SUPER ALICE DOLLS

This is a difficult one to recommend, making me wish for a "maybe" option. Super Alice Dolls starts off relatively simple and feels relaxed, then a few levels in feels as if there's a sudden whiplash of difficulty. If it weren't for the generous checkpoints and health bars, coupled with other handy things like being able to move your start point after falling, I would only recommend it for the absolute hardcore bullet hell and/or platformer crowd. There's enough levels that are part of the base stages where one can easily get stuck and trapped in a no-win scenario, furthered by some stages requiring extremely precise timing and reflexes that will give a casual user too much frustration. There were more than a few times where I wanted to throw my controller out the window! The parts I really liked were extremely good, so the frustrating parts were perplexing to me as they didn't follow the pattern of expectations. These stages made good use of the available powerups to solve unique puzzles without pressuring for time and reflexes, making for a fun experience as failing didn't suddenly mean damage/death. Then the next stage would be total whiplash, requiring precisely timed jumps an…

A very fun adventure with Alice! The first half of the game is easy and fun, while the second half feels much more challenging but fair. It is also extremely cute!

Really nice game. Up to a certain point the game can be challenging, but is very rewarding once you complete it. Recommended.

This is the Kirby of 2hu fan games. It's cute and fun at first, and then slowly you can feel the vise start to clamp down on your nuts as the game goes on. Of course, that vise is actually adorable Shanghai dolls.... and maybe some Hourai dolls... so is it really that bad?

My taste in platformers is more toward the precision platformer side (Celeste, VVVVVV, Rite) as opposed to the Mario style. This one's pretty good though. There's a decent number of powerups, each one being a doll that assists Alice, and many levels are based around the abilities of them and are completely required. Some are purely for damage, others exclusively mobility, while a few have multiple uses. Alice can take more hits than a typical Mario game, at least on normal difficulty, which is good because the bullet patterns can be a bit tricky compared to a typical platformer. There's a boss fight after every two worlds, and these are a massive step up in difficulty compared to minibosses or normal levels. Heavy bullet density and lots of adds to deal with, and a heavy emphasis on the use of certain powerups. Powerups don't appear to work on bosses, they have to be stomped. There's a good amount of bonus content. Each level has a book to pick up, and coins can be spent to unlock one bonus difficult level for each world. Music and art are solid, Alice is cute. If you like Mario style platformers it's worth a play, and if you're a Touhou fan absolutely pick it up…

boring and repetitive