Recent reviews by fluury

TL:DR: Spritepile 2.0 feels like a downgrade to the original for a higher pricetag. The heavily gutted Preview window alongside the removal of pretty important functionality leaves a very sour taste that does not get compensated for by the addition of mostly unimpactful minor features and tools. Fairly rudimentary functionality that was missing from the original still manages to be missing in its successor. Overall, especially for precision pixel-art spritestacking, I would recommend the - now free! - first version of Spritepile over this until this version gets updated to be worth the pricetag, or at least not a downgrade.


This review is made under the perspective of someone that has used Spritepile as a precision pixel art software with a focus on traditional spritestacking. I don't know anything about the .obj export or 3D functionality, and do not care about it. I have made over a hundred "models" with the OG Spritepile so far, so I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about.

First of all just generally, why Spritepile for spritestacking instead of, say, Aseprite? Spritepile features an incredibly important preview window which displays how your Spritestack will look like done traditionally - invaluable for this kind of work. It also features a pretty easy and fluent "stack layer view" which makes editing and "sprite-stacking" quick and straight-forward. Alongside these features, it has export and import functions specifically for spritestack formats and otherwise features fairly OK but sometimes underdeveloped tools for general pixelart.
In a world where the other alternatives are manually doing it with any pixel art software where you lack an efficient preview, "SpriteStack", which while promising appears to be 25€ abandonware that, at least on my system, didn't function well, or using voxel software and then a script to export it in a spritestack format - which can work, but once again lacks an accurate preview - despite its many crashes and fairly rudimentary tools, Spritepile really is your best bet.

So, Spritepile 2.0 rolls around with a higher pricetag than Spritepile, being the same as Aseprite on both itchio and Steam. Let's dive in.

POSITIVES:
- 3D Bucket is a great new tool, allowing you to bucket-paint into the Z-axis!
- Color palette actually has a way to get exact colors now using the new RGB input.
- Proper canvas sizes which aren't locked to 16, 32, 48 etc, now fully customizable.
- Changeable keybindings for tools and more!
- Outline tool can be decently useful.
- Tooltips! We love tooltips.
- Secondary color functionality instead of the forced eraser on M2, while still retaining the option for it.
- More intuitive multi-layer editing, thanks to the removal of the added held buttons.
- Various smaller, "rarely-useful-but-kinda-neat-i-guess" functions like sprite import, looped copy selection etc. are neat

Now, if you have used any other pixel-art software in your life, you might notice that a lot of these points... just consist of stuff you'd expect the original to have. When I said the original Spritepile was fairly rudimentary in a lot of regards, I mean it. Other than those improvements, there is the 3D Bucket as the major positive, and other than that, kinda mostly just - for my purposes - inconsequential, rarely useful fluff.

Unfortunately, this is where the positves end. Because in many ways, Spritepile 2.0 feels like a downgrade, as it leaves behind a lot of features which I'd personally consider pretty important to almost essential to the workflow of creating a spritestack model!

NEGATIVES:
- Preview was dramatically downgraded. Resolution of the preview cannot be changed anymore, which means that the "low-res spritestack" style a lot of people use spritestacking for to begin with... can no longer be previewed. You are locked into a fairly high-res preview at all times. Additionally, the preview is no longer capable of zooming in very deeply. If you are making smaller models in the 32x48 range like I usually do, this is pretty annoying. Both of these changes seem to be contradictory to the entire purpose of the tool to begin with, so I don't really know what the intent was.
- Language settings are completely gone. This doesn't affect you if you are english, but is still a pretty significant thing to just toss away for a version that has "2.0" at the end and a higher pricetag.
- Cannot change any background colors anymore - of the tool itself, or the preview. It is forced black. Which as you can imagine, is pretty problematic when you are using black colors - because you literally cannot see them against the background, making a preview of anything black or black adjacent essentially invisible.
- Significantly worse performance wise, seemingly contradicting in-game suggestions of performance. Even with the smallest Canvas sizes, CPU is sitting at 50% for... seemingly no reason? Meanwhile Spritepile seems to sit at 6%-10% max. I don't have poor FPS or anything - but if I were to run this on older laptops, I'd be pretty worried.
- Unintuitive changes to some tools makes them behavet differently than you'd expect; The process for any "Shape operations" (Select, draw rectangle, circle etc.) which used to be Hold > Drag > Release is now Hold > Drag > Release > Click to confirm, which seems like an arbitrary extra step which isn't present in e.g. Aseprite. Additionally, getting rid of a selection is fairly unintuitive now too, requiring a hit of escape instead of simply clicking the selection again or doing a double-click - like in other programs.
- Couple of crashes and bugs - however, most not devastating to the normal workflow, but mild annoyances. All will be reported to the dev, of course.

