Clockwork Ambrosia PC review — Rusty hands

Clockwork Ambrosia is the kind of Metroidvania that is just lousy with stuff to find. It’s hard to think of another game that constantly rewards the player with as much important loot as this one does, plus it never really holds your hand. The genre is at its best when the player is given not only the freedom to explore, but the reasons for doing so feel worthwhile, which this game absolutely nails. It’s a shame that it’s so incredibly unpolished and lacking in quality of life elements, though, which makes it a far harder sell than it should be.

After a decent-sized prologue that establishes what little plot there is alongside the basic workings of the game, Clockwork Ambrosia sets you loose on the map to find your own way. At no point are you given an objective marker of any sort; you’re simply tasked with finding two NPCs wherever they may be. I very much appreciated this, as most Metroidvanias don’t have the guts to do it nowadays. You can explore various areas in whichever order you want, plus there are many abilities to find along the way that open up new opportunities.

In terms of gameplay, the game is akin to Mega Man X. All of your weapons are ranged, of which there are four. You’ve got a pulse gun, missile launcher, revolvers, and a grenade launcher, although I found the first two far, far more useful than the latter two, which I hardly ever used. The pulse gun is very clearly modelled after Mega Man X’s buster, as you only get a few shots at once and can charge up more powerful ones. The missile launcher is also very useful, but the revolver does so little damage even with upgrades, and the grenade launcher’s damage output seemed quite lower than the missile’s as well, leading me to mostly ignore both of these.

One of the coolest aspects here is that you’re constantly finding new mods for each of the four weapons. These can be combined in some really awesome ways, such as how you’ll be able to massively boost the pulse gun’s charge shot. I was able to make this so powerful that I pretty much solely used it, which made me feel even more like Mega Man X. You’ll also find expansions that grant you more mod slots. For the pulse gun, you can speed up its charging, power up its shots, and fire more shots per blast. Similarly, the missile launcher grants you additional stages for stronger shots, and more.

This system is very well considered, and it’s engaging to consistently find new mods and gear as you explore. Gear itself has many special properties that can change up your playstyle. All of this makes exploration feel legitimately rewarding. The gameplay itself is also no slouch, as the main character, Iris (who sadly has absolutely no personality,) controls very well. Dashing around and blasting foes feels as it should. From the action to the gameplay loop, Clockwork Ambrosia certainly nails what it was going for. If only the rest of the game rose up to the same standard.

The level design just feels kind of awkward and cobbled together, for one. It’s not unmemorable by any means, but it just seems more than a little weird, especially considering how it likes to use perspective to make it seem like you’re viewing the areas from an angle. There are seemingly many little areas that serve no purpose, or that needlessly connect to lots of empty space that can make reading the map more difficult than need be. A Metroidvania’s map is its lifeblood, and the one here simply does not cut it at all. You can neither zoom in nor out, and it’s zoomed in quite close by default, making it legitimately tough to plan out routes and see where you haven’t been.

Rooms are represented by squares, and it can sometimes be tough to tell what’s what. It’s shocking to me that no one thought actually being able to read the map well was a necessary feature here. You can pin a few different icons, but I was unable to change these on controller, as an update broke the feature that let me cycle between them. It still worked on keyboard, but it’s baffling that this remains (although it’ll hopefully be fixed soon.) There’s a pretty surprising lack of polish, similar to these problems, across the board as well.

Entering an area will often have the game show you the wrong section, completely devoid of your player character. Sometimes, changing to a different screen will see Iris get completely stuck in the geometry, too. On occasion, having the game running for too long can introduce framerate issues, which I wasn’t expecting from a pixel game. I had to shut the program down and restart it during a boss battle where the framerate dropped to the single digits, making it basically impossible for me to win. Additionally, one of my main pulse gun mods would unequip itself every time I loaded a game or died. The game is simply packed with bugs and issues.

Difficulty-wise, I think the game mostly feels nicely balanced, although some enemies here and there seem like they’re too tanky. The boss battles are mostly pretty good, too, but it can be easy to trivialize some if you mod your weapons correctly. The final boss, however, is one of the worst I’ve seen in recent memory. The first two-thirds of the fight are easy and kind of dull, but the game goes berserk in the final phase, throwing a ridiculous difficulty spike at you that’s incredibly difficult to survive, as it’s just far too much at once in a completely uncalled-for way.

Even though progression here is so free-form, I surprisingly didn’t get stuck much. The map made it far harder to see where to go (and there was even a section of the map that completely failed to fill in, which threw me for quite some time,) but I still mostly found progression to be smooth. That is, save for a single part where the way forward was practically hidden in an obtuse way that I think most people are going to struggle to figure out. I’m surprised that there was only a single instance of this, given how unpolished the game can be.

Despite the laundry list of flaws, I do quite like Clockwork Ambrosia. It’s got a large, intricate world with tons of great exploration and lots of things to find and upgrade. It’s a large game too, taking 15-20 hours to get through. However, its staggering lack of polish and the degree to which various oversights interfere with player enjoyment can’t be ignored. If you’re a Metroidvania fan, you should absolutely consider this game, but I’d definitely wait for patches to iron out some of its many issues, otherwise the frustration just might not be worth it for you.

For another adventure:

Dracamar PC review — Might as well jump |