Review: Touhou Spell Carnival (2025)

Developers: Compile Hearts, Sting Entertainment

Publishers: Compile Hearts, Idea Factory

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4/5 (Reviewed)

Review code provided by Publisher (Idea Factory)

Touhou is not a series I am familiar with at all. Doing some research, there are a lot of entries in the series dating back to 1997 including 19 games in the main series and 13 spin offs. I’m not the largest fan of bullet-hell games but when I saw the gameplay for Touhou Spell Carnival mixes some tactical RPG elements with some of its traditional gameplay, I knew I had to give it a try.

Having no prior knowledge of the characters or previous Touhou games, I found myself a bit lost, especially when it came to the story. Honestly, I couldn’t really get into it. However, the general premise is as follows: a Spell Carnival is being held in a mystical land called Gensokyo. This event draws in numerous characters, each with a rich history and wielding Spell Cards. The protagonist, Reimu, is a shrine maiden who enters the competition to acquire these Spell Cards and uncover the reason behind the carnival’s creation. The game unfolds over 30 in-game days, during which you’ll battle other characters. As you progress, defeated opponents join your roster of playable characters, helping you advance toward winning the Spell Carnival.

The story follows a straightforward premise, one that fans of the series may enjoy more than I did. It’s not that the story is bad or uninteresting—it just didn’t resonate with me personally. This might partly stem from how the narrative is presented, unfolding in a visual novel format with Japanese voice acting and English subtitles. On the bright side, the story segments are relatively brief, typically lasting around five minutes before transitioning to a battle, which feels more manageable compared to some recent games with longer cutscenes.

The battles are where Touhou Spell Carnival truly shines. Each stage lets you assemble a team from your roster of characters to face off against AI-controlled opponents. Each character comes with unique abilities and skills, enabling a diverse array of attacks, status effects, and special actions. These range from straightforward moves, like homing bullets, to more elaborate techniques, such as firing 64 bullets in intricate angles and patterns. Naturally, the more advanced skills come with higher costs and varying damage modifiers, requiring you to choose abilities that align with your preferred playstyle.

To use these abilities, you’ll rely on a refilling gauge that accumulates points, which you then spend to execute different attacks. This introduces a layer of cost management to the gameplay, adding depth to your strategy. With a team of up to six characters at your disposal, battles can quickly become chaotic and thrilling as you juggle strategies, abilities, and team synergy.

Another thing you will have to manage is your character’s placement and movement around the battlefield. As you are casting your abilities, enemies will also be attacking you as well. The battlefield is basically like a chess board that all the characters are moving around in real time and you will need to avoid projectiles and traps on the ground as you are trying to line up your attacks as well. Luckily, there are some things that can help you navigate the battlefield and cast your spells with a bit more ease. Quickly double tapping your attack button will automatically cast all character’s first abilities in their line up if they have the points to do so. Double tapping your movement button will move all characters to the area you want them to go. To be honest, I mainly played the game in this way as there was simply too much going on to individually manage each character all the time. It will be necessary for you as the player to manage these systems well in order to progress further in the carnival.

Lastly, upon killing enemies in the battle they will drop power up crystals that will either give you more Ace Card charge or recharge your bombs. Ace Cards are more powerful abilities that use up a group pool of points in order to cast them. They are much stronger abilities and have the tendency to be absolute game changers with things get tough. There were times that I saved up so many of those spells to then mass cast those abilities to save myself from losing and seeing so many bullets cover the battlefield at once was pretty awesome. Each character has their own Ace Cards and they do a wide variety of things so reviewing new ones that you get is key. For the bombs, those are more easily explained, much like every bullet hell game that I have ever played, these bombs will clear out the map of all bullets and do a minor bit of damage to all enemies on the field.

As you beat each level, your characters will level up and receive new abilities and powers that will help you progress and make sure you change out your top ability to something stronger or more useful for your composition so you aren’t just casting your basic attack on the double tap attack. I went the longest time without changing it and was getting wrecked later on in the game. Once I remembered that I could change that attack it made much more sense in terms of progression. Also you will be graded for your performance on the stage, things such as speed, how much damage you took, how many Ace Cards you used, and bombs that you used will all count towards your overall score. You can replay the levels to try and get better grades at any time.

Characters can not only be customized with their cards, they can also get equipment as well such as weapon, accessories, and armor. These can either be bought, or obtained at the end of each battle and provide a wide range of upgrades for your characters. Equipment can impact your overall health, defense, movement spend, recharge spell, and attacks. There are even character specific weapons that will help out as well and provide unique abilities to those characters.

Overall, Touhou Spell Carnival turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I wasn’t sure how they would blend bullet-hell mechanics with RPG elements and strike a balance, but they managed to pull it off. Fortunately, the game offers difficulty levels that make it easier to experience the story without getting stuck replaying challenging levels repeatedly. However, for me, the real highlight was embracing the challenge. My enjoyment came from overcoming the difficulty, mastering my characters’ moves and abilities, and optimizing my team composition.

This game is an easy recommendation for fans of either bullet-hell or RPG genres. However, the setting and story might be a hurdle for players who aren’t already familiar with the series or who aren’t particularly fond of visual novel-style storytelling.