The Touhou shared universe is now pouring onto Steam. Spinoffs and fan-games aplenty have popped up just lately, however Metroidvania Touhou Luna Nights appears a minimize above. Licensed from unique Touhou studio Team Shanghai Alice and developed by Team Ladybug (the crew behind that excellent free Shin Megami Tensei Metroidvania and others), it launched into early entry at this time. While the solid of characters are acquainted to followers of the sequence, after attempting a little bit of it over the weekend, I reckon it’s polished and artistic sufficient to be value a search for any Metroidvania fan.
High powered murder-maid Sakuya, famed for her talents to freeze time and throw knives (sure, she’s a strolling Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure reference), has been dragged right into a parallel dimension. This is generally regular for anybody residing within the bizarre magical world of Gensokyo, so it’s not lengthy earlier than she’s working, leaping and hovering her manner by an enormous map, selecting up new key talents and stabbing monsters with a preposterous variety of blades. It’s a reasonably commonplace Metroidvania when it comes to construction, however the sprite artwork is extraordinarily detailed and properly animated.
Credit to Gematsu for re-hosting the launch trailer.
What defines Touhou Luna Nights is Sakuya’s talents, principally retained from her position within the shmup sequence. Sakuya’s fundamental assault is a thrown unfold of knives. Charge it up, and you’ll sluggish time. Not lengthy after you additionally get the power to freeze time altogether, letting you soar round and throw a complete room stuffed with blades, unpausing to observe all of your enemies satisfyingly explode directly. You may stroll throughout water when it’s frozen in time, though you may freeze your self in it if careless. I’m solely slightly methods in, however I need to see what they do with these powers afterward.
The present early entry model comprises the primary fifth of the game. Over the following 2-Three months, Team Ladybug reckon they’ll have the remaining ranges hammered into form. They additionally say that every one the core gameplay is labored out and full, though stability could also be tweaked over the time in early entry too. While I’ve not crashed or had any main technical points, the game doesn’t appear to love excessive refresh charges very a lot at current, and located it essential to run it in windowed mode with VSync turned on to throttle it.
The early entry model of Touhou Luna Nights is out now on Steam for £7.43/8/9.59, and is printed by Playism. The closing model needs to be prepared in 2-Three months, though the worth could go up.
