Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity

« A magnificent game that has taken me completely by surprise with its quality. A mix of 2D and 3D platforming, RPG, and adventure gaming blends with a gorgeous art style to form this hidden gem just waiting to be uncovered. All the while familiar and unique, Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity is a game that all should give a chance, enjoyable by the most hardened veteran gamer down the most green of newcomers. »

« Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity is an entertaining blend of genres that breathes a palpable life into bullet hell games, taking them from a niche variety to one more accessible for casual players. »

« The highlight of Scarlet Curiosity is easily the boss fights… A love letter to their bullet hell inspiration, the screen quickly overflows with colorful shapes of all sizes. »

« Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity grabbed me and never let go. It’s a fun game with great characters and combat, and it all comes together in a package that kept me glued to my PS4. »

« While Scarlet Curiosity is certainly geared towards fans that already know a little bit about the Touhou lineage, those looking for a fun little diversion until Ys VIII reaches North America won’t be disappointed. »

« This is it Touhou fans, this is where it begins, with a pretty middle of the road action adventure game. It may not be the bullet-hell salvation we were all looking for, but it's a good start, and hopefully paves the way for more Touhou games in the future. »

« Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity doesn't merge its two genres as seamlessly as its recently localised sibling, but it’s still an exceptionally fresh curiosity buy. Though ultimately not quite as polished as either Ys or a main-series Touhou outing, the underlying gameplay is so clever it elevates the whole experience. The adoption of bullet-hell mechanics by classic genres continues to pay dividends. »

« Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity is a game made by and for fans. However this doesn’t guarantee the fact that many of them will enjoy them. Yes it has a really entertaining gameplay and enjoyable boss fights, but its lackluster presentation and kind of repetitive controls, make this game one that will be a delight by some, a mess by others, and a completely strange and forgettable experience by most gamers. »

« As others said, very much like top down Ys games. Lovely graphics, amazing soundtrack, great fun, very easy to pick up and play, no Jedi hand muscle memory needed, just good old hack and slash. Included in 700 games on PS Now at £9 a month, so if you finish in 3 days it has cost less than a quid effectively. Great game if it is your type of game. Think top down Zelda but scrap puzzles and add more baddy mashing, I love the Touhou soundtracks, really underated. »

« The game is good only up to chapter 12, interesting, colorful and varied levels, then comes the boring monotony. And most importantly, these lazy developers made the same levels and rivals for Remilia and for Sakuya, why did you have to do this? it just killed any sense of playing for the second character. The game is definitely not worth the time spent on this incompletion. »

« for me the best game in Touhou franchise, hope the franchise can receive more games like this one »

« This is a great adventure game on PS4. It has a kind of vibe to it that something like Ys or Zelda 2 had to it. The levels are all cute and interesting, the two choices of character at the beginning make for replay-ability to see the events through the eyes of Remilia or Sakuya, and the game overall is just downright fun. It takes the top down style action RPG similar to the Ys formula and puts it's own flair and charm to it. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a good modern RPG that has a more classic adventure feel to it. »

« Beautiful game. Charmed me into the Touhou series. The music, art direction, and presentation was on top. However, a few environments are as dull as others are lush. Gameplay is arguably enjoyable. It is more of a casual ride, enjoy the flowers and lighting as you mash attack and an occasional special. If the dialogue and visual presentation don't thrill you, you may become bored. Otherwise, gameplay and presentation blend into a very fine cup of tea. »

« Fantastic art direction, level design, soundtrack. Cute and entertaining story. Gameplay is addictive and rewarding. Above all, the atmosphere of the game is highly appealing. An excellent way to dive into the world of Touhou. »

« The fastest way to describe Scarlet Curiosity is as a budget Ys: Oath in Felghana clone with Touhou characters, with all the good and bad things that entails. The gameplay is fast-paced and mowing down waves of enemies is satisfying, but the small variety of enemies gets a bit boring after a while. There's a wide variety of different environments and areas, but the randomly-generated loot means there's not much to *do* in those areas other than just run to the end; there's no point to exploration. The soundtrack is great, but there are voices and the sound effects and sound design are otherwise nothing special. In a nutshell, it's a good game, but not a great one. You'll get 10-15 hours of play time out of it, and it's fun while it lasts, but you'll be ready to move on by the end. That's reasonable for the budget price, though. I'd recommend this to Touhou or Ys fans -- although if you haven't played the Ys games, you're better off playing them first. »