I just came in from, maybe one new sleeper? I’m not sure.

The music is mostly fine- there's some tracks early on that feel a bit grating but I was quite elated when- as soon as you hit the halfway point of the game- a new battle theme starts popping up. Always enjoyed whenever RPGs shake up the usual battle themes partway through- and here it happens twice! I would have also liked maybe some better indicators as to who everyone actually was when I was fusing. Somewhat embarrassing on my part, although I still have a hard time remembering most of the characters that weren't from EotSD. On the fusion screen all that's shown is their name and their placement in the party menu, but not levels or any showing of what the characters you’re using look like outside of going back to the status screen. Earlier SMTs also had this trouble before they grew into more iconic designs, with a lot of recolors, some generic looking designs and a lot smaller of a database to choose from- although I would have liked a better indicator as to who I was sending out to be fused not just off name/moveset alone.

Story wise its nothing too complex, and I don’t really know how to comment on any fanservice or continuity or anything like that as someone that is not privy to the Touhou mythos. What I will say is that it somewhat succeeded in piquing my interest for later on- I might actually look further into what Touhou gets into or the importance of certain characters. Why was (X) character the final boss? Why is there a lunar colony with a bunch of rabbits on it (why am I playing another game where this is the case)? What’s up with Torifune? The game itself doesn’t dive too deep into this madness and I think it's better for it, not clogging up the main premise for too many in-jokes or needing to explain everything to the main player if they’re someone like me. Certainly not everything is left in the dark and there’s plenty of nudges I think touhou fans will enjoy but its not too overindulgent which I appreciate, letting this game stand on its own.


Overall, Artificial Dream in Arcadia, while a callback for those longing for another kind of RPG like classic SMT, might ironically serve as a good starting point for those that might wanna try out the old style of Megami Tensei for themselves. It's certainly got its learning curve and a lot of the dungeons can feel somewhat arduous, but with the addition of some Quality of Life features mixed into its mechanics, it doesn't take too long to understand what this particular take is asking of you. I was pretty surprised with how much the game had to offer and how many new things it had to show me- it wasn't a parody like I had been expecting but a full on homage to SMT and hell, the JRPG genre. While not a series I generally have interest in, I'm glad that something I had only seen gifs of during its development turned out less as some kinda gag-crossover, and moreso as a fully realized title that improves upon what it homages.

I am starting post game as I speak but words cannot describe how much I love this game for how faithful and beautiful it is to the classic SMT style. Really, it's just so balanced and fun to play that many parts of the game become enjoyable.

ADiA, as I just said, is inspired by the classic SMT style and plays almost plays like it. You have your first person dungeon crawling, "sleepers" which are the demons of the game, weaknesses, fusion, and all that stuff that is the bread and butter of SMT. The fusion part of the game really disappointed me because it's not essential part of the gameplay flow. In fact, you can just carry on through the game with your favorite touhou characters even if you acquired them from the beginning of the game. Really, it's a double-edged sword because the dev understands people wants to use their favs throughout the whole game in that I respect it, but it hurts that integral part of what makes the SMT gameplay loop so strong. Still, it is a nice consideration and I've used this to bring my favs from below/above the halfway point to the post game. Asides from the fusion, no press turn system means that weaknesses are not as bad and you can bounce back easily from damage. What I like about this game in particular is that it presents the many essential tools like Dekaja/Dekunda early game and you can start messing around to build The Team. The most brutal part of the game is losing levels when you die which may sound like an issue but it is fine because xp is synced; it's just a reality check that this can be a difficult game when it wants to be with a real penalty when you die.

On the other hand, the dungeons in this game are small, simple, and nothing too extreme (may eat these words in the post game). You got your slide puzzles, poison tiles, warp mazes, FOEs, etc. Dungeons aren't that bad but that made me wanting more from the main game and, not to sound insane, but a little longer. It's still pretty good dungeons with not too difficult maps like the teleporter maze; they're actually reasonable to deal with.

The story is something I can't comment on much because I haven't caught up with many of the touhou games, but I understand most of the general characters and the plots of mainline game along with some manga. I wish there were more involvement in some areas like the youkai tanuki forest or TORIFUNE, but I have to say the last fight was pretty cool. In general I like how straightforward the plot and dialogue is; touhou has always interested me as world.

