Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity

Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity grabbed me and never let go. It’s a fun game with great characters and combat, and it all comes together in a package that kept me glued to my PS4.

The highlight of Scarlet Curiosity is easily the boss fights… A love letter to their bullet hell inspiration, the screen quickly overflows with colorful shapes of all sizes.

Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity is an entertaining blend of genres that breathes a palpable life into bullet hell games, taking them from a niche variety to one more accessible for casual players.

While Scarlet Curiosity is certainly geared towards fans that already know a little bit about the Touhou lineage, those looking for a fun little diversion until Ys VIII reaches North America won’t be disappointed.

Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity doesn't merge its two genres as seamlessly as its recently localised sibling, but it’s still an exceptionally fresh curiosity buy. Though ultimately not quite as polished as either Ys or a main-series Touhou outing, the underlying gameplay is so clever it elevates the whole experience. The adoption of bullet-hell mechanics by classic genres continues to pay dividends.

This is it Touhou fans, this is where it begins, with a pretty middle of the road action adventure game. It may not be the bullet-hell salvation we were all looking for, but it's a good start, and hopefully paves the way for more Touhou games in the future.

Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity is a game made by and for fans. However this doesn’t guarantee the fact that many of them will enjoy them. Yes it has a really entertaining gameplay and enjoyable boss fights, but its lackluster presentation and kind of repetitive controls, make this game one that will be a delight by some, a mess by others, and a completely strange and forgettable experience by most gamers.

Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity isn't that bad. The campaign is a decent length, and despite the limited combat system, the fighting can be enjoyable if you play in short bursts. The enemy monotony does drag down the experience if you want to play for extended sessions, and the presentation could certainly be much better, fan-made game or not. While it's not the best action RPG on the system, it's worth a shot if you've already exhausted the others.

It’s repetitive, unrewarding, and confused.

There’s certainly an able amount of fanservice in Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity, but it simply wasn’t built to be much more than a knowing nod to a friendly audience, rather than a genuine ambassador for one of Japan’s most beloved gaming brands.

An extremely polished game that throws players directly into the world of Gensokyo, delivering a well-crafted translation from the series’ 2D-roots to a 3D-setting. While it definitely didn’t have the highest budget — a fact made apparent by the utter lack of voice acting or music during the pre-fight dialogue sequences — the music that is present during the dungeon exploration is actually quite fascinating even if it does get repetitive the more time you spend playing.

Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity fell flat. With repetitive combat and a lackluster story line, Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity didn’t deliver the experience I was hoping for. There are moments of pure joy and the game finishes much stronger than it starts, yet at the end of the day this is a game best left for hardcore fans of the franchise.

Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity is overly simple to the point of providing no challenge. It’s not broken but almost every element could be improved in some obvious way to make it more interesting.

The graphics lack style or pizzazz and the controls have a wrongness to them. This Touhou title isn’t terrible, but the curiosity of its mash up is all it has.

In the end, there doesn't seem to be much reason to think of Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity as more than a left-field oddity. Newcomers to the established universe will be nonplussed by its cast of characters who lack all introduction and its fly-by-night story. Repeat visitors to Gensokyo will still be hard-pressed to locate any challenge or semblance of fun within its dreary gameplay and level design.

For a series that only has a niche following in the West, Touhou really needs to put its best foot forward to win over a bigger audience. Unfortunately, this fan-game spinoff of the doujin series is not it. While not particularly terrible,Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity is about as middle of the road as you can get with an action RPG, and as such does not leave a good impression as one of the few English representations of the 'Touhou' series.

Everything in Touhou just feels pointless; the story is drab, the combat is flat and and the action elements are uninspired. I understand it's a fan made game but I really struggle to find anything to compliment here. I can even imagine fans of the series struggling to like it, which is pretty much the nail in the coffin. Honest opinion: Avoid this like the plague.

Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity attempts to blend the action-RPG and bullet hell genres, sadly doing justice to neither in the process.