A fun platformer for Garfield super fans and families!
It might not seem like it, but Garfield has a few hidden gems under his cat bed when it comes to video games. Garfield’s Nightmare on Nintendo DS was a really solid 2D platformer, as was the GBA title Garfield: The Search For Pooky, and, to a lesser extent, Garfield: Caught in the Act for SEGA Genesis (which featured actual in-game art from Jim Davis!). The feline even has a decent racing game in Garfield Kart on Nintendo Switch. Sure, licensed games deservedly get a bad rap, but there are many decent ones out there, too. Now, with Garfield: Escape From Monday, Jim Davis’s beloved orange fur ball has another.
If there’s anything Garfield loves, it’s lasgna, but the curmudgeon cat makes a mistake when he accidentally eats a vegetable variant of his favorite food before going to sleep. In his dream, Garfield runs afoul of vegetarian celebrity chef Monday. Chef Monday begins transforming Garfield’s dreamscape into a veggie-filled nightmare world. In order to wake up and escape, Garfield must travel through traditional 3D platforming stages where he seeks out proper meat-and-cheese lasagna to eat.
It’s a cute, prototypical setup for a Garfield game; nothing mind-blowing, but it gets the drama going and explains why this typically sedentary character is suddenly rolling and leaping and punching his way across large fantasy landscapes. Escape From Monday plays out just like one would expect (and hope) for a classic-style 3D platformer. Garfield has a bunch of basic attacks and moves that he can utilize while exploring the game world. He can run and jump, naturally, as well as take swipes with his paws at enemies. Garfield can also roll up into a ball, which adds some nice zip to exploration and allows for some creative platforming challenges when combined with his lunge/leap ability. Players can also take advantage of Garfield’s butt-pound move and being able to wall-jump, or, if they want to go more incognito, crawl slowly across the ground.
All of these moves are snappy and responsive, for the most part. There’s a lot of great feedback from all the pouncing and stomping that Garfield does, as well as satisfaction pulling off the more complicated platforming sections in the game. I found myself wishing that the devs had taken more advantage of the roll/leap part of Garfield’s move suite; in general, it feels underutilized, which is a shame because it’s genuinely satisfying to engage with during gameplay. I sometimes felt like Garfield’s paw swipes weren’t totally in sync with my button presses, or that the timing was ever so slightly off, but I adapted and it was never a big issue while playing Escape From Monday.
Escape From Monday is a pretty game. Featuring a wee smattering of cell shading for the characters and enemies, these characters all look like they leapt from the comics section of your local newspaper. Jim Davis created a very distinct aesthetic for the Garfield strip, and it shines through in Escape From Monday. Characters look like their comic counterparts sprung to life in the third dimension. The environments aren’t quite as memorable, sadly. They certainly look good and have a bunch of nooks and crannies for players to explore. The drawback is that they’re fairly generic locales that, even when thematically tied to the character (such as the Arbuckle farm, for instance), are still lacking a certain spark to make them truly memorable. They could be bolted into virtually any other 3D platformer and would feel right at home. There’s also some deja vu that starts to seep in regardless of which of the three worlds you’re playing in.
Of course, it’s not like Garfield has that many iconic locations to pull from as an IP; Jon (Garfield’s owner) lives in a very basic house in Muncie, Indiana that has never had any real standout features. It was always Davis’s art style that told you it was a Garfield strip more than anything else. Even if the environments don’t scream “Garfield” at the player, they’re nonetheless richly decorated and competently arranged, and more importantly, fun to play in. There are over 40 different stages to peruse across three core worlds: Vegetable Nightmare, Sweet Kingdom, and Barbecue Desert. Hidden within each stage are giant chunks of lasagna for Garfield to find and inhale. These pieces, like in many platformers of this ilk, are meant to boost difficulty for seasoned players while acting as a challenger for newer/younger ones. There are also multiple food items, from cheese to corndogs, that can be gathered along the way to unlock collectibles to decorate Jon’s house with (more on that in a bit).
