Escape From Ever After

Escape from Ever After makes no secret of its inspirations, utilizing similar gameplay mechanics and visuals to the early Paper Mario games.  But does it prove to stand apart from its inspirations, or is this simply too derivative and uninspired a knockoff to leave an impact?

Escape From Ever After is another entry in a common sight these days - RPGs that purportedly pay homage to the classics of yesteryear.  Usually by replicating their visual style and gameplay elements without having much in the way of interesting writing or characters.  I've played and panned a fair number of them in my time (just see some other reviews), but we've also gotten some surprisingly good ones like Sea of Stars, Horizon's Gate and Symphony of War.

Escape From Ever After is another in that vein.  While it is clearly based on Paper Mario, it does a surprisingly good job replicating most of its beats.  The chibi characters with 2D papercraft aesthetics populating 3D environments, the low-numbers combat damage that has a surprising amount of depth and utilizes minigames in each move, and the jokey-yet-confident writing that makes its plot scenes a lot of fun to experience.  But whereas Paper Mario poked fun at RPG tropes through its colorful cast and sardonic tone, Escape From Ever After takes aim a bit higher, mocking corporate culture and capitalism in general.

It does all this through the lens of a corporation called Ever After Inc. that occupies fairy tale worlds, exploiting their inhabitants and real estate in order to expand their business empire.  Indeed, the protagonists are the latest victims of this scheme - Flynt Buckler and his nemesis Tinder the Dragon find their world overtaken and Tinder has his size and flame breath suppressed with a collar.  Acting on a tip from the Three Blind Mice they take jobs at the company, ultimately scheming to thwart their plans and bring it down from within.  That's a pretty clever concept, and it's used quite smartly throughout their later exploits, giving you all sorts of unlockables to decorate the pair's office and numerous quests given to them by their various coworkers and overseers.  As in Paper Mario, these often reward you with various upgrade items - Sun Gems can be traded for valuable and rare prizes while Ink Bottles allow you to upgrade your characters' basic attacks.  Each character gets several cosmetic outfits to utilize as well.  The game also conveniently keeps track of your found/purchased collectibles in an in-game log, so you can be certain of which ones you haven't yet found without having to do tons of backtracking.

Combat plays out much like Paper Mario too, utilizing many similar gimmicks.  For example, enemies that hold spears in front of them can't be approached without being damage, but Flynt attacks by throwing his buckler at range.  Other enemies have wooden shields that Tinder can burn away, and still others may have metal shields that neither can easily get around, requiring another character (like Wolfgang) to bypass their defenses entirely.  Damage and health numbers tend to be low - rarely exceeding single digits for damage and low double digits for overall health - but playing smartly is still required.  Most attacks are governed by minigames - well timed button presses or stick motions will deal extra damage, while blocking at just the right moment can reduce damage taken or even eliminate it entirely.  Trinkets stand in for Paper Mario's Badges, giving characters new abilities or upping their combat capabilities by giving them a chance to evade damage entirely, added defense, more damage, more health and so on. Synergy attacks can be performed by spending MP to deal extra damage or hit more enemies in a single blow, and one can build up morale with well-timed presses (or using the Motivate command) to unleash special moves that restore some health to the entire party or deal heavy damage.  Every 100 Experience gains you a level, which can be used to boost your maximum health, MP or Trinket Points.  One deviation I found from the Paper Mario format is that you don't need to have Flynt in the active battle party at all times - you can swap him out for one of the other characters, though the maximum active party size remains two.  You get one free switch-out during the first turn of combat, though in subsequent rounds it costs one Synergy Point each time you do.

Outside of battle each character's abilities also get utilized frequently in order to solve puzzles and advance through the dungeon.  You'll often have to use them in tandem too - for instance, having Tinder light a torch and Flynt toss his buckler through it to catch it on fire to ignite another object you can't reach on foot.  Wolfgang (of the Three Little Pigs) story also fills in a role reminiscent of the early 3D Zeldas, playing numerous songs with a large variety of effects to activate various objects in the environment.  You'll have to utilize them all in pretty clever ways if you want to find all the treasures too, and of course any time you can find something to sneak behind or something in the foreground obscuring details behind it, you'll probably want to check there for hidden goodies.

