(Disclaimer: Day 3 Review)

This is probably the best Touhou gacha game out there right now gameplay-wise. I'm very surprised that it took this long to get a Touhou shmup of this scale onto mobile devices, and a very refined one at that. The visuals and presentation are clean and striking, the sound design is great, and the story seems interesting from what I've read so far using a translator.

The gameplay would be familiar if you have ever played a main series Touhou game, specifically Touhou 18. You drag around to move around your character through the entire screen, and being in "move" state would auto-fire for you. The circle inside your character is your hitbox, and bullets that hit your hitbox (not character) will damage you. Some bullets, usually the black square ones, are destructible, while others are not. ALL bullets can be destroyed/blocked using "Break", a meter which is the button around the center to the left, turning them into a colored gem you can collect as currency. This system serves as a way to lessen the difficulty, but also has enough depth for veterans that are aiming for SSS rank, which are based on kills, damage taken and colored gem amount. The button right of it is the "Spell Card" section, which has the character spell card and the ones you bought during the rest/shop sections in Story Mode. The character spell card will usually screen clear, do immense damage, give you temporary invincibility and magnets every item on screen to you, while the other spell cards vary in usage. Some stages like the dailies allow you to switch between 2 other characters, while others force 1 character. It's a shmup through and through, and it's pretty fun once you get the hang of it.

Outside of the game, there isn't too much to note. Once you complete a Story Mode run, you get a "copy" of the character that you can use for anything else, with the buffs you collected. There's RPG elements like having to level up your characters and cards, which are easily obtainable through dailies and the shop. There is a large tower that you can challenge anytime, similar to Tower of Luna from Priconne, and a "Wave Rush" that you can play with your "copies". It's the usual gacha game formula-ish.

Unfortunately, with the great gameplay, it has a very rocky foundation. It's very buggy from my experience on Day 1. The shop will bring an Error E0000000, I am unable to link my account to a Google account, and the game would be stuck in a loading screen after 2-3 battles, and many other minor ones. This could be because I am using an emulator, but I don't want to disregard what I experienced. I've seen others have a great time having a working shop and other things, I'm just disappointed that I don't have that. (This section has little part on my rating for now)

The stamina system (AP) regenerates slow at about 6 per hour, 100 max and 30 per run, which is not as bad as it really is. However, AP is very hard to drain in this game because each run takes much longer than your usual gacha game (20-30 mins). Because of that, in the early-game you will end up overflowing in AP all the time, and it's rough if you don't have a lot of free time. it's a shame because it seems that AP is only used on one (two) thing right now and you CANNOT auto-clear.

The gacha has character and card banners, and the rates are similar to Blue Archive's at 3% for characters, albeit a more lenient mid-rarity at 30% instead of 18.5% in BA. You will need to roll about 200 times in order to guarantee the banner character/card. It's too early to tell whether they are stingy or generous as of now. This topic is mostly subjective, so take this as you will. (Will expand once more knowledge is obtained)

Even though you see me talking a bit negative around the end, I still think this is a fun game to spend time on if you ignore these issues. This rating right now is the potential that I see right now, and right now, if most of these problems are alleviated, I think it has the potential to be one of the best gacha shmups out there, and possibly a good representation of the Touhou franchise to mobile players to a lesser extent.

Edit 1 (11/29/23): With the first event now being released, there is now another source to use AP (Stamina), although you would still need to do the usual 20-30 minute runs in there as well. I also added a gameplay section summary because there was some misconception I read online that this game is an RPG. Although it has RPG elements, it is undeniably a shmup. Streamlined the existing review.

Really cool game. Gacha rate is poor. Gameplay is good but gets repetitive. everything is in Japanese but simple. clothes is weird they show too much skin sometimes. online works great and the players are kind.

Pros:
• Cool graphics
• Good voices
• NO WEAPON BANNER. THANK YOU DEVS
• Unique characters
• Nice storyline
• Cool designs
• This wouldn't kill my grandma

Cons:
• Weird translation errors
• Difficult
• Tedious battle pass
• Gets very grindy and boring after a while

Overall: 4/5

Genshin Impact is a wonderful game! The team behind it definitely has things they could improve on but anytime you log in you can feel the amount of effort they put into every little detail in the world of Teyvat! The fact that every character/unit is viable and has so much personality is the cherry on top!

Keynotes

•Interesting and Unique Elemental Combat

•Most Characters are Viable (4* & 5*)

•Story/Lore is Interesting and Compelling

•Amazing VA in All Dubs (for the most part)

•Unique Culturally Based Areas & Free Exploration

•Bad Gacha Rates (and takes about 3-5 months of saving for F2P to get a guaranteed 5*)

•Continuous Stream of New Characters/Units

•Artifact/Equipment System (that can be very grindy)

•Wide Variety of Events (Examples: Gardening, Rhythm Game, Combat)

•House Decorating System

•P2P & Free Cosmetics (Namecards, Gliders, Skins)

•Spiral Abyss (the only real thing you can consider end-game gameplay and only resets twice a month)

•Around 35GB currently (using my mobile download as reference)

Hi this is my first ever real review so I hope it was helpful!

Not the most f2p idle game out there, BUT it is still friendly enough to provide you resources to progress through the story and other features.

Long story short, story is worth the read. The voice acting adds more emotion to the dialogues. The soundtracks are very catchy and hype. The artwork is, in simple terms: much wow very wow waifu big wow. So yeah, game's hype is the real deal 💯