Touhou Valkyrie of Phantasm Launches Steam Early Access

A new Touhou Project-inspired game has launched onto Steam’s Early Access program. Valkyrie of Phantasm is billed as a “high-speed aerial versus fighting game” involving characters from the Touhou Project games.

Check out the game’s Early Access launch trailer below.

Touhou characters like Patchouli Knowledge, Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, and Youmu Konpaku all appear in the Valkyrie of Phantasm trailer. The premise of the game sees the residents of Gensokyo acquiring special weapons called “Valkyrie Arms” – powerful sets of mecha gear that enable intense aerial attacks. Brought to Gensokyo on a mysterious meteor, the Valkyrie Arms attach themselves to the area’s most powerful inhabitants, including shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei.

Each character has a unique set of Valkyrie Arms suiting her abilities. Gameplay involves two players flying and boosting around an arena, firing projectiles and beams at each other. Similar to games like Gundam VS and Virtual On, players can lock on to each other to make it easier to aim weapons. Online play is supported, and four-player battles are planned for addition.

Developers Areazero expect Valkyrie of Phantasm to remain in Steam Early access for about another year, as testing, feedback, and adjustments are needed to ensure that all planned playable characters are correctly balanced and tuned. The Early Access version of the game offers about half of the planned story content. When complete, the full story mode will include multiple endings over more than 30 stages. The initial roster is limited to four playable characters, but via updates, the roster will be expanded to eight total.

Valkyrie of Phantasm is available on PC via Steam Early Access. 100th Black Market, the latest official Touhou Project title, recently released on Steam in Japanese.