Short Version: It’s not good. It’s an interesting idea that’s executed poorly. Turning bullet hell shooters into a fighting game is cool to think about, but it ended up being a boring, overly complicated chore that got old very quickly. The music could be better, the story is mediocre at best, the art is average, and the amount of content available does not justify the $30 price point. I’ve seen way better Touhou games than this, and this is definitely not the best place to start. You’d be better off not bothering with this and waiting for something better to show up.
Long Version: The Touhou Project franchise is a series of bullet hell shooters that are incredibly big in Japan, representing an enormous amount of the country’s independent work in terms of manga, visual novels, animations, video games and more. However, if you ask an American what Touhou is, they probably have no idea, even though they’ve most likely come across a bunch of picture of the property’s characters on the Internet. Because it is very deeply rooted in Japan, it could almost be considered a historical event to finally see a game featuring this property making it into home consoles for the Western market. Unfortunately, this newest game is a strange spin-off that does more to dishearten and leave a bad first impression rather than excite people on Touhou’s arrival to consoles.
Go To Hell…Bullet Hell!
Touhou Gensou Rondo Bullet Ballet is a mouthful of a title that features the more prominent and popular characters in the Touhou franchise, in which they are pitted against each other in a one-on-one fighting game. However, this is not the typical 2D side scrolling fighting style like Street Fighter or an Ark System Works game. Instead, the game allows you to fight through shooting bullets, therefore creating a bullet hell of your own, in which both you and your opponent need to dodge, bob and weave your way to victory in the hopes that the opposition gets hit more times than you do.
Conceptually, I like this idea a lot. As a fan of bullet hell shooters, I think it is an interesting and original take to be playing the role of the one shooting the bullets, in which others need to dodge your attacks. It is also really cool that different patterns and attacks are seen from combining different button presses such as melee, heavy guard attacks, light dash attacks and spells, creating a fun way to experiment and mind trick for your opponent. In addition to that, the characters are all fairly unique, with their own attack patterns and quirks that made playing as all of them very fun. Unfortunately, that level of interest only lasted for about and hour before I started to get really bored and desire more out of it; so I decided to check out the story mode. Big mistake.
[I originally posted this review on The Buttonsmashers. You can read the rest of the review
by clicking here or just listening to the video version above.]
Game Review – Touhou Genso Rondo Bullet Ballet
0Short Version: It’s not good. It’s an interesting idea that’s executed poorly. Turning bullet hell shooters into a fighting game is cool to think about, but it ended up being a boring, overly complicated chore that got old very quickly. The music could be better, the story is mediocre at best, the art is average, and the amount of content available does not justify the $30 price point. I’ve seen way better Touhou games than this, and this is definitely not the best place to start. You’d be better off not bothering with this and waiting for something better to show up.
Long Version: The Touhou Project franchise is a series of bullet hell shooters that are incredibly big in Japan, representing an enormous amount of the country’s independent work in terms of manga, visual novels, animations, video games and more. However, if you ask an American what Touhou is, they probably have no idea, even though they’ve most likely come across a bunch of picture of the property’s characters on the Internet. Because it is very deeply rooted in Japan, it could almost be considered a historical event to finally see a game featuring this property making it into home consoles for the Western market. Unfortunately, this newest game is a strange spin-off that does more to dishearten and leave a bad first impression rather than excite people on Touhou’s arrival to consoles.
Go To Hell…Bullet Hell!
Touhou Gensou Rondo Bullet Ballet is a mouthful of a title that features the more prominent and popular characters in the Touhou franchise, in which they are pitted against each other in a one-on-one fighting game. However, this is not the typical 2D side scrolling fighting style like Street Fighter or an Ark System Works game. Instead, the game allows you to fight through shooting bullets, therefore creating a bullet hell of your own, in which both you and your opponent need to dodge, bob and weave your way to victory in the hopes that the opposition gets hit more times than you do.
Conceptually, I like this idea a lot. As a fan of bullet hell shooters, I think it is an interesting and original take to be playing the role of the one shooting the bullets, in which others need to dodge your attacks. It is also really cool that different patterns and attacks are seen from combining different button presses such as melee, heavy guard attacks, light dash attacks and spells, creating a fun way to experiment and mind trick for your opponent. In addition to that, the characters are all fairly unique, with their own attack patterns and quirks that made playing as all of them very fun. Unfortunately, that level of interest only lasted for about and hour before I started to get really bored and desire more out of it; so I decided to check out the story mode. Big mistake.
[I originally posted this review on The Buttonsmashers. You can read the rest of the review by clicking here or just listening to the video version above.]Game Review – Gal Gun: Double Peace
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