Commentaries on music:
An Ice Fairy in Spring - Ooh, relaxing. It does what Menu Screen Themes are intended to do - keep you entertained while selecting menus.
The Refrain of the Lovely Great War - Not too different from the original. Both are pretty decent, at the very least.
Staking Your Life on a Prank - Intimidating in a playful way. I mean, just look at its title.
Year-Round Absorbed Curiosity - Probably my favorite Stage 2 Theme that I can remember. Sounds fun to play.
A Midnight Fairy Dance - FOR
ADULTS YOUKAIS ONLY. Or so ZUN says. Wait, there's a segment from Eastern Night. Nice.
Great Fairy Wars ~ Fairy Wars - The most lighthearted Touhou endboss theme I've ever heard. Maybe you'd expect that from a war fought by scatterbrained fairies.
Loose Rain - A bit romantic on the beginning, there. Then it tries to be dramatic. Not bad at all.
Magus Night - HELL YES A MARISA THEME. The intro is practically badass. Sounds like something you'd hear from SSH. And yes, ZUN, this song is cool.
An Ice Fairy in Spring -Still- - Somewhat unimpressive. Then again, I've been spoiled by The Eternal Steam Engine.
Player's Score - It's the Name Entry Theme. They all remind me of Suwa Foughten Field, still.
That makes 10 tracks in total; more than the StB games have. Bottom line, the music is satisfying.
The gameplay itself feels like a combination of the standard Touhou shooter and the StB games. In the basic Touhou games, you dodge, shoot, and bomb. In the StB games, you dodge, charge, and clear [bullets on screen]. In this game, you dodge, shoot, charge, clear, and bomb. Story Mode is really short, but balanced with 6 different routes. Danmaku is intentionally made harder, since you're meant to take full advantage of the Ice Barrier, which requires good timing, if nothing else. I've only played for an hour, and I'm still not completely comfortable with the controls yet, but I'll manage with more time. It's pretty satisfying seeing your Ice Barrier spread through bullets and cover the entire screen before breaking. Just have to watch out for fireballs or lasers.
what's with all the caps? did she turn into Dlanor or something?
I declared WAR on you guys!
SO DIEEE!