[東方紅魔郷 / Touhou 6] Nintendo Switch 2 New Classic Lunatic Marisa B ALL CLEAR (Score: 139,870,570)

I kinda forgot what TH6 New Classic promised on that fateful Nintendo Direct JP. I only expected the graphics remaster done by official fighting game sprite artist. Beautiful stuff. Also some remastered soundtracks. Nice stuff. Then I played it after I did a clear on the original game also ported together with this New Classic. Wait a minute. The item collection, you don't need to be at max power? The visible hitbox is very welcome, of course! But this smells... too good to be true. Feels like they have adjusted something to compensate the QoL. No, balance adjustment... My fear was proven true. New Classic... REMOVED THE ORIGINAL'S HIDDEN RANK SYSTEM AND CRANKED IT UP TO LITERAL MAXIMUM FOR THE ENTIRE RUN!!! ...THE ORIGINAL HAD A RANK SYSTEM AT ALL!? Touhou's not that hard even in Lunatic. Not a big deal. It's... kinda. You see, Touhou 6's pattern is heavy on the RNG. In particular with Sakuya and Remilia. Against random rolls, lower bullet speed means easier to read. When it's at max rank... Get it? Good luck GAMBLING! Overall I love it and kinda hate this game. Touhou 6 in New Classic is still Touhou 6. Shoot, bomb, focus shot, the usual. Surface-level movesets is unchanged. Notable changes, repeating what had been said before, are item collection point doesn't need you to be at max power and now the game shows your hitbox. The HP gauge indicators for the pattern phases are not differentiated with color, updating the interface to Touhou 7 interface. Still, Touhou. To recap what makes Touhou despite everything more popular than DDP for the wider public is even at Lunatic Touhou's resources is very kind. I think Touhou 6 is on the slightly stingier side compared to the other titles? But still plenty with a total of 6 extends. Also, if your goal is to just 1cc, BOMB! Facing a spell card and it rolled you bad RNG? BOMB! The score barely gets affected when you fail one or two spell cards in terms of score extends. Don't waste your bombs by getting hit! Graphically the backgrounds look nicer, though too bright compared to the originals at times. The side arts look great too. Certainly something ZUN can't draw himself alone. The character sprites in-game received the best boost, drawn by the sprite artist of the official Touhou fighting games. It shows. Heck, it doesn't look too different from the Twilight Frontier fighting games. Touhou 6 is better approached like a Ver 1.5. Gameplay tuning-wise not a drastic difference from the original, but different enough that the tactics that can be used in the original doesn't apply at exactly 100%. Especially when fighting the RNG-heavy segments like Sakuya and Remilia...! If you dare for a slightly spicier Touhou 6 Lunatic, go for it! Otherwise, the charm is not much different from the usual remakes. It is a functioning and competent graphics overhaul remake, at minimum. This was played on Switch 2. #stg #shmup #nintendoswitch2