Clockwork Ambrosia

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.

Just beat the game. It's like if Megaman and Metroid had a baby and I'm not really mad at that. I will say that once they fix the map I would give it a higher score. That's the main issue I have is just the map is rudimentary as Hell, but it's still a fun game. Bosses weren't overly difficult. I will say your movement options are LIMITED when you first start the game, but by the end you could do all sorts of stuff movement wise

Doesn't respect your time.

Extremely solid and beautiful metroidvania with plenty of classic roots. It may not have every quality of life feature of most typical recent games but it has fantastic map and puzzle design, responsive controls and movement, and really fun and chaotic combat. The art is also phenomenal.

I'm around the Mt. Yore area after six hours, but I think at this point I'm going to check out. The game has visual polish but its map design and navigation in general are incredibly bland with no real hazards or platforming to speak of. Movement upgrades don't flow into each other at all, making gameplay feel disjointed when you need to come to a full stop for a high jump and so on. In spite of the work that must have been put into the system, the weapon mod mechanic feels trivial, and what's worse, those mods are going to be found at a lot of dead ends which will reduce your motivation to explore. Most equipment also feels pointless, like those magnet mitts. The range to attract drops is very small and enemies violently scatter all drops on death, anyway. The map is open ended, but not really because you'll find out too deep into an area you were supposed to get a movement upgrade or a key item somewhere else. The mods don't add any depth or strategy besides adjustments to damage or shot angle, and I don't blame the developers for being hard pressed to make every one of those mods feel viable. It's way, way too many variables to keep track of. The game brings up mending but I don't think I ever learned how to do that. Gathering materials for crafting from enemy drops is never, ever, EVER a good idea. Ever. You get so much scrap (money) in this game that you figure that's how you would buy anything, but crafting never works as a in-depth gameplay mechanic because all it amounts to is juggling several dozen virtual currencies. Not to mention this game has no bestiary so I hope you remember what enemy drops what. This game seems to want to suggest it has "puzzles", but all these amount to are moving things or doing things in a certain order or switching to a certain weapon. Which, by the way, isn't set to buttons, but instead something you have to do in the menu. You can swap between two, but not between the four you're going to end up with. Is it really a puzzle if you already know what to do? It's just tedium at that point. Even worse, there's some items for navigation that are completely useless to the player and only operate as glorified key cards, like these items that allow you to remove fungus barriers and stand on mushrooms. You seriously have to go through an area to get those and then backtrack and go back to what you should have been able to stand on in the first place, it's unbelievable. Same with swimming, which would not have broken the game at all if you could have done it from the start because there's barriers in the underwater area you can only unlock with another key item, anyway. Sending those mixed messages about whether the game is "open" or "linear" will end up exhausting the player. If I could leave any notes for what I think would be better in a future game, I'm begging the developer to understand this - finding > grinding. Always. It's more intuitive and accessible and the game just flows better. Also, just let the map be open. It doesn't mean the game has to have a flat difficulty, some areas can be way harder than others. If the player gets clobbered, they'll still have peace of mind knowing they can check out any of the other areas first and come back when they feel ready. I know that this "metroidvania" subgenre is known for RPG-lite mechanics, but genres can evolve over time, it doesn't have to be that way. This subgenre was birthed from the platformer genre, so it should feel like a platformer first. Platformers are called easy by most players, but you can still only take a few hits at most and there's death pits and environmental hazards and so on. A "metroidvania" should be more difficult, but ironically is EASIER than most platformers because the player can take more hits, heal, has more movement options, and doesn't have to worry about death pits in most cases. This, to me, is why RPG-lite mechanics are mucking up the genre. Grinding, crafting, skill trees, leveling, upgrades necessary for exploration, all that stuff. I don't mean to come down so hard on this game, I wrote all this because I care. The faults I've listed aren't exclusive to it. I write this as a plea because I feel like the "metroidvania" subgenre is dangerously close to a saturation point where players are just going to start turning away from them, the genre feels "stuck". Not recommended.

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.

A criminally underexposed gem in this genre space. What an absolute delight to play. Its mechanics are nailed down tight, with thoroughly enjoyable combat and exploration. I especially love the unique aspect of gun customization, which allows you to kit out your weapons with all kinds of amazing alterations. Not only does it make them more effective in combat, but is used to solve some optional puzzles as well, which is a delightful touch. Wrapped up in a charming aesthetic and story, and this one's the full package. Metroidvania fans and 2D action fans alike, absolutely play this one right away!