Touhou Artificial Dream in Arcadia Reviews

I don’t know Touhou, and this fucking ruled.

I'm a huge fan of the old SMT games this game is an homage to, and I'll be honest, as much as I wanted to like this game I feel like its ideas when put into practice are mechanically incredibly shallow and lead to an experience that is overall just tedious. Because of the skill inheretance mechanic, where you can get a sleeper to inherit the skills of another without fusing it away, all the collectible characters to use function basically identically, and create a very no consequence teambuilding system where you're not encouraged to try out different strategies, if strategies beyond "use buffs and your strongest attacks" even exist in the first place. I think the battery meter is a very ill concieved replacement to magnetite that mostly just adds another mp bar to make you backtrack to the healing spots again, and in turn discourages actual mp management and encourages just using the same handful of sleepers. I think the dungeon design feels annoying on purpose, but without the hostile atmosphere the old SMT games this game is based on it loses the grueling effect the annoying mechanics could cause in those games and just leaves a tedious experience overall. It honestly sucks, I wanted to go into this game and enjoy it, but honestly I'm probably not even going to get close to finishing it. I'm 10 hours in and I've basically been using the exact same party setup the entire time, with no reason to ever change it for normal encounters or bosses, and I don't see that really changing soon either so it just got boring.

I don't know what "Touhou"-stuff is. Some anime-universe, I presume. The game has been held in high regard, so I thought I'd try it. Cost was whole 0,79€ in discount. Suppose I got my moneys worth. -Hidden information, e.g. what stats actually do -Too retro for my taste; lacking QoL -> e.g. map isn't constantly present, you need to open it with multiple presses -No VO Wouldn't recommend for myself.

A mix of old-school Shin Megami Tensei with Touhous. Shin Megami Tensei is a series of (formerly) firstperson dungeoncrawlers, with teambuilding based around recruiting enemy demons and fusing your own ally demons to make stronger ones, while Touhou is seemingly a quasi-public domain series of mythology-themed OC girls who cause problems solved by shooting bullets at each other. As you may have guessed, knowledge of Touhou is not particularly necessary to enjoy the game (though it probably helps).

The 38 achievements, and a playtime of over 70 hours later. Touhou Artificial Dream in Arcadia is one of the best RPG experiences I've had. From starters, its looks, inspired by Shin Megami Tensei I, II and If..., are genuinely gorgeous. The spritework for characters, dungeons, everything in this game looks phenomenal, it is so pleasing to look at it, and genuinely, the only "complaint" I have, is I wish we had portrait sprites for everyone, because they genuinely look so good. But uh, with 170+ sleepers, I defo understand why a handful only got. The writing is charming, I enjoyed Sumireko's dialogue responses, and the overall dialogue from the characters. I will say however, the writing for Yukari in particular was exceptionally amazing, and this led to looking for more stuff of her, in games, and even wiki stuff, etc. Leading to her becoming my fav Touhou character, and one of my favs ever. Its very small writing overall, but it really nails what little it does. Combat was a big surprise. I came to this game 2 months after trying out Metaphor Re Fantazio's demo, and being very disappointed it didn't even bother creating its own system, and just copy pasted press turns for turn base. Artificial Dream in Arcadia created its own weakness exploiting system, and its genuinely incredible. You get a special bar for Spirit points, or SP for short. This bar gets filled whenever you strike a weakness of an enemy, get a critical, or use the guard command. SP is used for special actions, such as a command skill, which can range from simple buffs or debuffs, to even preventing enemies from acting the turn its used, there's a lot of great abilities tied to it. Your demon equivalent, sleepers, which are digital copies of Touhou characters, also sometimes have skills that consume SP to use, which can be really strong too, so the game heavely encourages you to rack up SP to blast enemies. Of course, you lose SP if you get hit with a crit, or a weakness is targeted, so covering your own is important. Now. How do you get sleepers? Simple, you use the Hijack ability. This also consumes SP, and engaging in it, sends you to a bullet hell mini game, where the sleeper's patterns are based off the attacks the character has in Touhou. These require skill to it, unlike negociations in SMT, and also showcase the personality of the character too in a way, I really love it. Upon successfully hijacking a sleeper, you can add it to your party, get an item from them, or money. This is really good, and the item is dependent on said sleeper, so there's an act of choice and strategy on who to hijack for party composition, item gathering, and money saving, its amazing. As an SMT inspired game, there's fusion of sleepers here. So not just the traditional 2 sleepers into one, but also sacrificial fusion, where you can use a sleeper to level up another one, also skill passing, so make sure whoever you want is at top form, and even affinity passing for the protag, Sumireko, who yes, can have skills passed to her, and affinities too, this is how you gain them for her. This gives so much customization to the game, and allows for so much variety, and with 170+ sleepers, so many combinations. You can even fuse sleepers using the database, making it so much simpler to get the one you wanna fuse. The OST of this game. Omg. Touhou OST has always been incredible, and this game is just Touhou songs remixed to sound like they came from the SNES SMT games. The OST is genuinely incredible, it sounds so good, and I genuinely thought it was original compositions at first, the OST is that dystinct, and good at the same time. My highlight of the game however, despite everything I've praised the game for, has to be the dungeons. In an age where RPG dungeon design is mediocre at best for the past 8 years or so, Touhou Artificial Dream in Arcadia gives me some of the best dungeon design in any RPG so far I've played. Being challenging, fair and incredibly enjoyable, while also using some nasty gimmicks too. This game has a warp maze dungeon that didn't make me feel like I was going around like an idiot praying to get on the correct one. There was actual thought into what teleporter to go. I won't mention the rest of the gimmicks cause wanna keep it a surprise. But yeah, this game nails dungeon design, and while dungeons ARE the most important part of a dungeon crawler, it nontheless deserves high praise for being some of the best in any RPG, genuinely incredible stuff. I felt the passion and love when playing this game. I could tell the people involved in it cared a lot for what they were making, and wanted to make something great, and I feel they succeeded in all areas in what they were going for. Touhou Artificial Dream in Arcadia is an achievement in what fans can do if given the chance to let their ideas be realized, it is a work of love for both Touhou, and Shin Megami Tensei, and one of my favorite games this decade, and ever. It has a demo, and its 10$, give it a try if any of what I said interests you, or heck, if you're looking to get into Touhou, or Shin Megami Tensei. This game is such a great mix of both, that I feel it works as a great starting point for either series. Also small note, the final boss of this game, is Megami Tensei final boss perfected. Play Touhou Artificial Dream in Arcadia, its genuinely an experience like no other.

