Touhou: Luna Nights is a Side-scrolling Metroidvania game was originally released in 2019 for PC and was ported to consoles such as XBONE and Switch in 2020, and was later ported to PS4 and PS5 as 5-Year Anniversary Edition in 2024.
It was developed by Team Ladybug and published by Playism, and it is a fangame title under the indie series Touhou Project created by Team Shanghai Alice.
The series was started back in year 1997 as the Shoot-em-up games which was being known for the style of subgenre as bullet hell, a term that heavily focused on gameplay design which involves a large amounts of projectiles the player is required to dodge adding a extreme level of difficulty, so similar to earlier Shoot-em-up arcade games like Batsugun and DonPachi where you must navigate through impossible swarms of bullets which made the game quite challenging to play.
First of all, the series hasn't been introduced to outside of Japan so what I've learned about this is it has become more particularly notable as a prominent source of Japanese doujin content with the series spawning a vast amount of fan-made works such as artwork, music, print works, and video games.
The popularity of the series at outside of Japan doesn't start till in mid-2000s when the online forums, social network, and video platforms became a thing with the internet memes, music videos, animated videos, fan-art site, and of course the video game playthroughs is where I've discovered Touhou related stuff on YouTube such as Bad Apple!! which is a catchy anime music videos became one of the most famous pieces of Touhou music, and lets not forget the insanity of soundtrack from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil such as U.N Owen Was Her? was notoriously famous for 2008 viral video titled "McRoll'd" which remixed the song with samples of Japanese McDonald's ads featuring Ronald McDonald falling off the bench seat.
Because of this, it has gained a large cult following thanks to multiples of fan-made content which the series has been still around over the years.
Not only the video game series just had Shoot-em-ups titles, but also shares many fan-made spin-off games with different kinds of genres such as RPGs, Dating Sim, Fighting Games, and of course Metroidvania.
To be honest, I've never played any of Touhou games which I had a trouble of picking which Touhou games should I play on my console until I've discovered the game that got me interested to play which is Touhou: Luna Nights for PS5, so is there the reason to review this? well first of all I've been playing several of Metroidvania titles from the past like Metroid, Castlevania, Shantae, Bloodstained, and Hollow Knight is the first reason that I've loved the genre for video games, and the second reason is that this game plays really similar to anime-style Metroidvania games that I have previously played it from the past as well like CreSprit's Rabi-Ribi and Tevi in terms of gameplay design and presentation style which is why I am here to review this game to see if this title actually good to play or not.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The story starts off with the Remilia Scarlet who is the head of the Scarlet Devil Mansion sends her head maid Sakuya Izayoi to a parallel world which resemblance to home world of Gensokyo.
Having all her powers been stripped off, Sakuya set her journey through the world to recover all those powers and finding way of get back to the real Gensokyo while uncovering the secrets behind the creation of alternative home world of Gensokyo.
I say the story in the game is kinda below average at best which is not really terrible but seems okay because I find the plot of the game is rather too basic which I was expecting most of the Metroidvania games has the story-focused plot with the in-depth details and backstories which unlike this game had quite lacked, so instead you're just been thrown in the game after the 30 seconds opening intros and went on the quest to confront a vampire lady who creates the alternative universe castle with bunch of monsters and stuff for you to fight, but there are an interesting twist in the story which you will find out at the end while progressing through the single-player game.
Aside with the story, I say I really do like the characters in the game which I adored the cuteness of anime girls in general, so you have chief maid Sakuya Izayoi has ability to use time-stopping system and uses the knifes as a throwing weapons is pretty cool, and then you have a supportive character like Nitori Kawashiro, a shop owner who was really good with her engineering skills provided to sell her useful item to Sakuya.
Lastly you have 4 of the bosses to encounter with such as Hong Meiling, Marisa Kirisame, Patchouli Knowledge, and of course Remilia Scarlet.
