This review contains spoilers
Alisa is a survival horror retro throwback game created by indie developer Casper Croes, about an Elite Royal Agent named Alisa who with her partner chases down a thief who stole plans from the Emperor in an early 1920s fictional country inspired by France to a strange place in the woods, where she gets attacked and wakes up in a manor wearing only a doll dress. The game originally started as a Kickstarter Project, hitting its goal plus a bit over. Having looked at the page, the dude clearly had a vision going in and with what he got he executed a game that’s well made (though it’s sad some of the other stretch goals didn’t get met, as I haven’t seen a Full High Res mode or an extra side story mission though there was added content such as new dresses, items, and such in the developer’s cut). The game, while made by mostly a single dev on paper, was also worked on with his girlfriend who voiced the main character like the great soundtrack. For design/graphical stuff: they pulled it off really well. If you put me in front of this game and said it was made in the mid 90s I would’ve believed you. The sound design pulls straight up inspiration from RE, with the voice acting ranging from hilariously cheesy stereotypical french accents to weird american ones. The environment/enemy design is great with an interesting vibe that takes a clear Alice in Wonderland theme; I can’t complain about any of that. I’m going into story here:
The story starts out as stated above and more: You run into this goofy sock puppet named Pol, who sells you items in exchange for Toothwheels, this game’s version of currency. From what it seems of the plot, the main events happened because scientists unearthed a strange rock called “The Finger of God”, which of course looks like a finger and turns people into strange, inhuman machinery and/or figures while also driving everyone insane. One example of this is Dr. Pier Edmiston, the first boss who was locked up in a wing of the mansion where he turned it into a carnival funhouse. Another part of the game has you optionally helping a doll named Elise, who originally saved you in the beginning and needs your help getting her leg back. Eventually after going through a couple of areas including an underground water pool as well as the garden, you make your way to The Chapel where you run into the thief, and he tries to kill you while declaring himself the king. You take him down, build his bomb that he failed to create and plant it on the Finger of God. Pol comes out, or in actuality “The Doll Master”, a survivor of the experiments who’s been watching your every move and tries to stop you from escaping. You kill them, before you get one of three endings depending on factors I’ll get into gameplay section wise: The good ending in which you escape. In this ending it’s revealed that your partner faked swallowing his toothpick in the beginning, after which Alisa wakes up from her nightmare to read a note that says “The Truth about the Emperor’s Blueprints” before fading to black. The other two revolve around installing modifications, if you install less than six you barely escape and if you install all of them you become the true queen of the dolls. Some questions remain of course, like “What are the Emperor’s Blueprints”, “Why was your partner faking swallowing his toothpick”, “What is the Finger of God and where did it come from?" but truth be told, I kind of like that it didn’t answer everything? Like I enjoy having some vague mystery to it, though some elements I do wish were expanded upon, and definitely set up sequel stuff which hopefully we’ll get in the future. Otherwise it’s mostly environmental storytelling and not a lot of stuff I can really describe here.
Gameplay: You do your usual survival horror stuff, shoot and avoid enemies when need be but there’s one mechanic in the game that I find strange. As I mentioned, the puppet Pol is your main vendor, and you can buy all sorts of things from health kits to new guns & ammo. However, you can only buy these items by either finding toothwheels scattered about, or by killing enemies. This in itself creates a strange dichotomy where you are actively trying to kill enemies, but you don’t want to waste your ammo doing so. With this in mind, buying the Saber is a MUST so you can kill enemies in your path to get any and all currency, farming enemies when you can. However, these enemies don’t respawn, with previous rooms only being populated by new enemies after progressing the game. It’s a strange system, and one I have rather mixed feelings on because whereas in a way it does end up working out (after all your still encouraged to save ammo and not get hurt), you’re still kind of going out of the way to actively kill these enemies in a way that it doesn’t necessarily feel “survival horrorey” to me personally. I don’t hate it, it works but it’s strange. With these toothwheels, you can get certain endings by buying modifications. You buy anywhere between one and five and you get one ending; and if you buy all six you get the worst ending. Now I didn’t get these mods, but I know one of them is a cosmetic makeup kit, while another allows you to grab toothwheels from further away/auto aim, etc. These, like the dresses you can both buy/collect through the game, have different status effects that can help you in certain ways. Other things I know I want to mention is that in certain cases you’ll have little mini games (ex. Saving Elise’s leg means you have to go through three waves of enemies in a sewer area). I think one of the most jarring gameplay switches is when you end up fighting the thief towards the end of the game…while on a mechanical minigun horse in this really bizarre rail shooter segment; one of which I had great laughter one second before sort of fighting the strange controls that come with it. Another one to bring up is you get a pursuer enemy ala Mr. X from RE2 in the form of a floating ghost doll after encountering near the beginning. The enemies in this game vary in design and difficulty are creepy as hell and sometimes outright pants sh i t t ing (ex. A giant monkey with cymbals tries to kill you in a hallway late in the game). The puzzles can be kind of easy depending though one or two require you to take a picture with your phone to remember later or have trial and error. I think the most frustratingly tense for me was the RE style tribute puzzle, where the walls close in and you have to fiddle with a lock under a time limit and you CANNOT pause the game to look up how to solve it, nor can you exit and pause then go back to get your progress cause it WILL reset. I feel like I’m missing out a lot to explain cause there’s a lot of strange stuff yet clear love for the genre and the foundations that the old games built on that in a charming way even though there are frustrating segments it all kind of fits well.
