Presented in Retrovision: Clock Tower
In this week's edition of Presented in Retrovision, I will be discussing a lesser known series of games. I've always been a bit of a survival horror junkie. Since my first taste with Resident Evil for the Sega Saturn, these titles have reserved the majority of my time and shelf space. Over the years the genre has accumulated several well received series like Silent Hill, Fatal Frame, Resident Evil and Alone in the Dark. I will be discussing none of these today. We will be going farther back, almost to it's origins. I am of course talking about Clock Tower.
Clock Tower struck a chord with me from the beginning. Nearly every play mechanic normally associated with Survival Horror was completely changed. Up till the most recent title, the play control consisted of a simple mouse driven interface. The user would point and click where they would like to walk, examine, or otherwise interact. Never in the series was the protagonist a fighter, requiring the player to use their environment to hide or solve simple puzzles in order to escape their would be murderers. To top it all off you're a clumsy girl in her early-teens with a weak constitution. Makes you wish you were fighting zombies with that rocket launcher, huh?
The most amazing aspect of Clock Tower to me was always the atmosphere. There was a certain creepiness to the game. Walking through a hallway, you would hear only the ticking of a distant clock, and the light tap of your shoes hitting the hard wood floors. You walk into a room and see a caged bird. Curiosity gets the best of you and you examine it, causing the bird to start screeching at you, alerting the murderous denizens. Suddenly the game is flooded with a tense, heavy sound track to let you know that you need to start peddling your little legs to safety. The audio alone is enough to set you into a fit of panic, scrambling to find a closet or bed you can hide in. This is where the stark realization that you're not a trained marine really sets in. You are running, falling, and woefully picking yourself off the floor as your character becomes progressively more scared and tired. Running only makes the problem worse, but walking leaves you ripe for the picking. This game mechanic remained unchanged for 3 of the four titles, changing only on the most recent iteration of the series.
Released on the Super Famicom (1995), Playstation (1997), Windows PC and Wonderswan (1999) Clock Tower: The First Fear was the first. This was by far the most graphic title I've ever seen released on a Nintendo console, which could account for the reason that it never made it to US shores. First Fear features Jennifer Simpson, a 14 year old girl and our unlikely hero. Her parents dead, she lives in an Granite Orphanage in Romsdalen, Norway. The game follows Jennifer and three of her fellow orphan friends as they are adopted by a reclusive Simon Barrows. After a text scroll, we meet the four girls discussing their new father in the foyer. After an disproportionate amount of time Jennifer and the gang decide to investigate. A scream is heard, and you will find one of your friends dead. I would like at this point to say that this game is not for the squeamish. It may be a 16-bit title, but you do get to watch adolescent girls die, or see their lifeless bodies. The most fascinating of aspect of this game is the unprecedented 9 endings, all of which featuring little girls being horribly mutilated and in a handful of them you. The game is relatively short in length, if you know what you're doing you can get the best ending in about an hour, and the worst ending in about 5. Thanks to a free to download translation patch out there, those of us that do not speak Japanese can finally give this title a go.
Two years later, the series finally reaches US shores on the Playstation. Ambiguously titled Clock Tower (Clock Tower 2 in Japan) the game picks up were we left off in Norway. Jennifer is struck with amnesia and is undergoing psychiatric help to try to unravel some of the mysteries of the Barrows Family Mansion murders. Along with her is a boy name Edward, the only other known survivor of the Barrows Mansion who was also staying with her at the Granite Orphanage. The news begins to sensationalize killings, where people appear to have been murdered with a pair of giant scissors. This title makes the grand leap into 3d. The game play remains mostly the same, but receives a huge leap in length. Featuring 10 endings with two characters, a mouse driven interface, a new voice track as well as a multi-chaptered scenario the game will pull you in. The only really frustrating part of the game is partly due to it's length. It is easy to mess up early and not be able to get the best ending unless you start over and carefully plan your every decision. I found this title for $4 at a local game store and it was worth every penny.
