Escape Hunt Play At Home: The Fourth Samurai

By | June 27, 2020

by Escape Hunt Play At Home (website)

1-6 players

Β£60.00

Languages: EN

πŸ“Ήremote avatar
not on sale
Step into ancient Japan, where the imperial emperor has ordered you, his most trusted samurai warriors, to defeat the evil warlord Tanaka Masamune.
But be warned, Tanaka is no ordinary enemy; he is protected by a powerful curse that makes him invincible to even the strongest warrior. The only way to beat him is to steal the magic stone from the handle of his sword – but first you must escape from the dungeon his henchmen have thrown you into.
You have one hour to break free and complete your mission; any longer and you pay – with a fate worse than death.
show full description
Thank you for helping keep Escape the Review up to date!
Let us know what needs changing:




If you own or manage this company, you can also claim the listing and update it yourself

Overall rating

Rated 3.5 out of 5

based on ratings from 57 users
combined with 5 pro reviews

Your review

Player reviews

Wei-Hwa Huang expert rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Team size: 3 Outcome: Successful escape!
Ron Kagan expert rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: July 18th 2020
Anonymous rated this:Rated between 50 and 50 out of 5
Anonymous rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Emma Macedo experienced rated this:Rated between 25 and 25 out of 5
Played: 26 Aug 2021 Team size: 3 Time taken: 49.17 Outcome: Successful escape!
poor hosting

Played this game whilst on a family getaway to Edinburgh and after doing a few of Escape Hunt games around the UK was a little sceptical as some haven't been fantastic. This unfortunately fell into the 'not great' category. Although there were some clever puzzles to solve and theming was ok, however I didn't leave feeling particularly fulfilled. I felt that because the room was quite non-linear there were multiple occasions where I didn't know how certain things had been solved/opened as I had been working on solving one thing whilst my parents were doing something else. 

On arrival there seemed to be only one member of staff on reception who gave us a very good introduction, completely in character however just over halfway through our game we called for help on a puzzle in the way we had been instructed and it took ages to get a response so this effected our overall time and was very frustrating waiting for assistance to move forward. When we completed the room it turned out there had been a change over of staff, hence why there was no response when we required help. Unlike nearly every other room I have played (this was my 40th), at the end there was no opportunity to discuss our game or ask any questions about certain aspects. We had our photo done and left.

Sam Carr experienced rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Team size: 2 Time taken: 31 Outcome: Successful escape!
abooth expert rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Team size: 2 Time taken: 44 Outcome: Successful escape!

Not bad and it looks nice but there's not a huge amount to do if you're an experienced team.

Mark Greenhalgh expert rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: 24/03/18
Anonymous rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Team size: 2 Time taken: 42 Outcome: Successful escape!
beautifulhi-techoriginalquite easy
Jen Wells (Get Wells Soon) expert rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
beautifulimmersive

A brilliant start to this game and a great mix of physical challenge, searching and logic. We hammered our way through this one but it never felt too straightforward, just enjoyable.

Showing most recent only - see all ratings & reviews

Reviews by escape room review sites

I'd add a warning that this is a room well suited to playing as a pair, which could work less with with a bigger group - an early puzzle could become a frustrating bottleneck, since it's potentially time consuming and can only be tackled by one person at a time, and the rest is fairly linear. Most enthusiast pairs will also find it an entirely approachable level of difficulty.

Playing the same game on a later occasion and in a different location (Oxford), I found the aesthetics quietly appealin...

A solid game across the board - storyline, decoration, puzzles and finale were all good. If you want something that pushes the boundaries of escape rooms then go elsewhere but if it's enough to just be good throughout then it's a great choice.

I have to admit, The Fourth Samurai wasn’t ever going to be my immediate choice of the Escape Hunt games 

Escape Hunt- The Fourth Samurai

July 2023

Overview 

This was our first visit to Escape Hunt. Escape hunt is well know across Exeter and with a number of rooms to chose from, we decided to give one of their more challenging rooms a try as our first attempt, The Fourth Samurai.  

The location is easy to find in the middle of the city. There is some public parking nearby with a short 5 minute walk to the venue. You enter into a multi sport bar with axe throwing and darts downstairs. We approached the main desk and were escorted upstairs to the games area where we were greeted by our host for the game. 

The briefing area and waiting area is actually quite small and compact for the number of rooms they have available. It is clear that the focus at Escape Hunt is quick turnaround to maximise profit instead of customer experience. Whilst we were receiving our brief in the corridor, two separate parties had to squeeze through us, interrupting the brief and this caused us to lose a little interest into the experience before we had even started. One of us was nominated as group leader where they were the only one who could see when walking in and we were taken into room where we began our mission.

Room impression

The first thing to mention is larger groups will struggle in this room. We are a team of 4 and the beginning of the game was a real struggle for us. Only one of you can really start the game and it left us quite frustrated. Once we had a good look around the room, the background music and decoration did help us immerse us into the game somewhat but when we started going trough the puzzles and getting a closer look at detail, the room was actually quite tired and you could make out where old games had been adapted because of breakage etc. This did let the room down as it did have real promise and I dare say when it was new, it would have been quite an impressive room. 

Puzzles

The first puzzle frustrated us, me in particular a lot. They gave us the option to just skip the puzzle and they would let us move on. This started the room off in a slightly negative tone for us and made us feel like there was no point int he puzzle if we can just move on. The puzzles had a linear approach where it felt as if there was enough for all 4 of us to do. There were a few sticking points that had us scratching our heads. Due to the theme of the room, padlocks were a no show with many combination locks and puzzles taking centre stage. The different areas of the game opened up different aspects of the story which was a nice touch and kept the theme flowing throughout. 

Game Master Clues

There was no timer in the room so we were unsure how long we had during our game and a couple of times where we became stuck, there was a quiet voice that came over the room to point us in the right direction with a screen. There seemed to be a slight delay in some of the β€˜happenings’ in the room after we had completed a puzzle so this did suggest to us that our game master was overseeing another room as well. We might be wrong but our previous experience in rooms does lead us to this conclusion. This isn’t the end of the world as long as the room flows properly, this felt a little sluggish at points.

Round Up

We have wanted to try out Escape Hunt for a while after other escape room owners have suggested we give this particle room a try. We would say the room was fun for novices and probably enthusiasts but for pro’s it might be a bit too sluggish and not overly challenging. The company is there to obviously make money but the churning over of customers and lack of customer interaction wasn’t really for us and this showed in the hosting. One to try and we would probably come back to try the other rooms as it was a decent room but there are better out there, particularly in Exeter.

See also