At this point the player can throw the enemy by pressing the throw button. When the player moves towards an unconscious enemy, he automatically picks it up. The controls originally consisted of three action buttons ('throw', 'jump' and 'invincibility').Įnemies are attacked first by jumping over them, rendering them unconscious. I imagine this feedback must had been quite difficulty for Westone to accept, as they were pretty aware that they weren't making much of an impression as a game company at that point.Īquario was a Super Mario Bros.-type side-scrolling action game. My first impressions of the game were simply that it was 'pretty and cute'. Most of the other notes are thanks these notes from a Japanese gamer that were posted a few years back: You could even head butt thrown enemies thrown at you. Oh, I think you could even catch enemies thrown by other players as well or something like that.

The method of attack was by stomping on enemies and then grabbing them to throw them out. The three characters consisted of a boy (named Hack Rondo), a girl (Elle Moon), and a robot (Gash). It was originally going to be a 2-player game, but then we decided to add a third player as well. It was going to be a forced side-scrolling game, but with a bit of a cooperative multiplayer mode. It was going to be similar to Monster Lair. Any notes around this time seem to blame it on the popularity of Street Fighter II, wherein any game that wasn't a 2D versus fighter was left in the dust.Īccording to an interview with composer Shinichi Sakamoto: There were some location tests held in Ueno and Shinjuku, but the game tested poorly, and the release was cancelled. Most of this is taken from this Lost Levels forum post, with the interviews translated thanks to Johnny Undaunted.Īn image from the Aquario source, posted on Nishizawa's Twitter accountĪquario of the Clockwork was developed in 1992/1993 and was to be the last arcade game by Westone. (The screenshot above is the only one currently in existence on the internet.) In this post, I've assembled all information currently in English about this game, in hopes to generate some interest. It would be fascinating if this title were finally published after nearly twenty years, but precious little is actually known about the game. After the interview, Nishizawa delved into his company's archives and discovered the source code. He pondered whether players would be interested in playing this long lost game, potentially as part of a Sega Vintage Collection. In our recent interview with Westone founder Ryuichi Nishizawa, we inquired about their cancelled game Aquario of the Clockwork (also known under its Japanese name, Tokei Jikake no Aquario / 時計じかけのアクワリオ).

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