Alice Escaped! review

Make way for a Moe-vania!

Given the abundance of metroidvania games on Steam, it might be hard to get excited about another entry in a congested genre. But illuCalab’s (Heart of Crown, Magical High School Girl, Gensou Skydrift) latest strives to provide a bit of innovation, with players controlling a pair of high school girls, each armed with distinctive weapons. It’s also visually bewitching.

After discovering a note in a strange library book asking for help, Usada and Kotora find themselves in a vibrant envisioning of Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland. Usada wakes up in a frilly azure dress that matches her hair, rabbit ears on her head, and is carrying a giant hammer that can dish out powerful combos. Kotora is dressed similarly with the same set of playing card hair clips. But her armament is a gun that dispenses a rapid-fire barrage of bullets in horizontal, diagonal, and vertical directions.

“Please Find Alice”, a Mysterious Note Reads

Pleasingly, the pair is almost always together. If you have enough Chance Energy, you can swap control of the characters, while your partner offers a bit of CPU-controlled assistance in casual mode. Don’t expect your reserve girl to take charge, but if you commence a combo, your companion might dish out enough damage to help defeat standard foes. Mercifully, Usada and Kotora have their own health bars. By switching characters, taking advantage of passive HP regeneration, and finding power-ups, the girls can be resilient, even on the game’s hardest of three difficulty levels. But your partner tends to wander off during boss battles. While I could hear Kotora’s gun blasting, she wasn’t around to help humble the Cheshire Cat.

Instead of earning assigned upgrades, the girls are given a bit more developmental freedom. Picking up three different types of blue crystals can help unlock new skills on a shared tech-tree. Beyond upgrades for both girls that can augment their dashes, healing, and communicative abilities, the pair have branches devoted to their individual weapons. You gain skill points rather quickly, so within 20 minutes, I had already earned special attacks for Usada and Kotora. When deployed, the special flaunts an adorable animation in the top corner of the screen. Later, you’ll feel like a powerhouse in Wonderland with Usada juggling enemies and dishing out punishing combos. While I typically prefer ranged characters, aiming with Kotora can be a bit fiddly, since the game utilizes a tight perspective to frame the action.

The Rare Metroidvania with a Conversation Stat

Sporadically, your exploration stops during what Alice Escaped calls a Death Match. Here, you’ll confront several waves of monsters who spawn on-screen. Once you’ve finished smashing them, you’ll be given a small allotment of second tier-crystals based on your performance. You’ll probably accidentally trigger these challenges while wandering around the game’s spacious map, but you’re only able to earn a reward once. When I was lost, I wish Alice Escaped turned off previously played Death Matches or at least offer some small dividend.

When navigating around the map, gating isn’t always tied to specific items. Sure, there’s the occasional key that you’ll earn (actually there are multiple keys, with the game neglecting to differentiate) that allows passage into a new area. But often, forward progress is blocked until you unlock a new ability. When coupled with a Fallout-style dialog system, where your chance to charm an NPC is determined by a statistic, means Alice Escaped isn’t an overly linear journey. Building on that the game has multiple endings; I found four of them.

Yes, Wonderland Looks Wonderful

Regrettably, a few imperfections prohibit Alice Escaped from becoming truly magical. Bosses habitually have shielding that needs to be worn down before you can damage them. But when subordinate foes have protection, trying to break their armor as other opponents are attacking you can become frustrating. Occasionally, these conflicts take place on phasing platforms, which can become especially infuriating. Although Escaped doesn’t provide much exposition, the intermittent dialog with bosses attempts to emulate the doubletalk of Carroll’s text. Largely, there’s very little meaning being exchanged in conversations, with characters persistently misunderstanding each other. And while that might speak to the complexity of communication, it doesn’t make these encounters enjoyable.

But it would be challenging to find faults in the game’s visual depiction of Wonderland. Sure, Usada and Kotora are rendered in paperdoll fashion, but there’s an obvious charm to the spritework. From variable facial expressions to glowing weapon trails, the pair embody cuteness and capability. But it’s also the opulent backdrops that help bring the game to life. With a distinctive Cuphead art style and a bit of chromatic aberration, Alice Escaped is a contender for being one of the most adorable Metroidvanias around. Enjoyably, it also runs great on low-end rigs and the Steam Deck can enjoy unshakable 60 FPS output.

Head Down the Rabbit Hole

Sure, there’s a strong chance that you already own several respectable Metroidvania games. But with its swappable pair of characters, flexible ability system, and some of the most kawaii visuals found in the genre, Alice Escaped presents some solid arguments for being in your game library.

Alice Escaped! was played on PC with
review code provided by the publisher.