An Interesting, Unsettling Gem: Märchen Forest (PC/Switch/PS4)

Hi, long-time lurker of this sub here. Months ago I intended to start a blog to talk about videogames so I wrote this article. But I eventually gave up so now I've edited it and finally decided to register and post it here. Enjoy.

Tl;dr Märchen Forest is a tale-like dungeon crawler with a turn-based combat system like Clair Obscur Expedition 33. It has an tone-shifting 3-arc structure that plays heavily different from each other and each arc has its own highs and lows. Overall, it's an unique and interesting game that every JRPG fan should give it a try.

From Madoka Magica to Made in Abyss, Japanese subculture lovers are likely no stranger to these cutesy-but-messed-up anime classics. Sugar-coated in friendly and colorful visuals, to the surprise of their audience they explored mature themes and were not afraid to show gory violence. In the realm of videogame, a brutal dungeon crawler called Märchen Forest (Steam link) also disguises itself as an endearing tale in similar fashion.

Years ago I read a random enthusiastic comment online. To paraphrase: “This game is the Dark Souls of turn-based JRPG! It is good!” I chuckled at the Dark Souls comparison, but at the same time I was curious: the 2021-released Märchen Forest is actually a remake of a smartphone game called “Märchen Forest: Mylne and the Forest Gift” released back in 2015 and ported to PC in 2018. I eventually bought the game during a sale back in 2023. Fast forward to 2025, I finally played through the whole game, completely surprised by how interesting it was. This game deserves more attention from the RPG community, for sure.

Comfy Beginning

The word Märchen is “fairy tale” in German. Despite being an indie offering, Märchen Forest is fully-voiced in Japanese and apparently took place in Germany, evidenced by the protagonist yelling guten morgen (Good Morning, in Japanese tone no less) when she woke up from bed. The story of Märchen Forest began with Myline, a young lady living in the forest with her apothecary Grandpa, trying to use the alchemy cauldron without permission. After an explosive (literally) failure, Grandpa finally decided to teach Myline how to brew potions. Rushing out the door in excitement, Myline began her adventure as an apprentice of the craft.

While it has a standard JRPG opening, however, I assure you that Märchen Forest is truly unconventional. The whole game was divided into three episodes, and all three of them are drastically different from each other. In Episode 1, players control Myline to collect ingredients inside a small forest sandbox. On the way she made friends with peculiar forest inhabitants, did some fishing (this is a JRPG after all), somehow managed to fight off a forest intruder, and took optional mushroom-themed quizzes made by the mushroom spirit.

The result is a 1 to 3-hour adventure, depending on how much optional content one wants to complete. Cozy and laid-back, yes, but totally devoid of any RPG element except an optional turn-based fight. You may ask, where is the role-playing? Well, just you wait.

Into the Dungeon

After finishing her apothecary training at the end of Episode 1, Myline discovered a cave inside the forest. Apparently. her missing mother ventured into the cave years ago but never returned. Eventually she decided to dive in to search for her – to fans of Made in Abyss, this story premise certainly sounds familiar. Upon stepping into the dungeon, Märchen Forest transforms into a dungeon crawler. Under the constant threat of a slowly-depleting food meter, which once reached zero Myline’s HP will start to drop, players have to control Myline to survive by searching and scavenging for food to eat and relics to sell, evading traps, and obviously, fighting for her life against underground creatures and inhabitants.

Unlike the dialogue-heavied Episode 1, the story of Episode 2 was mostly conveyed through documents. On dungeon floors, various logs scattered around, recording the French alchemist Nicholas Flamel and his fellow researchers’ experiment inside the dungeon, as well as a group of paladins who ventured into lower levels in search of the philosopher’s stone. In-between dungeon levels (so-called “Layers” in-game), Myline’s mother journey before entering and inside the dungeon was depicted through cutscenes.

