Ah, The Touhou series. Well, depending on your experience and exposure, the ‘project’ is either a long-standing production line of ‘Danmaku’ (curtain fire) bullet hell shmups, a vast array of parody and homages ranging from Castlevania clones to 3D fighters (in the form of Touhou Kobuto V: Burst Battle), or a vast, labyrinthine journey through literally thousands of fan-made media pieces, from music to literature. As the brain-child of Team Shanghai Alice starting back in 1996, the ‘core franchise’ spans over 20 years and more than two dozen games.
Project Touhou and it’s characters have certainly become a barely controllable beast, and roguelike RPG adventure Genso Wanderer makes its way to the Switch, ‘Reloaded’ from the original version released on PS Vita and PS4 in 2017, ready to satisfy long-term fans with lore and backstory, while attempting to be an accessible entry point for those new to the extensive universe.
Genso Wanderer tells the story of everyone’s favorite shrine maiden Reimu Haruki, as she becomes attracted to a ‘cursed’ golden sphere that contains strange, mystical powers. She tries to steal the sphere from dashing half-human/half-yokai (ghost) Rinnosuke Morichika. The game then plays out as a series of roguelike dungeons as you try to battle through various clones of the sphere's dark power in order to restore peace and tranquility.
Anyone who has played Mystery Dungeon: Shiren The Wanderer on Nintendo DS or Sorcery Saga on Vita will feel right at home, as Gensou is a turn-based roguelike dungeon crawler, packing in all of the conventions that come with the genre. You’ll make your way through a set of randomly generated floors to accrue items, spells, weapons and you get to recruit a range of shrine maiden friends as you progress in order to further the plot.
There are two main factors when journeying through the floors of each dungeon. One is your HP gauge, which will deplete as you take damage from enemies but will restore gradually as you move across the grid-like areas without getting into conflict. The other is your ‘tummy meter’, which requires food regularly to prevent you from passing out. You’ll also collect money, spells and various weapons, along with the invaluable ‘danmaku’ projectiles and the ability to combine different fusion powers which is new to this ‘reloaded’ version.
Every so often, you’ll get the opportunity to restock and manage your inventory which becomes more important as you progress. Services and shops in the various towns must be used in order to be prepared for anything that the later levels might throw at you. One such drawback commonly found in roguelikes also presents itself here in the random nature of the level generation. It's perfectly possible to breeze through the first few floors (especially with a rather powerful ally), only to hit a spike in difficulty which will finish you before you realise what you’re up against. Although you keep your items and your weapons retain their level, you and your new pals will have to start all over again.
While this cycle of learning through experience, when done well, can be addictive and satisfying, TGW lets itself down in a few key areas. First of all, there is a decent chance that enemy projectiles will come at you without being visible until it’s too late. The field of view becomes more and more restricted as you open up areas of a particular floor, as the minimap continues to grow. Combined with the text window, weapon cycle and various health meters, TGW becomes less and less bearable as what you are actually moving and fighting against is increasingly obscured by the HUD. It is a real shame, as the effects, environments and characters are well drawn, smoothly animated and brightly coloured, even if the Chibi anime style isn’t for everyone.
In general, there’s just an overwhelming amount of text at every conceivable juncture, whether it is during the quest itself or when you encounter merchants, allies, enemies or anyone else. The Touhou universe is certainly expansive, but the sheer volume of asinine banter and conversation between characters, combined with the intrusive text window logging every action taken during your quest just becomes exhausting. It is a lot to take in, even if the world of Touhou is one that you are already invested in.
Conclusion
Overwhelming for newcomers and probably too generic for genre aficionados, Touhou Gensou Wanderer Reloaded is difficult to recommend to all but die-hard series fans. The beautiful hand-drawn presentation and high production values are hindered severely by a contrived and intrusive interface, unimportant dialogue with very little character development and derivative mechanics. It certainly looks the part, but there are more fun and interesting adventure roguelikes such as Crypt Of The Necrodancer on the eShop right now.
