Help your Pretty Girls Escape PLUS – Review

Are you looking for some high-paced puzzle gaming with a side of cute anime waifus? Then Pretty Girls Escape PLUS is the game for you!

This is actually the second entry into the Pretty Girls Escape series so I was interested to see what changes have been made to the original. Released for PlayStation, Switch and PC, Pretty Girls Escape Plus gives a modern twist to a classic colour-matching game as you try to drop your pretty girl tokens to the bottom of the screen.

Clicking on blocks of tiles with three or more of the same colour makes them disappear and drop all the tiles. There will often be unmovable blocks or barriers which can destroy your character tokens, and you can slide the tiles left or right to try and avoid them or create larger tile strings. Later levels add in pistons and other challenges to keep the formula fresh as you keep matching blocks to help your pretty girls escape.

Escape offers the player two modes to choose from, stage and challenge. The stage mode includes nine avatars/girls with six levels each. There are secondary objectives such as clearing a number of one or two colours or winning within “x” number of moves to each level if you’re aiming for 100% completion, but you can pass just by getting your avatar tokens to the exit.

Challenge mode is a little less forgiving than stage as you try to clear stages with little margin for error. These aren’t overly tough to begin with, but not so easy it still didn’t feel like I had to work for it.

There is a timer across both modes, but they’re mostly just there to measure against yourself and other players online. It does add to the sense of urgency a little but you won’t ever run out of time.

Pretty Girls Escape PLUS has seen some changes to the UI when compared with the previous entry, but still maintains the general style. The character screens and menus have been tweaked but it is largely the same.

There are new characters who were not in the previous Escape game and we see the return of the “dressing room” feature which is so popular with this franchise. This is where you dress up your various pretty girls and take photos of them in different settings. It’s largely pointless fun but this is where you spend your points to unlock different outfits and items to photograph.

The character art is cute but a little lewd – although not actually nude. There are some similarities to previous characters but not enough to slam the series as an asset flip. However, it also says a lot about the current state of the industry that I would rather see reused assets over generative AI imagery.

The characters are voiced but I can never decide if you are fighting against the pretty girls or being encouraged by them as the tone doesn’t always reflect in the avatar. Again I think it’s a shame there are no actual mouth animations and the avatar is essentially static outside of switching to open and close the mouth, but it’s not a massive issue as your focus is on the game.

I do enjoy the music for the Pretty Girl games in general. I don’t think they are the same as previous games but certainly hold the same kind of vibe. It swims between kawaii-pop and lo-fi tunes with upbeat victory fanfares at the end of each level.

It was recently pointed out to me that I have now played a large number of the Pretty Girl games and, despite the lewd outer appearances, they really do engage me in a way that other puzzle games have not. The formula may be basic, but the bright presentation and timed aspects of the entire series keep me coming back, not just the pretty girls – although I will admit the pretty girls themselves will likely hit like marmite for most people.

If you like cute anime waifus and puzzle games, then Pretty Girls Escape PLUS is worth your time, but how much time you spend with it will be down to you. I wrapped up the trophies in under half an hour as they were only tied to the stage mode, but I kept playing the challenge mode for some time after.

This sequel is at least an improvement on the previous Pretty Girls Escape and does exactly what it set out to achieve.