Alisa

Were it a little longer and a little more devoted to telling a story, it'd probably be truly magical. It falls just short of other throwbacks like Blasphemous, but Alisa is a damn fine entry in the retraux survival horror indie boom, successfully using the old "uncanny valley" PS1 aesthetic, combining it with a dollhouse motif and letting the campy scares just blossom from there. The environmental detail, the grizzly green screen, the mismatch between 2D and 3D assets, it's all here, and combined with a vast enemy variety with imaginative designs, Alisa has style for days. Admittedly it's not very scary, but it still captured my attention almost entirely on visual splendour.

The general survival horror gameplay framework is at play, but with a few neat tweaks that make it more engaging than first appears, and certainly much harder than recent efforts. Alisa includes a money system akin to RE4, but found ammo and health are so finite, and you only get money from fallen enemies, and even saving costs money. Tying your save currency to your currency for upgrades and consumables meant I felt so starved for all three throughout the game, and any investment into each was a real punch in the gut, but combined with ferocious enemies that constantly repopulate old areas, the ebb and flow of resource management was alive and well, and cutthroat in a way that will not be for everyone but I very much appreciated. The layout of the dollhouse is a bit too small to really make the drain game count, but there are just enough labyrinthine areas where something can go horribly wrong for the game to wring every last drop of tension out of its short runtime and small setting. Besides, the house as it is is so memorable, I was able to map it out in my brain from memory just on a first run, aside from the deliberately obtuse garden maze near the end.

But while I appreciate the game feeling much harder than its ilk, it is also a clunky, clunky shooter. Alisa makes the bold choice of eschewing auto-aim by default, and you'll need to sacrifice either resources or money to unlock it. Combined with manual reloads, you have to make every movement count, especially with alarmingly low health and ammo even with multiple melee options, but there's a fine line between tension and frustration, and Alisa rides that line like a Volvo driver. A forced stealth and turret section near the end come close to killing the final act's impact, and while the bosses are imaginative and ultimately fun, they also highlight how this genre was never meant to be used for spectacle shooting.

Other issues are minor but keep it just under greatness. The dollhouse may be packed with atmosphere, but actual level progression is predictable and linear; you're more unlocking chunks of the house all at once than slowly unfolding a puzzle box, a missed opportunity for this setting if ever there was one. Combined with mediocre and sparing puzzles, it leaves the experience feeling occasionally rote, outside of item management. And while the story being threadbare isn't an issue, it being so threadbare they shouldn't have even bothered with the nexus angle of finding government blueprints...definitely is. None of the endings really make sense as a result, even as they come with cool PS1 CGI FMVs.

Even with all my issues though, Alisa was one of the most daring, intelligently designed, brazen and unforgettable horror throwbacks I've played in a while, and I've made a point to play a lot of them. I'm looking forward to a replay not only to stretch the item management systems as far as I can, but just to revisit some of the crazy visuals, setpieces, and wackadoodle voice acting and mixing.

Alisa is a full-on throwback to 90s Survival Horror PlayStation 1 games, it's main influence being the original Resident Evil [バイオハザード]. It's a semi-early-access indie game developed almost entirely by the author Casper Croes and published by himself via Steam.

Set in France (I think?) during what seems to be an alternate version of the early 20th century, you play as the aforementioned Alisa, a royal agent at the orders of the emperor who's on a quest to detain a wanted criminal who stole important blue prints from their majesty. After her arrival at a rural village, she chases the thief through the woods and, unluckily, ends up kidnapped and trapped inside an old Victorian mansion filled with mechanical dolls and the lunatics who created them and are now trying to kill her. Her objective is to escape the mansion while retrieving the blue prints and destroying that hell hole in the process.

