Escape from Ever After

If you’re at all a fan of the more RPG-focused Mario RPGs, you owe it to yourself to play Escape from Ever After. It may be over a bit too quickly, but the writing, charm, and gameplay mechanics all come together to make for something you won’t want to miss.

A flawed Paper Mario-like with potential.

Escape from Ever After is a charming and witty RPG with Paper Mario-style combat and a vibrant, genre-blending soundtrack. It delivers a familiar flavor while carving out its own identity, making it a worthy pickup for RPG fans. Even though it concludes a little too soon, it carries the potential to be a larger adventure.

For players looking for an action adventure/RPG that blends style, substance, and a healthy sense of humor, this is an easy recommendation. It may wear a fairy tale costume, but underneath that bright cloak is a sharp, confident experience that knows how to fight, how to entertain, and how to keep you turning the page.

The characters and areas are charming, the puzzles are fun, but the combat is slacking by comparison and there’s not really any music that’s quite as memorable. Still though, this is well worth playing if you get the chance. It’s not massively long so it’s less of a time commitment by comparison, and most Paper Mario fans will be able to get into it.

Escape from Ever After is a refreshing surprise in this year’s lineup of games and therefore a strong candidate for my personal Game of the Year list. Its whimsical premise, satirical tone, and overall humorous writing – combined with quirky gameplay mechanics and sufficient variety – carry the experience wonderfully throughout the entire adventure. Best of all, it offers entertainment for all ages: cutesy and fairy-taleish' elements for children, and an engaging script for adults that brings a smile on my face time and time again, enhanced by enjoyable gameplay mechanics. The end credits even left a slight sense of wistfulness in the air, as this is the kind of game one would have gladly kept playing for longer.

Escape From Ever After takes great pleasure in subverting Fairy Tale expectations while skewering corporate culture and blind capitalism. And it does so with some wonderful characters and even more wonderful writing that manages to tug on the heartstrings while eliciting a chuckle. The fun gameplay rounds out a wonderful RPG experience that will make you wish you could jump into your favourite books world all the more.

While I wish the puzzles and platforming were more refined, I can also see the follow-through and how others may not have had the same issues as I did. What I won’t deny is that Sleep Castle Studio has created a genuinely fun game that has brought new life into fairy-tale properties and given them an original spin.

Fans of Paper Mario can look forward to this turn-based adventure RPG. Developed by Sleepy Castle Studio and Wing-It! Creative, Escape from Ever After is inspired by the aforementioned Mario game. It combines fairy tale whimsy with corporate espionage and an anti-capitalist mindset, creating inappropriately modern and realistic circumstance for our fairytale characters. Published by HypeTrain Digital, let’s see if Escape from Every After is a dream come true or just a wish upon a star.

Escape from Ever After is truly a delightful game, and a worthy successor to the Paper Mario franchise, at least until Nintendo hopefully brings the series back to its original RPG roots. While I had complaints with aspects of the game, mostly in the writing, the general soul of Paper Mario remained intact, and it was great playing what felt like a new entry in that iconic series. I hope the game is successful and that this is the start of its own franchise, as I think Escape from Ever After has laid a solid foundation to forge its own unique identity and legacy. With a greater focus on different storybooks and fairy tales, a potential sequel is set up for a home run. Even if this ends up being a one off game, I definitely recommend it.