Koumajou Remilia: Scarlet Symphony

I went into Scarlet Symphony half-expecting a curio for die-hard Touhou followers and nothing more. What I found instead was a carefully preserved piece of 2009 dojin craftsmanship that, for better and worse, behaves exactly like its era. Shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei storms the Scarlet Devil Mansion armed with a whip, the ability to fly, and a Soul-powered system for calling in partner characters - Marisa, the original two allies, and new addition Suika Ibuki - to deal burst damage when the screen gets too crowded. That trio of mechanics - melee, flight-and-shoot, and partner summons - is the whole toolkit, and the game never pretends otherwise. The eight linear stages wear their Castlevania inspiration with very little shame. You will recognize the forest, the clock tower, the gothic library. What rescues the level design from pure pastiche is how Frontier Aja bends those spaces around Reimu's flight ability: you can bypass gaps entirely, and the game will cheekily point this out, but flying costs Soul energy you need for shooting and summoning, so every aerial moment carries a small opportunity cost. The stage layouts themselves are a genuine weak point - critics and players alike noted they can feel repetitive and short on standout moments - but the eight bosses are a different story. Each one is a Touhou character whose attack patterns explode the screen into dense bullet formations. Learning those patterns, learning when to fly through the spray versus when to ground-and-whip, is genuinely satisfying once it clicks. The balancing does wobble: some bosses are thrilling puzzles, others tip into frustration, and the difficulty settings (including an extra-easy mode added for the remaster) never quite find a perfectly smooth curve. The remaster work itself is honest. HD-reworked sprites, Banpai Akira's gothic character art now rendered with more clarity, full Japanese voice acting added for the enhanced version with a cast that reads like a prestige anime roll call, an unlockable Extra stage, a BGM gallery, and in-game challenge lists. For anyone who played the 2009 original, the additions are meaningful. For newcomers, the story - delivered in anime-style stills with English subtitles - leans heavily on familiarity with the Touhou cast. Non-fans may find themselves hovering near the skip button. The plot is thin, and the charm of the character banter lands harder if you already know these people from ZUN's games. Where Scarlet Symphony earns real affection is in its soundscape. The gothic arrangements of Touhou themes are the kind of music that sits quietly in the back of your mind for days after you finish. The pixel art in motion is fluid and considered - there is genuine handcraft in how enemies move and how spellcard patterns bloom across the screen. The whole thing runs about four hours on a first clear, with an unlockable Extra stage waiting for those who want a stiffer test. That runtime is short by modern standards, but the game has the grace to end before it outstays its welcome, and that is a quality I respect enormously. Steam reception sits at mixed, with roughly two-thirds of users recommending it - a split that tracks honestly with what it offers: high craft in a compact frame, blunted a little by uneven difficulty and level design that rarely surprises. Kai, Scout Team