Touhou 17 - Wily Beast and Weakest Creature

The latest entry of the Touhou series from Team Shanghai Alice, Touhou 17 - Wily Beast and Weakest creature is a vertical-scrolling, two-dimensional shooter. Released in 2019, it received mild appraisal from critics but found immense success among gamers.

Story

Mysterious animals arrive at Gensokyo's Human Village threatening an invasion and are met by our protagonists. Upon further inspection, we learn that the animal never had the intention to harm Gensokyo’s village, but instead were searching for the aid of the noble heroes Reimi Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, and Youmu Konpaku to stop an army from hell.

Guided by their own motivations, all three heroes accept the journey. Reimi is guided by her desire to guard the village, Marisa is guided by the opportunity to see hell, and steal the powers of the spirit animals, and Youmu wanted to stop catastrophic consequences to befall the natural order of the world. Together they battle through waves of enemies and six bosses in search of victory.

Gameplay

The controls should be familiar to veteran players, but for newcomers, Touhou 17 doesn’t really teach players how to play. Yet, controls are fairly intuitive the keyboard arrows move the character around the screen, Z shoots (and can be held for rapid-fire), and X throws a bomb towards enemies.

There are three playable characters in Touhou 17, Reimi, Marisa, and Youmu. They each possess different shots, and thus gameplay styles. There are multiple mechanics such as animal spirits, spell cards, roaring mode, berserk roaring mode, fish spirit items, beast spirit items, rare beast spirit items, and more. And while they do add variety they can be intimidating to the unfamiliar.

Difficulty

The Touhou series is notoriously famous for its challenging nature, and absurd difficulty that attracts hardcore players, and elite gamers. But, Touhou 17 is easier than its predecessors even in its most challenging Lunatic Mode. This means that difficulty-wise, it feels like a natural entry point for newcomers.

The game has six main stages, and boss fights, with an extra stage that adds another boss fight. A full run-through will take around thirty minutes, and will be fairly unchallenging on Easy and Medium modes. But, chasing high-scores on Hard, and especially Lunatic will keep players engaged and offer good replayability, as you try to improve upon yourself.

Summary

Touhou 17 is a game that feels overwhelming for newcomers due to the enormous number of mechanics, and modifiers it has, which might satisfy older fans with novelty content. Nonetheless, it is one of the easier Touhou titles, frustrating the expectations of die-hard fans of the series, but opening the door for gamers interested in exploring this genre.

Pros:

• Forgiving difficulty
• Variety in gameplay
• Entry-point for newcomers
• Artwork and Design

Cons:

• Unchallenging for Veterans
• Language Barriers
• Overly Complicated Mechanics