Clive ‘N’ Wrench (PS5)
Its clear to see that Clive ‘N’ Wrench has a lot of love for the collect-a-thon platformers of the 90s and early 2000s, but at the same time, it feels like the creator didn’t understand why they loved those classic titles in the first place.
It’s not hard to sense that something isn’t quite right as the game’s opening cutscenes begin to play. A detrimental commitment is made to having any scene be free of dialogue, because while characters will speak in textboxes while you’re in one of the game’s worlds, cutscenes like boss introductions or setup vital to understanding the overall plot is done rather poorly purely through pantomime. There aren’t too many key details to convey thankfully and you can start to get the gist of these wordless scenes, but Clive ‘N’ Wrench also self-sabotages its frequent attempts to inject humor as characters have to spend so long pointing and gesturing to try and set up jokes that are too weak once you reach the punchline. It doesn’t help that the character models seem rather rigid while they’re trying to do visual gags and slapstick, the slow movements and limited expressiveness really robbing such moments of the punchy construction necessary for such comedy to really land.
Clive and Wrench end up rather bland protagonists then because the poor scene construction and character movement during them robs them of some efforts to build up their personality. Clive is an anthropomorphic rabbit whose little pal Wrench the monkey rides around on his back, and Wrench is definitely meant to be a little cheeky or playful but he moves about like an amateur stage actor unable to add any emotion or energy to their actions. It’s not like Shakespeare is being expected out of this cartoony game, the plot entails a scientist named Dr. Daucus colluding with various figures across time to help him craft an elixir to help him with his plans of domination, but silly fun needs some life to it.
Clive’s sister Nancy recruits her brother and his monkey pal to head out to different parts of time after Daucus has managed to alter them, the heroes needing to collect all of the Ancient Stones and pocket watches to undo the alterations to the timeline. Technically you only need to find certain amounts to unlock the boss fights in most worlds, but these two main collectibles are going to be your motivation for exploration. Ancient Stones are the rarer and more important ones while levels will have hundreds of pocket watches to find and they’re easily spotted floating just above the ground all over. Here is where Clive ‘N’ Wrench unfortunately hits into its issues with area designs. There are plenty of worlds that sound or look inviting when you first enter them. An ancient Egyptian market and a level that crosses dinosaurs with Christmas time stand out conceptually from areas that lean more into ideas like the Wild West or a pirate port, but what must be done to earn Ancient Stones is often fairly underwhelming. Many collect-a-thon platformers put a few of their main collectible out in the open in the first world to acclimate you to what to look for, but Clive ‘N’ Wrench keeps repeating this design for much of the adventure, even later worlds having stones that are too easy to reach. With almost no adversity you can hop up to their perch and almost every level tries to hide one in a little nook that basically just involves peeking around with the camera to find, the amount of platforming or problem solving demanded of you feeling far too minimal so getting the Ancient Stone doesn’t feel all that rewarding.
It would be inaccurate to say Clive ‘N’ Wrench is lacking in more compelling challenges though. Some areas like a tomb in the Egyptian level actually construct some more involved or dangerous platforming challenges and there’s a small handful of actual puzzles to solve that do involve a touch of thought, and later levels do try and push back a bit more as one would hope. At the same time, you’re still getting a few too many Ancient Stones the simple way far into the adventure, a player just trying to get a lay of the land or figure out the available space too easily coming across what are meant to be the game’s main item of importance. Too often a complication to the process might just be hitting a switch instead, and while there are some tough races here or there, other times you just need to go grab it after an uneventful trigger. Every world also has some character who asks you to look for something across the rest of the level like tomato stands to smash or crabs to grab, but these are just laying around out in the open too. Clive ‘N’ Wrench also has five keys to open a safe in each stage and these feel like they better justify their distribution, often nestled away somewhere not too clever but the totality of the task is the challenge rather than you just getting one of the vital stones just for looking in an innocuous spot.
The pocket watches are a bit of a problem too, not because they’re doing what they should wrong, but because they’re trying to fill in for the design failings surrounding the Ancient Stones. Pocket watches aren’t as important as collectibles so you can ignore quite a lot of them and still unlock the next level, and if you strip away the slow and steady collection of this less significant item, levels would be more readily perceived as lacking in interesting tasks. Usually you can hop up to some place and find at least a watch waiting there to reward you, meaning poking around and exploring will usually provide you at least with a little something to walk away with. There are plenty of them to find, but a radar you can pop out any time helps eliminates the issue of needing to scour a space if you’re down to a few that avoided your attention. They would be technically harmless in a game that more often whipped out proper challenges and tasks to complete for the main collectibles, but so much level space is lacking in purpose beyond being another spot for a watch and again, the game doesn’t ask enough out of you to grab most of them to make it really enticing to go for them all.
