I just tried the demo, I think Zun did a great job. I'm pretty sure this will be my fave Touhou after EoSD and PCB.
Pros:
-Definitely seems prettier and more colourful, the graphics engine and background and whatnot that is, the danmaku so far is actually fairly unpretty unfortunately.
-The danmaku seems far more randomish, which may not be a good thing in itself, but, it's definitely a unique feel for a Touhou game.
-I don't fully understand the scoring system, but I'm pretty darn sure it's the best yet. I mean, you can play it safe and not worry about score, and it will be really easy, or you can fly up the top, graze stuff, collect dangerously located spirits, etc. Going for score should provide a good challenge, but yet, unlike many other Touhou games, you basically wont be forced to reset after just one non-death screwup or whatever (like in MoF, your score is forever gimped because you accidentally grabbed all the green starts before a big pause in enemies, resulting in a total faith crash).
I think score runners will get scores based on their current level of pressure and confidence rather then following a super uniform formula for each stage, THIS is why I think it's the best yet.
-Shot types all seem fun so far, nothing seems gimp or op, I haven't tried Sanae yet though. Youmu's sword seems pretty op for trash though, but I think it's made even by being harder to use on bosses (though still viable when you pull it off right).
-Seeing some familiar faces is pretty cool. I always said that while I want to see some of my fave characters return, I want to keep faith in zun's ability to create new characters we'll love. But...Seeing them return is still really nice >=)
-Zombie girl's song theme sounds pretty unexceptional as it is, but I can tell that it should make one HELL of a badass song to remix metal-style >=)
-Both the 2nd and the 3rd boss have their own gimmicks, perhaps bosses 4+ will as well. Regardless of if you like gimmicks in your shooters or not, they add character to the character IMO >=), particularly good for fangame mechanics.
Cons:
-None of the songs really wow'd me so far. They all definately sound GFW-esque to me, which didn't really wow me either. It was particularly painful Seeing Yuyu, whose original track is nearly my all time fave (kaggy wins this one) before remixing is done, end up sounding meh... Though as a stage 1 boss, it's reasonable to make it fairly unepic or whatever I guess.
- None of the danmaku is really pretty, the games colours and whatnot are pretty, but the patterns dem bullets make basically looks like random shotguns all over in comparison to what Touhou normally offers.
