Platform: PC
Genre: Metroidvania, 2D, Run-and-gun

As I’ve said time and again, search action games in the indie space are a dime a dozen, to the point where you really need a hook or two to stand out. Luckily, Realmsoft’s 14-years-in-development metroidvania Clockwork Ambrosia has a couple: it’s (i) a steampunk fantasy hybrid and (ii) a run-and-gun control-type action game that’s a splice of Metroid and Contra.

Grinding Gears

You play as Iris, a tech wiz who crash-lands onto a sky island filled with robots and a looming robot dragon patrolling the skies. It’s clear as day that you’re stuck until you help out the denizens from the nearby retro village of Borersville. Pretty soon, you’re traversing through a mushroom village with sentient mushroom folks plagued by demon bugs, a huge labyrinth of underground ruins with ancient architecture, a giant-ass snow mountain, and a high-tech sky city filled with more robots than the ones you encounter on regular and underground.

To even the odds, Iris can modify her weaponry. As you progress, you get four different guns with oodles of customization options. She starts off with a plasma handgun with decent firing rates and 4 rounds that recharge fast, but you can tweak it so that it fires charged shots that spreads wide and deals double damage. She also has a missile launcher, a revolver, and a grenade launcher, each of them with their firepower and quirks you can adjust once you get the right mods hidden in the world. One minute, I’m firing single salvos of rockets onto foes. After much exploration and finding better mods, I’m already firing double rockets that have after-trails and explode with cluster shots firing all around its blast radius. Also, my revolver ricochets all over the place and reloads super-fast, as well as pierces through foes if I use manual reloads for boosted shots. The beauty of Clockwork Ambrosia is that no two loadouts and mods for weapons are the same.

And you’ll need to make good use of them; enemies have armour and require rockets/grenade shots to be weakened. Some foes are immune to bullets while others cannot be hit with rockets as they’re too fast to hit. Bosses too have set patterns and need to be broken down segment by segment to bypass. If you’re familiar with 2D shmups, you’ll be right at home with Clockwork Ambrosia’s more hectic shooting challenges. The search action portion is thankfully not compromised, as you gain much-needed traversal power-ups like wall-climbs, air dashes, super jumps, and double-slash-triple jumps. The more diligent your searching, the more power-ups and weaponry you’ll uncover. At about 10+ hours, you’ll get a lot out of Clockwork Ambrosia’s extensive map and locales, complete with lush 2D pixel art and 90s action shooter Amiga-esque music vibes.

Fire When Ready

While it doesn’t reinvent the formula, it nonetheless makes it all the more entertaining with its tough bosses, gun mods, great traversal power-ups dished out for the intrepid explorers, and exhilarating shooting controls and feel. As someone who adores both search action titles and run-and-guns like Contra and Gunstar Heroes, this one’s a match made in heaven.

Final Score: 90/100