4/5 ★ – Gibbs's review of Alice: Madness Returns.

Gothic horror themes and presentation are my weakness. And that’s the best thing about Alice: Madness Returns - it absolutely nails its presentation. Its stunning style has solidified this as my favourite adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. The beautiful cutscenes, the appearance of each world, and the character design are all great in their own respect, and still they come together so cohesively. A story as delicate as this, with such dark imagery and themes can often come across as edgy and silly. And yet this game treads these waters wonderfully, with all the design subtle enough to convey its symbolism naturally, and the beats of the story acted and written expertly too. And what also works so wonderfully is Alice’s gameplay. Alice feels excellent to control, and her entire moveset organically coherent. Each button offers a unique fun ability, and they all feel great too. Honestly I don’t think I’ve played a platformer that feels as good to control since Mario Odyssey. What’s even better is their incredible designs too - each weapon is a fun reflection of what a young Victorian girl would use, and they’re so damn flashy too. However. while the gameplay is good, I do think it wears a little thin. Not due to level design or lack of ideas, but simply length. The first 3 levels just dragged on for me, and by the time i was ready to move on to the next there was always another 25%ish left to do. Similarly, the lack of boss fights is severely missed here. I think this game would benefit hugely from a fight at the end of each chapter. I mean, these mechanics are basically begging for a boss to experiment with, and they would have offered a nice change of enemy design, and served as a narrative and gameplay treat to end the level with. Also, this seems to be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t love the music in these levels too. It all kind of blended together for me, and while i understand the melancholy tone, I felt it could have done with some more fun, strange and whimsical tunes in the vain of the first game, at least in some of the levels. With a few changes and a shorter game, I truly think this could have been something extremely special, and that’s what makes the cancellation of the third game sting even harder. There’s a potential masterpiece here, and I think the team have the capability to do it. BTW speaking of things that would never happen, I’ve almost never seen a character with a moveset and visual design that would fit in Smash Bros as good as this. Oh well, It’s fun to dream.