The Rest of Clock Tower

Text-heavy sequel towards the original with slow and clunky mechanics. I felt demotivated playing through these handicaps, and thus decided to watch a speedrun of it instead. I know it's improper to judge it like this, because I won't do so completely.

For me, Clock Tower on the PSX is unplayable for me. I did like how they used the same controls as before for this 3D rendering. And I suppose Scissorman is a highlight here too. It doesn't help that the title is confusing as well for this and the next title in line.

Rating: 5.0

This is technically the 3rd entry in the Clock Tower series, but seeing as the futuristic sequel ignores this I won't elaborate further on this matter. Actually, this was more playable for me despite getting lower scores in general.

It almost goes straight towards the gameplay at the beginning. You play as a girl with a split personality, you start inside what seems to be an empty house at first, and there are a total of 3 chapters.

Like the SNES original(I can't say for sure with the former reviewed entry), The Struggle Within has several different endings depending on your actions, trap events and chasing enemies, which this time are crazy little girls with knives, poltergeists and zombies. Although it's playable and more smooth, it's still not as fluent or scary as the original, but it's a modest attempt.

Rating: 5.5

The only sequel worth playing in my opinion, Clock Tower 3 takes another new direction regarding lore, mechanics and scares. Interestingly co-developed by Capcom and Sunsoft, The voice acting and lip synchronization can be cringy, but running away from your nightmares is fun.

As always, your defense is limited towards either hiding or using your environment, but now you are equipped with holy water so that you can ward off the subordinates of a higher evil. Clock Tower 3 spans several timelines to play, and it features boss battles, but these ones are very simplistic in nature with limited controls.

Jump scares can be effective at times, because enemies might run into your back suddenly, or keep running through doors in order to kill you. As a side objective you can also rescure lost and aggresive ghosts by giving them back their sentimental items.

It's nothing special when you look at it's production values, the story or lasting appeal, but at least the mechanics were something different and fun while it lasted. Scissorman(and woman!) looks completely different and is no longer scary.

Rating: 6.5