I adored the pixel-style presentation that kinda gives me a 16-bit vibes to its settings and design throughout the stages, so it's kinda like the style of Castlevania games which had a similar gothic architectures in some stages like the underground area, palace room, dungeon, library hall, and of course the clock tower, where as the first stage has a Japanese style temple house filled with water pool, outdoor's full of bamboos and man-made objects, and of course the flat-designed rooms is what I liked about the game's layout design and structures which really stands out the game's overall presentation that fits the Touhou's universe.
Overall, it has below average story, but has decent characters and good pixel-art presentation.
Gameplay
In single-player playthrough, you take control of Sakuya in 2D perspective as your main goal is to defeat various of bosses and confront Scarlet Devil leader for her action behind an alternative universe she created.
For basic controls, press the left and right d-pad button or push the left-stick control to move your player, as well as the crouch by holding the down d-pad button or left-stick down, and lastly the cross button is to jump.
For the combat and ability, you have two time mechanics system to use such as slowing down time by holding the square button till the round-symbol went full then release it to temporary activate slow-mo time, so this will allow you to bypass the impossible gaps and spot as well as your enemies will move slower till it goes back to the normal speed after 10 second.
Then you are able to freeze time by pressing the circle button will make the whole thing froze including enemies and objects which limited with the stopwatch count at the top-middle of the screen which tells you how long can you use it, so these stopwatch count will decrease quickly when you move around and once it reaches to zero count then it goes back to the normal time, but your stopwatch count will automatically replenishes when it's not in use.
You have throwing knife as a primary weapon which you can use these to attack enemies at long-range distance, so tapping the square button is to throw knives which also decreases the amount of MPs, but you can also recover your MPs meter by activating your freeze time then obtain all MPs item by standing close to your enemy's hitbox.
While not using the time stop mechanic, you can also obtain all HPs item by standing close to your enemy's hitbox to recover your HPs meter, so this is the best way of replenishing your health and magic meter when grazing the enemy's attack.
You can also perform various of your special weapons by pressing the triangle button which allowing your player to use the special attacks that can heavily damage your enemies and bosses such as shield dagger are used for stunning or blocking the enemy's projectiles, homing daggers that automatically track and home in on targets, chainsaw is effectively useful against the floating enemies dealing a significant amount of damage, and of course the thousand knives that unleashes a large auto-aiming spray of daggers which can also automatically graze enemy's projectiles to recover HP, so those are the special weapons which can be found and obtain from any of each stages during the exploration.
You can also switch any of special weapons with the left and right shoulder buttons or you can also hold the triangle button to access the weapon-wheel slot menu to select any of special weapon to use.
You can able to obtain the ability can be found somewhere in the areas, which allowing you to use it for various of unaccess spot such as the double jump which allowing you to jump on high platforms that are difficult to reach, grip knife is used for when during the freeze time you can able to make platforms with the knives allowing you to reach at the impossible platforms, screw knife is useful for breaking a solid-boxed object to access undiscovered area, and of course the sliding knife is used for sliding through the smaller gap hole, so these are the abilities you may need it to being able to bypass though the next area.
During the exploration, you may find some of the upgrade items which can be hidden in any areas, so having to obtain these items will increase your health, magic, knives, and time will improve your power-up skills makes your player last very long.
At the safe station area, you can able to save progress by simply touching the phone booth and also acts as the checkpoint system as well, and you can also fully replenish your HPs and MPs by simply touching the vending machine.
You can also visit Nitori's shop which gives you a choice of selling the gems that you have collected and also buying the useful items like HP item, MP item, knives, clock, and EXP.
While exploring many areas, you'll be fighting with bunch of enemies, so defeating them will drop their gems which like I said before you can sell them to the shop for bigger currencies, but having to keep all the gems with you without selling them all are also temporarily slight increases your attacks, defense, graze, and of course regen for time, MP, and HP might help you a little, but I highly recommended to stick with levelling up your stats by defeating many enemies on screen for farming which I likely to preferred more for Metroidvania games, so having your stats levelled up will improve your attributes making your attack and defense system lot easier to defeat various of strong enemies and bosses.
