Brave Escape Review

Games like Hazelight’s fare (Split Fiction, A Way Out) have seemingly set off a bit of a trend, with more developers risking co-op only titles. Brave Escape, from Hit Start Studios, requires two players, with each taking on specific roles within the gameplay. I’ve been playing with lifelong BFF and fellow experienced gamer MPV Graham, and even with our 35ish years of playing together, we found Brave Escape put up enough of a good challenge to keep us hooked – if a little sweary at times.

I played as Floyd, a human who fell into an ominous chasm and met Gray’s character Colin, a robotic droid who offers to help him escape. The pair team up using their abilities, and along the way find perilous platforming, tricky challenges, and precise escape runs that don’t take any prisoners. There are six areas to play through, and these can be done in any order (we’d recommend going Glacial Falls first as that is..quite the challenge…).

Floyd remains the same throughout, with his unique offering being a rope he can drop off of ledges to enable either himself or Colin to climb. It’s straightforward, but far from easy. We often have to drop the rope in the midst of jumping and running, and must remember to pick it up again to use on the next obstacle. We also can’t complete the level without it in our hands, which has caused more than a few failures on my part as I left it dangling back some way, causing a restart. 

Colin gets a bit more to do. Each level offers him a different gadget; the icy Glacial Falls gives him a wind gun, allowing him to blow fans or push them along on floating icebergs, while Serpent’s Hollow goes with a Grappling Hook, turning Colin into a swinging platform for Floyd. Other levels have unique gadgets, and learning these I feel is a touch harder than Floyd’s repeated rope. I’m certainly glad Gray had that honour…

So the challenge comes in using both characters’ abilities to platform our way to the end of each stage. These involve dodging spikes, traps, pitfalls, venus fly traps, and much more. As you may expect, things start off a little simpler, but by the time we’re in the backend of a set of levels things really pick up. We had one level on Glacial Falls that took us almost as long as all the levels before it combined, where we just couldn’t quite get the timing right. 

There are also extra hidden items to collect which ups the challenge significantly but unlock bonus levels for even more challenges. We get infinite lives which is a bonus, but we must complete all of each stage in one swoop, with scant few levels offering any sort of checkpoint.

The challenge is high, but we’ve been having a great time with it. As I mentioned, we’ve been playing together for over three decades and so we have a slight leg up in knowing how each other play, and the best way to get in sync. There is no matchmaking in Brave Escape, but I’d highly recommend playing with someone you know well. I cannot imagine playing this with anyone I’m not super familiar with and getting very far at all. One nice touch is that Brave Escape  offers a Friend Pass like Hazelight’s fare, which means only one of us has to buy it, and the other can join for free. This is always welcome, and a fantastic touch.

Controls feel tight, and there’s very little in the way of cheap deaths or fails (though don’t ask Graham about the spikes that he became blind to…). And each area has a distinct colour palette and soundscape which is pleasingly pixelly. We’re never really in a bind as to what we can and can’t stand on, even if actually doing it is easier said than done. Should the challenge be too much, there is an optional easier mode that reduces some of the stringent requirements, but to us the default mode was more than accessible and enjoyable enough. 

Finally, each set of levels finishes off with a rat race escape, and these are incredibly fun and challenging. The screen moves constantly, and we have to race to keep ahead of the death zone, flicking switches and the like to help the other player through. These require perfect timing between players, and even one wrong jump can spell the end, but man, we had a blast with these areas of the game.

Conclusion

If you’ve got a co-op buddy to get on Brave Escape, it comes highly recommended from us here at the Tavern. Tight controls allow for some truly tricky challenges, and with each set of levels mixing it up for Colin, there’s constantly something to learn. It’s a shame Floyd remains static throughout in terms of abilities, but that doesn’t diminish the fun to be had with a good friend.