Escobar: Part 2 (The Final Hour)

Where to begin! We just played Escobar 1 with two players, and we did very well. Now, we were joined by 3 other players (who had played the first one already) to try out this brand new experience, and what a let down it was. The set design is great, but the puzzles is very much sub par. Things trigger without good signs, so you think you have completed the puzzle, and you think you might have heard a sound, but you have no idea what to do, as there is no help in understanding where to go next. You are breaking multiple of 99% of escape rooms ground rules, and we felt so bad after doing it, that we ended up being a bit stressed out for a while, until we understood it was the correct thing to do. The GM was also not very helpful, giving hints that wasn't very clear, and making an already frustrating experience a lot more frustrating. It was almost like the GM was also frustrated with the game. A total letdown, and we all left very much frustrated and sad. Would not recommend this room.

We played Escobar Part 1 & Escobar Part 2 on the same day. In Part 1, we barely needed help as experienced players (me 60 rooms and him 80 rooms). In Part 2, we had to ask for help for most of the game. The second room had very minimal decor and the clues are placed elsewhere very high and very low. Not ideal for someone with poor vision. For some of the clues, you can only solve it by doing strange things to activate it. You’ll see what I mean in the “XOXO” puzzle. Our game master was definitely frustrated with us as her hints didn’t make much sense to us. So rather than rewording, she just kept repeating the same clue in louder volumes. We were going to book a third game for the same day but after playing Escobar Part 2 and our experience with this game master —— we decided to save it for the future.

Really enjoyed it. Puzzles were fun and the perfect mix of hard yet solvable.

Time starts the moment the door was open. As GM was talking about the room our time was ticking down. So we started almost 7 mins in. GM didn’t mention anything and that did affect our time. Gameplay itself is very barebones but manageable. Some puzzles are oddly specific and wouldn’t make much sense without a hint or specific thought process. And all puzzles are hyper observational instead of critical thinking. Overall it was a fine times, just not as exciting or rewarding as other places

Your time starts as soon as you enter the door. So ask very little questions. The GM did not tell us this, so we were surprised when he the first 15 min mark. The puzzles aren’t the clearest. Lots of vagueness and missing breadcrumbs.

I like the first one better. I wish they had come up with an original idea instead of making a sub par sequel.

This is a part 2 to a room I loved and is well reviewed through the community so to say this room was a disappointing follow-up would be an understatement. The rules of escape rooms never to break anything and even the own GM’s one time use mention was broken multiple times as one key object is used many times. Also many areas are under developed, completely underclued, a massive jump from logic and would require either a hint or a wild guess. Other areas including a very important combo lock near the end was so poorly lit a cell phone light was needed which took me out of the experience. This room is pretty and well designed visually at least in the first half (the second half gets a bit lazy and rushed) but the flow and clues are very tough. 5 is the ideal number for the room but most of the time people will be standing around doing next to nothing as the max amount of people doing any work is 2, maybe 3. The rest are searching for random markers and meanings of the poorly written clues. Do part one and skip part two.

I wasn’t a fan of this game, which we played immediately after “part one” of the Escobar series. Several puzzles were clunky and underclued. Others were just … implausible. There are a couple of good ones and some clever effects. The set design is very good in the opening area, and similar to the first room, seems a bit lazy in the back half. I give the designers credit for trying to faithfully recreate the story of Pablo Escobar’s end, but for me this room was more of a miss than a hit. If you play it after part one at least you’ll get the whole story, but if you just play part one and skip this, you’re not missing much.

Escobar Part 2 is the sequel to the award-winning Escobar at this location. You do not have to play Escobar to enjoy Escobar Part 2 but if you're a big fan of the real-life drug lord, I would recommend both. If you had to choose between Escobar and Escobar Part 2, I would choose Escobar. Right when you walk in, you'll be impressed by how spacious the room looks. They leverage vertical alignment to make it feel like you're in a much bigger space. The hands-on puzzles are more hands-on than I'm sure most people are used to, and there is a script that the game master follows, so there's a lot more interaction there. We had a group of four and we had a great time but be prepared to run around because there's a lot of looking around for things versus puzzles. I recommended to them that they should have some supports for what could be a physically strenuous portion towards the end. We made it to the Leaderboard on this one but everyone on that leader board asked for at least one hint, which I think is because of the scavenger hunt.

The set is stunning. You will find it beautiful and fun. The puzzles are lacking and it feels very “put this here” but also the first puzzle is challenging and multilayered and I don’t know… I guess for the price I wanted more puzzles. I would say there’s maybe 13 puzzles in the entire experience. Again, the set is stunning and the room is fun and you should absolutely play it, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Escobar (the original).