Alice's Lullaby

You're a zombie with one arm who tasers tampon people

I remember watching a Let's Play of Albino Lullaby years ago and being instantly captivated by its sombre, enigmatic atmosphere, uncanny monsters, striking visuals, and storytelling. When I found out a sequel had finally been released, I picked it up during summer sale, excited to experience it. Unfortunately, I was deeply disappointed. My 50 minutes of gameplay felt more like 3 hours (not in a good way). Right from the start, the game introduces a lock-picking mechanic that simply doesn't work well. It feels intentionally confusing: it's unclear which power stations recharge your lock-picking tool, whether the tool is currently charged and where you're supposed to get power when every nearby station appears inactive. Immediately afterwards, you're thrown into a town full of locked doors and power stations, yet none of the stations seem capable of recharging your tool. This is major game design flaw and creates an odd contradiction: the game teaches you a mechanic, fills the environment with opportunities to use it, and then prevents you from actually doing so. IMO this mechanic should have been introduced after Buck's house instead, once you're actually able to use it. Exploration is also frustrating because deaths send you back through Cornelius painfully loud introductory speech with no meaningful checkpoints. Hearing the same monologue repeatedly was irritating within the first 15 minutes and genuinely gave me a headache. For a game that relies so heavily on atmosphere, it's baffling that there's no proper audio mixer with separate sliders for voices, music, ambience, and dialogue. Likewise, the absence of a mouse sensitivity option is inexcusable. The puzzles became the thing where the game completely lost me. Rather than feeling rewarding, they felt deliberately obscure. I repeatedly had to look up what I was actually supposed to do because the game does a poor job of communicating either your objective or where to go next, while simultaneously expecting very specific solutions. Without spoiling anything, I think the core design issue is that the game initially presents itself as encouraging open "exploration", but in reality it only functions through highly convoluted linear solution paths. Once I reached the second house, where you have to lure monsters into rooms using buzzers to solve another series of convoluted puzzles, I completely lost interest. Instead of feeling challenged, I felt like I was fighting the game's design, and I couldn't be bothered to look up the solution. It's a poorly designed game with some genuinely impressive visuals, but atmosphere alone isn't enough to make it enjoyable to play.

The continuation of the game I've waited for YEARS. The world so colorful and dead, so beautiful and disgusting, so cozy and horrifying all at the same time. What can I say.. The story is otherworldly. Literally. I've never seen an old idea executed so.. differently. I've never seen anything remotely like this game. Scary? Yes. I was squealing in the first part, hiding behind the doors. I was squealing in the second part of the game too. No cheap jumpscares. But the world built so carefully and lovingly that it eats you alive while you there. You cannot help but to freak out the more you progress. And yet you find so many beautiful things along the way it's almost poetic. Play Albino Lullaby. Play Alice's Lullaby. You'll never want to leave. Ever. Welcome home, child.

I don't post reviews often: but I'm honestly mixed here? I'll give a thumbs up because for the most part, I had a good time! I would recommend it to people who've played Albino Lullaby because at some points it DOES explain a BIT; like where the grandchildren even CAME from. I'll start with the positives: The voice acting is TOP NOTCH, whoever did Buck needs so much Kudos! It really added to the anxiety/fear me and my friend had while I played, and I'm excited to see what more they do with it in the third episode! I liked the art direction, it remains the same while being new and improved, staying faithful to Albino Lullaby and now the negatives, listen, I love this game but: Good god is it FULL of bugs, ESPECIALLY in Buck's house.. if you aren't willing to have to restart to the last checkpoint and close and open the game at least ten times, then I suggest you watch a game play instead. Buck's house took me a good day to get through, because his rig or something would break and prevent him from moving around the house, leaving him in his regular idle position while slowly moving towards the player model -- i'll have to go back and see if i can recreate the bug for a video, but I noticed it would usually happen if I managed to run away from him. It DID get a bit loud at points, I don't know if it was because I was using a blue tooth connection while streaming, but we ran into a common issue of music or voice acting getting too loud for comfort, and during the Origins Ride it can be a TAD difficult to hear the Narrator speaking. In my own personal opinion, it could've used some time in the oven, some parts seemed rushed or like they had been scrapped and rebuilt multiple times.. I'm anxious to see what chapter 3 is, but with the direction this franchise seems to be taking? I DO have high hopes.

It's pretty good. Not quite as weird as the first game, and doesn't have the same atmosphere, but the overall story is fine. A few of the reviews say they have no idea what's going on, but I think if you read the majority of the notes scattered throughout the game, and eavesdrop on conversations between characters, it becomes pretty clear what's going on. Took roughly 3 hours to complete, with reloading from the last checkpoint so I could get both endings.

it has an interesting story, though the gameplay is abit basic

Tonight is the night of the party