Scissorman's Beginnings
This was a game never released in the United States or Europe, and truly the first game in the series, both chronologically and by actual release date in Japan on the Super Famicom system. This particular release was a later port of the game on the Playstation, and was once again only avaialble in Japan. It answers those questions gamers had about the history behind the first "Clock Tower" game released in the West, and gives us yet another healthy dose of exciting Scissorman-escaping that we learned to know, love, and crave.
The story revolves around a group of orphans who are requested for adoption to the far-off Barrows mansion,and are escorted to this mansion with their caretaker. After waiting in the lobby of the mansion, the caretaker leaves to find the Barrows and never returns. The heroine of the game and her fellow orphans each take some action in trying to discover just what is going on. That is when this game takes on its identity as one of the original hacker-slasher horror video games. The girls are pursued, and most ultimately killed, by a short serial killer with a large human-sized pair of scissors, called "Scissorman". Your goal in the game is to evade summary execution at the hands of this massive-scissor wielder, and escape with your life. It won't be easy, and you'll be glad that it isn't.
Despite being a point-and-click game, the game still feels like a game over which you have full and immediate control. The operations are easy to learn, and in fact, the seemingly non-traditional control scheme adds positively to the tension as you try to escape one of Scissorman's various attack attempts. Much like its sequel, this game's excitement centers around the presence of Scissorman, possibly one of the best all-time horror villains in either print, film, or video game. He will chase you, and you will either escape... or perish.
The game has nine possible outcomes, and each one will allow you to learn more about what is going on in this nightmare mansion with this nightmare family. This gives it both replay value, and vast appeal, and as you'll discover, Scissorman will make the game possibly the most enjoyable and positively frightening experienes you've had. The visual presentation was fantastic for the Super Famicom, but this Playstation port of the game presents little upgrade from the presentation in its original release on that system. It seems like the Playstation's graphical processing capabilities were all but ignored. Where the game actually does represent a significant upgrade is in the audio presentation. The music is upgraded from the game's original Japanese release, and lays down an incredible sense of foreboding during moments of rest and investigation. But the real improvement is the integration of sound effects, some new to this game but many borrowed entirely from the sequel, also released on the Playstation. Hearing the clank of Scissorman's shears while he chased us down a pit-laden corridor was a chill most of us didn't realize we were missing in the original release, but experiencing it in this port will many die-hard fans never want to go back to that version of the game.
Its a shame this game never saw the light of day in the US or Europe, in either its Super Nintendo release or this Playstation release. Why wasn't it released? Well one reason is that game developers didn't want to release a game with violence or blood in the States primarily because of the furor behind bands like "2 Live Crew" and so-called "ultra-violent" games, which prompted an atmosphere of censorship. This was first released in 1995 after all, and the "Tipper Gore"s of the world were marching like good little activists to the beat of the censorship drums. As to why it wasn't released as a port for the Playstation in the West is anybody's guess, but its most likely a repercusion from the original censorship wheel. I excuse no one for this travesty: shame on the developer for not trusting us with this game, mega shame on our own homegrown politicians for thinking they could play God with our sensibilities by putting locks on game developers to protect us from ourselves, and SHAME ON US for not speaking out against this more openly.
With any luck, we'll see this on an anthology someday. Believe me, its WELL worth any reasonable purchase price, and is certain to be worth the wait.