Alice: Madness Returns

"So hush you little ones, and have no fear.

The man in the moon, he is the engineer."

Scroll to the end for TL;DR version.

Welcome to Wonderland, or possibly even Victorian England. As you'll find yourself donning your adventurer's boots as you explore both these settings. But what are you doing here, or there? Depending on where you are at the time.

The Story

Note: This game takes off immediately after the first. I wouldn't know because I'm yet to play the original. But that's what Mr Wikipedia says, and we all trust him, don't we?

Alice has found herself in quite the pickle. Being the troubled young woman she is this is something you would come to expect. However Alice isn't crying into her fringe over the family pet that died ten years ago, she's trying to reconstruct the memories of her past to find the answer to her families mysterious deaths.

A past she is being taught how to forget, by the very gangly looking fellow: Dr Bumby. The story that we see set in Victorian England (which is limited) is made up of people telling Alice how she is mad, or pitying her…or if you bump into the drunken sailor I did, being called a "f**king c**t". Well, there is a first for everything!

However it all holds relevance and that we see cleverly pieced together at the end. But I won't tell you about that because that would be a spoiler, and I'm not in the business of spoilers.

Mostly the story takes place whilst in Wonderland. It's here that things get interesting, as shortly into Chapter 1 we are introduced to an "infernal train".

It's mission? Destroy Wonderland. Dun dun dun dunnnn!

As Alice you set out to discover who is behind this train and how to stop it before all is lost. Also whilst in Wonderland scattered through the game you come across certain doors, that considering you can see roaring flames behind them on any other occasion you most likely wouldn't enter.

However this isn't any ordinary occasion and through these doors are important memories, these hold the secrets to the night Alice's family died. Don't worry, you won't miss these as the game leads you to them as interludes of a sort.

What you might miss however are additional memories. Which leads me onto:

The collectibles

What would an adventure game be without them? Possibly a lot less frustrating when you reach the end and realise you've somehow missed one and have no idea where it could be! Bitter, me? No, not at all…

There are three types of collectibles within this game, and you'll find most of them through keyholes you'll usually have to use your shrink sense to see. The collectibles are as follows: bottles, memories and jars of rose paint.

Although the bottles serve no purpose within the game, other than to annoy you when you see it twinkling but can't reach it, you'll find that if you discover all the bottles of a chapter they will unlock concept art in the Extras section.

The memories on the other hand are fantastic for anyone wanting to learn more about Alice's story. There are two types: either Liddell (family) memories, or memories that contain the thoughts of different main characters of Victorian England.

These sort of act like clues, and the Liddell memories especially will soon begin to give you an insight into what happened on that fateful night as you near the end of the game. However they aren't necessary and you won't need them to understand the storyline, it's just a something extra.

The jars of rose paint are rewarded after you complete riddles or tasks in Radula Rooms. Once you have four you earn an extra rose, and since roses are what make up Alice's health, you can never have too many of these!

Hidden Rooms and Pig Snouts – sort of collectibles, you just couldn't fit them in your bag.

Speaking of Radula Rooms you'll find that if you hunt down and complete all of these you'll earn yourself an achievement. Not only this, but these are pretty fun, and at times challenging to complete! I love riddles, and so it was a great touch to find the cat appearing at times to ask me one, these were the simpler of the radula rooms…

Pig snouts offer baskets which contain teeth (I'll get onto that), and also show secret paths to otherwise unknown areas. So even if you aren't interested in the achievement it's worth listening out for the snorting to discover more of the game. Plus, it's pretty fun to pepper them and make them sneeze. Not that I'm a pig sadist or anything…

The Weapons

Much like everything else in the game the weapons were interestingly weirdly beautiful! Yes, pretend that makes sense.

You have: The Vorpal Blade used for swift close combat, The Pepper Grinder for shooting at pesky individual enemies, The Hobby Horse for a slow attack that deals a lot of damage, The Teapot Cannon which is ranged but deals damage to multiple enemies, The Clockwork Bomb to use as a decoy (since it does little damage but attracts enemy attention away from Alice), and lastly, The Umbrella, which is much prettier than your ordinary shield.

I always wanted a pony

You'll find a use for each of these as you face a variety of different enemies all of which need different tactics to be used to take them down. It can get a little frustrating, but it's rewarding when you work out quick and easy ways to take down otherwise challenging foes.

Not to be forgotten is HYSTERIA. When you find yourself on your last rose Alice is able to go into hysteria mode, an ability making her invincible for a limited amount of time. What's great about this is, that as long you manage to collect another rose or two from a dead enemy, if you are hit down to one rose again, you can reuse it.

Now what about those teeth? Near the beginning of the game a friendly, if not a bit bony chap, will appear with the fantastic idea of trading him the teeth you find for weapon upgrades. By the end of chapter five you will easily have obtained enough teeth to upgrade all your weapons. Not bad, eh!

The Bad Guys

These guys were pretty mean. I found myself in complete hatred of the baby with many faces and arms and fire, thing; which I later found out to be called a "Colossal Ruin". (Thanks to the handy "characters" category in the Extras section.) It usually appeared with a bunch of friends and it wasn't the easiest of enemies to take down. It was also probably one of the most visually dull.

