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Although I prefer the usual format for Touhou mainline games, I was really excited to get a new Phantasmagoria-style game since we hadn't had one in so long. Mixed feelings about this one though... it's pretty unbalanced and most of the shot types just don't feel very fun to play. I did have fun with some of the better shot types at least.

First thing's first, I had to record this live since there is no replay system. Why??? Such a huge hindrance to reviewing and sharing of gameplay. Very baffling and hugely disappointing.

There's also no Extra Mode or anything so I guess I won't have any ExNN shenanigans to aim for this time around.

Lastly, there's no scoring system at all. It's not really relevant to me since I don't do scoring but I imagine this is a massive bummer for people who enjoy Phantasmagoria scoring, and I always found it fun to watch other people play for score in PoFV.

Oh and there seem to be resolution-dependent bugs, the indicators for EX attacks flying over from the opponent's side are inaccurate depending on the resolution you're playing in, making it seem as if they teleport once they actually materialise on your side + spell card names may appear below the life indicator instead of at the top right. These don't seem to happen for people playing on fullscreen(?)

Cards make a return, I guess they're here for lore reasons or something but they feel very tacked-on. You can't pick any cards to start out with and the cards you get are dependent on the opponents you face in your playable character's route. Each character seems to have 2 card variants, so the cards you'll get are at least not 100% fixed but it is still very limited and you can't choose which of the 2 you'll get, so it loses basically everything that made the UM and HBM card systems fun.

Some personal thoughts on some of the shots in Story Mode:
Reimu: The best mix of overpowered offense and defense. Strong base shot, strong Level 1, extremely broken Level 2 that one-shots most bosses at point-blank range and can be used defensively like a PoFV Level 2 since it clears surrounding bullets in a decent radius.

Chiyari: The Medicine of this game, neither real players nor the AI enjoys fighting her. Her purple spirit EX attacks break the AI and they often just stand still and get hit by them. You can usually win rounds by depleting the CPU's lives instead of shooting down their boss summons. Any route that faces Chiyari is an unfun route, but shots with larger scopes might have a better time since you can slow the spirits down and let them shrink.

Enoko: Sort of plays like Reimu but not as strong. That still puts her above 90% of the cast though. Level 1 & 2 both clear bullets and Level 2 is very powerful and can also one-shot bosses sometimes. Long charge times.

Marisa: Level 1 is pretty strong, if you spam it you can take bosses down pretty quickly. Not bad.

Seiran: Overall pretty nice shot power.

Yachie: Weak shot but decent defensive options, Level 1 and 2 both clear bullets.

Yuuma: Can slash through and cancel bullets within a short range with her Level 1 and 2, kind of like PoFV Youmu. If you time it right you can even cancel Zanmu's spears sometimes. Shot is really slow though and deals low damage.

Mamizou: Level 2 gives 1/3 of a bomb piece, so you can slowly stock up a ton of bombs and unload all of them on the last boss summons of each round. The bombs don't carry over so just use them all up.

Suika: Strong Level 2, wish her options looked less like the pellet bullets.

Zanmu: Strong base shot, Level 2 obliterates Yachie/Saki/Yuuma's EX attacks. Pretty fun route but faces Reimu as the final boss which is terrifying, and the timers on Reimu's spells are enormous so I had to try and shoot her down which was pretty hard since she also has a lot of health. Ended up needing to save all 3 bombs to unload on the final because it just doesn't die otherwise.

Sanae, Nazrin, Orin, Hisami: Homing shots that often have to time bosses out because not only do their shots do zero damage, most of their shots will home in on the random enemies around the screen instead of hitting the boss so you deal even less damage than usual. Sanae can mitigate it somewhat by shotgunning her Level 2 which releases a ton of explosive frogs. Nazrin's bomb is also homing and will therefore whiff on bosses more often than not. Hisami struggles to shoot down even a simple line of fairies without charging up a Level 1. Orin's shot is super slow on top of being weak.

Aunn, Tsukasa, Ran, Saki, Son Biten: Varying levels of weak/unremarkable/unwieldy, perhaps less egregiously than the above 4 but overall not great. Wish Ran's options looked less like kunai.

Decided to upload an LNB that I was happy with of a not-overpowered but still decent shot type. Silly miss on Stage 3 to a random wolf arrowhead crashing into me from behind, would have been an LNN otherwise but oh well.