Legend of the Demon God’s Heart Review – A Heart of Pure Garbage

Today, we turn our gaze toward the ever-churning, often bewildering ocean of the Touhou Project fan scene, a place where passion and technical prowess usually go hand-in-hand to create something truly spectacular. But then, every once in a while, we stumble upon a title that makes us wonder if the demon god in question isn’t a mythological entity, but rather the very code itself. Enter Legend of the Demon God’s Heart. It is a game that promises an ethereal journey into the depths of danmaku, but as we’re about to find out, the only thing truly hellish is the realization that early access has become a convenient rug under which we sweep every jagged edge and broken promise. Grab your tea, settle in, and let’s see if this heart is beating with life, or just suffering from a terminal case of developmental arrhythmia.

Gameplay

You start the game and you’re immediately greeted with a title screen that only consists of text. Looks like they took a cue from Touhou Meijinka ~ Song of Divine Tempest and Touhou Chouhatsuyou ~ Burgeoning Tresses of Longevity where you need to insert coins to start the game. The only thing you’ll be trying to figure out is why it’s like a locomotive going uphill in a blizzard. You can’t simply push Z to start the game; you have to push the V key to insert coins.

I’m used to playing Touhou Project games with a controller, and like Touhou: Lost Fragment of Aether (though still a good game), this game has no controller support. It’s just grand – only standard arrow keys. The controls are actually responsive without any input lag, unlike trying to steer a shopping cart with one locked wheel through a minefield. The character moves a little too fast when unfocused, but if you focus, you’ll have an easier time trying to weave through the danmaku in a glacier that moves with more urgency.

The enemy attack patterns are a chaotic, repetitive mess. The enemies don’t stop firing danmaku until they die. The main enemy just fires the same yellow wave and ring at you, while the boss enemies have their own red set of attack patterns. What’s up with the main enemies – they’re like vomiting onto the screen without any rhyme or reason. It’s like you’re praying to a god that clearly abandoned the source code long ago. Repetitive attack patterns just contribute to a sensory overload of pure unadulterated garbage. I’d rather take a silo full of pig doo-doo and dump it into the Misty Lake rather than trying to navigate the second stage. It’s inconsistent, broken, and an insult to anyone who’s ever picked up a controller.

Graphics

The graphics look fine in 16-bit and are better than seeing graphics on a TI-81 calculator during a math test. You look at the sprites, and it shows they were drawn with a mouse instead of letting a cat walk across a drawing tablet. It’s better than looking at stiffly animated sprites or watching a puppet show where Alice Margatroid fell asleep and dropped the strings.

The title screen background actually looks impressive with an autumn tree and leaves falling in front of a scrolling sky. That only constitutes half of it; the other half is just a black void of nothingness. The main game suffers the same problem, though the only difference is you’re flying through water in the clouds like in Capcom’s 194X series. I still think this would be the Misty Lake, but it can be an eyesore. Who would want to stare at this for ten hours straight than look at it for one more second? Touhou games take place in diverse landscapes, but when all you have is a lake, it’s like they took a dump on the screen and called it “art.”

The idea of having the danmaku be red and yellow over a blue background actually works, but if the water were red or yellow instead, it would be generic, neon-colored blobs that blend into each other. It’s easy to tell what’s a bullet over a glitch and won’t make you rip your eyes out and throw them in the trash. The maid is flying on a broom while lying down as if she’s flying at high speed. And once you run out of lives, she just explodes into a skeleton and a splash of blood! That’s horrible!

Don’t ask me about the GUI. All the HUD elements are just text like the game is being run through a debugger. Your score, graze, and lives, everything is just white text on a red-to-gray gradient. There’s a bar that doesn’t even fill up as you defeat enemies, collect powerups, or progress the stage. It’s a disgrace to the Touhou Project name and anyone who’s ever appreciated a decent-looking game. This part isn’t graphics; it’s a crime against humanity and looks like a game that hasn’t been finished (this is in early access, and that could explain why).

Audio

Jun’ya Ohta is practically a god of composition, known for those high-energy, trumpet-blaring masterpieces that make you feel like you’re dodging danmaku in a transcendental fever dream. So, what do we get here? It doesn’t have much of a soundtrack; the title screen music features a fast-paced driving beat with heavy synth leads and appears to be an arrangement of “Gensokyo, Past and Present ~ Flower Land” from Touhou 9: The Phantasmagoria of Flower View. While the main track is original, they at least have rhythm and soul, and respect for the source material’s musical legacy, unlike melodic sounds that come out of a garbage disposal.

