Escape Hunt Birmingham: The Fourth Samurai

The theming of this room is brilliant, it all makes sense and the theme follows from room to room. 

The puzzles were all related to the theme, with some original puzzles that we'd never encountered before. 

Our GM was brilliant and very quick to assist when we needed it (I think we only had one clue, but she pointed us in the right direction without just straight up telling us the answer). 

In terms of difficulty I don't think it was that hard, just the one task that had us stumped. 

Great room, great host, give it a go.

We had a really good morning escaping from The Last Samourai. The Escape Hunt Birmingham have a lovely lobby area where you want to seat down and plan your next escape for hours.

Firstly, first game back after Lockdown and I was very pleased and happy Covid guidelines are in place and adhered to. It's been hard getting back out there, after shielding with cancer, so this made me feel very protected and comfortable.

The game itself - brilliant. Nice bright room, great theme and the puzzles fitted the theme throughout. It was fun doing a room without padlocks! And it was atmospheric without being scary. 

I'd say in terms of difficulty, this is probably on the easier side of the spectrum, or maybe I'm just getting use to them! This was my first room with this company and I really liked them, and Luke the games master was lovely. I'll definitely be back! 

This game was mainly magnetic and didn't feature padlocks or number codes, which we tend to enjoy more. Was a nice set though and we still enjoyed our time.

Quite physical with no/hardly any codde type numerical puzzles. The set was really good and the hosts friendly and welcoming!

The best samurai room I've played, mainly because its the only samurai room I've played. Some good set pieces and some good tech elements. One puzzle was still incredibly confusing looking back and I doubt it could have been solved in five hours if we didn't ask for some help.

I liked the theming, but the room was let down by a lot of broken puzzles, and the GM had to come in twice to fix things.

We really enjoyed this room, there was some good and unusual challenges, it flowed well

This was a beautiful game, with some really nice elements to it.

The puzzles where clever, imersive and felt part of the scenes.

This would have been a 5 star game if it hadnt have been from a couple of broken puzzles and poor hosting.

Would I travel to specifically play this game :  No

This room was okay. The concept is unique - I've never played a Samuri room before (but have played over 5 pirate themed rooms!). There are lots of magnetic openings in this room as opposed to padlocks. This is good but unfortunately sometimes when things opened it wasn't very obvious and we spent a long time trying to find what we had unlocked.

Diabolical. Disaster of game. That's all I can say. 

Immersive and original room. Interesting and original puzzles. We really enjoyed this room.

We finished the room, and thought 'is that it?'. Finished in under 30 minutes, and played with 3 players who were new to escape rooms. Felt like a very 'cookie cutter' room, where certain cabinets and items are part of the game, but the room isn't very cohesive as a whole. Hosting was friendly, but not very attentive at all - I got the impression that multiple games were being hosted by one gamemaster.

Decoding in the Dojo

I came here with a few friends- it’s always more expensive on the weekend, so go mid-week if you can and look out for those student and over sixties concessions!

Story

Defeat warlord Tanaka by stealing the magic stone from his sword handle and break out.

Puzzles

They were varied, and tied in to the story. Since Escape Hunt use very little traditional locks, expect a fun variety of physical and practical challenges in order to progress.

Mise-en-scene

Fourth Samurai is an escape set in a dojo, with an ancient Japan ambience and props to match.

Final Comments

We needed a few clues but worked together to break out with thirteen minutes to spare.

One of the better rooms I’ve played looked good and played well. 

Really did not enjoy this. Poor hosting, unimaginative, not the best theming, puzzles were 'meh'. Would not recommend. 

When played in 2021 the room was badly run down with all lot of the technical puzzles malfunctioning. Puzzles and theme themselves were nice though, so I can imagine it is better at other locations (or here if restored).

My personal favourite game by Escape Hunt

First game at Escape hunt and probably the last. In fairness, the host was great but the room was terrible. It wasn’t an escape room, more so a series of time wasting tasks in which when you completed it, the operator pressed a button for you. Props in the room were very well used, and for a higher priced game, is not really acceptable. 

If you like your traditional escape rooms - Avoid Escape hunt. Their rooms are more like treasure hunts and series of tasks...

This was our first Escape hunt experience, and was absolutely dreadful. Things were broken, the room was a bit tatty and the puzzles were just plain.  One puzzle couldn't be completed and the host physically had to come to the room to solve the puzzle for us. 

It is very obvious that EH caters to the family market and doesn't really care if you're a fan of the traditional experience. 

On the positive note; our host was lovely. 

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

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.

Imagine a cell about 4 ft x 8 ft. And there are 6 people in it. Physically barred from the outside, with no emergency release. And the puzzle which you solve to get out of it is broken.

And the GM's running 3 games at the same time.

Welcome to the Fourth Samurai!

There are roughly 10 puzzles in this game, and 6 were broken. Some had been broken since May when they opened (4 months before).

There's no timer in the game, but from looking at our watches before we went in / when we came out, it was well under 30 mins.

The game was pretty, the story thin, there's only 1 physical lock and it mostly relies on the GM to hit a button to trigger things. When they're not looking at the 2 other games. And so, despite doing the "right thing" over and over, nothing happened.

All of the above is a pity, because I could see it as a good, solid game otherwise - although a bit easy for anyone who's not a beginner - if things hadn't been broken, it could have been a 15 min game.

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.

We made the mistake to attempt this room in their first week of opening. Tech was broken, some locks were open, some clues were placed in the wrong locations. We just had an absolute nightmare.

If you're visiting Escape Hunt, I'd highly recommend their other rooms that are excellent.

Another excellent Escape Hunt room! These guys go all out! The start of this game was really unusual! Felt a bit claustrophobic but it did add to the experience. Loved the help system and the way the games master keeps things immersive!