Video Game / Crimzon Clover

"0% moe, 120% explosions!!"

Crimzon Clover is a doujin Vertical Scrolling Shooter developed by the Japanese developer Yotsubane^note also known as Clover-TAC, a well-known "superplayer" in the Shoot 'Em Up community. It was initially released at Comiket 79 on January 3, 2011. The game quickly became a big hit with the shmup community, and it is often positively compared to CAVE games in terms of production values. A three-stage trial^note one-stage for Unlimited difficulty based on an earlier build is available here. ^{Can't read Japanese?} Look for the green button that says "Download Now" in English alongside some Japanese text..

The plot-less premise is simple: fly through five different stages, using your chosen ship's weapons and Break Modes to destroy waves upon waves of enemies while dodging constant bullet barrages and racking up multipliers and points. There are three different ships to play as, as well as three different modes, all of which provide unique gameplay experiences.

A version 1.01 patch for the full version is available here, and adds new features like replays and Western-style digit grouping while correcting a few bugs. However, if you've bought a copy since March 2011, it should be of a print run that already has 1.01.

An arcade version was released in 2013, titled Crimzon Clover for NESiCAxLive and available for Taito's NESiCAxLIVE content delivery service in Japan and the United States^note in Round 1 locations only for the latter region. It is an Updated Re-release, featuring difficulty rebalanced (mainly difficulty increases) for an arcade environment, a new Type-III ship, Boost Mode in place of Simple Mode, and a Time Attack mode.

The arcade version was ported to the PC for a worldwide release as Crimzon Clover: WORLD IGNITION. It was released on Steam on June 6, 2014 and GOG.com on December 2, 2014. This version of the game features all the content of the NESiCAxLive version, as well as Novice variants of Boost and Original mode, and is available in seven different languages, including English and the original Japanese. Two pieces of DLC were released for this version: a Superplay Replay mode that features full-game replays of the arcade version from top-level players (one for every combination of ship and mode) and detailed commentary for each replay that also serves as a strategy guide, and an "Arranged Soundtrack" (actually an all-new soundtrack) by Spanish video game musician Gryzor87.

Another updated version, titled World EXplosion, was released on the Nintendo Switch on October 29th, 2020, with a Steam release on December 6th, 2021 (notably as a separate release rather than an add-on for World Ignition, although those who already own World Ignition on Steam can get a discount until June 7, 2022, and World Ignition was eventually delisted on December 21st). This version of the game features everything from World Ignition, including the DLC (except in the Switch version, which lacks Superplay Replay), and features a new Arrange variant of the game with remixed mechanics.

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Crimzon Clover contains examples of the following:

