Escape Academy‘s base recreation was one of many surprising gems I initially discovered within the Steam Subsequent Fest earlier this 12 months, and I went on to totally love the total recreation when it was launched in July. Sadly, like all video games, it did come to an finish and I used to be left wanting extra, which is why I used to be pleasantly shocked when Escape Academy‘s first DLC was introduced: Escape from Anti-Escape Island.
Going down after the sport’s predominant story, Escape from Anti-Escape Island follows your character, together with the Principal, Jeb, and Gillian as you head off to a tropical trip as thanks for a job properly performed in the primary recreation. Sadly, the aircraft will get shot down and crashes and also you and Jeb are stranded on an oddly distant island, separated from Gillian and the Headmaster earlier than being captured by Anti-Escape Scientists. Your objective? To flee, in fact. The extent of the story is about on par with that of the primary recreation, and the DLC additionally focuses rather more on puzzles and advancing the plot by shifting from place to position greater than any precise plot growth or characters.
Sadly, Escape from Anti-Escape Island simply would not maintain as much as the fantastic requirements set by Escape Academy. Positive, it is a enjoyable story and there are many puzzles, however the high quality of the puzzles is not nearly as good. A number of puzzles contained leaps of logic that weren’t fairly apparent, comparable to after I was taking part in by way of and a minesweeper puzzle on the very finish was hampered by straight-up errors in what numbers had been proven on the tiles versus what was really on the board. Like in Escape Academy, the puzzles are various and unpredictable, which makes for lots of enjoyable once they’re executed properly. Nonetheless, that did not happen as persistently.
Nearly the entire puzzles had been additionally on a time crunch, and whereas the timer facet was current in Escape Academy, I by no means felt rushed for time or like what was being requested was unreasonable, even when it did come all the way down to the wire. In Escape from Anti-Escape Island, deadlines appeared stretched too tightly, and I discovered myself caught and utilizing hints extra usually than within the base recreation. On the one hand, the DLC takes place after the primary story and is meant to be tougher, however then again, there is a superb line between troublesome and irritating.
One notably annoying instance happens early on within the recreation while you’re attempting to flee from the aircraft. There are letters written on window shades and a cipher that you might want to put them by way of, but it surely’s the order that you just untangle them in in addition to what, precisely, you place by way of the cipher that is unclear. Whereas the puzzle itself is easy as soon as you determine what to do, there may be quite a lot of time that is wasted in getting there and attempting to use the cipher to numerous combos of letters. The entire thing is overcomplicated and poorly designed, in distinction to the unique puzzles that, whereas troublesome and never easy, had far fewer false begins. The bar stool puzzle within the juice bar part of the DLC features equally, the place it is easy to know as soon as you determine the place the reply is, however the path to get there may be unintuitive at greatest.
Escape Academy‘s first DLC, Escape from Anti-Escape Island, is not a complete wash. A few of the puzzles are enjoyable and the story actually is. Nonetheless, the logical holes in some puzzles and the poor design of others be certain that the DLC falls far wanting the primary recreation. If you happen to’re an enormous fan of the unique, you may in all probability have enjoyable with the DLC, however do not anticipate the identical stage of puzzles and gameplay.
TechRaptor reviewed Escape Academy: Escape from Anti-Escape Island on Xbox Sequence S with a replica [provided by the publisher/provided by the developer.] It is usually out there on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox One.
