Thank You Sekai Project for providing us with a review code!

It is kinda weird to say that this isn’t the first or even second Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland-adjacent product that I’ve reviewed. Given that the novel is very popular worldwide, it doesn’t come down as much of a surprise. Japan always seemed fascinated by the tale as they have plenty of media heavily inspired by the novel.

Alice Escaped! is a 2D Metroidvania (a subgenre of platformer games) from Japanese indie developer illuCaleb. Usada and Kotora are doing homework in the library when they are suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar world. They don’t know how they got there or even how to leave, but after encountering a white rabbit that is in a hurry, the two know that they must find Alice. The story is pretty light as everything is more or less an excuse to go to areas, with most dialogue taking place in game. While the story and plot are on the lighter end, I did enjoy the dynamic between Usada and Kotora as they did feel like friends that get along with each other.

The other world Usada and Kotora are in has many familiar characters for people familiar with Alice-related media. Like the aforementioned white rabbit, you’ll meet other characters such as the Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, Dodo, and of course, Alice herself. All the characters have a cute 2D anime artstyle while the animal characters all have a “Gijinka“ (anthropomorphism) style going on. In major cutscenes, the game takes a visual novel look to it while in game takes a 2D chibi approach for its characters with watercolor and photorealistic backgrounds. While playing, there is also a chromatic aberration effect going on toward the edges of the screen. Because of this, Alice Escaped! looked funny to me at first. I did get used to it eventually and started to like the uniqueness of the blending of artstyles to create a strange, yet familiar world.

Alice Escaped! plays like any 2D Metroidvania. You’re put into a large interconnecting world that slowly opens up depending on the bosses defeated and items required. There are shortcuts that at times open up, and fast travel points that you can teleport to after reaching them to cut down on the common backtracking that happens in these types of games. The level design is overall solid, taking advantage of the fact that the characters have a single jump and can air dash in eight directions up to two times before landing.

You play as Usada and Kotora by switching between the two instantly. Each character has their own health and unique moves, despite both characters controlling the same. Usada has a hammer, so she is entirely melee-focused with large arcs in her swings. Kotora wields a minigun of sorts so she is almost entirely range-focused. She does have a few options that can get her out of a sticky situation, but it isn’t the most reliable ability either. Usada and Kotora cover for each other's shortcomings in combat so mastering it requires you to know where and when to switch characters. Through exploration, you also acquire skill crystals that you can use on the skill tree to further expand Usada and Kotora’s abilities and combat prowess.

In combat, there is also a combo meter to keep in mind. It’s a pretty simple one where it increases the more you hit enemies. After reaching certain combo number thresholds (depending on the character), you’ll do increased damage. This is also where character switching is great because it lets you keep up with the combo depending on where new enemies spawn. The combo timing is strict so you don’t have much time to keep it going after you stop hitting an enemy.

Sound design can be a somewhat mixed bag. The music that plays during areas and bosses is good, capturing a fantasy feeling. The sound effects can range from tolerable to grating. Unfortunately, the most annoying sound effects are the ones that you will hear the most—that being jumping and dashing. Not only are they much louder than the average sound effect, but the jumping sound is very squeaky like a rat, and the dashing sound is an exaggerated “whoosh.”

However, the biggest flaw for Alice Escaped! is something I see many developers, from solo indie to thousand-plus teams make the mistake on. The game has a padding issue and it happens about 2/3rd to 3/4ths of the way through. Alice Escaped! Claims that it has 5 “endings”, but three of them are either abrupt or lead into the other two endings that take place in the latter half. The game forces a pseudo-new game plus after you achieve Ending 3 where you effectively have to play most of the game again as it forgets all the fast travel points you've gotten previously. There are some new enemies and one new area, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that most of the experience is the same, but much easier as you should have most upgrades by then.

It achieves this through purposely withholding information such as an item in your inventory being suddenly usable despite items not working like that until that exact moment or an item that is easily missable but isn’t needed at all until attempting to achieve Ending 1. So even If you know the prerequisites to get the two endings, you are required to experience Ending 3 before getting Ending 2 or 1. But it doesn’t end there. You’ll probably have to “replay” a third, fourth, fifth, or even sixth time. An experience that would have made a nice 4-6 hour adventure, now becomes a tedious 8+ hour drag.

Regarding morals, Alice Escaped! Is pretty lighthearted. Violence is cartoon or fantasy-like with enemies poofing away when they're defeated. Usada and Kotora do the same thing when they lose all their health too. There are some light supernatural moments, given the setting. You’ll see floating Jack-o’-lanters for anything resembling real-world folklore. Everything else is associated with the Alice property such as the deck of card soldiers, knights, and so on.

Alice Escaped! has me conflicted because the last section does drag the overall experience down. I like the aesthetics, characters, world, and gameplay, but the decision to pad the game with extra gameplay at the end was not a good choice to make. It’s one of the last things you’ll remember from the game as it’s one of the last things present from the experience. More developers have to know that quantity doesn’t always equal quality. A short, but concise experience is at times better than a long experience that loses its footing two-thirds of the way through. Despite my major criticisms, I did enjoy the experience more than I did not. The content is generally safe for most audiences as it never goes beyond non-deadly violence. If you ever see a sale, that would be the best time to pick up Alice Escaped!