Mothergamer Plays Escape from Ever After

 *Note: I received the game for free for my honest review. Thank you to Sleepy Castle Studio and HypeTrain Digital for the PS5 game key.

I was excited to check out Escape from Ever After because it looked cute and totally gave a Paper Mario feel with the art style. We're introduced to storybook character Flynt Buckler who as he enters the castle is ready to face his nemesis Tinder the Dragon discovers things have changed drastically. Not only has the castle been taken over by a greedy megacorporation known as Ever After Inc. it's also been fully redesigned in what can only be described as office cubicle hell complete with other storybook characters. Right from the start, the humor and jokes about this are funny and smart and had me laughing at poor Flynt wondering what the heck was going on as he talks to the receptionist who is Red Riding Hood in the lobby. 

Flynt Buckler begins his adventure. 

Red Riding Hood immediately recognizes Flynt as a main character and calls the regional manager Mr. Moon who is actually a moon. He seems kind of nice at first offering Flynt a job which is a little surprising, but when Flynt decides to pass on the job opportunity he's thrown into a dungeon. I was shocked and amused to find Flynt's cellmate was none other than Tinder the Dragon. Tinder is looking a little smaller as she explains that Ever After Inc. swarmed into her castle and forced her to wear a collar that makes her look like a tiny cute dragon. She's very grumpy about this and ready to torch the corporation to the ground. Flynt and Tinder reach an agreement to work together to escape the dungeon. This gives a good tutorial into how the battle system works. I'm very bad at timing and puzzles so I did appreciate that I could change the game settings to play the game on easy and have autoblock on. This made the battles more fun and less frustrating for me. 

Flynt and Tinder get ready to battle.

Once they've escaped the dungeon Flynt and Tinder agree to continue working together and come up with a plan. They're going to get jobs at Ever After Inc, and climb the corporate ladder in order to destroy the whole thing from the inside. It was interesting that Mr. Moon didn't hold a grudge and was delighted to do the job interview for Flynt and Tinder. The interview had me laughing at Flynt trying to give polite answers while Tinder kept giving answers heavily laced in sarcasm. Somehow, they pass the interview and are hired and are shown to their office where they can check emails to get their first assignment as well as some side quests like throwing an office birthday party for Pinocchio. 

Tinder's sarcasm is gold.

The gist of what Ever After Inc. can do is they can use a device known as a telepager and they can enter the worlds of the chosen storybook. Flynt and Tinder are given clearance to do this and enter their first storybook world which is The Three Little Pigs. The Pigs were not the heroes in the story and surprisingly the wolves were the good guys including The Big Bad Wolf who is actually a bard and says everyone calls him Wolfgang. I absolutely adored Wolfgang. He's just a happy little guy who loves to share his not so great songs with everyone and is funny without meaning to be because of situations going right over his head. Wolfgang does have very useful abilities that incorporate his music such as playing a song that makes plants grow huge. 

Two more interesting characters are added to the group as the adventure continues with a skeleton witch named Eva and a cute one eyed teddy bear named Patches. The entire group agrees that Ever After Inc. must be stopped and they need to save not just themselves, but all the storybook characters from the evil machinations of their corporate greed. Each one has their own unique abilities that can be used to get through various puzzles and storybook areas. There's also a badges system where each character can equip a badge that boosts battle abilities. There's also cute outfits that Flynt can equip as part of the story for several of the storybook worlds. I loved exploring all the different worlds. I did feel some of the puzzles were a little rough in places when it wasn't quite obvious what to do, but because I enjoyed the story and all the characters it did not detract from my enjoyment of the game. 

Checking the party's stats. 

