Sometimes you just have such an incredibly good experience playing a game that it gets completely elevated in your eyes. I think Touhou 18 is a very strong entry in the series on its own merits, but man, does it just awaken something in me whenever I play it. I've frequently stated that my favorite bullet hells put me in a zone where I'm pulling off dodges I never thought I was capable of, and Touhou 18 is the best example of that. It has such a remarkable sense of flow and difficulty that none of the other Touhou games have been able to match, and that's not even getting into its special gimmick.
Just as a heads up, I've talked about Touhou 18 a lot in my Windows Touhou ranking and my Touhou Music Reviews series, so a lot of this will be me reiterating things I've already said.
As far as story goes, Touhou 18 is probably one of the better entries as of late. The premise is hilariously simple, like many Touhou games are. Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya, and Sanae (peak character roster, by the way) learn about a bunch of magical cards that are being spread around Gensokyo, and they head off to investigate, only to unravel a wide and complicated market system. Most of the new cast members introduced in this game are, as such, business owners, which leads to a particularly wide array of colorful personalities. Between the smooth-talking salescat Mike, the gruff and stylish casino owner Sannyo, the desperate god of markets Chimata, and the dragon-eating centipede miner Momoyo, UM actually has one of my favorite Touhou casts, especially recently.
In terms of gameplay, I think Unconnected Marketeers nails pretty much everything it needs to. The bullet patterns are consistently pretty, varied, and engaging to navigate. Touhou 18 is one of the tougher games in the series, but the difficulty strikes that perfect balance between being challenging and entirely fair. It's so well-calibrated that it's the only entry in the series where, as I said earlier, it feels like I enter some sort of flow state whenever I play it, with it even standing out as one of the few entries I managed to 1cc. And the bosses are fantastic too. Every single boss in UM is spectacular, with memorable and varied attack patterns that are a blast to figure out, especially in the second half. Misumaru's ying-yang orb spam is the highlight, but Megumu's lasers are a close second, and the final boss Chimata's penchant for homing attacks puts Junko to shame (while also being way more fun, of course). The level and boss design of Unconnected Marketeers is masterful, and I haven't even gotten into the main mechanic yet.
Unconnected Marketeers takes a page from the roguelike genre by introducing a Card mechanic, where you can purchase a variety of cards in a shop in between between stages. These cards can buff your stats in a variety of ways, but you can also buy an extra life or bomb if you're more focused on surviving. Money for the shop replaces the blue point items, which is a brilliant move considering how useless they can often be if you're not going for scaring. Since you get a unique selection of cards each time you play, Touhou 18 has an incredible amount of customization and replay value since each playthrough is different and the game keeps track of all the cards you've bought. It's a blast to experiment with different cards to see what builds work for me, and seeing all of the easter eggs and references to past games on the cards themselves just make me happy. Is it broken? Sure, there are totally some builds that will let you destroy the game completely, but that's all part of the fun. The fact that Touhou 18 is easily the most customizable and replayable entry in the series, even topping games like 8 and 16, elevates it so far.
As far as presentation goes, I mean, it's a Touhou game. Like many entries in the series, you have that same charming clash between strong art direction, awkward character art, and stunning backgrounds. However, Touhou 18 in particular has some very beautiful backgrounds due to the focus on rainbows, lots of bright colors and naturalistic settings making for some very pretty scenery. The music is also as good as always, even if it's overall one of the weaker soundtracks in a series filled with phenomenal music. The stage themes are pretty spectacular across the board, with The Abandoned Industrial Remains, The Long-Awaited Omagatoki, and especially Lunar Rainbow being highlights. The final boss theme, Where Is That Bustling Marketplace, is also incredibly good, a frenetic and bombastic cap to the game.
Overall, Touhou 18: Unconnected Marketeers is just an incredibly well-executed entry in one of my favorite series that does pretty much everything right. The pacing, pattern design, and difficulty curve is polished to near perfection, the central gimmick offers up so much customization and replayability without hampering the game's core, the cast of characters is one of the best in recent memory, and the second half is absolutely killer. The fact that after 18 mainline games, we still got one of the best entries in the series is a testament to Touhou's longevity.
No comments:
Post a Comment