Shrien the Wanderer has been getting by for decades with only the lightest of efforts at storytelling, and Rogue itself, from way back when, had virtually no story. The amusing thing is that as a Roguelike of the Mystery Dungeon ilk, Genso Wanderer didn’t even need to try to have a narrative. In short, it’s very hard to stay awake during the game’s narrative moments, even though the character design is quite gorgeous. But, since the Touhou “series” has everything from weird platformers to bullet hells, and very little cohesion between them all, it’s not a series that 99 per cent of people will ever be that invested in. If you’ve somehow managed to keep up with the loose affiliation of games under the “Touhou” banner, then you might be familiar enough with the characters and world to care when they start talking to one another for half an hour at a time. That narrative is the biggest crimp in Genso Wanderer’s style. Touhou Genso Wanderer isn’t quite the perfect portable roguelike because it has ridiculously long story bits, but for the most part, when you’re on the train looking to kill 20 minutes, it’s much more tempting to reach for this game than, say, Octopath Traveler, also released this week. You’ll jump from one dungeon level to the next in a matter of minutes, and that makes it ideal as a pick-up-and-play experience. These games have relatively limited gameplay loops, and tend to move quite briskly. Roguelikes – and I mean proper roguelikes, like Mystery Dungeon games, not the nonsense “roguelites” that every indie gave gets called these days if it has a random element in it – work better on handhelds. Thankfully, I’m here reviewing the Nintendo Switch version, and it has been well worth the second dip. To make this more clear if you’ve already played the original on PlayStation 4, you don’t need to play the Reloaded edition. There’s some light touch improvements here and there, and the “Reloaded” edition offers more characters, story events, and all the DLC, but to suggest this is somehow a remaster or “improvement” on the original game is pushing the boundaries on the terminology a little. I like Touhou Genso Wanderer Reloaded even more, even though I’m not convinced the “Reloaded” is more than a “Complete + Nintendo Switch port” edition. Related reading: Our review of the original Touhou Genso Wanderer on PlayStation 4.
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