I think what makes Escape from Ever After stand out is that while yes it seems like a Paper Mario clone, it's very much its own thing with a truly original story and characters that are quirky, funny, and imperfect and yet they manage to become friends and work together really well. The story itself has a lot of heart not just in the main story, but in the side quests as well. My personal favorite was Cthulhu finding love and their romantic partner giving them a hilarious grand gesture with the help of Flynt and friends. There's even a side quest involving an epic dungeon crawl in a tower called the Stairs of Success that can give some pretty great rewards. All of these things come together perfectly to make a fun whimsical adventure with fantastic storytelling, wonderful characters, and a lot of beautiful touching moments throughout all of it. I loved this group of unlikely friends coming together and learning things about themselves and each other. When I got to the ending I was a little sad to say goodbye, but I was also happy that I got to go on this fantastic adventure with them. 

The power of friendship! 

*Escape from Ever After is available on the following platforms: Steam, Nintendon Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and Playstation 5

*Join the Mothergamer community on Twitch where we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

Mothergamer Plays Visions of Mana

 I've always enjoyed the Mana games because of the storylines, the combat, and the unique art style. I was happy to check out Visions of Mana and dove in immediately. Visions of Mana introduces us to Val who has been chosen to be a soulguard, an escort for people known as Alms who are chosen by the Faerie of Mana to sacrifice themselves to the Tree of Mana in order to sustain the flow of mana in the world and avoid calamity. One of the people chosen is Val's childhood friend Hinna as the Alm of fire. The art delivers with beautifully bright and bold colors and this really shows in Val and Hinna's village. 

There is a small bit of tutorial on the battle system which is pretty straightforward. The accessibility settings are decent with being able to adjust the difficulty of the game, adjusting the size of the subtitles, and adjusting the text speed to name a few. The game is fully voice acted too although it did throw me off hearing one of the characters Careena speaking with a full southern accent. I was curious and looked that up and the answer is in the Japanese voice acting she speaks with a heavy Kansai accent so for English the localization is southern accent and apparently this is pretty common. It took a bit of getting used to, but after that I barely noticed it and Careena is one of the more amusing characters with her wisecracks and humor. 

Faerie of Mana talks to Val and friends. 

I liked all the characters in Val's group, but Careena and Morley stood out the most to me. Where Careena can be a bit more boisterous Morley is a little more reserved, but he has moments of being quite blunt that lead to pretty hilarious results. Julei joins the party last and he's pretty adorable and loves making up songs and sharing them with everyone. Val is the heart of the party bringing everyone together with his cheerful optimism and his vast empathy for others. It was always great to see the others rally around Val on their adventure and really start to become good friends who genuinely care about each other. Throughout the story you get to see how each individual in the party grows and changes for the better because of their experiences and that includes Val as well. 

The group of friends takes in the view. 

The story of Visions of Mana is interesting and very well done. It's not anything groundbreaking, but that's not a bad thing. It tells a good story and it does a great job about getting you to care about each character. I really felt for Val when he was struggling with self doubt while trying to continue his journey with everyone and helping them. The combat in Visions of Mana really shines because it's fast and fun with over the top special attacks according to each individual's class. The class system and combat mesh really well together making for some fantastic fights and boss battles. 

Fighting a giant frog monster. 

I also liked that you can swap between characters during battles according to what you need or if there's an individual you prefer for combat. I tended to choose Morley often because of his quick dual wielding rogue abilities as well as his slow time ability he had as an Alm of the moon. You can also swap characters out of your party for others as needed. The world in Visions of Mana is huge and I did enjoy exploring everywhere. The map could be a bit difficult to navigate sometimes because some areas have lots of twists and turns like a desert area. It wasn't a big deal as I still had fun playing the game. 

There's side quests too of course involving helping various NPCs with tasks like finding a certain item for them or giving a letter to a person in the next town. I didn't mind these, because some of them did give good rewards like specialized weapons or useful healing items. After a bit, I did stop doing them because they got a bit tedious for me and I wanted to keep chasing after the main story. Visions of Mana did have a couple of issues with a couple of visual bugs and a few framerate drops even though I was playing on performance mode, but it wasn't too bad and didn't detract from my enjoyment of the game. The story drags in a few places towards the end, but I still liked and appreciated the overall story and the way it wrapped everything up nicely for a solidly good ending making. For me, Visions of Mana was a great game because of the likeable characters, the fun combat, and the good storytelling which made me glad I checked it out. 