• Achievement System: In addition to achievements for the Steam release, there are also in-game medals that keep track of clear status of each supermode-mode-ship combination. Bronze means you reached stage 2, silver means you reached stage 3, gold medal means you reached stage 4, gold and silver medals in the same icon means you reached stage 5, two golds means you reached the True Final Boss. If you reach the stage's endboss other than the true final boss, a plus sign will be appended to your medal. If you 1CC the entire game, the medals are replaced with a trophy. For Time Attack in Arcade and Arrange, medals and trophies are awarded based on end-of-stage grade instead.
• Addressing the Player: In Stage 5, right before the big door into the enemy stronghold opens, some cryptic text will appear, ending in the player's Steam display name or Switch profile name.
• Alliterative Title: Crimzon Clover
• Arrange Mode: World EXplosion has an Arrange mode that feature the usual four modes, but with a Gradius-style power gauge. Collecting point items will advance the gauge, and pressing the bomb button will give you the currently-highlighted powerup. You can increase your speed, add lock-ons (Or change between the standard radial lock-on area and a RayForce-style forwards lock-on area when you have the maximum number of lock-ons), add options (or change the behavior of said options by switching between an auto-targeting and formation mode when at the maximum number of options), apply a Single-Use Shield that auto-bombs when you get hit, and activate Break Mode, Double Break Mode if you are already in Break Mode, or extend Double Break Mode if you are already in it. In addition to getting extra lives by collecting stars, there is a separate counter for big gems that is used an additional way to get extra lives. Unlimited difficulty changes things up further by allowing the player to shoot away bullets with their own, although some enemy bullets are more durable than others. Also, the Stage 1 scroll-stop area is skipped and Stage 2's midboss is moved to Stage 4, where it replaces that stage's original midboss.
• Ascended Meme: "Shooting game never die" from the doujin version's ending is clearly broken English, but the phrase was popular enough that the official localization of World Ignition, which is otherwise in fluently-written English, keeps the phrase as is.
• Attack Drone: Every playable ship has at least two drones that provide extra firepower at all times (except at the very beginning of stage 1). Type-II has several smaller Gradius-like drones that follow its movements after a short delay, leading to wildly varying shot power and width depending on where they are located (they can be stopped by not moving and their relative position to the ship can be locked by holding the lock-on button). Type-III has special laser drones that appear during its lock-on attack in addition to the standard bullet-shooting drones.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Full screen bullet canceling can be done in Unlimited mode by successfully destroying an enemy with part of a full or full minus 1 lock-on attack (the exact number raises as you get more items and power up, with the absolute limit being 32 during Double Break). The problem comes in that locking on takes time, your movement speed is decreased, and you only fire straight forward while doing so, and like with the Lock-On score multiplier, you have to actually destroy an enemy with the lock-on shot itself to cancel the bullets. Compounding this is that while bullet canceling does increase both the main and sub Break gauges (leading to faster and more frequent breaking), it is actually EASIER to get the full lock-on during Break mode, and even then, you have to know when there's enough damage to be dealt that you can get the full lock. This is downplayed in World Ignition, in which the explosions generated by enemies being destroyed by the Lock-On shot will cancel nearby bullets, so while you still need to get full minus 1 lock-on for the screen cancel, being one lock-on short of the requirement won't screw you over as much anymore.
• Balance Buff:
  • One of the problems of the doujin version is that the game's scoring system heavily biases in favor of Stage 5 due to its length and extremely high enemy count, making scoring on the first four stages basically irrelevant. The arcade and World Ignition versions introduce a multplier to your Break Rate increase for the first few stages, allowing score on these stages to actually matter.
  • Unlimited Mode's bullet cancelling got one in World Ignition. In addition to the full-screen clear for using all minus 1 or all of your lock-ons, destroying enemies with lock-on shots will still cancel bullets surrounding the destroyed targets if you don't meet the all-cancel requirement.
  • Unlimited Mode bullet cancelling was further buffed in the World EXplosion Arrange version, where your main shot can now slow and and erase enemy bullets, although it takes plenty of shots to destroy each bullet.
• Beam Spam: Type-III's lock-on attack.
