Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue from Aksys Games and Dreamloop Games is a very interesting narrative-driven adventure you have to play on Nintendo Switch. Check our Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue review!

 

Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue from Aksys Games and Dreamloop Games is a very interesting narrative-driven adventure you have to play on Nintendo Switch. It’s a social thriller in which a bunch of people are sent to a tropical island resort against their own will. After being kidnapped, they’re forced to participate in a sick reality TV-style show. You’ll be pitted against ten other people to try and win the grand prize of $500,000. Oh, but there’s one catch: as the game’s title suggests, on the island, there are no rules and no rescue. It’s a game that will certainly remind you of gems such as the Danganronpa series, which is certainly not a bad thing!

But to better understand how things could go really, really bad, you first need to get to know the characters that will be part of this journey. The main protagonist is Harrison, a 23-year-old from the United Kingdom who works in London as a bus driver. He yearned for simpler times when he was younger and had his friends around him. Next up is Maria – who everyone calls Mia – a 23-year-old from Germany who studied to be a programmer, which makes her keen on problem-solving, and she’s also great at always paying attention to detail.

Daan is a 25-year-old from the Netherlands, and he’s a competitive bicyclist who is always looking for new challenges to take on. He’s someone who doesn’t know the meaning of the word quitting, which means he’s very much going to be very competitive about winning this competition. Annika is a young 19-year-old from Sweden who serves as the maid in the manor of a reclusive master. She’s someone who finds great joy in cooking, cleaning, and making sure that others are happy. Valérie is an 18-year-old who is the teenage heiress of a huge French business. She was homeschooled, with a focus on etiquette, savoir-faire, anti-scheming, and how to act when being held hostage, which will probably be useful during the whole current situation, right?

 

Eva is a 22-year-old from Estonia who is a professional makeup artist and a Swiftagram influencer. She loves chocolate, cocktails, and kebabs but doesn’t like to eat on a date. She’s someone who is always looking for more and more attention. Francisca is a 22-year-old from Portugal who is the epitome of a self-made woman. She works as a mechanic and is always bluntly to the point, and she calls them as she sees them, which can end up rubbing some people the wrong way. Isak is a 30-year-old from Norway who works as a jeweler and has carved out a bit of a celebrity status. He tends to be a bit too melodramatic and ostentatious and loves myths and legends.

Giovanni is a 52-year-old from Italy. He’s a restauranteur who married a movie star and has a very successful business. He uses his influence and considerable wealth to help out and fix some problems in his hometown of Naples, as well as those of the surrounding villages. There’s also Sasha. At first, they joke around and keep to themselves, not disclosing their name or any information. Sasha loves to be sarcastic, which is not going to fit with how some of the other characters behave. The last one is Lumi. She’s a 23-year-old from Finland who’s currently a chemistry student. She also has Senegalese heritage, which sometimes has her caught between two cultures.

Games like this one can certainly benefit from having voice acting for its characters, especially when it’s of good quality. I’m here to report that is the case for Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue. And as a bonus, the performances are in English, which is not always the case. Voice acting is an expensive element to add to a game’s overall budget, so when a game has Japanese voice acting, odds are it will remain that way when it makes its way to the rest of the world. Having the characters speaking in English certainly gets this one brownie point.

 

What types of situations will you run into? As to not spoil this one, I’ll discuss the earliest ones right after you wake up and realize you’ve been kidnapped. You were knocked out by some weird gas that was pumped into the bus you were taking to what was supposed to be taking you on a surprise trip with your friends, whom you haven’t had a chance to see for a bit now. When you wake up, you’ll notice you’re inside a large metal container, and that’s when a sense of panic starts to set in.

Harrison tries to reach for his phone, and it’s then he realizes he does have a smartphone on him, but it’s not his actual phone. At least he can unlock it with his fingerprint! Said smartphone will be mapped to the D-Pad. Pressing left will open up the Messages app. Pressing right will allow you to check the dialogue log. Pressing up will open up the phone’s main menu, from where you can interact with other apps, such as the game’s settings or the achievements – more on these in a bit.

You’ll then have to move a cursor around the screen by using the left analog stick as you try to find something to interact with. Luckily, there’s a huge screen inside of the container that you can click on to open up a puzzle where you need to interact with blocks so that a full line can be completed that connects point A with point B. Once you open up the container, the first person you’ll run into is Mia. It’s then you’re informed of how you’ve been kidnapped and sent to an undisclosed location. Later on, you’ll be informed by the show’s producers of what your stay on this island really entails.

 

If you’re the type of gamer who likes to 100% a game, then you’ll need to know about the in-game achievements system for Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue. The objectives include completing the first day on the island, getting high scores at each of the arcade games, getting high scores on all the arcade games catching all types of fish, reaching the maximum friendship level with each of the characters, visiting all locations, and some various objectives that I don’t want to spoil here.

Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue is a very interesting narrative-driven adventure you have to play. Sure, it’s a game that is not going to be for everyone, but if you’re a fan of, say, the Danganronpa series, then you’ll certainly have a lot of fun playing through this one. The cast of characters you’ll meet along the way and the bizarre and crazy scenarios you’ll find yourself in will keep you coming back for more. Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue is out on Nintendo Switch with a $49.99 price tag.

Disclaimer
This Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Aksys Games.