Anime Girls playing a Board Game, Sign Me Up!
It's that time again for a new episode of Chichuki Plays, the show where I go hands-on with upcoming games and show them off. Usually, it's about an hour or so but I don't want to spoil too much of the game for you. This time we're looking at Marisa of Liartop Mountain on Steam. It's also available on the Nintendo Switch so you have options! The game is onsale for 10%off until October 3rd so jump on that deal if you want to play the game
These girls want to have a good time and their solution is playing a board game at the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Four girls at the mansion will play a bigger role in your adventure than you think. Long story short Reimu gets sucked into the a mysterous book and has to Merisa who has gone missing. The Scarlet Devil Mansion girls think their playing a board game but it feels a little realer than they might think.
An interesting wrinkle in this game is that you'll try to build relationships with the girls. These girls will give you advice during the board game and you decide who to listen to. If you listen to a girl, she'll feel better about herself and said relationship with Reimu. You also play the game with rolling dice. These dice rolls will determine if something good or bad will happen to Reimu. You'll find different dice during the journey but use them accordingly because they have a limit on their usage. If you use it up, it's gone. You'll be able to level up and in turn gain better skills. Each girl has different stats that could get booster if you side with her. Patchouli, Sakuya, Remilia, and Flan each want to do what's best for Reimu but they might also have their reasons to get Reimu to do something. I really like the idea of listening to one of the girls, side with them, and get different dice depending on who you listen to. It's also neat that each girl could have the same skill when you level up like HP increase but one could have better dice than the other. You'll have to pick which one has better skills for your playstyle.
You really are playing a boad game because almost everything comes down to a dice roll. You'll have to explore the locations inside the book and then use those locations to your advantage. One instance, you'll have to jump for flying books but you'll have to figure out how to become lighter or heavier. Reading a sad poem to make your soul heavier and in turn, be able to fight and defeat a sumo bunny is cool! I really like the writing and the story in the game. That being said, a speedup option for movement would be nice. You'll have to go back and forth quite a bit through stages and being able to speed through them would have been a nice touch. English voice acting would have been nice too but I know these games don't usually have that.
Marisa of Liartop Mountain is an interesting take on the tabletop genre. The Touhou universe games are usually really fun/interesting and this one is no different. Fans of the RGP/tabletop world will want to check it out.
Make sure you check out the hands-on video below.