Welcome to a New World!
Touhou Genso Wanderer – Foresight is a game by Aquastyle, set in the Touhou universe. The story follows Reimu Hakurei, who has just woken up from a mysterious battle and found her memories to have all but disappeared. Accompanied by her friend Marisa, Reimu sets off on an adventure across the land, with a rather curious sense of unease that she’s already done this all before.
Anyone who has played a Mystery Dungeon game will feel very at home with this set-up. Dungeon crawling, memory loss, partners to recruit and bosses to take down are just a few things that await you in this sprawling world. Take down your enemies and level up to challenge more powerful and dangerous foes. Fuse weapons, upgrade your shrine and invest points into the Izanagi link to specialise your skills and develop Reimu into an unstoppable force.
A Treat for the Eyes and Ears
Touhou Genso Wanderer – Foresight is a gorgeous game to look at. With a mix of chibi art style, some great full-hd splash artworks and colourful vibrant dungeons, one can’t help but feel attracted to the Touhou world and its weird and wacky characters. The majority of the dungeons feel unique and exciting to explore and each new NPC has a standout design that makes each one feel authentic and distinctive. Whether it’s vampiric maids in imposing castles, or eerie spirits under blooming violet trees, the presentation here is top-notch, making you anticipate meeting new people and finding new locations.
Keeping on topic, there’s a fantastic soundtrack here, enchanting music that’ll put your mind at ease or tense battle themes that will set your nerves alight. I never felt the need to turn my volume down even once, as the music never gets stale or boring, which is a clear sign of good pacing and well-thought-out track selection. In addition, the voice acting is bold and quirky, with each character having special expressions that help to develop their character and cause them to be even more endearing to the player.
Where did the Story go?!
Unfortunately, this is ultimately where the majority of the praise stops. To say that Touhou Genso Wanderer – Foresight is plagued by a bad story would be remiss, for in this regard there seems to be very little story at all. After making your way through the introduction and learning the mechanics, things seem to happen around Reimu, with very little explanation. Whether it’s red mist, sudden cold or a random castle appearing out of thin air, none of these seem connected and throughout the quest, we’re left wondering – what’s the point of all this?
Reimu is left to wander around solving problems for the sole reason of protecting the shrine. And while the characters you meet along the way are fun, they don’t stop the overarching feeling of pointlessness weighing down on the whole adventure. This doesn’t help when Marisa is irritatingly aloof and never answers any questions that Reimu answers. I can understand that Aquastyle wanted to tie everything together at the end, but by the time that comes, it’s difficult to rekindle the interest that we had at the beginning.
I can’t help but draw comparisons to the rest of the Mystery Dungeon franchise on which this experience is based. Let’s take, for example, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Time/Darkness, two utterly groundbreaking games released way back in 2007. These titles had a brilliant story that weaved its way through the entire adventure, full of dramatic twists and turns that kept us on the edges of our seats and kooky characters that we came to adore. It had stakes, it had character development and even (let’s be honest) made most of us shed a tear.
Touhou Genso Wanderer – Foresight does very little of this. Not once did I feel any tension in the story or that anything of value was going to be lost. It’s just a mish-mash of events with Reimu coming to save the day over and over again. Compare this to the stopping of time in the Explorers titles, the villains that double cross us and the struggles we face, to go from nothing to a revered exploration team. The difference is stark. And remember this game came out in 2007. Touhou Genso Wanderer – Foresight does little to justify its price tag compared to a little Nintendo DS game from way back when.
A Solid Foundation, Yet Lacking Polish
But before we completely melt down, let’s get into the actual gameplay. There is certainly promise here. The combat is tight and the action is fluid. There’s very little waiting around and the floors pass swiftly. However, one thing you’ll quickly notice is the sheer lack of enemy diversity. Once you’ve seen a couple of fairies with different coloured hair well… yeah it’s pretty much that for the rest of the game. Add in the bosses you’ve already defeated, who appear randomly as normal enemies and it just feels barebones. These guys may do a special attack, or may just bop you instead, but they all go down the same. Flavourless and bland.
But how about the bosses? Well, get your refined green teas ready, because it’s time to get chugging my friend. Some of these enemies, despite their great presentation, have horrible gameplay designs. Often bosses seem like more of a DPS/level check rather than something that requires a lot of strategy. More often than not you will find yourself spamming potions and medicines instead of relying on abilities. Some bosses’ attacks just deal absurd amounts of damage unless you respec or prepare very specific equipment. Part of this is great, changing your equipment, but when you need to do this every single time there is a new boss, it gets a bit tedious. This, coupled with how random your partner can be leads to some very frustrating circumstances.
Unfortunately, Touhou Genso Wanderer – Foresight can seem like more of a menu game than a dungeon crawler. Say hello to the new Izanagi system, which on paper sounds great! Loads of individual skill trees tailored around the new characters that you meet: Sign me up! But skill trees often change the way you play and interact with the world. These in comparison are just stat buffs. ‘Deal more damage to Lunar monsters’, ‘Take less damage from Vampire monsters.’ And the thing is, if you want to improve your chances against the next bosses, you ought to respec your entire skill tree every time a new enemy type comes along. This is tedium to the extreme. And add on the fact that few of the skill trees reflect the personality or attributes of the characters on which they’re based. It feels a bit tacked on.
More Foresight, Less Hindsight
Touhou Genso Wanderer – Foresight can be a lot of fun, but you have to try and ignore a lot of things that other Dungeon games just do better. Whether it’s weird translation errors in the items, hub areas feeling dull and lifeless or even the main story, this title truly feels unfinished, as though Aquastyle rushed it out to make a quick buck from the diehard Touhou fans. And that’s a shame because there’s some great potential here.
If you’re looking for a similar experience then try out Touhou Genso Wanderer – Reloaded, a grander, more polished title that fixes many of the flaws that Foresight has, despite coming out in 2018. It seems Aquastyle made too many steps back here, but that’s not to say they can’t redeem themselves in the future. Whatever the case, I’ll be paying attention to what comes next in the series.
