Retro Inspired

New games that wish they were old

Almost three decades since a near-complete version was canned, a lost arcade classic is finally in the hands of players. We speak to its creator Ryuichi Nishizawa on the journey of restoring this forgotten colourful pixel platformer

WORDS BY ALAN WEN

» [Switch] Big chunky pixel art is a rarity in modern pixel art, and Nishizawa hopes it might inspire young creators.

» [Switch] Of the three playable characters, pink-haired adventuress Elle Moon looks the most expressive.

Typically, Retro Inspired covers new games that wish they were old, but Clockwork Aquario isn’t really a new game. In fact, it has existed since the early Nineties, intended as a comical action game for Japanese arcades. Developed by Westone, which already had a pedigree in action platformers, including Wonder Boy, Monster Land and Monster Lair, designer Ryuichi Nishizawa tells us, “Clockwork Aquario was planned as a continuation of that lineage. We thought we could expect a certain level of demand for an action game with comical characters running around the screen.”

Unfortunately, this was also around the same time that Japanese arcades were being taken over by the popularity of fighting games, in particular with Street Fighter II’s release in 1991. This new competitive battleground made it difficult for a cute character-based platformer such as Clockwork Aquario to stand out, proven by an attempt to conduct a location test when the game was about 90% complete.