While I’ve played many RPGs of all sorts over my years as a gamer, I’d say that there are only a handful that really stuck with me. While there are obvious choices like the classic Final Fantasy 6 (3 for American audiences), Secret of Mana, or the likes of Fallout 3 (a personal favorite), the earlier games in the Paper Mario series are still experiences I remember fondly. With clever writing, creative quests, a distinctive look, and its trademark action-oriented take on turn-based combat, they were smart, polished, and offered up plenty of fun. What’s strange though is that there have been so few attempts to emulate that style overall, so when I loaded up Escape from Ever After I’ll admit that I was quite excited and hopeful that it could live up to that legacy.

At least in terms of the game’s look, sense of humor, quality of writing, and pretty uniquely creative storytelling, it makes a very positive impression. Whether it's the smiles coming from meeting up with a variety of typically goofy versions of fairy tale characters, some genuine laughs from the clever dialogue, or elements like the often absurd office-oriented humor, there’s plenty here to enjoy. There’s absolutely no love shown here for corporate America, with plenty of spot-on jokes at its expense, and I’ll gleefully admit that I’m here for it.

That makes the short list of issues I had with the game all the more disappointing though. At the top of the list is unfortunately the action-based element of the turn-based battles, which were a key part of what helped make Paper Mario remain so engaging throughout. The problem here is simply that more often than not the specific timing for enhancing your attacks or, effectively shaking off those from your enemies, is a mess. Having played a fair number of games like this, I can say that this is among the most poorly-implemented of the systems overall. The timing, the majority of the time, just doesn’t make much sense, and to be successful you’ll often need to be a long moment ahead of what would “feel like” the appropriate timing, you know, like when actual contact is made, and not before. Sure, there’s an option to tone down how picky this particular implementation is, but that almost feels like an admission that they messed up the core timing, and you’d have hoped they’d instead improve how these action-oriented moments were implemented, than shrug and and simply make a way to remove it as a concern. Still, if you’re willing to overlook smaller oversights like that, there’s still plenty to enjoy here as a whole.