レビュー

• gamedeal user

  Aug 24, 2021

  TL;DR Labyrinth of Touhou is an isometric doujin dungeon-crawling JRPG featuring the characters of the Touhou Project series. To be blunt, it is my favorite game series ever and I would highly recommend it to JRPG fans looking for a challenge. While Touhou fans will definitely get the most out of the game, the series is extremely self-contained, so don't stress too hard if you're out of the loop. SUMMARY Don't let my seemingly pathetic amount of playtime fool you - I have well over 500 hours clocked in the Labyrinth of Touhou series. Between the original PC releases on DLsite and the Nintendo Switch port on the Japanese eShop, this is a game series extremely near and dear to my heart. Being consistently updated and fine-tuned over the course of eight long years, Labyrinth of Touhou 2 has finally made its exciting debut to Steam in HD courteous of the Japanese doujin developer 3peso. The gameplay loop comprises of three main components: dungeon-crawling, combat, and building your team. Being an isometric party-based dungeon crawler, Labyrinth of Touhou is quite accessible to those unfamiliar with the genre. Though the dungeon design isn't nearly as mechanically complex as some of its peers, the game more than makes up for that with its thoughtful and visually appealing dungeon design. Puzzles are intuitive and fun to think through, while a variety of hazards will keep you on your toes. Finally, the TP system cleverly encourages players to be efficient in combat in order to prolong their dungeon explorations. The combat in Labyrinth of Touhou 2 is notably fast-paced. Utilizing a unique, turn-based take on the ATB system that Final Fantasy popularized, battles can be fought in a myriad of creative ways. As a result, fights feel complex and you'll rarely approach them in the same way every time, keeping combat engaging. Finally, the Challenge Level mechanic rewards players for taking on boss encounters at a fair level, encouraging skilled play. Thankfully, the teambuilding process is just as well fleshed out. Character customization is robust to the point of absurdity, encouraging players to experiment with their party members. Perhaps even better, Labyrinth of Touhou is not a game that punishes the player for committing to a choice. Allies can be completely reset at any time, further pushing the freeform nature of the game's character customization. PROS + A massive roster of 50+ characters; 12 of which can be in your party with up to 4 allies on the frontline. + A unique take on the Action Time Bar/'ATB' system, keeping battles engaging. + With over 200+ hours of content, the game is exactly as long as you want it to be. + Being entirely self-contained, even non-Touhou fans can enjoy this game. + A wonderful soundtrack that is both Japanese-inspired and heavy on the variety. + Overhauled HD visuals, featuring some truly beautiful dungeon and UI layouts. + Very charming dialogue and a lovable cast of characters, making for an entertaining story. + An impossibly high amount of video game references. Everyone will at least catch a few! + There are an insane amount of ways to customize and build your characters. + Highly challenging, yet mostly fair boss fights that are very fun to figure out. + Extremely little level grinding is required to beat the main campaign. However... + For those who enjoy insane amounts of level grinding, the post-story content is nearly endless. One unique system has repeating content that stretches up to levels in the billions. + You get to support the incredible developer. :) NEUTRAL ~ Dungeon layouts, while diverse and unique, are notably simpler than other dungeon RPGs. ~ The sheer amount of systems and mechanics at play can potentially overwhelm newcomers to the genre. + Despite these setbacks, LoT2 is the video game that got me hooked on dungeon crawlers. The memorable areas, incredible background music, and gameplay depth kept me consistently invested during all of my playthroughs. CONS - The second half of the game has some very tangible balancing issues. A number of areas feel either too easy, or far too difficult. This is especially true with some boss battles. - Quite a few characters end up either very underpowered or overpowered relative to each other, although most of them are completely viable for playing through the game normally. - Maintenance is a horribly broken skill that doubles stat boosts gained from equipment. - Toward the final parts of the game's content, the player is expected to level grind too much for my liking. CONCLUSION Need I say more? This is only my second year following the Labyrinth of Touhou games, but if my intuition is right, those numbers are only going to keep on rising. It is not only my favorite Touhou fangame and doujin work, but my favorite video game series of all time. The incredible music, the silly character interactions, the atmospheric dungeons, the thrilling boss encounters - I could go on forever about this series. If you have even the slightest interest in JRPGs, dungeon crawlers, or Touhou Project, do yourself a favor and commence your journey into the Great Tree at once! MISC. NOTES An English fan translation is available for this game. However, the community is currently working things out since the Steam version has likely changed a number of parameters. While I am merely a passionate fan and not an actual member of the translation team, I do follow the community closely and ask that others be patient while the kinks are being worked out. Developer's Website: https://n-e-studio.com/ Major Update/Edit - English support is finally here, so go nuts everyone! ^^
• gamedeal user

  Nov 5, 2021

  Do you like Etrian Odyssey? Do you like Touhou? Do you like not being punished for dying? Play this. It's a great, chill time.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 23, 2023

