Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue Reviews

Some my feelings on this game may be due to misaligned expectations. I came in expecting a survival/murder game in the style of Danganronpa, but this game is very much not like that. It has an odd wacky exterior, but a much more banal interior. The contestants give up on escaping almost immediately, and so the game quickly becomes almost slice of life. This leads to a very slow opening portion with no tension and few stakes. Yet it’s here that you’re making decisions that lead to your end path, you just won’t realise it because it’s not clear which decisions, if any, matter. When the game does lock you onto one you’ll know because the protagonist will go from blank slate to exhibiting some singular obnoxious personality trait overnight. The bad end I found also runs for far too long, with no decision making and no way to get off the rails. You’re just stuck following a pretty uninteresting plot until suddenly it’s over and you’re left mystified as to how you got onto that track in the first place. A significant flaw the game has is providing the player a choice with many possible reasons to pick one or the other but deciding that only one of those was why a choice was made. Choose to keep money and not expose a secret? Well, that’s not someone trying to maintain group harmony or respect individual privacy, that’s greed. This is what will lead you onto an ending track with no idea how you got there. This isn’t helped by the protagonist not exhibiting any changes in line with the route you’re heading for until you’re on it. So many of the games the contestants are subject to are open for easy workarounds for cooperation, yet no one in the game ever brings this up and it’s deeply frustrating. I have no issue with everyone choosing the way of the douche, but either the game rules should enforce it or it should be explored and fail due to characters or the player rejecting it. Instead, the player is simply never being offered the option, which further leads to misinterpretation of player actions. To offer an example, one individual is being awarded money for completing a challenge. What they don’t know is this money is coming from your pot. If you successfully sabotage them then you get money instead, but it comes from an outside injection of cash. Despite this set-up you are not allowed to intentionally reject sabotaging them, nor are you offered the option to approach them and figure out a deal. These are such readily obvious approaches that it’s frustrating they’re not explored. Things like this led to me disassociating from the main character who was no longer my representative, but just someone I watched like a TV show, and this lowered my investment in the game. Rather than playing as him, sometimes I was playing against him. It’s a game you need to replay which doesn’t feel designed to be replayed. There’s no timeline or obvious break points, which means a new game from the start and no way of identifying whether you’re on track to hit one of the other paths, or even what those paths are. You could invest many hours only to end up on an ending route you’ve already seen. The three-part structure of each day is also not conducive to replays, with many interruptions to any fast-forwarding. I might replay it one day, but the thought of doing so currently feels like a slog. The game also needs to commit to either have a protagonist with a clear personality, or providing the player much more direct control over who he is. The idea of creating a character through your actions is good in theory, but the game simply isn’t smart enough to pull it off.

I'm on day 80 currently and nothing is happening, other than some drama here and there. I'm passing through each game's days reading some mild drama story beats. There's really no impactful events, as there's no real stakes or "why should I care" plot points in the game thus far. The game, so far, lacks villains you care about, motivations from the characters, and a sense of danger and dread. In fact, I never once felt that one bad move or wrong decision could lead to consequences, like in Dangranronpa or the Zero Escape series. I really wanted to like this game, as I'm a big fan of the battle royale, murder mystery genre. I played the demo and liked where the devs stopped the demo, as it teased players. I thought major plot points would be revealed in the full game. Yet this hope was soon dashed when hours into the game, nothing still happened. For a game that is heavily inspired by games like Danganronpa and the Zero Escape series -- and also marketed as such to fans of those games, Inescapable is NOT a "Death Game." Rather, it's more of an stuck-on-an-island, slice-of-life game with drama and gossip. This "Death Game" bait-and-switch (thus far) feels even worse when myself and others paid $50 for this game, hoping the game had serious potential. I can see fans paying the $50 price tag for a proven company, such as Spike Chunsoft; or proven IP, such as Danganronpa. Yet, the price for a new IP, such as Inescapable, is too high. The price should have been around $20 to $30 at most. I hope the game gets much better. If it drastically improves or blows my mind, I'll change my rating to a positive one. But currently, I can't recommend this game, even for fans of the genre. The expensive price tag does not justify the lack of "Death Game" suspense and thrill other games have.

I am a big fan of Danganronpa and other mystery and mystery-adjacent games, so I went into this with high hopes and found it very disappointing. Many of these kind of games take a bit to really get going, but this one really takes it to a new level. I got over 4 hours in and still hadn't gotten to any kind of interesting case. It is like if you made a whole game of the the free time segments from Danganronpa, but with less interesting characters. I really can't recommend this one.

