Damn I just lost a run on lost because of a chest double adversary run starts another run. God I hate delirium it's not even that fun of a boss starts another run. Greed mode is really fun but greedier mode takes it way too far and there didn't need to be the ultra greedier phase starts another run.

I don't know how this game can keep getting updates that add in content that pissed me off so bad I would close the game and then come back hours later for another run. It's really addictive and there are very little roguelikes that manage to accomplish the sheer amount of variety and replayability that TBoI had even back in the flash days when there were 5 characters and the ending goal was just Isaac in the cathedral. It's a game that will straight up screw you with RNG because you don't get any good items in a run to the point you'll just hold R on less powerful characters until you start next to an item room with a rarity 3 or higher and it still manages to be fun. I think the only thing keeping this from being full marks for me is I genuinely think bosses like Delirium and Ultra Greedier are way too much for how long runs take to even get to them.

It's a fun platformer/beat em up with fun combos, it reminds me a lot of a DmC game in terms of how you upgrade your character. I really like having a game focused around my favorite Touhou character and that has a lot of 2nd gen rep in general! When doing boss fights it's really fun, but I do have to take a lot off the rating because Stage 5 in particular was really not fun and it actively made me pretty upset on certain parts, so I guess in that sense the DmC comparison isn't entirely off if we're talking about the older games.

While I'm reviewing this page for the base game, I'm still going to talk about the expansions. The reason I'm putting it on this one is just because the icon looks prettier than either of the mod preview icons and nothing else LOL. The only thing you need to know is the base game has characters and references up to Touhou 12, Shard of Dreams is an official expansion that raises the cap to 15, and Shard of Dreams -Extended- is quite literally every major character up to current. For the sake of not explaining that over and over, just assume I'm talking about -Extended- which I think anyone interested in should be playing anyways!

This is a wonderful Pokemon inspired Touhou fangame that takes the combat and stats we all know and goes on to make a game that is quite honestly better than any mainline Pokemon game IMO. One of the main draws for me both when I was only a casual Touhou fan and now when I'm even more obsessed is the fact there's a puppet (pokemon) for every Touhou character as long as they aren't some of the really bizarre choices like Great Catfish or that unnamed merchant that dies in FS (I seriously don't know why the character sorter enables that one) then you'll find them. And the game understands the importance of letting you play with your favorite because immediately upon starting the game you are required to tell an NPC your favorite character and that determines the starting puppet you get, even if your favorite character is Shinki who has one of the highest BST in the game. I personally made a fun challenge for myself in the main game where I made it so I could only use one character from every 3 games chronologically, meaning if I chose Youmu for example I wouldn't be able to pick any other characters from Touhou 7-9 or any spinoffs/manga in that timeframe. The ending team ended up being Yumemi/Shinki/Youmu/Byakuren/Sagume/Saki if you were curious! Even if you know nothing about Touhou I still think this is a game worth playing because it could lead to you finding a character you like using or their role in the story and then use that as a gateway to getting into the series, or even if you just planned on making this your only foray into Touhou that's perfectly fine too!

To nerd out a bit I'm going to womansplain some game mechanics, if it doesn't interest you then skip this whole paragraph. This game does have IVs/EVs/Evolutions(kinda)/Learned Moves but I really like how all of them are handled! IVs are the most similar in which when you catch a puppet you get assigned 6 random values for all your stats with a grade from S-E, with S being perfect IVs and E being dogwater (your starter gets to start with perfect IVs), and you don't unlock your breeding replacement until postgame but if you learn the Reincarnation system it's quite easy to eventually start making plenty of puppets with perfect IVs. Next, when you beat other puppets in battle your entire team gets these little points that can go into multiple things. The first thing is EVs, which instead of being something you have to carefully monitor in Pokemon games you can just put points into whatever stats desired to custom make your own EVs per puppet. Learned Moves are unlocked by level up, but they all conveniently get put into a menu that costs the same type of points and forgotten moves are always put back meaning if you replace a move and then want it back it's a negligible fee to get it back. Finally evolution works a bit differently than actual Pokemon. At level 30 every single puppet can form shift to 1 of 3 different forms depending on who it is and it can change things like BSTs, Abilities, and movesets, to sometimes even changing the type of the puppet outright. As an example, Reimu is a Void/Illusion type normally, but if changed to Power Reimu she becomes a Fighting/Illusion, and if she becomes Extra Reimu she changes types drastically to becoming a Wind/Warped puppet. There's so much variety in each character that you can have the exact same team of 6 puppets but with different evolutions meaning both teams could have a completely different strategy/build.

Out of numbers hell, other things I really like about this game is how well the setting of Gensokyo actually fits into making a really good Pokemon map. You have Youkai mountain for the mountain region, Human Village for a central hub, Forest of Magic for a forest region, and even the Underworld/Makai for cavernous/icy areas. And some of the characters fit into their role with ease with Medicine being a great example for a rival team leader.

And before I'm done gushing about this game I have to compliment the typing chart they made for this game which has a good mix of elements already in pokemon and wholly original ones that add a lot of fun to learning the new type matchups. My personal favorite addition is Sound as a type which doesn't have any inherent resistances to any of its weaknesses which means it isn't a free switch in like a grass to a water type would be, but the types it covers are some of the more annoying ones to find good weaknesses for.

To make an extremely long story short this is a fantastic game for Touhou and Pokemon fans alike that's definitely worth checking out if you have a decent interest in one or both. Thanks for reading this mess if you did!

