Studio Escape 大国町店 - 漆黒の悟り- ShadowZen — Attraction in Osaka

Shadow Zen is a delight of a game. It is not particularly tough (if you are looking for a room that wrestles your brain out of your head, this is not it), but it more than makes up for that with fantastic ambiance and a compelling plotline.

Knowing about Japanese culture and language is not required, but it can be an added bonus in two distinctive points of the experience.

As some of the reviewers indicated, this attraction has no waiting room / antechamber and, at times, the external door to it might be locked (this was the case when I visited it). No matter how small, Studio Escape would benefit from having a little room where players could wait before their game starts. Although I understand this would eat into the space available for the game, this is a quality-of-life improvement that could be turned into a way to even increase immersion.

I recommend this room if: This is your first time in an escape room. You care more about plot than difficulty. You want puzzles that make sense and do not require leaps in logic. You want to experience an escape room that feels Japanese when visiting Japan.

I do not recommend this room if: You are looking for a game that is meant to be challenging or open-ended (the puzzles were quite linear most of the time and all evidence is quite clearly available). You’re looking for a long game (although 90 minutes are allotted for every session, a friend and I completed the task in approximately 45 minutes). However, your experience may vary depending on how used you are to escape rooms.

This is a room worth visiting given how much production value went into it, not to mention that the plotline is quite creative and there is a very interesting moment halfway...

This was my first escape room experience and it was AMAZING! I went in with five of my other friends, three of whom had done escape rooms before. I was a little nervous and didn’t know what to expect, but our host was very sweet and explained what we needed to know before going in: namely how the old style locks in the room work. Obviously I can’t give away the premise of the room, but we were all impressed with the puzzles and challenges presented to us. One thing I personally loved was how many Japanese elements there were and how that fit in with the story. There were so many crazy surprises along the way and we found that all six of us working together had plenty to do! We also finished in half of the given time haha, but I’m sure a smaller group might be able to make the experience last a little longer. We’re aware the objective is to get out as fast as possible, but we would’ve loved a few more challenges. My friends who had done escape rooms before all agreed that this was one of the best they’d been to. Overall, it was well worth our time and money and a great bonding experience. We can’t wait to try the next room they...

One of the better escape rooms I have visited. We love doing escape rooms back in the States and have fairly high standards for what to expect at this point. Seeing the reviews for Studio Escape, I was hopeful that it would be a good experience for my group. I chose Shadow Zen because of the Japanese theme, which I figured was very fitting.

It was easy to book and reschedule our time up to three days prior to the event. One of the reasons we booked this room was because it was possible to complete in both English and Japanese. The decor was intricate and the puzzles were pretty straightforward, but completely different from the rooms we’ve experienced thus far.

We didn’t need to ask for hints, but would get nudged in the right direction intermittently just as we were figuring out the next steps.

I would highly recommend escape room enthusiasts and novices alike to try this company out.

Also, they take the showing up 5 minutes beforehand very seriously. We popped by 10-15 minutes and were told to wait outside until 5 minutes just before the game. There’s no waiting area inside as once you enter the space, it’s basically...