My favorite Visual Novel of All Time. A story that's well expressed through its dialogue and choices, both a very humorous and emotional game with a lot of heart and soul poured into it. It has an amazing soundtrack, probably the second best soundtrack I've ever heard in my life, and while a lot of the characters fall into a lot of tropes and cliches, they are still very well realized and fleshed out. Don't judge this game by its cover, and do not let anyone tell you this is not worth it, because it 100% is. Also remember to 100% this game to get the best experience ever.

To a lot of people, this is just a walking simulator with puzzles, for me it's a compelling meta-narrative staring one of the most likable protagonists I've ever had the pleasure of controlling, with beautiful visuals, very atmospheric and immersive music to vibe to, and entertaining writing.

Oneshot is the kind of game that's hard to explain on a much deeper level to others without ruining the story for them, its the type of story you can only truly persuade, while giving away the best aspects of it, and in my opinion, for that reason alone, you should play it.

Yes there is a free version, and while it is also worth checking out for diehard fans, I would just say to shell your money on the steam release because the new content, new visuals, new tracks and characters make it entirely worth it. Please check it out if you have the time.

First I want to say that Yume Nikki is not for everyone, that can be said for pretty much every game because everyone has their own interests and things that they look for in a game, but in Yume Nikki's case, it genuinely does take a specific kind of person to get some enjoyment out of something like this.

Yume Nikki is unique because it's atmosphere isn't like any other, there's monsters, worlds, and people you see throughout the game but given little to no context on what it all means and why it exists, by why should the game tell you everything, why should it all make sense? it's a dream and dreams are meant to not make sense and that's what I like about this game a lot, it truly encapsulates what a dream is, not some fleshed out deep narrative but just randomness that can almost make sense if you think about it but in the long wrong, is essentially up to personal interpretation. It's easy to call this game some pretentious artist nonsense, but it isn't pretentious at all, it doesn't try to throw themes and some kind of deep narrative in your face, it just gives you a lot of randomness and leaves you to make up what you can of it.

I'm not going to say this game is some masterpiece, I'm not gonna lie and say that the game play is genius and that it's some high form of art, the game is freaking boring and it's easy to get lost in, it has a lot of flaws, a lot of the worlds become frustrating to navigate and areas seem so samey and overused, but despite all of it's flaws, I still love this game greatly. I recommend this game to people who want a unique experience and who want to try something new, something they may have never tried before.

The most refined Touhou game to date. It takes everything good about Mountain of Faith, its smooth game-play, well designed patterns and bullets, it's well designed background and visuals, and fitting music and makes those aspects even better. The smooth game-play remains the same, but the designs and patterns feel even more unique than before, and in return, makes this game a lot more enjoyable and re-playable, knowing you get to replay very fun stages if you decide to replay this is a good motivator.

The presentation is my most favorite in the series, each stage feels so iconic, from the ancient city in hell crowded by evil spirits to the firey core of the nuclear reactor, everything feels so fitting and you truly feel like you're in these locations. Not only that but these amazing visuals are only enhanced by the even better music, the music feels more and more dramatic, and more and more energetic as the game goes on and the locations in which these stages take place become even crazier. This whole game feels like its getting more and more intense and when you finally reach Utsuho, this stage becomes absolutely crazy.

btw this game introduces koishi so obviously its a ten out of ten

The game-play is a lot more smoother than previous entries, where moving around actually feels pretty clean and faster which is a massive step up from the previous entries in the series leaving a very good first impression for the second windows era of Touhou Project. The patterns are a lot more consistent and varied unlike previous entries, the visuals are cleaner and easier to look at, being beautiful yet not distracting, and it clearly has a consistent theme, using a lot of warmer colors to represent autumn which I really enjoy. I also have to compliment the pacing of the game, the transition between each stage is much more smoother, with none of them feeling too long nor too short.

Something that makes this game stand above many others besides the presentation though, is its very wonderful and memorable cast of characters. Each character is full of personality and their own personal identity, whether that be the confident and nerdy Sanae Kochiya or the greedy yet formal Kanako Yasaka, this cast of characters might be the third or fourth most memorable cast of characters yet.

Overall, I believe this is one of the more stronger Touhou games to come out and that I highly recommend this game for beginners just because of how much easier it is to play, and how memorable each character is in this game.

The ninth entry in the mainline touhou series, unlike the previous Windows era games, this one is a head to head, making it a drastically different game than the previous ones, which is one huge reason to play it. Something that I somewhat dislike about this game is that you have to constantly press the key over and over to attack rather than just simply press on the key, but I understand they did that so you could focus attacks, even though in my opinion, that was a pretty pointless addition to this type of game-play, it does feel satisfying. Also want to say the visuals are a lot more lacking in this game than the previous entries. This game is definitely worth it, I just have my issues with it.