Trouble easily finds Clid, an anthropomorphic snail with a penchant for snark and heavy weaponry. He’s gruff and not the most friendly animal around, but I enjoyed the hour I spent in his (probably slimy) shoes in a preview build of Clid the Snail, which is hitting PS4 later this year.
The top-down shooting it trades in fits comfortably within the genre, but its most interesting new spins on familiar fare come in the somber world around Clid, one with a couple of surprising plot twists at the end of my time that left me quite curious about where Clid’s journey would lead next.
What Is Clid the Snail?
Clid is a bit of an odd mashup of stylistic and mechanical ideas, but the introductory hour I played, set at the start of the game, does a great job of marrying what could be otherwise dissonant elements. Cast out from his fellow snails, Clid begins making his way through the world with the help of a chatty firefly, Belu, and an arsenal of weapons. From an isometric view, Clid controls quite comfortably for a third-person, twin-stick top-down shooter, and while I was playing on a PC build, Clid will first be hitting PlayStation 4 as a console exclusive upon release later this year before coming to PC, so I primarily used a controller for the action.
Clid’s basic gun is a laser rifle with infinite ammo, which allows for shots to be charged up and held until you release the right trigger for a stronger attack. I relied on this weapon for most of my run; though it’s seemingly a bit weaker than choices like Clid’s booming shotgun, it works decently at both long and short-range, never needed to reload, and let me have a stronger shot prepared anytime I entered a new area.
And, thankfully to start, Clid doesn’t overwhelm you with too many enemies. At most I was ever swarmed by four or five foes, but surviving always felt manageable. Rather than throwing enemies at you for the sake of it, Weird Beluga Studio's enemy variety kept me on my toes. One, for example, could teleport around me, meaning as I was suppressing fire from one side of the battlefield, I’d have to be ready for an unexpected attack from the opposite direction. The added mobility for them or other flying foes, along with explosive enemies who would run at Clid with reckless abandon really forced me to stay agile and led me to change up my weapon of choice much more often than I expected. Corralling enemies around a corner right into a land mine I laid down for them, or quick pivoting to shotgun blast an enemy trying to take me by surprise was consistently fun to pull off, but whatever my strategy, like any good twin-stick shooter Clid almost always kept me mobile.
That’s perhaps best exemplified by the first boss fight I encountered, a challenge against a flamethrower-toting rat in a grasshopper citadel he had ravaged, who could also shoot off barrages of missiles to boot. I had to smartly pop in and out of cover to avoid fiery blasts, and adapt as he shifted from attacking outward from the center of the arena to sweeping across a side of the battlefield with his flamethrower. While I got by preceding fights with one or two weapons at most, I really needed to use my full arsenal, including grenades and mines, when I was on the backfoot. And the battle also proved the value of even my least-used weapon, a gun that spewed poison bombs that could drain a bit of health for a moment as the rat scurried from one position to the next.
The boss battle gave me quite a bit of hope for how complex fights in Clid the Snail might get, and I hope are a sign of some creative setpiece spars to come. But it was the only fight that, where I tried playing with a mouse and keyboard on this PC build, I did value having the extra precision of a mouse to aim. The rat’s missiles had a seemingly very small hitbox when shooting at them to block the attacks, and I found myself missing many more of them while on a controller and having to instead pivot and lead them into walls to explode, rather than just shooting them down easily. It by no means broke the fight, but controlling aiming on the right stick of a controller will certainly be a bit less precise overall.
Clid’s New Shell-ter
But even more so than seeing the combat progress, I’m genuinely left curious about the world Weird Beluga is building out. It’s a place filled with humanoid animals who have formed a patchwork of societies across a world long after humans existed that feels like a dark English fairytale countryside with a dash of heavy metal. It’s an odd combination to be sure, but a journey through the more forested regions of rocky cliffsides, dilapidated stone buildings, and metal piping Clid explores in the game’s first hour helps to establish the modernity versus the natural present in the world. Those portions, as I kept an eye out for alternate paths to find chests or health recovery spots (marked by whispy, green-glowing plants), were set to an oddly sad piano track. It looped a tad too often that it became monotonous just as the boss battle approached, but when it first set the mood, I found its oddly somber tone endearing and engrossing, making me want to learn more about the state of this peculiar world.
The more melancholic countryside gave way to the fight against the rat in a dilapidated city with a rocking metal soundtrack that caught me by surprise but certainly fit Clid and the vermin’s aggressive standoff. And the curiosity these scenarios instilled in me became fascination as I learned of a major story moment – and I suppose spoilers follow for those who don’t want to know – the rat I killed had belonged to a group of varied animal species. His actions became too extreme for this gang of misfits, though, and so they took his death in surprising stride, inviting me in to replace him.
Not every creature was pleased with the decision, but I was so excited to see what earning a bunk in their more technological hideout meant for future levels. The scene again introduced an unexpected visual flair with a tech-filled locale, and I’m so curious to see where Clid’s adventure continues to take him. While I went in thinking I knew what to expect with Clid’s gameplay, I came away surprised by its mix of aesthetics and story pivots that gave more color and depth to the world around him.
Jonathon Dornbush is IGN's Senior Features Editor and PlayStation lead. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.
