Developer: N.H. System Publisher: Namco Release: 12/11/90 Genre: Action
When you think about it Alice in Wonderland makes for the perfect backdrop for video games. With its fairy plot of Alice visiting ever stranger worlds it has the potential for infinite settings. You can go lighthearted a la the Disney adaptation or full on dark like American McGee’s Alice and they both make sense. Hell you can go full on weird like Chameleon Twist and no one will bat an eye. Honestly I am surprised there are not more games based on the famous book. The PC Engine received two adventures based on Lewis Carroll’s famous book and Märchen Maze is the better of the two.
In the arcade Märchen Maze was an isometric action platformer that loosely followed the story of the famous book. Märchen Maze was the first Japanese developed game based on Alice in Wonderland an all-star lineup of talent from multiple fields contributed to its design. While the perspective was annoying it made the game unique and a lot of fun. For its home debut the game is now a top down action game. It is almost a complete remake gameplay wise and just as good in my opinion. Although it loses some of the magic of the arcade game it is a less frustrating experience as well.
As Alice you have a bubble blower as your means of attack. You can either fire bubbles in rapid succession or charge up to create one massive bubble that bowls over enemies in its path. Power-ups are few but have a variety of effects. Rabbits surround you and grant temporary invincibility, shoes make you jump significantly higher, and you can even get a three-way shot. I only wish items were more plentiful; you have to go out of your way to find them and it is not like they ruin the balance of the game. But overall the game is still great as is.
Death in Märchen Maze is handled differently than in most titles. You do not have a life bar. Taking hits flings Alice backwards and for the home port that distance has been increased. The only way to die is to fall off the edge of a platform. Jumping can mitigate this somewhat but it is still dicey whenever you so much as slightly touch anything. You think Castlevania is bad with the knock back? You ain’t seen nothing. But as annoying as it may sound that is part of the game’s challenge.
Even though the view has shifted the level design is largely the same. The levels are densely populated with enemies which makes things tense. Due to how far you fly when hit it is best to deal with any enemies present before moving on. But you must knock them off the platforms to kill them permanently and they are aggressive. It is almost like a multiplayer match against human opponents in that way. The game uses its source material for untold variety considering its length. Every stage has unique enemies to go along with its theme so the action portion stays fresh. The platforming is…serviceable. It is good enough to present a decent challenge but not accomplished enough that it is something you look forward to. Luckily the game is better than the sum of its parts.
Märchen Maze has a sharp difficulty curve and is harder than expected. Even though there are less enemies than in the arcade they are accurate with their shots. The later levels pack more enemies than they should and the game slows to a crawl, leading to cheap hits. The knockback is comically bad during boss battles, to the point a single hit might kill you. The bosses are damage sponges and these fights become nail biting as you know it could be over in a minute. Lifesaving balloons are not common and there are no checkpoints in the levels. You get infinite continues at least. Despite the challenge and occasional frustration I never found the game unfair. It is perfectly manageable, you simply have to work for it a bit.
With its fantastic art direction Märchen Maze looks fantastic, both in the arcade and at home. The coin op version almost looks like a precursor to Viewpoint on the Neo Geo minus the polygonal enemies. Every world is bursting with creativity, from the enemies to the bosses as they use the premise well. The PC Engine keeps a lot of what made the game stand out in the arcade but the change in perspective does hurt the presentation. The game is completely flat; the parallax scrolling of the arcade made the game that much more stunning. It is not like the system is incapable of it but it still looks amazing without it. Aside from that the game only suffers technically when there are tons of enemies on screen. But these situations are rare.
In Closing
Even without the unique viewpoint Märchen Maze is a great game. Well-paced, imaginative, and challenging Märchen Maze ticks all the right boxes and provides some much needed top down action on the system. It also has a bit of a unique feel from its arcade big brother despite being the same game. There is no language barrier so you have no reason not to pick this one up.
