Clockwork Aquario was the last arcade game ever developed by the legendary Westone Bit Entertainment in 1992, but was never finished. The game was thought to be lost in time, but Strictly Limited Games set out on the mission to dig deep into video game archeology and save Clockwork Aquario from being lost in time. Beautiful pixel art and vibrant colors with three unique characters: Huck Londo, the daring ghost hunter, Elle Moon, the brave adventuress and Gush, the warmhearted giant robot.
Released on
Genres
Reviews View More
The story behind its release is heartening, but it's a merely-fine arcade platformer. Very cute and colorful, but I personally can't get into the groove with its chunky hitbox and measly attack range. Feels off. Music's a bit annoying. Lots of cheeky Westone animation, though.
I think it's really cool that the developers were able to piece together this collection of archival work and what work had already been done and finish making the game. Unfortunately, I can absolutely see why it was canned at the time. It's fine, I guess, but some of the sequences feel like total BS (those rolling enemies when you're going uphill on the rainbow, the crab boss, the tedious nature of the final boss if you can't guess the right direction to throw the bombs to get some extra hits in), and sometimes the collision system has you getting hit when you could SWEAR you were landing on an enemy, not bumping into them from the side. If it goes on steep discount again, it might be worth picking up, but I don't think I'll be revisiting it any time soon.
Played in single player mode.
Played in single player mode.
Fun mechanics and beautiful chunky sprites held back by outdated difficulty settings and boss designs ranging from fully trivial to soul crushing. I'm glad it was discovered after all this time, but you can find similar (but more fine-tuned) experiences via the Klonoa series if you liked it but felt something missing.
I love the huge, colorful sprites this game has got but not much else about it. The game is designed with enemy placements that often seem to require foreknowledge. Either hitboxes or the game's control also felt a little odd--I would sometimes feel like I should have hit an enemy before they hit me. It feels like it's a little too easy to get hit by enemies especially considering you can only take two hits before taking a death. The stage design itself isn't anything special either, with one of the game's five stages even being an auto-scroller. I love that these developers have done the work to resurrect this game, but it's not something that's really worth my time outside of historical curiosity.
Watchmojo’s Top 10 Lost Video Games That Were Found! Why they gotta limit continues via game difficulties like that? I just wanted to finish the game with my younger brother and oh no we ran out of continues!!! It’s an okay 2D platformer, but leaves a lot to be desired, especially coming from the Wonder Boy studio. No proper ESRB physical in North America which is LAME, but I don’t think I’d want to spend a lot of cash on this game to begin…
Clockwork Aquario is an arcade platformer from Wonder Boy's Ryuichi Nishizawa. Originally developed in the early 90s, it was rejected after a poor response from location testing, and sat on the shelf until ININ Games started working with the guy to do a bunch of Wonder Boy rereleases in the 2010s. Preservationists may applaud them for finishing and releasing the game, but it's easy to see why it was originally denied release. It's not very interesting, and it's about ten minutes long.
It's still a really good-looking game, and the soundtrack is great. Bright and energetic presentation. It's the kind of thing I can imagine CVG printing three screenshots of, and me becoming obsessed with for decades afterwards. It compares pretty well against flashy 2D Saturn platformers like Super Tempo and Tryrush Deppy, in that regard. But like those games, it's not actually much fun to play.
You can bounce on enemies, pick them up, and throw them. Sustaining bounces or lining up a few enemies in a row will increase your score. It's fine. The level designs rarely do anything ambitious or interesting, and you're sent off to the end of level boss before you've had the chance to take anything in.
ININ have attempted to give it a premium release, and even produced an elaborate "Ultra Collector's Edition" which still hasn't sold through, years later, but it's hard to imagine anyone who would care that much about the title if not for its "lost game" status. I'm a little annoyed for anyone who spent more than a tenner on this.
This modern release features a gallery of concept art and notes from the developers. It's easy to sympathise with them, especially for the great work they put into the art and soundtrack, but every veteran developer is sitting on a graveyard of amazing rejected pitches and promising projects that were canned before announcement. Publishers are constantly chewing out games that don't seem commercially viable, and it's easy to see why that decision was taken with Clockwork Aquario. It's really not very special, and anyone who would convince you otherwise is naive to the nature of the industry.
It's currently on sale for about two quid on digital storefronts, and I had enough Gold Points on my eShop account to get it for free. If you're really into peppy 90s spritework and high energy synth soundtracks, you might get something out of it, but it's unlikely to make much of an impact. This was only ever going to be a game that got passing curiosity from arcade visitors until the queue for Virtua Fighter died down.
It's still a really good-looking game, and the soundtrack is great. Bright and energetic presentation. It's the kind of thing I can imagine CVG printing three screenshots of, and me becoming obsessed with for decades afterwards. It compares pretty well against flashy 2D Saturn platformers like Super Tempo and Tryrush Deppy, in that regard. But like those games, it's not actually much fun to play.
You can bounce on enemies, pick them up, and throw them. Sustaining bounces or lining up a few enemies in a row will increase your score. It's fine. The level designs rarely do anything ambitious or interesting, and you're sent off to the end of level boss before you've had the chance to take anything in.
ININ have attempted to give it a premium release, and even produced an elaborate "Ultra Collector's Edition" which still hasn't sold through, years later, but it's hard to imagine anyone who would care that much about the title if not for its "lost game" status. I'm a little annoyed for anyone who spent more than a tenner on this.
This modern release features a gallery of concept art and notes from the developers. It's easy to sympathise with them, especially for the great work they put into the art and soundtrack, but every veteran developer is sitting on a graveyard of amazing rejected pitches and promising projects that were canned before announcement. Publishers are constantly chewing out games that don't seem commercially viable, and it's easy to see why that decision was taken with Clockwork Aquario. It's really not very special, and anyone who would convince you otherwise is naive to the nature of the industry.
It's currently on sale for about two quid on digital storefronts, and I had enough Gold Points on my eShop account to get it for free. If you're really into peppy 90s spritework and high energy synth soundtracks, you might get something out of it, but it's unlikely to make much of an impact. This was only ever going to be a game that got passing curiosity from arcade visitors until the queue for Virtua Fighter died down.