The game is balanced I would say, and you have almost entire freedom to go to whatever area you see fit (and capture any sleeper even if it exceeds your level) when reaching below the halfway point. Sure, it has its flaws but I love this so damn much for how close it gets to replicating the classic SMT formula that I want to pick up an emulator and play SMT 1/2/ and IF. It's literally just a classic SMT game but with QoL and it's great. Highly recommend trying it even if you know nothing about touhou.

TRUE GODDESS REINCARNATION

Died Oct 8, 2009 - Born Dec 12, 2023

WELCOME BACK, 真・女神転生

Touhou crossed with SMT, which is pretty funny as a lot of the PC-98 era of Touhou lifts bits and pieces from SMT itself. The game does a good job of letting you explore Gensokyo, and once you get into the combat cycle it can be pretty fun.

For better or worse, the game left me a wanting of more everything except the core gameplay. One of the main appealing aspects of Touhou is in its music, except sadly there is only one normal Boss theme. There are three normal battle themes throughout the course of the campaign, but only one midboss theme and one normal boss theme. The boss theme is especially egregious, not because it's bad it's good actually, but because the theme chosen matches the first boss you're fighting, so when you face the second boss that leads to a bit of disappointment. The themes that are arranged are good, just having bosses match the music would have lead to more of them.

Another thing I would have liked was more skills. There's some attempts at diversity in the physical skills but everything still feels standard, which would be fine in a game replicating early SMT, but you could have captured a lot more personalities here. There is one aspect where it excels however and that is the Capture system, replacing Demon Negotiations (though a randomized version of them is an option you can choose as soon as you reach the first save point). The Capture system utilizes Touhou's danmaku roots, having you shoot to hack through the Sleeper (which I have and will continue to refer to as 2hu) to get them to join your side. These patterns are mostly based on their in-game self, but capture the essence of each character well.

A similar criticism goes to both the sacrificing and inheriting systems, which prevents the 2hus from truly sticking out in what they can do. Imagine if Satori, one of the earliest 2hus you can get, came with an ability that would show the enemy's affinities for that battle. It wouldn't be great in the long term as your turns become more valuable and you get upgrades, but it'd help the player ease into the game and match Satori's canon abilities. Some do have special skills, but they can all be inherited by others which makes them a lot less special. General skills too, as much as I enjoyed the Immolation+Last Resort paired with another 2hu that has Cover, I wish there were more strategies like this beyond the standard "buff and debuff" and "hit the girl hard."

The slightly barebones nature of things makes it walk a tight line between a groove like the first half and too repetitive like the second, but it manages its functions well and is a delightful experience for any Touhou fan and SMT fan that has enough going on in it to keep you lasting the whole time.

I don’t really know how much of Artificial Dream in Arcadia’s appeal is carried by the crossover between MegaTen and Touhou, or just the fact that we haven’t seen Megami Tensei 2’s brand of dungeon crawling in a minute, but what I can say is that it’s a lot of fun, with a clear passion for the two series evident throughout the game and a clear effort to make this style of game play well and make sense in 2023. Features of MegaTen that are often considered frustrating (e.g. pitfalls, one way doors, the magnetite system, the luck based feel of negotiation) are made far more manageable thanks to new additions such as grimoires or the battery system, or, of course, the bullet hell hijacking. The complexity of the dungeons feels toned down from those games just a little bit overall, though they are still well designed and a test of survival and endurance, and anyone missing Atlus’ strangely addicting brand of bullshit dungeon design can look forward to the final post-game dungeon. It’s a comparatively welcoming and accessible game, with all of the quality of life improvements you’d expect from a modern Megami Tensei game, while still requiring careful team building and strategy. I was worried about this game pulling an SMT5 and making level-ups too powerful, and thankfully that’s not the case; I found myself building a new party for just about every dungeon, partially just for fun and partially to not get destroyed.

There’s no way of getting around this, but the story is really lame. The plot just feels like an excuse to explore Gensokyo and collect Touhou characters, and while I never expected a great, or even decent plot from this game, I was still disappointed with how it flounders in some areas. The execution of the tower, for example, which seemed like it was meant to be this game’s version of Tarturus, felt so half-assed with its one gimmick repeated throughout the floors. Not to mention how the final boss and ending felt so anticlimactic. At the very least, the plot does allow for some really fun scenarios, such as vandalizing Eientei with Mokou, or invading the moon and leading a rebellion for moon rabbit worker’s rights. The unintrusive nature of the plot also means that the player is easily able to break away from the story and tackle some of the sidequests and minigames. The strengths of Touhou Project’s writing don’t have too much to do with the plot, it’s more so world building and characterization. In that regard, ADiA sees more success, but still isn’t that great. Shoutouts to the postgame though. If you felt let down by the main ending like I did, that part of the game feels like an actually solid conclusion.