At this point, we have to bid farewell to Jennifer. In Clock Tower 2: The Struggle Within we are greeted with a new pair of heroes. Alyssa is also an orphan girl recovered from a near death experience when she was a baby, found in a grave yard buried alive. Alyssa suffers from a horrible case of multiple personality disorder, giving her a deadly alter ego Mr. Bates. He is a cruel and horrible man that serves as Alyssa's protector and defense mechanism for the of this game. This is the first title to allow the player to use weapons, but only if you were remove your father's amulet to release your alter ego. For the most part the mechanics remained the same and features 13 endings. This was also the last title in the Clock Tower series that would be created by Human Entertainment.
In 1999, the company that originally created Clock Tower folded. The company's assets were sold off eventually resulting in Capcom receiving the rights to Clock Tower. Produced by Sunsoft, Clock Tower 3 for the PS2 is the most recent installment in the series. Nearly every aspect of the game had been changed. You still played an adolescent girl, and much like the previous title the main character was named Alyssa. The game starts off with Alyssa receiving a letter from her mother telling her to hide until her 15th birthday has passed. The cryptic message is ignored an Alyssa returns home from school, only to find her mother missing and some seriously wonky stuff going down in her house. This was the first title to move away from the point and click style interface. With 3d movement similar to other survival horror titles, and a wide array of self defense techniques, the game barely resembles it's predecessors at all. Alyssa still gets panicked and isn't particularly good at keeping herself alive but otherwise the series is completely "re-imagined". It takes place in a series of disjointed chapters, located in different periods of time each featuring an end boss called a subordinate. Toward the end of it all there is a brief nod to the original two titles, awkwardly tying it to the series. It has a few creepy moments but nothing I would consider on par with the first two.
Well there you have it folks, Clock Tower in a nut shell. I can't think of much to say except this is one of my favorite survival horror series. Something about being a little girl with a serial killer after you just hits me in that spot. Finding a copy is not terribly challenging. Most used game stores sell all these titles fairly cheap. I would recommend finding the Playstation titles first, as they are the most faithful to the series and are available in the US. Now dust off your sunday finest and save those helpless little girls!
Translation patch for emulators: Clock Tower: The First Fear translation (requires a copy of the original game)
Asterick
Posted to Video Games on 16 August 2007
· Comments (9)
Other stuff like this: clock tower, retrovision, survival horror
Little girl-1
Garden Sheers psychopath-0!
i consider the super famicom clock tower to be one of my favorite games. however playing it on emulation has some interesting side effects one time around, and scissor man decided he knew how to walk through walls and even fly through the air.
you want to talk about scary? that was pretty damn scary.
Yea, there was suppose to be mouse support in it too, but I think the patch breaks that as well. Last time I tried to play it with the mouse the game simply locked up and died.
Stellar:
Maybe Scissors man was watching some old re-runs of Scooby Doo and it gave him a couple of ideas.
Just want to add that Haunting Ground is the spiritual sequel to Clock Tower. It's one of my favorite game on the PS2. I recommend everyone try it. It fixed almost all the flaws with CT3.
I remember playing CT when I was 10 and not being able to goto bed. That sound scissor man's scissors creeped me out for a while. ;p
I played the first one (That was on the SNES) that was fan-translated and I loved it.
It's worth mentioning that the "inspiration" of the Clock Tower games is supposed to be Dario Argentos' "Phenomena". In fact my favourite thing about the games is that Jennifer Simpson looks exactly like Jennifer Connelly, who had the lead on "Phenomena".
I have the original Clock Tower (the one released as CLOCK TOWER 2 in Japan) and despite being point and click, it deserves its reputation as one of the creepiest games ever. When you're exploring the deserted school or a creepy old house and suddenly the Scissorman theme starts playing...brrr! CLOCK TOWER 3 was also good, although after the first two psychopaths, whom were genuinely scary, the others became somewhat laughable- plus there were times where they were literally right behind you, you'd hide, and suddenly they had no idea where you were! I'd love to see more official games in the series (HAUNTING GROUND not withstanding!) especially if they brought the original Scissorman back!