Touhou: New World

Touhou: New World was provided by XSEED Games and OnePR for review. Thank you!

Dive back into the world of Touhou in this fan-made bullet-hell RPG. In Touhou: New World, the boundary between Gensokyo and the outside world have been breached and now, it is up to Reimu and Marisa to discover why. Take down enemies, level up skills, forge equipment, and explore to unravel the mystery as to why the barriers have broken and save Gensokyo, the outside world, and beyond!

Touhou: New World is a fan-game made by Ankake Spa, the same team that created Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity, and while there are some improvements across the board, there are some issues that keep the game from hitting all the marks. Starting with the good, the world is vibrant and colorful with an interesting narrative. The gameplay is tight as well, offering an experience that was regularly challenging, especially at boss fights. It was also a great design to have a healing ability that only had a cooldown and didn't have limited uses. I had a good time during these moments and that's where I felt the game really shine.

Ultimately, the experience is a button-mash though, only really getting to some strategy and needing to expand your arsenal past the "X" button in boss battles. There isn't a lot of enemy variety and I can't say I am a fan of the small slowdowns whenever an enemy is hit. It got me a couple of times thinking the game was slowing down, but in reality, it was supposed to highlight the impacts. The gameplay loop is also a bit on the simple side, so if you are an avid top-down action RPG player, this may get a bit boring in the long-run.

I had an overall good experience, but I wouldn't call it essential. If you enjoy bullet-hell games and want a vibrant one with simple RPG mechanics, this will be one for you. It can be a lot of fun, especially during the boss battles, but it can feel a bid tedious outside of them. Luckily, if you do decide to play, doing so on the Steam Deck will be a good time!

Touhou: New World - Steam Deck Performance

First thing to get out of the way, Touhou: New World's graphics settings are in their own little launcher window called "Boot config", which is a serious pain. While it isn't the end of the world, having the settings integrated into the game is a night and day difference and really should be standard. I also noticed that the game can really only be played at 60 and any framerates below don't feel right.

Outside of that, playing the game can be relatively easy, especially if battery life isn't a concern. But if it is, then the recommended build will be just for you.

Recommended Build

Setting the quality to medium, SSAO off, and a TDP limit of 8, we can get a smooth 60 FPS that has a nice 12W - 15W drain, which will give around a 3 hour battery. There were some minor spots where the game dipped below, but it was primarily loading in new parts of the level and not during any specific spots of gameplay or boss battles. This was the best way to experience the game without draining your battery!

Quality Build

The game defaults to the highest settings and it can be played this way without a TDP limit! Expect drain that can go up to 21W, but if you are fine with that, then no compromises need to be made to enjoy the game at 60 FPS at the highest quality settings.

The game doesn't have 16:10 support, so there will be black bars, but it does have full controller and cloud save support. Interestingly, the game seems to use Steam Input, but it has an option in the config to enable it and labels it as experimental. This may lead to conflicts, but the biggest one I had was it didn't show when I took a screenshot, even when it did.

Conclusion

Touhou: New World is an interesting, vibrant bullet-hell that shines when you are locked in energetic, challenging combat with bosses. There are light RPG elements thrown in here to round things out, but at some points it feels a bit on the simple side. Fans of the series will enjoy this game, but avid action-RPG fans may feel this is a bit too simple. Thankfully, playing this game on the Steam Deck is quite easy to do, though having the graphics settings in its own window away from being in-game is not ideal at all.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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