Clockwork Knight for Sega Saturn

[Tongara]

Clockwork Knight is a game for the Sega Saturn, released in 1994, and made solely by SEGA. The game follows the quest of Sir Tongara de Pepperouchau III ("Pepper" for short), who happens to be a toy soldier. He is in love with the Clockwork Fairy Princess, Chelsea, whose voice wakes up the toys of the house every night at midnight. But he is clumsy and something of a laughingstock, especially when compared to his friendly rival Ginger who is also after Chelsea's heart. One night Chelsea is stolen away by an unknown force, which also hypnotizes some of the lesser toys to become fierce minions and stand in the way of anyone who would try to rescue her. If there's no voice to wake them up anymore then the toys will never live again, so Pepper and Ginger head off to find Chelsea before it's too late.

Graphics/Presentation: 9
The graphics looks fantastic, especially with the whole mix of 2D pre-rendered sprites and the 3D levels (Including fully 3D Bosses). The way the game was presented made it feel fun and look beautiful, and certainly a reason I've been hooked on this game since I was 5! I wanted to give it a 10, but the second game does all of this and more, in a much better way too.

Sound/Music: 8
The sound effects certainly do suit the game and the surroundings, thats for sure, especially the noises the robot bosses make when you hit them. Even the music in this game is beautiful, but as I've grown older, the kiddie, twinkly music does grate on my nerves after a while, where as the second game's music is much more jazzier and pleasent on the ears. All in all, a great soundtrack!

Story: 10
This has always been a favorite of mine since I was a little boy, and will continue to do so for many years. It was just 100% different to ANYTHING out there at the time, and brought every kids dreams to life about Toys coming to life at night!

Gameplay: 9
The game is huge... and by huge I mean HUGE! You travel through 4 rooms (Betsy's Room, Kevin's Room, Kitchen and The Attic), each with 2 levels and a boss inside. There is also a final boss after the boss of "The Attic", but I'll leave that for you to find out! Each level is unique, and gets progressivly harder as the game goes on, especially all of the traps in the "Kitchen" and "The Attic" levels.
All in all, it is still very fun for kids to play, and they would love the gameplay, as I still do to this day. I rated it a 9, as the second game's levels are even bigger and funner.

Affordability: 8
This would all depend on where you live, what version (Reigon) of the game you want, and where you buy it from. You can usually find a US or EU copy on ebay for 7.99 - 9.99, where as a JP copy would cost a bit more. It's worth getting at any rate, even just to build your saturn collection

Overall Score: 9
Clockwork Knight is FULL of hidden rooms and games and secrets, and it's a HUGE game. A problem is, it ends on a cliffhanger, which is continued in the next game. All in all, it's a kids game, but certainly a game for people who love great platformers, and want to see the game that was made to show the Saturn's capabilities. My only other gripe would be that the game has NO save feature at all, and because of this, if you lose all lives towards the later levels, you have to start all over again. Other than that, it's a classic!


Thanks for reading, and for more Clockwork Knight, please visit : http://www.clockworkknight.com/

[REPO Man]

I personally LOVE this game. It's insanely difficult and no save feature, but still good.

Another fave Saturn game (that I don't have yet) is Bug!, but I have the old HotU rip of the PC version on my computer.

[Betamax001]

I thought game was just ok. I think I would have liked it more if I grew up playing it and had some nostalgic feelings towards it. Also how hard is it to have a save feature by 1995? I mean seriously.

[fingersmaloy]

I never understood the draw of this one.

[msimplay]

I always wanted to play this but when I had a Saturn I used to pass it up for newer games available at the time.