Spicy Horse’s second installment of Alice has arrived. Alice : Madness Returns is gorgeous as well as ghastly. Involves characters that are helpful and also malicious. Encompassed in an intriguing storyline that will keep you engaged throughout the game.
The story of Alice takes you through her struggle to remember her past, more specifically, what exactly happened to her family one fateful night. Alice returns to Wonderland to find it corrupted and shattered. She believes she must recover her memories and end her madness to save Wonderland. An encounter with an old “friend” teaches her otherwise. Destroy which defiles Wonderland, and she’ll recover her memories.
Recollecting your memories amounts to picking up memories throughout each chapter as hidden pick ups. When obtanied you’ll receive a short audio of a memory Alice once had. Some clarify more of the story, some are insignifacant to the larger story. The larger and more entertaining memories come at the end of each chapter when Alice returns from Wonderland back to London.
Alice, simply put, is a treat for the eyes. Whether it’s a peaceful forest landscape or a decaying and devastated castle, it’s always oustandingly beautiful. The environments of Alice are truly something to behold. Each unique landscape has been brilliantly designed and richly detailed. There’s a uniquely designed Japanese chapter complete with Samurai Wasps, Origami-Ants, and japanese caligraphy falling from the sky. As well as what could be a seriously twisted “Under the Sea” chapter. No Ariel though, and if there was, Alice probably would have eviscerated her.
Evisceration is fairly simple in Alice, almost to a fault. It come down to basically using one button for fast (weaker) attacks and another for slower (stronger) attacks. With some time you’ll be able to chain this attacks together to from extremely simple combos. That’s for your melee weapons. The same property has been given to ranged attacks as well. One weapon for fast (weaker) attacks another for slower (stronger) attacks. Alice can dash as well to avoid taking damage. You may also dash during a combo and pick up where you left off. Allowing you to shred your enemies and run if need be. This adds a little spice to the combat system, a little.
The biggest bang you get from combat in Alice comes when you’re about to die. With one rose left of life, the Hysteria ability become available. Once used, Alice becomes more powerful, dealing more damage with each attack, as well as becoming invunerable to damage for a short time. Most noteable though is look of the Hysteria ability. All colors on screen turn to either white, black or red. With Blood streaming from Alice’s eyes and her arm being covered in it, it’s something you’ll almost kill yourself to see. Hysteria will save you many a time.
Alice is very big on platforming. You will do a whole hell of alot of jumping, double jumping, triple jumping, and twirling, from platform to platform pulling chains, unlocking doors etc. to continue your adventure through Wonderland. This might be Alice‘s weakest point, as many of these sections go on way too long. Coming to the point of exhaustion, where you can’t wait for it to end.
The puzzles in Alice range from timed platforming to chess games to riddles and more. Spicy Horse has done a wonderful job of using a wide variety of puzzles in Alice. Some puzzles from the beginning of the game are reused towards the end, but have been changed just enough that you don’t recognize them until you complete them.
Mini-games also abound in Alice, they range from side-scrolling 2D shooters to smashing card guards as a giant. Which do a great job of changin up the pace, but then again you have your rythme button pressing games, they are nothing new and quite boring. Also the fact that some of the mini-games can be skipped will make some question why they are even in the game in the first place.
The controls of Alice are absolutely solid. You jump where you want to jump. You dash where you want to dash. You slash what you want to slash. Changing from weapon to weapon, rotating camera views and navigating the menus are a breeze. From time to time you’ll get hung up on corners you can’t see or slight changes in floor elevation, but as for the controls themselves, outstanding.
Overall, Alice will absolutely make you mad, good mad, Mad Hatter mad. The stunning beauty of the game, the excitement and mystery of the story, and the bloody good time you’ll have using your Vorpal Blade on hundreds of Wonderlands twisted denizens will keep you slicing for hours.
[easyreview title=”Alice: Madness Returns Overall Score 8/10” cat1title=”Gameplay 8/10″ cat1detail=”Solid controls reign supreme.” cat1rating=”8″ cat2title=”Story 7/10″ cat2detail=”Alice: MR throwns you into a intriguing world, but goes long distances without much exposition.” cat2rating=”7″ cat3title=”Presentation 8/10″ cat3detail=”Exciting and fast paced combat are helped by intuitive controls.” cat3rating=”8″ summary=”Occasional bugs and a sometimes hard to follow story don’t take away from the solid controls, great gameplay and incredible level design.”]
