Escape from Ever After Review
Release Date: January 26, 2026
Publisher/Developer: Sleepy Castle Studio, Wing It! Creative/Hype Train Digital
Platform: Steam (reviewed), Switch, Xbox One/Series, PlayStation 5
Price: $24.99
Escape from Ever After feels like Paper Mario via a fever dream plot variant of the first Shrek film. You play as the hero Flynt Buckler, off on a quest to destroy the villainous fire breathing dragon Tinder. It seems this story has played out a thousand times, but this time it is different: Flynt arrives at Tinder’s castle to find it transformed into an office complex, where Ever After, Inc has set up shop. A “real world” company, Ever After, Inc has discovered how to go into the worlds of fairy tales, and what better thing to do than to figure out how to profit from it! Ever After, Inc’s current plan is to recruit any fairy tale characters willing to work with them, and quietly get rid of the rest. Flynt starts out being sent to the dungeon where he runs into a humiliated Tinder, and they decide the right thing to do is to get rid of Ever After, Inc. How do they do this you ask? By getting a job and climbing the corporate ladder until they are high enough to take down the enemy from within!
The game takes obvious pages from the Paper Mario series, with turn based RPG elements and low numbers prevailing in the early game. It throws unique mechanics at you early, though, teaching you how characters in certain positions will injure someone doing a close-up attack, or how Flynt’s main weapon won’t hurt anyone with a shield up. Each new character you recruit has different skills, which may be needed to make a particular enemy vulnerable to all attacks. It really stretches your brain and forces you to try all the characters out. The office motif is integrated in cute ways as well, from team up attacks being corporate synergy attacks to save points being copy machines. Humor is well-placed as well; certain moves that are designed to boost stats are portrayed as each character giving each other compliments when they may not really get along that well! Magic is rejuvenated with coffee, Little Red Riding Hood is the receptionist, overall the silliness of the office flavors the whole game.
Created by a two-person indie development team, Escape from Ever After offers roughly 20ish hours of gameplay to comfortably get through the story. There are plenty of side quests you can get if you pay attention to your emails. The game scratches all those Paper Mario itches, with timed button presses increasing attack effectiveness and light platforming logic on the field maps. Flynt is a likeable enough protagonist, but everyone you recruit has their own fun story to tell and their special abilities help you interact with the environment and unlock more of what the game has to offer.
You could argue that Escape from Ever After takes excessive amounts of inspiration from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, as the combat, upgrades, and animation feel pulled straight from it. If you liked TTYD, however, it’s up to you whether you consider this a complaint or a compliment. Given Paper Mario is frequently making fun of itself and the knowledge you have of the Mario universe, Escape from Ever After is able to do this via the well-known world of fairy tales. It is very tongue-in-cheek with it’s humor, and the occasional wall breaks as characters talk about their own stories creates many good laughs. If you are wanting more gameplay and humor akin to earlier entries in the Paper Mario series, you could do far worse than Escape from Ever After. Climbing the corporate ladder for revenge has never been more fun.
Pros:
-Very well polished game, feels highly professional
-Evokes the best parts of Paper Mario
-Begins with unique battle design and attacks early on to keep you on your toes
Cons:
-Maybe a bit TOO Paper Mario-ey?
-As an indie game, it is short. You may be looking for more when it’s wrapping up
Special thanks to Sleepy Castle Studio, Wing It! Creative/Hype Train Digital for providing a code for review!
