Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity

Probably one of my favorite Touhou fangames. Definitely worth the play if you can't get enough Scarlet Devil content. I found myself wanting to play more, even after I finished the game & got all the achievements. The story is simple. Remilia Scarlet, the charismatic vampire mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, finds her home has been destroyed by a mystery monster while she was out, and now she must go on a quest to uncover the culprit, alongside her maid & trusted companion, Sakuya Izayoi. The gameplay is simple but fun, especially when you start wracking up combos. You have a handful of skills to mix-and-match to fit your own unique playstyle, as well as an "ultimate" skill. I'd suggest using "Spear the Gungnir" for big single-hit damage on bosses, but there are other ults as well, including AOE ones. The music is great. I learned about this game through their rendition of Patchouli's theme (composed by Hachimitsu-Lemon). As with every Touhou game, I came in with high expectations for the soundtrack, and I was not disappointed here. My favorite thing about this game is probably the character art. It's simple, yet very charming. You don't always have to go overboard with…

you can just jump over the patterns.

I'm quite disappointed with Marvelous (No More Heroes) and XSEED (Ys). This game feels really mediocre, to the point that it looks like it was created by a clumsy AI (which is not btw, this game was released before that era). It clearly tries to emulate the classic gameplay of older Ys series entries like Ys Origin and Ys: The Oath in Felghana, but falls short by missing the small details that made those games so polished and satisfying. Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity had the potential to be something great, but it ultimately feels underdeveloped. There are several issues that make the game feel cheap: -The menu design is basic and uninspired -Skills don’t interact with the environment, while normal attacks do -Movement feels off (you actually move faster by jumping, and there’s no even walking animation) -Sound effects are terrible -The shop and currency system are largely pointless, since progression hands you most items anyway -No difficulty options -The gamepad rumble is annoying and unnecessary most of the time, and there is no way to disable it. -Music is average (actually a little bit annoying, I had the chance to enjoy the game with my own soundtrack) Despite all this, the g…

gameplay is pretty fun, feels like the best wii game you never played. It is way better when you play low resolution fullscreened on a high res monitor. And look who made the music... ! ! The game is a bit lacking in details though.

its just not fun

Really cute game, the art and 3d models are charming, music is cool and recognizable, and the dialogue is pretty funny at times. I played through once as Sakuya and did the first two missions again afterwards as Remilia. If you're going to play through once I think I would recommend Remilia since her basic attacks flow better for pot breaking, she can glide, dive bomb attack to go FAST, and delete bullets way easier compared to Sakuya. Feels like the game was designed primarily around Remilia and Sakuya was somewhat of an afterthought. I did enough of the post-game to know I wasn't interested and the second character's campaign didn't seem different except some dialogue changes. A bit easy compared to the previous entry starring Youmu that was re-released recently. I think the only time I died was once on the final boss since there were no healing pots. Apparently there's a "bullet hell mode" which I didn't know about until reading the store page just now. It's hidden in the game's launcher under the misc. tab. I might've tried that on my first playthrough knowing what I know now. Maybe if I go back to play Remilia more. The character/build customization is a bit shallow but I d…