The Escapists 2

Genre: Top-Down Action-RPG

Players: 1-2 Co-Op / Competitive (Local Split-Screen) 4 Co-Op / Competitive (Online)

.

Review:

The Escapists 2, like the first game, is a Top-Down Action-RPG that places you in the role of a prisoner looking to bust out of prison. And like that first game, this is a complex sandbox that gives players a wealth of options to escape. However, unlike that first game, this game does a much, much, much better job of making sure that players understand how the game actually works.

This sequel drops the 8/16-bit style of the first game in favor of a more detailed but still very cartoony style that seems like a good natural evolution of the series’ art style. It works, although a lot of the details are still so small that it’s easy to mistake one item for another sometimes.

As with how the game plays, this time the game has a story, a framing device of a fellow inmate telling tales of his past escapes. This acts as a tutorial, but it is far more extensive than what was seen in the first game, guiding the player through each step in the process of busting out of prison.

With this less of an obstacle, it’s far easier to get right into the nitty gritty of this game, and much of it is very good. The game has numerous systems players can learn about and master in their pursuit of freedom. Really, the biggest complaint I have is that some of these activities can get a bit tedious. Digging a tunnel, for example, requires not only a multi-step process of crafting a shovel (multiple, actually, because they break over time), but managing your dwindling energy as you dig, making sure you’re not missing important check-ins scheduled throughout the day, another multi-step process of crafting support beams as the tunnel widens, and the digging itself is frustratingly slow. I get that busting out of prison shouldn’t be easy, but at times it felt like this was unnecessarily complicated.

Beyond this game being vastly more user-friendly than the first game, one of the other major upgrades here is the addition of multiplayer co-op and competitive play, both local and online. Players can now band together to escape, or compete to see who can bust out first. This is a wonderful addition to the game that adds all sorts of great possibilities, although it unfortunately comes with a few caveats on the Switch, which only supports two players locally (as opposed to four on other platforms), and the lack of native voice chat limits what you can do with online play here. With the first game in the series receiving a definitive version on the Switch, it’s disappointing that the superior sequel’s Switch release is clearly not the definitive one.

Still, despite a few frustrating cutbacks for the Switch version, and some tedious and frustrating gameplay, for the most part The Escapists 2 succeeds where the first game fell short, giving players a satisfying sandbox of a prison game to give them a wealth of ways to plan their own escape, even allowing players to get a buddy in on the action. If that appeals to you, you should definitely give this game a try.

tl;dr – The Escapists 2, like the first game, is a Top-Down Action-RPG that puts you in the role of a prison inmate seeking to bust out of jail. The game has a wealth of options and complex systems at work to give players plenty of possibilities for enacting their escape, and this time it does a much better job of explaining to the player how it all works. There are still some issues with tedious gameplay elements, and the excellent multiplayer mode has been cut back somewhat for the Switch version, but on the whole this is a solid entry in the Switch’s library.

Grade: B-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}