Touhou Kobuto V: Burst Battle Review
By: RJ (@rga_02)
- Touhou Kobuto V: Burst Battle
- Developer - CUBETYPE
- Publisher - NIS America
- PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch
- Rating - T
There are some games you play for the sake of irony or a joke. You know those type of games. You would find them digging deep in the Steam storefront and you tell yourself, “this looks so awful, but I’ll play it anyway.” Then there are games that are so atrocious that even any sort of irony won’t be able to salvage your experience. Touhou Kobuto V is one of them.
For those who don’t know what Touhou is, it is a series of bullet hell games that has achieved cult status in both the East and West. It is actually a one-man project led by the hands of Japanese game developer, Zun. The games are notorious for being difficult. I’ve personally only played Perfect Cherry Blossom , which I recommend. The mainline games never seem to make it out west but the spinoffs do. Touhou Kobuto V is one of them, and it incorporates bullet hell game play with arena style fighting. Sounds fun, right?
That is where the fun stops. The concept of the game is more fun than the game itself.
Battling in this game is one of the most painful experiences I’ve had in a long time. I’ve seen better effort from games on addictinggames.com. The hitboxes are almost nonexistent. At times, it seems like you aren’t even hitting your enemy or vice-versa. The camera angles make it even worse as it seems to focus on useless angles during battle. Worse of all, movement during battle is very sluggish and you will find yourself frustrated throughout the whole experience.
Even if you manage to get past that, there is no rhyme or reason to battles. As you (attempt) to move around the battlefield you just shoot or cast spells hoping they hit your enemy. Which brings me to one positive point, at the least, each character in the roster has their own specialized attacks. So there was some thought and effort placed in parts of the game.
Sadly, no thought was given to how the game looks. There’s some stunning 2D artwork, but the rest of the game looks as uninspired as the battle mechanics. If you thought the environments of Neptunia games were bad, you should take a strong look at this game. By comparison Neptunia games are the Mona Lisa and this game is something you tried drawing on a used napkin at McDonald’s with a ketchup packet.
Touhou Kobuto V is bad. If you really want to experience something Touhou related just go try out the real thing. The download process is a more fun than what you would experience of this game.