Clockwork Ambrosia

Clockwork Ambrosia is a metroidvania with one good idea: extensive weapon customization. Unfortunately, the further I got, the more its promising foundation gave way to design issues that made it difficult to recommend. The biggest issue is progression or rather the complete lack of direction. The game does a poor job of guiding the player, and I don't mean through obnoxious quest markers. Early on this isn't much of a problem. First ~2 hours are fairly linear, with a steady stream of movement upgrades, weapon mods, bosses, and new areas to discover. But once the world opens up CA starts to fall apart. The map quickly becomes cluttered with unexplored paths, locked passages, and potential routes forward, yet the game provides almost no indication of which of them actually matter. NPCs mostly deliver lore and worldbuilding, but rarely offer useful hints about where to go next. At one point, I had dozens of unexplored routes marked on my map and absolutely no idea which one would lead to meaningful progression. What makes this especially frustrating is that the game often creates the illusion of progress. I'd spend 20-30 minutes exploring a new area, solving environmental challenges, fighting enemies, and pushing deeper into the map, only to discover that the reward was another dead end with maybe a weapon mod rather than anything that advanced the game. Even when I did make progress, it rarely felt intentional. Most of the time it seemed like I advanced purely by accident, wandering through the map until I happened to stumble across the one thing that unlocked progress somewhere else. There were very few moments where I felt rewarded for remembering a previously inaccessible location or figuring something out on my own. Progression often felt more like a lucky coincidence than a satisfying "aha!" moment. The map itself doesn't help matters, and probably should be redesigned from ground up. Many great metroidvanias, subtly guide players through their structure, encouraging them to remember obstacles, revisit old locations, and make satisfying connections between different regions. Clockwork Ambrosia rarely achieves that. The world is full of paths to explore, but very little of it feels intentionally arranged to support progression. It also doesn’t help that map loops back on itself, so by going west, you will eventually reach east part of the world. Eventually, I ran into what is probably the worst feeling a game can create: I stopped playing because I was excited to see what was next and started playing because I wanted to finish what I'd already started. More than once I found myself forcing another thirty minute session in the hope of making progress, only to end up even more confused than before. I should also mention that I didn't finish the game. I've encountered I think a mandatory boss fight, but game crashed every time the fight started. Maybe there's a workaround, maybe not. Either way, after spending hours wandering through a map that already tested my patience, I wasn't willing to replay all that just to find out. Overall, I can't recommend Clockwork Ambrosia. The weapon customization system is interesting, exploration can be rewarding, and there are good ideas here. But the further I got, the more unfinished the game felt. What begins as a promising metroidvania gradually turns into an increasingly frustrating experience. By the end, it felt less like a finished release and more like an early access title that needed several more months of refinement.

I played the demo for this game and it was kinda fun, so I bought it a while after it's released. Turns out, the developer couldn't fix the gamebreaking bugs that were found and reported on the forums back in may/early june. At some point your ability to heal (mend in game terms) simply stops working. At first only certain armours are affected, but over the course of the game every single one breaks and you can't heal anymore at all. There is a work around to this - switching your armour, but what it does is completely refills your armour (the part of your HP that can be healed), which means it makes your HP infinite as you can reequip your items at any moment, even mid boss fight. But what about the game itself? It's kinda ass. Back in may people were complaining that it doesn't give you any direction of where to go and people are getting stuck. The developer acknowledged that, but still there are plenty of places in the game where you might miss a minor detail and get stuck aimlessly wandering around. Besides that, the core of the game, weapon customization, is very bland. You have 4 weapons and you can apply various modifiers to them, which sound cool. But some modifiers are simply useless, and honestly, 2 out of 4 weapons are just bad. Revolver doesn't deal nearly enough damage, and its special ammo needs to be loaded manually 1 by 1. Grenade launcher is seemingly broken as sometimes it reloads automatically and sometimes doesn't. But even if it did reload properly, it's simply worse than the rocket launcher in all use cases, because all the modifiers that it has are useless. About 2-2.5 hours in you'll have a decent setup for your first pistol and then you'll just be using that and nothing else (an occasional rocket against heavily armoured enemies, but that's it). I unlocked a dual-wielding mod slot for my revolver, but 2 hours later I still don't have any actual mods to put there so that I can dual wield it. To sum up, I wouldn't recommend this game even if it wasn't simply broken. As it stands, I hope the steam gods approve my refund request, even though the game broke after I've put 2 hours in already.