The resulting narrative was disappointing. Compared with the hours of dungeon exploration, there was only a fraction of the time spent on telling the story. The ending of Episode 2, supposedly sweet and heart-warming, feels rushed and half-baked as I failed to emotionally connect with any characters due to how little time the game spent on creating the emotional baggage for impactful storytelling. Another jarring issue is that, everything outside the dungeon became totally irrelevant. Myline met all these forest dwellers earlier, but they have nothing new to share. Time in the forest seems to have completely frozen since Episode 1. This is a huge waste of potential, which will be more evident once Episode 3 is reached.

In contrast to the disappointing narrative, combat is stellar and very satisfying. Battles play out 1-on-1 in real-time. Each battle command is assigned to one button: attack, defend, and evade. Attack the enemy when it is standing idle, and defend or evade when it is attacking. An “action” alert will appear on enemy’s head when it starts to make its move, so players can mentally prepare when to attack and when to fall back. Defend at the right moment and Myline can stylishly do a parry to stun the enemy, which creates an opening for her to cast Special Skill or to use items.

This reactive battle system is nothing new – it plays similarly to titles like Mario RPG and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – but the idea works well. Thanks to these combat mechanics, it is perfectly possible that a good player can finish a fight from taking little to no damage. Be careful though: some enemy attacks cannot be parried and must be defended or evaded. These attacks are color-coded, so players need to press the right button to respond to these moves.

On the other hand, dungeoneering in Märchen Forest is so old-school that it is bound to turn some players off. Saving is only possible in tents or at the entrance. There is no mapping system whatsoever, so players are expected to draw maps, or simply make use of our brains, to map out the dungeon floors during exploration. Thankfully, a large number of these floors are handcrafted with a few randomly-generated small levels sprinkled in-between, so the maps you drew do not go to the garbage bin between each dive. On the other hand, an item hoarder (like me) would be required to adjust old habits, because item consumption is absolutely crucial in Märchen Forest. Apart from potions to restore HP and food to replenish the depleting food meter, there are also items to detect traps, such as using the silver spoon to test if a healing spring is actually poisonous, as well as some which allow players to wrap back to dungeon entrance to save the progress and gear up for the next dive.

Despite the genre shift, Episode 2 was a straight-forward 5-7 hours dungeon crawling experience. It felt like the true starting point of Märchen Forest. Dungeon crawler veterans may find the game too easy at this point. In that case, Episode 3 is not going to disappoint.

Danger At Every Corner

At the end of Episode 2, Myline discovered the truth, credits rolled, and Episode 3 suddenly began. Time mysteriously rolled back to the point before the final fight, and Myline was taken to a new dungeon. Players can kiss the forest goodbye, because in the next 20 - 25 hours, Myline would not be able to exit the dungeon. All that remains were dark corridors, deadly monsters, and complete madness resulting from alchemy experiments.

New mechanics were once again introduced through multiple tutorials, including new currency, death penalty, fasten food meter depletion rate, weapon skill (so-called “Technique”) to wield and Abilities to learn (which consume food to use). Opening a treasure chest was no longer safe, because they could be rigged with deadly traps or even disguised by monster Mimic which eats Myline for breakfast.

Techniques added another tactical layer to the already stellar combat. Each weapon has its own Technique, for example, one that can regenerate Myline’s HP periodically, or another one which drastically raises Myline’s attack but lowers her defense. The use of Technique is assigned to the fourth button on your controller in battle. When an enemy is standing still, should I strike, or should I use the Technique to turn the table? On the other hand, Abilities were huge game changers, both in and outside battles. From being able to heal spontaneously to lessen the effect of damage area on the field; from seeing through the inner mechanism of chests to unlocking and disarming them; from buffing Myline’s attack and defense during battles to increasing item drop rate, Abilities were crucial to Myline’s adventure in Episode 3.

Episode 3 was where Märchen Forest (not forest anymore, duh) showed its true colors. There are sprawling dungeon floors filled with traps, long corridors with damage-inducing zones, invisible tiles and enemies that can one-shot Myline. The most dangerous new addition is Mimic, a monster which can disguise as treasure chest. The whole idea is straight out of Dragon Quest – every seasoned DQ player probably had their characters killed by these treasure chest monsters because they can cast Whack, a spell of instant death. In Märchen Forest, they are even more dangerous because they can spam non-defendable, non-evadable spell Crustal Movement – it can easily kill Myline in a few rounds. The only means to defend against this attack is an accessory, which could not be obtained until late game.

