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endgame post!
Last night I finished Alice!
...I liked the first 4 chapters a lot more than the last 2.
[this post isn't going to be squeeful; I won't be upset if you back-button now.]
The first chapters, dealing with familiar Wonderland characters and themes, were so much more interesting to me -- there was a lot of grimdark stuff there (hi, Carpenter) but also whimsy, the fanciful weirdness that balances it. Then the last chapters just got ham-handed by comparison; there was no levity in the OCs and the design of the Dolltown pushed my annoyed-by-creepy-children button more than anything. (Also, all of the basement parts where it was just dark wood and spikes? BORING to look at after the early chapters.) And every time the design placed a doorway in the crotch of a naked, splayed-open doll, I was making >/ face.
And while Alice remained pretty awesome, I was frustrated to see all of her problems -- all of the systemic indictment of the early game -- boiled down to one puppetmaster who takes ultimate responsibility and has committed all the evils (including a few extra ones added in there to up the ugly factor at the end).
Also what was going on with the very ending there? Did she in fact kill him, or was that a hallucinated confrontation? (There was one shot that made it look like she was ranting to empty air, which raised the question for me.) And when that brings her back to a half-Wonderland...well. Mechanically I could see them trying to leave their options open for another title in the series, but on a storytelling level that was really unsatisfying: Alice is not fully in possession of the real world AND Wonderland is not fully restored. Awesome. What did I just do all that work for?
First 4 chapters: *****.
Last 2 chapters: ***.
That was so fabulous for a while there, game. Why you gotta go and fumble the end?
...I liked the first 4 chapters a lot more than the last 2.
[this post isn't going to be squeeful; I won't be upset if you back-button now.]
The first chapters, dealing with familiar Wonderland characters and themes, were so much more interesting to me -- there was a lot of grimdark stuff there (hi, Carpenter) but also whimsy, the fanciful weirdness that balances it. Then the last chapters just got ham-handed by comparison; there was no levity in the OCs and the design of the Dolltown pushed my annoyed-by-creepy-children button more than anything. (Also, all of the basement parts where it was just dark wood and spikes? BORING to look at after the early chapters.) And every time the design placed a doorway in the crotch of a naked, splayed-open doll, I was making >/ face.
And while Alice remained pretty awesome, I was frustrated to see all of her problems -- all of the systemic indictment of the early game -- boiled down to one puppetmaster who takes ultimate responsibility and has committed all the evils (including a few extra ones added in there to up the ugly factor at the end).
Also what was going on with the very ending there? Did she in fact kill him, or was that a hallucinated confrontation? (There was one shot that made it look like she was ranting to empty air, which raised the question for me.) And when that brings her back to a half-Wonderland...well. Mechanically I could see them trying to leave their options open for another title in the series, but on a storytelling level that was really unsatisfying: Alice is not fully in possession of the real world AND Wonderland is not fully restored. Awesome. What did I just do all that work for?
First 4 chapters: *****.
Last 2 chapters: ***.
That was so fabulous for a while there, game. Why you gotta go and fumble the end?
no subject
...and then they went and made the psychologist a child sex trafficker and suddenly it wasn't a critique on the oppression that 'hysterical women' underwent in Victorian England anymore, just one sick twisted man and a conspiracy to gasp at and be ~shocked~ by so the player doesn't have to deal with hard concepts like "Sometimes 'good, smart men' do a lot of harm."
It was a disappointing cop-out.
no subject
AND I'm annoyed that putting all the blame on him in the end exonerates the sadistic nurse and the traitorous lawyer, who were pretty clearly FUCKERS themselves.
no subject
WE ARE ADULTS, GAME WRITERS. WE CAN HANDLE THE STRAIN ON OUR BRAINCELLS.
no subject
It also took this bizarre turn where I'd thought the violence against women was a critique, but it seemed to be the designer's fetish through 5. Or at least, it started feeling like this is an outsider's perspective on the restraints on Victorian young women, not Alice's internal perspective. Like it started getting full of how disgusting/disturbing it could be just because. Naked (always female) doll bits =/= as funny as the designers thought. Rape =/= the only trauma that happens to female characters. Which felt surprisingly juvenile compared to what had come before.
In the ending, I particularly didn't like Alice being held accountable for not helping the other children... because, actually, no, she's not as complicit as the various adults who are actually RUNNING the pedophile/prostitution ring. WTF. She's been a child, been abused and tortured and... she's supposed to feel bad that she didn't stop creepy psychologist earlier? Is the reason for her current madness is guilt she hasn't saved the other children? (Why can't Alice's journey be about saving herself, about thinking she's worth saving despite her survivor's guilt?)
And, yes, least satisfying ending ever. For so many reasons.
Also, overall not enough Cat.
I'm glad the opportunity of fixing it with fic is there for me, but I'm annoyed that I'm left wanting to fix the game rather than wanting to expand or explore it instead.
no subject
Also, yeah, the whole thing with the child prostitution ring came out of left field so much, like maybe we were supposed to still need further confirmation that Bumby was OH NO TERRIBLE (after we've already discovered that he's responsible for three murders and the rape of at least one young girl) -- to then pin accountability for that on ALICE, who has been struggling to remain lucid while the villains arrayed against her do their best to push her back into madness? I DON'T THINK SO.
And yes, so much yes to wanting her to be worth saving for her own sake. Cat seemed to be pushing that idea in the early chapters, and it's a good idea, especially for girls, who are constantly taught that they should be thinking of others at all times. It disappoints me so much that after leaning in that direction -- saving Wonderland = saving herself = valuable goal -- they fell back on "because then you can finally take care of other people." ugh.
It had such a promising start; I wish it hadn't gone so thoroughly to hell like that.
no subject
And, as you say, everything Bumby did to Alice and her family, that was ... well, plenty to be able to tell he was unsavoury.
I really want to find a way to re-write the ending of this game, where chapters 5 and 6 are recast as Bumby having almost become successful at breaking Alice and her wonderland, that that's why it's so different there, why we get the scenes in Rutledge's just before it, why the "Wonderland" characters start blaming Alice for her complicity regarding the other children at that point (though I note that there *are* no traditional Wonderland characters in 5, just dolls and the occasional throwaway reference to Wonderland in the decor-- because it's really *Bumby's* wonderland, at that point, and that's the influence that destroying him will remove.
I don't in any way credit the production/design team with having that thought behind the game itself, but that's the best hand-waving I've come up with, at any rate, but I don't yet know how to tell a story invoking it. It would perhaps explain the brightly coloured mushrooms in London at the very, very end, too.