Mylne, the young forest apothecary
This is the story of a young girl and her magical adventure.
Märchen Forest: Mylne and the Forest Gift is a fantasy Dungeon Crawling RPG developed and published by Japanese independent game studio Primary Orbit and released for mobile devices and PC through Steam on May 16, 2018. An Updated Re-release, with revamped graphics and new voice acting, was published worldwide by Clouded Leopard Entertainment for the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC on January 28, 2021.
The game follows Mylne, a furry-eared young girl living in a mystical forest. One day, her grandfather, a master apothecary, requests that she gathers some potion ingredients, thus beginning her journey to become a full-fledged apothecary.
Provides examples of:
- Abandoned Laboratory: The Sealed Cavern used to be an alchemy lab, and one of Mylne's goals is to find out what exactly happened.
- Action Commands: The battles move in real time, with each button being assigned a different command, like attack, defend, or evade.
- Alchemy Is Magic: Alchemy is treated as magic in-game, and one character is even described as an alchemic sorcerer.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: In the second part, you briefly control Mylne's powerful mother Luna.
- Apocalyptic Log: As Mylne explores the first and third floors of the underground labyrinth, she can find notes and diary entries from the alchemist Flamel and the rabbit paladins sent to investigate him, thus piecing together the plot's backstory.
- The Apprentice: Mylne, being one residing at her grandfather's apothecary shop, and said grandfather tasked her to gather ingredients for potions.
- Autosave: Happens:
- After some cutscenes.
- Upon loss or using a retreat item in the dungeon, but not using the elevator to return to Rosetta's shop.
- The Bard: One of the forest residents Mylne encounters is a mysterious traveler simply known as the Bard. He also knows more about Mylne's mother than he lets on.
- Beef Gate: The Test Subject LV 99 guarding the way out of Area of Dispose Room 1, which has over 16000 HP, unlike the regular enemies which only have 3000 or so at most for the highest level ones, and gives 2000 EXP unlike the others' 300, and it respawns.
- Catching Some Z's: When being lectured by her grandfather, Mylne falls asleep with some "Zzz".
- Cheerful Child: Mylne is an adorable little girl who doesn't let much get her down.
- Chest Monster: In Episode 3, be careful about opening treasure chests, as it might actually be a Level 120 (!) Mimic.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Move names. Red ones must be evaded and green ones must be blocked because they can't be dodged / evaded, and blue is the enemy healing, which can be interrupted by an attack.
- Counter-Attack: If Mylne successfully parries an enemy's attack, she can launch a counterattack of her own.
- Creepy Cemetery: The second layer of the Sealed Cavern is a cemetery. Mylne can even find the bodies of fallen rabbit paladins.
- Crystal Ball: The Talking Crystal relic:Description: A strange crystal ball that responds when you talk to it.
Rozalina's Take: What sort of characteristic does this item have?
""You're better off not knowing."" - Defend Command: Defending blocks 60% of damage in the dungeon.
- Dem Bones: Skeletons are common monsters, and Flintlock's pirate crew is made up entirely of short skeleton marauders.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Mylne's voice actress Ayana Taketatsu sings the opening theme while Rosetta's voice actress Kanon Takao performs the ending theme.
- Easing into the Adventure: The game starts with Mylne helping out her friends in a whimsical fairytale-esque forest. Once she's a full-fledged apothecary, the real adventure begins.
- Equivalent Exchange: At the end of Flamel's Journal 04:to gain, something of equal value must be lost.
- Fishing Minigame: In the first two episodes, Mylne can go fishing, and it's a good source of money early on.
- Genie in a Bottle: Aladdin's Lamp is a LV 2 Relic, and it's described that a genie used to be inside.
- Genre Shift: The first part of the game focuses on Mylne's efforts to help her forest friends and became a full-fledged apothecary. After that, it becomes a Dungeon Crawler as Mylne investigates a mysterious underground labyrinth.
- Graphics-Induced Super-Deformed: Applies to some of the human characters, such as the Vagabond and Dr. Paracelsus, which just looks jarring compared to more reasonably proportioned human characters like the Bard and Luna.
- Gratuitous German: When she wakes up in the morning, Mylne proudly proclaims "Guten Morgen!", even when she suspects it's night.
- Heal It with Water: In the dungeon there's springs to test with single-use Silver Spoons to see if they're single-use springs of recovery or not.
- Healing Potion: As an apothecary, Mylne can brew her own healing potions to help in her adventures and they heal about 100 HP.
