Escapee GO! is a well-crafted, charming AND cheap mouse-in-a-maze game.
The Bad: Later levels design can be restrictive.
Given Nintendo's proverbial inability to deal with anything regarding online features/market it can be a tough task to find something good under a fair benefit-cost ratio within their downloadable games services--be it WiiWare, DSiWare and Virtual Consoles overall. Well, if that's the case Escapee GO! couldn't be a better find.
Here you play as Claire, a girl who awakens locked in a lab with no memories whatsoever about her past... aside the urge to escape. As you manage to break through one modern dungeon after another (the lab, the city streets, a market...) bits of the history will unveil--alongside her... psychic abilities. -.-
As a regular girl Claire wouldn't stand a chance against a bunch of mysterious chasers; but when her powers come into play (literally) in the form of items to be found in the mazes things get a lot more interesting.
So that's the way the gameplay goes: you run and sneak looking for an exit (or an item to allow you doing so) while balancing your stamina (fair enough, anyone would get tired of running sooner or later) and the usage of powers like slowing enemies down, bigger approach "sense" or even teleportation.
Overall everything is greatly balanced due to some good levels design (aside a couple limited final levels when it comes to possible solutions) and the powers that put a single lady toe-to-toe to her numerous enemies.
If the gameplay wasn't good enough to gather one's interest still there is a lot of personality in this little piece of software. Everything regarding the game presentation has a cohesive retro feel with a nice coat of brightness--the pixelated characters/environments and the chiptune soundtrack just sum up to strengthen the both interesting gameplay and premise.
If all above STILL wasn't enough... The game's lasting value is much more than anyone could ask for. The main campaign takes near one hour for completion (not counting different difficulty settings), and the unlockable Survival Mode brings a pretty nice twist to the table. If the multiplayer was "download play" friendly it would be a complete blast.
AND... it's cheap. Man, at a 200 points ($1.99) price tag it's a steal.
Escapee GO! puts Gevo developer under the radar for a neat effort on releasing a cheap good quality title for the DSiWare service. We can only expect more in the future--and invest two bucks here in the meantime.