World horror adventure He has great allies in the small groups of independent creators. After pleasant surprises in this lineup, such as Oxide: Room 104 or MADiSON, now it’s the turn Alice: Developer Editionan adventure that, after its success among PC fans, is now coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Switch.
Sole developer, Belgian Casper Cruzis responsible for the most faithful or purist homage to the origins of survival horror that we can remember, to the fact that You’ll think you’re playing a new PS1 installment of Resident Evil. Your skills will be tested in a maze of adventures with stationary cameras, pre-rendered backgrounds and merciless confrontations.
The story focuses on Alice, an elite army officer who 100 years ago with his partner investigates the location of some mysterious plans in a lost city in Europe. When she arrives, she is consumed by strange powers and wakes up dressed in her purest Alice style, in an ominous mansion inhabited by killer dolls that have come to life…
Analysis of the Alisa Developer version in Hobby Consolas:
Alisa Developer’s Cut gameplay and gameplay
Those of you who already have gray hair will immediately recognize the game’s dynamics, as it pretty much replicates what we experienced in the 90s with games like Alone in the Dark or Resident Evil. Controlling Alice from the third person, we move scenarios with stationary camerasso from time to time we will go from one shot to another.
By default, Control “type of tank”like in Resident Evil (meaning we have to spin on ourselves to change direction) but you can choose a more modern control which makes turning quite easy. It depends on how purist you want to be.
Alice can walk, run, shoot and interact with certain objects, and to aim we need to press one button to deploy the weapon and another to fire. To shoot, we are stationary and can aim in any directionso it can be difficult to hit enemies moving towards us.
Enemies are usually pretty tough and we can even randomly encounter a ghostly lady who will hunt us down and, if caught, take us right back into the game. Fortunately, entering a new room resets the location of enemies and also prevents them from moving from one room to another.
In the corner of the screen there is a reticle that turns orange when a shot is about to hit and furthermore we can activate the option automatic aiming on the horizontal axis but if we do, we get less gear as a reward.
These mechanisms are the “currency” we can use in very few safe areas where an amazing puppet named Paul will exchange them for ammo, first aid kits, new weapons (we start with a pistol, but we can get, for example, a saber, a machine gun or a machine gun) or costumes that improve our stats for certain circumstances.
For the price, Saving the game even costs a gear in these areas (it’s the only way to preserve the content we have), so we have to control a lot of what we invest in. Also, in the safe areas we have lockers to change the suit we wear (only one at a time of course) and also our weapons since we can only carry two.
As we move around the mansion, we can use the map to navigatebut it’s too short: it only tells us what area we’re in and what doors are locked, but not exactly where we are or what keys we need for each door, for example.
As expected, so do we many puzzlesbased not only on finding the correct key for each lock, but also on solving puzzles left in notes, finding and placing key objects in the correct order… Pure nostalgia.
Is the Alisa Developer’s version difficult?
Like the games it honors, it a challenging adventure not only in navigation and solving puzzles, but also in the combat itself. First, because each enemy has its own dynamic, and almost every one of them requires a lot of shooting, and also because ammo and healing are scarce, and the aiming system is very manual.
It does Every confrontation with an enemy involves a good dose of tensionbecause in order to lose health, you have to go into the horrible game and reload from the last save room, which can mean a lot of replays.
The experience is not very kind to the player, which must have the patience typical of the days when our memory card was our life insurance.
The puzzles themselves always have logic and we are given little hints, but understanding how they work and what is expected of us may take more than one try and wandering around without much imagination. Pay attention to everything you are told and the location of each lock…
How many hours of play is Alisa Developer’s Cut?
While knowing exactly what to do in each section could get us through the game in about three hours, it’s nearly impossible for you to get everything right in one go. The game is likely to last around 8-9 hours.
It should be added New game+, which also serves to unlock an exclusive ending of four in total. Thus, the most complete can spend about 30 hours, discovering absolutely everything, which is not bad for a game of this type.
No risk, no glory
With everything we’ve told you, more than one person may have decided to forgo the experience, and we certainly can’t blame them: Advancing through an adventure can be a very difficult experience, sometimes even frustrating..
Although the “conscious” difficulty of the game is mainly to blame, the main problem comes from a fixed camera system that is perhaps too extreme with frame changes. This causes axis jumps that cause our character to change direction very abruptly, so there will be moments where you are unintentionally moving back and forth in one spot.
Logically, that’s part of the charm of the classic games honored here, but maybe The mix of these very drastic changes with a more violent presence of enemies than in the originals can be overwhelming. sometimes.
of course This is a game for people who are patient and most likely with a background in 90s gamesbecause part of the fun is reliving the feeling of vulnerability not just to games design, but to one’s own flaws.
But of course there is a strong side because Mr. Kasper signs a textbook tribute not only in terms of playability, but also in terms of technique– Although the game’s native resolution is high, everything is presented in The ratio is 4:3the characters are deliberately very little detailed and even pre-rendered backgrounds are low resolution. There is even texture deformation on the models.
This is not the only game that has been added to the low polygraphy mode, but it’s definitely one of those that best reproduces the entire mid-90s experience, from controls to menu navigation, graphics, and sound. In addition, the enemy design is excellentmixing dolls with twisting shapes and insectoid movements.
It is inevitable to feel nostalgic with them music with a synthesized flavor, simple, repetitive, but very ecological; The same goes for the few digitized voices (all in English, by the way) that show a very tacky interpretation of the actors.
We don’t know if this is intentional, but we want to believe it is because the game has a nostalgic sense of humor. The mixture of terror, mystery, humor and a lot of surrealism works perfectly, creating a unique atmosphere.
hay a tribute to many classics of the genre (in the puzzles, in the mirrors, in some dialogues…) and in the end, you can see the love and how much the developer went through the experience. Moreover, there is so many secret areas, endings or costumes unlock for just €15 should set an example for more than one major developer.
therefore Alisa Developer’s Cut is an experience that is very aware of its “ancestors” and the audience it wants to reach: someone who is not afraid of difficult tests and immersion in an atmosphere where psychological tension is before blood. You’ll need nerves of steel to keep up with this nostalgic experience.