Arriving at the Tree of Mana. 

*Visions of Mana is available to play on the following platforms: Steam, Xbox Series X/S, Playstation 4, and Playstation 5

*Join the Mothergamer community on Twitch where we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

 

Mothergamer Plays Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

 *Note: Some spoilers for the game are in the review. 

The concept for Banishers was interesting to me, two people known as banishers who solve hauntings and banish ghosts while helping the living. The banishers are like exorcists, but a little cooler. I noticed that it's done by the same studio who worked on Vampyr another game I quite enjoyed. I did appreciate that the game had warnings about flashing lights in the game as well as a trigger warning for interactions with racism and misogyny for the time period. The accessibility settings are decent. There are options to adjust the size of the subtitle fonts, there is an aim assist option, and remap the controls for game controller and PC mouse and keyboard settings. You can adjust the game's difficulty settings as well. I tend to enjoy games like this more on story mode so that is what I chose. 

 Banishers is set in 1695 in a fictional Puritan town called New Eden. Banishers and lovers Antea Duarte and Red mac Raith arrive in New Eden after being invited via letter by their friend Charles Davenport asking for help with a very strong malevolent spirit that has basically cursed the town. Unfortunately by the time Antea and Red have arrived Charles has already died from a heart attack after trying to face the spirit alone. This is where Antea and Red's journey really begins and gives you an easy to follow tutorial on the combat and banisher abilities like doing a ritual to see echoes of a past event. I liked the combat and the explanation of different ghosts like Specters and Bonewalkers. I also instantly liked Antea and Red. There is a noticeable calmness between the two that shows a complete trust and love of each other and it's done in a beautifully subtle way such as Antea gently teasing Red about some minor mistakes he made when he first trained as a banisher. 

Antea and Red arrive in New Eden. 

Antea and Red meet with Charles' widow Esther to try and figure how and why the spirit came to be. They figure out pretty quickly that the spirit is an entity known as a Nightmare, a ghost whose death was unjust and wronged. Red is still relatively new to his banisher powers and Antea warns him that a Nightmare is nothing like he's faced and they can be very tricky. Talking to some of the villagers like the governor Fairefax Haskell shows just how arrogant and ignorant many of them are especially in the way they speak to Antea as a Black woman during this particular time period. Red always steps up for her and makes it very clear that Antea is in charge, not him. It's always surprising how quickly people adjust their behavior when Red does this and I was amused every time Antea gave him a knowing smile as if they're both in on the joke about how foolish people can be. 

Their first night in New Eden, things go horribly wrong. Red forgets Antea's warning about the Nightmare, waking up with Antea not there and hearing her calling for help. Red rushes to the place where the Nightmare first appeared thinking Antea is in trouble not realizing it's a trick. The Nightmare appears and is absolutely terrifying nearly killing Red, but Antea shows up and confronts it which causes the Nightmare to kill Antea and throw Red out a window to the cliffs below. It's gut wrenching that moment knowing it's part of the story and nothing can be done. Red wakes up in a cave with a mysterious woman watching over him known as Seeker. She explains to Red that a witch named Siridean had told her to find Red and help him in dealing with the curse. Seeker tells Red what he must do in order to solve the curse and lift it. Shortly after Red runs into the ghost of Antea and Antea explains that her body is her ghost tie and they need to recover it. This is where you make the first big decision in the game that can affect the ending. Red and Antea can either resurrect Antea which means very dark magic that would sacrifice human lives or they can perform a ritual of ascension which would send Antea peacefully to her afterlife. I personally chose the ascension path. 

The town of New Eden is locked down due to the curse and the majority of the villagers have left for other smaller villages in the area. Red and Antea have to solve the issues in these areas because there are a series of smaller malicious curses influenced by the Nightmare and several decisions that some of the more influential villagers have made. The combat introduces a new setup with Red and Antea being able to work together with Antea's ghost powers. For example, if a path is blocked by a boulder you can switch to Antea and she can use her ghost powers to blast the boulder apart. Red has to talk to the villagers and Antea gives him advice on how to navigate the conversations and clues to look for. 

