Clockwork Ambrosia

Phenomenal Metroidvania gem. Shining bright in a genre that is outplayed this is what Metroidvanias should be. The screen is simple and not filled with graphical vomit or overloaded aesthetics. The game flows great and requires decent skill but imo overall game is a bit too easy. With that said so glad the game doesn't have 5 different achievements for different endings. What really grabs me is the flow, atmosphere, music and exploration. It's just fun. The music in mushroom village is so chill. You get excited knowing you are moving to a boss or something because you can just tell. Yes you have to backtrack, especially people doing all achievs but the maps connect amazingly. The dev finally gives you super jump 2/3 through the game and says it this good enough? Because it doesn't give it to you early and he knows that :D. Looking forward to when I sit down and play this game for sure and I know I will love the rest. Final Edit: Just as figured. One of my favorites. It can get frustrating on where to go sometimes but that is the time to explore old ways anyway to look for mods. As long as you stay diligent you could figure it out. You also have to be able to jump to a ceiling, use your upgraded +3 jumps equipment and a dash to get up in passageways that are otherwise inaccessible. Feel free to use my materials guide/locations and shop/equipment/mods list. It will help those going for 100%.

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.

👍 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

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.

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.

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

I haven't beaten the game yet, but I'm absolutely loving it so far. Without a doubt the most fun I've had with a Metroidvania game to date. Also perfect for the Steam Deck!

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.

Well worth the money, especially on sale. The eventual teleportation is a bit too few and far between, but wasn't too terribly bad. I never finished the game, but I enjoyed the crap outta my 14 hours. Lots and lots of exploration! Grade: B+