- Publisher: Strictly Limited Games , ININ Games
- Release Date: Dec 14, 2021
- Also On: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
- Critic score
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- By date
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Nov 30, 2021Clockwork Aquario has been a long time coming, but it was definitely worth the wait. An obvious labour of love, this ill-fated arcade gem has been improbably recovered, restored, and reassembled, and it never feels like anything less than a carefully unearthed treasure that’s been polished until it shines. It won’t take long to beat — and it shouldn’t, because a good 30-year-old arcade platformer is supposed to be short and sweet — but what the game lacks in length it more than makes up for in entertainment and raw creativity, with stages pitting you against everything from mechanical flying fish to a gigantic egg-dropping robo-penguin. It’s the sort of game you come back to again and again because you want to rather than have to, and we feel lucky to have it.
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Dec 21, 2021Clockwork Aquario is a great title if you are looking to be transported to the arcade from your house. It’s bright, colourful, and has a fun co-op mode so you can share the experience with a friend. If you have a Switch this is a title to check out!
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Dec 14, 2021Clockwork Aquario is a fantastic action-platformer that blends quick-moving playable characters and enemies alongside an inventive attack strategy. There’s nothing else like it on the market today — despite so many games trying to replicate arcade-style fun. The big key here is that this is a legit arcade game that has been repurposed for modern hardware and that allows it to retain what made arcade gaming so fun, while having more modern quality-of-life improvements thrown in. It plays wonderfully, looks gorgeous and is a blast in multiplayer. The soundtrack is a lot of fun, but doesn’t reach the heights of classics in the genre. Still, for anyone seeking a fast-paced side-scrolling game, there’s a ton of variety offered up here and a lot of fun to be had with Clockwork Aquario.
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Dec 2, 2021After decades collecting dust in Sega’s archives, Clockwork Aquario is finally out in the world, and what a joy it is to play! A conceptually simple action platformer done well can be a delight, and with its playful energy and comic charm, delight is exactly what you’ll find here. But as much fun as Clockwork Aquario is, the more important part is what an achievement this is as far as game preservation goes: a long-lost game, developed almost to completion but never released, finally gets to shine.
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Nov 30, 2021Clockwork Aquario is a restorative labour of love 27 years in the making. What’s not to like?
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Nov 29, 2021That such a project (so inspired by the love of retro) succeeds is always a joy. The game itself attributes certain imbalances in the difficulty curve and it is made a little short, but without a doubt it is agile, friendly and direct, in the style of those arcades that stole our fourth decades ago, without it "hurting" to empty our wallet.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 3 out of 6
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Mixed: 1 out of 6
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Negative: 2 out of 6
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Dec 16, 2021
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Oct 23, 2022