As I’ve mentioned in my Azure Reflection review, the Touhou franchise has been gaining a lot more fans in the West ever since the bullet hell games started to get localized and released in various digital storefronts. I’ve also mentioned that in addition to the traditional bullet hell games, a ton of Touhou spin off games have been made and released as well. They’ve taken the forms of RPG, action hack n’ slash, fighting and in the case for this review, tower defense. This is Gensokyo Defenders for the Nintendo Switch.
Magical fun
Enjoyable, lighthearted story- For the most part, the bullet hell entries of the Touhou franchise are a bit straight forward and seem to try to have a serious tone, at least from what I’ve played. The spin-off games however are a bit more lighthearted in tone, in which Gensokyo Defenders follows in suit. The story has the faeries of Gensokyo getting tired of playing danmaku with each other and the other residents of Gensokyo. Yukari, a legendary yokai, decides to create a new game for them to play called War Games. Cirno, an ice fairy, sees this as opportunity to prove to the other faeries and beings in Gensokyo that she is the strongest one of all and eagerly plays along. As you play through the story, you will encounter several familiar faces from the Touhou franchise that will interact with Cirno and are unlockable characters (more on that in a bit). The story is pretty simple and lighthearted due to Cirno’s playful nature, her wanting to prove she’s the best and being a bit annoying at times. Playing through the story mode will take a couple of hours, so its not that long of a game.
Tower defense + bullet hell/twin stick shooter = fun gameplay- Gensokyo Defenders is a mash up of two genres you don’t really see get paired that often: tower defense and bullet hell. Gameplay is pretty simple: you have a about a minute or to place a couple of traps around the field to slow down a wave of minions from destroying your base. Once you are ready, the minions start to make their way to your base. Now if this was a regular tower defense game, the traps would take care of the minions and that would be it. In Gensokyo Defenders, you take part in the defense as you are also on the playing field. Now the game has transformed into a bullet hell twin stick shooter. You are able to run around the field shooting automatically at the minions, helping to thin out the horde. You also have access to spell cards that you can cast to clear out multiple enemies and a special move called the Last Word that can be unleashed once you fill up a meter for it. It’s kind of interesting to see how well these two different game genres can combine pretty well with each other. Pair this with an online co-op mode that allows two friends to lay traps and defend together and you have twice the fun.
Unlockable characters- I mentioned before that as you play through the story mode that you will encounter other characters from the Touhou franchise. As you battle against them and you beat them, they’ll be unlocked and you will be able to replay previous levels as those characters and be able to use them in the online co-op mode. While I have played some of the games in the franchise, I only know a few of the Touhou characters. However fans of the franchise will be excited to see their favorite characters.
Hellish lights
Lite on the modes- Both tower defense and bullet hell games have various modes players can play through. There are boss rush modes, time attack, endless/horde modes, condition mode, etc. So you would think with Gensokyo Defenders using gameplay elements from both game genres, that they would include various other modes as well. That isn’t the case as story and multiplayer are the only playable modes. It would have been nice to see some variation of gameplay modes in the game. And speaking of multiplayer….
No offline co-op- There is no off-line multiplayer in Gensokyo Defenders. I’m not sure as to why there isn’t local multiplayer since there’s online co-op multiplayer. It makes even more sense to have offline co-op when looking at the Switch version of the game, since the system is portable and the controls are very simple for two Joy-Cons to handle. Even LAN multiplayer would have been great to have.
Gensokyo Defenders is an enjoyable spin off entry from the Touhou franchise. Combining the gameplay elements of bullet hell and tower defense games makes for a interesting and fun experience. The story, though sort in length, is an enjoyable and lighthearted experience that features characters from the Touhou franchise. Fans will enjoy playing as their favorite character as they are unlocked and can play with each other online. There are a couple of downsides to the game. One is that the game is lite on gameplay modes, only offering singleplayer story mode and online multiplayer. The second is that there is no offline co-op multiplayer. Again with the Switch’s ability to have two players at any time, you would think that the game would take advantage of this feature. Overall Gensokyo Defenders is an enjoyable game that should be given a chance. As for fans of the Touhou franchise this game is a good entry to the series and one that they should check out if looking for a quick Touhou fix.