  The fame of Labyrinth of Touhou as one the finest games inspired in Etrian Odyssey lives on, after my initial hours. They have taken the essence of Atlus games, greatly expanding the best elements. Beginning with the difficulty, the default level is Hard, and this is much more harder than any Etrian Odyssey entry, even playing in Expert. Be ready to spend hours to take down any of the bosses or FOES, by carefully creating a party to exploit their weakness, changing the character's equipments for each battle. An it makes the brilliant design decision of showing in the map the level of each boss. If your level is above the marked number, you can't fight the main bosses. And the optional bosses won't drop items if you're over-leveled. When you're in the town, there's an option to temporary lower your level. This make of every combat a brutal challenge, based on strategy, in which every command matters. It also does really well the part of exploration, creating layouts full of sense of wonder. Interesting gimmicks in the dungeons, a lot of optional routes in each level to try to recruit every secret character, including a lot of backtracking to the early levels. Without a guide, it's quite fascinating trying to find every secret by yourself. And the icing on the cake comes with the extra post-game content, including an infinite roguelike mode with procedural generated dungeons, which is something that as an Etrian Odyssey fan I have always dreamed of. The game runs out of the box in the Steam Deck, playing great with a game controller. It looks fantastic on the Steam Deck screen, with readable text and great battery life. Giving that the Switch version wasn't translated to English, this is one of the best JRPG exclusives. Justifying alone the purchase of a Steam Deck.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 24, 2021

  EDIT: As of 10/13, the game is translated to English, so go and play it! + Tenshi is playable + Great visual and audio design + Intricate combat system with a lot of potential character combinations (56 characters total, party size is 12 with 8 in the back and 4 active characters in the front) + Amusing dialogue and pandering between characters while still being true to the canon personalities + Characters are mostly balanced well enough that you can just use your favorite character(s) the entire game + Tenshi dual-wielding swords + Extremely high amount of farming possible, especially in the post game areas + An actually infinite post game area to farm in + Tenshi is playable
• gamedeal user

  Oct 18, 2021

  WIll Update this as I play more, because this game is incredibly deep, and has an insane amount of content. I have no idea what Touhou is, nor do I still really. It's anime shrine maidens, and some not shrine maidens as well. Whatever. I don't really like SHMUPs, but i do LOVE DRPG's, specifically the etrian odyssey series. I've played so many other DRPGs, but none of them even come close to the complexity that comes with the team building and fun combat that etrian has, and instead usually rely on being half a visual novel to supplement the less then stellar gameplay mechanics, which is fine imo, but these games just aren't as good as EO. There is where this game comes in. I saw some mention it was similar to EO and that it was finally officially released in english, so I just decided to pick it up, and refund it if I felt like it was too low budget, or I was confused/lost about the world and characters. I'm only about 14 hours in so far, and only on the fifth floor, but this game is insanely fun, and easily rivals EO in its complexity and team building. You don't need to understand the Touhou universe, as the story in this game is mostly non-existent and very self-aware. I (think) this is a fan game technically, but regardless, it's amazing. Instead of creating characters there are an insanely large roster of characters you recruit with their own class. You can further customizae these characters with subclasses, but I haven't really gotten into that yet, so I won't touch on it here. Even without touching on this aspect though, the customization is already incredibly deep. You travel with a party of 12 into the dungeon, and the synergies and strategies you can pull off with these characters is already so interesting this early in. Bosses are challenging and require the right units and equipment to beat, even this early on. I'm not that far in, but this game is fantastic, if you're a fan of EO, you'll love this game. If you enjoy games with high levels of customization, big numbers (max level is 12,800 for instance), infinitesque replay value, etc. this will be something you like. Half this game is just sitting in menu's, tweaking your characters stats and equipment and skills, and I love every second of it. For the amount of content you get in this, it's also a great price point. Don't be scared off by the fact it's from a weird series you don't know about, or that it looks kind of low budget. This game is easily worth every penny and I'm so glad someone recommended it to me.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 29, 2021

  I adored this game. Anything to boost this title in the eyes of the Steam discovery algorithm. You do not need to know anything about the Touhou universe to play this game. This is my first Touhou game, and while I'm sure I'm missing some things on character interactions, you'll be able to follow the plot and everything. However; the plot takes a backseat to the dungeon crawling and combat. Majority of your time will be spent building characters, mapping out floors, and fighting. This is where the game shines. Labyrinth of Touhou has to be one of the most mechanically complex dungeon crawlers I've encountered. You can unlock up to 50 something characters, all with their own unique skills and damage formulas for their abilities. In addition, they can all be given subclasses and the Plus Disk adds even more options for character building. This allows for a massive amount of customization in filling out the 12 person party (4 front line, 8 reserve). The combat is turn-based and based on speed - however, there are no items - so boss fights can turn into a very MP oriented balance, as well as swapping a character in for a few turns and swapping them out. It is very engaging and tactical. I was able to kill all the bosses up to the post-game plus disk content by altering my strategy without ever needing to grind and always killed them at or below the recommended level. Some of the bosses in the post-game plus disk content were far ahead of me stats/level wise upon first encountering them which is the only part where I ever felt like grinding a bit was necessary. There’s tons of floors with different enjoyable puzzles, although the Sokoban puzzle made me want to bash my head into the wall. Great music, not just for the boss encounters, but also the ambient music for all the different floors. Really just a phenomenal package here for the price. If you’re looking to do all the content, easily upwards of around 150+ hours and I loved nearly all of it. My two negative would pretty much be the following: The information on the damage formulas for all the different spells is not available in game and you will need to consult the wiki. Luckily, the wiki is very in depth, but I always wish for this information to be present in game. The Infinity Corridor in the Plus Disk is pretty boring. You get a boss fight every ten floors, but most of them are reskins of their heaven counterparts and the unique boss fights are too far inbetween. You could ask why I just didn’t skip it, but the Infinity Corridor is mandatory for accessing parts of certain floors as well as for unlocking new abilities for your characters.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 1, 2021