There are also some things I was bummed out about this version not having, since they seemed like obvious additions to the original for me:

BUMMERS:
- No HSV color selection. Me and most people I know do a lot of work with HSV. Not having it still makes the color palette editor fairly useless for really picking the right colors.
- Can't select stuff in a layer and copy it within the layer - or even to other layers. Would've spared a lot of tedious work, and is a fairly basic feature in basically any editing software. It not being there feels like a fairly large flaw.
- Color Picker is useless for Colors which aren't in the palette, particularly annoying for imported works where you don't want to completely wipe your Color palette, but then lock yourself out of editing with the color unless you go through the tedious project of adding the color yourself via the edit color palette functionality and typing the RGB values in manually. Other programs such as Aseprite simply add the color to the palette if it isn't available, which is a much faster process and intuitive process.
- Upon leaving, being prompted to save your work, clicking "Yes" and then canceling the "where do you want this new file?" window will result in the software closing, also deleting any work left within it. Unfortunately, it still behaves that way, which is unexpected to how other software functions, typically leaving you inside until you forcefully agree that your work will be deleted.

The dramatic downgrade of the Preview window in addition to the lack of ability to change the background colors inexplicably makes the original Spritepile significantly superior to this version. Combine this with the increased price to the original version's 10€ for - generally, at least from my perspective - mostly insignificant additions to the general spritestack workflow while leaving fairly obvious additions on the desk leaves me fairly disappointed.

As such, especially considering that its free now, I'd say just stick to Spritepile if you are doing, or intent to do, precision pixel art spritestacking.

Kouma Kishima whispers "twerk that Magic Circuit" into my ear. A great investment for any grappler enthusiasts out there.

TL:DR: Starring probably the most gameplay and replayability impacting "Gimmick" to-date with the card and shop system, Touhou 18 feels insanely fresh and brimming with creativity. Veteran or newcomer, I can only recommend this game.

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BEWARE: THIS GAME IS IN JAPANESE BY DEFAULT! GET A TRANSLATION VIA THCRAP! https://www.thpatch.net/wiki/Touhou_Patch_Center:Download

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A bit of a preface, I am on the more casual side of playing shmups but am someone that has played every single 2hu game outside of PC98 to date. The game has impressed me so much with it's systems that I felt compelled to write a review pretty shortly after getting a good overview of what the main route has in store for you.

The big star of Touhou 18 is the shop and card system that hasn't made it's debut in any other touhou game before. It's common for most touhou games to have a game specific gimmick, but it feels insanely fleshed out this time to the point where I don't think you can just go back to not including it.

The game features several different cards with unique effects that power up your run. Almost similar to a roguelite, the cards you get offered are random each run (outside of a few preset ones, which are just resource cards.)
Once you buy one, it will be active in your run and you can select it as a starting card in any future runs/extra stage.
This is a very big deal, because it increases replayability and general enjoyment of the game massively.
No longer are you just grinding to git gud, who knows what the next store has. Each attempt now gets a unique flavor to it, changing how you play and how you treat certain patterns and stages.

Outside of that, everything just feels very fresh and creative. From the bullet patterns to the characters to the music. I can't really put it into words, but it just all falls together into a very nice package. I will have to play it for a lot more, but even early in this has "could be my new favorite 2hu game" energy all over it.

Beware though, because this game is pretty hard for my "I can 1CC most games" standard. Things in this game have A LOT of HP and being low on Power is insanely punishing. You will have to make good use of the cards to get through.

The only negative I can think of is that bullet visibility is sometimes an issue.

Overall, a very VERY strong recommendation, especially for 2hu veterans that haven't played one of them for a while.
The card/shop seems like a natural addition to the entire touhou formula, and it's benefits just seem far too massive to go back to the usual minor gimmicks new touhou games introduce and then throw away with a new game.

ENGLISH PATCH: https://www.thpatch.net/wiki/Touhou_Patch_Center:Standalone_Patches -> SELECT VIOLET DETECTOR!
GUIDE: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1205452411

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Another Touhou game on steam - and it's a spin-off! This game is NOT one of the "proper" mainline games, but is essentially a shooter with some gimmicks thrown into it, which is why in general this game has less content and has a lower price than 16. But let's get to the meat.

