Recent reviews by Hikari Tachibana

Before I'll jump into the bad points of this game, I'll start with some positive/neutral ones.

-Art
I think that the author overall did a decent job here, he managed to combine the styles of both Mega Man X and Touhou so that it feels like a regular Mega Man X game but with Touhou characters.
However I would say that some bosses from the Mega Man X and Zero series had overall more "alive" animations. Here, many bosses feel "lifeless" in terms of motion.

-Performance
I have no objections here, the game runs perfectly smooth and has no crashing or freezing issues.

-Soundtrack
Most of the soundtrack is a remix of existing Touhou music in a retro style, but many of them don't really sound special.
However, I did genuinely enjoy some of the tracks, but I definitely wouldn't buy a soundtrack for them.

-Story
I won't spoil it, but it works, I guess. There's no epic or deep storyline involved if you're coming here from the Mega Man X or Zero series.
I would say that the story is an afterthought for the most part, but it isn't terrible, just not really memorable.

-Gameplay
Oh boy, where do I even start... As someone who has completed multiple Mega Man X and Zero games, I didn't enjoy this game's gameplay at all. It feels like the author didn't seem to understand very well what made these games "click".

For starters, when starting the game for the first time, you have a difficulty selection of Normal and Hard.
That's good, isn't it? I would say yes, as well, but if you decide to play on normal difficulty, then while you're able to complete the whole game, you won't be able to earn any achievements/challenges.
Why? This is just purely alienating people with lower skill ceiling, so that they won't be able to unlock anything just because they aren't good at platforming games.
I understand restricting some of the achievements, like "Complete the game on the hardest difficulty", but why would you even restrict achievements like complete the game to the harder difficulties?
Ironically enough, achievements like dying 50/200 times are also restricted to the harder difficulties because reasons.

Now, moving on to our protagonist's movement/upgrades and other stuff.
For the most part, Reisen controls smoothly, there's no input delay and no "icy" movement, so the author did a pretty good job here.
However, as others have already pointed out, there's no double tap dash like in Mega Man X games, but you can rebind keys, so it isn't that bad. However, the author has said that he won't add it because it doesn't fit his playstyle? That's at least what I gathered from one thread in discussions where he himself replied.
As for upgrades, I'll be frank that they feel useless compared to upgrades from Mega Man X games.
Other than upgrading your max health and charged shot charging speed, most of the upgrades don't really do much to give you extra options like different weapons to deal with various enemies or even upgrading your evasive maneuvers like air dash, like it would be in Mega Man X/Zero games.
So no matter what, you still feel weak, even after fully upgrading Reisen.

Now, going to the stages themselves, if you played through the Mega Man X/Zero games and absolutely hated pitfalls and spikes, then it's even worse here.
A lot of flying enemies that in some cases, can tank charged shot and pitfalls/spikes that insta kill you on hard/lunatic difficulty.
It wouldn't be so bad if Reisen actually could have the options mentioned above, like different weapons to deal with them or even dash upgrades, but she doesn't have any of them, so enjoy your suffering of "Buster only" gameplay.
If you're playing on normal difficulty, then it's manageable since spikes don't instantly kill you anymore and damage received is halved, so it's kind of balanced considering that you don't get any extra options.

Going over to the bosses.
To put it simply, most of them aren't even fun to fight. They are either ball-busting hard or laughably easy, no in-between.
The reason behind that, is that the author simply decided that not all bosses require such thing as a predictable pattern or even telegraphing their attacks by doing certain animations before connecting the attack.
Most of the fights are pure RNG, as in, you have to just hope that the boss won't decide to use the worst attacks all the time during the fight.
Most of the attacks are also pretty dense in terms of projectiles and speed, so if you don't have some godlike reflexes, then be prepared to die a lot of times before finally the RNG shines on you to make the boss more tame than usual.
Reisen also does pitiful damage with her charged shot which combined with the fact that bosses have long i-frames after every shot, make every boss fight drag on for too long.
The reason behind that, is that lack of extra options also means a lack of elemental/weapon weakness for bosses, so you can't just pop up a certain element/weapon to deal extra damage to bosses.
Also yes, there are no subtanks, like in Mega Man X, so you have to do the whole boss fight on one health bar, so enjoy!
You could technically heal using the bullet erase for bomb, but the amount healed depends on the amount of bullets erased, so don't count on it really saving you in a bad spot.

As a closing point to my review, if you enjoy Mega Man X/Zero games, and you're looking for something similar, then don't bother with this one, it lacks the polish and enjoyment of these games.

And to the author, I don't expect you to rebalance the game or anything, but at least allow people to earn achievements/challenges on normal difficulty, so your game is more accessible to casual players.
With the way you did it, you're offering no replayability to them, since after beating the main game, they don't have anything else to do, because they aren't "skilled" enough, and I doubt that most of them would spend many hours to go through harder difficulties, considering that they aren't even that fun to play through for the average player not accustomed to Mega Man X games.

There was a note lying on the desk. There was something oddly familiar about the writing on it. I reached for it and read the contents of the note aloud to myself.

"You're playing a great video game, Max."

The truth hit me like a speeding truck.
Story told from two points of view.
A woman and a man. Both living in a pain of their past.
They can't live with each other, but they need each other as well.
But is it really smart thing to do? Love is blind, as they say.

Gameplay consisting of a great gunplay.
Fluid movement, bullet time, cinematic kills, huge arsenal of firearms.
What else a person could ask for?
Not watching my suffering again and again, just to see her again.
Repetitive act of going through same places, just to save her.
What a person doesn't do for a love?

I was playing a great video game, showing my suffering.

Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of.