this game fucks dude idc

I only ever played Touhou once with a couple of friends at home, and that was years after I played this for the first time. The original 2009 version that is, not the Steam re-release. Don't even remember how I found out about it, maybe my brother downloaded it from somewhere way back when.

The obvious problem is the pricing. LIke yeah, it's way too expensive for what it is. But that aside, it's super fun!

I love the character sprites. It's not exactly Classicvania-esque, it actually reminds me a lot more of the DS games. Environments don't look as graceful as the ones you'd find in the CV games but they get the job done.

What really elevates this game to me(besides nostalgia obviously, I'd be lying if I said my childhood memories aren't responsible for me looking past some of the bullshit here) is the soundtrack, and the boss fights. Gensokyo Overture, The Lost Forest, Divine Shrine Maiden, Dollhouse, Scarlet Tears and the final boss theme are all outstanding.
And the boss fights may seem unfair at first, but once you get their pattern down after a couple of tries, it feels SO good to dodge shit and maximize your damage with each opening. Full honesty, these fights had me in the zone way more than a lot of actual Classicvania bosses.

It's overpriced, the upscaled sprites look blurry, the arial ass font is horrendous and they somehow managed to misspell Remilia's name in a game with a script shorter than a kid's book, but I don't care. 10/10 would drink with Suika again

This game was dreadful. If you go on Steam, this game advertises itself as a Symphony of the Night homage, but this is a lie. This game is not a Metroidvania, it's just a crappy linear platformer with level design taken from SotN (and in some cases, I think some sprites were literally taken from it). The controls are very floaty and imprecise, the plot is basically non-existent, and the game is super short; I beat the whole thing in an hour. Some of the Steam reviews talk about how they were enjoying the voice acting, and those people must have gone deaf. I'm not an anime connoisseur, but these actresses are the most grating, high pitched voices I've ever heard. I don't understand how anyone could even stand listening to them. There's not much here to like at all.

i was expecting a lot better due to the game being so notable but it was very whatever. hits never felt like they mattered, and the flying mechanic never worked the way i wanted it to. all of the redesigns are really good tho, and i think the writing was really fun, especially the meiling boss. voice acting was ok.
dropping a half star because the horrible hd filter is on by default and you cant change it without having to manually patch it yourself. that filter is so fucking hideous no matter what game its used in why the fuck do devs keep including it, let alone turning it on by default???

uhhhh yeah

after coming off of a bunch of classic styled Castlevania games, it's only natural that I'd give this game a go, the timing was on point. I like Castlevania. I like Touhou. it's a perfect fit, right? well....kinda.

I don't really have too much to say about the story. if you played Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, the plot of this game is pretty much the same beat here. if you haven't, basically some vampire named Count Dra--I mean Remilia Scarlet has covered Gensokyo with dangerous scarlet mist and it's up to Reimu Hakurei the shrine maiden to put a stop to this by venturing inside her castle and defeating anyone or anything that gets in her way. despite looking and playing like a Castlevania game, the story and cutscenes are very much a Touhou plot, so it can be a bit of a mood whiplash if you're expecting a gritty storyline and instead ending up having stuff like Reimu trying to rename the gatekeeper, Marisa insulting someone for not having friends, and Cirno getting drunk off of sake. I welcome the goofy story though. it's a fun change of pace, despite some of the cutscenes dragging on a bit too long. (there is a skip button though!)

the art has to be my favorite thing about the game. the illustrations Akira Banpai gave to the Touhou cast are almost one-to-one with Ayami Kojima's art and that is a huge accomplishment. you could probably fool someone who doesn't know about Touhou that this was artwork for a scrapped Castlevania game, but then again what internet user doesn't know about Touhou nowadays? all the redesigns most of the cast got for this game goes so hard, Reimu and Sakuya are my personal highlights, but Marisa and Remilia aren't too far behind. also I say most of the cast because Alice already looked like a Castlevania character to begin with so she didn't really change that much. this version of the game also included voice acting and it helps give the game some more soul (even if I find some of the more high-pitched characters annoying). apparently all the voice actresses are popular professionals back in Japan but I'm not really familiar with Japanese voice acting too much so I don't know ANY of them, but I'm sure others in the know will recognize and smile as they hear their favorite seiyuu voice a Touhou character. oh yeah the music's great too but that's a given since this is a Touhou fan game. my personal favorite has to be Stage 3's theme since the opening of the track has a quick snippet of Divine Bloodlines, gotta love that fanservice.

so I saved the gameplay for last and for good reason: I have very, VERY mixed feelings about it. I don't really have too much problems of how Reimu controls, she's basically a Belmont without the stiffness and has the ability to float with a press of a button meaning bottomless pits aren't a problem anymore. unfortunately when she floats she can't use her whip attack and instead she'll use ofuda instead. yeah I get this is how she attacks in official Touhou games but it sucks here. not only are they short ranged but they use up Souls (Hearts of this game) and they're just not fun to use compared to the satisfaction you get with whipping enemies with the purification rod. instead of sub-weapons, Reimu can summon 1-3 different familiars to use depending on how far you progressed into the game, to be honest this feels like a downgrade. what I liked about the sub-weapons is that each one had their own unique uses to get you out of situations that the whip wouldn't be able to handle on its own. unfortunately Reimu's familiars don't have the uniqueness and fun that the sub weapons have. Marisa and Cirno's attacks aren't really too different from each other except Marisa's has more range to deal with annoying enemy placements so Cirno is kinda useless outside of boss battles. I didn't really use too much of Suika, the third familiar, because you don't get to summon her until the sixth stage and I was already too accustomed with Marisa and Cirno by that point that I just couldn't care.

