Touhou: Scarlet Curiosityfor Windows

If you are looking for a mix of role-playing and danmaku (bullet hell shooter), look no further than Touhou Scarlet Curiosity. With a loveable cast and simplistic combat sequences, it’s a refreshing take on the franchise.

Adding a role-playing feel to a classic franchise

It combines hack and slash elements, with cool down and rechargeable skills.

Created in 2018 this game was the first and only game in the Touhou universe to run as a role-playing game rather than a vertical scrolling shooter.

In the game you play as either Remilia Scarlet and Sakuya Izayoi. Remilia is more of an up-close and personal sort of fighter, with stronger attacks and faster movement speed. Sakuya, on the other hand, represents a harder difficulty setting. She is a ranged attacker and moves slower than Remilia. Sakuya’s big advantage is the ability to slow down time slightly.

In terms of combat and enemies, neither did anything to advance the genre, but there are a couple of cool features. Skill points are used for special abilities, and there is also a magic gauge for spells. Skill points refresh over time, and the magic gauge is filled using damage that you deal to enemies.

Enemies are pretty standard, but there is a lot of repetition with the enemies. Finally, when you die, you restart at the beginning of the level and lose some gold. However, gold can only be used in one shop, so it isn’t a huge loss.

Where can you run this program?

Team Shanghai Alice, the publisher of Touhou Scarlet Curiosity, has only made a PC version of the game.

Is there a better alternative?

We’re going to say no because this is the only game that merges bullet hell and role-playing. Normally you only see games that are either bullet hell-like Cuphead or role-playing such as Final Fantasy.

Our take

What the game tried to do was pretty innovative, but due to a lack of enemy variety, the in-game currency being useless, and constant lore references, there are better games out there.

Should you download it?

If you are a fan of the series you should download it. If not there are a lot of little things that you will be googling a lot to understand the references.