Review: Ever Forward – A Touching Puzzle Game with Beautiful Aesthetics

Review Ever Forward

Ever Forward is a brand new puzzle game by Pathea Games. Pathea Games is a well-known developer for their previous title ‘My Time at Portia’. Their portfolio confirms that Pathea Games is not new when it comes to puzzle games. Ever Forward is their latest title which follows the story of a little girl called Maya who must travel between two worlds, solve various puzzles and unlock her memories tied in her mind. This is our review of Ever Forward in which we explore Maya’s past scattered around on a beautiful island.

In Ever Forward, you step in the shoes of Maya who is accompanied during her journey with a small cube robot called CPQ. CPQ helps Maya in navigating through the world of her memories and helps her unlock new paths to reach even deeper memories. The main world of Ever Forward is like an island that features lush greenery, trees, and beaches. It portrays the colorful side of Maya and her life and you can freely explore this world. However, on this island, certain small areas or rooms are corrupted and you have to enter these corrupted areas to fix Maya’s memories.

Review Ever Forward

These corrupted areas look like they are burnt but once you complete these sequences, they become normal and start resembling the rest of the island around it. Once you enter these zones, you are teleported to a much darker world where Maya has to overcome her fears and bring back her memories. Each puzzle you complete in the game, unlocks a brand new memory for you to watch. These memories are vital as they support the powerful narrative of the title. The more memories you unlock the more you know about Maya’s past.

Maya as a child was always ignored by her mom who was working at the National Science Lab. It was not like that she did not like Maya but every time she tried to spend even a little time with her, her office would call and she would have to cancel all of her plans with Maya which left her all alone. Unable to go out because of the dreaded weather, Maya was stuck in her house and was left with no option but to find her own way out. I won’t be going too much in detail about the story of the game because that would spoil the story and it is rather something that you should experience on your own.

The gameplay of Ever Forward is pretty straightforward. Maya can move around and can also jump to overcome obstacles on the ground or climb to higher locations. You can also call down CPQ for a lift and then you can fly to the next area if there is no solid ground between you and the next puzzle. You can only move in the areas that have in the current puzzle’s range. If you are on the island or have already solved a puzzle, then you can move around freely but once a puzzle is triggered, you cannot move out of its zone.

All of the puzzles of the game lie in these dark areas. Upon entering them on your island, you are instantly teleported to this world and you cannot leave once you trigger the first puzzle in the level. Each level has different puzzles for you to solve and after every puzzle is solved, you unlock a brand new memory from Maya’s past. The memory is shown in the form of a cutscene with characters outlined in gold dust. They show the events as they unfold in Maya’s past in a very beautiful way. I loved the art style of these cutscenes.

Review Ever Forward

The puzzles in Ever Forward are not too varied from one and other but you start off really easy but as you progress in the game, the puzzles become more and more complex and you have to cater to additional elements in the mix as well. With the square bot CPQ being your friend, another bot Roundy Bot is the evil bot and you have to avoid it at all costs. To avoid detection by the bot, you will be required to work around in various puzzles where you will use teleporters, change the gravity direction and even throw around the square bot to distract the Roundy Bot was observing the paths.

Once you have distracted the Roundy Bot, you must sneak past it along with a CPQ to ensure that you can unlock the rest of the level and unlock a memory. Sneaking is however not easy as the evil bot does not remain distracted for long and near it, you cannot sprint as well. Sneaking takes its sweet time and this leads to some really tense moments in the game. The later sections of the game feature some of the most brutal puzzles that will really have your fingers tied in a knot. A good feature here is that during the puzzles, you can save the game at any time so if you fail your first time, you can simply press a quick-assigned key to reload from that custom save marker to try again instantly. As you continue to progress in the game, you get to know more about Maya’s past and the secret hiding in Maya’s heart which is your ultimate goal in the game.

Ever Forward is an excellent surprise for me. Its story is extremely touching and portrays the life of an ignored child in a very brilliant fashion. The developer has worked extremely hard on the visuals as well as I simply love the soothing pastels and futuristic tones of the game. At the core of its heart, Ever Forward does not deviate from being a solid puzzle game as well. After you get comfortable with the current layout of puzzles, Ever Forward brings a brand new mechanic into the mix and thus demands you to work around it which keeps your brain cells in motion at all times while playing the game.

Final Verdict:

Ever Forward is a beautiful and touching puzzle game that is not only beautiful to look at but also plays really well. The visual style of Ever Forward is amazing and the gameplay is pretty good. The puzzles are complex and will have you running around for quite some time as you try to figure them out. When it comes to puzzle games, Ever Forward is a brilliant title and sits fairly high in my rankings of puzzle games. I would have loved it if the game would have been a little longer but then again, the best things in life end too quickly. The same is the case with Ever Forward. My first sitting took me around 2.3 hours to complete the entire game as I took a little longer on certain puzzles. If you love puzzle games and want a good brain tease, I can recommend Ever Forward with my eyes closed. It has everything you want in a puzzle game. Only, that it ends too quickly when you want it to last a little longer.

Final Score: 9.5/10

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About the Author: Umair Khalid

Founder of GamesHedge, Umair enjoys a wide variety of video games ranging from RPGs to racing games. Currently busy with The Crew Motorfest and Kingdom Rush 5: Alliance.

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