Escape from Ever After review

I’m a great mark for Escape from Ever After. An indie game with bright, vibrant colors, a charming sense of humor, fun narrative, and engaging RPG mechanics? Put that right into my veins. While the story of Flynt and his comrades may fly under the radar in a world full of triple-A releases, this is a game that fans of any age can sit down and enjoy. 

Flynt Buckler was your run-of-the-mill fairy tale hero. As he was making his way to the evil dragon Tinder’s castle, something caught him by surprise. Upon entering his foe’s domain, a receptionist was there to greet him. With some more research, Flynt learned that a company called Ever After Inc. had come into their world, captured and jailed Tinder, and had corporately enslaved the rest of the realm. 

After initially refusing a job with Ever After, Flynt was jailed. There, he begrudgingly joined forces with Tinder to escape the dungeon. Once out, they ultimately accepted employment, intending to be promoted so they could warp to the real world and topple the company. 

The game’s story is cleverly written. Each mission will take you to a different familiar storybook world. From the Three Little Pigs to HP Lovecraft’s works and beyond, there are fun characters and twists in a variety of classic tales that are, incidentally, now in the public domain.

 Escape from Ever After has a good narrative with great lighthearted, comedic writing. Minus some darker thematic elements (Lovecraft’s works are notable here), I would even consider the game to be family-friendly. From loneliness and belonging to empathy and beyond, the game’s story is well done.

Fans of the Paper Mario games will understand what they’re getting into with Escape from Ever After. To everyone else, the game is a turn-based RPG with real-time elements baked into the combat. Like last year’s Clair Obscur, properly timed button presses will get you extra attacks, higher damage output, improved defense, and more. It’s a set of mechanics I find myself addicted to time and time again. 

As you travel the world, you’ll earn XP and level up. Each level up grants you the ability to improve your HP, MP, or trinket points. Trinkets are accessories that can be worn to grant new skills or improve your stats. MP, normally short for “mana points” or “magic points”, is short for “Mocha Points” here. That’s right, our heroes are fueled by caffeine, just like many of us. While your party will grow in size as the game progresses, you can have two characters in combat at any given time. Each hero has abilities that can be used in different situations, so knowing when to swap characters on the fly will be to your advantage. 

The game’s various environments offer a lot of interaction. The world is three-dimensional, but much of what’s in it is 2-D. The game is full of hidden items to discover, and items can be smartly obscured behind objects. You’ll want to spend time checking those thin nooks and crannies for healing items and upgrades. The game is also full of clever environmental puzzles that require your teammates and some critical thinking to resolve. 

From an aesthetic perspective, Escape from Ever After is a fun, engaging game. I want to use the term beautiful, and while I feel that’s accurate, it’s less in the sense of classic graphical prowess and more in great visual design. The bright, vibrant colors and sharp character designs draw the eyes in a way that feels like you’re appropriately in these storybook worlds. It’s enticing. While there’s no spoken dialogue, the game features a great soundtrack that never fails to fit the world the game’s trying to convey.

 For everything I love about the game, there are a couple of issues worth mentioning. Most notably, some of the game’s pacing feels a bit forced and jilted, particularly with a chapter later in the game. Beyond that, there are a few minor quality-of-life issues they could easily resolve, like entering a string of numbers one character at a time. As I said, they’re minor.

Escape from Ever After was a whimsical, engaging 20-ish hour adventure with some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. I enjoyed the characters and the worlds you get to experience kept things fresh and engaging. When you combine all that with fun, simple combat, a well-rounded cast, eye-catching visuals, and a toe-tapping soundtrack, you’ve got a game every RPG fan should spend some time with.