Soultimus
After a game like LoLK, HSiFS was a great return to basics. No incredibly hard difficulty here, just a natural progression curve like previous games. A neat plot and a great soundtrack makes it quite a fun and easy to start with game
The main gimmick this time is the seasons gimmick, adding additional firepower to your own with some perks. It might take you a while to find the season you'll like, but the variety you get is neat. It's basically playing your favorite character with the perks of another character
I find it a tad weird that this game returns to the points for lives system. Bombs still get assembled in pieces, but lives don't. Considering that later games return to the piece system, it kinda stands out.
The main gimmick this time is the seasons gimmick, adding additional firepower to your own with some perks. It might take you a while to find the season you'll like, but the variety you get is neat. It's basically playing your favorite character with the perks of another character
I find it a tad weird that this game returns to the points for lives system. Bombs still get assembled in pieces, but lives don't. Considering that later games return to the piece system, it kinda stands out.
Ain't gonna lie, I was afraid of this game. As someone who sucks at these, getting to the notoriously and intentionally hardest one of the series scared me from ever trying to 1cc all of these games. But after beating it, what I got was one of the best Touhou games ever!
LoLK is insanely fun. I mean it. It's not coping from how hard it is. Its difficulty is actually what I found the best about it, there were a lot of patterns that definitively need practice. Oh boy will you ever practice in this game. But to practice the attacks and then (somewhat) perfectly beat them feels so rewarding in this game. Yeah, that can apply to any game in this series, but trust me, the high you get on this game is really good for some reason.
LoLK has 2 ways of playing it: Pointdevice and Legacy. Legacy is traditional Touhou, while Pointdevice is Touhou... with checkpoints instead of lives! I would highly suggest playing Pointdevice on your first run of the game to understand what you're gonna go through should you ever 1cc this game. Trust me, if you suck at these games like me, play Reisen. She is literally the cheat character
Plot is one of the craziest in this series, and the OST has no misses at all. Hell, I stayed on the title screen to listen to the main menu theme in full before playing, the first game to ever make me consider doing that!
LoLK is insanely fun. I mean it. It's not coping from how hard it is. Its difficulty is actually what I found the best about it, there were a lot of patterns that definitively need practice. Oh boy will you ever practice in this game. But to practice the attacks and then (somewhat) perfectly beat them feels so rewarding in this game. Yeah, that can apply to any game in this series, but trust me, the high you get on this game is really good for some reason.
LoLK has 2 ways of playing it: Pointdevice and Legacy. Legacy is traditional Touhou, while Pointdevice is Touhou... with checkpoints instead of lives! I would highly suggest playing Pointdevice on your first run of the game to understand what you're gonna go through should you ever 1cc this game. Trust me, if you suck at these games like me, play Reisen. She is literally the cheat character
Plot is one of the craziest in this series, and the OST has no misses at all. Hell, I stayed on the title screen to listen to the main menu theme in full before playing, the first game to ever make me consider doing that!
In a big game franchise, there's always a couple of games that, to you, make you go "Oh yeah that happened". DDC is that to me and the Touhou series
Don't get me wrong, this game is great. A nice plot, and some really good gameplay. The gimmick this time has to do with getting your resources from the Point of Collection line and how many collectibles are on screen, which is not as bad as it sounds. The difficulty curve is pretty good, I would say it's an easy game if it weren't for the Stage 5 boss. Be warned, your muscle memory is about to be abused with that boss. OST is ok, it's kinda weird how sometimes I can't discern what song is from TD and this one. I really just don't know why it's so forgettable to me. It's great, but I just keep reminding myself that it even happened...
Don't get me wrong, this game is great. A nice plot, and some really good gameplay. The gimmick this time has to do with getting your resources from the Point of Collection line and how many collectibles are on screen, which is not as bad as it sounds. The difficulty curve is pretty good, I would say it's an easy game if it weren't for the Stage 5 boss. Be warned, your muscle memory is about to be abused with that boss. OST is ok, it's kinda weird how sometimes I can't discern what song is from TD and this one. I really just don't know why it's so forgettable to me. It's great, but I just keep reminding myself that it even happened...
Wow, I rated this game lower than UFO and POFV. Which is kinda crazy, as I think this is the easiest game in this series. Seriously, I beat it on my first run, and even captured 90% of the final boss's spell cards. I find the plot nice, still like the chain of consequences MoF created, and the OST is really lovely in stages. Boss music is eh for the most part, Seiga and Mamizou have real bangers compared to everyone else
The gameplay is at fault for why I didn't like this game. Sure, it's super easy, but this game has so many weird design choices that just brings it down for me. Trance mode, the main gimmick of the game, is so bizarrely handled. You have to collect spirits that enemies drop, which stay in place and mostly stay at the top of the screen, making it somewhat dangerous to go fetch them should an enemy pull a gotcha!. Charge your meter to the max and then release to be invulnerable of 10 seconds and deal more damage. Cool right? I just don't understand why it needs to be charged to the max, when dying uses up what you have accumulated as some sort of dying breath attack. Why not use it at command, if dying is gonna basically do that? Easy to abuse? Maybe, but I just find that weird personally.
