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Touhou Luna Nights - Switch, PC, Xbox

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    Touhou Luna Nights - Switch, PC, Xbox



    I know nothing about Touhou but thought this game looked excellent when it came out a while ago on PC. Unfortunately I don't like playing games on my PC so patiently waited for the Switch port which released just before Christmas.

    It is a shortish Metroidvania made by Team Ladybug, a small Japanese team who apparently make great vania type games. They did the Jack Frost promo game for one of the SMT releases and also have Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth in early access. The game is based on some of the Touhou characters and you play as a maid girl that has time stopping powers. She is transported to some kind of fabricated world which is traversed Metroidvania style with bosses that have bullet hell inspired attack patterns (Touhou is mainly (?) a shooter series).



    The game looks great and the main character has a fantastic sprite. She is snappy, responsive and fast. Combat is quick and the platforming excellent. She fights by throwing knives and slowing down time. The time slow is often used for exploration but is essential for slowing down enemy bullet patterns or freezing enemies while you create a barrage of knives that shoot forward when you unfreeze time. The knife barrage is a fantastic looking effect and the time meter management creates a great ebb and flow to combat and exploration. It forces you to stop and think about how best to use the meter and master your movements. The knife/time combo is the basis for a lot of the vania ability unlocks that allow you to access more of the world. A couple of them were nice surprises and inventive so I won't spoil them.



    The bosses are real highlight. They each have a great variety of attacks and seem impossible at first but then you learn the specifics of the patterns and you learn to dance through them. The bosses often have shmup inspired patterns but also mix them up with more traditional vania style attacks. Health potions are very limited in the game so you can't spam heal your way through them, you're really forced to get good.



    The game is 5-10 hours depending on how difficult you find it (mine was closer to 10, I'm bad at games) which is a great length for it. There isn't any padding but you can see how it could be expanded into a much larger game. It hasn't got as much of the weird flourishes and generous touches of magic that Symphony has, it is slimmer and more focused. Obviously Symphony is a masterpiece but my point is that this is tight and trim vania style game, not the big feasts of Igarashi games.



    My only real criticism with the game is that there aren't enough unique rooms visually. This is made by a small team so the amount of art assets is limited which means it lacks memorable landmarks.I'd also really like it if it had a REmake 2 style map which colours the rooms based on whether you've found everything in them. I don't think this is essential for a vania game but since this game lacks unique landmarks, a more helpful map would help you remember where to backtrack and explore to.

    I really loved the game and can't wait to play whatever Team Ladybug do next when it comes to console. Highly recommended if you like vania games and what a cool, small game while you wonder why the hell Konami don't put all their GBA and DS games on Switch.

    #2
    Sakuya Izayoi. At least get her name

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      #3
      Touhou as a project is something that's so sprawling and dense that I've never really found my in-road, but this looks to be very much my thing. Definitely going on the list.

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        #4
        The main/official series are vertical-scrolling bullet hells and a couple are available on Steam, the rest are fan games spanning to JRPGs done in RPG Maker (or similar), to Metroidvanias, passing through dungeon crawlers, third-person shooters, and different styles of shumps.

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          #5
          There's a pretty cool puzzle game on Switch that I tried the demo for. Puzzle Bobble but with a rhythm element when you create combos. Seemed pretty good.

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            #6
            I'd had a quick play through the opening area before, but after playing Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth, I decided to come back. Deleted my save and started from scratch, and yeah, although I think I'm approaching the end after one evening, I'm enjoying it. I very much like the shmup influences, particularly the advantages from grazing enemies and projectiles, and how this is useful with a lot of the patterns that the bosses use. Also a really big fan of the sprite work and animation - it sounds superficial, but it really feels good when your character feels good to control.

            One thing I'm slightly less mad about is the rhythm it feels like it wants you to play in against certain bosses; that trying to just move about normally and attack will inevitably have you run out of MP and not be able to recover, and instead that you should be stopping time (where attacks consume your time gauge rather than MP) to queue up a bunch of attacks whenever possible. It's probably not even that big of an issue if you get used to it, and it's certainly trying to gently guide you to more effective play, but trying to just play it like other games just ends up being a bit of a drag.

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              #7
              Nabbed this from GP months back, and having just run through Deedlit, and seeing that this will be leaving GP on the 28th, fired it up.

              Should have done that months ago. Fab little game. Once you realise that pretty much every enemy / enemy attack is a potential HP or MP refill, it just flows. Great boss fights. More to follow I suppose, time for play.

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                #8
                Charming, fabulous, fun.

                Other have pretty much covered most of it...MV lite game with a different combat mechanic...

                But that combat mechanic, combined with tight responsive controls, just oozes awesome playability. Yes, you can run through the game in a more traditional knife / special combat way, or you can spam time stop and queue up knife attacks etc. Really though, graze is where it's at. Narrowly miss an enemy or enemy attack in regular time and get some health and MP (knife meter gauge) back, in time stop the graze distance is much larger at the cost of getting reduced MP only (no HP recovery at all). Your actions are your medicine cabinet - I've run through twice and not used a single restorative item in either - the more aggressive and in your face you are with the enemies, the more aggressive and in their faces you can be. You end up skipping around all the rooms, grazing health and MP, dealing damage, actually wanting enemies to attack.

                The boss fights are fab too. Nods to bullet hell, nods to more traditional MV stuff, and dancing through their bullets, turning their offence into your defence and offence is just fun.

                Banging soundtrack too, remixes of older Touhou shooter themes from what I can tell.

                Did I mention that it's just super fun, with tight responsive controls that ooze playability. I did? Ha, oh well! I fired up Deedlit last night as I look to get the last few achievements...turned it off after a couple for mins. I thoroughly enjoyed Deedlit earlier last week, but the combat / general playability is so pedestrian in comparison to this.

                Easy 9/10 for me.

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                  #9
                  Just to add, and I guess I'll spoiler it even though the game is 3 years old

                  but do not use the shop at all, or at least only to buy some extra time and knives for boss rush speed runs (I'm currently sub 3.30 but can see a sub 3 on the horizon). The gems you pick up and can sell actually give you slight perks as well, such as faster gauge recovery, health regen, graze improvement etc. Not so noticeable to begin with but gather enough and you'll notice the effects (and really notice them if you then sell all the gems and go back to no perk improvement.) My MP and time gauge recovery are absurdly fast now, graze steals are huge, and my health regens at a steady pace the whole time.

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                    #10
                    Just highlighting it in this thread too that there's a physical version coming from Playism next year on PS4/PS5/NSW - Amazon Japan link here.

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