Crimzon Clover – World EXplosion

Genre: Bullet Hell Shmup

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

Crimzon Clover is a Bullet Hell Shmup originally released on PC in Japan in 2011, with its first Western release coming in 2014 when PCs got the first revision of the game, subtitled World Ignition. In 2020, a second revision of the game was released on Nintendo Switch, subtitled World EXplosion, with this version being ported back to PC in 2021.

Crimzon Clover’s presentation uses 2D pixel art graphics with an absolute ton of action happening onscreen at any given time, backed by an electric guitar-heavy soundtrack. It all looks and sounds great, though the extremely busy screen can make it a bit difficult to track what’s going on at times.

The game mechanics in Crimzon Clover are simple, but work well – players have a standard rapid-fire spread shot, as well as an area homing attack that requires them to hold and release this attack button. Finally, there’s a “break” button they can use after charging up an area attack, or to briefly power-up their normal shots.

My experience playing Crimzon Clover felt kinda’ strange, because I don’t recall the last time I played a Shmup and felt so ridiculously overpowered. The difficulty wasn’t so low that I could sleepwalk through the game, but this definitely felt like one of the easiest Shmups I’ve ever played, and it’s largely due to a combination of your ships weaponry being pretty strong, your ship’s hitbox being absolutely tiny, enemies generally only damaging you with gunfire and not on impact, and gunfire patterns that are fairly easy to predict and move through safely.

Baby’s first Shmup? Well, not quite, but this definitely seems like a pretty good Shmup for players who are new to the genre and want to get the feeling like they’re playing like a pro, even though the game is kinda’ stacked in their favor. And it’s not like this game is poorly-designed – the level designs are good, there’s some good variety, and the boss designs are great. The fact that I was just trouncing everything in my path was… well, honestly, kinda’ nice? But I’m the sort of person who doesn’t hold a high level of challenge as an absolute requirement for Shmups, and I know not everyone will share that opinion.

In the end, I really enjoyed Crimzon Clover, and I think that anyone who enjoys Shmups will probably find this to be a great time. The only exception to this will be those who demand their Shmups be nails-hard, and those who can get easily overwhelmed at a lot of activity happening on-screen all at once. But if neither of those things faze you, this game is absolutely worth playing.

tl;dr – Crimzon Clover is a Bullet Hell Shmup with simple yet fun gameplay mechanics, good stage design and boss design, a ton of action happening on-screen at any given moment, and… a surprisingly easy difficulty level? Shmup veterans may scoff, but the solid game design still makes this worth checking out, and newer players will find this a great game to help them ease into the genre.

Grade: B+

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