Then comes the resources. They are also spirits, and still use the piece system. Being in Trance mode doubles how much a spirit is worth, which is cool. What I find weird is how lives were handled. Getting a life from pieces increases the amount of pieces you need for the next one by 3. Ok, sounds like something to prevent abuse. What I don't understand is why bomb pieces don't do the same, or better yet, why the heck does the threshold stay after you die? You could have 2 lives left and the next life requires 18 pieces to get.
It's crazy how a game this easy in a notoriously difficult genre is this unlikable to play to me.
The gameplay is at fault for why I didn't like this game. Sure, it's super easy, but this game has so many weird design choices that just brings it down for me. Trance mode, the main gimmick of the game, is so bizarrely handled. You have to collect spirits that enemies drop, which stay in place and mostly stay at the top of the screen, making it somewhat dangerous to go fetch them should an enemy pull a gotcha!. Charge your meter to the max and then release to be invulnerable of 10 seconds and deal more damage. Cool right? I just don't understand why it needs to be charged to the max, when dying uses up what you have accumulated as some sort of dying breath attack. Why not use it at command, if dying is gonna basically do that? Easy to abuse? Maybe, but I just find that weird personally.
Then comes the resources. They are also spirits, and still use the piece system. Being in Trance mode doubles how much a spirit is worth, which is cool. What I find weird is how lives were handled. Getting a life from pieces increases the amount of pieces you need for the next one by 3. Ok, sounds like something to prevent abuse. What I don't understand is why bomb pieces don't do the same, or better yet, why the heck does the threshold stay after you die? You could have 2 lives left and the next life requires 18 pieces to get.
It's crazy how a game this easy in a notoriously difficult genre is this unlikable to play to me.
Man, I wish I liked this game. I really do! The plot is nice, still find it great how it's all the Moriya gang's fault it even happened, the characters are some of my favorites in the series and the OST is also one of my favorites, right next to MoF and LoLK
But man, does the gameplay suuuuuuuuck. This opinion varies from person to person, but I really didn't like it. As someone who's not good at these games, this took me one hell of a time to beat. The patterns are quite tough, and I would say that the difficulty curve is fine, but the main gimmick of this game, the UFOs, make the game unnecessarily tougher. And I just hate how they were handled in this game
Get 3 UFOs of the same color or one of every 3 colors and a giant UFO spawns. Shoot enemies down to feed it stuff and make it drop whatever the UFO is associated with. Shoot down the UFO to get more. Easy, right? Well, have fun catching the one you need while dodging the as mentioned previously tough patterns. The game starves you from resources like lives and bombs with these, and I cannot count you the amount of times I flew into a bullet trying so. Skill issue? Maybe. But I really don't recommend this one as your first game
But man, does the gameplay suuuuuuuuck. This opinion varies from person to person, but I really didn't like it. As someone who's not good at these games, this took me one hell of a time to beat. The patterns are quite tough, and I would say that the difficulty curve is fine, but the main gimmick of this game, the UFOs, make the game unnecessarily tougher. And I just hate how they were handled in this game
Get 3 UFOs of the same color or one of every 3 colors and a giant UFO spawns. Shoot enemies down to feed it stuff and make it drop whatever the UFO is associated with. Shoot down the UFO to get more. Easy, right? Well, have fun catching the one you need while dodging the as mentioned previously tough patterns. The game starves you from resources like lives and bombs with these, and I cannot count you the amount of times I flew into a bullet trying so. Skill issue? Maybe. But I really don't recommend this one as your first game
So let's say you start with MoF. You think "Dang, that was a chill experience". Well, SA is about to give you a wake up call
This game is tough. Really tough. Bullet patterns are rather dense, and this game has, in my opinion, the weirdest shot-types in any of the games, which just makes it kinda tougher. As someone who plays Reimu for her homing shots, Suika's homing shots are horrible, I had to resort to playing her needle shot-type with Yukari's help, but even that one is weird due to how it spins around out you. It doesn't help that power bombs stayed in this game, and that starting from this game power caps at 4, so there's no level 5 power to have a free bomb like in MoF.
I liked how absurd the plot is and how it was caused by events from MoF. The OST is neat in stages, but boss themes are ok for the most part
This game is tough. Really tough. Bullet patterns are rather dense, and this game has, in my opinion, the weirdest shot-types in any of the games, which just makes it kinda tougher. As someone who plays Reimu for her homing shots, Suika's homing shots are horrible, I had to resort to playing her needle shot-type with Yukari's help, but even that one is weird due to how it spins around out you. It doesn't help that power bombs stayed in this game, and that starting from this game power caps at 4, so there's no level 5 power to have a free bomb like in MoF.