- Heart Container: Sometimes the dungeon will have fruits, which are apparently golden apples, about the size of Mylne. Those increase her max Hit Points by 3.
- HP to 1: Paracelcus's Blade's B A D I attack sets Mylne's current HP to 1.
- Inexplicably Preserved Dungeon Meat: Mylne can find perfectly edible meat in both treasure chests and dropped by ghostly monsters.
- Killer Rabbit: Some of the moon rabbits Mylne meets are pretty tough, such as Sir Gawain, or just plain creepy, such as Flamel and his moonling apprentices, so either way it's not wise to mess with the rabbits in this game.
- Life Drain: Soul Steal deals 5x Mylne's ATK to enemies, and heals her for ATK.
- Magic Cauldron: Scattered around the dungeons are cauldrons Mylne can use to brew potions or cook food.
- Mentor Index: Mylne's grandfather is a master apothecary.
- New Game Plus: That's what the game calls it after finishing the first tutorial quest, because it is effectively as if the whole game has reset, like time has rewound, and the first quest can be recompleted as many times as wanted, with the ingredients already gathered.
- No Name Given: Some of the characters, such as the Bard or the Vagabond, are only known by their titles. Later in the game, we learn the Bard's real name is Orpheus and the Vagabond's is Barend.
- One-Hit Kill: A few bosses have instant death attacks, like Flamel's "Grim Reaper" or the Astral Assassin's aptly named "Assassinate."
- Our Demons Are Different: The third floor has Abyss Daemons as enemies, which look like just a head with tentacle mouth, and are squid-like, with some ink-based attacks.
- Overhead Interaction Indicator: When Mylne is walking around outside, if she comes across something she can interact with, an exclamation mark will appear in a speech bubble over her head.
- Parental Abandonment: Mylne's parents are missing at the beginning of the game, but it doesn't bother her. Uncovering the truth behind the disappearance of her mother Luna is Mylne's goal in the second part of the game.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Flintlock and his crew of skeleton marauders aren't particularly bright, to say the least, so they haven't made any progress finding treasure when Mylne meets them.
- Point of No Return: After Mylne defeats Flamel's dragon form and gains access to the Fourth Layer, she can't return to previous layers or the forest.
- Pop Quiz: Mylne can play one with the Mushroom Sprite / Fairy. Hope you've brushed up on your mushroom trivia!
- Protagonist Title: Referring to Mylne as part of the game's subtitle.
- Randomly Generated Levels: The dungeon's rooms are randomized in contents, appearance, and size, except for certain features, like the broken iron door that starts Floor 1 Room 9.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: At the end of Flintlock's sidequest, while Mylne and Rosetta succeed in helping his crew find Captain Kidd's treasure, it all proves too heavy for their ship and it sinks. Fortunately, for Flintlock and his crew It's the Journey That Counts, so they claim the Adventure Galley as their new ship and embark on yet another quest for treasure. At least Mylne gets a powerful new Secret Skill and Rosetta a new weapon out of the whole ordeal.
- Shout-Out:
- The mushroom-based quiz is about mushroom-related media.
- Dark Souls in the dungeon. The levelling up message uses the same font, and like that game, bonfires are teleportation.
- Talking Animal: Several of the forest residents Mylne can help are talking animals.
- Top-Down View: The dungeon-crawling parts of the game are presented like this.
- Underground Level: The second part of the game takes place in a mysterious underground labyrinth.
- Updated Re-release: Originally released as an indie PC game, Märchen Forest was later re-released for consoles with upgraded graphics and full voice acting.
- Vocal Dissonance: Some of the cutesy animals Mylne meets have deeper, more masculine voices than you'd might expect.
- Warp Whistle: Escape Ropes send Mylne back to the beginning of the dungeon, with her loot. Especially useful when given by the reward chest after an optional Beef Gate, so she gets to keep her loot.
- Wizard Needs Food Badly: In the dungeon-crawling parts of the game, Mylne has a Food stat that acts as a stamina meter. It's not so bad in Episode 2, but in Episode 3, once inside the Astral Realm, it depletes much faster.
- Wizard Workshop: Flamel's Journal 01 mentions a laboratory, and Alchemy Is Magic, so it's a magical laboratory:I decided to build a research laboratory in this cavern to perfect the ultimate alchemy. This ultimate alchemy is none other than the Sage's Stone.
- World of Weirdness: We've got Cat Girls, talking animals of various species, rabbit paladins and alchemists from the moon, zombie pirates, and even aliens! Mylne's forest home is a very strange place, and the further she dives into the underground labyrinth and the astral realm, the stranger things get.
