Escape from Ever After - Paper Mario meets Corporate Slavery invading Children's Storybooks.

My Wife bought me a Switch 2 recently, I have been dying for one for months now.

The three main reasons were:
I wanted something that I could play away from my computer, which I work at all day.
I wanted some more approachable games that I can play with her or friends.
I wanted to get off multiplayer games at least for a bit.

(For the past few years I have been playing multiplayer AOE3 which, while fun, has been mindless and almost involuntary. Before that it was CS:GO and recently there was a small stint with TWW3, which is not multiplayer but is also a game that just never ends due to its campaign nature.)

Anyway... Escape From Ever After piqued my interest after watching it come up in a few reviews recently. The main draws were art style, time-to-beat seeming to be balanced, turn-based but with time-based inputs (I really vibed with this because of E33) and the concept of twists on storybooks.

Please note:

• At this point I want to say if any of that sounds interesting to you, I would stop here and go in blind
• I have not played any Paper Mario games
• If you do play this on Switch make sure to turn on the prioritize fps as it seems to not affect quality but improves the frame-rate

Story

The game is basically you are in a corporation that has turned every storybook into a for profit venture. Each storybook has a twist on the original. Everyone is slaves to the corporation. And most of it is just extreme corporate satire when your at the office "base",and hilarious twists when in story. Everything is extremely well written and if you hate HR this is for you.

Graphics

The graphics in this game are hand drawn and Paper-Mario like. Per the rest of the game all the characters and set pieces are lovingly crafted. Everything has an almost paper cut-out look. Overall I love the highly stylized 2.5D look that makes it look like it was made by humans and not AI.

Gameplay and Difficulty

It's a turn-based RPG with time based inputs. The game is perfectly balanced for my taste. It is definitely on the simpler side, think Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga. Some of the puzzles were a bit annoying but most of them were pretty great. Enemies have a decent variety and the time-based blocking and dodging keep you engaged. Cute mechanics get introduced throughout. It's by no means difficult but I do think if you give it to a kid most of the jokes would go over their head.

Conclusion

This is a must play on handheld, if you want something to take to bed with you at night I would highly recommend it. I think on PC itself I would have a hard time getting into it as it gives me a cozier handheld vibe. It's a great 20 hr experience that doesn't overstay its welcome.
It's a solid 9/10 especially at the $25 base price.

This is day 17 of #100DaysToOffload