Finally got around to playing Clover no Kuni no Alice, and now I'm going to overthink it...
First, yes, I am still doing summaries for the games. I play them way too much not to do something productive. And this makes me a sad, sad person. XDD
Warning: TL;DR rant that nobody cares about.
I've been playing through several routes in Clover no Kuni no Alice and it really surprised me how different the tone was from Joker. Clover is about Alice's internal angst and guilt about her sister. By contrast JnKnA had something close to a villain in Joker and less angst. Yes, she thinks about her sister in Joker but in this case it was brought on by the manipulations of the Joker, not by herself. The conflict felt more real, dangerous and potent than Alice being emo in the woods about her sister for fifty different cut scenes. It helps that Joker is an interesting (and sexy, lawl) character in his own right.
The source of conflict in Clover was the doors and whether Alice would or would not go through them. I honestly got to the point where I didn't care. Maybe I was simply irritated that the scenes with her sister and the doors was taking away from hawt bishie scenes (because I'm shallow and also the game's skip function is gimp) or perhaps I was upset because for a great portion of Clover Alice refuses to partake in a fantasy I would gladly throw myself into. In that way I guess Alice CAN be an irritating protagonist because it feels like every step of the way she resists what is essentially wish-fulfillment (a world filled with beautiful men who want and love you no matter what) and instead longs for her more mundane life with her boring sister.
Yes, Lorina is boring. For all of the games she's a vague phantom only seen in Alice's memories. The only time I really had any interest in Lorina's character was when it was implied in JnKnA (in Gray's or Elliot's route) that she was more involved in Wonderland than anyone could guess. Now THAT is something that would be interesting to see Quinrose dig into for future games. It would also explain the prominence Lorina seems to play in Alice's thoughts in memories. Why is everything about Lorina, anyway? Even her ex-boyfriend doesn't play as much a role into the thoughts of her old world.
I actually recall Alice even angsting about her cat in Clover, which was just "Wow. Is there anything you don't overthink and get unhappy over?". Also, I got the bad ending where she goes back home on my first playthrough. I was screaming at my computer screen for her to get her skank ass back into Wonderland when the credits rolled. Damn you Quinrose. D:
Every route in Clover has some sort of internal conflict on top of her insecurity and guilt about staying in Wonderland. You would think the Twins would escape from this but, nope, first half of their route consists of her angsting over how she's attracted to their adult forms even though they're really children and she usually thinks of them as brothers. Mentioning this once or twice would be fine, but what annoyed me was that she couldn't seem to figure out her own feelings and how she certainly did NOT see them as brothers anymore even after this fact had been practically beaten over her head. Blood's route was worst. Even AFTER she and Blood have clearly had sex and he keeps talking about wanting to commit to her she still continues to insist that they're not even lovers and that he doesn't love her. Then WHY do you keep having sex with him if you know (think) he doesn't love you? -.-It's this indecisiveness and blindness that got on my nerves. Boris's had some of this, too. I remember Alice acting really petty at some points.
I don't remember this much freaking angst being in Heart. Heart was darker and sexier than the other games, but not angsty. I don't know what the sudden shift in tone was about. Neither Clover nor Joker captured Heart's dark quality, and Joker was probably the lightest of all the Alice games despite having an actual, honest-to-god villain.
Sometimes I think the art shift from Heart to Clover and Joker solidifies the tone-change in my eyes. The coloring in Heart was dark and somewhat foreboding (even if the artwork was flawed). The coloring for Clover and especially Joker is super shiny and almost cartoony. On an unrelated note, kiss scenes in the later games are hilariously flat as a result...
Also, no Julius and Gowland...D: Of course, if they were in it Quinrose would have just made Gowland a no-love zone like they did with Joker (he's too mature for Alice's crap in Clover, anyway) and made Julius into some sad, sad emo boy.
I like Clover, but I prefer Joker. I might be biased since Joker was the first introduction I had to Alice ever. The overall tone of Heart was good, but the game is an early effort by Quinrose and therefore marked with flaws. Still, I like the sexiness and darkness that Heart managed to convey without needless angst and dwama.
PS I hope that they don't lighten Joker up in future games if they choose to make him a luff interest. Seriously. They already lightened Vivaldi, Blood and Peter up. This game needs some actual villains.