Alisa absolutely nails the aesthetic of old 3D horror games from the PS1, plenty of times almost making you believe like you really are playing a game from that exact era; actually... it might do it a little TOO well. The classic characteristics of the genre are present: item management, big map with numerous corridors, puzzle solving, boss fights, save rooms, just to name a few. However, the often remembered flaws of these games are also carried over to Alisa like annoying enemies, lots of back-tracking and maze-like map design that can often cause "not-knowing-where-to-go" syndrome (I suggest having a guide at hand). The game also uses a currency system which lets you buy ammo, healing items, weapons and costumes using the toothwheels that you get by killing enemies (ala Parasite Eve II [パラサイト・イヴ2]). However, as it is in classic Survival Horrors, the enemies don't respawn, which means that there is a limit to your currency so you'll have to think well on what you want to spend your toothwheels in.

One of Alisa's most remarkable aspects is the graphic design. The characters and monsters are all well thought out, ranging from the bizarre to the comedic to the grotesque. The design of the mansion is very reminiscent of that of the Spencer Mansion from RE1 with it's gothic aesthetic and mysterious architecture. The layout of the map is one of the things that could use a little improvement, since sometimes it can get quite tedious to traverse the mansion's long hallways just to complete a simple puzzle or get an item. It does help to accentuate the surreal, dream-like vibe of the Mansion given it's astronomical, near impossible dimensions and really help you into the game's world building.

The music, again, is very influenced by that of the og RE and works just as well. I wouldn't say it's great but there are indeed some memorable pieces like that of the Carnival scenario and the save room song. The game is fully voice acted in English and the quality of the performances is quite faithful to that of old horror games: bad. Granted, it is not RE1 levels of bad (whether that's a pro or a con, it's up to you) but it can be quite hilarious at times. Alisa's voice is done by Arisa Y., who's name I suspect was the inspiration for the title and therefore the protagonists'. As it is tradition in this sort of games, she's the worst actor by a big margin. I think she's Japanese since she is the one who translated all text for the Japanese option so, on top of her doing a silly stereotypical French accent, her own Japanese accent also slips thru while talking, so we end up with a fusion of English speaking French-Japanese accent that is very unintentionally amusing to hear.

Now unto what I think is the game's worst part: the glitches. It's quite a buggy game ranging from minor bugs like having to exit and re-enter a room to use certain key items, things that don't render correctly and broken AI; to outright game breaking glitches. Get a load of this: there's a puzzle that involves inserting the hands on an old Grandfather Clock and you gotta be real careful, because if you press the button to get out of the puzzle screen without having already solved the puzzle beforehand, the game will break and not let you enter the puzzle screen again, forcing to load your last save and do it all over again. Another that I encountered was that, after buying the Leather Armor in the game's store (fairly expensive btw), the game didn't let me equip it, as if I had never bought it in the first place but it's weird because I seem to have been the only player who has encountered this bug as of now, since I've seen videos of people actually equipping the armor with no problems. It is also a game that, although it can be played to completion, it is still not entirely finished. There are traces of what seem to be incomplete content like rooms that can't be entered, an enemy that is foreshadowed but never appears and late game items that can barely be used. The aiming controls are also jank as hell since they're completely manual and there's a total lack of and auto-aim option; it also doesn't help that the enemies can get quite tanky and start hitting like trucks as the game progresses, specially the bosses. I warn you: you'll become well acquainted with the Game Over screen. Apparently bug fixes, better controls, additional content and even a NG+ feature will be added with upcoming updates and Casper seems to be a responsible guy who pays a good amount of attention to the players comments which is a fantastic thing.

Alisa is a memorable experience and contains a lot of promise, shaping up to be great game when fully finished. As it stands, it can still be played and enjoyed from beginning to end by anybody who's into the old style of Survival Horror games that shaped the path for what horror gaming would become in later generations and that, sadly, has kind of deviated from in the past couple of years. A nice hit of nostalgia that manages to feel fresh in it's retro style. But, of course, remember that it will be a buggy experience so be prepared for some frustration.

Rough around the edges but I loved it.


8/10