This is just false advertising. The game tries to sell itself as a death game, however only like 20% of it is close to that, and the mysteries just really simple and boring. the rest of the game consists of a dating sim, capitalist island and the "true" route, but all of it is really boring. The characters are bland, the hosts are boring and the protagonist is really annoying

Tbh, it's not worth $50 Wish I didn't spend all that time giving it a chance... the story is filled with a lot of idle talking and conversations that really don't hold much meaning at all. There was a while it felt like trying to get through the story was a chore. It was good at some parts, but that was only about 5-10% of the time. This was really disappointing. If you think you are going to be playing a game similar to Your Turn To Die or Danganronpa you will not find it here. Wish I could get a refund. I haven't even finished the story, and I'm not sure if I ever will. I'm very close to the end, but I might just watch the ending or something on youtube... 2/10 :(

I haven't finished this game and don't know if I will, I'm honestly so disappointed because I wanted to love this game, I've been waiting to play it ever since it was first announced. And I think that's why I'm so bitter and why I have decided to write a review, even if it's a negative one. I don't understand the marketing strategy around this game, it was advertised everywhere as a game similar to DR or Zero escape, you can see drops of blood everywhere on the arts, they play around this idea of your character needing to survive but... That's not the case at all. This is not a death game. I'm on day 36 and absolutely NOTHING has happened, I thought a few times that this time something was going to happen, but no. Even our captors don't seem to care about what we do (or don't do) and just... Let us simply enjoy what now seems to be a 6-months long vacation. I've tried "forcing" the game to move forward in a darker direction but [spoiler] even if I buy "dirt" or "gossip" with my points, nothing happens, I can't talk about it to anyone, so I don't see how it is useful [/spoiler] The every day life is also starting to get boring since nothing is happening and our choices when we can pick one don't really seem important, also I was excited when I saw that there was a nonbinary character because I thought it would be a very inclusive game but we don't seem to be able to romance boys, our male character only talks about girls or previous girlfriend so that was also disappointing. Also the introduction of said nb character was weird tbh, it felt forced in a very "in your face" way, instead of just introcing them normally the game spent like 5 mn making the characters going back and forth on the fact that Sasha was not a girl or a boy (and I seem to remember our character thinking something like "oh this is the token character"when we learnt that Sasha was nb???) I had seen some negative reviews warning people about this game and how it wasn't what they had expected and I should have listened, but because I had been waiting for so long, I just had to try it, and the beginning felt so promising too, I don't know why they didn't go with their death game premises and instead did this, I think this game can still be enjoyable to some, but the fact that it was so heavily advertised as a game similar to DR and ZE makes it hard for me not to feel lied to and manipulated. The fact that I spent 50$ on it also explains why I have a hard time giving this game a free pass. Tbh my best way of describing this game would be to say that it felt as if I was playing DR island mode all the time ; we have this setting that is supposed to be scary, but nothing happens and I instead spend my time talking to the characters who tend to make sexual innuendos like 90% of the time. That's it for me, I might update this if things change later on but sadly from what I found when I looked at others reviews, I don't think it will. I'm sorry if I made any mistake as English is not my native language.

(day 136 in the death game timeline) very interesting premise that gets incredibly dull and overdrawn. the game is filled with 70% empty conversations that lead to nothing, just filler until the next event which is incredibly grating when there are 180 days to get through. With all these conversations you would think it would get you attached to characters but I just feel nothing when they die which is odd. This game cannot immerse me in the story or characters which makes you feel completely detached from the reality they are in. There's also zero suspense when it comes to finding a body since it either just happens or you can see the death from miles away. Your character, seen as a complete fucking joke gets dog walked through every investigation with (i know its a VN but plenty other have engaging minigames) zero gameplay besides pressing a button to answer with no consequence of getting it wrong. There's also the treatment of the killers which alienates me [spoiler] After Valerie is knocked out how is 4 stab wounds seen as self defense? I know people have different ideals but how is it acceptable for most people to imprison torturers in a fully furnished room and see that as "punishment", Harrison talks to them like, for the most part completely normal people. I feel like it gives the investigation minimal steaks if they get caught off to prison they go to be side characters. [/spoiler] Some nitpicks are using the same CG for every burial when it does not make sense, imprisoned or dead characters are in certain events when you catch fish. I also feel the illusion of choice, for example [spoiler] Choosing to investigate with Eva over Annika, I thought this was a pretty big and interesting choice, but choosing to investigate with Annika still leads to choosing Eva in the end [/spoiler] Besides the change in what show you are on I don't see any other impacting decisions Besides all the negatives I really do enjoy most of the characters, their complexity and the immense diversity in the cast, too bad the game doesn't do any justice to them. Maybe the other routes are better and it was my mistake for expecting a thrilling death game but (iirc) if you wear your influences so proudly the game has to be up to snuff. There is some good buried under here but i'm not sure if I have the patience to finish, maybe its worth 50$ for all the time and effort put into it but the outcome is worth no more then 20$. Maybe if i ever take this game out of my backlog it will change. after finishing the death game route, I feel like this game has so much potential but does not capitalize it [spoiler] the whole thing was so interesting, the reveal of everyone being involved in the murders had me smiling so hard [/spoiler] after this huge high for me in this game it just ends, 40-50 days skipped right to the conclusion that leaves me so unsatisfied, it gave me hope only to take it away again.

