Compile Heart & Sting Announce New Touhou Tactical RPG, Touhou Spell Carnival

In an interview with Famitsu, Compile Heart staff Naoto Tominaga and Hikaru Yasui announced a new Touhou tactical RPG being developed in partnership with Sting.

This conversation occurred during a discussion regarding multiple game announcements.

You can view the translated exchange below via our team’s Ryuji:

Interviewer: Let us introduce the next [title].

Yasui: The second one is Touhou Spell Carnival. As you can probably guess from the title, it is a game that combines a story woven by characters from Touhou Project with a tactical RPG system.

The characters have been transformed from the original Touhou Project, with illustrations by our designer Katsuyuki Hirano, giving the game a Compile Heart-like atmosphere. The story alternates between battles and storyline, with many characters participating in a 30-day spell card battle called Fufu Matsuri.

Interviewer: Interesting. So, although Touhou Project has a strong image as a shmup, this is a tactics RPG?

Yasui: Yes, it’s part of the tactics genre, but it features a good combination of the barrage element of shooting and tactical battles, and it also incorporates elements common in shmups, such as high-powered bombs. The battles progress in real-time, so I think you’ll be able to feel the Touhou atmosphere, even with the different genre.

Interviewer: Are you developing this by yourself [at Compile Heart]?

Yasui: No, we are developing it together with Sting cooperatively.

Tominaga: We wanted to do something different with the Touhou theme, so we came up with the concept for the project. We haven’t collaborated with Sting since Fairy Fencer F: Refrain Chord (2022). It was the same Tactics RPG, but we added some challenging elements. I hope we can continue to experiment together in the future.

Interviewer: I understand that the game is also multi-platform. When can we expect the game to be released?

Yasui: We are currently aiming for next spring. Among the five new titles we want to show today, we plan to make this the first to be released.

You can view additional details via Famitsu.