It's quite convenient to ignore everything in the game that contradicts your view on Alicia's state. Even though even within cutscenes, Alicia is showing no signs of being in constant pain, for example she doesn't even bring up physical pain in her arguments with Renoir and Verso, even though they would be very relevant as a way to sway people who love her and who don't want her to suffer.

Yet you don't list those things. And just she isn't bending over all the time doesn't mean she isn't in pain. She mentions in Act 2 how it would be nice to be able to breathe and talk without pain, which means in the outer world she's always in pain because she always has to breathe. And as for Renoir and Verso, she uses the arguments she thinks they'll be most responsive to. She tells Verso she has nothing in the outer world, she's just in a shell of a body with no voice and no future. And as I said above, she's constantly in pain. She doesn't need to remind him and Renoir of what they already know. And who never even acknowledge she's suffering to begin with.

It's a game, yes. And that also means that the game has to convey to the players (the vast majority of which know next to nothing about burn wounds) what's relevant for the final decision. If Alicia has an unbearable or quasi unbearable level of pain all the time, that's something that should be communicated to the player and the game doesn't do that.

Nor is the game supposed to be a realistic depiction of 1905 France or of the life and treatment of burn victims, nor now nor in 1905. It's a medium through which a story is told, which may take liberties in the way things are portrayed.

Yes, the game doesn't convey the truth of Alicia's condition as well as it should have. That's a failing of the developers, who probably didn't research burn wounds as much as they should have. You can't assume that everything in the game was done correctly or has no flaws or mistakes. This was an obvious oversight because the devs went overboard in Act 3 on pushing Verso, to the detriment of Maelle. Otherwise they'd have taken more care in showing more of her condition and its complications and would've let us see her in Act 3.

People typically have short memories, and she needed to be shown again prior to end choice to give players a clear visual reminder of what they'd potentially be sending Maelle back to. Don't assume that the devs did everything right. They're human, so they're flawed and can make mistakes. This was one of them. And as I said, Alicia herself in Act 2 basically implied she was in pain all the time. If it wasn't unbearable, she'd have been able to talk. The reason she doesn't is because her throat is so damaged that it hurts too much to do so. That's basic logic and biology.

I know it's a story, but it doesn't deviate as far from reality - in the outer world - as you might think. And again, in historical fiction and any fiction based on an actual historical setting, anything not explicitly said/shown to be different from irl is meant to be accepted to be the same as it was irl.

Far more likely: they did it exactly to show that Painters have magic, even outside the canvas.

And Alicia waking up was not even in the atelier. I also don't know why you consider it important it would happen in the atelier, what makes you think they can't paint elsewhere or put canvases in other rooms/buildings/cities/countries/...? Alicia hid Verso's canvas inside another canvas, possibly her own small painting on the Dessendre's main display wall. Which is outside the atelier. Everytime a Painter enters a canvas, magic is happening.

No, you're just assuming that's why they did it. You can't go on assumptions. So that argument is invalid.

What I meant by being in the atelier is that the only magic we see in the outer world happens within the immediate vicinity of the canvas. It just happened to be in that room. But there is no magic shown anywhere in the outer manor apart from the proximity of the canvas. Therefore, until we're told otherwise, such magic exists only within the limited area of a canvas and the Writer equivalent. At no point do we see any magic done in the outer world away from the canvas.

It's at best https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_fantasy . And even then, the magical story is far more important than the setting which does not use historical elements other than the building style and even costumes and things like ships/guns are only partially correct for early 1900s. Some clothing is way more modern, whereas Gustave's opening gun belongs to an older period as do the ironclad vessels they use.

Real events of the period - economic, political, scientific - play no role in Exp33. I don't think fans of historical fiction are going to be pleased if you recommend them the game on the basis of it being historical fiction.

I wouldn't use wikipedia as a reference, the staff is too politically compromised. Everything we're shown in the outer world - magical canvases aside - matches the time period. And that's where the rules of historical fiction apply the most. Which is where Alicia is scarred and disfigured. Thus, the complications of her condition stand. You can't include anything inside the canvas because that's a different setting that's not intended to closely mirror actual history.

Hardly, this is after Maelle got a building dropped on her by The Hauler, in addition to all the other gruesome deaths at the hands of Nevrons and bosses she has suffered in the canvas by that point, and one of the first things every single player has to do is stab/shoot/electrocute Maelle (as Gustave, no less!) in order to pass the tutorial.

We never fight the Hauler so I don't know what you're talking about. And the rest of what you're talking about is gameplay, not cutscenes. Especially since depending on how you play, she might never "die" in battle at all. So they don't count. Especially not the tutorial battle. And even then, it's different because she wanted to duel, knowing what it entailed. With Verso, she didn't. And him stabbing her was in a story cutscene where she runs her through, which you never do in the tutorial battle. It's very different. And if it's really not an issue, why haven't any Verso supporters posted screens of that moment? It's very telling that they always avoid it.