Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue

No. Just no.

Inescapable is an... interesting game to review. I'd say it's even a challenging game to properly review. After all, what you are looking for here and what you get is very hard to describe. For my background, so everyone knows where I'm coming from, Danganronpa is one of my favourite franchises of all time. I adore it, and moreover, I adore all killing games. But I do enjoy VNs beyond that genre. I bought Inescapable because I felt that this is a passion project and, moreover, the ads, mainly the killing game focus, did get to me. This game, should be stated outright, is not a killing game. It can be, but it's not. What do I mean by that? Well, simple: the game goes along whatever genre you seem to push for it. If you go out there and find people's actions suspicious and act in a paranoid way? It'll become a killing game. If you focus on going all out for the cash? Then it becomes a competition for money! So on and so forth. There are 4 routes in total, and while I have yet to explore them all, it presents an enjoyable time and an exciting time for the characters. I'd say that the writing of the game can be a bit hit or miss, but for me, it's more often than not a hit. You need to be in the mindset that most conversations aren't going to push the plot forward. You'll find yourself exploring and growing and discovering more about the different characters. Most of the game, in DR terms, is Free Time Events. There are some hilarious ones written in the middle, and they do make a good job of making the characters grow. There are a few moments, especially in two of the routes, where I was ready to strangle some characters I need to add, including the protagonist. It's hard to say how much I enjoyed Harri's writing especially. Still, I have yet to go through the routes more focused on him being an actually good person, so... *shrug*. One of the biggest points against the game is its price point. It was around the equivalent of $30 where I live, but... it's still expensive. And from what I heard, it's around $50 launch. I'm putting as a recommended, but with the caviat that if you are looking for a general VN about character's relationships in different stressful situations, you can buy it at full price. If you are focused on, for example, a killing game... then you should check it when it's half off, or close to it.

fix my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ phone

I am still finishing this game and have to finish the greed + trust route, but I can say that this game does a relatively decent job at integrating different themes into it, with multiple endings. I can understand people being turned off by the advertisement of this game portraying itself to be very similar to Danganronpa and other games, and while it does have similar elements, I should note that this game has more elements to it besides that. The game tailors to the choices that you are making, and will put you into one of 4 routes (lust, suspicion, greed, trust), depending on your choices. Yes, there is one route that can take you down the "danganronpa" route (suspicion route), but that is not the only part to this game. I think that the choices and the dialogue isn't too bad, getting to know the characters over time has allowed them to grow on me more. I will admit, when I first played the demo I was not interested in the characters at all, but they really have stuck to me the more I play. Overall, I think that this game is really good if you're interested in something similar but not quite exactly the same as spike chunsoft games, I think that the developers did a great job at making their game unique to the experience. While the game is $49.99, I think that it is worth the spend because there is a lot of content, art that probably took a lot of time and effort to be drawn, many choices, minigames and more. Try not to go into this game expecting it to be exactly like danganronpa, if you can go in with an open mind you will most likely enjoy this game more. I went in after reading all of the mixed comments, and it allowed me to be more open minded and actually enjoy this experience fully.

The characters and dialogue feel believable. There are several funny moments during the encounters how the characters react to each other's comments. Except Sasha's constant pervy jokes are a bit annoying. The game starts easy and you get to know all the people you decide to interact with. It's a nice feature that you can select a scene where you want to go, depending who you want to speak with, or maybe just play some mini games. I personally found myself caring about the characters (even the ones I thought I wouldn't care so much) and the talking has a nice flow. Voice acting also helped a lot in this I think. Overall very solid game in my opinion. Playing it the second time at the moment to see how if differs and still haven't figured out fully how my decisions are counted. Confused. The music is also super good. Especially the sister's theme, or whatever it's called, is such a banger.

