Retro Blog: Clock Tower

Survival horror is dying out. What a tremendous amount of shame. Let's hope that independent hits such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent will revive the genre once again for larger developers, because stop letting me believe that because the mainstream demands action horror games these days(Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising, even Dead Space), it doesn't mean that horror must completely go extinct, or in favor of action first.

As we await the next successful horror game to be released, let's turn the clock back to the past for now, to a certain building which is central towards a franchise that hasn't seen much light be shined onto it these days, except for a peculiar remake called Remothered coming soon, as well as an even more eccentric movie being announced.

I'm talking about Clock Tower, a Japanese stealth adventure series based on survival horror, where helpless characters must run away and hide from insane people. Created by Human Entertainment, a defunct developer, currently there are four titles in the series, as well as a considerable spiritual sequel called Haunting Ground. Seeing as I have only beaten the first game on the SNES so far, let's talk about that.

The first one is a true hidden horror gem, really. As it is without a doubt the scariest game to experience on the console, Clock Tower's design has a sense of a genuine effective scary mood, where you must explore the orphanage mansion, solve puzzles and search for your fellow orphanages while trying to avoid the insidious Scissorman, a diminutive male with gray hair and a wrinkled face.

Gameplay wise, it plays slow, but this adds to the horror. It is similar to PC point and click adventure games, however, you have to use a controller here instead. You will also collect a few items which are useful for solving the few puzzles in the game, but perhaps it's most original feature is Panic Mode.

Repeatedly tapping the B button will allow you to overcome sudden danger and thus escape. While it is always helpful to use, do not forget to look at Jennifer's mood, who is the character you control. If her background is red, then you better get her more comfortable before going further on.

And do not think that this is a linear game. No, surprisingly, Clock Tower's rooms are random layered whenever you start over, which means that if you want to obtain the best ending out of the 9 possible ones, you will have to get a bit lucky and remain sharp with memorizing anything helpful.

The sound effects accompanying most scares are very well done, because they even let me jump up a few times. And while you are constantly sitting on the edge of your seat, either Scissorman pops up, or someone or something else scares you unexpected, such as a dead corpse in the taxidermic laboratory, which is probably the scariest occurance for me.

Although I must appraise the immersion, it's graphics, sounds and the setting, I am not fully content with the slow gameplay combined with a point and click structure. Perhaps if the latter was scratched, and you would only be able to to navigate further by the use of naturally walking towards locations or objects, perhaps then would I be more impressed aside from the horror it provides.

Last but not least is about the similarities the Italian horror movie called Phenomena(1985, directed by Dario Argento) and Clock Tower have towards each other, such as both featuring deranged mothers. Check it out: Phenomena and Clock Tower Similarities

And while you decide to try out Clock Tower, be sure to check Sweet Home by Capcom for the Famicom as well, another milestone in the survival horror genre, and it doubles as an inspiration source for the early Resident Evil games.

Rating: 7.4