Clockwork Aquario is a Platform Game developed by Westone.
The game casts you as Huck Rondo, Elle Moon, and Gush the robot. These three are on an adventure to stop the evil Dr. Hangyo from taking over the world with his army of wind-up sea creatures. To do this, they need to traverse five levels and beat the boss at the end of each.
The game was originally developed in 1992 for the Sega System 18 to really push its graphical capabilities to their limits. However, between the rising popularity of Fighting Games and 3D gaming, and poor feedback in location testing in 1993, it was cancelled. The rights were then bought by Strictly Limited Games from Sega in 2017, and rebuilt with the help of ININ Games and former Westone staff. The game was ultimately released for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 on November the 30th, 2021.
Clockwork Aquario contains examples of the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Elle Moon, being one of the player characters, can battle robots as good as Huck and Gush.
- Big Bad: Dr. Hangyo, who wants to Take Over the World with an army of wind-up sea creatures.
- Giant Enemy Crab: The second boss is a crab-shaped mech that Dr. Hangyo drives back and forth while leaving little robotic crabs behind.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: The player characters can pick up stunned enemies and throw them at other enemies.
- Mecha-Mooks: Most of the enemies are wind-up sea creatures.
- Mercy Invincibility: You get a very brief invincibility period when you get hit or respawn. Unusually, bosses don't, which means that a well-timed and positioned jump can drain their health a lot faster than you'd expect.
- Off with His Head!: If Gush takes enough damage, his head falls off, revealing the spring underneath it.
- Spiky Hair: Spiky green hair in Huck's case.
- Top-Heavy Guy: Gush's shoulders are wider than his waist, so his body curves accordingly.
- Winged Soul Flies Off at Death: Happens whenever the player character loses a life. If you still have available lives, you can reposition the angel somewhere on the screen to where you want them to respond.
