The story of Claymates begins when a scientist creates a formula that transforms clay into living animals. A Witch Doctor desires the formula for himself, capturing the scientist, and transforming the scientist's son Clayton into a blue ball of clay. As Clayton, the player must travel across the world, from his backyard to Japan and beyond, in order to rescue his father and return to normal.
Claytropes:
- All There in the Manual: The backstory and the names of the characters as well the gameplay, there's all in the manual.
- Big Bad: The Witch Doctor who steals the clay formula and Clayton's father, as well converting him into a blue ball of clay.
- Blob Monster: Clayton's blue ball form.
- Compilation Re-release: In 2020, this game is part of the "Interplay Collection" for the Evercade.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The Witch Doctor is actually the penultimate boss, the real final boss is a Martian king who has come around with his armada to steal the serum for themselves.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: The default blue ball form dies in one hit.
- Punny Name: Clayton. Also his father, Dr. Putty.
- Shapeshifter: One of the main gimmicks is Clayton transforming into different animals using pieces of his father's formula scattered across the levels, giving him different abilities depending on the form.
- Spin-Off: Of ClayFighter series, mostly the first game.
- Shout-Out: The creatures that Clayton can transform into are the same as the Round announcers in the original game.
- The Big Bad is a Witch Doctor who wants to rule the world by stealing the clay formula. This could be inspiration for the character of Houngan in 63⅓, who has the same backstory.
- Stop Motion: As with the main series, no computer animation was involved, with all clay characters rendered from hand-made models.
- Super Drowning Skills: Inverted with Gooey the fish, who can stay underwater was long as he wants but is in danger of suffocating if he is out of water.
- Take That!: The American version of the SNES box touts "Blaze Processing", that "accelerates characters to incredible speeds", a reference to Sega's "Blast Processing".
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: Between platforming levels, the player has to complete block-moving puzzles to unlock the path forward.
