Recent reviews by prower

This is a preliminary review at ~10 hours in. For context, I'm a huge fan of Labyrinth of Touhou 2 and consider it one of the best games ever.

So far, I'm really enjoying it. It's not a massive departure from LoT2 at its core, which is a good thing. The strength of the game is its battle system, where you have 12 characters who all have unique roles in your team and you need to manage their strengths and weaknesses. One of the biggest improvements of the sequel is the skill system. Aside from a much-appreciated easier interface to manage skills, it feels like every character has a much more complex and strongly cohesive set of skills. For example, the deservedly-nerfed Nitori changes her Overheating system from simply doing more damage at the expense of MP to instead dictating which skills she can or cannot use, and Patchy's philosopher stone mechanic is expanded to allow for multiple elements and stacking.

Other cool new stuff: the enemy horde system is cool. It's more clear when/how rare enemies spawn. The environments look MUCH better in this game. In general the game looks great, and it flows a lot more smoothly than the prequel. Grinding is fun and fast.

Some new things I'm not entirely sold on. Break items don't seem super useful or worth using/managing, at least early on. Maybe they'll get more useful during late game grinds. I'm not a huge fan of the hidden paths, though they've been mostly obvious so far... but maybe that's why I'm not a fan, since it just feels like: see inaccessible treasure on map, wallhug until you find a path. I miss FOEs, though hordes and the beefgate challenges are a fine replacement I suppose. After the second stratum you unlock a certain mechanic that makes you realize you're missing stuff by not playing on Lunatic--I'm playing on Hard since I assumed Lunatic was more of a second-playthrough challenge mode--so stick with Lunatic if you care about collection/min-maxing. (EDIT: There was a patch today that clarified this is not actually the case, and Hard mode can still get these.)

The story is also hit or miss so far. The demo was VERY wordy and a lot of dialog got cut for the full game, which was a good choice. The story also takes much more of a center stage this time around, including even some in-game story sequences! At first I didn't like it much at all, but there's a twist after the second stratum which does make things a lot more interesting. This is an early review so I can't say for sure how much I'll like it in the end, but so far I do prefer the much simpler and lower-key (some might say more Touhou-esque) story of the prequel. And because the story is much more prominent, it's going to be harder for those less familiar with the Touhou canon to follow along.

I strongly recommend this for any fans of Touhou, DRPGs, or JRPGs in general.

To get the obvious out of the way: all the Touhous have big fat hangers.

Okay, now that that's in the open. This is a very blatant Super Mario RPG clone, except in the Touhou universe. It starts out as a very direct clone, but as the game progresses it grows into a great JRPG in its own right.

The battle system is all about timing your attacks, skills, and guards correctly. The game is fair on Normal mode, but on Hard or even Lunatic, if you can't time your guard properly you have zero chance. Luckily, the guarding system keeps the battles interesting, and nothing feels as great as clutching out a guard against a spell that would have wiped your party.

Story-wise, it's Touhou. You already know everyone's going to meet up for tea at the end. But it's a fun story, and there's lots of nonlinear elements. You can find unique items and recruit characters in a different order if you approach the game from a different path, and normally the only requirement to do so is being good at combat so you can beat a tough boss fight.

Graphics are pretty mediocre. The portraits, large chests aside, are low-resolution, and I'm not sure why. The tileset graphics are disappointing. Nicer grass, dirt, etc. tiles would go a long way.

Dungeons are really fun. They get enough unique and interesting gimmicks that they stay fresh throughout the game. You also gain powerups as the game goes on, allowing you to revisit old dungeons and find new items.

I wouldn't buy this if you don't know a Youkai from a Youmu, but if you have even a passing interest in Touhou and liked SMRPG or SNES-era JRPGs in general, this is worth a buy.

I almost stopped playing this game after a few hours, but am glad I didn't. After a fairly hype intro area, the start of the game has the worst dungeons in the entire game (repetitive indoor corridors in underground mines and dungeons), you're limited in your moves and abilities so combat is bland, and you only have a handful of characters in your party.

Thankfully, things gradually improve and the game really hits its stride after getting the 6th playable character. Once you unlock more of the gameplay (switch blasts, mystic artes, certain items that reward you for chaining battles without saving, and more skills to chain) combat is a ton of fun. Once you get the hang of dodging, finding weak points, and comboing, the combat feels great. The equipment/enhancement/skill system is interesting and rewards idiots like me who love grinding in JRPGs. Enemies are varied, and even though there's a lot of palette swaps used there still feels like a lot of enemies (and even the palette swaps have different skills, weaknesses and item drops). Boss fights are fun and memorable.

The plot is bland, but the characters themselves are a lot of fun, thanks in no small part due to the excellent English voice acting. Skits let you see the characters play off each other, often for offbeat things (like Magilou putting together a comedy act) which helps develop them. You can also play dress-up with them which is always a plus. The game is long, too. My playtime is inflated (because there's minor in-game unlocks for stuff like "idle in the menu for 50 hours", and I'm dumb) but doing the main story and extras at a normal pace will run about 70 hours. Prepare to spend 150+ hours if you want to grind for equipment mastery.

Graphics run at 4k 60fps flawlessly on my GTX 1080. They're done in a pleasant, colorful anime style, though again, this doesn't show for the first few hours; the starting area is nice to look at, but then you're stuck in bland, monochrome mines for the next few hours. Later dungeons look great though; in particular the beach/lagoon dungeons and final dungeon look great. Character and enemy graphics are great.

For a minor but important gripe, the game really punishes you as not playing as Velvet, as she's absurdly broken in the hands of the player, but the AI will just use her abilities incorrectly and die horribly. Odds are you'll either want to play as Velvet or move her out of the party when playing as different characters. And you should play as different characters, as that's a lot of the fun in the game.

Pros:
+ Fun battle system with lots of equipment to find, enemies to fight, and skills to learn
+ Memorable and enjoyable cast of characters
+ Great English VA
+ Graphics are nice to look at; facial animations well done
+ Few technical issues (had one crash over ~200 hours of play)

Cons:
- Really slow start; game doesn't pick up until 6-10 hours in
- Some dungeons, particularly the early ones, are bland
- Movement speed is slow, takes a long time to traverse anywhere
- Battle system isn't explained very well in game
- Mouse is bugged in the combat system, better to use a controller or keyboard
- Unmemorable music

Overall this is worth a buy if you want to scratch a JRPG itch.

short and sweet. cute and cool

This game is good. All the bugs people were complaining about seem to be fixed (or at least, I hardly noticed any). Crisp, difficult platformer with some nice-looking "retro" pixel art and pretty tight controls.

Pros: Difficult but fair. Never felt like the game was cheating; all of the challenges could be accomplished by better execution. This game is NOT a "I Wanna Be The Guy" style where it just throws random deaths at you repeatedly. Nice artwork. The achievements/character customizations are a nice touch. Progression was enjoyable.

Cons: Easy mode may still be too difficult for a lot of people, especially the later sections (underworld/path of exile) will make some people really frustrated. It's no surprise that less than 2% of people have actually beaten the final boss, according to achievement stats. Would have been cool to be more "Metroid-like" in that new movement abilities could unlock areas/secrets in previous sections, but that's really minor.

Overall: Really fun, but you need a high tolerance for repeating the same section/bosses over and over--not due to luck, but simply learning and obtaining the skill to get past some areas. If you liked Super Meat Boy you'll probably like this game.