I really want to like this game-- truly. Even after seeing all of the reviews I still bought it on sale with tempered expectations because I enjoyed the demo and thought it was a cool intro. The problem with this game isn't just that it's not a true death game like may have been marketed-- it's that the plot is painfully slow to develop. Most of your time is spent having COMPLETELY unimportant filler conversations that don't even really let you meaningfully interact with or get to know the characters, it's just a lot of text spam with some individual personalities thrown in. I actually *like* the characters, and I think that this concept could've been super interesting, but there's just way too much downtime between anything happening. It's like if Danganronpa's entire game was the free time activities that you get between each "case". Over there you might get 2-3 chances per case to talk to someone, have a small chat, and noticeably develop your relationship in a trackable way. On this game, almost every. Single. Day. You do that-- and there are 180 days total, with 2-3 timeslots to fill up per day. The worst part is that you're barely even interacting with them-- you have no relationship tracker, no way to really guide the conversation, usually it's just one small meaningless choice in a conversation that unlocks some brand of flavor text but that doesn't really get you anywhere. This game feels like what Sword Art Online would've been if instead of skipping around to meaningful points in the story that are fun to read/watch, if it told you every single thing that happened from floors 1-100-- made you experience every single grind session and small interaction. It feels cool and interesting at first, but by the time you've gone through it several times, you're just bored and don't care anymore.

The Good: The art is quite wonderful and the soundtrack is decent. The rest: I'm around 107 days in, and I intentionally used a guide to get the suspicion route. So far, this game is irredeemable. Don't spent money on it (certainly not at full price), don't play it. I'm lucky I got it on sale. I feel bad for the VAs who clearly tried, but were given a bunch of nonsense accents and clearly awful direction. I'm going to keep playing and update after I've given it more of a chance, but seriously I'm warning you now don't play it. Here's an example of something the game has included, the main character telling you they're too tired and going back to sleep like 30 of the 107 days. What is the point of that? Edit 1: I finished the suspicion route, it's so bad. It's sooooooooooo bad.

Inescapable is the epitome of clickbait. The title alone will give you the idea that this is a 'Death Game' novel similar to Zero Escape or Danganronpa. Let me assure you that Inescapable is nothing like those games. A more appropriate title for it would have been 'Drama Island' but telling everyone that your game is 90% 'Drama' and 'Gossip' doesn't exactly turn heads. It is far more exciting to throw in buzzwords like "Thriller" and "Survive" into your game description.. Unfortunately, there is nothing thrilling about this novel and survival has not even been a relevant topic of discussion in my 20 hours of progress. The story itself starts out interestingly enough. Characters are kidnapped and forced to participate in a game for money. The problem is that this 'game' plays out in the most pedestrian way imaginable. A race to the top of a hill, hosting a talent show, voting in a popularity contest.. And the punishments for losing? Laughable at best. Inescapable prides itself more on petty squabbles between characters. This character is nagging us too much! Those characters are teaming up for votes! OMG did those two kiss each other on camera!? Not quite the Zero Escape/Danganronpa experience you expected from the trailers, huh? You're forced to progress on a day-by-day basis. You spend each day playing mini-games at an arcade, fishing at a dock or participating in 500 irrelevant chatting sessions with various characters. It's like someone took Danganronpa's character bonding events and said "Let's make an entire game based on these!". I'm on day 130 (presumed to be 180 days total) and what's the most dramatic thing to happen so far? Someone ruined a party and someone else lied about losing a book.. Absolutely riveting content. Worth my 20 hour investment and the $50 chunk out of my wallet.. I am not finished with the game, though I believe I am way over halfway through. Things have time to change until the end. But seriously, my 20 hour experience so far has been downright boring. I would not recommend this to any fan of Thrillers, Mysteries and most definitely not Death Game fans. Listen to the reviews telling you that this is the opposite of entertaining. I tried to shift my expectations as soon as I learned that Inescapable wasn't purely a Death Game.. But even the drama lacks drama and the gossip will put you to sleep. There are better ways to spend your time.