the stages are excellent....for the first half. actually the first two stages don't really have anything going on much, the second stage is so short that they probably could have just made it the second half of the first stage, but I guess they had to be separate so they could invite Cirno to the party. they're fine though, the simplicity of the first two stages allows you to familiarize yourself with how Reimu controls. the third and fourth stages are where the game peaks for me. the Castlevania aesthetic begins to shine here and I love it. I don't have any problems with these two stages, they're fun and fair and that's a big thumbs up for me. then we get to the fifth stage and things take a turn. the fifth stage is when the game begins to recycle rooms with slight changes, yeah, they RECYCLE rooms. they're pulling the funny padding trick from the ye olde games of the past! this is also when the enemy placement becomes OLD school Castlevania where everything gets easy hits on you, thankfully this stage has a good portion of healing items so I wasn't too bugged with it, though it did drag by a LOT. the sixth stage continues this trend and the seventh stage is when the game peaks at annoyance. as happy as I was to see the clock tower stage as tradition, at the end of the day it's still a clock tower stage. annoying enemy placement, obstacles and attacks dealing tons of damage, INSTAKILL spikes, it's all there and your reward for making it to the end is a frustrating boss fight. they really nailed the Chronicles callbacks with this stage. the final stage ends with a boss rush and that leads me to this segue of probably the biggest hot take I have.

I do NOT like the boss fights. I hate to admit it, but they're my least favorite thing about this game. I mean some Castlevania games can tend to had some flawed boss fights but there's one huge flaw that makes these ones different: they're attempting to be bullet hell fights. of course you won't see too much bullets like in traditional shoot-em-up games, in fact the first four bosses aren't really too bad with this. by the time you get to the fifth stage though, the bosses go full on Touhou. (well, diet Touhou) I mean it'd be fine for those kind of games, but this is Castlevania-styled gameplay. you can't deal with these fights playing as if it was Castlevania because you'll get hit too easily and drain all your lives, and can't play as if it was Touhou because the Castlevania controls hold you back from doing so. Castlevania was not designed with these danmaku patterns in mind! on top of that, most of these attacks will not only deal tremendous damage to you, but vice versa can apply too! either you die in about 20 seconds, or the boss will die in about 20 seconds. these boss fights are way too short, and the final boss fight isn't that much longer. it doesn't really help that the final phase has an Anime Opening playing in the background, going to be honest it doesn't motivate me to make a comeback like Theme of Simon Belmont would have. speaking of, one of the things that makes Castlevania fights exciting is that you tend to fight a bigger opponent than you who's able to dish some dangerous albeit fun (usually) attacks that can be avoided easily with enough practice, giving you great satisfaction when you manage to deal with everything they throw at you without getting hit once, and this applies to traditional Touhou games too. here, you're facing bosses the same size as you flying around all over the battlefield that shoot out fast barrages of tiny bullets that you can't fully deal with due to your huge hitbox that was not intended to face against all of this. these fights are as if Death grew an addiction by overdosing on flying sickles. oh yeah, this game has a Hard Mode. you remember how in Castlevania 1 where the later stages had enemies killing you in just four hits? now imagine that, but it's the entire game. also imagine dealing with every problem I mentioned on top of that. do not play Hard Mode unless you really want to. listen, I know this is a Touhou fan game and all, but I really wish they went all-out with the Castlevania stuff. you know stuff like including more of their enemies, include sub-weapons and other abilities, have more references whether it'd be locations or motifs, a whole bunch of other things that'll take too much time to write here. wouldn't it be cool to see Reimu fight against Death himself? I think that'd be cool. there is a sequel to this game that apparently fixes most of the problems that I have had with this game, so hopefully one day I'll check it out and see if that's true.

alright I've been pretty negative for most of this review, but truth be told I did enjoy my time with the game. I tend to be more vocal about games that I want to love, and this one is no exception. I wanted this to be an amazing Castlevania experience with some good old Touhou elements sprinkled here and there, but instead my experience just ended up being a bit average. despite how flawed I think this game was, I still understand and get how others have had a much more fun time with it than I did. don't let all my talk scare you from trying this game out, Scarlet Symphony is worth at least one playthrough. that said, please wait for this game to get a price drop or go on sale, 29.99 is a little too demanding for something that you can finish in a single sitting. so yeah that's it.

this game's fine

-You can cheat the stages using the signature flying ability that every character has in the main Touhuo Project series.
-You cannot escape the bullet hell that every boss has, signature from the main Touhou Project series.
The game is ok, but a little inconsistent here and there.
But the soundtrack, oh boy, not a single bad theme. Its phenomenal.
And I love the character design. A little out of place but great nevertheless.