You'll be pleased to know however that within each chapter you will meet new enemies that are in keeping with the area you're fighting in. The ones that keep creeping in however are the Ruin enemies, unfortunately for me as said above, these kinds were my least favourite.

The rest of the enemies made up for it though. You'll find yourself battling flying bolts – fittingly named Bolterfly, crazed teapots, samurai wasps, card guards, a doll whose clothes come off when you fight it (much creepier than its lack of eyes) and a whole array of others to sink your teeth, or blade, into!

However, I'm uncertain as to whether or not other enemies unlock depending on the difficulty you play on.

There are four difficulties, all of which are open when you begin the game: Easy, Normal, Hard, Nightmare.

I played on Normal and the characters section only showed 44/74 as unlocked.

It's a handy section however as you'll also find summaries of the characters that roam around both Victorian England and Wonderland. Which leads me onto:

The Characters - Weird and Wonderful Folk of Wonderland

Some of the most exciting moments in this game are the encounters with well known characters from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

There is a lack of boss fights, and the majority of characters serve only the purpose of enlightening Alice to the reasoning behind the destruction the train is causing to Wonderland.

But being able to speak with them and seeing how incredibly they have been designed (I'm all for the creepy gothicness and showing the real darkness of the story, was well worth the quite tedious journey to find them.

During my meeting with the Duchess, along with the feeling of disgust I have always felt towards her, I felt a feeling of happiness, knowing that this game was most certainly going to be to my liking. I felt this whenever coming across Wonderland characters, and even though I have always hated the Walrus and the Carpenter I adored Chapter 2, talking with them and carrying out short missions for them.

That being said, I often felt an odd sense of loneliness whilst playing this game, (interactions with characters is very rare). But at times that was fortunately staved off slightly whenever the ability to talk to The Cat was possible. Although he speaks in riddles and makes little sense, I never missed the chance to hit the button to make him appear.

Along with The Queen of Hearts, The Cat was my favourite character. Although admittedly I do have a soft spot for The Mock Turtle, who I'm fairly certain has the accent of a Brummie! Maybe that explains it?

The characters of Victorian England are just as important, but not nearly as interesting. Through short cut scenes and brief trips around the area you'll find out minor details about them, but you'll find out more through the memory collectibles scattered around Wonderland.

Dr. Angus Bumby

The Chapters – Areas of Wonderland

Each chapter takes you to a different section of Wonderland, and I can quite confidently say not one area will disappoint.

The Deluded Depths

As mentioned above at times the trek to the end could be quite tedious, for me I found this more present than ever during Chapter 3 – The Oriental Grove. Which was a shame as this was actually one of my favourite places to be.

But fear not! Even though at times you may feel the game is a little repetitive, with its sneaky ways of making you mushroom hop and fall to your demise for hours on end, there are sidescroller mini games to help put this feeling at ease.

You'll first come across this in Chapter 2 – The Deluded Depths, where you man the Mock Turtle's ship as it sinks through the ice. Within the Oriental Grove you'll find yourself hopping across The Scrolls of Destiny, playing chess in Queensland, and lastly rolling around as a doll head (this mini game is infuriating!) in The Dollhouse. Watch out for achievements, as you'll find you can earn one for each section here if done correctly.

Another thing that seems to appear in the chapters are the slides. Something you may find a strange feeling of nostalgia from if you've played Mario 64. At least there isn't a penguin to hold onto this time!

Each chapter will also provide Alice with a different domain dress, all of which are unlockable and can be selected to wear in the main menu. Not only are these stunning, and I want them all to stroll around sunny England in, but they have different abilities too!

When worn the Silk Maiden dress causes enemies to drop twice as many roses when defeated

And lastly, the music in this game is wonderful.

The Experience of Alice: Madness Returns

I could quite easily have been locked away myself after the hours I put into this game in such a short period of time. Eyes blood shot, mutterings of philosophical cats and screams of: "if I could just work out where that damn snorting was coming from!" would probably have earned me a one way ticket, and it will you too. That's if you decide to play the game, and why should you?

Although at times admittedly repetitive, this game is fun. And when it comes to games that's what we look for, right? (The fun part, not the repetitive part… well you might but then maybe that makes this game all the better for you!)

We want to have a good time, we want mystery and a reason to be doing what we are, we want to be challenged and feel a sense of achievement once a puzzle has been solved. We want interesting enemies, characters, items. Beautiful settings and music to fit it just right!

Alice: Madness Returns gives you all this. It's for the curious, for those who love things dark and gothic, the ones who like a good murder mystery and you wouldn't feel too comfortable being left alone with. And of course, it's for those who love Alice in Wonderland.

It's also for those who just really, really want to use a teapot in battle.

Alice: Madness Returns: 9/10

If you're still in two minds about this game ask yourself this:

Have you spent your life waiting for that one special moment you will fall to your death from a mushroom? Yes? Well then Alice: Madness Returns is the game for you!

Thanks for reading. If you've played this game, let me know what you thought of it. If you're considering playing this game but still have some questions, feel free to ask.

Until next time:

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

Playing next: F.3.A.R…or F.E.A.R 3? What are the cool kids calling it?