Clockwork Knight

Overview

Clockwork Knight is a platforming title by Sega that was released as a launch title for its Saturn console. The player is put in the role of Sir Tongara de Pepperouchau III (the titular Clockwork Knight) and must traverse a house in order to rescue his love interest, Clockwork Fairy Princess Chelsea.

Story

Protagonist Sir Tongara de Pepperouchau III, a clumsy toy soldier known as the Clockwork Knight, is completely head over heels in love with Clockwork Fairy Princess Chelsea, who wakes all the toys in the house up in the middle of the night for a wacky song and dance extravaganza. Unfortunately for Pepperouchau, however, his less-clumsy, more dashing rival Ginger is also in love with Chelsea. As par for the course in situations like these, Chelsea is kidnapped by some sort of mysterious force and Pepperouchau and Ginger must go on an epic quest to rescue her, or else the toys' days of crazy midnight parties will come to an end forever.

Gameplay

Clockwork Knight plays very similar to many other 16-bit platform titles. Pepperouchau's main attack involves using a key as a sword; a quick tap of the attack button makes him thrust quickly, but holding the button down makes him hold the key outward and twist it, which does more damage to energy but also makes Pepperouchau stand still. In addition to this Pepperouchau can throw stunned enemies as well as various objects that are scattered around the levels.

The objective of each level is to simply get to the end before the timer runs out. The game has thirteen levels, with every third level being a boss battle. After each boss battle the player is given a chance to play a roulette mini-game to obtain extra lives or crowns, the game's main collectible item. There is no save game function in Clockwork Knight.

Art Style

Clockwork Knight's graphics are pre-rendered 2-D sprites based off of 3-D models, a technique that Rare's Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct games had made incredibly popular in the mid-90s. The game's bosses, however, are fully polygonal, and, as the Sega Saturn was a CD-based format, the game contained a fully 3-D rendered intro.

The pre-rendered CG art style and the concept of living toys make the game seem extremely similar to the Disney/Pixar film Toy Story, although Clockwork Knight was released almost a year earlier than Disney's film.

Legacy

Clockwork Knight's sequel, predictably named Clockwork Knight 2, was released in America the same year as the first title. A prototype for another sequel, Clockwork Knight 3: Penguin War, has been discovered and chronicled on the website X-Cult. The game would've been a Bomberman clone, with screen shots showing a 12-player multi-player mode.

Clockwork Knight has seemingly been forgotten by the general gaming public, overshadowed by other classic Sega titles of that time period.