Touhou Spell Carnival Review – Grinding Through Bullet Hell

Touhou Spell Carnival Review

Touhou Spell Carnival is one of the many spin-offs of the venerable Touhou Project franchise. Like many of its fellows, it’s kind of a bad entry point into the series as a whole. However, it’s fun enough–and its gameplay unique enough–that I can safely recommend it to Touhou fans. And anyone who’s willing to be dropped in the deep end of the lore.

Gensokyo, the land of illusion, is the last bastion of fantasy in the world. Here, yokai, spirits, deities, and magicians still weave their mysteries to confuse, enchant, and frighten humans. And when they inevitably get bored, they rope each into bizarre games and schemes. When these incidents rock the peace of Gensokyo, the slacker shrine maiden Reimu and the mischievous magician Marisa arrive to solve the mess.

In this game, the notorious Yukari Yakumo, a yokai with power over boundaries, arranges a Spell Carnival. Everyone who gets an invitation is pulled into a contest of magic, stats, and bullet hell. And when participants become possessed by a strange energy, Reimu and Marisa must step up to save the day.

I Hope You Know Touhou

Touhou Spell Carnival is not a great intro to the Touhou franchise, as I said. It assumes the player is already familiar with the cast and their relationships. However, it is a fun adventure through Gensokyo for returning fans.

Reimu and Marisa travel all over the land, fighting old friends and old enemies, while struggling to figure out what’s going on. And win the Spell Carnival while they’re at it. The story is split between a comedic magical adventure and slice-of-life stories about the cast’s daily shenanigans.

The game’s narrative isn’t that plot-heavy and the stakes aren’t that high. As a result, much of the focus is put on the cute and funny moments between the cast. Every character has a strong presence while they’re onscreen.

Experienced Touhou fans will find a lot of nice moments in this game. And they’ll probably be prepared for the price of that cuteness.

Touhou Spell Carnival is a Demanding Game

Touhou Spell Carnival is a hybrid of strategy RPG and bullet hell. This combination should not work as well as it does. The game switches between 2D visual novel-style cutscenes and 3D top-down strategic bullet hell battles. Players move a team of characters around and give commands in real time. All while the stage’s enemies spam skills and Spell Cards of their own.

Each character comes with distinct skills meant for different situations. Reimu is a tanky healer, for example, while Marisa hits hard but is fragile. Characters build action points in real time, so time management and swift commands are a must. The game also features RPG elements, including leveling up, unlocking new Spell Cards, and even dropped items.

Battles get very stressful very fast. However, dodging, tanking, and spamming bullets everywhere is surprisingly intuitive after a while. Things settle into a rhythm of sorts. Ace Spell Cards completely change the rhythm, however, so you can never relax fully.

Bullet hell fans, rejoice. There’s plenty of room for self-imposed challenge. RPG fans, rejoice. You can scrape your way through by grinding and careful equipment management. At least, until you hit the Bamboo Forest. At that point, you’re walking into hell.

The game is short, but there are a ton of optional missions to pursue and free battles to clear. However, each new mission insists on appearing as a pop-up first. This gets really annoying, especially when the same sound effect plays ten times in a row.

Bullet Hell Meets Strategy RPG

Touhou Spell Carnival, like many Touhou games, features adorable characters and nice music. This game probably looks best played in Window mode rather than Fullscreen. However, the pixel art is still nice in Fullscreen mode.

Sadly, I’m not terribly fond of the 3D models, especially when they’re given close-ups. The CGs are incredibly cute, however. The game also features solid Japanese voice-acting, though I had to turn the volume up sometimes to hear it over the soundtrack.

The game offers three difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, and Hard. Easy is for people who want to see the story, Hard is for bullet hell fans. Normal is just about doable for people who like RPGs but find bullet hell intimidating. That said, the skill gate is still pretty high.

All in all, Touhou Spell Carnival is a bizarre mix that is far more than the sum of its parts. Touhou Project fans and anyone who wants to know how a bullet hell strategy RPG could work should definitely check it out. But maybe wait until it’s on sale, as this title isn’t really long enough to justify paying full price.

***Steam code provided by the publisher***