Great game if you like classic SMT. A little too short and easy for my taste but it's still fun.

Artificial Dream in Arcadia is a game I was nominally aware of (though had totally forgotten) for a while, and it wasn't until I happened upon Marsh's review and kind suggestion only a minute in to drop what you're doing and play the game if you had any interest that I finally bit the bullet and gave this game a shot. I've been a Touhou fan for quite a long time now (though I don't often visit many of the fangames, usually leaving it at Pokemon ROM hacks and the like), and some form of MegaTen fan for less time than that- IV being my first foray into SMT proper- but I never played any of the original games- as such, I was interested in getting to see some of that in ADiA, along a familiar setting and cast of characters. There are many others who can speak to the quality of the gameplay itself and do a deeper mechanical analysis, but for my part- outside of a particular dungeon and a couple of bad usages of maps on my part, the overall progression was very smooth, and the dungeon sizes made for nice digestible chunks to do one at a time. I think at times the hijack minigame could become a little tedious, but mostly only early on, and either way it's just about the perfect idea for how to blend Touhou gameplay in a game style otherwise lacking it. Seeing which patterns were chosen for the different characters was a fun time, and seeing how some characters who usually aren't late game sorts of characters were buffed here to compensate. Being able to switch out to RNG based recruitment is a nice bonus for those who aren't into it too. Visually this game aces the test. From the retro-virtual console style (with customizable background colors and scanlines!), to the wonderfully detailed pixel art character portraits and battle sprites, the game is dripping with love. The dungeon designs were also extremely varied, so visual interest was a constant while going from place to place- special shoutout to the Umineko portrait reference in the SDM. Speaking of references, the game is dripping with those as well, which was a fun little game to play on the side. Very in theme. The music is also a solid blend of recognizable Touhou themes and atmospheric dungeon feel- oppressive areas both look and sound it, and waking up to silence in the outside world is a nice stark touch.. The sound font fits perfectly with the visual aesthetic as well. Additionally, I think ADiA does Gensokyo [i]right[/i]. It's difficult to fully put into words as it's intrinsically very vibes based, but I think it's the combination of the atmosphere this style of game brings with it, and generally being restrained with characterization and the world. Overall, what I learned was that retro-dungeon crawlers [i]probably[/i] aren't my favorite style of games, but in spite of that the sheer passion and quality of the creative work on display way more than makes up for it, to the point that I would easily recommend anyone who has even a sliver of interest in either Touhou or MegaTen to put this high on the list.

I really do enjoy everything about this game - the art - the soundtrack - the gameplay but HOLY F​U​C​K​ that battery mechanic is intrusive in ways I do not enjoy. The simplest way of fixing this is just to add a grimoire that literally slows the battery drain or something. I was in the underworld when my battery died and while outside of battle I could not 1. check the map 2. access my inventory 3. change gear 4. access my party Now I only have an hour in the game so maybe it was something else that caused this BUT, it seems when your battery dies you also lose your party UNTIL you charge it up. Which if I AM correct in my assumption. That's absolutely dumb and wallet checks the player to see if they have a battery in their inventory (which you have to buy) and costs 500 gensokyan YEN to buy. So far im still in early game and I was trying to save my money for upgrades/better gear. Meaning, I'm broke. If I cannot access my map bc the "Gensokyo Maps" app drains the hell out of my battery life. Then my next complaint would be THESE DUNGEONS ARE LIKE LABYRINTHS and are super unfun to traverse bc rooms lead to more rooms which have 6 doors that lead to more rooms that have 3 doors that lead to more rooms that have 4 doors then 2 of the doors will lead to a chest, then one of the last 2 doors will lead to long fat hallways that lead to MORE F​U​C​K​I​N​G​ DOORS. Then the last one will lead to a smaller hallway with 2 doors, one being a chest then the other will have a lever you need to pull. THEN AFTER YOU PULL THAT ONE LEVER YOU NEED 3 OTHER LEVERS TO PULL AND DID I MENTION THERE ARE 4 DIFFERENT STAIRS OF THE FIRST LEVEL AND ALL OF THESE STAIRS HAVE 4 FLOORS WITH EVERYTHING MENTIONED BEFORE ON ALL OF THE 4 FLOORS PER STAIRS. I didn't grow up with old SMT games but I still do want to play this game. Assuming im not getting anything wrong here, I think this game needs some cleaning up. [EDIT] Thank you developer for responding to my review so quickly. Very informative!