The Artful Escape Reviews
An eye-popping musical adventure that will leave you with a serious case of galaxy brain.
One opportunity that the smaller teams and budgets behind typical indie games have is to take bigger risks, either blending together or warping genres to create experiences that are difficult to categorize...
The Artful Escape is a joyous musical odyssey of self-discovery that sweeps you along with a breathless enthusiasm and leaves you wide-eyed and grinning from ear to ear.
The Artful Escape is a fantastic musical experience with an incredible presentation. It tells a very personal story, full of memorable characters, and performances. The actual gameplay is a bit lacking, but the game makes up for it with its spectacle.
The Artful Escape wowed me with its wonderful sights and sounds, with the wacky musical adventure of Francis Vendetti sure to keep a smile on players’ faces. Sure, it might not offer a deep gameplay experience, but there’s enough on offer between exploring the bizarre yet beautiful world, uncovering the surprisingly heartfelt narrative, and simply sculpting your own unique Francis to ensure the adventure remains a memorable one.
The Artful Escape is an unforgettable psychedelic journey. Its short length helps its simple mechanics stay fresh so you can focus on Francis’ journey and its stunning visuals. Perhaps fully embracing the medium could have made this something even more special, but it’s an experience all its own, and that’s okay. Much like the game tries to teach Francis, sometimes you can just have to be what you are.
It is a space opera full of beautiful visuals that you can't take your eyes off. If you don't mind action and enjoy it as if watching SF movie, it will totally satisfy you so much.
Review in Korean | Read full review
I know I sound like a broken record here, but I can’t say enough how refreshing The Artful Escape is. In a sea of third-person open-world collect-a-thons, first-person shooters, and free-to-play action games, it’s nice to be able to just rock out and chill to something that doesn’t require lightning reflexes or demand intense attention from you.
Francis's story is memorable and powerful, and the environments he shreds through are truly a sight to behold. People who enjoy the aesthetics of artists like the late David Bowie should absolutely give this game a look, especially if they also happen to be musicians themselves. You might learn a bit about what you actually want for yourself in life and become inspired to visit a Cosmic Extraordinary of your own.
The Artful Escape is a unique experience of exotic and out-of-the-ordinary experiences, although the gameplay experience is weak, the interesting story and the visual and audio fun that is presented make it one of those experiences that deserves to be experienced for lovers of different experiences.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
The Artful Escape is more an experience than an actual game in which you go up on glittering (game) stages and make your guitar do the talking.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
A tour de force of light and sound, The Artful Escape is unlike anything else you’ve played. With no easy genre label to stick on the game, the only way you’ll know if you’re going to enjoy it is to try it. It’s a trip alright, one that will have your foot tapping and your head rocking from start to finish.
It's also worth mentioning there are some substantial performance issues. The frame rate dropped considerably fairly often, pulling us out of its gorgeous world. There were also a few occasions where dialogue on the screen was not voiced, which felt very odd. However, these issues aside, The Artful Escape is absolutely an adventure worth taking. It contains some magical moments, an engaging narrative and the best soundtrack in a game all year. It doesn't always hit the mark, but when it does, it smashes it out of the park.
The Artful Escape is a kaleidoscopic coming-of-age story that is a joy to move through, even if the actual gameplay is sometimes hardly there.
The Artful Escape may not have particularly deep or challenging gameplay, but the main reason to attend this show is its incredible writing and Francis' trippy, out-of-this-world journey in discovering his new persona, one which features a lot of nifty twists in various ways, alongside truly striking sci-fi visuals and an expertly-crafted soundtrack. The Artful Escape is an astonishing rock and roll epic that the likes of Ziggy Stardust would be proud of.
The Artful Escape is an incredible odyssey of self discovery, and its few shortcomings don't hold it back from being an excursion patently worth making.
The Artful Escape is a thrill. It's true that the most joyous bits of action are underused – in terms of both playtime and what they could give the story – and some scarce but present graphical issues on Switch are a shame. Overall, though, the strengths are major, the niggles minor, and it will strike a chord with any pipe-dreaming rock star.
The Artful Escape is a wonderful audiovisual experience with a lot of great moments and a intense story. If you like this types of games, you should try it.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
A cosmic rock voyage of self-discovery that doesn't folk about, The Artful Escape is a truly unique experience and a feast for the senses.
You play a young guitarist exploring your prog-rock ambitions to the full in this richly enjoyable psychedelic journey