Captured on Nintendo Switch (Connected)
There’s little argument why the Switch has become one of the leading 3D platform game consoles. From a host of “Golden Age” classics like Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64, to amazing new experiences like Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and brilliant indies like Lunistice, there’s a platformer 3D for you. . all. With the extremely high bar on Switch already set, it’s only natural to be interested in how the new faces of the genre stack up. Enter Clive ‘N’ Wrench, an indie title that’s been in development for over a decade. Despite the initially promising reveal, it pains us to say that the final release is a disappointingly broken mess to avoid on Switch.
The story of Clive ‘N’ Wrench begins with Professor Nancy, a genius scientist who built a time machine out of a 1950s refrigerator. After the infamous Dr. Daucus stole his plans , Nancy asks the main characters to travel back in time to retrieve their plans from the evil doctor. The plot is a mere excuse to travel through different themed worlds in time, but it serves well for the type of game it is. However, it’s in the execution that the main problems with Clive ‘N’ Wrench begin to show.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Connected)
There’s no candy about the fact that Clive ‘N’ Wrench’s visuals aren’t up to snuff, at least on Switch. Cutscenes are an ugly mess, with stiff animation, no dialogue, and terrible pacing that makes them hard to watch. Luckily, during actual gameplay, the visuals are slightly improved. Most character models look like maybe intentional homages to the 64-bit era, and they look passable by far. However, the world, random objects, and textures in general have clearly received far less attention, and these missing aspects often clash with character models.
The game suffers from regular and long loading screens. There will often be a long wait for a short ten second cutscene, which then leads to another loading screen to get back into the game. Once you’re in the game, it’s more bad news, with drops of constant frames and a lot of input lag as a result. It’s very shocking to go from a smooth frame rate in some areas to a choppy mess in others. Along with all the other issues here, the frame rate seemed to be the least of its issues. Combined, it feels like this game, incredibly, even needed further oven time.
The gameplay, unfortunately, doesn’t fare much better than the presentation. At its core, Clive ‘N’ Wrench is a collectible 3D platformer. There are 11 worlds to explore, each with a unique concept behind them. Instead of the standard platformer themes, you’ll explore swampy casinos and the prehistoric ice age. Plus, as a bonus, there are lots of nice references to other indie platforms, like A Hat In Time and Yooka-Laylee. Again, in terms of concept, these worlds are incredibly creative but lacking in execution.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Offline)
A perfect example of this is the “Bunny, I Shrunk The Chimp” level, where Clive and Wrench are shrunken and tasked with exploring different rooms in a giant house. Despite the great idea, the world is full of dodgy level designs that overemphasize realism over fluidity. For example, at one point the game asks you to go through shelves to access a switch on the other side of the room. However, because the shelves are placed so far apart, you’ll have to make very tight and hard jumps through them, with no floating platforms or “safety nets” to break up the domestic theme of the level. A tribute to the relentless challenges of the platforms of yesteryear? Maybe, but we are not convinced.
Another frustrating aspect of level design comes from the size of each world. Stages are usually too big for their own good, and in most cases are so big that they have to be split into two or three isolated areas separated by black screens. At the house level, for example, that means exploring a kitchen, living room, and bathroom, but to access each room you need to navigate through the vents. This destroys any sense of flow in the world and makes it much harder to keep track of all the collectibles in the game.
While at first glance it might seem like the game is heavily Banjo-Kazooie based thanks to the way Clive the Rabbit carries his monkey friend Wrench on his backpack, in reality Clive ‘N’ Wrench plays a lot more close to the Spyro series. Each of the game worlds includes ten ancient stones to collect, as well as hundreds of timers to find. Ancient stones are your main collectible, each with a cute name meant to serve as a clue to where they are hiding. Despite this, the clues are frustratingly vague, and more often than not you’ll just find them by chance, rather than successfully searching for them. There is a distinct lack of meaningful quests or tasks or fun game challenges to earn the stones. As for the timers, there are 400 scattered throughout each world, but due to the segmented level design, it’s incredibly difficult to keep track of what you’ve collected and where. Trying to find them all can be more infuriating than enjoyable. It all seems so arbitrary in a way that the best collectors manage to avoid through clever design, endearing characters, or sheer charm.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Connected)
With the core gameplay loop and world design having its issues, one would expect the controls to be at least passable. Unfortunately, it is not the case. Clive and Wrench feel straight out of a very crude Rayman 2 prototype, although instead of having natural weight and a jump arc, everything feels floaty and imprecise. The duo have a super jump that launches them too high for the level’s design, an unfortunate melee attack that will usually take damage from an enemy, and they still feel like they’re sliding on ice. The lack of invincibility frames after taking a hit means you can sometimes lose your entire health bar to an enemy who corners you. The swim controls, in particular, are infuriating, with separate buttons for swimming up and down, overly sensitive turns and an air gauge that empties too quickly. There’s no getting around it, the controls are just plain bad and could use some major tweaking.
As for the audio, the music is innocuous but ordinary. The tracks here are appropriately themed and not necessarily bad, just forgettable, with a distinctly royalty-free feel. As for sound effects, there are so few in the game that it’s actually a bit shocking. Those over there sound as generic as the music.
And the problems don’t end there. The boss fights are easily some of the worst of any 3D platformer we’ve ever played. The first boss, for example, has you navigate a circular icy platform surrounded by five ropes. You must convince the boss to throw scissors down each rope to drop an anchor on your head, then repeat the process three times to win. Sounds like a win-win scenario, but due to the terrible controls, absurd lack of health drops, and terrible hit detection, this boss fight took nearly an hour. And despite how the game is first introduced, you can’t advance to any level you want until you defeat a boss, meaning there’s no way to ignore these encounters.
conclusion
Clive ‘N’ Wrench is not a good game, there is no getting around it. When the Switch is home to some of the best 3D platformers ever made, Clive ‘N’ Wrench stands out for all the wrong reasons. From terrible controls to poor visuals and performance, we’re sad to say there’s very little to talk about gaming on Switch. The whole project feels like a glorified demo made for a game design class, rather than an entire project that belongs on store shelves. The attempt is admirable, but after a decade of development, the Clive ‘N’ Wrench has proven to be an incredible disappointment. With so many other ways to get your collectible 3D platformer fix on Switch, your time and money are better spent elsewhere.