Okay, so Touhou Puppet Play is basically what happens when someone takes Pokémon’s monster-collecting formula and slaps a Touhou skin on it—but somehow, it works way better than it has any right to. You start off picking your first puppet (I went with Cirno because, well, she’s Cirno), and suddenly you’re thrown into Gensokyo with this weird mix of turn-based battles and bullet hell mechanics.

The sprites are surprisingly crisp for a GBA romhack, and the battles actually require some thought—elemental weaknesses matter, but so does positioning because some attacks hit in patterns straight out of a danmaku game. At first, I kept losing to random fairies because I treated it like regular Pokémon, but once it clicks, the strategy gets addicting.

Also, the soundtrack? All Touhou remixes, obviously, but they’re rearranged to sound like they belong on an actual GBA cartridge. If you’ve ever wanted to see Reimu throw hands with Marisa in pixel form, this is your chance.