Overall as a game it’s good, and deserves a play if you like old throwback survival horror with some caveats. There are going to be some weird oddities, some jank, some strange gameplay experiments (like a small stealth section, or minigames here and there); the most jarring piece being the weird economy system in the game. That being said, the game is 18 dollars. I got it during Christmas from a buddy of mine (Thanks Sab!), but with the 6 hours I took (with a guide of course cause I suck at puzzles even when they’re easy), and the 8 or so that he took, mixed in with NG+ and different endings that it’s worth your time. Check it out on sale. I apologize if it’s a scattered review, I’m working within Steam character limits. Here are some links if you want to look into it or the developer more:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Alisa
https://www.caspercroes.com/
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/caspercroes/alisa-game
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The story starts out as stated above and more: You run into this goofy sock puppet named Pol, who sells you items in exchange for Toothwheels, this game’s version of currency. From what it seems of the plot, the main events happened because scientists unearthed a strange rock called “The Finger of God”, which of course looks like a finger and turns people into strange, inhuman machinery and/or figures while also driving everyone insane. One example of this is Dr. Pier Edmiston, the first boss who was locked up in a wing of the mansion where he turned it into a carnival funhouse. Another part of the game has you optionally helping a doll named Elise, who originally saved you in the beginning and needs your help getting her leg back. Eventually after going through a couple of areas including an underground water pool as well as the garden, you make your way to The Chapel where you run into the thief, and he tries to kill you while declaring himself the king. You take him down, build his bomb that he failed to create and plant it on the Finger of God. Pol comes out, or in actuality “The Doll Master”, a survivor of the experiments who’s been watching your every move and tries to stop you from escaping. You kill them, before you get one of three endings depending on factors I’ll get into gameplay section wise: The good ending in which you escape. In this ending it’s revealed that your partner faked swallowing his toothpick in the beginning, after which Alisa wakes up from her nightmare to read a note that says “The Truth about the Emperor’s Blueprints” before fading to black. The other two revolve around installing modifications, if you install less than six you barely escape and if you install all of them you become the true queen of the dolls. Some questions remain of course, like “What are the Emperor’s Blueprints”, “Why was your partner faking swallowing his toothpick”, “What is the Finger of God and where did it come from?" but truth be told, I kind of like that it didn’t answer everything? Like I enjoy having some vague mystery to it, though some elements I do wish were expanded upon, and definitely set up sequel stuff which hopefully we’ll get in the future. Otherwise it’s mostly environmental storytelling and not a lot of stuff I can really describe here.
Gameplay: You do your usual survival horror stuff, shoot and avoid enemies when need be but there’s one mechanic in the game that I find strange. As I mentioned, the puppet Pol is your main vendor, and you can buy all sorts of things from health kits to new guns & ammo. However, you can only buy these items by either finding toothwheels scattered about, or by killing enemies. This in itself creates a strange dichotomy where you are actively trying to kill enemies, but you don’t want to waste your ammo doing so. With this in mind, buying the Saber is a MUST so you can kill enemies in your path to get any and all currency, farming enemies when you can. However, these enemies don’t respawn, with previous rooms only being populated by new enemies after progressing the game. It’s a strange system, and one I have rather mixed feelings on because whereas in a way it does end up working out (after all your still encouraged to save ammo and not get hurt), you’re still kind of going out of the way to actively kill these enemies in a way that it doesn’t necessarily feel “survival horrorey” to me personally. I don’t hate it, it works but it’s strange. With these toothwheels, you can get certain endings by buying modifications. You buy anywhere between one and five and you get one ending; and if you buy all six you get the worst ending. Now I didn’t get these mods, but I know one of them is a cosmetic makeup kit, while another allows you to grab toothwheels from further away/auto aim, etc. These, like the dresses you can both buy/collect through the game, have different status effects that can help you in certain ways. Other things I know I want to mention is that in certain cases you’ll have little mini games (ex. Saving Elise’s leg means you have to go through three waves of enemies in a sewer area). I think one of the most jarring gameplay switches is when you end up fighting the thief towards the end of the game…while on a mechanical minigun horse in this really bizarre rail shooter segment; one of which I had great laughter one second before sort of fighting the strange controls that come with it. Another one to bring up is you get a pursuer enemy ala Mr. X from RE2 in the form of a floating ghost doll after encountering near the beginning. The enemies in this game vary in design and difficulty are creepy as hell and sometimes outright pants sh i t t ing (ex. A giant monkey with cymbals tries to kill you in a hallway late in the game). The puzzles can be kind of easy depending though one or two require you to take a picture with your phone to remember later or have trial and error. I think the most frustratingly tense for me was the RE style tribute puzzle, where the walls close in and you have to fiddle with a lock under a time limit and you CANNOT pause the game to look up how to solve it, nor can you exit and pause then go back to get your progress cause it WILL reset. I feel like I’m missing out a lot to explain cause there’s a lot of strange stuff yet clear love for the genre and the foundations that the old games built on that in a charming way even though there are frustrating segments it all kind of fits well.
Overall as a game it’s good, and deserves a play if you like old throwback survival horror with some caveats. There are going to be some weird oddities, some jank, some strange gameplay experiments (like a small stealth section, or minigames here and there); the most jarring piece being the weird economy system in the game. That being said, the game is 18 dollars. I got it during Christmas from a buddy of mine (Thanks Sab!), but with the 6 hours I took (with a guide of course cause I suck at puzzles even when they’re easy), and the 8 or so that he took, mixed in with NG+ and different endings that it’s worth your time. Check it out on sale. I apologize if it’s a scattered review, I’m working within Steam character limits. Here are some links if you want to look into it or the developer more:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Alisa
https://www.caspercroes.com/
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/caspercroes/alisa-game
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/