Garfield: Escape from Monday (Multi) Review

Our next review, Garfield: Escape from Monday, is perfect for this Tuesday. Why? Because we've officially escaped Monday! Now, let's hope Garfield can do the same. In the meantime, let's check out his latest adventure with the SPC review.

 Just Another Case of the Mondays

My history with Garfield is fairly limited in the grand scheme of things. Sure, I knew of his existence in the Sunday funnies within the newspaper, but what really got me going for Garfield as a kid was the morning cartoon: Garfield and Friends. The show ran for seven seasons and ended up being a large part of my childhood. Garfield on the big screen being voiced by Bill Murray aside, that is the limit of my Garfield knowledge.

In games, Garfield hasn't had too much mindshare. He's been in some kart racers, which I don't know if their popularity is genuine or a meme, and he's had an appearance as a playable fighter in a Nickelodeon Smash Bros. clone. Now, Garfield is hitting the world of 3D platforming with Garfield: Escape from Monday, which ends up being a serving of competent platforming cuisine and little else.

Garfield: Escape from Monday sees the lasagna-loving feline entering into a dream, where he is tormented by the whims of Chef Monday. It's your goal to help Garfield escape his nightmarish dream. Thankfully, he's not alone in his adventure. His owner John Arbuckle, Arlene the Cat, among others nudge Garfield along the way, in between Garfield's myriad sarcastic gripes and quips. 

That's right, Garfield. Bam! ...Wait, wrong chef with a cooking show.

Garfield's adventure takes place along three unique worlds, each with a large assortment of relatively linear levels to explore. Generally, the objective is to move from point A to point B with little in the way of sandbox-style levels. In fact, just a duo of levels throughout the 40+ in Escape from Monday feature an open-ended, expansive design. The others are point-to-point affairs. 

Levels feature all sorts of tricks, traps, and enemies to overcome. Garfield has three hits to his health. If he takes a third hit, he's incapacitated and players are sent back to the last checkpoint. Escape from Monday is very generous with its checkpoints and health system, which is terrific for the demographic the game aims for: younger players. Each time you collect a piece of food, which levels are absolutely doused in, Garfield regains a piece of health. Even if you take damage from a foe, it's as simple as defeating it, as the enemy then will drop health-restoring food.

Garfield leaps into action.

Of course, food isn't just for healing. Depending on the world, Garfield's collected cuisine changes types. For instance, in the Sweet Kingdom, Garfield gobbles up colorful pastel macaroons, while in the Barbecue Desert, Garfield chows down on pizza, hot dogs, and other tasty treats. The food gathered and gobbled up by Garfield fills up a meter: specifically, the Yum-o-Meter. If you can fill this up into the red zone on a given level, you'll receive a bonus of three Lasagna, the main collectible in Escape from Monday.

Lasagna is also housed in out-of-the-way, hidden, or hard-to-reach areas in levels. There can be as little as two to optionally uncover in levels, but there can also be up to six. Even scouring stages with a sharp eye and intricately covering my tracks as Garfield, I occasionally missed a Lasagna here and there, requiring a second or sometimes even third playthrough of a level. 

You better not stay there, Garfield, or you'll get that point "hammered" home to you.

Fortunately, the game properly orders which Lasagna you've already collected. What I mean by this is that if you're missing a Lasagna in a level, the game will show you if it's the first/second/third/etc. Lasagna in the level by its placement within the pause menu. Thus, you're never guessing how deep in a level a Lasagna is because if the second slot is empty, you'll be able to surmise it's somewhere between the first and third Lasagna in the level.

Each of the three worlds in Garfield: Escape from Monday houses its own costume for Garfield to don. Perfect for the Halloween weekend coming up, no? Unlike the actual holiday, though, when Garfield wears a costume, he isn't planning on going door-to-door for candy. Although he might prefer that, now that I think about it more... Anyway, instead, Garfield takes on a new ability. 