• Bullet Hell: The game throws mountains of bullets at you that would make CAVE proud. This is especially prevalent on high-rank Simple mode, high-rank Boost mode and Unlimited mode. Bonus points for having absolutely ZERO slowdown, even in double break mode, assuming capable hardware.
• Cap: Averted. You can score over 1 trillion in Unlimited Mode, but the counter won't stop going up. In 1.01, when this occurs, the game automatically switches over to World notation for score. Similarly, the Break multiplier is also effectively uncapped - it might look like it only goes up to x9999, but you can break 10,000 in stage 3 in Original Mode. The actual cap is an unreachable-in-normal-play x99999, which would require someone to get to x25000 with a full sub-gauge and then double break, which is impossible due to how fast the multiplier decreases at higher numbers. Also, World Ignition raises the cap on various things (including 5 digit break rate and a higher break chain rate max).
• Continuing is Painful: To get continues, you have to buy them in the item shop for an increasing price, initially 1,000 credits. If you're trying to unlock Unlimited Mode or (particularly) the Type-Z ship, buying continues isn't a good idea.
  • The continues are also one-use only, which means you pay 1,000 credits ahead of time for the use of ONE continue in a later run. this means if you pay for 5 continues and then use 3 in your next run, you will only have 2 continues left.
    • World Ignition rectifies the above, as you now have unlimited continues by default.
  • Additionally, using continues before reaching Crimson Heart, the actual final boss, causes the game to end right after Gorgoneion (that giant fucking ball) without any staff roll. Additionaly, if you continued before downing the first life bar of Crimson Heart, you still won't see the staff roll. The condition for unlocking the Type-Z ship can be best summarized as "reach the staff roll."
• Co-Op Multiplayer: Averted in the original version, but the arcade version includes 2-player multiplayer. World Ignition, being a PC port of the arcade version, keeps it. Once again averted in the Arrange version in World EXplosion, which can only accomodate one player.
• Cut Scene: The scene of your ship taking off in Stage 1. Having to watch it on every run in the 0.20 trial proved annoying to many players. In 0.30, it was made skippable, and in the final version, the cutscene skip has to be unlocked...although it is also the cheapest unlock available at 1000 item credits so one playthrough will yield enough credits for it.
• Degraded Boss: Both Hecatoncheir (stage 2 boss) and Maelstrom (stage 3 boss) reappear in the second half of stage 5... As Elite Mooks.
  • And then it gets subverted when glitching Gorgoneion, as the game gets confused and spawns a boss Hecatoncheir instead of a mook Hecatoncheir, which you can defeat for the usual drops.
• Destructible Projectiles: In the Arrange Unlimited mode in World EXplosion, you can shoot down enemy bullets, although depending on the type of bullet it may take more shots than others.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Type-II's gimmick is that its options follow its movement relative to the screen, and are kept in place relative to the ship when holding down the Lock button, unlike the other ships where options are always in fixed formation with the ship. Utilizing this can be difficult at first since you have to move around to manipulate your options, not exactly the safest thing to do amidst curtains of bullets and lasers. Done right, and you can easily switch between spread formations for defense and concentrated-damage point-blank formations that are great for damage output and farming stars off enemies.
• Double Unlock: Among other things in the Limitter shop, Type-Z. The BGM and Practice Mode stages are justified in that you have to reach the stage/boss to unlock them for purchase (although the price is still kind of high), the Type-Z is unlocked for purchase upon reaching EX Boss (Crimson Heart's second part), which requires a one-credit clear up to that point.
  • Averted largely in World Ignition as all levels in training are unlocked by default, you have Type II and Type III in addition to Type I by default and Type Z is unlocked via locking star items over various playthroughs, no beating true final boss necessary.
• Dynamic Difficulty: The rank system in Simple Mode, which determines the flying speed of enemy bullets. Raising the rank will make the game harder, but doing so is necessary if you ever want get a high score, star items, and attack power boost (In simple mode)
  • Boost mode takes this up to eleven as while it gives you an auto activating infinite break mode, the game's rank amps up the longer you're in it, resulting in some very fast bullets. Bombing or dying will calm the game down.
  • Arrange Mode has a clearly-visible rank gauge, which starts off "LOW" and fills up, becoming "HIGH" when full. In practice, it will almost always be full unless you're really having trouble.
• Easy-Mode Mockery: Playing the game on Simple Mode? Sorry, no break mode for you!