Comments 24
Another one to avoid then.. quality over quantity please!!
With no Shiren game on the switch (yet) I'm still going to pick this one up.
Still people. Give it a try. They reviewed Atelier game and gave it only a 6. I mean come on. This ain't much different. It's stil an opinion. If you like what you see you should try it. Go watch videos to see yourself
Guess this won't be my entry point into the series, then...
Erffff ! One more ! Mediocre game... :/
@Ryu_Niiyama
There are some more Shiren/Mystery Dungeon-like games on the Switch:
Touhou Genso Wanderer Reloaded
Dragon Fang Z: The Rose & Dungeon of Time
A Magical High-School Girl and the Mysterious Way Home
Yodanji
Quest of Dungeons
I think Nintendolife normally underrates Mystery Dungeon style games, but still, we have yet to see any of the great Touhou spinoffs get ported to console.
Still waiting for Labyrinth of Touhou 2 or one of the games developed by Twilight Frontier...
Noticed a trend of Touhou games, any of them that are spinoffs generally range with this score.
@Multi @Cobalt I'd rather have this over what crap PS4 got this week... shudders The Unknown City.
I got this touhou (and some others) on PS4 ages back. They were alright but not very engaging. Not found a Touhou RPG I've liked yet, though not played many. I suck at their bullet hell godliness however.
@Spectra Its on the Nintendo eShop coming soon list. Can't recall if it was pre orderable or not, but do believe it is digital only like its PS4 release a while back.
meh, i'll pass. didn't look very appealing to me anyways.
@Ryu_Niiyama Honestly, I think a Shiren game on the Switch is pretty much inevitable at some point, and I can wait. I was somewhat interested in this, but the general word on the original TGW was kind of lukewarm, and NL is not the only place reporting that the mini-map display is a huge hassle.
Meanwhile, my roguelike itch is more than satisfied by Darkest Dungeon. It's definitely not a Mystery Dungeon game but it has a lot in common with them, and it's wicked fun.
@Alucard83 Ouch, the Atelier series is personally quite enjoyable so that seems a bit harsh given the backlash against Mario Tennis Aces and the score they gave that. Then again, it's a Nintendo site so it'll give Nintendo games higher scores.
Whatever. I still plan to buy it. Though not a fan of those kinds of dungeon crawlers, this one I enjoyed as a rental on my PS4.
@SKTTR Did you mean to mention Touhou? That's what this is a review of. Forgot about dragon fang. I take reviews with a grain of salt as my tastes don't usually line up with mainstream. I suspect ill get this game and be fine till Shiren shows up.
@JasmineDragon Thanks for the suggestion. I am looking for a Mystery Dungeon (I just dont want to have to turn on my vita to play shiren honestly...lol) but Darkest Dungeon looks interesting.
@Spectra eshop?
@nessisonett I wouldn't say Nintendo Life gives ALL Nintendo games higher scores...
https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/wiiu/mario_tennis_ultra_smash
Granted, this one was garbage, so...
https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/3ds/yoshis_new_island
A pretty bland game, yes, but I'd still prefer this over Touch n Go or Topsy-Turvy, even.
These are two of the games I could find where NL gave "not high" scores, though there are more like those. Then again, I don't really trust reviews as much nowadays...
I'd like to see 'Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate' on Switch.
Roguelikes are pretty niche so I’d imagine review scores would be split. I’ve seen a few high ones as well.
I sort of want this game but I’m a little iffy on price, could purchase almost all the other Roguelikes for 50$.
I lost any interest at "Roguelike"... I am rather sick of these titles. Seems like we get another one every week.
@Heavyarms55 roguelite mechanics do get shoved into everything. Only about 5 true Roguelikes though.
Better than Touhou Kobuto V: Burst Battle I would say.
If you like the genre, it's a great game.
It's not lke crypt of the necrodancer, it's more similar to shiren the wanderer... even more deeper in gameplay.
You'll need at least 100 hours of gaming to know all the facets of this game.
For whom loved shiren, this is a must buy.
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