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.