Last month, Touhou Genso Wanderer – Foresight came to consoles and we were there to check it out.
I haven’t played any games in this series before, but it caught my attention because, well, to be truthful, it looked cute. And I always have time to check out a cute RPG with numerous dungeons to explore and fight through.
Touhou Genso Wanderer -Foresight was originally released for Steam, but it finally came to consoles in September 2024. For this review, I played the game on the Playstation 4.
Touhou Genso Wanderer – Foresight
Developer: AQUASTYLE
Platform: Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch (originally released for Steam)
Release Date: September 18, 2024
The game sees the player take control of Reimu Hakurei, a shrine priestess in charge of Hakurei Shrine. The game begins with an interesting hook: the story starts at what appears to be an endgame boss fight, only Reimu loses and ends up at the shrine with no memory of the previous combat.
From there the game sees Reimu learning, or possibly re-gaining, a variety of combat skills, all of which can be utilized in the numerous dungeons players encounter throughout the game.
I need to offer up an apology actually as I grossly underestimated this game at first. The tutorial dungeon and the first couple you encounter after that aren’t terribly difficult to get through. As a result, I found myself wondering if this was one of those games that are amusing to get through but not terribly challenging. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I do like some difficulty factor in the games I play.
This notion didn’t last long, as I quickly encountered a dungeon that almost immediately annihilated me and kicked me back to the Hakurei shrine area, which is where you will end up if your team wipes out during a dungeon mission. To my surprise, the difficulty in this game ramps up fairly quickly, which means if you want to continue the story, you’ll have to be very strategic in how you approach dungeons. Or, as I ended up doing, you can also revisit earlier dungeons and level up your character to raise your stats. Either approach will get the job done.
Outside of the difficulty ramping up, the basic gameplay is fairly straightforward, though I did find myself struggling with controlling the direction the character aimed its attacks. To be fair, it wasn’t clear if that was an issue with the game or an issue with my PS4 controller, so take that with a grain of salt.
One detail I did have definite problems with, at least in the beginning, was accessing the menu where one can go through inventory and other necessaries during gameplay. The UI for this game felt unusual and I missed being able to open up the inventory by hitting the touchpad as I’ve been able to do in other games. Also, I wasn’t a big fan of the “Hunger” gauge, as I didn’t like the extra level of stress it added to gameplay.
All that being said, Touhou Genso Wanderer – Foresight really is fun to play. It’s a fun challenge to start a dungeon and work through each level, seeing if it’s possible to reach the final boss fight before the enemies become too overwhelming.
If you like a slightly more casual gameplay, this is the game for you. Touhou Genso Wanderer – Foresight is currently available on Steam and for the Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch.