Gobble, gobble food as you gobble, gobble as a turkey, Garfield.

For example, the first world features a turkey costume, granting Garfield the ability to flap his wings up to three times in the air to cross large chasms. Meanwhile, Sweet Kingdom takes Garfield and says "surf's up", giving him a board to surf along the waters (or in the world's case, syrup, juice, and chocolate). This ended up being my favorite of the three costumes due to its maneuverability and mobility options. Finally, the last world features a cowboy costume, allowing Garfield to lasso specific Eggplant enemies to ride them like a bull through a China shop, causing destruction in his wake, as well as latch onto and pull himself to different platforms. 

Surf's up and ride the waves, grind these rails, and have a bodacious time, dude!

Aside from the main levels that are mandatory to complete in Escape from Monday, Garfield's latest game has side stages that are optional to tackle. These are generally far shorter stages than the decidedly lengthy main levels that tend to wear out their welcome--at least in this player's opinion. The side levels essentially have their own gimmicks, from levels exclusively played in a 2D perspective, to levels that incorporate a given costume's various quirks. 

Some levels feature a 2.5D perspective, such as this one called Flappy Cat.

Also optional to Garfield: Escape from Monday, but something to increase the otherwise short playtime of the game, is that of time attacks. These, as you might expect, are races through the main and side levels of the game, giving you a set time to have to beat. Frustratingly, these time attacks still feature the cutscenes and myriad gameplay interruptions that the main game possesses. 

Worse off is that some of these are not able to be skipped. There's something truly annoying about having to repeat a time attack attempt and sit through the same "unskippable" scenes, especially when some can last upwards of twenty seconds or more. Further, much like with Microids other published platformer of the fall season, Marsupilami 2 - Salsa Palombia, players cannot simply restart a given stage from the pause menu. Instead, they must back out to the world map to re-enter the level and try again.

Our otherwise lazy protagonist has plenty of moves to help him speed through stages, but also beat his daily serving of vegetables, the enemies found all throughout Chef Monday's manufactured nightmare for Garfield. He can jump, he can roll to move fast through levels, he can swipe foes (though his reach is relatively small, which resulted in a lot more unintentional damage to Garfield than I would have preferred), he can bounce on their heads, and the previously mentioned costumes add to his arsenal of moves. Garfield: Escape from Monday has a pleasant platforming feel to it, which is no doubt important for a game in a genre which good-feeling movement is paramount.

Mash those marshmallows, beat those baddies, and eradicate those enemies!

There's no question that Escape from Monday is a game on a budget. Even still, little things like platforms appearing out of thin air rather than organically rising out of the juice below--to give an example--are things I couldn't quite give leniency to, as it just felt visually cheap. Myriad moments of pop-in, where objects and enemies in the environment literally popped in from nowhere in the distance also distracted and detracted from the presentation as well. 

What Garfield: Escape from Monday's visuals do succeed at is crafting a colorful, vivid cartoon world that looks quite good for its budget. The black outlines around characters really nails the cartoon, comic-like aesthetic, and the worlds are visually interesting, comprised of environments made up of food. The music is serviceable, and the voice acting works at the very least.

While Garfield: Escape from Monday is hardly a bad game, it's also not a great one, either. My experience with this particular 3D platformer was one where I was going through the motions. Perhaps that's a bigger sin for a game that it's dull and boring rather than being interesting and playing badly. Escape from Monday plays well enough, but it's just a game that doesn't really do anything truly special. I'm sure it will be just fine for younger players--after all, I'm not really the demographic in mind here, despite platformers being my favorite genre, by far--but there's also just SO much out there that's better, too. I think of Garfield: Escape from Monday like eating a whole cake: It's tasty on the way down, sure, but it's also empty calories that could be better spent elsewhere--that is, you could do much better playing something else.

[SPC Says: C]

This game was played via the PlayStation 5 version. Garfield: Escape from Monday is also available on the Nintendo Switch 1 & 2, Xbox Series consoles, and PC.