東方逆妙乱 ~ Ephemeral Unnatural Balance Reviews

As a newcomer to these types of games, I can say I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game. The difficulty felt fair and the discord system is a fun high risk/high reward system that gave me that little extra to get through some of the more challenging encounters. The clear standouts of the game are both the beautiful attack patterns and the amazing soundtrack. You can tell the creators poured a lot of time and effort into their art and it truly shines through. I even really appreciated the little blurbs the creators left in the music library to give you a sense of what they were going for. Overall very happy to support the development team with my purchase. Keep up the good work!

Kisume's a bitch... at least the theme goes as hard as the boss fight lol character designs are really good and the sprite work is amazing and the animation for the bosses are really well done. caught myself dying just tryna sneak a peek at the animation work lol

I've played this for around 4.9 hours when I am writing the review, but I've really enjoyed the game so far. The game is quite hard, I have only played Touhou 6,7,9 and 18 but this game certainly was a challenge, I got very close to beating the game on normal but died at the very end. Gameplay: The gameplay is what you would expect of a Touhou game, you select a character, fly through the stage and fire at the enemies and bosses that come your way. There are mid bosses, non spells and spell cards of course. As I mentioned above the game is quite hard although it didn't take me long to get to the final stage, but If you have played a Touhou game before I think you'll find the game challenging but fun. The spell cards are quite easy to remember, but are still hard enough to be challenging, [spoiler] The stage before the final stage [/spoiler] is especially hard IMO. Music: If I were to explain the music of Touhou EUB I would say it's quite calm, stage themes are especially slow paced but that isn't a bad thing, more faster and intense songs also appear in game, and these are quite fun and get's me into the mood to play. There seem to be both rearrangements of songs that already appear in other touhou games, mostly for the bosses, and self made songs. I think all songs are quite nice, the final spell card song at the end got me by surprise as it ended up being my favorite theme. Story: (spoiler free) While I was playing I didn't think much of the story until the very end of the game. I realized that the game dropped a hint throughout the game that led up to the final boss and it suddenly all made sense to me. The interactions between the characters can be quite funny and comical. Spoilers: [spoiler] The story itself is about Koakuma giving power to lily white in order to take power from the stronger and giving it to the weaker. The hint is that all bosses have swapped places with their mid bosses. Instead of fighting Cirno with Daiyousei as a mid boss, we instead fight Daiyousei as the main boss and Cirno as a mid boss. I think it's quite cool to see smaller characters getting a chance to be bosses themselves. [/spoiler] Rin Satsuki: My research for Rin Satsuki originally led me to this game. For those that don't know who Rin is, she was a cut character from Touhou 6 and evidence to her existence can be found in the source code. Although this time she is a playable character, and I quite like that. Among other characters we also have Kasen and the best character Rinnosuke [spoiler] I didn't expect Tokiko to appear, nice to include her as well. [/spoiler] Conclusion: Touhou Ephermal Unnatural balance is quite an enjoyable game, it's challenging and both entertaining. Well made and with good graphics and music. I recommend!

A finely crafted, tough challenge for those looking for a twist in their Touhou shmups. The system demands practice and learning far more than a regular Touhou game, especially the newer ones, but will end up as a rewarding experience should you put time into it.

Great fangame, super fun take on characterization of some less known residents of Gensokyo and great gameplay loop of risk vs. reward. Fun Danmaku too.

The dialogue is extremely bland and is completely different from characters' personalities as well. Even though this game is based off of a reversal, where the stage bosses were merely sprites with no dialogue in the main game, some of them have still appeared in manga and there's still the given description by ZUN. Additionally, the characters with canon dialogue don't match very well either, but it's not as bad. Cirno particularly bothered me as it was nowhere close to being in-character. Daiyousei is written as a pompous brat, which is unlike fairies at all. Rin Satsuki's dialogue is kind of bland but in general, the dialogue from the playable characters is fine. I'm not sure how the music was composed, like if there were multiple artists as a collaboration. There's some new themes and also returning. Stage 1 is a returning theme from TD, and the remake isn't bad at all. Soga no Tojiko's theme though, is really repetitive. The stage themes from 3 onward are actually pretty good, I think 3 and 4 are the best. I really like that they did a remake of the stages Daiyousei and Lilly White appeared as their theme, and I really wish they did that for all of the characters. The patterns are very basic and not a lot of them relate to canon spells or attacks from those characters. Tojiko uses lasers similar to Kogasa's 2nd spell card in UFO's extra stage. I think Kisume's fight is the best. Otherwise, a lot of the spells used are really basic patterns and don't really fit the characters. The attacks from the stage enemies are really basic as well. The character art for this game is probably the best part. The style and the characters are drawn really cute and they have very dynamic poses during dialogue. The art looks like it got scaled up though and lost some quality. The boss sprites while you're fighting them are really well done. Discord mode is a unique gimmick. I feel that getting hearts may be a bit too difficult though as it's similar to the way you got them in 10D, where the amount of pieces you needed scaled up for each life acquired. I might also just be bad though, just like in 10D, so this actually isn't much of a complain unless other people can confirm they had the same problem. The background in the final stage is straight up ripped from HSiFS's 3rd stage. Lily White's last word is almost the same as Yuyuko's. This game suffers from the same gimmicks a lot of fangames include, unfortunately. Last Words and the final boss reviving like Yuyuko is extremely overdone. It seems like it's in almost every fan game now. Even though I'm giving this a negative review, I wouldn't necessarily recommend people to not play it. If it's on sale, maybe pick it up, but it's just not good. I understand that the people who made this worked really hard on it, but the reviews are so flooded with people saying the game is perfect and "better than main touhou games" when it's blatantly... not. If your friend makes something, even if they put a lot of effort into it, and it's bad, you need to let them know. Not to insult them, but in a way so they can improve in the future. The fact that as a team they were able to make a whole game with gimmicks and extra stages and everything though, is always impressive. While I don't think this game is good, I think that the future of games produced by this team are promising. The first game is rarely the best, so I think they will improve much more in the future.

