Review: Alice in Wonderland (Game Boy Color)

Note: Please see this post to know why I wrote this.

I’ve had the game for a couple days and I already beat it, it’s really short. Still, it’s actually quite good! It’s mostly a platformer, but there are some other things thrown in. For instance, when you fall down the rabbit hole, you have to float back and forth collecting stars and avoiding obstacles. Then later (when you’re huge and cry, then shrink and fall into the bottle), you have to float down the river and move back and forth avoiding things. That brings up a good point — it actually follows the story! There are also some cutscenes between levels, either animated or still frames with text.

The graphics are nice for a GBC game, particularly the animations. Alice walks and runs very smoothly, and the whole game has a nice cartoon look to it. You basically run around collecting stars, jumping on enemies, and collecting keys to open the doors. If you find a mushroom (there are many), you can shrink or grow (toggles between the two), similar to Zelda: The Minish Cap. This adds some puzzle elements, because you have to stay big and take out the enemies, then run back to the mushroom and shrink, etc.

Once in Wonderland you have a 3/4 view world map. You go around talking to characters, and they each need something (a cane, handkerchief, etc.). It’s basically an item trading sequence, but it gives Alice motivation to go into each level and find new characters and items. It’s hardly a kids’ game, either, some of the sections are pretty tough. One mistake and you have to start the level over again, in some cases.

I was happy to see that Bill is in the game! He’s the lizard who comes in when Alice grows and gets stuck in the house. You actually play as him for one level. It’s interesting, you carry around your ladder and must reach the top of the level. To do this you set down your ladder, climb up it, pull it up, and repeat. There are birds flying back and forth, so if you mess up or forget to duck they’ll knock your ladder off the edge and you’ll have to fall down and start all over again.

After you collect enough stuff from the main world, you visit the Queen of Hearts. There’s the paint-the-roses-red part, and eventually you play croquet against her, which is basically a timing game. All in all really not a bad game, I had fun with it, even though it’s short.

So there you go Mr. GCE. You couldn’t believe you were typing the name in, well I just wrote a review of it!