TLDR: A Touhou Project fangame with barely serviceable gameplay that falls apart once you understand how to break it, a usable cast that seems big on the surface, but only a handful are actually good, a story that is delivered cut and dry, with no sense of urgency, long term consequences, and filled with character assassinations. To top it all off, weird and questionable story elements.
I used XUnity auto translator with the Sugoi offline model to translate the story and gameplay mechanics. While not perfect, it allowed me to understand what was going on in the story, items, spells, and equipment.
With that out of the way, let's get into the thick of it, starting with the gameplay.
It's a slightly different but still familiar take on a turn based RPG. Take a team of 5 ladies (or MC, Rinnosuke, Fortune Teller, they're in there too) Traverse a multi-staged labyrinth, find items, shops, and encounters on the map until you reach the boss stage. Random encounters can have a grid of up to 10 enemies, but the mast majority of the time it is 1-3 illusions that are easily taken care of. Some enemies have UFO's, making them stronger but also dropping that UFO for you to use. Shopkeepers vary, selling a mix of equipment, materials, skills, and gifts for you to use. Certain ones can be invited to join you as a guest, others have a special option that gives you temporary effects for the rest of the dungeon.
The gameplay is bearable for the first few hours, but slowly becomes more and more of a chore, the only real change being in enemy levels. It's more A than I, as all they do is choose a random move. You can over level your party to the max story cap of 255 pretty early on, making all but the last stage an easy clear. You should be over leveling one character anyways, because new characters start at the highest level member you currently have. Bosses serve almost no challenge, and use cheap tricks like super resistance or invisible hp bar segments, only dragging out the fights longer.
There are 155 characters from PC-98, all the way up to 17. Except no, because the game's mechanic, blooming. they turn into 'voluptuous beauties with boing boing' getting increased stats and more skills, so there is zero point in using anyone that does not bloom. You just put yourself at a disadvantage for no reason.
Equipment, there are some that are useful, others are situational and therefore almost useless. I could use x, but why should I over this weapon that gives everyone in the party higher attack and defense? There's a set that increases stats even more when buffed and provides huge base stats. Slot that onto your main dps to watch her murder everything in 1-2 hits. There's too much equipment fluff, and the strong ones are way too potent to not use.
You can pick up, buy, or craft gifts, which you then give that increase love (% stat increase, tapers off at about 10000 for about 12%, 13 million for 18.25%.) and energy, that can be used to increase level, love, different item lotteries, and money. You can buy gifts with money. The energy gives you more money than the gift costs you. Congrats, the economy is useless because you have infinite money. Hope you have an auto clicker though.
That sums up the gameplay loop. incredibly simple, easy, exploitable, and boring. It would be okay with a shorter runtime, but there's a main chapter with 3 chapters, then 3 different routes, each with 3 chapters. It gets repetitive when you finish the first route, let alone the other two.
Before I talk about the game's story, I need to talk about the characters. The ones that we all (hopefully) know and love.
I'm going to rip the band-aid off, majority of the time they are hollow, shallow caricatures of what they are. Suwako, the main heroine? She's a plot device for the main chapter. She will go along with any choice you pick without a fuss. Want to be a goody two-shoes and follow the path of the Buddha? Fine with her! Give into worldly desires? Completely okay, and you can even bang her the first chapter she blooms! A route where you just want to save the land? That's her best appearance and the only route where she isn't thrown to the side and forgotten.
I could go into way more examples, but I don't need to or want to. Instead I want to talk about the few that are actually decent. Byakuren is always a treat, Shinki is wonderful to see, especially putting terrible idea's into Alice's head. Koakuma is clearly the favorite, as she's involved in all three routes, shown frequently, and is actually likable.
There are moments, admittedly few and far between, that actually make me feel anything at all. It's sad because there could have been something good here. the gameplay and main story are a wash, but the characters could have been fun, witty, have any meaningful interactions, but it's just not there.
Oh, you also can bang them. 3 times in the main story (1 which you can do in about 10 minutes) 0 in the Buddha route, 4 in the neutral route, and about 60-70 in the worldly desires path. With the exception of Mugetsu and Gengetsu, all times you bang in the story are with the flowers. You'll rack up about 18 on Koa, and 10ish on Flan. There's 5 different gifts that allow you to bed anyone that are 2mil each, and there's no difference besides the environment. There's no lines ether, just slightly different descriptions. There's an achievement to bang 20 different people, and bang 50 times total. Don't get terribly excited, it's mostly funny and being prose. What I don't understand is the developer saying that it's rated 12. No. It's still sex, and there are some lines that are descriptive.
Okay let's adress the elephant in the room. Milk. Not cow milk either. There's just way too much of it. Another reason why it's weird that the developer states there's no lewd content. It's featured front and center, unavoidable, and every time it's brought up, it's always stated how good and nutritious it is. It's treated as some sort of miracle cure, able to heal all wounds and recover energy in seconds. No I am not kidding, Seiga rubs it over her and Yoshika at one point and it heals their injuries. Yep. I don't even know what else to say. I guess one more thing. You can gift it to self insert MC, and it increases his stats (up to a point) Can you collect all types of milk to the achievement?
Fine, the story. Only the three routes since the main part has little going on. I'm reaching the text limit.
Buddha: Tag along with Youmu and her grandpa in a mask. Rid the land of desires such as power, lust... booze? It's too strict and you have to stop people from trying to kill instead of save. On the good path. Yeah not a good look. Put people in a sword for time out, beat up Okina and everything goes back to normal, except now they don't have booze. or gambling. Megumu decides to be bad because she can't drink booze or gamble and they want to kill over that. Oh and they say blooming is bad, yet they bloom before most major fights because it makes them stronger. They're hypocrites.
worldly: Sex. That's it. You have sex and drink so much milk. It's funny because of shock factor. Seal people in sword (no chance to seduce or manipulate them), Beat up Youmu, everything goes back to normal and you have a big ol harem with more sex and milk! Yeah!
Save Gensokyo: The neutral and best path. Beat people up, they say they're sorry and become your friend. Best route and the true ending of the game. Beat up Okina, then Youmu, and finally Iku and Tenshi because they want to purify the land. Yes, the Bhudda are actually worse than the worldly desires group.
There could have been something here, something actually good. But with a dry, uninspired, uneventful story with no sense of urgency, stakes, or danger coupled with it's bland characters and gameplay leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It tries but just falls short of everything it does. I can't give this a positive review.
