Escape from Ever After

This was a lot of fun - definitely scratched the same itch as the first two Paper Mario games. You've got timed attacks, colorful partners with different abilities, equipable badge-like thingees. Makes a bunch of references to different literature and fairy tales. These replace the Mario characters and help to build a more cohesive world. I really don't have much to complain about other than that some of the enemies and bosses felt a little bit underbaked. There's a world later on where it's pretty much just a long string of battles in a row with only a little bit of variation. Eventually it has you do some puzzle solving, so there are breaks in there, but I was feeling a bit fatigued by the end of that one. Fortunately it has you hopping from book to book and you never quite know where you're going to end up and what you'll be doing. That helps keep things fun all the way through. I beat the game on normal and it was a decent challenge at parts. I might come back and play it on Hard Mode at some point, though I could also see myself just shelving it. No regrets playing through though.

This game was really fun to play! I'd been meaning to play it for a while, but I've been busy and just finally got round to it! I've not played the games this one is inspired by, but I liked it a lot! I really like the artstyle of it, with the 2D characters in a 3D world and such. The game took me roughly 16-17 hours to beat, although I do read quite fast (some of the time I have, probably about half-an-hour or so, is AFK). I played the game on normal difficulty with other settings normal and I felt that the difficulty curve was good, not too tough but not too easy either. I battled most of the enemies I saw until the final area, where I skipped probably the last half of the enemies there. Having both party members able to swap out is really good too, as it allows for more strategies and planning decisions. Maybe if I played again I could find better strategies and such, but then there's hard mode to try that out on if I did. I did some of the side-content but not all, although if I do another playthrough (which I am definitely thinking of doing, the game was really good and fun!), then I'll probably try to do all of the side-content. I liked the dialogue quite a lot! It was good in a lot of ways: it was funny, it had good emotion where needed, it worked well to bring the characters and worlds together, and it made me want to play the game to completion right away! I like how the main characters interact with each-other in cutscenes and such, and the NPC characters were fun to talk to as well. My favourite character has to be Tinder of course, funny dragon lol and I like the characterisation. There were some themes that I feel could've definitely been expanded upon rather than just a mention or two, but it didn't detract from the game/story to me. My only real issue with the game (although it didn't impact me) is that the save system is a bit archaic, you can only save at certain spots. I can see why this was done for balancing and such though. I do think it would be good if the exit prompt told you how long ago you saved though, just to confirm that you have in-fact saved. (I never lost progress because of this, but I can imagine it being possible to happen to someone who thought they saved but didn't.)

Very fun game. Highly recommend, especially for Paper Mario fans. Escape from Ever After is by far the most faithful to the OG Paper Mario formula out of the several Paper Mario inspired indie games I've played. It's very well designed mechanically. In fact, I'd say its gameplay mechanics are it's strongest point. Battles are fun, pretty fast, and satisfying. It doesn't have much new or innovative, which I think is mostly good because it's already working off of a great formula. The one major innovation it introduces, which is the ability to swap out the protagonist, Flynt, for any of the other party members in battle, was a great addition. I would have liked to see a little more innovation than just that, but that's just my personal preference. The world is fun to explore and looks great. The music is also pretty good, especially if you're a fan of saxophone. Story-wise it's good but not outstanding, in my opinion. I liked the individual chapter plots a lot more than the overarching plot. I think the corporate sabotage plot thread just didn't do it for me. I prefer to keep it a little more straightforward. Like, you tell me who the bad guy is and I'll go beat em' up for ya. Pretending to help Ever After Inc to work up the ranks with the goal of destroying them from the inside wasn't that satisfying to me I guess. The overall length of the game was pretty good in my opinion. Disregard my playtime listed, a lot of my playtime was offline and didn't get counted. It was probably 35-ish hours, if I had to estimate. I completed almost 100%, the only thing I missed was one bestiary entry (which I'm pretty sure was permanently missable), as far as I know. I did use a guide to find some of the last sun stones and ink bottles. The collectables are very conveniently numbered in the menu, which is next to useless in game because they're super out of order, but it's very helpful for using on online guide to find what you missed. The game in general doesn't give much help with locating collectables, which is a bit of a disappointment for a completionist like myself. If you're not worried about that, then it won't really affect you. The individual chapters felt really lengthy to me. It's not padded, there's just a ton you have to do in each chapter. I would have preferred a larger number of shorter chapters, especially since I thought the idea of traveling to various storybook worlds was pretty cool and could have been used more. I got pretty tired of chapter two, in part because it took the dark horror theme a little too far for my tastes. It's still cartoony of course, but the who time I was longing for the return of the happy-go-lucky adventure vibes from chapter 1. My main disappointment with Escape from Ever After is the small amount of side quests, especially substantial ones. There's a few, but not many, and there's not really a good way to track ongoing side quests. There's also only two optional bosses (one is a gimmic boss, and the other is at the top of the tower of 100 trials). I was really hoping for more optional bosses because the combat is fun and I like a good challenge. I did play on the recommended difficulty setting, which was fairly easy (as I expected). In hindsight I think hard difficulty would have been a better fit for me. If you've played Paper Mario or other similar games and you're good at precise dodge timings, then I'd recommend hard difficulty. You can change difficulty mid playthough as well, I just wanted to keep things consistent throughout. If I ever decide to replay this game I'll give hard difficulty a try. Although I don't think it's super likely that I will ever replay it, at least not anytime soon.