Note: despite being a longtime Touhou fan I don't play the bullet hell games very often, so this review is from the perspective of a casual player. I just played the game and I love it. Didn't clear it because I suck, but I still love it. The general atmosphere of the game is just like the official games, yet the unique art style and music gave the game its own personality. I'm also a fan of PC-98 Touhou games, so it's nice to see the references. It's also nice to see weaker characters getting the spotlight, especially Rin Satsuki. The subverted expectations of weaker characters being the boss is very funny, and I find it especially amusing that the boss themes don't match the boss. Gameplay wise, I find the difficulty fair and challenging, the easy and normal modes are quite similar to the average official games. As far as I can tell, the only gimmick the player has is lowering the item collection line after collecting enough points, which is nice because it gives the player a useful mechanic without being annoying or overpowered. I love that each stage and boss has their own gimmick in the gameplay, which makes each battle unique and more memorable. Very fun game. I love it. I wish I played it sooner. Minor problems: When I maximize the window, it moves to the left side of the screen. If I try to move the window to the center, it minimizes again. Not sure if anyone else is having this problem, or if is there a way to fix it. I just wish I could just fullscreen the game or something. When selecting quit in the pause menu, it doesn't have the "are you sure? (y/n)" prompt, which resulted in me accidentally resetting the game multiple times. I accidentally quit the game instead of continue when I lost at the final boss, twice, which is why I've yet to clear the game, good or bad ending. I just wish there is a level of redundancy to prevent shaky hands from choosing the wrong option, especially after the adrenaline rush from playing intense bullet hell.

A really fun touhou fangame! I really enjoy the premise of the weakest characters all becoming the strongest, had a good chuckle when I saw the final boss. Music is also pretty damn good too.

First of all, SUPPORT YOUR FANGAME TOUHOU CREATORS!!!! Indie devs put so much heart and soul into their games, it becomes criminal how little money they receive! The music in this game is brilliant and reminiscent of ZUN's older works, touhou 7, 8, 9,, and it has it's own charm as well. I often think it sounds similar to JyNX, creator of Len'en, whilst i was playing what little i could actually play as I'm not that good. The game includes both English and Japanese translations as well, which was a really pleasant surprise for a touhou bullet hell! The art is charming and cute, but stylistically different from ZUN's own art, which is fine. It's visually appealing, but sometimes is pixelated. The returning characters all have unique spellcards that feel just right, like they were made by ZUN himself. I haven't gotten that far in the game yet but they all feel exactly how they should in the actual games. The creator has nailed the touhou feel, right down to the sound effects and the design of the enemies! Every touhou fan should play this game because it is a brilliant ode to what makes touhou good; charming characters, great music, and fun bullet hell.

I sincerely hope this game doesn't get too overshadowed by Touhou 17, which dropped literally a week before this passion project that's been in development for YEARS (ZUN: "I'm about to end this man's whole career") So! The aesthetics (art, graphics, backgrounds) and music are all gorgeous -- the makers really put a ton of heart into this. And the plot is something that wouldn't be out of place in any mainline Touhou game, really. But let me tell you about the main attraction.... THE GAMEPLAY! Hoo man the gameplay. I've known the makers of this game for years, and I knew they know their danmaku design -- and it shows!! The game provides many beautiful patterns with a good degree of challenge (especially the Extra stage, which demands the very best of you!) Manipulation of the main gimmick, Discord Mode, is virtually essential to success in the higher difficulties. Learning to utilize it to your advantage, choosing risk for reward, can help you game the system and stack up resources to better prepare for the challenges ahead. It's very well-designed!! I've just finished clearing the main game on Normal mode (which was no small feat! This game is quite challenging even for Touhou veterans!) and beat the Extra mode (a daunting stage, but a tremendous satisfaction when you learn how to beat it) and am looking forward to playing again on other characters, and possibly challenging Hard mode. I HIGHLY encourage you all to check this game out if you're a fan of shoot-em-ups, especially Touhou Project. This game is a labor of passion, and a love letter to the host franchise.