Clock Tower Review (Sony PlayStation, 1996)

Clock Tower for the Sony PlayStation has always been one of those ‘legendary’ games among horror fans. It released to very little fanfare, and almost no one played it at release. Who can blame them when so much was working against it. First off it’s actually a sequel. The original was released for the Super Famicom and never officially translated. Almost no one in North America played it at the time. Secondly this is a point and click game. In the early 90s this wouldn’t have been a problem, but Clock Tower was up against the likes of Resident Evil. Horror on consoles had evolved, and the developers missed the memo here. I have very little nostalgia when it comes to the adventure genre. I did however enjoy the Super Famicom release. Today we’re going to take a look at how Clock tower fares on the PS1.

Clock Tower picks up several years after the original nightmare ended. Jennifer has suffered psychological damage following her escape from the dreaded Scissorman. Who wouldn’t? Lucky for her she’s no longer an orphan and has been adopted by a professor of Criminal Psychology and is being treated at a research facility. Scissorman has now been reduced to an urban myth, but a popular one with even merchandise for sale based on the figure. Unfortunately grisly murders start happening in and nearby the facility. It seems that Scissorman isn’t done yet with Jennifer. The story this time around is based less on dark fairytale elements and instead focuses on modern and realistic settings. This is an okay change, but less interesting in my opinion. The story here focuses on both Jennifer and her caretaker (offering two different scenarios) which is pretty neat but standard fare.

There are however some problems with the story. It’s very slow to start. The opening sequence is a slog. My first few attempts to complete it ended prematurely because of this. The genre is partly to blame. You begin as the head of the research facility and believe you me when I say that it’s incredibly boring. You have to interact with almost everything in the area before moving on. It doesn’t help that the character moves slowly, and the cursor is awkward to highlight an element in the environment. The story is also heavily based on it’s status as a sequel. There are a ton of references, and unfortunately most won’t pick up on these. There’s very little recap from events in the original. What’s baffling is that the Super Famicom version was ported to the Sony PlayStation, but was never released in North America.

So now let’s get to gameplay. As I’ve already mentioned numerous times Clock Tower is a point and click adventure game. You do not have direct control over your character. Instead, you move a cursor around the screen pressing the action button to move them to where you’ve clicked. Tapping the button twice makes them run (which isn’t much faster than walking if I’m honest). When moving the cursor around the screen it changes shape to highlight an element you can interact with. This includes objects, doors, people, etc. This is a pretty clunky method that shows it’s age here. The thing is you don’t always have the luxury of time. While exploring environments the dreaded Scissorman will often rear his head. This is a random event so most of the time you can’t plan ahead. The clunky controls will lead to some unfair deaths.

That of course is nothing new when it comes to survival horror. Here it’s especially clunky though. This is because none of the characters have any methods by which to fight. Sure, they can stun Scissorman in specific situations but for the most part you’re going to want to run and/or hide. Hiding places include cabinets and under beds, but you’re never really safe. Sometimes Scissorman will find you, and sometimes he won’t. The suspense of waiting to discover if you’re safe or not is overwhelming. It wouldn’t be until a few generations later that this mechanic would be popularized. Because of these variables, and the randomness of Scissorman’s appearances Clock Tower is one of the scariest games of all time. There’s a reason so many modern titles have copied mechanics from this one.

When I say you can fight back against Scissorman I mean so in the most simple of ways. You can never kill him, and anything you do only slows his progress giving you precious time to hide or escape. Thankfully he’s a slow character. Scissorman hobbles toward you with the speed of a zombie. You do have a few options. Sometimes you can hide and wait with an element of the environment to use against him. This includes things like pots that you can slam down on his head, or blankets to throw and temporarily blind him. Other times you’ll be able to push him away or even knock him down with a punch. You can’t perform these actions repeatedly however. You have to first highlight him and the cursor glows. This begins to fade with repetitious use. Sometimes it won’t work so it’s best not to push your luck.

So what’s the goal of the game then? You simply have to reach a certain point, or interact with a specific item or character to progress most of the time. There are often multiple steps involved but Clock Tower does a fair job of nudging you in the right direction. Generally you are left to your own devices and can choose your destination via the in-game map. Thankfully the environments are much smaller here than in the original title. There’s far less guesswork on where you need to go, or with what you must interact. Toward the end of the story Clock Tower brings you back to the original mansion but even this is less painstaking than in the original title. Many of the bigger areas are closed off thankfully Exploring here is also much more straightforward than in its predecessor.

There’s no way around it. Clock Tower is one rough looking game. It predates Resident Evil after all, and doesn’t have the benefit of using pre-rendered backgrounds. Everything is 3D here. For better or worse. The environments look decent by PlayStation standards. Textures are often pixelated but it’s easy to tell what all elements are supposed to be. The characters are extremely blocky as well. By and large this is what you can reasonably expect a 32-bit title to look like. Where Clock Tower slips on a banana peel is in its animations. These are downright awful even for the this generation. In motion Clock Tower looks awful. Everyone moves with so few frames of animation it’s almost like looking at a flipbook. The soundtrack on the other hand is pretty decent. There’s a lot of silence, but when Scissorman shows up his theme cuts in to great effect.