Corporate espionage meets fairytale fun
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.
In Escape from Ever After, we play as protagonist Flynt Buckler. Destined to destroy the great dragon Tinder, he enters Tinder’s castle to find the shockingly suave reception of Ever After Inc. Ever After Inc. is a mega-corporation that has discovered how to enter fairytale books, capitalising on the innocent naivety of the books’ inhabitants. Flynt and the now bite-sized Tinder must work together to overthrow this corporate giant but they cannot rely on strength alone. One job interview later, they begin the newest apprentices of Ever After Inc., determined to take them down from the inside. Earn promotions, climb the corporate ladder, and make your way into the real world – it’s the only way to shut them down for good.
Escape from Ever After has uses turn-based combat as its core game mechanism. As your party expands, the attacks and actions grow. Each character has a unique set of abilities that relate to their character design. The game is designed to boost strategic thinking, by allowing attack, defence, and items to gain the advantage. Escape from Ever After also has a mechanic, introduced in the tutorial, which prevents button mashing. This forces the player to rely on timing and character cues to defeat the mobs.
The game also utilises unique character skills to create unique and surprisingly complex puzzles, which span across rooms and platforms. These puzzles offer a nice balance to the combat, keeping you engaged throughout. The narrative drives the player through the main objective, with optional side quests to explore. These side quests include puzzles for special goodies, and are great for world and character building, but are completely optional.
Visually, the game is heavily inspired by Paper Mario, however the narrative screams originality. The concept of colonising fairytales to capitalise resources and corrupt or convert characters into corporate slaves is so uniquely enjoyable. The contract of childhood fiction with modern societal and economic woes is amusing and makes light-hearted fun of real-world problems.
Escape from Ever After is inhabited by 2D ‘paper’ characters in 3D environments. Characters are all from, or inspired by, fairytale book characters and the core narrative divided into ‘chapters’. From the Three Little Pigs to Sherlock Holmes, villains and heroes are not as easily identifiable once under the influence of Ever After Inc. Thematically, the game draws from modern corporation. Progress is saved via the copy machine and health recovered via the vending machine. ‘Mocha Points’ (MP) allow characters to use their special attacks, recharged by consuming caffeinated snacks and drinks. These small nods to modern life are entertaining in comparison to the fairytale caricatures.
Sound design is cartoony, as expected of the art style, with an appropriately upbeat soundtrack to accompany you. From Flynt’s office, you can explore each map’s track from his computer and choose what plays in this space. This adds a fun little bit of customisation, as well as the unlockable blueprints for office design features.
Escape from Ever recommends a controller for play, but keyboard and mouse is possible. I played the recommended controller route. Controls were easy to pick up and felt natural. At no point did I question the controller mappings or feel like a shortcut was missing – it was all very intuitive.
Performance-wise I have no complaints whatsoever. The game ran smooth and maintained quality and FPS throughout. It’s not a heavy game so should perform well for most people (but please do check the recommended specs first). The difficulty curve is pretty proportional, with the level and number of mobs increasing alongside your experience and party size. In certain chapters, you are forced to work with a limited party or a specific combination of party members, meaning you cannot rely on a certain character. This is reinforced by the varied enemy types, which may include shield defence, sharp objects to block front-on attacks, or enemies that can only be reached by ranged attacks.
To sum it all up, I absolutely loved this game. The narrative had me drawn in and the combat had me determined to take down Ever After Inc. There are clear comparisons to Paper Mario in terms of the overall aesthetic, however I believe that Escape from Ever After is its own unique game that stands out from Paper Mario. I highly recommend Escape from Ever After to any strategic-minded gamers who like a diversity of game mechanics. Especially those with an anti-capitalist streak.
The code for this review was provided by HypeTrain Digital. This review has been cross-posted to OpenCritic.
