Avis sur Märchen Forest

A fun dungeon crawling game with a classic JRPG turn based presentation but with a "Sekiro" type of gameplay. Don't get misled by the cute art style and the first hour (or episode one), the game change completly after that and is hard in the last hours and the optional content. The game is separated into 3 episodes, i'll speak bout the gameplay in each of them ; The first episode is an "animal crossing" type where you need to brind X objects to Y NPCs to advance the story. The second episode is where the game take a drastic turn, it became a dungeon crawler with a combat mechanic where you have a seperate screen when you enter combat like a traditional turn based JRPG (RNG encounters). It's in real time but you can't move, you can attack, defend/parry or dodge. The game help you with a color code within the attack name when you must defend (green) or dodge (red), there are also blue attacks which you can't do anything and just take the hit. Parries in this game can be done when the ennemy attacks are flashing above their heads two times, you need to press the defend/parry at this moment to nulify the attack and to do a special attack where most of your damage is or you can use items. Since the combat is in real time you can't spam attacks, unless you know the ennemy well, because they take time to do and you can get punished if you're too spammy with them. The third episode is the same dungeon crawling style as episode 2 but with a better level design, ennemies and the possibility to use certain skills during exploration and combat. Exploration skills are mostly traps detector and disarmament, and unlocking chests and doors. You'll have a new button in combat compared to Episode 2 where you can use a skill which is linked and unique to a weapon. Overall the game gain more depth which is a good think. Finally i enjoyed the game a lot despite the questionable last levels design and the frustation in some parts of the game, i can recommend it if you like a good story with cute and funny characters and rewarding and at times hard combats. The game runs with unlocked FPS and up to 4k resolution (weirdly no 1440p). The graphics option are just the resolution which is not good but at least the game runs great with no FPS dips, its a bit blurry though. It took me rougly 38 hours for all the content and 5hours of griding for the 1000 victories achievement (43 hours for 100%). You can play the game in Easy (recommeded for grinding) but the ennemies and bosses are still hard, you'll need to play the game "properly" to complete it. Their are some OS mechanic but mostly in the optional dungeon. Note : 7.5/10 The Goods : -Great Story, the main story is mostly sad but there are very funny dialogues and NPCs at times. -I loved the main cast and all the different NPCs. -Surprisingly, good and varied OSTs for an indie game. The sountracks change depending of the dungeon layers, normal ennemies or bosses. -Every dialogue is jap dub with talented VA. -The combat is compelling with interresting gameplay and differents ennemies and bosses to fight. It gains depth between episode 2 and 3. The Bads : -Episode 3 : the last two layers rooms are too long and labyrinthine, they're a drag to do. The last two rooms of the last layers are the worst. Overall the level design is fine but it would have been better to have layers as the same as the EX dungeon level design. -Can be grindy at times, in episode 3 you need to farm bosses for better gear. Quests where you need to kill X monsters are ridiculous boring for layer 5 and 6. -I wish there was an option to auto skip animations, you need to press buttons each times you want to skip them. Also there are too many menus during chest openings, when you want to change exploration skills and when you want to use a combat skill. -Not enough interraction with NPCs from Episode 1. You'll have dialogues with them in the first hour and that's it. -Animations are a bit jancky and some lack fluidity. Differents weapons skins would have been nice, using the same oar looking weapon is not great, -Some minors bugs : the sound volumn is a bit off at times, few lines are not translated.