Chuhou Joutai Reviews

Cute game! Just like you!

It's really easy to dunk on Chuhou Joutai: the character art is contorted and disproportionate, the dialogue is meandering and full of lame references, the gameplay is consistently easy and bosses can be cheesed by the sheer amount of hitpoints you are given. That being said, once I sat down and played through it I actually started liking it? Like it's not on the same level as most other, better-regarded shmups (like the Touhou games it strives to be), but it's a fun experience. The core engine is not bad in my opinion, and the game itself plays fine. I also like the soundtrack, and the option to change the "sound chip" the game uses is neat. What I think Chuhou Joutai suffers from is A. a lack of play-testing and B. relying on a solo developer for aspects which they do not excel at. This results in a game which takes shortcuts in the wrong places and turns into a strange product that I think only the creator can fully understand. That being said, I've shown this to several groups of friends who have really enjoyed watching me play it, so if you want a fun time, go get Chuhou Joutai.

Well, I first stumbled across Chuhou Joutai on Instagram. Chuhou Joutai is a (classic era) Touhou inspired Bullet Hell game, that does many things exactly right, but has a few issues as well. That being said, let´s start with the good things, shall we? The controller support is absolutely something worth mentioning here, since it is, pretty much perfect from the get go and doesn´t need any costomization, of course you can do so if desired. The artstyle IN GAME and ost gives CJ a great atmosphere of the old Arcade (or PC98) times. In terms of difficulty CJ is more on the easier side and provides a great entrypoint for newcomers to the bullet hell genre. I 1CC´d this on normal mode on the first try without customizing the controls to my liking. The gameplay and Danmaku Patterns are fun and with that Chuhou Joutai provides a great and fun gameplay. BUT......(let´s dive into the negative things) As beautiful the pixelart (in game) is, there are a few negative things about it as well. First of all, the character and illustrations are the complete opposite....for those who think that the characterdesigns of (the original) Touhou games look terrible....well, then don´t look at these. To top it off, these characters are mixed in with some filtered photos, so it is pretty much a bunch of stuff packed together....and not in a good way. Also some backgrounds (in game) could use some tweeking, especially in the later stages....red bullets on red background = NOT a good idea. And there are a few things of that nature, which makes the game harder than it actually is.....but it doesn´t feel like it´s a hard game, instead it just feels like it´s unfair at times. Since the game provides you with many health items, this shouldn´t too much of a problem, but it would leave a better impression to players to make it more fair (so players can see clearly at every time were bullets are) and instead to decrease the number of health pickups. On the technical side of things there are still a few bugs, but I´m sure that they´re being fixed at some point, for example that there are no stats shown when playing as princess kagami (health, bombs etc) or that the steam achivements doesn´t work (I 1CC´d this on first try and there are two achievements for that, shown inside the game, but there are no achievements given in the steam UI). So Overall: Yes I would recommend this one, especially for people who want an entrypoint to the bullet hell genre, but the artstyle could turn away some of them. For advanced players (or people who play Danmaku games regular) it´s a nice to play game, but nothing worth mentioning any further, since it is pretty easy, even with the disadvantage coming with the artstyle. You can clearly say, that there is a lot of heart put into Chuhou Joutai and it shows, even if it´s not a perfect or even a great game, by any means. I had fun playing Chuhou Joutai....not long, but it was fun.