Funny thing is Yuuka Kazami doesn’t even appear in this game! Did she get stuck in a microwave or something? Is her fumo stuck in a vacuum cleaner where the dust makes you hear a thin, tinny rendition of her theme? Your skull is just screaming at the walls calling for her appearance. That call doesn’t build tension but a migraine. It’s an assault that makes me want to play the game on mute while listening to a construction site.

Other Problems

Trying to call this a Touhou Project fangame is hard because it looks like it takes place in an alternate dimension far from Gensokyo, where the only inhabitants are humans and demons. Nobody you’d expect from the franchise is in the game, including characters and power-ups. There are no bosses other than the mini ones. Your main character is just a generic blonde-haired maid who looks like Alice, and all the enemies are just demons. Did the developer fall down the rabbit hole and then come back with this absurd idea? There are better Touhou Project fangames that have an ensemble of original characters as the main cast, with Touhou Kichouden ~ Mythos of Phantasmagoria 2 being one.

In terms of story, there isn’t one. It’s non-existent. You just push start and you’re in the game. No intro cutscene or dialogue boxes, not even a single line of text explaining why this generic maid is flying through a watery void and fighting demons. Is she lost? Is she on a grocery run like VIVIT from Seihou Project? Did she take a wrong turn at the Misty Lake and end up in this bargain-bin dimension? Who knows!

Even the most basic Touhou Project games give you a little back-and-forth banter between the heroine and the bosses. In here, it’s just silence. It’s like the developers forgot that characters are supposed to talk. You’re just moving from one wave of enemies to the next with all the narrative depth of a petrified log. It’s a legend without a legend. It’s like buying a book and finding out every page is blank except for a drawing on the last one. What were they thinking!? You can’t call a game a legend if there’s no story to tell! It’s just another layer of laziness.

Redeeming Qualities

I’ve been dragging this thing through the mud for the past ten minutes, but even in a dumpster fire, you might find a shiny nickel. Believe it or not, there are a couple of things that won’t make me launch my PC into the sun.

Remember that generic blonde-haired maid who suspiciously looks like Alice? She is actually drawn pretty well. She’s flying on her broom, lying down like she’s actually catching some serious wind, and it’s a decent sprite. It’s like finding a single, perfectly cooked fry in a bag of soggy, cold grease.

Let me talk about that title screen. For a game that feels like it was coded in a basement during a blackout, the opening image is actually impressive. You have this autumn tree with leaves falling in front of a scrolling sky. It’s calm, atmospheric, and almost tricks you into thinking you’re about to play something competent.

There’s credit where it’s due: the controls actually work, even though it only works on a keyboard. I know the bar is in the basement, but I’ve played games where moving left feels like a math equation. Here, the movement is responsive. There’s no input lag. It’s better than a sharp poke in the eye with a rusty needle. It shows there’s some talent buried under all that broken code and repetitive garbage.

My Verdict

What can I say about this one? It’s a mess that gives it a 4 out of 10 – a total, bottom-of-the-barrel, dumpster-diving catastrophe. It’s got the name of a legendary series attached to it, but it feels like it was programmed by someone who’s never been attached to any of the characters, let alone seen one.

You’ve got a title screen and HUD that’s just text, a coin mechanic that makes no sense in a PC or home console game, and a total lack of anything that actually makes it a Touhou game. No Reimu or Marisa, and no charm. It’s just red and yellow danmaku flying at you while you pray you see a familiar face.

The game is technically playable, the controls aren’t broken, and the title screen art is decent enough to look at for five seconds before you realize the rest of the game is set in a watery void. Playable doesn’t mean good – it’s like saying a sandwich is edible because it doesn’t have broken glass in it. It still tastes like cardboard and disappointment.

I’ve played some bad games in my time – I’ve wrestled with PacMan Survivors and Tewi Jumps Off a Mountain and Dies, and while Legend of the Demon God’s Heart isn’t the absolute worst thing I’ve ever encountered, it was close. It’s boring, repetitive, and a waste of perfectly good electricity.

It’s possible to play, but why would you? I’d rather take my chances with a hungry alligator than try to reach the third stage. Don’t try this one and go play the real games or a good fangame. To those who don’t stay away from the dark side of the scale, bad games are a crime against gaming, and I’m done with this one.

If you dare to try the game for yourself, I have the link here:
https://lu4-lovab0i.itch.io/mashinshindensetsu