Claire a la Mode

Honestly, one of their weaker games in their lineup. It's kind of a glorified setup game for their next mainline curse crackers game (the dawnthief one). Game is really short, really easy, and generally not as interesting as it could be. The character interactions are fantastic, and the lore/world building is awesome as always, but it doesn't carry the two hour experience that far. I'm excited for their next game, and I'm glad they experimented with this one, but I would've been reaaaaal mad if I didn't buy this one on sale.

Claire a la Mode is a colorful action sidescroller with a huge cast of characters from Colorgrave's universe, stage design similar to the Kirby games but with faster-paced gameplay spread out across 15 stages (each with a boss) and a final boss stage. Pros: - Graphical style looks great, focused on colorful tiny sprites with lots of personality. - Music slaps hard. Guitar riffs in the first few stages? Oh yes. - Lots of playable characters with unique primary skills that all play slightly differently. - Each stage has hidden items to collect, adding to replay value. - Lots of fun extras in the game's hub world. Challenges, bonuses, unlockables, etc. - It's easy to skip dialogue or scenes. - Did not encounter any glitches. Cons: - Quitting the game and returning will dump you into the game's hub world for the first time with no guidance. Normally finishing each level will just send you into the next one. It took 10 minutes for me to figure out where exactly I had to go to get back to the level progression (it's in a building with 15 mirrors that function as doors to each stage). - Stages are inconsistent with their invisible upper ceilings. Sometimes it seems like there is none. Other times you will unexpectedly bonk your head above the screen and fall to your death as it causes you to fail a jump. - Final boss has a steep difficulty curve and unclear instructions on victory conditions. You are expected to die a lot: this is the only fight which does not make you restart from the beginning after each death. There is a huge number of projectiles to avoid, but there is seemingly no way to damage the boss... The game gives you a hint: "Get them home" and you're supposed to figure out from this that you aren't actually supposed to deal damage this fight. Instead, you need to pick up each statue of your friends (game doesn't tell you you can pick them up), carry them all the way to the left, and chuck them into the portal. Videos on youtube suggest a lot of other people were confused by this fight. You CAN knock the head off the enemy knight, which led me to think there was some way to damage it. But no. I wasted dozens of lives trying to find a weak point, before finally doing a search and discovering that there was none. A better hint, or even starting you off already carrying one of your friends, and having the camera pan to the portal, would have communicated the rules of this fight far better. YMMV: - This game is fast-paced. Even your character's jumps occur very quickly and have almost no air-time. If you are coming from other platformers like Mario or Sonic, this may take some getting used to, especially regarding jump timings. - This game is part of Colorgrave's expanded universe. There are LOTS of characters and cameos whose extended stories all move forward slightly. People familiar with them will probably love seeing them return. Newcomers may feel a bit lost and overwhelmed with it all. - No health bar. One-hit deaths. Die in a stage and you'll go back to the start of the room. Die in a boss fight and you must start from the beginning (bosses all take 3-5 hits). Fortunately the game is generous with the extra lives, and there are blessings which can help you earn even more. - Lots of witty banter between all the characters. But again you can skip it if you aren't interested. Overall I had a great time with Claire a la Mode.

Overall love the game. If you've played ColorGraves previous game CurseCrackers, Claire is more arcady and faster paced, which for me was just a little "too" fast. Took me a bit to get used to and even by the end I still wouldn't say I was 100% in the groove like I eventually got with CurseCrackers. The pixel graphics go for a different aesthetic and are a bit less detailed but still look very nice. Music is a master class as always. Some repeat songs or remixes, but they are all bangers. Looking forward to their next game!