Touhou Genso Rondo Bullet Ballet or to be put more elegantly a bullet hell title with lots of strange women. Now I should say I know nothing of the anime or manga this is based on. I am judging this solely on its game mechanics and characteristics of the genre so if you’re a fan of this franchise well, prepare to probably be offended.
Upon loading the game I am met with a check file screen almost every time and it loves to indulge me in this aspect for a good two to three minutes or so before I am able to play the game. But once the game does load I am able to start picking from the story mode, online mode, and the various other gameplay modes the game has and I got to say.
Having a bullet hell game where I can battle against other players online seems actually like a lot of fun. The fact that if two top-tier players got together and went at it we would probably see them dancing around each other for a good while and I find that really interesting.
Now the visuals of the game are quite breathtaking a few of the girls minus their anime-like appearance reminds me of girls I knew back in Florida where I grew up. I really do love all of their designs! Although some… Make me wonder about the developer’s mental health.
The audio for the game is fairly nice as well and really enjoyable, it’s both relaxing and fairly upbeat through most of the stages you play through. But I must say when I see a story in a game without a linear style of playing it never feels right to me and it doesn’t really fit the area of gameplay.
It’s much like taking a game like Just Cause 3 and saying the entire story is based around playing Pong. Even in games like Street fighter you have a linear story to go along with it such as a Worlds Material Arts Tournament and that explains the plot and the combat style but in Touhou Genso Rondo Bullet Ballet you don’t get that at all.
The gameplay however is good, and it is enjoyable. Not to mention it’s fairly straightforward to learn and adapt to that style of playing so it’s great for beginners but as for everything else in the game, It felt lacking.
The characters didn’t really stand out to me, if I went into this knowing more about where they are based maybe I would find it a bit more interesting. But as to someone who just picked up the title and started playing I don’t have that sense of attraction that they are hoping to get from people so they will buy that game.
If it had a way to appeal to more players outside of the fanbase maybe I would be keener to study them. But I am not, so I simply that if you removed all the anime and manga ties to this game you would have a decently made game. But trying to tie in a story and making it oblivious to newcomers hurts the game more.
The game doesn’t shine like I wish it would, as a game though it’s good, as for its characters, and the story I can’t give it any points.
An autistic gamer with opinions on games who also enjoys making dumb videos on the internet!