POSITIVE:
- Great soundtrack! (Nightmare Diary might be one of my top 5 tbh)
- Gameplay is good as ever.
- Nightmare week, as a concept, is very interesting.
- The story is surprisingly interesting for once/the game's vibes are pretty charming.
- In-Game Achievement System
- Everyone is here!
NEUTRAL:
- The game is not in English. I don't know how many times Steam needs to throw this at you for people to understand.
- No proper steam integration sadly apart from Steam Cloud. It's a shame.
NEGATIVE:
- Clunky Teleportation Controls on keyboard -> the main reason of most/any of the negative reviews you will encounter for a good reason. They are incredibly weird to use and actively make the game worse. For this reason, I HEAVILY recommend this mod:

https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,21537.0.html

Which makes the teleportation input less clunky and stupid and instead binds it to it's own button. Having to press shift twice and then a direction during constant bullet fire is very tedious and stupid. Be aware, though, that it ♥♥♥♥♥ over replays.
- A good deal of content is reused. I find it alright because the game throws a photo and teleportation mechanic at you, which change how you approach said spellcards, but it's a bummer there isn't atleast a little bit more original juice in it.

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I played the game a lot on it's non-steam version, and it's pretty fun. You can either get used to the clunk, or throw it away with the mod which is something I'd recommend for most players - because otherwise youll be fighting THE CONTROLS of the game, not the danmaku. The photo mechanic, as before, is pretty interesting and fun, and the teleportation - when it works! - is fun to use and be creative with.
It really is just a bummer that the in-game cheevo's arent built into steam, it would make getting them much more of an experience.

If this is your first STG, I do not recommend it. Go for 16 (The other Touhou Game) instead, get a good grasp of how things function and the like, this entire game is more meant as a cute bonus to the franchise, especially with ZUN saying he didn't want to make a game this year. It's also, I'd personally argue, harder once you get into the late levels of the game.

POSITIVE:
- Gameplay is surprisingly good. I played on Hard, the characters are all unique in their own ways and offer a variety of playstyles - the enemies are tough to deal with and there are difficulty options for the more casual folk.
- Music is alright. Its not 15.5, but it's also not awful even though the Vocals at some points were pretty surprising.
- Linear Storyline and the like is fun to explore and the gameplay feels good and satisfying.
NEUTRAL:
- Difficulty. It spikes a lot, and due to some issues in the negative section these can get amplified. If you are already used to bullethell games this game shouldnt be too difficult, but if you are a more casual player Id recommend playing on normal or easy since it can get frustrating.
- Story isnt the most amazing thing ever, and so is the dialogue. Feels like a bad fanfiction essentially, and while some characters are essentially rendered very much like the canon ones (They nailed Tenshi being an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥) some are rather... lacking. Some jokes are also rather haHAA tier.
- The translation isn't amazing, but bearable.
NEGATIVE:
- Unpolished. That's all there is to it; Animations are unpolished, Audiomixing is unpolished, some art looks very unpolished. Not game ruining, not overly annoying, but it's still something that wont leave your eye.
- No feel of responsiveness what the ♥♥♥♥ is happening. Getting hit? No soundeffect, screenshake, red sprite, whatever. For a bullet hell game with an HP Bar, this is crucial and VERY difficult to deal with.
- Often the game will have dialogue playing while you battle, which makes it impossible to read it without dying.
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So how good is this game? It's 10 bucks fangame good. Not amazing, but surprisingly, not bad. For 10 bucks this is pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good for what I have expected. The game is roughly 10~ hours long for the developers and the amount of enjoyment I got from it in the first few minutes already was pretty nice.

The most important part is that you can feel that the developers loved this project, there are tiny secrets and lore all over the map that just give off the vibe that the devs really cared about this project.

I wish the devs good luck for the future of their games.

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AoCF is the 3rd installment of the floater Touhou fighters - being unique in the way that you are, as the name says, floating. You can essentially jump "up" and "down" allowing for a variety of moves and tactics unique to games like this. But let's get right down to the meat:
POSITIVE
- Fantastic music
- 19 Characters with unique abilities
- Tag/"Posession" mechanic allowing for a variety of combos and general gameplay
- Looks great
- Extremely high skill ceiling assures fun matches
- Decent Story mode which consists of more than just generic fights against AI
- Actually decently balanced, no more OP Marisa
- No ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ RNG
NEUTRAL
(Note: These are mainly focusing on it being a successor, as a new player these are not relevant.)
- As far as successors go, this one consists of almost 90% reused assets of the old game. While that isn't gameplay affecting, it's a bit jarring.
- Only 4 new Characters have been added, 3 of them being ones we already know
- Tenshi has turned into a manlet
NEGATIVE
- Netcode leaves a lot of room to improve on, is however playable till 90 MS - Then the game starts to drastically slow down.
- No proper Tutorial apart from a manual that's in japanese makes getting into the game difficult as the game is kinda complex and comes with a bullet of button inputs which arent all that obvious
- No real steam integration(No "Invite friends" etc.)
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As far as floaters go, the best in the series. The most fun I had in a fighting game since Hisotensoku(Another touhou fighter) and delievers a fair amount of butt clenching.