  Dungeon Crawling ✅ Touhou ✅ F.O.E.s ✅ Death ✅
• gamedeal user

  Oct 15, 2021

  As of yesterday, I can finally fully recommend the Steam version of Labyrinth of Touhou 2. Before then, the Comiket release of 2013 had been the definitive way to play for any westerner. But now that everything with turning the english fan-translation into the official one worked out, the new Steam version is perfectly viable. Labyrinth of Touhou 2 has been known as one of the most relevant Touhou fangames for years. It is an extremely deep and challenging RPG with exciting dungeon-crawling and some of the best designed boss encounters I've ever seen. You have a huge character roster of 55 Touhou girls and 1 Touhou boy to recruit, so your top favourites are pretty certain to make an appearance. Not only is the gameplay great, but this title also doesn't mistake being complex and involving with being unnecessarily archaic: Wiping in the dungeon loses you no progress, only your current money/experience/droprate multiplier. If you've made a mistake in a character's build or a situation simply forces you to reassign their skillpoints, you can do that with no penalty whatsoever. Apart from that, Labyrinth of Touhou 2 looks good and sounds good. It even has a better, more serious story than its predecessor, especially during its expansion. While Labyrinth of Touhou 1's expansion actually joked around that there's no point for the Gensokyans to even be dungeoneering anymore, the story here actually peaks at around the 25th floor. Lastly, not only is LoT 2 really fun, but it's fun for a very, very long time. To see absolutely everything, about 300 hours are required. That might sound like too much of a good thing, but it never grew stale for me. Overall, it's a must-play for any Touhou and/or RPG fan.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 10, 2021

  One of the greatest and most mechanically deep/rewarding dungeon crawlers ever produced; bar none. While the interface and navigation are relatively simplistic, the staggering level of content and customization present are no joke and a testament to the development team's passion. I've clocked 600 hours in the Windows version of the game across its updates and I still can't say I've "done it all", and with the game's impressive roster of characters (with a wide variety of sub-classes for everybody) there are always new synergies and strategies to try out. Keeping this review brief for the moment, this is just a brilliant game and a testament to what can be accomplished when no time is wasted on trying to reach frivolous technological milestones in game development or cynically aping what "worked for everybody else" and instead maintaining a laser-focus on delivering what matters in their own style. Congratulations to Nise-Eikoku-Shinshidan on their console and Steam releases. I wish them continued success.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 13, 2022

  As has been said in countless other reviews, if you like Etrian Odyssey even a bit, you should buy this. This game has the best and most fun turn-based combat mechanics I've ever seen in a JRPG/dungeon crawler. It uses an ATB system combined with swapping party members in/out to adapt to the situation at hand. You have 4 "active" members that can perform actions/take hits/receive buffs with 8 members in reserve for a total party size of 12 members. If all active members die you lose the fight. Each character has a limited set of moves and passives that often leave a few gaps in their gameplan. In this sense, your party of 12 becomes a wildly versatile toolbox that you can adapt on the fly. And as the game gives you more characters to choose from, you get more freedom in how you design this toolbox of yours to tackle the challenge at hand. (Once you've beaten the game you can play through the game with all party members unlocked, which adds a lot of replay value) Most of the fun comes from constructing your 12-girl (or 11-girl and 1-man)-party, and seeing if the party can execute the plan you had in mind. This is without even taking into account the amount of customization you can do on each character's stats, levels and equipment as well as the subclass system which can slightly expand each character's options. The main draw here are specifically the boss and FOE fights which require increasing amounts of strategy and party optimization. Almost every boss fight (assuming you fight them at/below the recommended level) is like a small puzzle and they're incredibly fun. Random encounters mostly come down to outspeeding monsters and hitting them with AoE moves they're weak to. Luckily animations and transitions are fast, and you can even force encounters to make grinding a breeze. The story is nothing to write home about, but the dialogue is very entertaining (and very meta at times). Prior experience with the Touhou universe is not required but does make some jokes/relationships easier to understand. Good character art, good music. The actual act of exploring the dungeon is very basic, but it's fast and on occasion has some interesting switch and teleport puzzles. My only two critiques are some of the postgame content being horribly imbalanced and/or grindy if you're going for 100%. And the other critique being that it's borderline impossible to unlock all characters/bosses without the help of an external guide. Some of the unlock requirements are not made clear to the player at all, so you either fulfill the requirements by dumb luck or by using a guide. Luckily the Touhou Wiki has a fantastic page with all the info you could possibly need and I highly recommend you use it.