seems like it
you can barely escape by pressing A and D
Just from my personal experience and experimentation, muscle memory from other games that also employ the uniquitous struggle-to-escape QTE mechanics proves detrimental since most of those reward hitting whatever sequence of keys as fast/accurately as possible. For MaxElf though, instead I've finally been having consistently good results by fighting the urge to hit the required keys as rapidly--or likely a hair faster--as the prompts are lighting up on screen, but instead treating it a bit more like a rhythm game with a non-linear/shifting tempo and focus on following the slightly shifting beat at a lower BPM than if you were just following the onscreen prompts.
When you slow it down just a little and get it right the onscreen key prompts barely even get a chance to "light up" for any more than a frame or two and the escape progress bar is startlingly quick. Now my issue is easing off and deliberately stalling progress for a second or so to time the escape so you don't pop free right as other baddies corner you against a screen/visibility edge or more baddies.
P.S. I haven't really been able to tell if certain enemy types all consistently have the same "beat" for their QTE, or if it's random across all varieties or enemies, or what, so I'm treating them like their all unique/random beats and that seems to be gud 'nuff.