The Artful Escape Nintendo Switch (REVIEW)
Developed by Beethoven and Dinosaur
The Artful Escape is a journey through space and other dimensions, including a psychedelic soundtrack. Playing as Francis Vendetti, you seek an origin story for the ages. Mixing in a slight platform like levels and a water down Simon says, The Artful Escapes allows players to experience the galactic rockstar journey.
Gameplay
There really isn’t much of a gameplay or controls associated with the Artful Escape. You are limited to going left or right, jump or double jump and climbing things. That is the scope of controls needed for the platform aspect of the game. The other is matching button sequences during musical performances.
Where Artful Escape really shines is the soundtrack and background visuals. The different worlds you travel to and matching sound track is a 70’s pot smoker dream. It is easy to get distracted and miss a jump with psychedelic colors and imagery.
The soundtrack would need to keep up as a game centered around rockstars and putting on a fantastic shop. Playing through each levels, the music adapts and becomes part of the level. The music balances well either soothing ambient noise or a mini solo performance as you progress.
What separates Artful Escape from similar games is the strong voice cast. Featuring Mark Strong, Lena Heady and Carl Weathers, it is hard to find a strong ensemble like this one. Each actor is able to become the character and it is evident with how strong of a presence some of them had.
Overview and Final Thoughts
The Artful Escape is a fun game that gets repetitive and boring. Each level is almost identical to the last and the story is bland and boring. The bosses are easily defeated in a Simon says styles guitar battle. After the first boss, each level got more mundane as the last.
The soundtrack and back grounds helped with changing things up. This also got repetitive especially with the the heavy psychedelic imagery, After a while it felt like having to be high was the only way to enjoy some of the backgrounds and story.
The worse aspect of the game was how convoluted the story and its progression were. One minute you are getting ready for your first show and the next you are jamming with a moth for the fate of your fame and audience souls. This lack of clarification or story is confusing when trying to follow along.
The Artful Escape is a fun, boring game perfect for people under the influence or in small doses. With the lack of variety from the controls, level layouts, and psychedelics, the game struggled to finish. Simon says it could have included more considerable consequences or better integration into becoming an antagonist.
As good as the voice acting was, the game is hard to keep playing. Much of the game is repetitive, with little pushing for more challenges. After about 10 minutes, the story felt long and going nowhere. It was still an enjoyable game in minimal doses but quickly faded away as it felt like one lousy trip after another.