Excelente Juego, es muy entretenido, es como paper mario, pero la historia es diferente y llama mucho la atención

Wer auf Spiele wie Paper Mario steht hat hier aufjedenfall was humorreiches und gut spielbares gefunden, das Kampfsystem ist schnell erlernt und die Bosse haben auch gut was drauf. Absolut empfehlenswert dieses Spiel!

挺好玩的，一些故事的解读很有意思

Desde que a Nintendo largou mão da fórmula que tava quase perfeita em Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door, existe num nicho gamer o sonho de um novo RPG com o jeitinho dos dois primeiros jogos do Paper Mario. A resposta pra essa demanda está vindo pelos desenvolvedores independentes: os mais notáveis até agora são Bug Fables (considerado o melhor dessa onda), Born of Bread, e agora Escape from Ever After. Eu fiquei muito empolgado com o discurso que sucedeu o lançamento desse jogo. Parecia que tinha um consenso de que tinha batido Bug Fables, e eu vi até gente falando seriamente desse jogo como se ele fosse o Paper Mario 3. Quase comprei antes de sair promoção. FELIZMENTE comprei só na promoção, porque acabei me decepcionando com o jogo. Ele começa muito forte, com uma premissa interessante, puzzles e combates mais difíceis e elaborados do que os de Paper Mario. O Capítulo 2 é um ponto alto do jogo. A impressão que eu tive, do Capítulo 3 pra frente, é que os devs já estavam correndo contra o tempo. Nesse capítulo eles encheram linguiça com uma série de batalhas linear, uma atrás da outra, e podendo curar toda vida e todo o MP entre as batalhas (tirando a parte de gerenciamento de recursos que faz parte da graça do combate RPG). No Capítulo 4, dá pra notar que os ambientes são bastante simples e funcionais, um planetinha de gelo com uma base-laboratório que tá ali pra servir puzzles. O jogo ainda peca pelo fenômeno Far Cry 3: a tragédia do segundo vilão maior ainda. Você interage o jogo inteiro com um vilão que é legal, bafônico, etc. Um vilão top. Só que o *verdadeiro* vilão é outro ainda, e esse, apesar de mais poderoso, é alguém com quem você ainda não conviveu nada, então não dá a mesma graça de ir lá e se esforçar pra bater nele. O orçamento indie aparece: desde a primeira cidade os NPCs são muito repetitivos - na vila do lobo, todo mundo é o mesmo lobo, na vila dos piratas, tem só dois tipos de desenho de pirata, etc. O tanto de reaproveitamento de inimigos nas batalhas não ajuda. Recomendo pra comprar só em promoção.