Here's a part for the die-hard veterans: Could this dethrone Soku? I'd go as far and say yes. It could, if they fix the netcode. Soku has it's fair pair of issues itself with the funny RNG weather while this game has a complete lack of it, and while the spellcards in Soku assure for a variety of gameplay options the Posession mechanic offers way more.

If Tasofro will be arsed to make a better netcode or some nutter will create Aocfroll, we'll see soon enough.

if you wanna find games here is the discord: https://discord.gg/TvMh2Ax

I played this game before through totally legal means and have finally gotten a chance to buy it without having to jump through hoops - trust me I played this game more than enough!

To get to the meat:
POSITIVE:
- Amazing Soundtrack, as expected from a Touhou game. This one might actually have topped my current favorite with "Crazy Back Dancer!"
- Lots of variety. This is by far the top Touhou game when it comes to Variety - the amount of options and combinations you can get from shot-types is massive.
- Good for newcomers. This game is a very accessable Shmup, allowing even newcomers to the series to get a good taste and have some fun with an Easy Mode.
- ...While still being tough at harder ones.
- Generally just fun. I havent played this one as much as I have played Touhou 11 - but the difference is that I mainly played Touhou 11 because it was tough as nails. This one is a bit on the easier side, is however just fun.
NEUTRAL:
- The Extra Stage isnt exactly on the difficulty level you'd expect it to be. I personally find this good, I always thought the Extra Stage shouldnt be as tough and shouldnt end up being content locked away from 50% of the playerbase. Some players however think that is bad, and that the Extra Stage should stay super tough. Ill leave it up to debate.
NEGATIVE:
- The obvious one: No translation to English. You can easily patch the game to your respective language, however this will remain a negative, and will likely stay one forever.
- No real steam integration outside of Steam Cloud. Id love some Trading Cards and the like! Maybe in the future.
- Lacking Options menu. Cant change Keybinds as an example.

VERDICT: One of my favorite Touhou games and a BIG step for the series to finally make it's way to Steam and thus into the warm hands of the overseas community. Hopefully we will see more in the future!

For any potential Customer out there, look for Reviews that don't focus on the ending - which will be hard given the Majority of negative Reviews focus on it.
It's controversial given the fact that it can be interpret in many ways and many people missed some clues/hints, making them think the wrong thing. I mentioned it before because I am legit annoyed at the fact that people review a game badly because they didnt like the ending.
PRO
- Most of the Characters are well written.
- The game is always 2 steps ahead of you.
- No seriously the amount of Plot-twists will change the way you think about cases.
- Art + Music is p gud.
NEUTRAL
- It is not recommended to play the game as the first Danganronpa Game as it references the first one heavily, and the second one more lightly - However it wont stop your enjoyment of the game for around 90% of it. If you are looking for an order on how to approach the series, I'd recommend: DR1 -> DR2 -> DR3(Anime) -> DRV3.
- The game can hook you pretty badly. What this means is that it's time consuming, and, if you dont have enough self-control, might start feeling like a chore to play. If you start investigating, you dont wanna end because you dont wanna leave on a cliffhanger - then you cant end on the trial itself, because you wanna know who done it. That's how you spend 4-5 hours in a session.
- It reuses the Danganronpa formular. As expected. Some people find that annoying or boring while others don't mind it. This only affects you if this isnt your first rodeo.
CONS
- The price. The game is excellent, however 60 Bucks for it are kinda on the limit for me. The game has an average time of around 40~ Hours to complete + has content that you MIGHT wanna check-out after that.
- The port isn't the greatest. The Team is patching the Issues slowly, however there are still some problems - like Fullscreen being problematic, sometimes inputs not being registered or slight FPS drops.

Overall the Game is fantastic, and Id go so far as to rate it the best in the entire Series. It ironed out some kinks and issues of the last few and had new fantastic twists to go with it.