One of the most enjoyable Castlevania-like games I've ever played and I think there's something here for people who like those types of games that don't even know much about Touhou. Despite the EoSD cast being done to death as far as fangames go I actually think they're a great pick for this setting so I give it a pass. Sakuya is very fun to play and her gimmick with time manipulation coupled with all the ways she interacts with her knives makes it so exploration is never really a bore. The only thing keeping me from rating it a full 5 is that I think once you unlock thousand knives the game suddenly loses a big chunk of difficulty.

I truthfully was not ready for how much of a direct upgrade this game was over the first. Now given full control to make whatever game they want Inticreates immediately capitalizes on this by creating an entirely unique entry that blows the first game out of the water for me. This game follows immediately after the ending to 1 where Jason and Eve created a new Sophia to travel space and try to find a cure to Eve's constant mutantification.

The sidescrolling gameplay in Sophia is a lot more refined in this game, giving you a new energy bar that doesn't automatically recharge (unless you run full out of energy) and can be charged by falling far distances without hovering, which removes a lot of the frustration of the first game where at some points you just had to sit there and wait for your energy bar to recharge. In the 3d section a lot has changed, with Jason getting a few tool changes to his gun levels that fall more in line with Megaman Zero. Wave has also had a nerf in this game so it gets weaker when spammed which gives incentive to try out other weapons, but it's still pretty strong on its own right anyways. Both segments have new QoL in the form of Fred who will now create wormholes to take you out of a dungeon when you finish it or warp back to the Sophia in a sidescrolling section so you don't risk getting softlocked or immediately killed by outside enemies.

By far the best parts of this game for me is the new layout of exploring, characters, and story. Instead of going through one giant web of connected zones with a bit of backtracking the game is broken up in sectors on a world map now, with a major planet in each sector to replace the Zones of the previous game and some bonus smaller planets that are usually mini challenges to get some optional upgrades. There are also some new MA pilots and I adore all of them for different reasons, plus it's just fun to see what MA's they pilot. And finally the story starts off strong and only gets better as time goes on, with all the cool fights building up to a climax in the final battle that genuinely gives me chills because of how cool the whole segment is.

If I had one gripe, it's once again the fact you need to do some extra work to get the true ending. It's not nearly as bad as 1, only requiring 3 items, but it is pretty easy to miss them if you don't know what to look out for. If you don't mind a small hint, you start the process to get them all by going back to a planet with a MA pilot after finishing the story objective there to start a new sidequest.

Overall, if you even so much as enjoyed the first game a little bit you'll absolutely love this game. It really endeared me to Jason and Eve in particular, but also a 3rd character you'll meet in the journey across space :).

If you're unaware, Blaster Master is originally a very old series of games that started on the NES made by Sunsoft. After a long time in hybernation the IP was eventually given to Inticreates who launched this game as a soft reboot of the franchise with a pretty accurate recreation of the 1st game with a lot of Quality of Life changes and small rewrites here and there. You'll spend half of the game in a 2d sidescroller section using the Sophia tank to traverse the map similarly to a metroid game, and then the other half is spent playing a 3d top-down perspective shooter fighting many enemies in small maps and occasionally a boss as well.

The biggest change to this game is the story, which now has our protagonist Jason as a well researched scientist and his eventual support droid Eve who helps him trying to find his strange frog that escaped through a wormhole. The game isn't very difficult, in fact once you unlock a shield that works sort of like the Mantle from Binding of Isaac it becomes very easy to keep your gun level high to spam wave which is easily the most broken weapon shot type.

Slight spoiler warning, but you can only get the true ending of this game if you basically get 100% (iirc it's at least every sophia upgrade, but you might as well go the full mile at that point) which is a bit of a rude requirement, but it honestly doesn't take that much more effort to do so and I think it's worth adding since it unlocks some pretty fun new content and a really cool final boss. Overall it's definitely the weakest entry in the series, but if you enjoy the gameplay enough to stick with it then it's definitely worth your time!

The gameplay is a pretty big departure from the first game, but I do overall think it's a lot better. You don't get to do aerial combos until reaching Anthem state in this game but the tradeoff is taking hits doesn't reset your score anymore, only taking a checkpoint or using the infinite healing spell does. I actually really like this because it makes it easier to see anthems as a casual player not going for repeat playthroughs of missions while still retaining the challenge for anyone looking for it. Lola is so oomfie.

Your reward for playing the first game is a solid sequel that enhances everything about the original while also giving so much more. You still have your standard Gunvolt gameplay but the introduction of Copen as a secondary protagonist with a whole different playstyle adds a lot. Also the story in general is just a lot better, especially on Copen's side, and in general I prefer Lola's vocal synth for music more than Lumen's. The semifinal boss has a really cool gimmick for GV and the final boss is best comparable to something like Suzaku vs LeLouch. Indigo Destiny has not left my music playlist since I first heard it.

It's an okay game. I'm a big fan of Inticreates and had previously played the Megaman Zero and Blaster Master Zero series to completion before finally checking out gunvolt, and it's definitely one of their lesser games. It isn't a bad game mind you, there's fun in the core gameplay and it does encourage some replay value going for high rankings, but the story is just mostly there besides some good points in the end and in general this is just something to play so you can understand the rest of the series.

I genuinely think this game is fun even solo, but it's definitely 10x better with friends. Take a typical jRPG, give it rock/paper/scissors combat, put it on a board, and let loose. It's fun to balance all these elements like getting towns for better income, getting rare gear and even some involved job unlocks, and of course everyone loves messing with their friends a little bit. There's a fair bit of freedom with ways to play this game as well with the ability to set up games where you start at a certain level of progression and only play for [X] numbers of turns, but if you have the time in your life try setting up a campaign game with some friends using netplay (or wait for the switch version coming out) because there's genuinely not really a game like this.