Alice: Madness Returns

Here's the issue. The story of this game is absolutely excellent, with skillfully crafted foreshadowing, lovable characters, and a willingness to delve into the ways trauma affects a person without demonizing them. When the game's aesthetic is used and crafted thoughtfully, it really helps bolster these themes. But the gameplay is the vehicle for getting to that story, and the gameplay here, in my opinion, just absolutely sucks. This is an issue with lots of layers to it. Yes, this is a bad port, but this only adds onto the frustration of the gameplay itself not being fun and, in my opinion, is not the only reason it is so aggravating to play. The platforming, in and of itself, is fine, but is made an absolute chore by other factors. Air vents are a constant throughout the game, but the main character, Alice will sometimes get stuck in them and not float upwards, or even refuse to interact with them entirely and fall to her death. She will sometimes get stuck on parts of the ground, or get stuck walking forward despite no player input. Respawn points are atrocious and constantly erase progress. There's also times when the camera moves to weird positions, lingers on things during timed platforming (happens every time you step onto a button), and hides enemies. Speaking of enemies, nearly every chapter introduces new, really annoying enemies overtime, only to later stick you in a room full of them all at once. These are enemies that have to play special animations before you can properly do damage to them, or that only show parts your supposed to shoot at specific times, which is difficult because the range weapon controls suck, or that constantly dodge or attack the Alice while she's stuck in an attack animation. I've even had times where there were so many enemies, both on the ground and above, shooting things at Alice that she just got stuck receiving damage. The game isn't truly challenging, it just greatly limits and overwhelms the player in combat. I love the concept of overcoming platforming and monsters to help one feel like they're taking this difficult journey with Alice, but it just isn't executed well here. The other important layer is just how repetitive this game is. This can be fine if the gameplay in this loop is fun or engaging but, again, it's just not. You are constantly doing the same platforming puzzles over and over and over again, with any additions only serving to make them more tedious. As for how much each location you visit connects to the overall themes of the game, only chapter 1, chapter 5, and chapter 6 really manage to do this in a way that feels affective, with the middle sections just serving as filler and not really feeling that unsettling at all. I'd absolutely encourage people to engage with the story of this game, if they can handle it, because it's just excellent and deserves all the praise it gets for the way it approaches topics such as mental health. But I just can not recommend the game itself to others, and especially not this version, because it is just so frustrating and boring to play.