Real Escape Room Asakusa Crossing (Tokyo, Japan)
Time limit: None (3-4 hours gameplay)
Age limit: None
Player limit: None
Difficulty: LOL
Date played: January 2025
Immediately after playing Escape from the Red Room, the boys and I had some time to spare and decided to purchase the game kit for SCRAP’s outdoor escape game, Asakusa Puzzle Adventure. This one was initially not on my list, as I had intended to try A Mystery at Magic Academy Shinjuku at Tokyo Mystery Circus, but was told that with New Year venue closings it would not be possible to complete all the puzzles in the game.
Well, we probably shouldn’t have played this one either. It was the first day of 2025, and Asakusa was one of the busiest places in Tokyo because of Sensoji Temple, where locals and foreigners alike flock to for an auspicious start to the New Year. As a result, we soon found ourselves smack-bang in the middle of a sea of people, and it was impossible to even enter the street in front of the temple.
However, that didn’t mean we didn’t have fun. This outdoor escape game has a dedicated app, meaning you must have a phone in order to play it alongside the game kit. It comprises six sections and says it takes about 3-4 hours to complete. Most of that time is spent walking around Asakusa looking for certain landmarks or markers, then entering keywords or uploading certain photos into your phone app in order to progress. There is also a poetry section and a final set of puzzles that can be completed anywhere.
I would say for an outdoor escape game, most of the “puzzles” are quite generic are require no more than following instructions on the app to walk to a place and look for something. If needed, you can always ask the app for a hint, or multiple hints. For most of the game, it felt like the aim was more focused on walking around Asakusa to learn about its history and culture rather than solving puzzles.
Given that walking around in Asakusa would take hours longer than usual because of the crowd (if we could even manage to gain access), we ended up largely using a combination of Google Maps, Google Street View, Google Images, and ChatGPT to spam the puzzles, leading to many hilarious laugh-out-loud moments. To be honest, it was probably more fun than actually walking to the various locations. It was only when we got to section 5 that we had no choice but to start visiting the different landmarks.
The final section, which we did back in the hotel, was hilarious — in an unintentional way. Since the game was available in both Japanese and English, we did encounter some translation issues along the way, but it never got as bad as it got in the final section. These puzzles were simply wild and laughably ridiculous, featuring multiple sections requiring you to find a random sentence, word, or image hidden somewhere in the game kit via vague or non-existent prompts, hints or signposting, then folding and overlapping paper in different ways, again with no guidance at all. We ended up spamming the hints and could only laugh incredulously as the solutions were revealed.
In short, Asakusa Puzzle Adventure is a flawed outdoor escape room that takes too long and has puzzles that are either too easy or way too hard, partly because of translation issues. We much preferred the other outdoor escape game produced by Escapely, which had more interesting puzzles and actually integrated them with the landmarks.
Verdict: We had lot of laughs playing Asakusa Puzzle Adventure for both good and bad reasons, though I doubt we’d play another one of these outdoor SCRAP games.
Rating: 6
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