Touhou Spell Carnival (Switch)

Touhou returns, bringing its mix of gorgeous characters to yet another genre, this time a tactical bullet hell game with some RPG elements woven into fast paced shooting action. Sounds like it can't miss! (Sorry).

We're a little late with this one as the review code was for the US version and EU codes weren't available at time of launch, but we got it working so now it's time to dive in.

Taking place over a 30 day event, the Spell Carnival is an event planned by Yukari Yakumo wherein participants battle each other with spell cards - the victor takes the loser's cards and then adds the vanquished foe to their own roster. 

What immediately catches the eye is the artwork, which for a Touhou game has never looked better. It's certainly a pleasant way to be introduced to the game, with the voice actors providing plenty of energy to sell the premise. Which is good, because it turns out the game is a bit of an odd fusion.

The characters have never looked better in a Touhou game, it's very slick

The game starts with a visual novel experience, your choices taking you to visit various Touhou characters, battling with them and adding them to your roster once they've been bested. At any time you can have up to five characters on your squad, so it's important to pick wisely from the spell cards that become available to you.

Within each battle you're on a grid, with characters moving at different speeds and turns are determined through action points, with each spell card taking a specific number. Action Points are built up on a level gauge over time, as are your enemies (who flash red when they're ready to act) and you're tasked with avoiding/blocking bullets, managing your resources and attacking at every opportunity. Each new character unlocked will grant new strategies to play with, so trial and error is a big part of what you'll be doing. 

Unfortunately, once you start adding characters, things get pretty hard to manage - there's just a little too much to keep an eye on to effectively counter what's coming at you, so you'll end up blocking and running through your bombs more than attacking, just to catch a breath. This prevents you from actually enjoying the action and simply getting frustrated trying to manage your own units - once you start losing control the whole battle can tailspin out of hand very quickly. Oh, and make sure you understand the victory conditions of each battle, it's not always clear and you can't create a strategy if you don't have a clear grasp of the actual goal.

Less important but slightly irksome is that your choices in the story take you down different paths, leading to some characters appearing late in the game - that would be fine if the side quests weren't also accompanied by stories that may show characters before you've even met them, making the novel side of the game a little nonsensical. Sure, it's the garnish and not the main course, but if the story doesn't make sense, that's a bit of an issue in a game like this where characters are important.

Those niggles aside, there is fun to be had here - the battles are, in the main, a lot of fun. However frustration rears its ugly head more often than I'd like and it mars the overall experience. If you don't mind a challenge and some experimentation, or you're a huge fan of the Touhou universe, then you're likely to overlook some of the mechanical issues and just enjoy the energy and atmosphere provided by the characters, alongside some generally fun tactical battles.