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.

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!

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.