Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - Aujourd'hui 03:42

Clockwork Ambrosia – Review

The first thing we probably should tell you about Clockwork Ambrosia, before we even get to the game itself, is that it was developed over a period of 14 years. Mind you, that’s not because the game’s production cycle was particularly difficult, but because this was an off-time passion project from a dedicated four-man indie development team. Is the final result worthy of that lengthy period of time? Story Our story begins with protagonist Iris’ vacation being cut short because of a mechanical dragon. The clockwork monster attacks her airship, causing her to crash. Iris finds herself stranded on the mysterious island of Aspida. The island appears abandoned, except for a voice over an intercom system that is surprised about Iris being out there. The island has been overtaken by hostile robot creatures and other strange life forms. Our heroïne’s goals quickly become clear: survive, repair her airship, and escape the island. Oh, and maybe uncover what happened and restore Aspida to its former glory. Clockwork Ambrosia’s overarching story may not be the most original or even the deepest, but this more than made up for by the quirky cast of NPCs that Iris encounters on her journey. Most of the worldbuilding is done by environmental storytelling rather than the game spelling things out for you, but this works well enough here. Graphics Given Clockwork Ambrosia’s lengthy development, the choice for GBA-style pixel art was the right one, as there is a timeless quality to how the game looks. The island of Aspida hosts a wide variety of environments, including industrial ruïns, forests, and even underwater sections. A lot of care has gone into making these locations feel alive, with tiny details like rustling leaves and careful lighting standing out. Then there’s Clockwork Ambrosia’s monster designs. The game features a veritable menagerie of fantasy creatures, often with a steampunk twist, like clockwork dragons or robot centaurs. The sprite work is exceptional, and easily one of the game’s highlights. That said, performance isn’t always up to snuff, which is a little odd given that the game shouldn’t be particularly demanding. Load times can be on the long side, and you’ll occasionally just sit there and stare at a black screen for 20 seconds. Frame drops also happen, particularly in the game’s underwater sections. Sound Accompanying Clockwork Ambrosia’s GBA-style visuals is, unsurprisingly, a GBA-style soundscape. That inevitably means that music takes center stage, so it’s a good thing that the game’s soundtrack is great. Tracks range from dreamy and mysterious as you explore the island to energetic combat music, especially during boss encounters. Great care has also gone into the game’s sound effects, particularly when it comes to weapon feedback. This ties into the gameplay, as Clockwork Ambrosia heavily revolves around customizing Iris’ weapons, and the sound effects contribute to making each of your builds feel distinct. With voice acting absent, it’s up to the game’s ambience to tie everything together. The devil is in the details again here, with environmental effects like the sounds of breaking glass and water splashes contributing to Aspida feeling like a living place. Gameplay We don’t want to be too reductive when explaining Clockwork Ambrosia’s gameplay, but the best way to describe it is that the game combines Mega Man’s run-and-gun combat with Metroidvania-style exploration. As you make your way across the large, interconnected world of Aspida, you unlock new abilities and revisit earlier areas to uncover secrets, fight bosses, solve environmental puzzles, and gradually expand your movement options with upgrades like dashes, wall jumps, climbing tools, and swimming gear. The game’s standout mechanic is its extensive weapon customisation system. Iris eventually acquires four core weapons: an energy gun, a missile launcher, a grenade launcher, and a pair of revolvers. Each of these weapons can then be heavily altered using a ridiculously large number of mods and components. These radically change weapon behavior. To name just a few things that you can alter: projectile spread, firing angles, reload speed, secondary projectiles, projectile splitting, and ricochets. Much of Clockwork Ambrosia’s fun comes from experimenting with different bizarre and even deliberately overpowered combinations. That inevitably brings us to Clockwork Ambrosia’s combat, of course. In true run-and-gun fashion, this aspect is highly dependent on movement, pattern recognition and loadout selection. Both generic grunts and bosses require different strategies and weapon types, with some enemies having specific armour or movement patterns that encourage switching to a different weapon type. The boss fights in particular are a highlight here. They’re challenging and mechanically engaging, but never feel unfair. The pacing of boss battles evolves as you progress through Clockwork Ambrosia, matching the upgrades and weapon mods that you accumulate, eventually evolving into fast-paced, chaotic action. The flipside of this is that Clockwork Ambrosia’s early-game pacing can feel rather slow. We were underwhelmed initially, as it took us a while before that standout gun tinkering mechanic came into its own. Once that clicked, the game went from a solid but unremarkable Metroidvania to a fantastic run-and-gun title that could rival the likes of Mega Man himself. That awkward pacing is perhaps Clockwork Ambrosia’s biggest gameplay issue: the game really gets rewarding if you decide to stick with it, but it requires you to actually commit and not dismiss it after just 2-3 hours of playing. Playing through the full game should take most players between 15 and 20 hours, and around 80% of that runtime is nothing short of excellent, with those first few hours being good but not particularly outstanding. For €20.49, that’s still a good quality-to-money ratio. The uneven pacing is likely a relic of the game’s development cycle, with those opening hours being the result of the development team still finding their footing before fully committing to those standout mechanics. Conclusion Even with some minor rough edges involving Clockwork Ambrosia’s performance and pacing, it’s still clear how much love and care went into this passion project. That is reason enough in and of itself to check this one out. The game may not be revolutionary in terms of core mechanics, but the end result remains one of the best run-and-gun titles we’ve played in recent years… once it actually gets going.