Touhou Project, the cult classic series of hauntingly beautiful and brutally difficult shoot-em-ups from Team Shanghai Alice, will finally be making its way to Western shores with the release of Touhou 14: Double Dealing Character.

The latest Touhou game will be published on PC in English by Playism. Playism is a publisher and distribution platform that specializes in assisting indie developers with localizing their English games to Japanese, and vice versa.

Much like previous Touhou games, Double Dealing Character follows ghost-exterminating shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei and greedy treasure-hunting witch Marisa Kirisame as they defend the land of Gensokyo from those who would upset its natural balance. Joining them this time is recurring character Sakuya Izayoi, a probably-human maid who can manipulate time and throw knives with deadly precision.

Players will choose one of these three characters and accompany them through six stages of intense shoot-em-up action, weaving through beautiful patterns of enemy bullets and striking back with an equally impressive rate of fire. To get an idea of how it works, check out the brief gameplay trailer below:

While Playism’s announcement didn’t mention a release date, it did say that the game would be available on Playism’s English store “sooner than you think.”

My Opinion:

Well, this is a pleasant surprise! I’ve been following the Touhou Project series for several years and imported a couple of the games, but it’ll be great to finally have an official English localization for the series going forward. Not to mention a place for us Westerners to buy the game in the first place! The Touhou games that I have played are easily my favorite shoot-em-ups, so I definitely look forward to picking this one up as soon as I can.

Aaron Dobbe is an Associate Writer at MONG specializing in Nintendo but playing a bit of everything else too. Follow him on Facebook and pester him to get a Twitter.