  • Playing on Novice difficulty in World Ignition locks out Unlimited and Time Attack modes.
• Energy Weapon: Every boss in Unlimited Mode has at least one attack that involves laser beams. Also, the sub-weapon of both Type-I and Type-Z ships is a volley of homing lasers.
  • Type-III's lock-on attack are Attack Drones that shoot lasers.
• Every 10,000 Points: The original version offers extra lives at geometrically-increasing point thresholds, shown next to your score counter. World Ignition uses star count to give you extra lives instead. The World EXplosion Arrange version gives you an extra way to earn extra lives by collecting large gems, which are counted separately from stars.
• Foul Flower: Stage 3 is full of large flowers that inexplicably rain bullets upon you, with the most powerful ones being massive rafflesias. The endboss is a mecha that looks like a giant seed that then blossoms into a flower-shaped weapon that spews bullets in all directions.
• Game-Breaking Bug: The Nintendo Switch version of World EXplosion is plagued by a noticable amount of input latency, which can be very crippling in a game where you have to carefully navigate tight bullet patterns.
• Golden Snitch: Players who can reach the Final Boss on Original and Unlimited difficulties tend to notice that a vast majority of their points come from the fifth stage; you can earn as much as 600,000,000,000^note six hundred billion points on Original Stage 5 before reaching Gorgoneion. Mind you, the current world record on for Original as of this writing stands at about 1,223,000,000,000^note one trillion two hundred and twenty-three billion. This is due to Stage 5 being the longest and most target-rich stage in the game, and Break Rate is increased by destroying enemies. Subsequent versions of the game make efforts to address this: Arcade and Novice modes featurea a "Rate Up Speed" mechanic that increases Break Rate gain on earlier stages and reduces it on later ones, while World EXplosion's Arrange Mode resets Break Rate back to x1 in Stage 5 after defeating the large tank midboss.
• Hard Mode Perks: Unlimited mode allows you to cancel all bullets on-screen by killing at least one enemy with a full lock-on or full lock-on minus 1. World Ignition introduces "lock-on flash", where in addition to that, lesser lock-ons will still cause bullets around enemies they destroy up to a number-of-lock-ons-dependent radius to be cancelled. World EXplosion provides an additional buff in Arrange Unlimited by allowing your shots to cancel enemy bullets with enough hits.
• Homing Lasers: Type-I's and Type Z's lock-on attack.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Simple, Original, and Unlimited. In the arcade version, Simple is replaced with Boost, which is a new mode altogether.
• Last Ditch Move: In the arcade, Switch, and PC versions' Boost difficulty, enemies will fire revenge bullets if you are in Break Mode and the Boost Count is high enough. In Arrange Boost in particular, destroyed enemies will fire clusters of bullets unless you're close enough to them when destroyed.
• Roboteching: Your secondary attack, a lock-on laser/missile barrage.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Type-II's lock-on attack.
• Mercy Invincibility: The full list of things that trigger it (for you and (non-simple) Crimson Heart) include death, bombing, entering Break Mode, entering Double Break Mode, and leaving either break mode. Combine this with the fact that leaving break mode only takes away half your break bar (or whatever meter was built past the Bomb Line in World Ignition) as a penalty and that the Type-Z ship can easily recover that second half of the break bar, and you get easy access to invincibility.
• Mercy Mode: In World Ignition, if you defeat a midboss with no spare lives left, the spinning triangle of powerups that it leaves behind will become a square of powerups that contains a 1-Up. This will only happen once per run (e.g. if you get the 1-up on the Stage 2 midboss, then go back down to 0 lives left for the Stage 3 midboss, you will not get a 1-up again).
• Nerf: Both Break Mode durations were shortened in World Ignition.
• Nintendo Hard: As an arcade-style shoot-em-up, it's very much this. In the original release, even Simple can become very difficult if you raise rank as high as you can. World Ignition is even harder, swapping out Simple mode for the even more potentially-challenging Boost mode, and you don't get the luxury of constant 1-ups.
• No Final Boss for You: Continuing before reaching Crimson Heart causes the game to end prematurely with a monochrome screen encouraging you to try again for a no-continue run.
• No Plot? No Problem!: Even if you check the manual, there isn't a plot.
  • Excuse Plot: The World Ignition update actually adds a bit of plot in the form of background info on the ships and bosses in the game's Steam trading cards. What can be made out of it is that there's basically a super-computer gathering data and expanding it's forces and three ships are sent to destroy it.
• Non-Indicative Name: The alternate soundtrack for World Ignition is called an "Arranged Soundtrack" on the album jacket, but this soundtrack has nothing to do with the original soundtrack.
