Clockwork Ambrosia

This one is a weird recommend because it's hard to caveat it if you don't know exactly what I mean. This game definitely has some gaps in design, some of the movement feels imperfect, there's a lot of redundant tools to customize, the weapon customization system feels sort of unfinished and unclear, and it feels like there's not a lot of viability between various options, and the sense of progression, navigation, and boss offerings are kind of limited. And then you go "and you're recommending it?" and that's my point. It's got that thing about it. It's not a great game, but it's got that thing. It feels like an older game, it feels like maybe it was supposed to be on the GBA and that it should have had extra modes, and a true ending and stuff.

良質なメトロイドヴァニアで、武器をカスタマイズして自分好みに進めていけるのが楽しい。 特に操作感が素晴らしいです。直感的でクリアまで誤操作はほぼ無く、マップ移動も非常にスムーズでした。 1点だけ不満があるとすれば、The Pretzelという迷路ダンジョン。 迷いの森のようなダンジョンで、メモしてヒント通りに進めば踏破できるようになってい…ない。 僅かだがヒントの内容が間違っている。開発者も把握しきれていない迷路は実装しないでほしい。 本編クリアとは無関係であり、手に入る戦利品も大したものはないのが幸い。 このエリアが無ければ良い内容だけでレビューを残せました。

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Recomendadísimo. Clockwork Ambrosia es de esos metroidvania que te enganchan desde el principio. Explorar el mapa se siente muy gratificante porque siempre hay un camino nuevo por descubrir, un secreto escondido o una habilidad que te hace querer volver a zonas anteriores. El combate es ágil y responde muy bien, y la progresión del personaje hace que cada mejora realmente se note. Me gustó mucho esa sensación de ir desbloqueando nuevas posibilidades y ver cómo el mundo se va abriendo poco a poco. También hay que destacar la ambientación. Tiene mucha personalidad y consigue que quieras seguir avanzando solo por ver qué te espera en la siguiente zona. Se nota que hay cariño detrás del diseño del mundo. Si eres fan de los metroidvania y disfrutas explorando cada rincón hasta conseguir el 100 %, este juego merece mucho más reconocimiento. Yo entré con expectativas normales y terminé completamente enganchado. Ojalá más gente le dé una oportunidad. Video Review: https://youtu.be/_nmVQltsvOM

This is a fun metroidvania with a few flaws but a lot of heart. Yeah, fast travel is a little obtuse and there aren't many portal points, and it's easy to wander aimlessly when looking for the last few items. But the world is well-connected and you can move pretty quickly, and exploration is rewarding for the curious. Besides, when you're blasting everything that moves with a custom gun that literally obliterates the final boss in under 10 seconds, those flaws don't seem to matter. Plus the devs are pretty responsive, having already implemented map zoom, and I'm sure they're looking into other adjustments too.

A surprisingly meaty (20 hours!) Metroidvania that I enjoyed a lot! I saw the lack of direction and fast travel listed as the primary reasons for negative reviews, but I personally did not have that problem at all: I LOVED the open-endedness and non-linearity of the map, I actually enjoy it loads when a Metroidvania lets you get lost in every single area you can manage to access. However, if you take a moment to talk to NPCs, they do give pretty clear textual hints as to where you can progress. Fast travel is actually available. The "main" method takes a bit to unlock, but there are several other forms of fast travel available. Additionally, you unlock shortcuts (gates, switches, keys, et cetera) as you progress through areas that make backtracking much, much faster. Beyond that, there's a measure of detail and care put in to the pixel art and presentation that I absolutely adored, and you can concoct some truly outrageous combinations effects on your gear, and your weapons, especially as the primary reward for exploration is additional modifiers and modifier slots for your weapons, gear (which is visually represented when you equip it!) with meaningful, gameplay-impacting effects (stuff like extending the length of your dash, changing how health/armor works, hoovering up enemy drops from a large distance) and movement abilities. Additionally, combat gets rewarded with currency for shop purchases and crafting upgraded versions of equippable gear. All in all this game has easily cemented itself as one of my favourite Metroidvanias that I played in recent times, and one of my all-time favourite indie Metroidvanias period.

质量非常非常高的一款类银，侧重探索，战斗方面只要搭配好就是纯粹的爽游。全程惊喜频频，可玩性非常高。 本作的核心就是拼装枪械，有数十种组件，可搭配组合非常多，打起怪来非常爽快，完全的视觉享受。虽然牺牲了一部分战斗深度，但是在一个主探索的游戏里把战斗方面做成爽游也不失为明智之选。因为战斗太难必定会打击到探索积极性。 而其地图设计非常精彩，地图密度高，隐藏遍布，但视觉引导都很到位。而且奖励大部分都是枪械组件，立马就可以换到枪上体验不同的效果，新鲜和收获感很足。连通性很好。地图的再利用（拿到新能力回到老地方重新探索）做的非常好。这方面绝对是T0的水平。 缺点是地图庞大但是传送点不多，而且按地名展开很不直观。个人中途遇到一些BUG一直闪退，全程无法回血，有时主副武器键位自动反转。但我仍然不断坚持下来了。因为确实不想错过这场 发条仙馔 。 主线约15H，全收集约20H，全成就目前无中文攻略，个人花了30H。整体9/10分，扣在闪退以及剧情太过普通。单论游戏性我会给10分。

Very fun game the amount of modifications to your weapons is a huge amount and it allows for some crazy builds that can end late game fights that would be very challenging in their first phase. After the first few zones the map opens up massively and it feels like there's so many places to go all the time. It crashed 4 times while playing so save often, also near the end my armor started to do something funky.

Clockwork Ambrosia, is, true to it's advertisement. A metroidvania where you can apply different mods to your weapons. Overall, this game was fine. The graphics and sprite work are good, the exploration is generally good, you can do some interesting things with your weapons. There are definitely some issues, weapon balance is all over the place (tons of worthless or boring mods), the grenade launcher in particular never feels like a real weapon until you're about 80% done with the game and which case it becomes ridiculous. Bosses aren't really balanced against the absurd damage you can put out with some builds. The music is... fine. Nothing really stands out there. The game definitely straddles the line between barebones and minimal in terms of presentation. Locking fast travel about halfway? through the game with very limited spots also kind of sucks. It's no must buy, but if the game looks interesting to you it's worth a playthrough.

I was first introduced to Clockwork Ambrosia at a convention in Seattle where I played a demo and chatted with the dev. I was immediately impressed, and apparently I was the first one to beat the demo at that con. Since then, I kept a loose eye on it, and now I finally got around to playing it. I could not be happier with what I found, as this is a true gem. There's a few rough edges for the moment, but the fundamental design is rock solid. It's a game that shows the team has a lot of love of metroidvanias and games in general, as there's a deep understanding of encounter, enemy, level, and puzzle design on full display. I play on Linux with a less=than-stellar keyboard, and I ran into some bugs around movement. I can't say if it was entirely the game or my computer being a bit funny. However, there were also a couple visual glitches, and some intermittent audio issues. Nothing game breaking, nothing that caused more than, at most, redoing a room, or restarting the game. If you love metroidvanias, they are not bugs that are going to stop you. My only other major issue is that i feel the story is a bit weak. It's perfectly serviceable, and gets the job done, but I'm more in it for the gameplay. Beyond those two points, I would struggle to find more to really take issue with. Polish up a few of those rough edges, and there's something here that any fan of the genre would enjoy. I'd say it's well worth your time.