Something tells me this game would've benefitted from having an arcade version or something instead of being on the NES only. As it is, it's really small, but I still kind of enjoy it. For the most part.

I like that you get thrown into random encounter shmup segments, but the game doesn't do a whole lot with that idea. Not counting Jaws, there are five enemy types: stingrays that move forward, jellyfish that move straight up, stingrays that go really fast, jellyfish that can move to the side, and smaller sharks. You'll probably see them all in the span of a few minutes, the map isn't that big.

What's more interesting than the enemies is the fact that the shmup segments give you (among other things) shells that can be used to get nifty things from the port icons; first the receiver, then power upgrades. You get punished kind of hard for dying, though; you lose not only a level and half your shells but the receiver too, meaning you have to spend another trip between the ports. I feel like just the level and/or shell loss would've been sufficient.

Eventually you have to fight Jaws, of course, and at first he doesn't really put up any more of a fight than the regular enemies; how fast you can drain his power depends entirely on your power level.
Then comes the second bit where you have to stab him. It took me a couple tries because I didn't know you shouldn't wait until he gets as close as possible to you. That bit kinda sucks for the first time, honestly, but I got used to it.

Jaws is aight. There's probably a game or two out there that does its thing better, but the ideas in it are neat-ish.

This is a neat, short side-scroller that, for some reason, has something resembling Gradius's power-up system in it. Not that bad an idea, honestly.
You're a dog, and you grab bones which you can use to get yourself more powerful weapons (a bomb and a screen-ranged bark attack), the ability to slow down your fall by tapping the A button not unlike the Bunny power-up in Mario Land 2, and an extend to your health bar (or a refill if you've already maxed it out).

Each stage is fairly straightforward; they all have you make it from one side to the other, though the game does occasionally throw in a gimmick every now and then - such as the water level in the Splish Splash set (the only time you do any actual splishing or splashing), the room with bouncy clouds, and the ice level with the standard slippy physics that you'd expect.
While you do have the option to go through the sets in any order, I don't think there's much of a reason to, since they're overall pretty similar to each other, anyway. And if you do happen to die at any point, there's usually more than enough bones around to give you a fighting chance.

The bosses are also simple, each following their own movement pattern (and sometimes their own projectile), as well as a second phase with a more erratic one. You might want to save up for a health refill on a couple, but for the most part, they're about as basic as the levels themselves.

I haven't watched the show, but I think the wackiest part about this game is the fact that the racers are the bad guys. They're just trying to get through by fair means, but you're coming in to try and steal their victory, to no avail.

Anyway, like I said, it's pretty nice. Not that impressive by the NES's standards, but I think it's worth a try, at least.

(Also? There's moai in it.)

This is one of several games whose artstyle tries to imitate the NES but has massive cutscene sprites and bullets at an angle with visible subpixelling. If you can get past that, it's pretty alright.

I know one of the goals of this series is to be "accessible," and I guess it succeeded, but I feel like there's probably better ways to handle that than just being really easy? There's a health system, and by shmup standards it's a very generous one. Like, I managed to do a Lunatic 1CC with no bombs first try, that kind of generous. I can't say that about any official Touhou game.
Maybe this could've been dealt with by having an optional 1-hit-death mode? There's a number of Touhou fangames by the same developer that had both.

The music isn't exactly as 8-bit sounding as I was expecting either, but most of it is solid, at least compositionally. Stage 7's is one of my favorites.

I can't remember that many of the bosses, but there are a few I want to mention real quick. The cyborg's theme is as close to sounding like the NES as this game's soundtrack gets, the final boss Violetta is apparently a descendant of Touhou 6's final boss Remilia and I think the Extra Stage's boss has an adorable backstory.

That's about it. It's Touhou for people who are bad at those games. I almost forgot I got all the achievements in the span of a couple hours.

In spite of its jankiness, this is one of my favorite Touhous. I'm not kidding.
It really is nice to just jump into a game whose backgrounds have like, 10 colors total, and start flipping cards with symbols I can't read on them.

This is the only (official) Touhou game in existence I'm comfortable playing on Lunatic mode. Besides more aggressive bosses, the main difference this makes is the cards being able to fire a single bullet at you when flipped, not unlike "death bullets" seen across shmups. This gives the game a bit more depth than just hitting the Orb where you know the cards are; there's barely any lulls unlike most Breakout clones out there.

Unlike just about every other game, the act of bombing isn't given its own button and is instead done by shooting while holding both Left and Right. Bombing also holds you in place until you're done, and in some stages nets you way more lives than you would just going about them normally. I thought it was a bit awkward at first, but got used to it pretty fast. Maybe that's Stockholm syndrome idk lol

Which route you're best at is mostly a matter of preference. Some of the bosses in Hell are noticeably easier than those in Makai, particularly its final boss, but a few stage layouts are made harder to compensate. Compare Stage 18 in Hell, which is a struggle to get the Orb under a wall almost the height of the screen, to that same stage in Makai, which is basically a spot to bomb and get a few free lives.

Maybe I'm weird, barely anyone brings them up, but I just think the bosses themselves are pretty solid too? SinGyoku has a cool design, Sariel had a second form with its own song years before Yuyuko did, Kikuri is literally a moon from Hell that fires blood lasers out of its eyes and poison waves out of nowhere, and so on.

Very interesting game. If it were a fangame I don't know if most people would play it, but it's literally the first one. Somehow I feel like it doesn't get as much respect as it should.

A friend of mine got me to play this and they picked the little girls in striped socks every time.

They beat me with said girls almost every time, too.

Cool stuff.