Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The first stretch of Clever & Smart invites you into a proper rummage-around investigation rather than a straightforward arcade romp. You move through the city and its sewers looking for evidence that points toward Dr. Bakterius, while the next obstacle often comes down to locating the right object. That can mean acquiring a disguise to enter a house or finding the equipment needed to tap a telephone line underground. When you connect an item to a previously blocked place, the game’s puzzle-adventure side clicks nicely.

Its city map is the centre of everything, and the game expects you to explore it carefully. Progress is deliberately gated by possessions, so you cannot simply push ahead on instinct. That structure gives the search some satisfying texture, but it also means you may spend time retracing your steps and wondering whether the missing answer is an item, a disguise, or enough money to buy what you need.

Money makes the investigation more complicated than it needs to be. You can raise it through crimes such as burglary and cheque forgery, or play minigames including coin flipping and a snail race, with Clever disguised for the latter. These activities fit the mischievous tone, yet they can feel like detours when all you want is to follow the Bakterius trail. The constantly increasing hunger value adds another demand: buy food or risk failing through neglect. That pressure gives the city a little urgency, but it can also make experimentation expensive and irritating.

Give it a chance if you enjoy old puzzle games that make you earn each breakthrough. Go in ready to take notes, conserve cash, and feed the agents before a long bout of wandering. If you want action to take priority over item hunting and resource management, Clever & Smart is likely to test your patience more than your reflexes.

Graphics

The city is viewed from above, while people, cars, and trees stand out from that perspective. The layout suits the game’s investigative wandering: you can survey streets and search for places worth revisiting, then descend into the sewers for another layer of the hunt.

Story

The plot is a clean comic-book mission: special agents Clever and Smart must track down Dr. Bakterius after the rival OMA agency kidnaps him. It is a useful excuse to send the pair across the city, into houses, and beneath the streets, and the investigation stays tied to tangible clues rather than drifting into a vague rescue premise.

What gives the setup its character is the absurdity around the agents’ work. Disguises are not merely flavour; they are part of getting through the city. Making money through illegal jobs and entering Clever in a snail race in costume keeps the tone appropriately silly for Mortadelo y Filemón.

Do not expect the kidnapping plot to carry the game on its own. Its real purpose is to string together exploration problems, blocked routes, and oddball solutions. That works when you enjoy piecing together a comic caper from small practical leads, though the narrative momentum can stall whenever cash or food concerns pull you away from the case.

Overall Experience

Clever & Smart is more intriguing than its score of 5.9 suggests at first glance, because it tries to merge a licensed comic caper with a city-based puzzle hunt. There is a genuine pull in asking where the next lead lies and what disguise or tool will get you there. The game has the right kind of slightly ridiculous ideas for its source material.

Still, the hunger meter and money grind put friction directly in front of the investigation. Rather than simply rewarding curiosity, the game sometimes asks you to pause that curiosity and fund it. The minigames and criminal schemes are amusing in concept, but their usefulness as economic chores depends heavily on how much tolerance you have for old-school repetition.

For a patient fan of vintage European computer games, this is worth trying for its unusual mixture of top-down exploration, inventory puzzles, and comic mischief. For everyone else, it is a modest curiosity with a better premise than payoff. The satisfying moments are real, but you have to work through enough upkeep to reach them.

Retro Replay Score

5.9/10