In March, Alice: The Return of Madness, an action game developed by Spicy Horse Games and published by Electronic Arts, returned to Steam for the first time in six years.
In Return of Madness, Alice’s story is a departure from the beautiful lightness of fairy tales, and the overall atmosphere is scary, crazy and depressing. The main character, Alice, holds a bloody kitchen knife and Gatling, and even the bow strap on her back becomes a skeleton decoration. As you move along the map, you never know if the next box in front of you is going to contain roses or a monster with fanged claws. Return of Madness may feel more like a cult movie than a game.
In this novel, Alice was set as a girl who lost her family in a fire and was sent to an insane asylum due to her mental trauma. Many weird scenes in the game are actually reflections of Alice’s heart. Alice has to fight a variety of wacky enemies to find out the true cause of her family’s deaths in order to save herself.
While the art style, theme and symbolism are commendable, Mad Comeback is also criticized for its weak combat system and repetitive levels. But for a game that was once out of print, these shortcomings will not be worth mentioning to new players with a taste for the dark genre.