I found myself having quite a lot of fun with Escape From Ever After.  It's a rather shameless copycat of Paper Mario's gameplay, design and general attitude, but it's so well done that you almost forget it's a fan-made homage title and not an actual game in the series.  The genuinely funny dialog, the easy to pick up but surprisingly challenging gameplay, the surprisingly high concept and having tons of secrets to uncover and side-missions to complete make it a high quality RPG.  The runtime is reasonable enough too, running roughly 25-30 hours, so it doesn't overstay its welcome like a lot of bigger-budget titles try to.  If you've already finished the Switch remake of Thousand Year Door and have been longing for another return to the classic Paper Mario format, Escape From Ever After is one I can easily recommend.

 

Developer: Sleepy Castle Studio, Wing-It! Creative
Publisher: HypeTrain Digital
Released: 2026
Platform: Switch, PlayStation 5, PC, XBox Series
Recommended Version: All versions seem to be identical to one another.

Crimson Desert

Crimson Desert got a lot of attention before launch for its seeming ambitious open world design and seemingly combining elements from other sandbox/open world games into one massive experience.  Indeed, playing it for just a couple hours gives the feel of it being a weird kitbash of Skyrim, Breath of the Wild and Dragon's Dogma, with a sprinkling of Metroid Prime for having to "scan" things in order to learn new abilities and fill in lore.  The writing in the game is very lackluster though, with a stock (and often nonsequitur) sequence of events making up the main questline and some pretty awful dialog.  More naked exposition than a Wikipedia entry and characters showing they're evil by dropping curse words every 3 seconds cuz the Witcher did it and we're Adults Really Honest.  The gameplay isn't much to write home about either - while it does have elements like BotW's gliding and powers for puzzle solving, no shortage of combat and trap dodging and mountains of quests, crafting systems and skill trees to build up, it all just feels very blasé.  Enemies are spongey, the controls just feel loose and janky, and the weird combinations of buttons to perform the dozens of actions you're given just get confusing rather than ever feeling intuitive.  It really does just feel like one of those games that's trying to cast out a big net to make the most popular and marketable game possible, rather than polishing up any of its dozens of different elements and making them genuinely enjoyable.  After just a few hours of this one I just decided to shelve it and go back to playing Tears of the Kingdom instead.

Update: They use AI generated assets and didn't bother disclosing it until after they got caught.  And because we don't reward showing flagrant contempt for one's audience or the creative process around here, I have revised my score from 1.5 stars to 0.  Have a nice day!

Developer: Pearl Abyss
Publisher: Pearl Abyss
Released: 2026
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, XBox Series, MacOS

Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined

The fourth iteration of Dragon Quest VII to get a release is also the first to make the leap to HD, with a charming art style based on digitized models and many quality-of-life improvements over previous editions.  But does this notoriously slow-paced game benefit from yet another upgrade, or does it fail once more to invite new fans to the franchise?

Dragon Quest VII is arguably the series' most divisive entry, earning both praise and criticism for the slow pace of its story and its copious amount of backtracking.  It was also the last to retain the series' noted low production values, still using simple text-based menus and minimally-animated sprites right up to the end of the PS1 era; definitely a stark contrast to more visually impressive CGI works of the era like the Final Fantasy series.  The later rereleases on the 3DS and mobile platforms tightened it up and gave it an updated look, though it did little to improve its perception in the west.  In 2026 Square Enix commissioned Hexadrive to try again with another updated version, hoping to ride the wave of success they had with their remakes of 1, 2 and 3 in recent years.

The most notable element right away is the visual upgrade.  While the original was very bare-bones 3D environments and spritework with minimal animation (aside from a few scattered FMV cutscenes) and the 3DS version was essentially the same idea with 3D models, Reimagined... well, reimagines things.  The character models are based on dolls that were actually made and digitally scanned, and are surprisingly well-animated and expressive. Environments adopt a more photorealistic, diorama-like look to match the models, giving it a style that's a comfortable blend of realism and cartoon.  Voiceover was added too, bringing it in line with the recent remakes of 1-3.

