I think it’s safe to say that 3D platformers are probably my favorite genre at this point. Getting more and more familiar with the movesets at your disposal as you roam, explore all sorts of worlds, interact with objects, and make your way through carefully designed levels involves basically There are satisfying things. From the fast-paced action of Neon White, to the more combat-focused experience of Blue Fire, to the creativity demonstrated in A Hat in Time, it was created by a Juggernaut like Nintendo himself and his Rareware at the time. I’m just explaining that it’s not. Day. Clive ‘n Wrench has played his 3D platformers from the late 90’s to the early 2000’s but he really wants to be one. But the experience leaves much to be desired, both on a fundamental level as well as this particular version of the Nintendo Switch.
In Clive ‘N Wrench, you control famous characters on a quest through time and space to stop the evil Dr. increase. Thankfully, Clive’s sister Nancy has created a time machine that can travel to the past and collect pocket watches to modify the space-time continuum and stop bad guys who have aligned themselves with the Doctor. It was started over a year ago by one developer, Rob Wass. The game packs quite a bit of content, with plenty of worlds to explore, designed around different eras and themes. On the surface, it feels like one of those 3D platformers from the golden age of the late 90s and 2000s, when character platformers were ubiquitous.
A characteristic of character-based platformers is that they usually rely to some extent on the character to keep the player engaged. Yes, franchises like Mario and Sonic had a bit of an edge and jumped to 3D after the characters had been established for so long, but the characters were everything, especially for the wave of 3D platformers that followed. Series like Crash Bandicoot, Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, and Rayman wouldn’t be as successful without their unique designs and personalities. In this sense, the Clive ‘N Wrench feels really paper-thin. The world and design are great, but there’s very little during gameplay that makes you feel attached to Clive, Wrench, Nancy, and the other supporting characters. The one exception might be the bosses, who each get their own cutscene before you engage them, but even then, there’s a real lack of explanation as to why they’re involved in this. The overall setting of the world and why events happen feels like an afterthought, and watching the cutscenes in particular is pretty frightening. It’s even talking about writing and text boxes that simply pop in and dump the same text every time you engage them. No. It was especially frustrating when returning to the main hub world after clearing 4 worlds. Nancy should go to the “orientation” level to learn how to operate Clive and Wrench, she said. I quickly lost interest in the world and characters.
Of course, mentioning a 3D platformer’s story doesn’t do the game justice. At the end of the day, what really matters is how these characters control and feel while playing. In terms of pure control, I think the best point of comparison is a game like A Hat in Time, but its execution feels a little floaty and a little imprecise. Aside from the attack, ground pound, and “helicopter whirl” (using a wrench as a literal helicopter), there’s very little that really sets the main character’s moveset apart. There is a super jump that can be performed by backflipping or holding down the R button. It feels a bit too strong, but can be combined with double jumps and helicopter turns to travel long distances. The real question is how you control your character. A lot of the time the game runs too slow to tell exactly whether or not to actually do a particular jump and at what point to try to find a safe landing spot. The implication is that you can combine it with a sort of slide jump to increase your speed, but it wasn’t particularly satisfying.
That’s before looking at the level design which feels almost confining as the levels are split into several segments. There are some strange construction decisions that prevent you from doing so.In each level you will find 10 or more ancient stones (the power stars in this game). Most of them are accomplished either by helping characters on specific quests or by finding characters scattered throughout the level. Catch a running rabbit? you get the stone Slam a certain button into the ground? Get a stone. Destroy X objects? You get a stone. Of course, games like Super Mario Sunshine have a similar structure, but the repetitiveness of the game prevents these quests from being fun due to the way the levels are set up. It also means interacting with characters, which, as I said before, gets pretty boring. If the levels weren’t restricted so that you could unlock the next world only after defeating them. This means that you will have to explore each world until you beat each world’s boss with the help of a specific stone requirement. Also, the boss just sucks.
Bosses are one of the most disappointing things I’ve faced in a game. They cannot be tackled out of order, and the first encountered is very difficult. Feel like a boss in Crash Bandicoot. You have to position yourself around the stage and let the rope throw the pincers to get the anvil off your head. The problem is that, unlike bosses in Mario games, they are not locked to a 2D plane and deal with movement in 3D. This means that you can unintentionally jump off the platform even while projectiles are shooting around you. Boss fights quickly reset, leaving the player with little time to respond to a game over, putting them in a rather frustrating loop. They are incredibly sudden spikes in difficulty and I am a veteran player, but I enjoyed these boss fights and didn’t mind the other levels. I can’t understand young players who have no way of getting past them to experience.
I should clarify that I don’t think Clive ‘N Wrench is unplayable. The game is great, but it looks really bad on Switch. Jerky animations, terrible draw distances especially on large stages, and the way models and lighting interact with each other can sometimes be mistaken as looking at a real GameCube game. When I saw the first footage of the game a few years ago, I was really impressed with the results, but this Switch version is a downgrade in almost every sense. It’s about working at a rate. Pop-ins, animations, lack of shadows, proper lighting, and ignoring very backward-looking character models do just fine with it. While it might be fun in a pick-and-play session, I don’t think this version does justice to the design and intent of Clive ‘N Wrench.
And I think that’s what stings the most. I felt almost nothing while playing Clive ‘N Wrench, but he felt this was a really passionate project by one creator. It’s a shame that this game is just the biggest swing and mostly mistakes. You can feel the care and design that goes into the game and its world. However, it feels like it will break under its own weight from the beginning. As if he’s designed ten years ago levels are still a part of this game, it’s enough to show why Clive ‘N Wrench isn’t much fun to play. The world is either too big or too small. Characters are stuck in the same eternal loop while engaging in a level, not seeing any growth. There is no way to extend moves or actions or power ups to change gameplay. There are clever ways to detect if you’ve lost your pocket watch, but the level where you find them all feels pointless with no reward. Clive ‘N Wrench tries to bring his 3D platformer back to life, but ultimately shows how the trappings of the genre caused it to die in the first place. You feel like you lack concentration while exploring levels. A desire to act like a jack of all trades, but ultimately he barely mastered the basics of proper movement in 3D space. I don’t think this game is completely bad or completely messed up, but it’s a missed chance that it stings. Sometimes it’s good to take a step back and have a fundamental understanding of what your work should be about. It’s certainly a treat, but much like any fast food meal, I don’t think much of Clive ‘n Wrench in the future.