There are plenty of side quests in the form of haunting cases that Red and Antea can work together to solve. For the big main story side quests, you get some insights into how the curse happened in the first place and it does not paint many of the villagers in a good light. The designs for the various ghosts and supernatural creatures is really well done and fighting them requires different tactics. I love that you can switch between Red and Antea easily depending on what skills are needed and there's a really good ebb and flow to the combat because of this. There are puzzles too that rely on both their skills to solve and I was glad the puzzles aren't overly complicated so you can solve them without too much frustration.

Red and Antea face a supernatural creature.

The user interface menu is easy to follow with upgrading Red and Antea's equipment and their skills which can be done at a campfire rest area. This is also how you fast travel throughout the game via the various rest area spots that are unlocked. I do wish we could fast travel anywhere on the map, but I do appreciate that there is fast travel because that made things a lot easier for completing the many side quests. When Red and Antea solve a haunting case they have choices to make; ascension which gently sends the ghost to their afterlife, banishment which is harsher for more violent ghost and sends them to the void, or blaming the living which kills them and absorbs their power. Blaming is considered the "evil" choice because that is part of the sacrificing multiple lives to bring Antea back. 

I found it interesting that the hauntings aren't simple. There were definitely aspects of certain hauntings where it was morally grey and neither party was correct or noticing that for some of the people of New Eden they weren't necessarily good people and let their ignorance and fear overtake them causing pain to others. In fact there are some that make it very easy to want to choose the blame option because of their rotten behavior. It shows how well done the writing is as you struggle with making those decisions in some scenarios. There are also moments of reflection between Red and Antea about their relationship, how they'll deal with the Nightmare, and accepting that they will have to say goodbye to each other. Ultimately, throughout the game there is this theme of accepting death and loss not just for the two banishers, but for the people of  New Eden who are haunted or struggling with their own grief. Red and Antea are able to help and while a few villagers at first aren't ready to face it, some do find peace in acceptance. I liked exploring everywhere and while New Eden is very haunted, the backdrop is beautiful with lots of lush forests and snowy mountain vistas. 

Red and Antea admiring the view. 

There are some technical issues with the game that aren't a big deal, but they're noticeable. After a couple hours the game has issues with stuttering and the only way to address it is to close the game and reboot it. Sometimes the camera angles go a little haywire and it's hard to see enemies and I would have to turn or reset it. Other than those issues, I enjoyed Banishers a lot. Revealing the truth behind the Nightmare was really something because it made me care about the person they were before and I realized how heartbreaking it really was for them to have nearly the entire town blame them for something that was not their fault. It was eye opening to realize that among New Eden there were only ten people who were not complete jerks and the rest were selfish, arrogant, and willfully ignorant. The voice acting for all of this is incredible especially for Red and Antea when they realize how awful some of the people of New Eden really are and Red being able to call them on it with Antea at his side encouraging him is great.

When the time came to say goodbye, I was not okay. I had come to love Red and Antea and enjoyed my adventure with them. Red kept his oath to Antea and the scene is heartbreaking and beautiful and I cried so much watching it play out. It was perfectly done and it was a lovely tender moment between the two as they accepted their parting even though it was sad. The ending summary did a good job explaining what happened to Red and the people of New Eden after everything was done. I appreciated the journey and absolutely adore Red and Antea. With all the side quests and the main story I finished the game in about fifty hours. For completionists it can be a little longer with about sixty hours. I enjoyed Banishers immensely for the great storytelling, the fun combat, and for incredible characters like Red and Antea. I'm glad I got to experience this adventure with them. 

*Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is available on the following platforms: Xbox Series X/S, Playstation 5, and Steam

*Join the Mothergamer community on Twitch where we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer