Marchen Forest: Mylne and the Forest Gift is a diamond in the rough, and as long as you’re prepared to put up with a bit of frustration, there’s something special here. It’s a surreal twist on the “Alchemist in training” tale popularised by Atelier, full of cute, sometimes creepy characters, quirky humour, and a story that is, by turns, both bizarre and grounded in humanity. If you can look past its rough edges, there’s a lot to like about Marchen Forest.

The benefits of putting all in one is that nothing is left out. An obvious assessment to many, but it creates an unforeseen consequence of having the clearly better portions be a reward for braving a lesser product. If Märchen Forest were simply Episode 3 with an additional introduction period, this would be a more consistently good game. Though to some extent my own expectations with it, given my experience with the previous iteration, also likely affected the outcome. As it stands, it's 13-15 hours of a good game just after 7-10 hours of a mediocre game. If you can wait, there's definitely some fun to be had. Just take your time; no rush.

Märchen Forest will be chalked up as something "weird" or "zany," I'm sure. It's not really. It's what would happen if you got Salvador Dali and Lewis Carroll together with the Atelier and Shiren the Wanderer developers, and while that sounds like a mix too eclectic to work, it does in a way that can only be described as "surprising" and "delightful." Märchen Forest is better in concept than execution, but that concept is so strong and original you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't grit your teeth through the more laboured gameplay bits.