This metroidvania has one of the most open worlds I've ever seen. This is normally a good thing, but when paired with a near complete lack of warp gates in a giant world, it becomes a backtrack nightmare of epic proportions. level design is also really poor in the mt yore area. The armor bug is also really annoying.

👍 Recommandé (ENGLISH BELLOW) Clockwork Ambrosia est un excellent Metroidvania qui m'a beaucoup rappelé l'excellent Guns of Fury, même si l'approche est ici davantage orientée exploration que run & gun / action. ✔ Très beaux graphismes et animations ✔ Jouabilité précise et agréable ✔ Boucle de gameplay addictive ✔ Grande variété d'armes, d'améliorations et de capacités ✔ Univers et biomes très différents les uns des autres ✔ Checkpoints fréquents et système de retry bien pensé ✔ Une quantité impressionnante de secrets à découvrir ✔ 100% adapté STEAM DECK ! Points plus mitigés : ❌ Pas de traduction française, ce qui complique parfois la compréhension des objectifs ❌ Système de téléportation peu pratique : les zones ne sont pas clairement identifiées sur la carte et naviguer dans une simple liste devient vite pénible ❌ Scénario assez oubliable ❌ Le système de fusion d'armes est une excellente idée sur le papier, mais manque d'informations chiffrées pour comprendre réellement l'intérêt des différentes combinaisons. Sans les discussions Steam, j'aurais probablement raté certaines combinaisons particulièrement efficaces. ❌ Une aventure très longue... parfois même un peu trop grande pour son propre bien. Malgré ces défauts, j'ai terminé le jeu à presque 100 % et je ne regrette absolument pas le voyage. L'exploration est gratifiante, le contenu généreux et l'aventure reste très plaisante du début à la fin. ⭐ 7,5/10 - - - - - - - - - - - 👍 Recommended Clockwork Ambrosia is an excellent Metroidvania that reminded me a lot of the great Guns of Fury, although it's much more focused on exploration than run-and-gun/action. ✔ Beautiful graphics and animations ✔ Responsive and enjoyable controls ✔ Addictive gameplay loop ✔ Great variety of weapons, upgrades, and abilities ✔ Diverse environments and biomes ✔ Frequent checkpoints and a well-designed retry system ✔ Tons of secrets and hidden areas to discover ✔ 100% STEAM DECK COMPATIBLE ! A few downsides: ❌ No French localization, which made it difficult at times to understand exactly what the game expected me to do ❌ The fast travel system is cumbersome. Locations aren't clearly identified on the map, and navigating through a text list quickly becomes frustrating. A map-based teleport system would have been much more intuitive ❌ The story isn't particularly memorable ❌ The weapon fusion system is a great idea in theory, but the lack of clear stats or numerical data makes it hard to understand the real impact of each combination. Without checking Steam community discussions, I probably wouldn't have discovered some of the most effective builds ❌ The game is very large and very long—sometimes a little too much for its own good That said, I completed the game at nearly 100% and thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. The exploration is rewarding, the content is generous, and the overall adventure is consistently fun from start to finish. Score: 7.5/10

Its fine. The map is too big to not give any direction. Half my play time was just wandering around aimlessly. Theres also a bug where I couldnt repair my armor which lead to a lot of frustration with the last 2 bosses to the point it ruined my entire experience.

Played on 512 OG LCD Steam Deck without issues. I had a good albeit confusing time with this. It has great hidden areas/rooms that are cleverly done. I wandered a lot but it seems I for the most part was on the main line path but it felt like dumb luck. The map is serviceable but it repeats while you scroll which is dumb and confusing. Double jump took forever to get, as if this review with 17.2 hours I just got it and I’m likely done with the game. Seems there are 5 more bosses left but I’ve had enough. Bosses are cool but I’ve been around this map so much I’m just tire. Had a good time overall but many I would choose over this. Guns of fury, Before I Go, The Mobius Machine. It was worth the $20.

