Clid the Snail is a top-down dual-stick shooter with a story about a gung-ho anthropomorphic snail whose mission is to rid their post-apocalyptic world of the slug menace.
The game revolves around Clid, an eccentric humanoid snail whose always looking for trouble. Along the way he will meet a peculiar gang of outcasts and will have a place that he can finally call home after being branded as an outcast.
Clid the Snail is a top-down shooter where character-driven narrative and careful battle take the center stage. Through Clid, you’ll experience a tale about outcast, companionship, and double-crossing, and experience the undertakings of an irksome, rowdy snail that doesn’t have a place. Investigate a misleading world loaded with dangers and difficulties, where positioning is key, precise gunplay, and studying the behavior of enemies are foremost to your survival. Find the truth behind the slug plague defiling the world and save the land from extreme ruin.
When you start the game, you see Clid and Belu (his firefly companion) returning from an adventure killing slugs to the snail citadel. On his way home, he encounters obstacles and traps that he easily destroys. Upon reaching the citadel, however, due to him disobeying the elders and fighting the slugs, Clid is outcasted and now has to fend for himself.
Clid sets out to find solace in the grasshopper citadel where he can indulge in some bamboo juice. when he arrives, he finds the whole citadel torched by a rat with a flame thrower and now has to find some way of beating it to survive.
The boss battle you have with the said rat is both boring and time consuming. The boss’ health bar is huge. I understand that it’s sort of a challenge but it becomes a slogfest with his repetitive move set. One of the the rat’s attacks has you hiding behind cover for a set amount of time, time that could have been spent attacking or positioning yourself better.
In his quest to save the world, he will meet a lot of animals that he will soon be calling his friends. An introvert hedgehog, shaman turtle, a bat that can’t seem to talk, a frog that looks like he was once part of the Ninja Turtles, and a one-eyed chameleon:
these are the members of Alastor. Each time you finish a quest you can return home to rest, buy resources, upgrade your equipment and develop the friendships with the members of Alastor. Get to know these quirky characters and unravel their past to find out the key to the story.
There is not much to say about the gameplay. The controls are good and responsive but for what they have it finds itself lacking. The lack of options makes the game kind of frustrating to play. For what is left we have oversimplistic controls we have aim, shot, walk, throw a grenade and even dodge roll which is kind of plain for a dual-stick shooter.
What controls the game has left are also what makes it such a hassle to play. This is where you get to really feel like a snail. Clid’s only method of moving is walking and with the environment being vast it’s so vast you’ll just want to reach the next area already.
The art style feels like it’s trying too hard with ample amounts of motion blur and bloom that is hard on your eyes. My eyes started drying up in no time. Sometimes you wont be able to tell grass from bush.
Dialogue is somewhat irritating as it feels the the animals talk like the characters from The Sims. It is too distracting that I couldn’t focus on reading. Dialogue is so simple that a little voice acting would have been better or just remove the sound altogether, that would have been better.
Overall, the game feels like a bore that you would be wishing the game would come to an end already.