It’s not a perfect game, and even at their best, games like this are niche for understandable reasons. If you’re the type to play an RPG for the story more than anything, you should just go for something else. Still, if you’re a fan of Megami Tensei, Touhou Project, or dungeon crawlers, the game is well worth your time. If you’re unfamiliar with the franchise, I’m not sure how good ADiA is as an introduction to Touhou, but this is probably the best way of getting into classic Megami Tensei, in the event that you’re interested in SMT 1 or 2, but are discouraged by the jank. With a story mode of around 25 hours and a full completion time of roughly 40 hours, I find ADiA is the perfect length for this kind of RPG, and it's well worth the miniscule 10 dollar price tag (I agree with others that the game’s price could have easily been doubled). As a longtime fan of Megami Tensei and Touhou Project, and someone who has missed these types of games, I loved every second of Artificial Dream in Arcadia, despite its flaws. While I don’t expect others to get the same appreciation from it, it’s still a great game, serving as an excellent tribute to both franchises and a lovingly crafted dungeon crawler in its own right.

The dev for this game, potemki11, just woke up one day and decided to make one of the best Shin Megami Tensei clones and make it even better by adding Touhou characters to it.

Difficulty is perfectly balanced, there is nothing in here that's as frustrating as most other SMT games or even Touhou RPGs, except maybe the Secret Boss? Which is debatable as it's really easy to cheese if you've been paying attention to your stats altering moves.

The developer isn't even done with this game btw, he's still adding new content to it to this day, including a customizeable level/map editor, so I will probably go back to this in the near future.

Really fascinating game, and a really high quality sendup of SNES Shin Megami Tensei with a Touhou flavour. I was absolutely enraptured with the first 3/4 of this game, because of how high quality and authentic the experience is to both franchises. However I do have some criticisms that compounded themselves especially in the last quarter of the game.

Principally I think the game goes on for way too long, clocking in at around 22 hours completing the base game, the whole last quarter felt like padding just because there was a desire to see every part of Touhou as a franchise represented in this game, but the connective tissue for the last few hours before the final climb up to the top of the last dungeon was tenuous at best, with no story in the actual dungeons themselves either. I understand that it would feel off if we didn't get cool locations from the deep corners of the lore represented, but given the encounter rate with no way to adjust it, and the fact that the story felt pretty much done before you're hit with this final roadblock I was growing pretty resentful, especially because of some more annoying mechanics in this last set of dungeons. I was also pretty disappointed with dungeons that used Etrian Odyssey like overworld encounters since the encounters themselves provided little reward for overcoming them, and the actual encounters were easy to overcome as well, making them kinda moot as a dungeon obstacle. I'm also not enamoured with giving rewards for completing maps when dungeons often employed one way tracks and teleport mazes, making map reward completion an absolute slog for like 2500 Yen often.

The combat is really good, being very similar to SNES SMT without Zio stun cheese, and the Sleepers manage to capture the wonderful feeling of finding new demons and progressing as you go along, although I do think that the options of being able to upgrade and level your old sleepers to bring them along for later content is a bit of a scam, the EXP curve required to bring them up to par with the tier of sleepers even 2 dungeons later is pretty steep and requires you to grind sacrifice fodder, which is a shame because I did bring a Marisa out of stubbornness to the endgame and she still felt like she was pulling far less weight than my two new frontliners I was just able to fuse.