So far, the gameplay plays really good because I liked the idea of using the time-stop mechanics system which works really well for Metroidvania game, so using these time-stop mechanics will allow you to do something really cool for some areas such as the stage's hazards objects like rotation blades which goes backwards when using the freeze time then turn it off to go forward, then the floating platform will move up and down during the freeze time then it will stop moving when the freeze time reaches to zero, then you have the broken bridge will float up high when using the freeze time allowing me to bypass through then it will fall down on the ground when the freeze time goes off, then during the freeze time you can able to walk across the water on top till the freeze time goes off causing you to fall underwater, and of course using the slow-mo time will allow you to do something like sliding through the small gap before the door goes shut.
It also worked on enemies and bosses too because their projectiles will get slow-down or freezed during the time-stop makes it easier and faster to dodge those incoming projectiles and you can also throw multiples of knives till the freeze time goes off resulting a massive damage attack on enemies and bosses during the battle is quite an effective way of defeating them quickly.
I wanted to praise the use of graze system in the game because unlike most of common Metroidvania games where you normally replenish your health and magic with the potion item through the menus, this game has the different way of replenishing the health and magic system by grazing your enemy's hitboxes which makes the game quite interesting to go on the different style of gameplay which I liked it.
I also loved the use of abilities and skills which works mostly well for platforming and combat, so I liked using various of stuffs like the protective shield, homing attacks, jump manuvering, and you name it.
The main highlight of the game is got to be a boss battle because Touhou series was very known for its aggressive difficulty thanks to bullet-hell frantic action where the bosses had fire multiples of their projectiles that scattered all over the places in single screen making it impossible to evade their attacks, but thankfully it's not quite as tough in comparison to most of the shoot-em-ups games which I've managed to defeat them by being able to avoid many projectiles as possible while memorising their attacking pattern to know where they shooting at me on the spot.
I say these bosses are actually quite fun to fight against such as you have Hong Meiling, a kung-fu waifu has ability to use projectile shield, fires multiple of plasma ball, and shadow jumping.
Then you have Marisa Kirisame, a flying broomstick witch drops down the red smoke to paralyse your time system, fires ground plasma laser, and has colorful rotation orbs.
Then you have Patchouli Knowledge, a floating girl with bunch of library books flying around firing a projectile arrows, waves of water, and fireball.
Then of course Remilia Scarlet, a leader of Scarlet Devil with bat-wings unleashing her bunch of lasers and beams all over you is totally insane to fight against her is what makes the battle with bosses quite fun to play.
As I had a fun of playing the whole game, I do find the length of the game is ridiculously short which takes about 7 to 10 hours of playthrough is rather makes the game quite completely goes fast which is kinda shame because I would love to see more of the exploration and having more locations for a new discoveries and more bosses to fight with to extend more playthrough time could have made it better, so I do like having a unlockable 2 game modes which has all skills mode which retains all the skill weapons you previously obtained from the first playthrough and of course you have 1 HP mode which you will start out with one health point remaining where you had to beat the whole game without taking any damage from the enemies and bosses with one hit damage makes it quite brutally challenging to play, so that is completely fine which I'm happy with the 2 game modes but I rather have much more lengthy single-player playthrough to satisfy my expectation, so please give us a more extra campaign for this game.
Overall, it is ridiculously short, but it has cool time-stop mechanics and graze system, decent combat and platforming gameplay, and insane boss battle action.
Graphics
The game's visual is quite nice for its pixel-art direction which like I said it before about the 16-bit style of presentation just made the whole game look decent for the indie Metroidvania games.
It has sharp quality of details that made the stage layout looking bold and clean, and I liked the use of colours that made the whole stage quite gritty and dark really makes the game quite standout for gothic style levels.
I do want to praise the use of special effects in some stages such as bouncy pool of water and raining effects in stage 1, the rotating blades moves in 360 degrees in the library room, you could see the clockwork machine behind the background in the clock tower, the red coloured cloud scales forward at the outside of the castle, and of course you can see the parallax scrolling in some stages like stage 1 for example where you can see 2 or 3 layouts between the moonlight and trees scenery in background and temple house in foreground move quite smoothly as you go across the area from back to front.