I liked how absurd the plot is and how it was caused by events from MoF. The OST is neat in stages, but boss themes are ok for the most part
My favorite in the series. As a soft reboot in the series, I found that it did a great job!
I would describe this game as simple. The plot is very simple, and the gameplay itself is simple. There's no (intrusive) gimmick this time around, it's purely just shooting and dodging. The difficulty of this game is great too, starts easy, and gets progressively harder, but not to a point where it'll frustrate you. It's definitively the game I'd recommend most people start with
There's one thing I hate about this game: The bomb system. God I'm glad power bombs never stuck around, it's not a fun thing to consider when playing.
OST is an absolute banger. One of my favorites in this series
I would describe this game as simple. The plot is very simple, and the gameplay itself is simple. There's no (intrusive) gimmick this time around, it's purely just shooting and dodging. The difficulty of this game is great too, starts easy, and gets progressively harder, but not to a point where it'll frustrate you. It's definitively the game I'd recommend most people start with
There's one thing I hate about this game: The bomb system. God I'm glad power bombs never stuck around, it's not a fun thing to consider when playing.
OST is an absolute banger. One of my favorites in this series
There's always that black sheep in a game series isn't there?
I'm sure this game is a blast to play with against friends, but as it stands... man, I didn't like this one.
This versus style gameplay was a pain. Having to spam your key to attack instead of holding it was rather uncomfortable, and playing the story itself was not fun. It was mostly just me frantically dodging a rather crazy amount of bullets while forgetting to shoot, all while the crazily programmed AI did everything like child's play.
Plot is eh, OST is eh too. I usually don't get too attached to remixes, but the new songs were good
Honestly, skip this one. Play it later. It doesn't matter
I'm sure this game is a blast to play with against friends, but as it stands... man, I didn't like this one.
This versus style gameplay was a pain. Having to spam your key to attack instead of holding it was rather uncomfortable, and playing the story itself was not fun. It was mostly just me frantically dodging a rather crazy amount of bullets while forgetting to shoot, all while the crazily programmed AI did everything like child's play.
Plot is eh, OST is eh too. I usually don't get too attached to remixes, but the new songs were good
Honestly, skip this one. Play it later. It doesn't matter
Definitively one of the most fun games in this series. For a long while, this was my go-to game to pass time. A really great plot, a really great OST makes and some pretty good gameplay makes this one of my favorites in this series.
This game was the first one I've ever beaten start to finish without using continues. I find it to be one of the easiest in the franchise, and definitively one I'd suggest to newcomers. The team style gameplay was great, and stages have a good difficulty curve in my opinion. If there's one thing to critique, it's the time gimmick. It really needed more explaining for people playing it for the first time. I'd suggest reading about it before jumping into the game
This game was the first one I've ever beaten start to finish without using continues. I find it to be one of the easiest in the franchise, and definitively one I'd suggest to newcomers. The team style gameplay was great, and stages have a good difficulty curve in my opinion. If there's one thing to critique, it's the time gimmick. It really needed more explaining for people playing it for the first time. I'd suggest reading about it before jumping into the game
A really solid entry in this series. The plot was one of the more interesting ones in this series, and the OST really fits the mood
Gameplay wise, I'm mixed on it. I really like the cherry point system, it's a good gimmick that helped newcomers like me. However, I found the difficulty curve wack. Stage 1-3 are a relative breeze, but Stage 4 was a real ball-kicker on first runs when you're someone still learning the ropes of a bullet hell shmup game. Then Stage 5-6 tone it down, but still stay tough. I would say it's one of the easiest in the series, but when you're a beginner, I'd say to avoid this game until you learn the basics.
Gameplay wise, I'm mixed on it. I really like the cherry point system, it's a good gimmick that helped newcomers like me. However, I found the difficulty curve wack. Stage 1-3 are a relative breeze, but Stage 4 was a real ball-kicker on first runs when you're someone still learning the ropes of a bullet hell shmup game. Then Stage 5-6 tone it down, but still stay tough. I would say it's one of the easiest in the series, but when you're a beginner, I'd say to avoid this game until you learn the basics.
If you're reading my reviews on Touhou games, hi! I'm not good at these games, I play on Easy, but still try to beat them without using continues. I'm practially reviewing these games as a beginner to the bullet hell shmup genre
People tell you to not start with this one, despite it being the "first" in the series. I totally second that statement
This game feels rather rough when you compare it to what we got nowadays. I personally don't think it aged well, and it's not a game I'd go back to due to how different the gameplay feels to me. No hitbox indicator? Ouch...
The plot is simple, and the OST is great. I feel that it stands out from all the other games' OSTs nowadays, but it's not a bad thing
People tell you to not start with this one, despite it being the "first" in the series. I totally second that statement
This game feels rather rough when you compare it to what we got nowadays. I personally don't think it aged well, and it's not a game I'd go back to due to how different the gameplay feels to me. No hitbox indicator? Ouch...
The plot is simple, and the OST is great. I feel that it stands out from all the other games' OSTs nowadays, but it's not a bad thing