Garfield’s New Video Game Is GOTY…for 4th Graders

But I know that there was a time when I wouldn’t have cared about that. As a kid, my entire personality was Garfield. I was a card-carrying member of the official Garfield Fan Club, owned more merchandise than you can imagine, and would love any video game that simply put Garfield’s face on screen. That’s the kind of uncritical cartoon fanatic that a game like Escape From Monday is built for, and perhaps the person whose review matters more than mine.

And so, I enlisted the help of my 4th grade self to get some fresh perspective.

Giovanni Colantonio: Before we get started, let’s get to know more about you. Well, I mean, I kind of know everything about you already, but for the sake of our readers, who are you?

Young Giovanni: hi im giovanni. i am in the fourth grade and i go to dale street school. my favorite color is red, and i like video games and cartoons. my favorite cartoon is garfield!

GC: You mentioned video games. Just to ground this conversation, what are your favorite video games currently?

YG: ummm, i like the tasmanian devil game i have for the sega. ren and stimpy is awesome. but my favorite game right now is garfield for the game gear! its so cool! there’s this one level where you go inside the tv and fight a robot, and it’s crazy! what games do you like

GC: A lot! Recently? I really enjoyed TR-49.

YG: whats that

GC: Oh, it’s this deduction game set inside of a computer archive in an alternate timeline version of World War II. You’re basically cracking codes to unearth documents that have been hidden by a fascist regime. It’s all about censorship, and how political powers manipulate the flow of information to manufacture consent and squash rebellion.

YG: whats fascism

GC: You’ll find out soon. Well, let’s get into it. Top-level, what’s your take on Garfield: Escape From Monday, by developer OSome Games?

YG: i think it’s AWESOME!! garfield gets stuck in a dream world and he has to fight an evil chef who is trying to make him eat vegetable lasagna!! jumping around the levels is fun, and i like that the bad guys are all like foods and stuff. but most of all i love how all my favorite garfield characters are in it. it even has nermal and arlene!

GC: So, let’s start with the story, because I have some qualms with its construction. The premise is that Garfield is, as you noted, catapulted into a dream, right? Great, but it can’t decide if he’s in a good dream or a nightmare. It’s kind of played like the latter considering that he’s trying to escape Chef Monday, who is sending vegetable henchmen after him. But it’s also a paradise for Garfield. There’s food everywhere. One of the three worlds is a kingdom of sweets and junk food. At one point I found a sign that said Mondays don’t exist in this realm. So is this a good or bad thing? I guess I’m struggling to follow the internal logic here.

YG: its a dream, so like things are all crazy. like the cowboy world has trains you ride around but it also has hot dogs and stuff that are trying to kill you. one time i dreamed that rowlf from the muppets was doing an operation on me. i was SO scared that i almost woke up screaming!! ahhhhh!!!!

GC: Right, I remember that. Traumatizing stuff. We couldn’t look at Rowlf for years after that. We’re cool with Rowlf in 2026, by the way. You should check out the clip from The Muppet Show where he sings “What a Wonderful World” and cradles a newborn puppy. It will really change things for you.

YG: thats good i guess. what is miss toughee like in the future?

GC: Our old teacher? Wasn’t she, like, pushing 80 in 1998?

YG: she’s like a MILLION years old

GC: Right. Uh. She’s probably doing great. Anyway, can I ask you about the presentation of it all? Because, to me, it doesn’t really even try to have the spirit of Garfield. The humor in no way resembles Jim Davis’ dry wit. It’s all forced meta jokes about being inside of a video game, which doesn’t really make sense because you’re in a dream, not a game. And what’s up with Garfield’s voice? He sounds like a vampire’s weeny henchman, nowhere near the lazy drawl of Lorenzo Music in the ‘80s and ‘90s. That’s not my Garfield!

YG: i think garfield has a funny voice. i like the one time when he kicks nermal. in the comic i like when garfield mails nermal to abu dhabi

GC: Yeah, that’s a good bit. Maybe offensive now, I’m not sure. I’ll look into it for you. How about we get into some more substantive critique: You said you liked the platformi— sorry, the “jumping.” What about that do you like?

YG: um i think that it’s fun to jump on the clouds and bread and stuff. and you can roll in a ball and go really fast too like sonic and also you can go flying through the air! sometimes it is hard like when you have to jump between walls but i like that there are SO many things to find like coffee cups so its fun

GC: Okay, so not exactly breaking new ground here. Surely we can agree that Escape From Monday is really the bare minimum for the genre? You run, jump, air dash, and collect a bunch of crap that makes you feel like you’re doing more than you are. There’s hardly more to it. Even Bubsy 4D put more effort into creating an expressive movement system to slightly elevate a by-the-books platformer! The level design is bland, barely introducing bespoke platforming gimmicks that take advantage of your movement abilities. Sure, you get some mine cart segments and flipping platforms pulled straight out of the Mario playbook, but it’s all derivative to the point that it feels like video game white noise. There must be something more you see in this, right?

