Touhou Genso Wanderer - MCM Preview

For those unaware of the Touhou Project series, it’s basically supernatural Shrine maidens of Japan who are in a power struggle and constantly seem to fight because of misunderstandings. A spin off from the main Touhou series (which comprises of fighting and bullet hell games). Touhou Genso Wanderer is a dungeon crawler that is still in the midst of being translated and brought over to the west.

What makes this game recommendable? It’s just solid, the game didn’t do anything ground breaking when I tried it and I don’t think it will. I did get lost during playing the game with item descriptions and tutorials making as much sense a drunkard trying to read, this includes characters flashing on my screen at random periods of time. The formula is somewhat basic in premise, there’s no denying that. If I were to compare it to the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series, it’s better for the most part, just not quite as dull. If you have a (growing) obsession with the Touhou series, you’ll probably make heads and tails of the game compared to my basic knowledge of the series.

From the looks there does seem to be a story, whether or not it’s canon is in the air for me. The main combat was quite interesting though, the player didn’t seem to keep their levels when entering a new dungeon and relied on the items to be main measure of how far you can progress through a dungeon. Getting better items relied on using and fusing items together to upgrade their abilities (similar to God Eater 2: Rage Burst with stat increases based on weapon), this didn’t prove difficult from my experience but that probably changes later in the game. The aesthetic and humor is very Touhou, which is nice.

Final Thoughts

Will this game be for those unaware of the madness that is Touhou? Maybe, I’m more leaning towards a yes. This is the second game to officially released in the West I was told by one of the booth handlers, and considering the little bit of story I got to see, I wouldn’t be concerned about the backstory/lore. Would I pick this up? Definitely, the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series got too stale for me after Explorers of Sky. Stated to be released for 10th of February 2017, it’s available for pre-order now.