Gensokyo Night Festival Review (RinnosukeKuto)
Like many others, I am forced to review this negatively now. Why? The game has been going without updates for too long. And I don't mean just game updates. Those are stopped at October 2023, when a rough beta of stage 3 (and mind you, this would be 6 stages in total) was added via private beta (but the developer gave a code everyone can use to access it). Stage 1 and 2 are very good, the game looks pretty as it could, and it plays so well. Stage 3 is very nice, too. While there are clear portions missing (one mid-stage boss is completely absent and you only get a "Debug CharacterName" prompt (not gonna say which character just to avoid spoilers for the future?), then you proceed to another mid-boss and the stage boss. Enemies are good and fun to defeat, the bosses are cool (if a little hard, maybe?)... But that's not enough after three whole years (soon four) since stage 2 had been released. This has been for too many years in early access, especially with barely any progress. Five years in total so far... and the last three (and half, soon) of those years of development were spent on stage 3.
But, I get making games is hard, I wouldn't mind... the issue is the developer and Playism have stopped giving updates since the beta for stage 3 in October 2023. We're now in May 2024... Seven months with complete radio silence. The game developer also doesn't write anywhere anymore (his Pixiv seems gone, his Twitter has nothing past 2021...). THAT is the issue. It feels like this is dead and they simply can't say. Even IF it isn't, I'd rather rebuy this later on; and this is why the negative review. DO NOT BUY UNTIL IT'S FINISHED. The dev has gained enough money to keep the project going for sure, IF he ever will. At this point, I'm gonna see if Steam can refund me even if I've played 4 hours, because it... feels bad to have this in my library when it's completely stale and there hasn't been progress since I bought it years ago.
A pity, because it's got the potential to be a phenomenal fanmade game for the Touhou Project series.