Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity

Scarlet Curiosity is nearly a hidden gem, although there are some perplexingly dumb decisions and a lack of real challenge that keep it from being one of the best in the genre. I have no comprehension of the Touhou game series, and my research online just leaves me more confused. As far as I can tell, it's a bunch of games with some bullet hell elements and entirely female anime casts of characters. Beyond that, these games can be and are anything. This one feels like one of the 3D Castlevania games on the PS2, albeit with more crisp graphics and great sound design.

You move around the map, killing enemies to level up and collecting money and items to equip. Eventually you reach a boss room and this is really the only challenging thing about the game. You have two different chracters to select from and they both play very differently. Remy is a vampire and she's a bit more fun to play as because you can spam a dive attack to speed all over the level. She doesn't deal the damage of Sakuya, but she's more well rounded as a character. Sakuya is a maid who specializes in knife attacks. can exploit critical hits and she gets a game breaking ability late in the game that lets you interrupt boss attacks and basically obliterate them.

The characters mostly have melee attacks, but they do get some projectile attacks and can select from a few special "screen clearing attacks." A few of the bosses are pretty difficult if you don't know what to do, but for the most part this game has no real challenge. You can activate "bullet hell" mode from the menu, but since there are exploits to pulverize all of the bosses once you know the pattern it doesn't make much of a difference. Dying outside of the boss room just takes gold away, and you don't even really need the gold for anything since all the weapons you need are dropped by enemies and in chests.

This game is super linear, but there's a lot of variety in the map designs. I particularly like a platforming section that has you climbing a waterfall, and the inside of a "kettle" that is a ruined castle for no apparent reason. The story is incomprehensible gibberish and the game just expects you to already know who these characters are. The combat is fun since you are still getting new abilities even around level 70. To get the "true ending" you have to go through a 20-floor labyrinth and beat two difficult bosses, and this is really the only thing about the game that feels remotely challenging.

The only real issue with the game is the fact that you will face the same enemies over and over again. From my understanding, Touhou games are supposed to feature Yokai demons, but you mostly fight centipedes, bats and little doll-looking creatures. It's not that the enemies aren't fun to fight, it's just that you will find yourself fighting, say, a mushroom inside an underwater research lab because the game doesn't have enough enemy types to have them all fit the environments. The bosses in this game are inspired and some of the patterns are really fun to figure out. I particularly like one near the end where the character attacks with earth, wind, fire and water with a different special attack assigned to each. As you get near the end of each boss fight their attacks get faster and they start introducing new attacks, so expect to replay a few of them until you get the pattern down.

~ Playing as Sakuya makes me happy.
~ Level progression is average.
~ The soundtracks are awesome (I'm bias).

~ Kinda wish more characters are added.
~ Recommended when the game is on sale.

Probably one of my favorite Touhou fangames. Definitely worth the play if you can't get enough Scarlet Devil content. I found myself wanting to play more, even after I finished the game & got all the achievements.
The story is simple. Remilia Scarlet, the charismatic vampire mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, finds her home has been destroyed by a mystery monster while she was out, and now she must go on a quest to uncover the culprit, alongside her maid & trusted companion, Sakuya Izayoi.
The gameplay is simple but fun, especially when you start wracking up combos. You have a handful of skills to mix-and-match to fit your own unique playstyle, as well as an "ultimate" skill. I'd suggest using "Spear the Gungnir" for big single-hit damage on bosses, but there are other ults as well, including AOE ones.
The music is great. I learned about this game through their rendition of Patchouli's theme (composed by Hachimitsu-Lemon). As with every Touhou game, I came in with high expectations for the soundtrack, and I was not disappointed here.
My favorite thing about this game is probably the character art. It's simple, yet very charming. You don't always have to go overboard with a character design for it to be good. In this case, simple = cute.
The achievement grind wasn't bad. A lot of the achievements you'll get just by playing the game. The achievement you're most likely to put the most time into getting is getting Remi or Sakuya to lvl 99, but if you play with that goal in mind, by the time you finish the main game all you'll have to do is grind the extra boss a few times and you'll get there. The roughest achievement for me to get was increasing my critical rate to 50%. I was playing as Remi, who has less crit rate than Sakuya, so it was frustrating. But, other than that, I had no real trouble.
Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity gets the Nori Stamp of Approval. Play it if you're looking for a fun Touhou fangame to pass the time.

honestly luv how they blended in bullet hell elements with rpg, just the right amount of both. it also requires a bit of experience in bullet hell, but otherwise amazing game and def worth my money :D

Really cute game, the art and 3d models are charming, music is cool and recognizable, and the dialogue is pretty funny at times.
I played through once as Sakuya and did the first two missions again afterwards as Remilia. If you're going to play through once I think I would recommend Remilia since her basic attacks flow better for pot breaking, she can glide, dive bomb attack to go FAST, and delete bullets way easier compared to Sakuya. Feels like the game was designed primarily around Remilia and Sakuya was somewhat of an afterthought. I did enough of the post-game to know I wasn't interested and the second character's campaign didn't seem different except some dialogue changes.
A bit easy compared to the previous entry starring Youmu that was re-released recently. I think the only time I died was once on the final boss since there were no healing pots. Apparently there's a "bullet hell mode" which I didn't know about until reading the store page just now. It's hidden in the game's launcher under the misc. tab. I might've tried that on my first playthrough knowing what I know now. Maybe if I go back to play Remilia more.
The character/build customization is a bit shallow but I don't think that's hugely important here. I mostly stuck with item drop chance equipment and swapped to real stats for boss fights. There are a dozen or so skills mostly breaking down into different flavors of projectile, thrusting, or character-centered area of affect attacks. Just give me the thrust with invincibility frames and the enemy vacuum attack that also has iframes, everything else felt less useful.
Kourindou is crazy. If I read the credits right it makes sense that they had one person only work on the shop. Tons of modeling and little knickknacks to look at, really impressive.

i really liked this game, even though it was a 3d game it still had that bullet hell feel to it which i though was cool, I really enjoyed the characters and the story as well not a bad game quick and fun

honestly, probably my favorite 3d beat em up. Happy to own this after not being able to play it after it getting removed from ps+. oh and btw, pay attention to the options window before the game starts, youre gonna need it.