Touhou Luna Nights Review (最適化)
I finally got around to playing this one, and I got some things to say. In terms of aesthetics and presentation Luna Nights knocks it out of the park. This game has style, and Sakuya is such a cool character for the role. Combine the style with the sound design, and you got a very satisfying audio visual experience. Not to mention the music is a bop, a lot of fan service with old tracks being remixed to fit Luna Night's vibe. Lastly the pixel art. It's high quality, it looks fluid (Why does Sakuya run like that tho) and overall ageless. In terms of Presentation and style, the whole package is very appealing. And there's very little bad with it.
As for the gameplay though... I mean it's not bad, actually it's pretty good. So some note worthy things in no particular order. You got your typical Metroidvania gameplay here. Explore areas, find gates, get items, come back to gates with new item to find new paths and upgrades. It's satisfying enough, and I recommend taking notes or screenshots if you have a bad memory like me. Sakuya controls well enough, sometimes I found it hard to turn around. Also, I wish you could shoot Diagonal up like you can in Super Metroid, seems like an oversight and it makes hitting flying enemies kinda awkward. Some bigger enemies are kinda spongy, which doesn't always feel great, I end up using time stop or thousand knives to deal with them. Bosses are cool but once you learn all their patterns, they become kinda repetitive. This game uses resource systems for attacking enemies. To attack you have to consume MP or Time, and when you run out of them your only option is to kinda just sit around and wait for them to recharge. Yeah it's not like it takes that long (I also found you can farm mp by picking up the knives Sakuya leaves when she double jumps, which helped) but any down time like that kinda breaks the pace up. And that downtime does add up.
And although a lot of my notes are critical, everything else was pretty fire ngl. A lot of Luna Nights is just inherently satisfying and it's got some high highs. It's got lows too, but they aren't enough to take away from the overall experience. So overall I do recommend this game to both touhou fans and non-touhou fans.
And if you are new to the touhou brainrot. It's never too late to join in and start following some of the wacky stories of Gensokyo, and it's even stranger inhabitants. And I'd say Luna Nights is a pretty good entry point for anyone new wanting to dive down the rabbit hole.