Funnily enough, one of the big positives of the game might actually impede the enjoyment of its collectible grabbing. Supposedly the game released with rough controls, but Clive ‘N’ Wrench control wonderfully so long as you don’t ever try and swim in water, wherein they’ll struggle to remove themselves from it to the point they’ll launch themselves high in the air while still swimming, walk underwater, or other experience other annoying issues while you’re trying to wrangle them back onto land. While leaping about a level though, Clive has a strong double jump and then can swing Wrench around like a propeller to cover gaps. Crouch and flip jumps can make your initial leap larger too, but when a lot of the game is about navigating a relatively open space without danger, the jumping makes crossing it and exploring it a bit too easy. Getting to high spaces doesn’t require too much work or thought and the same for many distant areas, and even in some spaces like the Egyptian level’s tomb, you can bypass a lot of trouble with your wonderful jumping abilities. Clive ‘N’ Wrench are unfortunately stuck with the same set of abilities the entire game despite getting little costumes to match the time periods they enter, this perhaps one reason the game struggles to obstruct progress since you are mostly relying on pure jumping to get around. The game may try to oppose you with enemies at times, but the adventuring pair are too capable there too. Their spin attack can be repeated incredibly quickly and any foe that approaches to attack will happily throw themselves into it, and even enemies that can fire on you can often be approached after they injure you, taken out, and then they’ll drop a nice slice of carrot cake to ensure that little bit of damage is immediately undone.
Bosses come in a range of designs and actually perhaps have a better success rate of interesting designs than the main worlds. Some are direct battles usually involving a small puzzle element and dodging, but the more enjoyable ones are the ones that are basically just platforming gauntlets. With more linear level designs Clive ‘N’ Wrench seems to understand it needs to better oppose your progress with actual danger and tricky jumps. There are some imperfect ones, the game’s final fights actually incredibly underwhelming and poorly conceived so what could be a tough climax instead feels so sloppy it’s hard to believe that’s how the game is wrapped up. Boss fights like crossing a train heading for a canyon as the squirrel outlaw Annie Oaktree fires upon you stand out for being such nice breaks from unimpeded success that it’s a shame the game doesn’t restrict its focus more often, so while there are definitely moments you’re trudging through another large space without much of interest to do, Clive ‘N’ Wrench has a few good moments it can share to put some life back into its time-traveling adventure.
THE VERDICT: Clive ‘N’ Wrench has a weak understanding of what the appeal of collecting valuables in a 3D platformer is. The key collectable Ancient Stones are often too easily earned without much opposition and too much level space is devoted to the common secondary watch collectibles that are still not too difficult to scoop up in droves. Too rarely does Clive ‘N’ Wrench produce a decent puzzle or tricky movement challenge, and while bosses have a better success rate at actually demanding some attentive action from the player, most of the worlds provide mind-numbing exploration where it feels more like you might as well be scooping up litter rather than snagging vital treasures in a time-hopping adventure.
And so, I give Clive ‘N’ Wrench for PlayStation 5…
A BAD rating. I have been very hard on Clive ‘N’ Wrench throughout the whole review certainly, but beyond the awful swimming controls, the game mostly fails in providing true adversity. The hardest Ancient Stones to earn are often things like finding all the panda babies in the Chinese level just because the game figured out a tricky spot to tuck one in rather than the game really testing your ability to navigate a dangerous space or providing an intriguing brain teaser. If it had completely lacked any moments where the game design actually whips up a challenge then yes, Clive ‘N’ Wrench would deserve a lower rating, but the bosses with platforming gauntlets inject some much-needed life into the affair and every now and then a normal world can strike on an idea that works. Otherwise, Clive ‘N’ Wrench spends far too much time just throwing you in a large space for aimless wandering, the player rewarded for this effortless exploration with plenty of pocket watches and even Ancient Stones that can often feel like surprises to uncover with so little strife. Even some ideas like using cannons to fire on dancing snakes end up underwhelming sadly as the action remains too simple, but some of the trials with a set timer like needing to reach a collectible before it disappears at least get you to actually think about how to increase your traversal speed or use the environment to your advantage.
Not every moment in Clive ‘N’ Wrench needs to be some demanding charge through death traps nor does it need to really test your problem solving ability to be an excellent 3D platformer. Some of its ideas would be wonderful in a better planned out game, the aerial movement control superb and good for the kind of deep exploration you would want to be able to pull off if it was properly tested or rewarded. The game avoids being miserable because at times things can come together and show a bit of promise, but then you’re back to trudging through uninspired spaces wishing for something of substance to do. Clive ‘N’ Wrench makes no secret of the fact it spent ten years in development and unfortunately it doesn’t seem like that helped it feel less aimless, it seeming like more time should have been spent considering the kind of activities that could make this a worthy successor to the classic collect-a-thons it was hoping to stand alongside.