If you are of a certain age, you know the ritual well – you push the power button only to see some flickering pixels that flash a familiar pattern. You flip the top, remove the cartridge, and blow into it like you’re performing CPR on your best friend. You then start again, holding your breath with anticipation, hoping that was enough to bring your Nintendo back to life. There was a time when this was the norm and we’d do it as many times as we needed to get our favorite system back up and running. This is also something that NEScape manages to replicate unintentionally on the Xbox One system.

Upon booting the game for the first time, I got the standard box art that pops up whenever you launch a game, a few of the obligatory marketing messages telling me who made the game, and then… nothing. Just a completely blank screen. This sent me on an adventure in itself to get the software running as it should – I performed all of the current day troubleshooting that exluded me blowing into my Xbox, but made me long for the days when it was that simple. A few installs later with nothing changing, I was left with the assumption that this would need to be patched and turned off my TV to do something else, or so I thought. After returning to the room after a sandwich, I found my TV showing what it should have displayed originally, only taking its sweet time to get there. Upon rebooting the game, I found that this is just a thing, where I will get a solid black screen for a little over four and a half minutes every time I launch the software, which is still the case as of this writing.

Once I got into the game proper, I was dropped straight into an escape room situation as the name alludes. With little to no direction, I was set loose to explore a small room, with each wall having a different color pattern and secrets to explore, and a small counter in the corner gently tickling my anxiety glands, always there to remind me that I need to be efficient with my problem-solving skills. The puzzles found within are real brain busters – not because they lack logic or hints, but because almost everything relies on you doing something else in a very specific order. In my first attempt, I struggled to make much headway because I was looking for obscure clues, overlooking the fact that they were in plain sight and failed to find my way out within the hour. It used to be, a notepad and paper were a prerequisite to play puzzle-heavy titles such as Resident Evil, and this was something I quickly had to adapt to this game in order to make any headway. I am slightly embarrassed to say It took me a staggering three attempts to finish this game and really wished I would’ve started with this method right out of the gate.

There really isn’t much here to do outside of the puzzles, so I won’t dig too deeply into them in an event to avoid spoilers. What I will say is that the logic used is largely based on some older games that anyone born before the 90’s will easily remember, such as Simon, or those annoying slide puzzles that your aunt who really doesn’t like you all that much would give you at Christmas, or the equally frustrating little maze that you have to work a tiny ballbearing through while avoiding holes – just in an 8-bit digital style. The 8-bit style suits the game well, and despite having so many puzzles to juggle at one time, having the clearly defined items on specific walls makes remembering which wall has what a godsend that allowed me to kind of break up my paper guide in a way that I was able to finally beat the game with more than half the time available on my third go.  Sadly, once you’ve made your escape from the one room, that is the end of the game and there isn’t much to revisit.

This is yet another retro-release that not only is available for the Xbox family, but on NES cartridges if you choose. That being said, it does miss out on some of those more modern conveniences, such as saving, and does not offer the option to Quick Resume on the Xbox. While I fully understand why the manual save feature couldn’t be used, I am a bit perplexed about why I couldn’t leave it running in the background when it’s such a small bit of software. Outside of this, as well as the weird black screen upon boot, there isn’t much going wrong here, but I am not going to lie, I don’t see myself going back to this game as something worth revisiting. I would’ve loved to see a remix or randomized option (such as those found in some of the more robust Resident Evil games) to add some replay value.

Being a point-and-click game developed for a system not really known for this genre, NEScape manages to fit a full-on escape room experience on a cartridge if you still have your old grey beast laying around. It is going to be a niche release that delivers on what is advertised, but nothing more. If you’re into the retro look and escape rooms, this will be worth a purchase, but I wouldn’t expect something on the level of Portal or the other puzzle greats.

7 out of 10

Pros

• The Room Designs Make Tracking Which Puzzle is Where Easily Accessible
• Varied Puzzles
• Reliving Some Fond Childhood Memories (Simon)

Cons

• Takes So Long to Boot, You’ll Wish You Could Blow into a Cartridge
• No Saving or Quick Resume
• Light on Content
• Reliving Some Not-So Fond Childhood Memories (Those Freaking Slide Puzzles)

NEScape was developed by KHAN Games and was published by 8 Bit Legit. The game is available on NES, NS and XSX. The game was provided to us for review on XSX. If you’d like to see more of NEScape, check out the publisher’s site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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