The story is set in England at the beginning of the 20th century, during the most active period of the suffragette movement for women's rights. We follow young Lana Benton who lives in Bunny Hall, an orphanage for girls. She tries to solve the mystery of the disappearance of her best friend Carole Simmons, while uncovering the dark secrets that Bunny Hall hides. She is assisted by the mysterious Mr. Baesie, who explains to her that she is actually a princess from the mystical kingdom of Corolla, and that a monstrous creature with a top hat, Mr. Kyn, and his assistant, the sinister owl Velenia, want to take over the kingdom. However, not everything is as it seems...
The game is divided into 10 chapters in which you will chase a rabbit and fall into a hole (I feel like I've seen that somewhere before), explore Bunny Hall in the past and present, transform into a rabbit, and enter and exit a dark dimension where terrifying creatures lurk that want to devour you.
The recipe is simple; each chapter is actually several connected rooms, and to progress, you must complete various tasks, such as classic puzzles with switches, planting a plant in the past to be able to climb it in the present, mixing potions, and so on. It will be clearly stated what you need to do; you just have to figure out how. For example, in some places, you will need to transform into a rabbit to jump high enough, and in others, you will have to throw a crate on Mr. Baesie's head to flatten it, allowing him to squeeze through narrow passages and open doors for you.
Right from the start, it is evident that the game is inspired by classic Disney cartoons. The beautiful, incredibly detailed hand-drawn environment simply craves for more interaction. Unfortunately, aside from certain spots where you can hide from monsters, it remains just a backdrop.
Although there is a run button, the characters move quite slowly, especially on stairs. When it comes to stairs, you need to know exactly where to press up or down to climb down (not like in the early installments of the Castlevania series), so you will often go the wrong way while fleeing from monsters. If they notice you, you can only hide from or run away from the monsters. I recommend running away, as they may sometimes find you even if you hide, and then comes - "Game over, man! Game over!"
As I already mentioned, the game is beautiful. The team from Little Sewing Machine played on the nostalgia card and they succeeded completely. Some small details will remind you of the cartoons you grew up with, while the dark dimension is brought to perfection. The animations of the cutscenes are excellent and you constantly feel like you are watching an interactive cartoon film that came from the pen of the great Walt Disney. However, if you play on a large screen (and it would be a shame not to play), you will sometimes notice pixels in the fog and smoke, which is really a shame because the rest is done flawlessly.
The sound, on the other hand, has its good and bad sides. The voice acting does not quite match the animation of the mouths, which can be a bit irritating, but if you get past that, you don't hear tension, excitement, sadness, and happiness in the voices. It's not exactly monotonous, but it's not far from it. Considering how much time they invested in the graphics, I feel they could have done this a bit better. However, the background music is of high quality, providing that creepy feeling while you explore Bunny Hall, and then suddenly picks up the pace and one of the monstrous creatures ready to devour you appears out of nowhere.
The game is not too difficult, the puzzles are quite intuitive, and you will easily progress and uncover more and more dark secrets. If you die, the game will take you back a bit, so you can just continue where you left off.
In this dark, violent, yet beautifully told fairy tale, you will experience pain, sadness, loneliness alongside Lana and follow her on an emotional journey of self-discovery. Even if you are not a fan of such games, I still recommend you try it out, because Carole Simmons deserves it.
Game copy provided for review purposes by publisher Maximum Entertainment
