Escape Republik: Nakatomi Plaza

The ‘customer service’ at this location let the experience down a little—when we had some issues, they were unresponsive and not particularly helpful. That aside, the introduction to the game was fun, and the hosting was hilarious (with what we understood) and well-executed. You could tell the game was starting to show its age a bit, but it still had some charm.

The biggest issue was the language barrier. Despite selecting English, multiple key components were still in Spanish, which caused unnecessary frustration. On top of that, our gamemaster’s thick accent made it difficult to hear over the intercom, and his weak English led to some actively unhelpful hints (for example, telling us to open the wardrobe when he actually meant the cupboard in a different room).

The room itself was quite linear with a decent selection of puzzles, but they didn’t always tie back to the story in a satisfying way. The ending also felt a bit odd and anticlimactic—going from one extreme straight into a very flat “well done” left us feeling like there should have been more to wrap things up.