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I play it, and I like it. It reminds me of old-arcade styled 3D games like Virtual ON and the like.
The music is pretty good, and like you said the models are done very well. Although, the changing of the pace of battle to match the song is kind of weird...I mean, in Theory it's a great idea, but in Practice it tends to throw things off a bit.

Also, the controls could be a bit more refined and responsive... I still haven't been able to fully control the Dash system properly.

The combat is pretty good though. For those that don't know, the gameplay restricts spamming of special moves, and only allows your character's most powerful Spellcards during Hi[gh]-Ten[sion] or Climax periods (these periods match up with certain points of the songs). Additionally, these can be easily dodged, so even Specials aren't gamebreakers.
The icing on the cake for me is the "reloading"/cooldowns and charging of your attacks. This puts a nice balance on combat, and like I said earlier, puts a restriction on button mashing - to be completely competent, you actually have to mix up your fighting style. Y'know, work for it.

A.I. needs work though, I think. Fighting the computer has gotten a bit boring, so until I fight against a human opponent, I can't say much else about it.

Unfortunately the net-play thus far is pretty bad for it's lag the creators themselves attest to that I can only hope that gets patched eventually but I have my doubts.

Overall I'd have to say the combat is pretty entertaining but just lacks that screen filled with bullets invoking terror that is Touhou.

I would in fact have to agree that while the implementation is a little odd the idea of pacing changing with the music was rather cool. rolleyes

One of the only gripes I have as far as combat goes is that despite characters having different moves it's hard to avoid that just circling one another and trading bullets pattern due to the way targeting and dashing works, and I just don't feel as though there is enough of a difference between the way different characters play.

You would think Youmu would be a beast in melee, until you try out Okuu with her bloody Ex-Card and damn Ninja Subterranean Sun attack.

I like playing as Youmu myself. It's pretty fun when in Climax, to stun em with Myon cannon, rush in for the 7-hit melee combo, then top the whole thing off with back-to-back Hi-Ten and Climax spellcards in quick succession.

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I think a 3D Touhou game could take pointers from the Armored Core series, specifically Armored Core 4 & Armored Core For Answer.

Here You can see a demonstration of the combat system in AC:FA. It's got speed (perhaps too much), solid controls, and a 3rd-person fixed camera with free look and passive lock-on.
Just replace the mechs with little girls in frilly dresses, the energy blades with the small handful of melee weapons found in Touhou, and the missile pods with danmaku, and boom! Instant 3D Touhou.

And, speaking from experiance, some of those missile-spammers out there really DO fill the sky with bullet hell.

Oh, I have that too. It is indeed pretty fun. Similar to playing the dragonball Z fighters for the wii, but without the wii-mote. I just need to figure out how to use all the button functions and learn how to set the controler since I have trouble reading the japanese texts. Although the j-pop music sounds pretty good and the sound efects sound pretty sync with the gameplay, but the game takes a good while to load up.

Anyone know how to fuse Sky Arena Kurenai with the first game? I looked it up and all I'm told is that I need certain things.

1. Have both games, done.
2. Both games set up with the latest patch, done.
3. Use the Matsuri patch, tried it on both games, worked on neither of them.

Reminds me of UNL, never could fuse that with SWR either.

Never mind, got it.