Ever Forward Review: Slightly Backwards

Laying the groundwork for an intelligent puzzle-narrative adventure wrapped within a sci-fi mystery, Ever Forward is quite the heartbreaker. Unfortunately, not in the sense I usually prefer. The core narrative and mechanics are there, but never excel. The visual language is stunning, but tarnished by presentational bugs. With a bit more time in the oven, Pathea may have been able to deliver something great as opposed to a night I may soon forget.

Story

Ever Forward follows Maya, a young girl seemingly trapped in a realm between dream and memory searching for an escape back to reality, and in turn, back to her mother. Within the dream state, Maya explores an island riddled with corruption. In scattered spots where the corruption is rooted, Maya finds small structures housing picturesque scenes of settings familiar to her past. Walking into these structures transports Maya into a polygonal space, one that feels dreadful as reality and the mind are clashing with one another. Here, she will work towards unlocking memories from the past, slowly revealing what the cause of her entrapment is and where her mother may be. 

Upon completing puzzles, you will unlock a memory; a scene between Maya and her mother. In early memories you, the narrative appears to be a classic story of a mother prioritizing her work over her child; which it very much is. But as the narrative is driven forward, the more dire sci-fi elements to tie past and present together get introduced - possibly a bit too sudden. With this, the narrative begins to slip into the sci-fi trap of getting a bit convoluted while playing. But once the credits roll, it all ends up working.

While the puzzles don’t directly reflect the memories they unlock, the feeling of unlocking a new scene upon completing a puzzle is gratifying up to a certain point. For a two hour experience, the pacing can begin to feel a bit off. The stop-and-go approach from story beat to puzzle and repeat can create a bit of a chokehold of sorts. As a scene is playing out, you want to see more. But when you get more, some scenes feel repetitive in themes, rendering them as unnecessary filler between puzzles. 

The narrative tries its best to be a heart-wrenching tale between a mother and daughter wrapped in a sci-fi mystery, but at the end of the day, the execution is serviceable. It’s not bad by any means, but it does feel like a first draft that could have been ironed out a bit further. Tightening up the structure and script, plus stronger voice acting, could have helped the narrative shine into a more memorable state. 

Presentation

The strongest aspects of Ever Forward are easily its aesthetic and overall visual tone - with a glaring caveat. Focusing on the positives, the game’s art direction can be best described as an interpretation of The Matrix. The island is vibrant, but with a sheen to indicate not all is what it seems. Luscious blue skies and green fields deliver a gorgeous contrast to the black and red corruption riddled throughout. The utilization of grays in the structures housing puzzles pop. This feels inherently unique here as typically it's the opposite; a vibrant object standing out in a dark setting. 

As you enter puzzle-rooms, the vibrancy is stripped away as the curtain reveals a stark white polygonal CPU-like realm. It’s cold and lonely. Reds are utilized intelligently as goal indicators, clearly marking your objectives. As you progress, the start white grows darker and darker, with reality, dream, and memory all clashing together to give off a sense of direness driving towards a pinnacle climax. Upon completing the puzzles, you are driven into memories that feel equally cold, aside from Maya and her mother. Characters are represented as floating lights, with movement minimal to portray a sense of a captured moment rather than a scene fluidly playing out in present time. While admittedly a bit on the nose, the characters’ theme of being “the light within the dark” does work visually.

All of this is paired with a subtle piano score, truly reflecting who Maya is as a character; a child driven to find her way back home. Despite everything occurring narratively, the solo keys played on the higher register help keep the hope Maya is feeling alive and well. It’s mysterious, playful, and pleasant all at once, creating a contrast that doesn’t really feel like a contrast. The balance is captured quite well throughout all of Ever Forward’s visual languages.

