Aya goes through hell to spread fake news.

This might be my bias showing, but in my opinion even though this isn't a mainline Touhou game it's still definitely worth getting. The game feels more like a puzzle game in a way where you try to find the optimal way to dodge danmaku and get the most points for each shot. I find it very fun and relaxing overall

Ayayaya :P

This game is more fun than the mainline games because you can pick any spellcard you want and quit any time you want. It makes it easier to learn patterns and is much more fun to replay as it's much less time consuming. The only downside is that there is no difficulty option and it's extremely hard, you might get stuck on the same spellcard forever.

Aya is also cute.

This game hurt me on both an emotional and a psychological level.

At the time of writing, I've just finished all of the included spell cards in this game, after 24 hours of total accumulated play time.

Shoot the Bullet is a lot like the Spell Practice feature included in a few of the mainline Touhou games, so if you enjoyed unlocking and eventually capturing the difficult "Last Word" Spells that ONLY appeared in the Spell Practice mode of Imperishable Night, then you'll probably enjoy this game.

The gameplay is about what you'd expect. There are just no bombs, no lives, an omnidirectional camera that does all of your shooting in single large bursts, you can immediately re-attempt the attack upon failure, and you can use the featured camera to clear bullets if you find yourself in an inescapable position.

there's a range of difficulties from easy at level 1, to normal around levels 2 through 5, to hard around levels 6 through 9, and lunatic-like attacks after that. Some attacks will be easier or harder than their described levels for you, but that's generally around where they fall. Also, each scene has anywhere from 3 to 10 phases of increasing difficulty, and I've estimated the level difficulties based on the hardest phases within those levels.

You're NOT going to complete most of the scenes on your first try. In fact, several of them will take upward of 50 or even 100 (or a few hundred?) attempts. That's normal and entirely expected. You don't have to be able to consistently 1cc the mainline games in order to complete this game, because you have infinite attempts at any one scene, and you only have to get one good score for it to count toward game progression. Take 20 to 90 seconds (depending on the scene) for an attempt, rinse, and repeat, until you've got it.

A lot of the scenes have a solution or a strategy associated with them. One half of the game is figuring out your strategy, and the other half of the game is actually executing that strategy. That's generally what it's like to play the harder difficulties on the mainline games, but here, you have the luxury of only having to strategize for one attack at a time.

there's not much music nor valuable lore or character interactions included. There are 6 music tracks in the game, and it was released shortly after the 100+ page official print work Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red (BAiJR or 東方文花帖) as an accompanying game. The writings included in the game itself just detail how Aya herself would see the various characters and attacks from within the Touhou universe.

More than most of the titles in the series, Shoot the Bullet is about gameplay. If you care to recognize it, the patterns DO communicate the types of spells that would come from each character, and you'll see reappearances from most characters who've been featured in games 6 through 9 (including a rare appearance from the current fan favorite Flandre Scarlet). There's not any actual dialog between characters, so if you want to really experience what I mean, play the game.

Some of the scenes are also decent as things to practice with. You'll need to do some unfocused dodging, various types of bullet streaming, staying calm during scary-looking attacks, micro-dodging, and finding sweet spots. This can translate into becoming a little better at playing danmaku.

Some of the attacks were particularly fun for me (like Ran Yakumo's "Eighty Million Goma Boards" and Komachi Onozuka's "Price of Life"), and others were more frustrating (like Remilia Scarlet's "Remilia Stoker" and Shiki Eiki's "Trial of the Ten Kings"). You could wind up spending an hour or so on each of these spells for both of these reasons. Some parts of the game are just more fun, while other parts will require more patience. If you're an impatient person, you probably have a harder time completing these games to begin with, so if you're here for the difficulty and eventual satisfaction of completing a bullet hell dodging challenge, this game is for you.

Tengu Ass

crow takes pic of everyone trying to kill her, the game!

Beer money for ZUN.

AYAYA!

Aya is funny