Some other improvements from later Dragon Quest games were added to this one too.  Enemies are now visible on the map, giving you a chance to evade or battle them at your convenience.  You can also land a preemptive attack on them to get some easy damage before a fight starts, or if an enemy is significantly weaker than your party, instantly defeat them.  The UI is substantially improved over the usual text-based Dragon Quest menus, sorted into tabs for inventory, equipment, options and so forth, all visually represented.  Rather than having individual character inventories it's now unified, so you don't have to distribute items to each character ahead of time.

Another added mechanic is the ability to get "Worked up" and "Let Loose" - a bit like Pep from Dragon Quest XI, getting Worked Up gives a temporary (and semi-random) boost to your character's core stats, while "Letting Loose" allows them to unleash a powerful ability.  Unlike XI, however, these are tied to your character's current Vocation; each character gets a unique default class (and ability to go with it), while the more generic Vocations get abilities of their own.  These range from boosting a chance to land a critical hit with spells to negating the next attack taken to allowing you to cast spells at no cost for a turn or two.

The vocation system has been reworked once again too.  As mentioned, each character now has a unique default Vocation exclusive to them.  In addition to that, one can now only use skills from Vocations they currently have equipped; they can now also equip two at once with the new Moonlighting system, allowing them to create powerful hybrid Vocations and level up two at once to cut down on the grind.  This version adds an item that allows class changes at any time, cutting down on trips back to Alltrades Abbey.  Being able to train two classes at once helps with a major shortcoming of the older versions too, namely that two of your party members come late in the game and far behind on vocation levels; that's still the case here, but being able to train up two at a time cuts down on the grind considerably.  Monster Hearts are also reworked; rather than being used to unlock more Vocations they now serve as accessories, granting small bonuses like a higher chance to land critical hits or survive a fatal blow with 1 HP.  They also are no longer dropped in random battles, instead being found in chests or earned by defeating souped-up monsters that appear in specific spots on the map.

Other quality of life improvements are introduced too.  In addition to tightening up the pacing (again), the player now has the option to make granular adjustment for difficulty, damage taken and even the amount of XP, gold and vocation points you earn to speed up the gameplay (or slow it down, if you prefer).  So the game can appeal to newer and less patient RPG players as well as those more suited to the old-school challenge and grind.  Many portals back to the main island exist too, allowing for substantially less travel time as you progress through the story and main goals within.  On the other hand, there is a substantial amount of cut content compared to previous versions; there are significantly fewer islands to explore and the monster sanctuary/Traveler's Tablets mechanic from the 3DS is entirely removed in favor of generic postgame boss challenges and timed arena fights, both of which require substantial seed farming and level grinding to overcome.  Luck too, since said arena challenges are on a turn counter and enemies within them can heal you back to full and disable your party for long periods with debilitating status spam.  Not exactly my idea of fun.

Dragon Quest VII is still unapologetically long, generally slow paced and old-school in its core design, and while I can't say any of them are flawless, Reimagined is definitely its most accessible iteration to date.  It does still require quite a bit of revisiting areas to progress and it's still tens of hours of gameplay before you get a full party and access to the Vocation system, but the pacing is considerably quicker now and there's substantially less of the empty grind to deal with.  All this, plus the charming visual style, captivating story it tells and the many new tweaks and additions, may finally make this the game that puts Dragon Quest VII on the map in the west.  I certainly hope it does; it's a great, epic RPG that deserves more recognition. Even better, maybe it will inspire people to go back and check out the earlier versions that have more to offer in the way of significant content.

 

Developer: Hexadrive
Publisher: Square Enix
Released: 2026
Platform: Switch, Switch 2, PlayStation 5, XBox Series, PC
Recommended Version: All of them seem to be on level with one another; although the Switch 2 version does come on a Game Key Card (full download with the cart simply serving as glorified DRM), so if you're opposed to that you may want to spring for another one.