YMMV / Touhou Kaeidzuka ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View

• Breather Boss:
  • Ironically, Reimu, who is usually a Goddamned Boss, can become this in Komachi and Eiki's campaigns, where she takes over as penultimate or final boss respectively. It's not that she isn't difficult, but compared to the bosses she's replacing, she's much less overwhelming to deal with.
  • Yuuka is often considered the easiest of the late game bosses. In most campaigns she appears in (such as Cirno or Lyrica), she replaces the much harder Komachi. This placement also sandwiches her between Eiki, the tough as nails Final Boss, and either Aya, who takes a while to go down and uses the sheer speed of her attacks to eventually corner or snipe you, or Medicine, who hinders your movement and visibility with her poison clouds. By comparison, Yuuka doesn't really have any gimmicks beyond the sheer size of her flower bullets, and her spells are relatively simple. She's not a pushover, but she's much more straightforward than the aforementioned bosses.
• Broken Base: Extra Mode. Some players dislike it for its sudden death dynamic, very punishing nature and the opponents becoming immune to Medicine and Aya's A.I. Breaker gimmicks, while others love it and may even prefer it to the default mode of play because of its high stakes and more dynamic, fast-paced nature making for shorter playthroughs.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • In PvP, the skill gap required for a low tier character to defeat a high tier character can be massive, which means that in serious competitive play, you'll only really see the same five characters: Marisa, Reimu, Youmu, Eiki and Komachi. Occasionally you might see Lyrica, and once in a blue Moon someone will play Medicine, but don't count on it.
  • In addition to the above, Reisen and Mystia tend to draw out PvP games for too long due to their heavily defensive game plan, especially in a Mirror Match, resulting in almost no one ever wanting to play them.
  • Competitive matches are virtually always played on Misty Lake due to its simple and clean-looking background minimizing visibility issues, and its blue color scheme which easily accommodates colorblind players.
• Contested Sequel: To Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, the previous versus shmup in the series. Some players prefer this game due to charges level 2 and above doubling as a Smart Bomb instead of having a conventional bomb stock as well as for the existence of focused movement and the addition of Extra Mode, while others dislike it for the bad visibility of spirits, unwieldy scopes of some characters (especially Sakuya) and the existence of Lily White as a Recurring Boss.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Some neurodivergent fans think Komachi isn't actually lazy, but instead has executive dysfunction. The implication that Eiki hasn't fired her because she's incredibly efficient when she actually does her job helps this interpretation.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: Even players who hate this particular game, some of whom pretend it was never made, still acknowledge and like the plot and the characters introduced here.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Yuuka's Palette Swap, which has her dressed in blue, is sometimes dubbed "Bluuka" by fans.
  • Lily White is called "Lily Black" by fans when she wears her black dress, first seen in this game during the fight with the Final Boss.
• Fanon: Many fans treat "Lily Black" (Lily White in a black dress) as a separate character from Lily White.
• Fanon Discontinuity: A more gameplay-focused than story-focused case of this; players who dislike this game's mechanics often pretend it doesn't exist, and don't count it in their quest to beat every game in the series, but may acknowledge the characters and story in themselves and indulge in the soundtrack.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Medicine and Aya, thanks to their A.I. Breaker EX-Attacks. They especially trivialize the whole game in lower difficulties. This stops applying in Extra Mode due to the bosses being completely immune to damage before their timers run out.
  • To a lesser degree, Eiki. She doesn't exactly have any single-handedly broken traits like Medicine or Aya do (albeit her boss attack's laser does have the potential to be an A.I. Breaker), she just has outstanding stats all over that make it much easier for her to maneuver, deal with bosses and get out of sticky situations. Furthermore, she doesn't have to fight Eiki; instead, her final boss is Reimu, who, while tough in her own right, is much less overwhelming to go against.
  • While solid but not overpowered in Story Mode, Marisa is considered this in PvP. Her special perk is to fill up her gauge faster, meaning she'll constantly have more spells ready, her laser is strong enough to speedkill Lily and handle bosses in a pinch and can be swept across the screen for crowd control, her high movement speed lets her maneuver with ease and helps with the aforementioned sweeping motion, and her EX-Attacks constantly restrict the opponent's movement.
• Goddamned Boss:
  • Marisa is unlikely to actually kill you outside of Lunatic or Extra Mode (where almost everyone is a legitimate threat anyway), since she shows up early to mid-game, but her EX-Attacks that shoot lasers at your back will likely score hits against you, and put you in very tight spots when you do dodge them, making the fight stressful.
  • Reimu can be similarly annoying due to her yin-yang orbs which are difficult to read, and the longer the fight goes, the more likely she is to spam them. Fortunately, like Marisa, she shows up early enough to make for a very doable fight, unless you play as Komachi or Eiki, where she takes their respective places as penultimate or final boss.
  • Lily can be a bit annoying with her dense danmaku, but this is usually not as bad as it looks, albeit it can be stressful combined with other bullets. She's also difficult to take out before she leaves the field, especially if your character isn't someone like Marisa or Yuuka with a strong Charged Attack. She graduates from this to a legitimate threat when she appears at the worst possible time, such as when Eiki just cast a level 4 spell.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In this game, Eiki lectures the character so that they can change and not be sentenced to go to hell. Then later works down the line reveal that: a) reaching Heaven is currently no longer an option and b) not everyone who resides in Hell is malicious, both of which make her efforts feel pointless.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Sakuya. Her stats are overall unremarkable, and her movement speed is too fast when focused and not fast enough when unfocused, leaving her unfit for both macro and micrododging. To make things worse, her scope is a pain to control, and will often activate spirits without the player noticing until the spirit turns into aimed bullets that the player must dodge along with everything else. While there are other characters that are lacking options, Sakuya's ability most of the time actively hurts her.
• Spiritual Successor: Follows the basic gameplay formula of Touhou Yumejikuu ~ Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, being a Duel Boss-based Shoot 'Em Up.