I enjoyed this game, but I can only recommend it for a select number of people. Namely, those who are looking for character-driven death games but don't mind a lot of meandering dialog. The game has nice diversity in the characters all being from different places, but I can't speak to the authenticity of their accents. (They sound fake to me, but I don't hear authentic accents often.) The dialog is cheesy, repetitive, and grammatically incorrect. There are some glitches in the game that prevented me from loading after a crucial save, and some of the dialog repeats word-for-word in places it doesn't belong. Despite that, the game is charming. After a rough start with fairly stereotypical, bland characters, the people start to grow on you. I wish I got a chance to know more about them. Around the halfway mark, things get interesting, and then the action is nonstop. The first interrogation was predictable, but the others were not as obvious. If you are looking for your next Danganronpa fix, this likely won't be it. But if you just need something to hold you over until a new game by Spike Chunsoft, give this one a try.

you know why

When I originally played the demo I was admittedly not very impressed by what I saw. The characters were by in large very unlikable, the story didn't seem to really have much tension and the was very little game play to be found. I didn't expect all to much when I actually wound up buying the game (which by the way £40 for a visual novel is insane) but I was somewhat pleasantly surprised by what I found while actually playing this game. Let me start of with saying that of the four routes that are in the game, I only enjoyed half of them. Greed is infuriating and lust is the most uncomfortable I have felt playing a game in a really long time and both left me pondering over why I was playing this game. I really, really enjoyed Trust and Suspicion however and I wish the devs had put more time into giving multiple different paths for those two routes instead of spending time on two paths that are an absolute drag to play. I should also mention that I think the characters in this game are really good! They are all far deeper and more interesting then the demo would have you believe and watching how they all change and develop throughout each different route is really fascinating to watch. On top of that the cast does absolutely feel like a cast straight out of reality tv. Even the characters who I thought I would hate like Sasha and Gio both turned out to be very enjoyable and Gio especially made me feel far to many emotions. I think the only character I never really warmed up to was Harri, who is either boring or just plain out unlikable. Especially in lust route. Overall however, a very solid cast! The game play is really interesting to me, mostly because I've never seen a visual novel decide on what route you're going down by who exactly you hang out with. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this choice since it could very easily lead people into going down the complete wrong path especially their first time playing (I pity anyone who stumbled upon the Lust route first). Also, the moment you are on a proper route (which is about day 50 I believe) all choices from the game more or less disappear. This is usually replaced by another type of game play, such as the slot machines in the Greed route, but a lot of the latter half of the game is just reading. Which I suppose you should be expecting if you're going to play a visual novel. To add onto game play, there are also a couple of mini-games to keep you company when you haven't much else to do. These are especially helpful when you're going for the trust route. There is the arcade with three different games to play (you can also go for the high score on all of them) and the fishing minigame (my personal fav). I've seen some people call these dumb and unnecessary, but honestly I really enjoyed them and I have sunk far to many hours in seagull barque to say otherwise. They are also a nice break from the normal game play. Although I do feel the need to mention that upon release the fishing mini game was bugged to hell and back. I don't know if they fixed that bug, but it was certainly something. The visuals of this game are gorgeous. I like the art, both character and background is very ascetically pleasing and doesn't hurt to look at after hours of staring. The UI is simple but nice enough to use and the mini games all have a nice retro feel to them. If I had to give criticism I think that the bored game theme wasn't pushed far enough? Like in the very first death in the suspicion route, the character's piece shows up knocked over but they never use that effect ever again and it's kind of disappointing. All in all, it's a very mixed game at times, but if you do love these types of games and if you have the money, then I would recommend it!

Not going to lie, I almost returned the game at first. The voices were a little extra, but I grew to like them. The fast forward button doesn't work until you've seen the scene before, which means only for replays. And there's no real indicator of how the decisions you've made or how who you spend time with affects the game. Without spoiling anything, the very basics are that there's a common route where you play minigames, talk to people, and make the occasional decision. For me that was the first 40% of the game. After that, you basically have a kinetic novel to reap your rewards. There are four routes, though, and that might just be specific to the route I got: [spoiler]trust[/spoiler]. From the comments I've seen, there are basically different routes: three where you're a lustful/fearful/greedy ♥♥♥♥, and one where you take the high road. I strongly recommend taking the high road. The fact that there's no gallery mode should tell you everything you need to know. That said, I enjoyed the route I got! Inescapable seems like a parody or lampoon of visual novels in some respects. I don't know if they were trying to deconstruct tropes, but it definitely pokes at a few well known games. I would say catch it on sale. If you're a completionist, you may have a time of it, but I managed 11 hours out of it and that includes a fair bit of time alt-tabbed to other applications while playing.

Completely different from the trailer, prologue seemed interesting but it was just so people would waste time to later be really disappointed. I waited, hoping for something to happen, but nothing. Really boring and uninteresting, a death game where people don't die, at least tag it as slice of life game instead of trying to fool people.