• Pinball Scoring: You bet! High scores of 12 digits are not uncommon.
• Purposely Overpowered: Type-Z is simply "Type-I but better in every way", although you have to earn it first.
• Retraux: The last unlockable sound test track is a chiptune version of the Stage 1 music.
• Single-Use Shield: World EXplosion's Arrange mode has a Shield power-up that you can activate. When activated, getting hit will end the shield and fire an auto-bomb.
• Smart Bomb: If your Break Gauge is between half full and full, you can use half the gauge to fire a screen-clearing bomb. However, if you're playing in Original or Unlimited, it decreases your Break Rate (and consumes half of the Break Mode timer if done during Break Mode).
  • World Ignition changes up the bomb mechanics a bit: in order to bomb, you have to build the Break Gauge past the Bomb Line, which starts out on the far left end of the gauge, but with each use, the Bomb Line moves farther and farther to the right, making it so that more Break Gauge is required to bomb each time it is used, and the line only resets when you die or collect a specific power-up dropped from mid-bosses and bosses.
  • Arrange Mode, added in World EXplosion, removes the ability to manually bomb and instead allows you to get a Shield which makes you auto-bomb if hit. in Arrange Boost, this is the only way to leave Break Mode without dying.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Basically, if you see this happening constantly alongside large point multipliers spilling out all over the screen, you're doing it right.
• Super Mode: The "Break Mode", which temporarily boosts your speed and firepower as well as doubling your break multiplier and increases its accumulation rate. You also accumulate showers of point-increasing stars as you shoot enemies and gain locks faster, making bullet canceling actually feasible in Unlimited. On top of all that, it clears all enemy bullets currently onscreen like the standard bomb and gives your ship a short invincibility period, so players are encouraged to enter Break Mode should they find themselves in a tight spot.
  • You can then charge and activate a second Break gauge to activate Double Break mode, which doubles the effects of Break Mode. This effectively quadruples the Break Rate Multiplier and fills the entire screen with your shots. However, exiting Double Break mode completely drains your Break Gauge and you cannot manually exit it by bombing.
  • Arrange allows this to get even more ridiculous: Arrange Boost allows you to decide when to go into Break Mode, rather than automatically going into it when a gauge is filled up, with the drawback that you can't leave it until you get hit. The remaining Arrange modes allows you to trigger Break, then quickly build up your gauge and trigger Double Break, then build up the gauge again and Extend Your Double Break provided you have enough enemies to get stars off of to do it.
• Take That!: One of the promotional slogans is "0% moe, 120% explosions", a jab at the Cute 'em Up trend.
• Tank Goodness: Tons of them. Two of the bosses you fight are giant tanks, and stage 4, despite being airborne for its entire duration, features tanks loaded onto large battleships.
• This Is Gonna Suck: On Unlimited difficulty, not only does the game HUD sport a red background, but the ocean in stage 1 turns red too.
• Timed Mission: Time Attack mode in World Ignition is a single "caravan" stage in which you have infinite lives and try to score as many points as possible in 3 minutes. It's possible to finish the stage before the 3-minute timer ends if you kill both bosses quickly enough; finishing with time left will yield bonus points.
• Updated Re-release: The arcade version adds several features not present in the original PC version, including the new Type-III ship, new alternate music for all stages rather than just stages 1 through 3, Boost mode, and 2-player support. It got ported to the PC as Crimzon Clover: WORLD IGNITION, which introduces a Novice difficulty for Boost and Original modes. World EXplosion for Nintendo Switch and PC has all of the content of WORLD IGNITION, including the DLC alternate soundtrack, available in one purchase, and adds an Arrange version that changes the power-up mechanics to be more like Gradius.
• Version-Exclusive Content: Only World Ignition and the PC version of World EXplosion have the Superplay Replay feature; the Switch version of WEX does not.
• Victory Fakeout: Assuming you meet the conditions for it, after depleting Crimson Heart's lifebar, it seems to go out in a chain reaction of explosions...before revealing that it has another entire lifebar.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Maelstrom, the third boss, especially the second form.
  • In Unlimited Mode, however, the stage 1 boss, Titanix, becomes the Wake-Up Call Boss, while Maelstrom ascends to That One Boss.

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Shooting Game never die.
Praying the lucky clover will always be in your heart.

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