Keeping this short and simple:
Touhou 13 is an excellent addition to the Touhou lineup of shmups developed by Zun. It's simple learning curve, yet high difficulty, give this game high replay value and a retro arcade feel for those that enjoy fast-paced games.
Ten Desires delivers the goods, but sadly fails to impress on some parts.
The music is excellent, and it is evident that Mr. Ota has been experimenting with various genres of music; from the techno versions of musical themes while activating Trance mode, to the heavy bass of the stage portion of Stage 6. Zun has also preserved most of his previous techniques, namely the Zunpet, which is a synthesized instruments resembling that of trumpets. In Ten Desires, while there is more diversity in Zun's compositions throughout the game, the music doesn't start to pick up until the second half of the game. Prior to Stage 4, most themes are left unmemorable, because they feel too resemblant of songs from previous installations of Touhou. Stage 4's stage theme is fast-paced, matches the rhythm of the game, and it energizes the player. The difficulty also begins to pick up during this stage, and the fast bpm and louder bass make it a fairly intense stage that energizes the player.
Ten Desires contains many new and already-existing characters in the franchise. The player can choose from Reimu, Marisa, Sanae, or Youmu, all of which were characters released in earlier Touhou games, to play as in 10D. Yuyuko returns in Stage 1, but from that point on, all introduced characters are new to the series, with
. Design-wise, it is difficult to immediately determine whether the characters are memorable or not based on their personality, one reason being because there is not an English translation patch for 10D available at this moment (Translations for individual conversations are posted in raw at touhouwiki.net) and because Zun is also known for leaving much of the characters' personailities to the fandom's imagination.
Touhou 13 also features refined artwork and higher quality portraits of characters than previous releases of the game. When I first played through the game, most of the new characters struck me as plain and boring. There were exceptions however, such as Mamizou and Yoshika, the former being a Tanuki and the latter a Jiang-Shi, respectively. Seiga just stood out to me as another fairy, the one that didn't make it to Fairy Wars, and Toyosatomimi no Miko just didn't live up to my expectations as a Stage 6 boss, design-wise, at least. Most characters tend to grow on the players after some time, however, so I wouldn't be surprised if they become more popular, especially after the English patch is released. Zun's artwork overall has shown more traits of the "cute and mo?" anime style, and his anatomy is noticeably improving with each release. (Hands!)
Ten Desires, like most other Touhou releases, has a game mechanic that sets it apart from the other games. In 10D, the player has a Trance meter at the bottom represented by a Skull and as it fills up, three ghost souls will appear. When the meter is full, the player presses the C button to activate Trance, which is a brief period where the game theme changes and the player can run around the screen, collecting points and collectibles without taking damage. It is a period of invincibility where the player can chance to gain many points, score on bombs and lives. Lives, also known as "Extends," are obtained by collecting red life fragments. Bombs are earned by collecting green fragments. While in Trance mode, the value of these collectibles are multiplied by two, so the player can earn lives more quickly. This game mechanic allows the player to decide when Trance should be used, whether to collect points or to escape a difficult situation.
Spell cards function the same in Ten Desires than any other Windows Touhou game: The player must eliminate all of the card's health without losing a life, bombing, and in the case, using Trance, in order to capture the spell card. Touhou 13 also features Spell Practice, a feature that was also in Touhou 8, Imperishable Night. In this mode, the player can practice individual spell cards to sharpen their skills immediately. In some cases, when a spell card is captured on all four difficulties,
Spell patterns were for the most part, unimpressive. Some of them had clever gimmicks such as Yoshika's spell cards, which heal her if the player does not collect the souls in time, but some of them just felt like boring repeats of patterns shown in earlier games, such as Toyosatomimi's final spell card. The Extra stage felt very much like Subterranean Animism's Extra stage at times, both in the stage portion and the boss portion, especially Mamizou's nonspells. Personally, most of these cards just felt like they were missing the intensity and the complexity of previous spell cards, and it suddenly felt like I was playing an earlier release of Touhou except with updated sprites and graphics.
Touhou 13 is your typical Touhou release, but with a few added bells and whistles. It offers four characters to choose from, and the added Spell Practice is a very special feature that was anticipated by many players. It offers a new game mechanic that allow players to score many points in a short amount of time, and also save themselves in a situation where they are out of bombs. The spell patterns are the usual what you would expect from a Touhou game, but don't expect anything too flashy. Music sticks out especially well in this release, and Zun's compositions do not fail to impress, but little can be said about the first three stages. Ten Desires is an excellent title to pick up for the returning Touhou shmup player, but it should not be recommended as a first title for someone who is barely beginning to get started with the series.
(Short and Simple, yeah right. This is a quick review, and I know I left out a lot of things, but please bear with me. I only wrote this for this thread. I'll make a better and more complete review later)