YG: ummm yeah i like that sometimes you get a power that makes you different. this one time garfield turned into a turkey. he was so mad like “no NO i don’t want to be a turkey” but i liked it because then he can flap his wings to jump longer. and then in the next world, he can be a MERMAID and go SURFING and that’s so cool

GC: Oh, please. Those power-ups are so one-dimensional. The mermaid suit? It’s just a clumsier way to introduce rail grinding in the second world. Next you’re going to tell me that you like the cowboy suit that basically only serves as a grappling hook in the last set of levels. What other undercooked ideas do you like? The “challenge stages” that are basically no different than the main stages? The boss fights where you have to dodge a few patterned attacks until you can hit your foe, rinse and repeat? Or the barely-formed house decoration aside, where you unlock furniture that gets displayed in Jon’s house?

YG: yeah i think thats fun too but i most of all like that ga—

GC: I mean, come on! This is bottom of the barrel stuff! What happened to the great licensed cartoon games we played as a kid? Garfield: Caught in the Act was a real game, not some cheap shovelware! Okay, it’s not like it reviewed well, but I remember it being a total display of creativity when I was 9! I still remember the “Catsablanca” level where you’re in this noir world platforming off of cars in a city. That had style! That had vision! I can’t say the same for this drab 3D art that looks interchangeable with any cartoon game!

YG: i like th—

GC: Our kids deserve better than a game like Garfield: Escape From Monday. We deserve better than a game like Garfield: Escape From Monday! Something so brainlessly easy that you can play the entire thing on autopilot. There’s no friction! Just soullessly smooth sailing through 40+ levels of collect-a-thon drivel. And you expect parents to buy this for their kids in this economy!? Seriously, tell me one good thing about this game!

YG: i like odie

GC: …Odie? That’s it?

YG: yeah. im happy when i see him

GC: That’s… huh. I mean, sure. Odie used to make me happy too — I mean obviously, because I was you. But I guess I do remember being a kid and getting excited anytime I saw Garfield anywhere. On TV, lunchboxes, novelty alarm clocks, you name it. I remember that we used to rent this one VHS tape over and over as a kid that was a cartoon team-up special. I watched it so many times just because Garfield was in it. And anytime he was on screen, I would smile, because my favorite cat was on the TV. I didn’t even realize at the time that it was just an anti-drug PSA featuring an intro from George H. W. Bush.

YG: who is that

GC: Remember the Gulf War? Actually, don’t worry about it. The point is that I get it. I probably would have loved Garfield: Escape From Monday as a kid too, and championed it decades later like I do Garfield: Caught In The Act now. That’s just how being a kid works; you love the things you love fiercely until you grow out of it. My niece wouldn’t stop talking about Wicked for a year after seeing it. Now she’s all about The Brady Bunch, for some bizarre reason. She knows the name of every single actor in the cast, and she’s so happy anytime I FaceTime her and let her recap whatever episode she just watched. We grew out of that a long time ago.

YG: so garfield doesn’t make you feel happy anymore?

GC: [long pause] I think he still does. Maybe just not in the same way. No amount of nostalgia is ever going to convince me that Garfield: Escape From Monday is a fun 3D platformer that was worth prioritizing over Control Resonant. But I still perked up the first time I saw Arlene and Liz. It was like catching up with old friends. It’s funny: I’m actually looking at some of our old Garfield dolls right now that always sit behind my keyboard when I work. And I even have that novelty alarm clock still. Barely works, but it’s still the first thing I see when I wake up every morning. I used to love those things because they reminded me of Garfield. It’s corny, but I think they still make me smile because they remind me of you — the kid that still has a heart big enough to love Garfield: Escape From Monday.

YG: so… are you happy now?

GC: Am I happy?

YG: yeah!

GC: I don’t know. That question gets a little more complicated the older you get. Sometimes. Not all the time. There’s this whole brain chemistry thing that mom will tell you about in 15 years. But even putting that aside, it’s hard not to feel worn down by everything. War, fascism, the economy… A whole host of waking nightmares that you’ll become painfully aware of sooner than you ever should have. I try to focus on the people and things that make me happy, but it gets harder to do every time our world expands. Maybe we’ve experienced too much.

YG: …but you still get to play garfield? i think thats cool!

GC: Yeah… Yeah, I guess that is still kind of cool, isn’t it?

Garfield: Escape From Monday will be released Sept. 24 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2 using a prerelease download code provided by Microids. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.