Now for the glaring caveat. Ever Forward is quite the mess on console in terms of presentational bugs. Throughout my time, I experienced severe screen-tearing while on the island. Stretched assets muddied up the entire screen, not only putting a damper on the beautiful scenery, but also making it a bit tricky to see where I needed to go next. Not only that, but Maya herself became a bit terrifying towards the end game as she lost her jaw, one eye, and gained a completely white eye. To poke a bit of fun, Every Forward on console appears to turn into a horror game at the end. Additionally, I noticed audio hitching and transitional hiccups. Watching walkthroughs to help with some endgame puzzles, I noticed glitch-transitions between scenes on the PC version that were non-existent on console. The lack of these small cues made the transition from island to puzzle to memory quite jarring. While none of these bugs affected gameplay, they were distracting enough to hinder my overall experience. 

Gameplay

The core gameplay finds the player completing puzzles centered around getting a cube into a hole while avoiding the sight-line of drones. For a two hour experience, the puzzles typically have a good cadence of teaching you the base ideas while increasing difficulty and adding more layers as you progress. The tutorial aspect is subtle enough where you will scratch your head for a few minutes, and grant you that satisfying “ah-ha!” moment upon completion. The game promotes experimentation, and a fair sense of trial and error that mostly works. That is, of course, when the game doesn’t fight you back.There are many mechanical and design aspects of Ever Forward that cause utter frustration. 

On the mechanical side, Maya herself doesn’t feel the best to control. Movement is fine, but jumping is where there is a bit of hindrance. There is a half second latency between physically pressing jump and Maya actually jumping that did cause me to fail; once in particular during the final puzzle jumping towards the goal. Teleporters are another brick wall. The mechanic when alone is serviceable, but when paired with timing puzzles, things start to become frustrating. An example is having to trigger a drone and teleport away quickly before it catches you. Intelligent design in theory, and fluid when it works, but the responsiveness of activating the teleportation isn’t cohesive. If Maya is facing slightly off-center, the animation to teleport won’t trigger in time causing you to fail the puzzle. Because of this, I was stuck on a puzzle for a solid half hour doing the same thing over and over again until I lucked out.

In terms of core-design alone, the puzzles are intelligent up to a certain point. The final stretch introduces a gravity-shift mechanic. After a certain amount of time, the world physically turns and Maya falls. The goal is to have her fall safely onto a surface. Sounds great in theory, but in practice is equally non-cohesive as the teleportation frustrations. Aside from a subtle vibrating clock, there is no clear audio or visual indicator on when the shift will occur. Watching the clock begin to shutter, I would count to myself to attempt to nail the timing, but it never felt consistent. Usually it floated around ten seconds, but a handful of times the same area would be four. An auditory cue such as ticking or implementing in the music in some fashion would have been massively helpful here. The aspect of trial and error quickly became overly frustrating as failing resulted in having to wait 20-30 seconds per shift during each attempt.

The core ideas are there, and are even executed well towards the early parts of Ever Forward. But frustrations due to poor mechanics and design slowly creep up throughout progression, placing a sour taste on the experience as a whole.

Breakdown

Game: Ever Forward

Developer: Pathea

Availability: PS4, PS5, XSX, XBO, Switch, PC

Reviewed on PS5

Pros:

+ Beautiful, varied aesthetic between three settings

+ Haunting, serene score

Cons:

- Riddled with presentational bugs

- Frustrating design and mechanics

- Final stretch can feel unfair

- The game’s potential is never reached

Final Thoughts

Ever Forward has so many good ideas, but it doesn’t completely nail any of them. The core groundwork is established. The narrative is serviceable, but at the end of the day, so many other games tackle its themes with grander success. Early puzzles are fun, but when the game attempts to reach for intelligent complexity, the mechanics and late-game design trigger frustration. Completing puzzles begins with satisfaction, but throughout the journey, relief of never having to do it again becomes more apparent. What does work is the stunning visual language spanning the three settings, but it’s such a shame the console port is riddled with visual bugs. The bugs muddy up the scenery and trigger comical impulses during sincere or dire beats. Possibly with more gestation to iron out the foundation, Ever Forward could have been much more than a night I’ll unfortunately end up forgetting about.

Reviewed by Mike Towndrow