Mimic is one rare unfairness in Märchen Forest. Players can carefully examine the content of a treasure chest through Abilities, sometimes the game tells you a Mimic is inside, but in rare occasions the Mimic can just instantly trigger the battle and likely kill Myline in an instant, subsequently sending the players back to dungeon entrance with weakened status and money halved – due to the newly-introduced death penalty of Episode 3. This so-called difficulty originates from a design issue instead of a skill issue, and I absolutely hate it.

Mimic reflects the general quality of dungeoneering of Episode 3 – the game was not as tightly-designed as Episode 2. Although there are many ways to die if players are not careful enough, however, to good players, the game can go stale fast – at the end of the day, enemies’ moveset is fixed and can be memorized, so besting them without taking any damage is entirely possible. The enemy variety is also too limited to warrant the huge map. On later levels, the real nightmare of Märchen Forest is actually players’ constantly-depleting patience – a result from going through all the corridors for hours upon hours.

Compared with the disappointing level design of Episode 3, there was a welcoming change – the inclusion of party member. Myline no longer traveled and fought alone. In face of all these grotesque creatures, a girl named Rosetta joins the fight. In Episode 2, she suffered from amnesia and acted as the merchant who bought relics from Myline and sold equipment and useful items. In Episode 3, after regaining her memories she acted as the sole partner of our young forest apothecary. During battles Rosetta automatically inflicted damage on enemies as well as occasionally recovered Myline’s HP and Food. On the field, she followed Myline around and could be talked to inside the tents, sharing her thoughts on the situation according to story progression.

Most importantly, Episode 3 was centered around Rosetta, and the narrative was overall enjoyable. Lethe, a mysterious storyteller, would appear on dungeon floors and showed Rosetta’s past to Myline. No spoiler, but these short episodes contain interesting topics on love, relationships and existentialism. Compared with the otherwise barebone story in Episode 2, the story was a huge improvement. After beating the final boss, the final ending was also much more impactful thanks to this well-developed narrative throughout Episode 3.

Last but not least, the secret content. Upon reaching the final boss room, players were given the chance to fast-travel back to the dungeon entrance for preparation. Although the game only gave very subtle hints on their existence and whereabouts, two extra dungeons and two superbosses were opened for challenges. The dungeons had puzzles and interesting level design; and the two boss fights were even harder and longer than the final boss, thus making them the ultimate challenges of Märchen Forest. There is also an interesting narrative surrounding the two bosses, so to those players who enjoy playing Märchen Forest, the post-game content is must-play.

The Whole Package

The framework of Märchen Forest is a rare sight to see. It is unthinkable that a RPG can change or even transform its gameplay and tone so much throughout the whole adventure. From a cozy adventure game to a simple and fun dungeon crawler, then ramp up the difficulty and discuss existential crisis. Although the unique structure is likely a remnant from the original game on the smartphone, the developers at PrimaryOrbit managed to create an unforgettable tone-shifting experience in Märchen Forest.

Although there’s a lot to like and dislike in Märchen Forest, there is one thing absolutely undisputable – it has a great soundtrack. Considering that this is an indie offering, both the quantity and quality presented is mind-blowing. From metal to folk, this 35-hour game packs 49 divergent tracks. Each dungeon layer has its map and battle theme, and every boss has its unique tune during their epic fight. The tracks played on dungeon grounds are often depressive and thrilling to represent the depth of this abyss, once a battle is triggered the music immediately switched to a heroic and upbeat piece. The game also does not lack iconic track – Lethe’s theme was so catchy that I can hum it right now.

Final words

When I was fighting the second superboss, in the middle of extreme attention to focus myself on its deadly moveset, a thought suddenly struck me: Myline really comes a long way. 35 hours (of playtime) ago, she was merely an ordinary girl who overflows with curiosity towards alchemy. Now? She’s battling a destructive force. Looking at the game from such angle, maybe Märchen Forest is not much different from its JRPG counterparts – at the end of the adventure, our characters are going against godly creature to save the day.