Gensokyo Defenders- Switching It Up
by: Blue Rizing
The hype is real as Neetpia has released Gensokyo Defenders for the Nintendo Switch!
Shrine maidens, fairies, war games…what more could a girl ask for?
Gensokyo Defenders is a tower defense game, which I personally already have a weakness for, but Neetpia has taken that a few steps further. The game is set in the fantasy world of Gensokyo with several familiar faces of traditional Touhou characters. (That much, I had to look into as this is my first time playing any of their games.)
Games like Gensokyo Defenders intrigue me because I have a fondness for anything that makes me actually use my brain, not that mindless games don’t have their own appeal, but this game is far from one of those. My main strategy usually involves finding a tactic that I can exploit and going from there. The battles get more intense, but the overall strategy tends to remain the same for me…not the case here.
You have the typical traps that you unlock and can upgrade as time progresses. Battles earn you points for upgrades that might do things such as lower the cost or reset times. As you progress, you learn that each stage exploits which traps are more effective for each stage. Gensokyo Defenders allows you to use that to your advantage though as you can reset the trap points at will and put those towards upgrading other traps. Every enemy discovered reacts differently, which you don’t really discover until encountering them and I’ve found myself having to reset upgrades in a trial and error kind of way to figure out which ones were the most useful for each particular battle.
On top of this, the stages change in such a way that enemies spawn from multiple points as you progress and you have to learn where protection is needed the most. To add to the chaos, you have to learn to use your character’s spell cards and attacks in the most efficient way because strategizing traps alone will never be enough to protect yourself and your base.
You read that right; utilizing your traps won’t win you the game. Your playable character is right in the middle of the heat of battle. You don’t get to just set up your plan of attack and hope for the best. Gensokyo Defenders is constantly making you change tactics dependent on how the battle is progressing and keeping you on your toes. If that wasn’t enough for you, the chatter and banter through progression makes it more than worth it, even on its own.
Ending thoughts: Gensokyo Defenders can be extremely frustrating in a “throw your Nintendo Switch across the room” kind of way, but only because you have to actually use your brain in order to succeed and that more than makes up for the fury of losing a few battles to learn, in my opinion.