Recent reviews by Alice

This game is a throwback to when games were good. It's not very balanced, but it doesn't need to be. Generally a charming game and I love it despite its flaws.

Also, it runs pretty well on steam deck.

With my first character, I played melee. Constantly got my ass handed to me. Had to use all my smarts and still sucked. I ran all the way to the desert because I thought it would be cool, but I couldn't complete the quests because I was super underpowered. I started to cheese by luring enemies together so they would kill each other, but it wasn't fun and I decided to abandon the character and start again.

The second time around, I decided to RP Zelda (from Zelda) and so I gave up all my HP for mana. I got the flamethrower skill that uses up your lantern/torch and absolutely wrecked everything. Magic is so much stronger than melee, it's ridiculous. Then I went to the forest and learned book/code magic. Now that stuff is OP. It's so strong that the game actually got a bit boring because I was too strong.

Basically, treat it like an old school RPG, don't be afraid to reroll your character and I think you'll have fun. Maybe try code magic if the game seems too hard.

Good game but kind of gives you PTSD because most of the time you try something new, you immediately die. Extremely punishing and unfair but also very fun, and the world is huge and full of secrets and things to discover.

This game's combat isn't so hard. You just have to learn to keep distance, parry, chamber, feint, morph, accel, drag, use footwork, matrix, gamble, buffer, kick, ftp, cftp and then you can start gitting gud.

Trust me, cucumbers, wessexes, jpegs, wristy twisties, waterfalls, rainbows, etc aren't necessary to know, but it can help.

you know when you take a cautious slug over crit glasses you're having fun

cons:
The characters aren't balanced at all, commando is tragically underpowered

Pros:
Tons of customization
High skill ceiling PvP
Intriguing world and lore

Cons:
Various bugs and technical issues
Not much PvE content yet

The core game mechanics are very solid but the devs are still ironing out bugs. A great game if you like fighting games. I'm hopeful that the devs will continue to improve the game.

Overall:

As a game it's a failure. The art and premise are rich and provocative, but the gameplay is boring and repetetive. The overarching story is nice but it's stretched thin across the 8+ hour gameplay. Damn you, lack of funding. Great to play if you want to write fanfic or immerse yourself in the universe, but not if you want an actual fun game.

The good:

-Art

The art style is gorgeous. They executed a twisted wonderland marvelously, and there are many imagination-stimulating environments and objects. Alice herself is extremely well animated and rather fun to move around, even in "reality."

The character archetypes are fun to think about. Just the whole idea of a more mature, twisted Alice in Wonderland is fertile ground.

-Sound

It won't be winning any awards, but there are a few tracks that are interesting. The voice acting is generally of high quality.

The bad:

-Story

The writing is subpar. The characters mostly feel bland and unendearing. The dialogue sounds a bit like what an average american would make up if you said "give me a sentence that a british person might say".

The story itself lacks depth. It's a kid's story that was sprinkled with some superficial violence and edgy imagery to make it look more mature. And even those played it safe. They were too few and far between and just... arbitrary. Their grotesque form had no purpose or story or meaning, it was just there to be grotesque. Most of the wonderland parts just felt empty.

The best part of the story was the London sequences, but every time you get a little morsel you have to go through another an hour+ of boring gameplay.

-Gameplay

When you get to a new area you're at first wowed by how cool the environment is, but you quickly get tired of it as you go through the repetetive task of killing monsters and collecting teeth. Combat is mostly mindless. Once you've figured out how to kill a type enemy, the rest are a chore - not difficult, just time consuming. Increasing the difficulty only makes monsters do more damage.

Then there's the platforming. It's extremely easy. You can triple jump, but you never even need the third jump unless you ♥♥♥♥ up.

The game is extremely linear. Side paths never last longer than a few seconds and then you double back. Finding secrets consists of remembering to press ctrl every so often. The secrets do nothing besides give you bits of dialogue that don't really add to the story much and increase your % completion on the menu screen.

Oh right. There are puzzles. They're trivial. Also, you get some weapons. They're not very interesting either. Upgrade them with teeth. Once you've upgraded them all the way the teeth are worthless and that will happen well before the end of the game if you collect them zealously.

Pretty awesome.

You know those shows where the one skilled swordsman kills enemy after enemy, taking on three at a time and skillfully dancing between them, eventually coming out on top? You can be that person in this game. If, that is, you're willing to practice enough.

Due to the up-close-and-personal nature, dying will make you rage. You will blame anything but yourself - Lag, hacks, exploits, feints, whatever. It's okay, just xx2 (laugh command), take a break and come back tomorrow. Keep a cool head and observe why that person is killing you. Eventually you'll be able to take them down.

Parts of the community can be bad. Lots of veteran players are on a power trip and will treat you like dirt if you're a noob. On the other hand, once you get good you'll get kicked out of servers because the new players get mad at being killed over and over. The combat in chivalry seems to bring out the worst in us.

That said, there's plenty of cool people out there. If you stay cool and be nice, many people will realize how much of an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ they're being and apologize. The rest you can just ignore, git gud and take revenge on. I've met some good friends on chivalry who I talk to regularly.

Not only is this game a blast - it's a work of art. I love careening down a twisting road on my motorcycle, not sure if the next turn will send me flying 50 feet into the air...