Alice Madness Returns

🎮 Steam ⏳ 16 hours ⭐⭐⭐ (3/5)

Psychological Gothic Sequel #

This title is a dark action-adventure platformer that prioritizes mood, symbolism, and visual storytelling over mechanical complexity. As a sequel to American McGee’s Alice, which I didn’t even knew before playing this one, it continues the reimagining of Wonderland as a manifestation of Alice’s damaged psyche. Set in Victorian London, it displays Wonderland not as a fairy-tale escape, but as a distorted mental environment shaped by trauma, guilt, and suppressed memories. This psychological angle immediately sets the tone and distinguishes the game from most action titles of its era. Thought it is not enough to hold back from its various outdated flaws, even at the time of its release.

Striking Art Direction #

Its art-style is definitely one of its biggest standouts, even for today’s standards, each chapter introduces a wildly different place of the Wonderland world. It ranges from decaying toylands to grotesque organic realms and industrial nightmares. These locations are rich in metaphor, often reflecting Alice’s mental state and past experiences. The art direction is bold, blending beauty with horror in a way that feel games at the time, and even today, managed to achieve. The OST further enhances this atmosphere, using melancholic themes that reinforce the sense of isolation and emotional instability.

Symbolic Narrative Focus #

It presents a mature psychological narrative such as childhood trauma, denial, and identity, and it does so in a way that trusts you to interpret its symbolism. Much of the storytelling is indirect, delivered through environmental cues, character dialogue, and fragmented memories. Though in no way it is hard to follow the plot, you don’t really need to try to read every bit of extra information the game trows at you. While this approach adds depth and encourages reflection, it also contributes to pacing issues. It has long stretches of gameplay can pass without development, and it doesn’t particularly gas gameplay variety enough to keep everything interesting.

Secondary Gameplay Design #

As for the gameplay, it is serviceable but clearly secondary to presentation and theme. Platforming is generally well-designed, with creative level layouts, though it re-uses a lot of the same mechanics, while under-using others presented late-game, or even just on a single section. As for the combat, it is a classic Hack’N Slash from its era, so you won’t be having a lot of options besides a handful of melee and ranged upgradable weapons. Boss encounters are visually memorable but mechanically simple, emphasizing spectacle and presenting very little challenge, especially compared to similar titles of the same era.

Problematic PC Port #

Now, when it comes to the PC port, it is by far my biggest complaint. I had to find a patch in order to make the game run properly, otherwise it would not go beyond 30fps, with insanely unstable frame-rate. This is a product of its time and, PC ports of the same era all had similar issues, this is yet just another victim. Fortunately, the kind PC community released a patch recently that can fix the performance issues, not to mention it has a lot of QOL which the original developers never had the decency to account for. I highly recommend looking for it if your platform is the PC, it is called “MadnessPatch” by “Wemino”. In the end, this title is best viewed as a cult classic, but I simply cannot recommend it, one of the most skippable games I can think of.