Every hardcore gamer knows by now that one of Sega’s biggest mistakes with their Saturn console was the early surprise launch. This was done in an effort to get the jump on the forthcoming Sony Playstation, but in the end it did them no good. One of the issues is that, because it was released earlier than initially planned, the launch line-up suffered immensely. Sega was not able to get a Sonic title out by this time, and back then platformers were generally what sold systems best of all. Instead they launched with two new titles belonging to this genre, and one of these happens to be the topic of this review. Clockwork Knight was released in a time when the market was going crazy for 3D games. Unfortunately this is not one of them. Despite being a launch title Clockwork Knight has been largely forgotten, and I can’t help but assume this is because it’s a side scroller released at the tail end of the genre well past its peak of popularity.
Clockwork Knight takes place in the house of a standard family, but focuses on the toys brought to life. You play as a wind-up knight figurine named Pepperchau who has the hots for Princess Chelsea who awakens the lot at midnight by singing. One night she goes missing, and Pepperchau sets out to find and rescue the plastic maiden. The game is chock full of FMV sequences that are very charming. The opening sequence is particularly memorable and does a great job of conveying the scenario even if the music is a little on the cheesy side. Clockwork Knight is a traditional two dimensional side scrolling platformer. You guide Pepperchau through a series of flat environments where you move both left and right and upwards via his ability to jump. Rather than jumping on enemies’ heads our toy knight protagonist instead strikes them with his sword which is fashioned in the shape of a key. Just think Kingdom Hearts, but not quite as cool.
What’s interesting is that because this is a 2.5D game elements from the background often come in to play. Books frequently fall and may damage Pepper or create a path for him to walk on. Enemies may move both in the fore and background which makes for some interesting encounters. This leads me to one of my favorite aspects of this game; the toy theme. I’ve always liked in video games when you play as a small character traveling through regular size environments with everyday objects used as obstacles. The artists and stage designers did a great job of basing the experience around this concept. The game features a ton of environmental hazards ranging from toy trains you must ride across chasms, sinks that fill with damaging water, objects that can be powered by pushing batteries into them, and more. Even the way the levels are divided is interesting; you have two bedrooms, kitchen, and the attic. Each of them feature two stages and a boss fight. These encounters are pretty interesting featuring a large enemy also based on a toy that have varying tactics. They don’t put up much of a fight though. Generally the ordinary stages are harder.
Unfortunately the level designs aren’t ever particularly great. Everything is a little generic here with typical moving platforms hidden under the tiny character in a big world motif, and the basic enemies are pretty dull as well. What really hurts this package however is just how awkward the gameplay mechanics are. It feels like every area in this game is covered by a layer of invisible ice because Pepperchau constantly slips every time you try to change directions or land a jump. To make matters worse even his basic movement is awkward. This fits with the whole toy soldier theme, but it really doesn’t make for a pleasant experience. What’s particularly annoying is the run mechanic. Normally in a game like this you simply hold down the action button and your character automatically sprints. In this case you have to tap the direction you want to move twice and hold down on the second press. I found myself accidentally dashing when I didn’t mean to causing me to fall off the edge of many a cliff. Sega should have spent more time working out the kinks.
Donkey Kong Country was a very popular series at this time, and I imagine that’s why Sega made the decision to use pre-rendered sprite based characters for this release. Unfortunately Clockwork Knight never enjoyed the same level of success that Nintendo’s monkey mascot did. The characters here look really nice and feature significantly detailed animations. A lot of care was put into making Pepperchau move more like a toy than human, and it really paid off because his movements are completely believable. The best looking part of this title however is the use of 3D. The boss characters and many elements of the environment are rendered entirely with polygons. Despite the difference in rendering methods between the various in-game graphics everything blends together surprisingly well. Was it not for the use of polygons and FMV this could almost pass as a late generation Super Nintendo game. I’m not really a fan of the soundtrack. Everything is nicely composed and very upbeat which fits the theme well, but nothing particularly stood out to me. This isn’t a soundtrack I’ll likely ever listen to outside of the game to be honest. It’s all okay I suppose.
In all honesty Clockwork Knight isn’t that great of a game. As a launch title it fails for the most part to show early adopters what the Sega Saturn was capable of. On another note this release is far too clunky and counter intuitive to be deemed as a classic. The game isn’t awful, but it’s pretty boring. It’s no wonder Pepperchau and the rest of the cast of Clockwork Knight never made it to the Dreamcast.
