Take a deep breath, because Touhou Koumakyou: New Classic – the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil came to Steam on September 9, some 24 years after its original Japanese release. In the days since, it’s amassed an impressive 2,958 user reviews sitting at 98% positive, making New Classic (as I’m calling it) one of the highest-rated Steam releases of the entire year. It’s also available on PS5, Nintendo Switch, and Switch 2.
The original Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was actually the sixth game in the Touhou Project series by creator ZUN, but it was the first one made for Windows after a string of PC-98 releases. It put in a lot of work turning Touhou into an icon of underground doujin games, quickly becoming the series’ best-seller and cementing it as a pillar of Japanese shoot-’em-ups and bullet hell.
New Classic is exactly what it sounds like: a more polished version of the original game. Alliance Arts has worked to preserve the original as much as possible – so much so that New Classic “can only be purchased as part of a bundle” on Steam.
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“The price is the same, and the Classic version is included,” the studio clarifies. Classic doesn’t actually have English support on Steam, but it’s still a fascinating, fairly navigable trip through time. The base bundle is $17.99 for both games, and the pricier $24.63 bundle also includes the New Classic soundtrack.
The Steam blurb for New Classic reads: “Dodge the barrage, defeat the enemies, and brave the Scarlet Mist Incident. The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil returns with fresh music and graphics. Control the shrine maiden Reimu and the magician Marisa, weaving between bullets that fill up the screen. The soundtrack has been fully remade by ZUN.”
Touhou overall is a bit tougher to explain. The layman’s evaluation isn’t far off: a bunch of magical girls, or anime girls who’d pass as magical girls, fend off supernatural incidents in Gensokyo, sort of a mythological mirror to the real world.
For our purposes, the important thing to know is that Touhou has spawned a bunch of kickass games, several of which are also on Steam. I especially recommend Touhou Luna Nights, a 2D bullet hell Metroidvania from the immaculate Team Ladybug and in the same vein as Rabi-Ribi. I’m less familiar with it, but I believe Touhou Mystia’s Izakaya, a cute restaurant sim, is the highest-rated Touhou game on modern platforms (and is only $6 at base on Steam).
Aggregate tools like Steam250 put New Classic among the top seven best-reviewed Steam releases for the past month, and (rapidly rising) in the top 50 for all of 2026. If your company is a modern classic like Valheim (a lovely Viking survival game fresh off its 1.0 update) and a surprise hit like How to Fish (a very normal game about fishing), you’re doing pretty well.
Here are the biggest new games of 2026 and beyond.