While I don't think this game is as well put together as a Shin Megami Tensei game, it's still a fantastic game on it's own merits, let alone as a Megaten or a Touhou fangame and well worth playing for any enthusiast.

great classic smt dungeon crawler featuring touhou characters. The game emulates the classic smt style amazingly and has a lot of cool features from future titles. my only issues with the dungeon crawling is the lack of an estoma equivalent added with the fact that a good chunk of the floors are as big as smt1 cathedral which makes dying in dungeons an absolute chore when you have to make your way back to where you were. thankfully the combat is extremly fast and there are certain ways to mitigate these problems.
as for the touhou side i admittedly dont have much experience from the series but it was cool to see the characters i did recognise from the pc98 games

To be honest I completely adore this fangame. I was trying to think of reasons to maybe only give it 4.5 stars (cause I struggle giving things number ratings, esp cause I view most experiences as positive) but for me it really did everything right. I love the story, the areas chosen from gensokyo are really cool and all the gimmicks fit in pretty well, the skill and affinity transfers lead the customization of the game to be extremely versatile, the ost RULES, and just so much more. I love how easy this game is as an entry point to Touhou if you've played a lot of DRPGS or specifically classic SFC SMT but still keeping the difficulty relatively high even with a bunch of QoL. I personally only struggled hard enough to game over a few times, but some bosses I didn't even die to ended up being just as hard if not harder as some can be real battles of attrition.

Overall, I just think this game is a wonderful love letter while standing entirely on it's own even if you wanted to treat it as a completely standalone piece detatched from Touhou and all inspirations. Check it out if you have any interest at all!

An amazing tribute to SMT, and a great Touhou fangame as well. The feeling of old-school dungeon crawling, accompanied by grungy SNES-esque music, framed by the variety of wonderful 16-bit aesthetics painting each of the numerous dungeons gave me such a nostalgic throwback towards a genre of game I've rarely dug into.

The battle system felt great to use as well, with animations being fast and flashy (with options to speed them up even further), and the gameplay loop of exploiting weaknesses, buff, debuffs, and SP, made normal fights and bosses feel dynamic for a majority of my time with the game.

To top it off, the game never felt unfair, and felt surprisingly balanced, despite how many 2hu's there were to hijack and fuse. The amount of team-building options lets you either constantly fuse new 2hu's in your party to build around each dungeon, or continually make your group of favorites stronger. Neither playstyle felt any less valid to use, which made team building feel liberating and rewarding to pull off. Because of how flexible this was, I never felt the game to ever be overbearingly difficult (until the Final Boss and the postgame.....).

Overall, an excellent SMT-like dungeon crawler that I might see myself replaying in the future. So much content (30 hour playtime) for only 10 bucks too! Such a steal.

It's kind of funny what a melting pot this game is. SMT fans who know nothing about Touhou playing this, Touhou fans who know nothing about SMT trying the genre out. However, all of it to comes out to almost unanimous praise from both sides. I am from the latter, and as someone who is a 1CC fiend for Touhou, I appreciate the series a lot. I also appreciate Touhou fan games a lot, with Luna Nights being the best Metroidvania I've ever experienced. I was well aware of Potemki11's work through fanart and the extremely solid Udongein X. But this project at first seemed like it wasn't for me. I've always been intimidated by the brutal reputation of SMT games, but I was willing to try it out in a Touhou-adorned game. It was a bit rough at first, mainly due to my freshness with the gameplay, but this game turned out to be one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time. Nothing about the charm of Gensokyo is lost in translation with this game; it is captured perfectly. There isn't a ton of dialogue in this game, and writing lines for all of the sleepers is an impossible task, but every character in the series is expressed well with their gameplay. Shion has great stats for where she is in the game, but has pitiful luck. These subtle characterizations make this game succeed for someone who came into it as a sole Touhou fan. Gameplay-wise, twice there were parts in the game where I thought to myself, "Surely there's only an hour or two left in this game." Then I saw the world open up in a completely different way through an upgrade or area being opened. The difficulty level of this game is extremely fair in my opinion, and for someone who played this as their first SMT-style game, I am satisfied with the difficulty. A lot of annoyances early on are put away by items you gain access to, or upgrades later on which makes progression feel perfect. One of my only gripes with this game is that I wish that the unique abilities that are given to only a handful of the cast were buffed and each character had their own abilities. I felt the rate of new characters with abilities fell off in the mid- to late-game, and the characters felt more like stats at the end, rather than individual characters who could provide their own unique angle in fights. The abilities themselves are also extremely weak, in my opinion, outside of a select few (Hello, Heaven and Hell), and if they were universally buffed, it might save some characters with lackluster stat spreads. But outside of those truly minor gripes, this game is amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with a genre I didn't think I would and am looking forward to Udongein X2!