Castle of No Escape 2

Genre: Top-Down Action-RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Castle of No Escape 2 is a Top-Down Action-RPG released on the PC in 2016, ported to Nintendo Switch in 2019, and ported to other consoles later. When compared to the first Castle of No Escape, this game is extremely unusual in multiple ways. Firstly, those release dates I mentioned? Those are before the release of the first game. I don’t know why. Secondly, this game is in completely a different genre than the first game, yet oddly still manages to be faithful to its predecessor (successor?).

Like the first game, Castle of No Escape 2 uses 8-bit style pixel art graphics designed to look like a classic Nintendo Entertainment System game, but I would argue that the attempt is much more successful this time around, with enemies that are a bit more distinguishable, and backgrounds with some variety and personality to them. Similarly, the chiptune soundtrack is also much better here, with some solid tunes that work well for giving the game the nostalgic feel it’s going for.

And despite the change in genres, or perhaps because of that, Castle of No Escape 2 is a much better game than the first game in the series. Players wander around a multi-floor Zelda-style dungeon fighting enemies and collecting pickups. The combat is interesting and challenging, thanks in part to a Secret of Mana-esque stamina system that encourages players not to attack wildly but to think through their attacks. And there’s enough variety and interesting stuff strewn about the game’s randomly-generated dungeons to keep things interesting.

However, while this game may be much-improved over the first game, it’s still loaded with problems. The map is now pretty worthless beyond simply showing you where you have and haven’t been. That’s particularly frustrating because the dungeons you’re exploring are far more labyrinthine this time around. It doesn’t help that the lack of direction and randomness here makes much of finding your way through the dungeon feel aimless and repetitive.

In addition to this, Castle of No Escape 2 bears one of the bigger problems of its predecessor – it doesn’t really explain its gameplay to the player. In the first game, this was needlessly confusing, though ultimately that game’s randomness rendering the gameplay pointless made this the lesser of that game’s problems. However, now that the gameplay here actually matters, the lack of explanation to the player is a huge problem that makes this game far less accessible than it should have been.

I can see a lot of potential in Castle of No Escape 2, and with more refinement.it could be a solid little retro-style Top-Down Action RPG. Unfortunately, there are a number of issues that make this game far less enjoyable than it could be, and the result is something that’s confusing and inscrutable, but seems to hide something of value under the surface. However, without those problems being fixed, I’d have difficulty recommending this game.

tl;dr – Castle of No Escape 2 is a Top-Down Action-RPG with an 8-bit retro-style aesthetic that abandons the gameplay style of the first game while still drawing inspiration from it. The result is a far better game that’s still dragged down by a multitude of problems that make this game needlessly confusing and exasperating. There’s potential here, but this game needed a lot more polish to truly shine.

Grade: C-

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