Fantasy Maiden Wars is a new Touhou fan game that’s going to be released on Steam on 21 Oct, 2025. It’s sort of a tactical RPG where you lead characters in grid-style battles. You can mess around with skills, spell cards, and other stats that will boost your character.
Recently I’ve wanted to do a series where I test a certain amount of indie games on a weekly basis and highlight the ones I like the most. While I was planning on how to do it, an email popped up and they were asking me to check out the game. Talk about coincidence. So I thought, why not? It would be a great start to it.
Touhou Fan Game
Before we move onto the gameplay, you might be wondering what a Touhou fan game is?
A Touhou fan game is basically a community-made project set in the Touhou universe, which started as a long-running series of bullet-hell shooters from Japan. The fanbase is massive and creative, so over the years people have made everything from RPGs and fighting games to rhythm and puzzle spin-offs, all inspired by Touhou’s characters and lore. Think of it as a playground where fans reimagine the series in totally different genres while keeping that same quirky cast and vibe.
Now you’re probably wondering, isn’t that wrong? Are they even allowed to do that? Wouldn’t the creator of Touhou sue them?
Touhou is kind of unique because its creator, ZUN, has always been super open to fan projects. As long as people don’t try to pass them off as official or do anything shady, he’s cool with fans making and even selling their own games, music, and art based on Touhou. That’s why the series has such an amazing amount of fan content compared to most other franchises, the community basically has ZUN’s blessing to keep experimenting and expanding the universe in their own way. Which is absolutely cool if you ask me.
Gameplay
Fantasy Maiden Wars demo gameplay lasted about one hour and that included me getting familiar with the game, controls, and rest of it. Since I only played the demo, I’ll refrain myself from talking about the story or being too judgemental.
I’ve played three chapters so far and each chapter has its own unique map. And in each map you start on one side of a map and enemies on other. Each turn you get to move a certain amount of squares before you reach enemies. Once you do, that’s where you get an option to attack them, use buffs, or heal if you got that option. Each of the characters have their respective stats like HP, MP, mobility, armor, and weapon that you can improve as you progress deeper into the game. To be able to upgrade, you’re going to need points that you get from fights. Those are the basics about the battle system, it probably will expand once the full game releases.
Controls
Now, onto the things that need to be addressed. Firstly, the controls of the game need to be fixed/improved. Once you’re in the game and you want to start playing, you either press enter or click on a start button. Which I did and it didn’t work.
I thought I needed a controller so I plugged it in and when that didn’t work, I was totally baffled. After pressing almost all of my keys on the keyboard, I discovered that you need to press “z” in order to start. I’m not saying to change to something logical but at least make it clear somewhere on the screen what to press.
This is a small UI tweak that helps with the first impression. Secondly, this is also kinda connected with the first, they need to have keybinding settings implemented. There were a couple of controls that I just couldn’t figure out what they’re for and I would’ve loved it if I could change it to make my life easier.
Before you get offended, there’s no hate on the game on my part. It’s a great start and whether this issue is related to demo only or the full game, I still would love to see it addressed. It’s something that would help with better reception and later the success of the Fantasy Maiden Wars.
Conclusion
While I did enjoy my playthrough of the Fantasy Maiden Wars – Dream of the Stray Dreamer, like I said, there’s still a couple of things that I would love to see fixed before the official launch. Which I’m sure they’ll do. Until then, make sure to stay tuned because there’s even more indie games reviews coming.
Pavle is the founder of PlayForge and its lead writer and reviewer, covering PC, PS5, and mobile games, a with a focus on RPGs, MMOs, FPS games, and more. He’s been gaming since the PS2 days and now writes in-depth reviews and guides to help players find their next obsession and get gaming insights from real players, not just critics. His reviews are honest and transparent, but he always tries to stay positive, because in his opinion, almost any game can be fun if you look at it the right way.
In his free time, he likes to (obviously) play more games, spend time with his family, theorycraft about various media with his wife, and watch anime. So yes, he’s a complete nerd, even if he’ll never admit it.