At its heart, Alice: Madness Returns combines the weapon-based fighting of third-person action games with more conventional platforming. Combat is fluid – it animates smoothly, it's responsive, and Alice flows from one move to the next without stutter or stop. Dodging is fast, adding to the feel of Alice as a lethal character. The variety of weapons encourages an organic construction of combos, based on each item's strengths. Knocking over an armored enemy with the Hobby Horse, slashing it open with the Vorpal Blade, and then finishing them with the Pepper Grinder is a seamless barrage. Alice's acrobatics are also a lot of fun to apply. Navigating Wonderland via jumps (and double-jumps and triple-jumps), floating, and shrinking makes things more interesting, and viewing secret messages using Shrink Sense to find hidden paths and items adds to Alice: Madness Returns' exploratory experience. However, through questionable level design, graphical inconsistency, and repetitive gameplay, I was pulled out of the experience more than I would have liked. Alice: Madness Returns is a memorable peek through a flawed looking glass.