Bolstering the exploration are three suits that Garfield can wear: the Turkey Suit, Surfer Suit, and Cowboy Suit. All the suits give Garfield new abilities that he can take advantage of while out exploring. The Turkey Suit provides a so-called glide mechanic, but it’s more like a series of midair jumps that he can execute to cross large gaps. The Surfer Suit lets Garfield whip out a surfboard to (duh!) crest waves, but also do an air dash and grind rails. The Cowboy Suit, meanwhile, has a lasso that acts as a grapple and also helps Garfield to ride some fellow animals. Not only are the suits fun to use, but they’re also combined with many of the environmental obstacles to create some really clever platforming sequences. Turkey hop through the air to then enter a wind tunnel, or grind a rail, get some height, and then scoot across the sky with an air dash, and so on.
Enemies in Escape From Monday are, like the environments, nothing especially Garfield-centric, but given the biggest threat the cat ever deals with are spiders, I can’t fault the designers when there wasn’t much to work with in the first place. They tend to look like Jim Davis creations, if nothing else, and if taken lightly they can become a problem. Enemies generally just require a single wallop to defeat, but there are times when foes will swarm and that’s when combat can become more demanding. It’s the boss battles that shine more brightly and are usually more difficult. The likes of Squeak, Nermal, and Odie all take turns at bringing down Garfield, and they are the most memorable combat sequences in the game. The bosses also boast some cool designs; MechaSqueak at the beginning of the game, for example, is a giant, robot tractor that really catches your eye.
That all said, I think that the primary audience for Escape From Monday is clearly families and kids (and Garfield super fans). The challenge level isn’t very high throughout the campaign, but it’s also not mind-numbingly braindead, either. There’s enough bite to the stages that it feels like an accomplishment to complete them, especially for less experienced players. And even for the veteran gamers out there, it isn’t always easy figuring out where all the lasagna is hiding!
One area that fell short for me was the voice acting. Not because anyone gave a poor performance, but I simply didn’t like the voice they picked for Garfield. David Gasman is a longtime voice actor across film, animation, and gaming, but I couldn’t buy into him as the nominal cat. I grew up watching Garfield and Friends as a kid and Lorenzo Music provided the character’s voice. A voice like Music’s, or even something like Bill Murray’s from the two Garfield films in the 2000s, is a better fit for the character, I feel. More problematic is that I felt like something about the audio mix left Garfield’s lines a little hard to make out at times. There’s a decent amount of voice work in this game, so having Garfield be the weak spot was a letdown.
I was similarly underwhelmed by the room decorating activity in Escape From Monday. Garfield’s collecting during stages unlocks furniture and other items to decorate Jon’s house with. There are several rooms to pack with these collectibles, which the player can access any time via the map screen. Alas, there wasn’t a lot of meat to this part of the adventure and I never really wanted to interact much with it. I suspect younger players will be more drawn to this part of Escape From Monday, but it feels like a wasted opportunity, nonetheless.
Garfield: Escape From Monday is a solid platformer. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, sticking to tried and true platforming conventions to deliver a light, enjoyable adventure. Families and hardcore Garfield fans will have the most fun with Escape From Monday. Fans especially will delight in seeing the likes of Jon, Arlene, Odie, Nermal, and others throughout the adventure. This is a fun, approachable game, but it is a bit easy and is ultimately held back from greatness by repetitive level designs, a poor voice casting for Garfield, and a forgettable room decorating side activity. Still, when the game sings, like in its chaotic mine cart levels or transitioning from rolls into leaps to cross big chasms, it really belts it out. If you’ve been looking for a straightforward, old school platformer, Escape From Monday might be the one for you.
Nintendojo was provided a copy of this game for review by a third party, though that does not affect our recommendation. For every review, Nintendojo uses a standard criteria.