Touhou Spell Bubble is far better as a game than it has any right to be.
I bought it because I'm a huge Touhou fan, really liked Puzzle Bobble back in the day, and it has a Hololive crossover DLC prominently featuring my favourite Hololive member. And it delivered in those aspects: the story is the usual Touhou shenanigans and enjoyable if you like that sort of thing, all the fan-favourite characters are featured in it, and the music is great.
What I didn't expect is how the game design is genuinely great, and probably the single most successful implementations of a puzzle/rythm hybrid. What makes it so good?
- First of all, the puzzle aspects and rythm aspects compliment each other well without feeling forced or getting in the way of either one. In the beginning, you just see each as its completely separate thing, then you start being able to use the rythm time for planning your next puzzle moves, and finally you try to set off big combos while the music gives you a large number of beats.
- Secondly, and at least as important, the way the basic puzzle bobble gameplay is expanded to a game built around 1 vs 1 is extremely smart and well-designed. You are always in a situation where you are trying to remain on the edge of the trade-off between playing aggressively to gain points or defensively so as not to hit the bottom.
- Even the spell cards, which could easily be written off as just a gimmicky nod to the setting, have a huge impact on the strategy while playing and are crucial for actually winning at the higher challenge levels (at least for someone who lacks god-like dexterity such as me ).
Also, if you look at the game as a production (which is something I find myself doing more often) you really have to wonder how it all came together.
- It's made by TAITO, the original Bubble Bobble company, who have existed since the 70s but -- as far as I know -- haven't done anything notable in recent times.
- But it's fully Touhou themed, which is usually something small indies might go for but not established companies.
- It exclusively uses music from tons of doujin circles, with a pretty large selection including some of the most popular Touhou meme stuff ever (e.g. Bad Apple and other IOSYS songs) but also some of my personal slightly more niche favourites (e.g. Yuuhei Satellite).
- The character designs are made by a variety of popular Touhou fan artists (you could say "outsourced", but in this case the implication is a bit different).
- And it has Hololive crossover DLC featuring the "Gensokyo Holoism" album, which is in turn a crossover project between Hololive (primarily Marine who is a huge Touhou fan) and COOL&CREATE, one of the most popular Touhou fan music circles.
All of this seems like a passion project someone
really wanted to make, and I admire that they made it happen. I'd love some sort of documentary on how this came together.
In any case, after all of this I noticed that TAITO is apparently not done, when a frined told me about this:
And now I feel like that could actually turn out well.
Note how I skillfully and naturally made the post relevant to this thread there at the end