Buy 東方覚醒珠（※二次創作） ～ Fan-made Virtual Autography.

You can face tank the EX boss by just shooting at the orbs that drop point items. In fact, if you try to just concentrate on the boss, you're just getting shot down by the Party Battle mechanic.

Seriously, I died about 20 times during the last phases and still won - all the tension was gone; Dying to a bullet wasn't going to game over me, and the party was already locked and loaded to destroy the opposing team. I could've left the game running on its own at that point and I still would've finished the boss, there was nothing fun about it.

This is the first time I finished an EX stage in anything related to Touhou with zero tension, and I am genuinely upset I managed to play over the two hour mark before I noticed how broken this thing is. If there was an actual life mechanic on top of everything, maybe there would've been any point to dodging, but there wasn't. So no, didn't like it.

This game exceeded my expectations. When I read the description of the game mechanics, I expected an absolute crustfest, but it turned out to actually be really fun and creative. The gacha system, while present, never gets in the way or forces you to grind any more than comes naturally from resetting in shmups, and the actually important part - the shmup - is well designed and consistently fun.
There are, however, a few gripes with the game that need to be addressed as well beside all the praise.
1.: The way resource management works here is that every time you get hit, all enemy RPG units get an extra attack on you. If your own units wipe the enemy party before they attack, you're out of trouble - otherwise you may Game Over instantly just from taking two hits against a boss. That's quite frustrating, and mitigated by the game allowing to start from any stage. The only condition to see the ending and unlock Extra is to beat stage 6, no need to start the run from stage 1. And since there's no scoring system either, there's no motivation to go for a full run, which is quite odd in a Touhou game.
2.: The game automatically saves replay data and associates it with your Steam ID. As a consequence, it's required to start the game form within the Steam client, and it will not let you past the title screen if you don't. Guess what, this doesn't work in Proton. I had to install Steam in a wine prefix to be able to play the game. That ain't good practice if you ask me.
3.: Some bullet visibility issues exist, particularly in the final pattern of the stage 6 boss where the screen becomes very, very, very cluttered with GFX. Not too uncommon in Touhou either, I guess, but still worth the mention.

So bottom line, go pick this one up if you want to; you're guaranteed to have at least one evening of good fun with it.

Editing this after the fact that I found out you can die multiple times to the final boss and still live, which goes against what I know about Touhou games. I hope the devs see this.

The game is of course still great, and if you're a very skilled player then it'll be a cakewalk for you, but I will not recommend it for anyone wanting a casual play experience, like I did.

The worst part is, very little of the new characters, themes or even stage backgrounds, beautiful as they may be, are interesting enough to maintain my interest in retrying the stages. They all seem flat and uninspired. When I had more fun playing The Shattered Sky than this because these elements feel more sincere in their presentations, then you know this game is just not for you.

tldr: Quirky mechanics, with uninspired BGM, characters and stage designs. High skill of play needed. Beautiful game and very well-made otherwise, just that it lacks something.

Yes, the gimmick is stupidly unbalanced.
Yes, it would be nice to have a scoring system.
But I still like this game. It has good patterns, and good soundtrack. The two things most important to a Touhou game. It also has some slight details which I appreciate, most notably limited progression on the boss music during dialogue in stage 4 and 5, as well as the midboss segment of the stage 5 theme having different instruments depending on the character you're fighting.
Oh, and if you're playing the demo, the diagonal movement thing is fixed in the full version, in case you were worried about that.
The team that I find myself enjoying the game the most with is simply 4 Hakurei Shrine fairies, two red and two white. It provides a good experience with both bomb spamming and dodging, and less often completely wipes the other team and negates the consequences of getting hit.
Treat it like the Brilliant Pagoda or Haze Castle upgrade system. Don't really just try to win with it, you definitely will, and most won't find that to be the optimal way to enjoy the game, just try to find a combination you enjoy playing with the most.

Awesome graphics, cute premise, a little bit on the more difficult side even on Easy mode, but that's mor eof the lategame stages (Stages 4-6). The music is very chill, and I love the melodies of stages 3, 4, and 5 the most.
The menu was done VERY well, and I love the stage selection screen
The gimmick itself was also pretty interesting, if a little difficult to understand. The party battle system somewhat inhibits certain movement techniques I normally do in touhou, but I do still love the idea. I wish the would have done a little bit more, because when you look at each of the fairies in the party assembly screens, they have a little danmaku animation, and it's SOOOOO cute
Overall great game, love it to pieces, still trying to beat the Final boss