I do like the sprite animation in the game because I find the player's walking and stance animation is quite smooth and being well animated which they did a good job of keeping the sprite well detailed, and lastly I got to praise the use of projectiles effects that has bright and heavy impact of explosion, flashiness, and waves of beams just looked so amazing on both of exploration and boss battles.
As far as I can tell that the game's performance is running smoothly on all platforms including PS5, PS4, XBONE, Switch, and PC, no matter what platform you're playing on because it's just a simple indie 2D side-scrolling game that you may going to enjoy this game with no signs of slow-downs whatsoever.
Overall, it has sharp quality details, dark gothic colour layouts, nice special effects, and smooth sprite animation.
Music and Sounds
The game actually has a good original soundtrack that fits the style of Touhou games, so it had a number of kickass track for some stages such as Lunar Clock/Luna Dial, Shanghai Alice of Meiji, The Maid and the Pocket Watch of Blood, Love-Colored Master Spark, Voile the Magic Library, The Young Descendent of Tepes, Septette for the Dead Princess, Flowering Night, Akutagawa Ryuunosuke's kappa, and of course one of the Touhou most famous song is definitely U.N Owen Was Her? which I got to say that the whole soundtrack is quite so catchy just really adds up the intensity level of action-packed Metroidvania game.
It was composed by an indie musician peposoft who did a remixes and arrangements of classic Touhou Project music to fit the style of game.
The sound design in the game is great for its use of environmental sounds in some stages and of course I love the collision noises from the projectiles that has the heavy use of wavy and beamy effects.
Sadly there are no voice over feature in the game which is kinda bummer, but that's the way the game is made.
Overall, it has good soundtrack and great sound effects.
Special Features
The game does have 2 unlockables game modes such as all skills mode and 1 HP mode which I've mentioned it on above before, and it does have the boss rush mode where you had to defeat all bosses while aiming to earn a high ranking grade.
The physical collector's boxset of 5-year anniversary Limited Edition comes with physical PS5 copy, instruction manual book, 3 cover-art inlays, steelbook case, double CD soundtrack, and of course the certificate of authenticity.
Overall, a solid features and package.
Advantages
Good pixel-art presentation
Cool time-stop mechanics and graze system
Decent combat and platforming gameplay
Insane boss battle action
Nice looking visuals
Good original soundtrack
Disadvantages
Below average story
Short single-player length
Final Verdict
Presentation 7/10 - below average story, but has decent characters and good pixel-art presentation.
Gameplay 7/10 - ridiculously short, but it has cool time-stop mechanics and graze system, decent combat and platforming gameplay, and insane boss battle action.
Graphics 7.5/10 - sharp quality details, dark gothic colour layouts, nice special effects, and smooth sprite animation.
Music and Sounds 7.5/10 - good soundtrack and great sound effects.
Special Features 8/10 - has unlockable game modes and stunning physical collector's boxset.
Overall 7/10 - Despite the couple of flaws that the game could have done it bit better, Touhou: Luna Nights is still a good game as it became my very first game to experience this beloved Japanese bullet-hell series.
It had several of fun aspects about this title filled with hidden discoveries during the exploration, using time-stop mechanics and graze system worked really well for platforming and puzzles, the combat and upgrades are simple and straightforward, and of course the bullet-hell boss battle are insanely fun to play which is why I never regret playing this because I had a good time playing it for days.
I would love to see a future sequel which I was hoping the team behind this title will able to consider making a next installiment with longer single-player adventure, bigger exploration, and hopefully make the story development bit more interesting, so that's all I can say about it.
The physical copy of the game for PS5, PS4, and Switch release cost around between £30 or more, where as the collector's edition cost about £70 or more.
The digital release for PS Store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop, and Steam are slightly cheaper for between £12 and £14.
Is it worth to play? it depends on whether if you're the mega fan of the Metroidvania games or Touhou series in general. If your answer is yes then you're likely going to have fun playing this title without any of doubt whatsoever, so give this game a worth of go.
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