ZA WAURDO! TOKI WO TOMARE! is literally this game's central mechanic and it's pretty fun. I know next to nothing about Touhou and it's characters apart from it being a bullet hell that spawned quite possibly the most fan-games out of any franchise, but it's not like you needed any prior knowledge of this series going into this.
Luna Nights injects some interesting mechanics into the Metroidvania formula. You have both the ability to stop time and slow it down. Basic gimmicks on paper but the game makes full use of these abilities. Platforms, obstacles and even enemies that will behave differently based on the flow of time and it allowed for some pretty neat level design. Then there's the Graze mechanic, which allows you to gain back MP and HP by brushing past enemies and projectiles. A lot of it is pretty fast so using the time slowdown to Graze became the central piece of a lot of boss fights. And of course, certain attacks can only be avoided by stopping time. All of this combined with well-designed controls and movement makes it a good game to play.
The presentation is some very good spritework but the real winner here is the absolute banger soundtrack, worthy of what i've heard about the series. Where the game falls short however is the map. The map actually tells you nothing. Like it'll tell you about facilities sure but part of the Metroidvania experience is exploring but there are no indicators for if a room has an item or not in this game. Even if you know it does because you saw it but can't get to it because you lack an upgrade, you still can't see it on the map. You just have to remember. For a game released in 2019, this is unacceptable tbh and this is only mitigated by the fact that the exploration kinda sucks. A lot of the upgrades are optional which leads the game to have rather poor pacing when it comes to upgrades. I don't even know if i found them all tbh. There's only like three upgrades you actually need to progress. The game is very short, it's one of the shortest in the genre (from what i've played) but even then, the poor upgrade pacing was felt.
Touhou's weird sandbox nature makes me unsure if i'll check out other games in the series. Because i wouldn't be opposed to it but it's done like every genre ever so i have to check and see what might interest me. But as my first Touhou game, this was very good.
Luna Nights injects some interesting mechanics into the Metroidvania formula. You have both the ability to stop time and slow it down. Basic gimmicks on paper but the game makes full use of these abilities. Platforms, obstacles and even enemies that will behave differently based on the flow of time and it allowed for some pretty neat level design. Then there's the Graze mechanic, which allows you to gain back MP and HP by brushing past enemies and projectiles. A lot of it is pretty fast so using the time slowdown to Graze became the central piece of a lot of boss fights. And of course, certain attacks can only be avoided by stopping time. All of this combined with well-designed controls and movement makes it a good game to play.
The presentation is some very good spritework but the real winner here is the absolute banger soundtrack, worthy of what i've heard about the series. Where the game falls short however is the map. The map actually tells you nothing. Like it'll tell you about facilities sure but part of the Metroidvania experience is exploring but there are no indicators for if a room has an item or not in this game. Even if you know it does because you saw it but can't get to it because you lack an upgrade, you still can't see it on the map. You just have to remember. For a game released in 2019, this is unacceptable tbh and this is only mitigated by the fact that the exploration kinda sucks. A lot of the upgrades are optional which leads the game to have rather poor pacing when it comes to upgrades. I don't even know if i found them all tbh. There's only like three upgrades you actually need to progress. The game is very short, it's one of the shortest in the genre (from what i've played) but even then, the poor upgrade pacing was felt.
Touhou's weird sandbox nature makes me unsure if i'll check out other games in the series. Because i wouldn't be opposed to it but it's done like every genre ever so i have to check and see what might interest me. But as my first Touhou game, this was very good.