Un buen juego, pero con el correr de las horas se va desinflando. Es muy bonito, y la idea central tiene gancho: "haz tu propia arma"... aunque eso tiene algunos problemas. El pixelart es muy bonito, los controles suaves, la música acompaña bien, y el gameplay en general se disfruta. Por lo que vale, el entretenimiento está garantizado, es una buena experiencia. [h2]Puntos buenos[/h2] - [b]Suavidad[/b]: el control está bastante pulido, el pixelart también, y lo mismo con la música. Todo el juego transmite una sensación afable de ligera exigencia y acompañamiento al jugador. En esto es lo que mas se disfruta. - [b]Armas Custom[/b]: la principal satisfacción del juego se sostiene sobre la base de ir encontrando modificadores para las armas, así puedes ir mejorándolas mas y mas. Esta idea que en las primeras 5 o 6 horas te impulsa a querer explorar cada vez mas, llega un punto en el que pierde su efectividad. A partir de que ya tienes tus dos armas de confort mas o menos equipadas, ya te deja de interesar conseguir modificadores para armas que no usas... y el recorrido por el juego pasa a hacer mas bien cansino en vez de satisfactorio. - [b]Diseño de niveles[/b]: hay varias zonas interesantes, estilo puzzle, subiendo o bajando el agua, puertas de colores, o unos desbloqueos con trenes. No son una maravilla pero te sostienen las ganas de seguir aún en los momentos en los que ya no te interesa tanto explorar, al menos por la satisfacción de resolver el puzzle. [h2]Puntos problemáticos[/h2] - [b]Es demasiado largo[/b]: 20 o 25hs de metroidvania no está nada mal. El tema es qué haces en ese tiempo. Esto va enlazado del tema de conseguir modificadores que realmente no te interesan o que no cumplen funciones interesantes. Creo que al juego le sobra fácilmente un 30%.... es mucho, sí... pero en mi partida de 28hs, creo que a partir de la 18 o 20 ya quería que se termine. - [b]Conflictos entre periféricos[/b]: yo suelo jugar con teclado.... cuestión que si tenía enchufada mi mixbox (con placa de mando de XBOX 360), se conflictuaban ambos períféricos y ciertas funciones no se realizaban... entre ellas la curación o el cambio de armas. Aún desenchufando uno de los dos periféricos seguía teniendo algún problema evitable, pero estaban ahí... esto puede tirar atrás a mucha gente y es lógico que le pongan un negativo al juego o que soliciten su reembolso. - [b]Combates[/b]: no son muy exigentes... pero los que sí lo son, hacen que se vean problemas de diseño o en el control. Por ejemplo si tiran algún ataque por lo bajo que es necesario saltar, como le de en la punta del pie a Iris, te dan igual... la hurtbox del personaje debería estar mas alta al saltar para evitar eso. El Dragon tira unas pelotas de electricidad que impactan fuera de su FX... el final boss tiene momentos de caos absoluto... y así hay varias cosas... creo que necesita mas pulido todo el combate, pero sobretodo los retos mas exigentes. - [b]Historia[/b]: bastante insulsa... y aunque hay algunos personajes con carisma, no logró interesarme sinceramente. Además está contada a través de líneas de diálogo sin ninguna cinemática o al menos con unos arts... Cuesta empatizar un poco con los personajes de ese modo la verdad. [h2]Conclusión[/h2] Es un juego que está bien, con lo justo y nada mas. Al principio enamora y sientes que te lo vas a pasar tranquilo y bien... pero a medida que la dopamina fácil de los mods de armas se pasa, sobreviene cierto hastío y ganas de terminar... el tema es que cuando te pasa eso, no estás por el 80% si no por el 50% como mucho... Recomiendo el juego sin vas a jugarlo sin mucha expectativa y para sesiones no muy largas, porque la monotonía puede hacerte dropearlo. En todo caso es un juego que se ve que está hecho con mucho cariño e ilusión y creo que cualquier amante del género debería darle una oportunidad.

THIS IS A GAME THAT ASKS YOU TO WANDER AIMLESSLY. Know that going in. You’ll wander a lot, you’ll be rewarded in lots of small, interesting ways, but it will take patience, lots of map-marking, and lots of gear tinkering. Each time you find the next major progression point, the game will scope up exponentially. This game delivers on that thrill more than any other. I don’t think I’ve ever had my opinion of a game bounce around so wildly only to somehow land in absolutely loving it. The launch of this game was quite rocky for quite a while, but it’s in a very stable, very easy to recommend state now, and the core content of what they delivered was incredible from day one, even if I didn’t see it at the time. The best thing about this game is its gear and weapon customization. There are so many possibilities here, it’s honestly staggering. I wish there was an option to randomize all of it because I expect builds to be wildly different. You can find setups that bust combat, puzzles, or even exploration in some areas wide open. I can’t wait to replay this game in the future in this full stable state and have the experience of building from nothing, and having a better idea of where things can eventually go. This is currently in my top 10 games of the year. It ends in an incredibly satisfying way, making me more curious about the world, excited to replay, and anticipating future releases from this dev. What a treat.