Claire a la Mode

A wonderful little game, with all of Colorgrave's usual charm in the art and music department. It was fun to see the characters from Curse Crackers again, see where their story has gone since then. The gameplay is quite tight, though not as technical as Curse Crackers, and not nearly as long with only 15 levels and some extra challenges, but with plenty of dialouge and secrets to find!

A crazy fast paced arcade platformer with a ton of unlockables and replayabliity!

Fantastic soundtrack and cute characters. Platforming is smooth and snappy. The games is kind of a sequel to their other games, especially curse crackers. So some part of the lore might be a bit confusing and hard to resonate with if you're new to the series. But I think fun can still be had if you're just vibing. And if you want to dive deep into the lore, just buy and play curse crackers and their other games as well. They're all good games. I've played all the major titles from colorgrave. I think they are an underrated hidden gem. The devs are apparently very talented. They just lack recognition.

Honestly, one of their weaker games in their lineup. It's kind of a glorified setup game for their next mainline curse crackers game (the dawnthief one). Game is really short, really easy, and generally not as interesting as it could be. The character interactions are fantastic, and the lore/world building is awesome as always, but it doesn't carry the [b]two hour[/b] experience that far. I'm excited for their next game, and I'm glad they experimented with this one, but I would've been reaaaaal mad if I didn't buy this one on sale.

Very fun arcade-style platformer with great art and music. Runs well on Steam Deck, I'd say it's best played on handhelds in general.

Really enjoying the game. The story picks up where Curse Crackers leaves off, and I'd highly recommended playing it first, as it makes this game's plot much more understandable and enjoyable, and this entry contains spoilers for the previous game. Claire a la Mode is fast-paced (sometimes a tad too fast, as I've managed to throw myself into countless pitfalls when springing through stages), controls are responsive and snappy, and you can swap between a variety of characters as you go through the various stages. Each character has a unique special action that only they can perform, and these will come in handy as you replay stages to find and gather collectables, secrets, and more. The game is very forward with its arcade-style inspirations, and as such is likely to be a shorter ordeal. However, you're meant to replay stages with a variety of characters to find secrets that will rely on their unique abilities, collect medals for various completion conditions (coin collection, time, and no deaths), and seeing how well you can crank your stage scores. If you're the sort that likes going back for completionist runs or speed running, you'll probably get a lot of value out of the price. Even if you're not the sort to go and redo all stages to 100% the game, you're still likely to have a good time, especially if you already enjoyed Colorgrave's other games. Music in Colorgrave's games as always been something I've considered one of their greatest strengths, and this game continues to deliver. Be it driving melodies, leitmotifs tying the OST together, or arcade remixes of stage/zone callbacks from Curse Crackers, I've yet to find a track that I haven't enjoyed, and figured I'd need to give the music a quick shout out. tl;dr I like it, I recommend it, and you should give it a try if you like Colorgrave's body of work and/or arcade games.

This game takes me back to being snuggled on the couch, playing on my game boy color. The art and music are irresistably charming. The game isn't oppressively hard, which is something I appreciate. I had a fun time enjoying the banter between characters, and the challenge was tuned well to my (admittedly lack of) skill.

Claire a la Mode is frenetic, colorful, and content-filled enough to give players a good time, even with some flaws. The game may look like an "arcade platformer" in marketing, and it certainly does play like one, but it's more about a story-driven campaign and more standard platformer progression than racking up a huge score. I'm not even sure what the score is for, although the game certainly makes it feel good to make it go up. It took me a while to adjust to how the game expected me to play, but once you reach a rhythm, you find yourself blazing a trail of destruction and score counters through these levels. It can be quite satisfying to do. That being said, the levels can feel a bit mindless half of the time as a result, especially if you're working with a particularly overpowered character. Still, they throw in enough twists and mechanics here and there to keep you on your toes and add variety. And while you can pretty easily blaze through the campaign, there is a lot of replayability with different playable characters and collectibles. While I've beaten the game, I still have some post-game content to dig into. The only other thing I think is important to note is the story. While it seems simple on the surface, the plot digs deep into Colorgrave's expansive lore. I've always found their lore relatively confusing/poorly explained in the past, and while not as bad as in other games they have, I think that continues a bit here. The relatively straightforward story can feel bogged down a bit by a lot of references to a larger, more complex world that might leave newcomers confused. I understood about half of these references as someone who has played previous Colorgrave games (especially Curse Crackers), but for some it might feel like tuning into a random late season episode of a show you've never watched before. Still, your level of understanding of the plot shouldn't effect the more energetic fun you can get from the gameplay.