Despite by no means getting an official launch exterior of Japan, the unique Clock Tower has been a cornerstone affect inside the survival horror style. Clock Tower accompanies 1992’s Alone within the Darkish as the most effective survival horror video games of its time. Because the 16-bit visuals counsel, Clock Tower was first on the Tremendous Famicom in 1995. It noticed an enhanced model for the PS1 known as Clock Tower: The First Concern, which added some extra eventualities and options. Now, in 2024, we get Clock Tower Rewind, which marks the primary time the sport has launched exterior Japan. Rewind stands because the definitive model of Clock Tower, coming packages with a port of the 1995 unique recreation and an enhanced model of First Concern, plus different bonuses and additions courtesy of WayForward.
“Clock Tower: Rewind comes with a bunch of enjoyable bonuses like outdated technique guides and dev interviews”
The 1995 port contains new translations in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Conventional Chinese language, and Simplified Chinese language, however aside from that, it’s the same16-bit recreation from 1995. Rewind contains all of the content material from The First Concern together with the power to rewind gameplay, create save states, some extra Scissorman hiding locations (extra on that later), and a few high quality of life enhancements like working up stairs. Some cool further goodies additionally come filled with Rewind, starting from movement comics, dev interviews, a soundtrack participant, an animated intro, vocal songs, and a bit extra. I significantly respect the inclusion of the unique instruction handbook and technique information, even with its Japanese-only textual content. Though Clock Tower Rewind clearly has numerous love put into its high quality of life and content material, the sport itself requires numerous endurance and appreciation for archaic level and click on design. Let’s go over what makes Clock Tower tick and what retains it caught prior to now.
Let’s begin with an icebreaker: Clock Tower is a quintessential level and click on hidden object journey recreation and isn’t ashamed of it. For those who don’t have the endurance for old-school journey video games, Clock Tower’s horror goodness gained’t compensate for that archaic model of gameplay.
“Operating from the dreaded Scissorman could be a chore because of sluggish strolling animations, however at the least this model provides working to stairways.”
Your major goal in Clock Tower is avoiding the lethal Scissorman by hiding and in the end on the lookout for a technique to escape the lethal Barrows household manor. Navigation is achieved by holding left/proper run buttons and clicking on interactable objects and doorways. The Rewind model permits Jennifer to run up and down stairs as a substitute of merely stroll, which accelerates gameplay circulation a bit from the unique. That mentioned, you continue to have to attend for laboriously sluggish strolling animations to complete everytime you work together with one thing. That is compounded by Jennifer strolling to a location and again to her earlier spot once more with no urgency in any way, making you wait twice as lengthy for the prolonged animation to complete. Double clicking makes her run to the interactable, however just for a few of them. Fortunately, the animations themselves are from the glory days of the Tremendous Famicom and are a delight to have a look at, however that doesn’t take away from the monotony of all of the ready.
“Development sometimes includes obtuse journey recreation logic like utilizing objects on random elements of the atmosphere in a particular order”
Once you’re not ready round for Jennifer to get to her vacation spot, you might be pixel-hunting environments for usable objects and clues. In typical journey recreation trend, the way in which ahead (pun supposed) usually requires a tiny object and its corresponding interactable inside the atmosphere. You don’t have any technique to determine sure issues out besides the trial and error concerned with utilizing objects on random environments. The logic behind these functions is commonly very obscure, although Clock Tower may hardly be thought-about the worst offender of this sort of journey recreation logic. Steerage is simply one thing Clock Tower doesn’t do nicely, even within the Rewind model. Not that I need such an atmospherically wealthy recreation to spell the whole lot out with goal markers and yellow paint, however delicate hints at times may’ve helped therapeutic massage the obtuseness of the unique recreation.
“You’ll be able to briefly stun Scissorman by urgent the ‘panic’ button, however he’ll proceed to chase you till you discover a correct hiding spot”
Nonetheless, it wasn’t the obscure journey recreation logic that lastly made me collapse and use a walkthrough; no, it was the fixed working away from Scissorman. Scissorman is your solely constant risk all through the sport, popping up in random areas like bathtubs and dressers. To the sport’s credit score, these chases could be exhilarating and terrifying. No punches are pulled with a number of the deaths, and the sound results and accompanying music fire up anxiousness virtually too nicely. However after your first couple deaths to Scissorman, the appeal begins to put on off as you search for hiding locations and methods to cease him. Such a big portion of my playtime was spent simply working away from this risk, and it was hardly ever enjoyable. For one, you might be locked out of interacting with objects in rooms whereas Scissorman is in pursuit, mandating backtracking to retrieve such objects. As soon as you determine profitable hiding locations and methods to throw off the pursuer, the chase whittles all the way down to formulaic backtracking to the hiding spot, one thing that takes too lengthy attributable to Jennifer’s sluggish run velocity and door-opening animations.
The standard-of-life options don’t fairly do sufficient to recover from the clunky and glacially sluggish pacing of the sport both. For instance, the rewind function solely goes again 10 seconds, which hardly ever provides you sufficient time to keep away from a Scissorman assault or stop a personality loss of life. Additionally, the extra aggressive Scissorman AI current on this Rewind model solely compounds the irritating points bogging down the chases, making you backtrack into rooms for security extra continuously and padding the sport additional. Don’t get me incorrect, the idea of those Scissorman chases is wealthy with potential, one thing extra trendy horror video games have since capitalized on. However when finished with the purpose and click on management scheme and sluggish pacing, these chase sequences really feel redundant and worsening.
“Environments have sensible lighting and detailed spritework, emphasizing the darkish environment of Barrows Manor completely”
Against this, I’ve nothing however compliments to present to Clock Tower’s environment and story. The sport begins off roughly the way you’d count on; a bunch of orphans visiting their new residence for the primary time when the sensible one of many group, Jennifer, senses one thing off. There’s a shocking quantity of lore and historical past behind the spooky Barrows manor and its demented house owners.
Higher but, the story is unraveled by delicate gameplay discoveries as you discover the mansion, with a number of particulars being fully missable relying on the selections you make and ending you get. Whereas a number of the 9 endings are related to one another, others take a drastically totally different flip leading to Jennifer’s demise and even worse. The backstory and reveal surrounding the Barrows household is rather well finished and value experiencing, with sensible ‘present, don’t inform’ exposition and putting visible storytelling using all the assets a 16-bit console may dish out. There’s an exceptional sequence within the cave part that rivals a number of the greatest visible moments within the style.
Complimenting the visible storytelling is the beautiful spritework. There’s some good consideration to element with the room layouts and animations. Placing a bow on the whole lot is the atmospheric soundtrack, clearly influenced by John Carpenter with its shrill strings and dissonant stabs. The minimalistic method the music and sound results accompany the journey by the manor has impressed many future horror classics like Silent Hill and Resident Evil, and it’s straightforward to see why with this remaster.
“Shock scare moments happen when exploring, a few of that are splendidly animated”
Clock Tower is a recreation caught prior to now regardless of the handful of recent conveniences. There’s solely a lot that may finished to enhance a degree and click on recreation with out altering the mechanics fully. When performed utilizing a walkthrough, Clock Tower provides an atmospherically wealthy expertise with some irritating, however doable gameplay. For hardcore horror followers or old-school level and click on journey recreation gamers, Clock Tower Rewind comes as a strongly beneficial title. Simply know what you’re entering into beforehand as a result of the archaic puzzle options and lack of course function a roadblock to having fun with this traditional horror expertise.
This recreation was reviewed on PC.
