[00:00] If there are two things to know about Garfield, it's that he loves lasagna and he hates Mondays. So, it should come as no surprise that developer Awesome Studios' rendition of Jim Davis' beloved cartoon series, Garfield's Escape from Monday, is heavily bound to those two themes.
[00:14] Set across a series of foodie nightmare worlds, the three-platformer sees the famous tabby, kicking veggies and chomping processed snacks to awaken from a fiber-fueled, huge state. Sadly, like other disappointing cartoon adaptations,
[00:26] since his exploration of the food-obsessed feline psyche is actually rather dull. It's overly familiar platforming and excessively camera-winking writing making it a little more than a dazzling but sarcasm-laden slog. Alright, it's time to eat some lasagna.
[00:41] Real lasagna this time. Escape from Monday kicks off with a tune-chated Garfield haphazardly shoveling a slice of what he thinks is dumb lasagna into his gullet. Once he realizes the meal is actually laden with veggies,
[00:54] he quickly passes out and is transported to an inner world called the dreamland. Oh, what happened? Here, a vegetarian TV chef, knowingly named Monday, has transformed his cheese and meat fantasies into approachable,
[01:07] obstacle-filled levels, stocking them with aggressive snacks to boot. With a kick, a jump, and a forward boot in your arsenal, plus a forgiving health bar, you run Garfield through these stages to eventually wake him up.
[01:19] The story rarely dives deeper than this initial premise and leaves you with little more to chew London, fat food is yummy and veggies are gross. I'm not looking for Shakespeare, but it does feel like a wasted opportunity, especially considering how much personality Garfield has elsewhere,
[01:32] and how much room there is to have fun without fear. Alas, instead of a sarcastic hero you can root for Escape from Monday orbits something much worse an unlikable cat who delivers a stream of constant complaints until you hit the credits 40 plus levels later So all this bother was just to hit a checkpoint
[01:49] This one-dimensional attitude grows increasingly grating throughout the roughly nine-hour runtime. When he's not lamenting his situation, he's waxing lyrical about the developers, pointing out how certain obstacles or puzzles are repetitive and uninteresting. When his friends appear like expository force ghosts,
[02:03] he continues to disparage them too. Always there to remind me. I'm in a nightmare. Parading into PG-13 Deadpool, the metachemer gradually begins to feel like an excuse. His hypercritical lens intended to lower my expectations, rather than make me laugh.
[02:18] Do you, Shree? That's the best you could do for the bad guys? As you work your way through the zingy levels, you'll also collect tons of lasagna that fill a metagame where you furnish a surreal version of John Abuckel's apartment.
[02:31] To unlock physical versions of sofas and lampshades, you need to find slices hidden in each level, while simultaneously gathering enough snacks to fill a pressure gauge called the Yamamita. While this technically provides extra goals beyond simply reaching the end,
[02:44] the system ultimately feels like an afterthought. So disconnected from the main game, it's easy to forget about his fantasy apartment altogether. I know I did. I'm having a nap, and I can't even enjoy it. Exactly.
[02:56] Thankfully, the art style provides a much-needed distraction. Escape the Monday's aesthetics are delightful, evoking the blocky simplicity of PS1 platformers like Club Rage or Ransom. The Dreamland is split into three themed overworlds, with each featuring a basic, bullet-hell-like
[03:10] mini-boss to defeat as you bounce towards an edible point of interest. By fusing confectionery with familiar adventure tropes like pirates, farmers, and the Western Frontier Escape from Monday cleverly conjures the tone of the classic comic strip As you wade deeper into each world the obstacles also evolve nicely moving beyond basic wooden platforms and bouncy pillow blocks Suddenly
[03:31] you have to contend with floating panels of meat that flip with your jumps, as well as electrified metal graders, all while evil veggies try to take you out. The combinations were never enough to make me break a sweat, particularly as one hit will take
[03:43] out nearly any enemy, but you can't really feel the deliberate care behind their placement, and I enjoyed the spectacle nonetheless. Where the level steadily builds, the tools you're given to tackle them aren't quite as compelling.
[03:58] You'll eventually uncover thematic outfits that grant you unique powers. There's the turkey costume that lets you fly temporarily, beachwear that equips you with a surfboard to ride over bodies of water and skate over obstacles, and cowboy garb that supplies you with a lasso to grapple onto horseshoes and swing over ravines.
[04:14] These additions are far from imaginative, and instead of letting you experiment, and Escape from Monday is more keen to explicitly tell you when and where to use them. As such, you're left mindlessly moving towards the finish line for the sake of, well, completing the level.
[04:26] The only difference now is that you're wearing a funny hat. Now that's nice. Still, beyond the lack of any real room for experimentation, the most disappointing aspect of Escape from Monday is the platforming itself. Unlike the grounded movement of It Takes Two or Astro Bot,
[04:40] the process of getting Garfield to jump between ledges or kick a rugby team feels more like wading through honey. Sure, the ginger cat is infamous for his overt laziness, but the sluggish action here is at odds with the puzzles around him. In early levels, when movement is little more than
[04:53] riding wind gusts or jumping between slowly rotating windmills, it's easy to overlook. But as the obstacles expand my unknown mistakes start to get on my skin particularly as I push towards the end It an issue made worse by the erratic camera with escapes on Monday frequently leaving it unclear who in control of your field of view Early on you given the impression you have freedom to rotate its position
[05:14] but during the actual levels, the view snaps and twists at random, frequently right in the middle of tricky maneuvers. And on many occasions, while planning my next steps, I encountered an irritating camera icon trapped inside a block, indicating that, for whatever reason, I couldn't look around the area.
[05:28] With no alternative, the only option was to ignore my inner explorer and continue down the main path. The saving grace here is that Escape from Monday is at least extremely generous with its checkpoints.
[05:40] Every few steps, your spot will be saved, allowing you to pop back into place, ready to try again if you flip off the map. As with the collectibles, the checkpoints feel more like a band-aid, intended to make the experience totally frictionless rather than actually solving the platforming issues this game so clearly has.
[05:54] They certainly kept me from getting too frustrated, but in doing so, they also distanced me from the actual joy of progress or success. Garfield Escape from Monday is a mediocre 3D platformer dragged down by its relentless, self-deprecating humor and sluggish platforming.
[06:12] The power-boosting costumes and wonderful, good-flavored set dressings do their best to capture some of the nostalgic joy of Garfield's past comics and cartoons, but the cat himself is a bitter imitation of those depictions. makes him some cute but largely pointless collectibles
[06:25] in a time where you occasionally have to fight and escape from Monday feels like a step backwards in an era with so many original and experimental platformers to choose from. For more, check out our reviews of Silent Hill Town
[06:39] Full and Control Resonant. And for everything else, stick with IGN.