Escape Hunt Kingston: The Fourth Samurai

By | May 31, 2021

by Escape Hunt Kingston (website)

Unit 2/6, Alderman Judge Mall, Eden Walk, Kingston upon Thames KT1 1JB

Kingston upon Thames

2-6 players

Languages: EN

60 minutes

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 โ€“ 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 โ€“ with a fate worse than death.

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Overall rating

Rated between 2 and 3.5 out of 5 (estimated, based on ratings for other versions of this game)

estimated score
not from direct reviews

Your review

Player reviews

Anonymous rated this:Rated between 10 and 10 out of 5
Played: 15 Sep 2021 Team size: 4 Time taken: Under 30 mins Outcome: Successful escape!
broken techdangerousquite easy

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.

Anonymous rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Anonymous rated this:Rated between 20 and 20 out of 5
Played: 23 May 2021 Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
broken techpoor hostingquite difficult

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.

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.

Anonymous rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Team size: 3 Outcome: Successful escape!
TeamHawley experienced rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
very easy
Alice Lucy rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!
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.

MissLoopyLou93 experienced rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Played: 30 Oct 2020 Team size: 2 Time taken: 51:00 Outcome: Successful escape!
beautifulimmersivestory-driven

A beautifully themed room with plenty to do. A lot of unique puzzles throughout. 

Anonymous rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Played: 3 Jun 2021 Team size: 2 Time taken: 41:38 Outcome: Successful escape!
quite easy
coco974 rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
immersivegreat hosting

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.

Anonymous rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Played: 2018 Team size: 6 Outcome: Successful escape!

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.

Sharon Nowik experienced rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: August 2020 Team size: 2 Time taken: 45
Anonymous rated this:Rated between 50 and 50 out of 5
Richard Holtby rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Siรขn O'Brien experienced rated this:Rated between 45 and 45 out of 5
Played: 14/08/2020 Team size: 3 Time taken: 43:46 Outcome: Successful escape!
clevergreat hostingquite easy

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! 

Ron Kagan expert rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: July 18th 2020
Wei-Hwa Huang expert rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Team size: 3 Outcome: Successful escape!
๐Ÿฆกcipherdelic virtuoso rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
โ˜•Joe Brown expert rated this:Rated between 25 and 25 out of 5
Played: 27/07/18 Team size: 5
Nicely themed room, with plenty of automation - but very short for anyone but new players. Even with plenty of mistakes we escaped in 35 minutes. With a few more puzzles this would be a very solid room.
Tom experienced rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: 2018 Team size: 4 Time taken: 53.15 Outcome: Successful escape!

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! 

Sabrina (The Overthinkers) expert rated this:Rated between 45 and 45 out of 5
Played: 20/04/2019 Time taken: 44:50:00 Outcome: Successful escape!
Anonymous experienced rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
beautifulgreat hostingquite easy
thehermit experienced rated this:Rated between 15 and 15 out of 5
Played: 9 Jan 2022 Team size: 2 Time taken: 59:00 Outcome: Successful escape!
illogicalbroken techunoriginal

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. 

CraftyPandaX rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: 5 Nov 2022 Team size: 5 Time taken: 51 Mins Outcome: Successful escape!
immersivebroken techpoor hosting

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

Steph Norchi experienced rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: 3 Feb 2022 Team size: 4 Time taken: 21:00 Outcome: Successful escape!
Webbcam rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Team size: 6 Outcome: Successful escape!
TheCLAMS expert rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Team size: 4 Outcome: Successful escape!

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.

StaceyF expert rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Played: 14/04/2019 Team size: 4 Time taken: 44:24 Outcome: Successful escape!
TheEscapeBoomers expert rated this:Rated between 10 and 10 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
illogicalbroken techpoor hosting

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

roberts0502 experienced rated this:Rated between 20 and 20 out of 5
Played: 3 Feb 2023 Team size: 3 Time taken: 34:35 Outcome: Successful escape!
overpricedplaintedious
mrsb rated this:Rated between 45 and 45 out of 5
Outcome: Successful escape!
originalimmersivestory-driven

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

Stelven rated this:
Played: February 2022 Team size: 5 Time taken: 28:00 Outcome: Successful escape!
plaineasyvery easy

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.

Mighty Oaks experienced rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Played: 29 Oct 2018 Team size: 2 Time taken: 45:07 Outcome: Successful escape!
RedPandaPepper rated this:Rated between 20 and 20 out of 5
illogicalbroken techoverpriced
Moosehead expert rated this:Rated between 25 and 25 out of 5
MerseyMarauders expert rated this:Rated between 10 and 10 out of 5
illogicalbroken techplain
SupertrampEcho experienced rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Outcome: Successful escape!
quite easy
grogu42 experienced rated this:Rated between 20 and 20 out of 5
Team size: 2
originalplain

First game at Escape hunt and probably the last. In fairness, the host was great but the room was terrible. It wasnโ€™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. 

Jordan Brown experienced rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: 21 May 2021 Team size: 2 Time taken: 33:45 Outcome: Successful escape!
kman expert rated this:Rated between 45 and 45 out of 5
Played: 21 Dec 2018 Team size: 4 Time taken: 50m 12s Outcome: Successful escape!
piratechaek experienced rated this:Rated between 45 and 45 out of 5
Played: 1 Jun 2019 Team size: 3 Outcome: Failed ๐Ÿ™
originalimmersivequite difficult
Scotus0 expert rated this:Rated between 35 and 35 out of 5
Played: 26 Feb 2022 Team size: 4 Time taken: 47:39 Outcome: Successful escape!
epicquite easy

Decoding in the Dojo

I came here with a few friends- itโ€™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.

shona panks experienced rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Outcome: Successful escape!

One of the better rooms Iโ€™ve played looked good and played well. 

The Monkey expert rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Outcome: Successful escape!
quite easy
Mia Rabone experienced rated this:Rated between 20 and 20 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
illogicalbroken techpoor hostingquite easy

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

Ksen experienced rated this:Rated between 20 and 20 out of 5
Played: 2021 Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
originalbroken tech

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).

Jemileh experienced rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
๐Ÿ”SpontaneousIllusion expert rated this:Rated between 50 and 50 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
originalimmersivegreat hosting

My personal favourite game by Escape Hunt

Billa Babybel experienced rated this:Rated between 30 and 30 out of 5
Team size: 2 Outcome: Successful escape!
Pagan Hollis experienced rated this:Rated between 40 and 40 out of 5
Played: 12 Jan 2022 Team size: 2 Time taken: 49:04 Outcome: Successful escape!
beautifulclevergreat hosting
Tom Hill rated this:Rated between 45 and 45 out of 5

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 wasnโ€™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 โ€˜happeningsโ€™ 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 isnโ€™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 proโ€™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 wasnโ€™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