-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Game Title: Clock Tower
Platform: SNES
Developer: Human Entertainment
Publisher: Human Entertainment
Genre: Survival Horror
Age Rating: N/A
Release Date: September 24th 1995 (Japan)
English Fan-Translated: Aeon Genesis
Fan-Translation English Patch Release Date: September 10th 2001
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Game Score: 8.0/10
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summery:
Clock Tower is easily one of the scariest games for the Super Nintendo. You'll be frightened.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well guys I don't have any Top 10's planned for Halloween but I'm going to write some horror games on the SNES system, starting with one horror title that came out a year before the first Resident Evil game was made and was never released outside of Japan.
During the birth of other point and click adventure titles such as Psygnosis's Discworld games and Cyan's Myst series one such point and click game took in a place of survival horror game a year before the first Resident Evil game came out. That game would be Human Entertainment's Clock Tower for the Super Famicom, it skipped it's chance to be made outside of Japan but however Fan-Translator Aeon Genesis how it's hands on the title and released an English patch for players to play the game in English. Beware this game is very scary even for a Super Nintendo game and will give you plenty of jump scares.
The original Clock Tower takes place in the original murders against the Scissorman. You play as young orphan Jennifer Simpson and along with her friends Laura, Ann and Lotte who are adopted to live in the Barrows Family Mansion. What Jennifer would soon know is that her friends have disappeared and are being killed off one by one by the Scissorman and Jennifer is left on her own to figure out what is going on inside the Barrows Mansion and escape alive.
Clock Tower's gameplay is a point and click like Discworld and the Monkey Island games where the game assembles a side scroller. You explore different rooms and inside each of these contains useful items such as keys, rope, cans and others that allow you to access later parts of the game.
Clock Tower delivers on the scariness level where you'll first meet the games main enemy, the Sissorman. The Sissorman is but a small boy with a giant pair of garden shears who appear in the worst of times when exploring, usually hiding in places like behind a curtain, in a box or inside of a dummy's dress. You can even encounter Sissorman at the start of the game by going to the bathroom to see her friend Laura murdered in the shower, going to the hallway to see Ann being killed from the celling towards her death or going to the swimming pool to see Ann being dragged down to her death. These provide plenty of different jump scares that you'll get throughout the game.
When encountering the Sissorman you'll go into a chase mode where you need to get away from him before he kills you, this means finding a safe hiding spot. Beware not all hiding places like locking the bathroom will guarantee your life. Sissorman can brake down doors and also a parrot in one of the rooms will reveal your location. It's always best to stay away from the Sissorman but if you ever forced to face Sissorman or any other scare in the game then Jennifer's portrait will flash indicating that she is in a panic. When this happens you repetitively press the B button to escape the attack otherwise failing will result in dying.
Jennifer's portrait changes colour when she spends to much time running, using her strength to fight Sissorman and getting scared often. Her strength will deplete and the colour will change from Blue, Green, Orange, Brown to Red which means any panic situation that gets to Jennifer will result in death. You can replenish her energy by finding a safe spot and then wait for Jennifer to lay on her knees and then wait a few seconds for her portrait to slowly change back to blue.
The game controls decently with the D-Pad to move the cursor, Y interacts when the cursor turns into a square, holding A brings up Inventory and you can cycle through your items with the D-Pad. L makes Jennifer run left while R makes her run right and you can use X to make her stop. While it works well, it's a shame that there is no SNES Mouse compatibility especially for a point and click game like this.
One thing about the game is that it changes when you interact with certain items or different areas in the game and this also determines the ending you'll receive. Some of these will either give out an item or an encounter with the Sissorman. This does however make the game confusing to get through specially when you're trying to get the Ending you want, but at the same time it does make the game feel refreshing. Clock Tower has about 8 different endings to unlock ranging from A to H. There is also an S ending that it's very difficult to get.
Even with the Sega Saturn and PlayStation consoles showcasing the CD technology and slowly introducing 3D graphics for the future of gaming, Clock Tower can still showcase the graphics technology of the 16 bit Super Nintendo. It looks great with each area in the Barrows Mansion being very dark and dusty, backgrounds are cool including one of the bathrooms giving off a steam effect. Clock Tower has no shortage of scares including a zombie in a basement, a sink that drips blood, insects inside a meat cabinet and also a hand that pops out of a mirror. When these events occur it plays a little scare jingle which adds tension.
The Character animations are great as well including when they interact with the background. Only occasionally there is a glitches with the face portrait's colour goes inverted.
Clock Tower is mostly a quiet game when your exploring which fits in well to the survival horror atmosphere but when the Sissorman or any scary comes your way then you'll get a horror chase track which plays until your safe again. The soundeffects including the girls screams that you'll hear are well done for the system.
Clock Tower for the SNES is an enjoyable that horror fans will really appreciate if they only played Clock Tower titles that made it's way to the States. With an English Translation patch it's possible to play this title on Emulators or on a reproduction cartridge by Timewalk Games which you can get of their website or on Ebay. Be warned it's very scary, even for a Super Nintendo game. I do not recommend this game to kids under the age of 15 for the scariness and the blood.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Good Points:
---------------------
It's very scary, even for a Super Nintendo game
Plenty of different Endings to unlock
Graphics and character animations are cool for the ageing system
The Bad Points:
---------------------
Can be confusing at times when you want to get all the endings with the game changing sometimes
No Mouse support
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------