Marisa of Liartop Mountain

Two games in one weekend (again), this time I finished Marisa of Liartop Mountain! This game caught my eye a few steam fests ago when I tried out the demo and thought that it was a nifty idea. It’s basically roleplaying a tabletop adventure game where Reimu goes on a journey to find Marisa. As a Reimari fan as well, I thought great!

I’m not an avid TTRPG player but having played DND and other tabletop games in the past, I think they did a really good job at capturing the feel in a video game form. I guess it might be more accurate to say its more akin to an old adventure game than a TTRPG but the aspect that really made it feel like a TTRPG was having Remilia, Sakuya, Patchouli, and Flandre comment on events that occur through the game, in addition to having influences.

That, and of course the dice rolling mechanic which is basically the crux of the game’s core mechanics. I really liked how the game used dice results in more ways than just “roll higher than a target score to pass”, whether it be things like having to roll exact numbers, or meet certain conditions, there were cool goals to try and meet. And of course, this is in addition to the modifier dice you get which greatly influence the results and create a more “puzzle” esque game trying to determine the right combination of dice to pass and move on.

One thing that I felt was that I think the game saying the probability as well as saying outcomes (minus some situations) made decision making a little too easy at times. I think the game could’ve benefited more from hiding certain outcomes, in addition to I don’t think showing the probabilities was needed (though they definitely help sometimes it became a game of “let me just see which combo of dice have the highest chance” instead of me logically thinking through it). All that PLUS the ability to reroll meant that I never really felt like I was in danger. There was also some movement jank that felt annoying, in terms of having to move through areas and mashing to skip through dialogue but that is a more general jankness complaint.

In terms of writing, I think all the settings/chapters you go through feel like old school TTRPG worlds and have similar types of puzzles to those kinds of adventure games which I liked. The Touhou characters adding their commentary really add to the experience and I found myself really enjoying the banter between the characters. The ending as a Reimari fan was also great, and I especially love that on a replay, there’s additional banter between the characters because they’ve gone through the game already. In fact I’m quite tempted to go through it again just to see it haha, though I might save that for a later date.

I also enjoyed that each chapter never felt like it overstayed its welcome. It’s a fairly short game, I think I had about 6 hours when I finished? It was a good length for this kind of game and I honestly really enjoyed it. It was a unique experience and I liked how it leaned into the TTRPG elements a fair amount.