Tales of the Black Forest
BANGER · RPG · 2019
Steam Deck PlayableThe verdict
BUY IT.
A BANGER at $1.19.
- Length
- 5.3h
- Value
- $0.22/hr
- Reviews
- 98% positive
Watch this gameOne alert when it is worth buying.
Minimum on the Steam store: 2 GB of memory, DirectX 9 compatible graphics card, 1 GB of storage. Windows only.
In a world filled with yōkai, a surging dark power has overshadowed a Japanese town. A group of 2 developers have produced a Japanese pixel adventure game to tell a tale that dates back to the Heisei era...In the name of dreams and passion.
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
The value story
September 2021 is where it bottomed out, at $1.19. 69 discounts in the 7 years on record. They run about 70 percent off, roughly 5 weeks apart.
On value it sits in the top 1 percent of its genre. It is cheaper than 79 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 99 percent. The nearest things to it, LISA: The Painful ($19.99, scores 80) and Grimm's Hollow (free, scores 93), are both worse buys on this math.
On this data it would still be a BANGER at $12.90. It costs $1.19.
Steam's global achievement data puts 39 percent of players at this game's ending achievement. The median game this site can measure sits at 15. 4 of the 649 Steam-purchase reviews sampled here come from buyers who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written April 2020 to August 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 84 percent of the 510 reviews written there were positive, against 98 percent overall, and those are 3 percent of everything written about it.
The drop-off
80% start to 39% finishSteam counts a larger share of its players at the ending achievement than it does for most games this site can measure. Steam global achievements
Players
26 players online when we last checked, on Sep 29, 15:46 UTC.
Player counts from the Steam Web API.
What players say
At first, I didn't have high expectations, but the game exceeded them ~ which explains why it has received so many positive reviews. The story is masterfully crafted from the beginning chapter to the end, the characters are well-written, each with a good backstory that sometimes even earned my sympathy. Cuz it's an RPG Maker-style game, the controls are limited (using arrow keys along with Z, X, A, and Shift), and...
RPGmaker horror/puzzle game, this one's definitely solid. The story is good if a bit unsettling, especially since it refers to several real life events. one of which I remember from childhood (yes I'm old) on the news even here in the US. It's not super frightening, but it will feel uncomfortable at times when you're unsure what's coming next. There aren't really any true jumpscares, but there are some thing that...
I love this story, I love the characters. Personal tragedies intertwine across three chapters and culminate in an ending that made me tear up. The environments are beautifully crafted, the music outstanding, and the characters unforgetable. It's a near 10 out of 10 from me.
Steam reviews, mixed to match its Steam ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic).
Cite this score
Tales of the Black Forest scores 100/100 on the BANG Score (a BANGER) as of Oct 2, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/1093910/tales-of-the-black-forestReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 26, price as of Oct 1.
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