CLASSIC GAMING
Clock Tower
Developer:  Human Entertainment
Publisher:  Human Entertainment
Genre:  Point-and-click/Horror
Year:  1995
System:  SNES


We all know how horror has become an iconic genre in movies and videogames.  Movies have The Hills Have Eyes, Nightmare on Elm Street, Ringu and Night of the Living Dead.  Videogames of course have Resident Evil, Silent Hil and Project Zero a.k.a Fatal Frame.  But of course there are underrated classics that while forgotten and drowned among the mainstream, are remembered by few, and still struggling to be championed as being inspirational somehow or revolutionary.  One such game that can be considered as this among horror videogames, is Clock Tower.

Story - The story is certainly dark and interesting enough for one of the oldest survival horror games ever made.  You play as Jennifer Simpson, a teenage orphan after her parents died when she was young (her father disappeared on an odd house call and never returned), who is taken by the orphanage lady Ms. Mary, with her three friends Ann, Laura and Lotte to be adopted by Mr Barrows, a wealthy recluse with a grand mansion in a forest with even its own titular clock tower.
While Ms. Mary goes to find Mr Barrows, Jennifer talks with her friends and after it's noticed that Mary has been gone too long, so Jen goes out to find her.  As you leave the main hall, there is a scream from the hall and you return to find all of your friends missing.  Now alone in a disturbingly large and mostly empty mansion, Jennifer must not only find her friends, but also find darker secrets within the mansion that you eventually have to discover.  This is made all the more frantic when eventually Jennifer encounters the death of one of her friends, murdered by a short looking strange looking human, wielding a large pair of garden shears.  The Scissorman.
The story of the game is slightly complex with the non-linear feel of the game resutling in some parts being missed out or enlightened upon depending on how you traverse through the game, giving it quite a grand feel even though it's on the SNES.  Another famous thing of the game is that this is the videogame that has the most largest number of multiple endings possible, about nine of them.


Gameplay - Being a point-and-click game, the pace of the game is quite slow.  Jennifer normally walks everywhere but she can also run (and WILL run if Scissorman is chasing her, which you will know by the music playing).  On a normal SNES control layout, you have an action button (Y button) for Jen to examine, walk and use things around the Barrows mansion.  There is also the item button (A button) for Jen to check her inventory.  The X button cancels any movements you make Jennifer do.  The panic button (B button) is quite a tricky thing to understand.  It can only be used well when Jennifer is not tired enough to use the spurt of adrenaline in order to either fight off Scissorman or move faster.  It must be used sparingly as well for it can prove to be just what you need whenever you feel you have the blades around your fragile tender neck.  Lastly, there is the L and R buttons which make Jennifer run left or right across the screen to the doors (which she will automatically use as she reaches them).

The mansion itself, where the game takes place, is quite confusing but not as big as the one in Resident Evil or so in comparison.  If you have a good memory, it will benefit you here, or if you can draw maps well enough to write down a layout.  But of course it's not as simple as that.  Every time you play through the game, things get swapped around.  Some rooms are interchangeable with other rooms and will be swapped around every time you play through the game, as well as certain items sometimes appearing in a place or elsewhere, so you are forced eventually to search everywhere multiple times, which can be a little frustrating.  The same goes for the Scissorman's hiding places.  He is also quite random and you will have to risk being hunted down by him in order to continue.  But then, what fun would this game be without him?


Another thing of Jennifer is her health status shown in the bottom left of the screen.  Jennifer's wellbeing ranges from blue (which is the perfect health) to green then to yellow and then to red (meaning you're very likely going to die).  The worse her condition is, the less strength she has to run or be able to deal with Scissorman and other enemies of the mansion.  Not only that but there is also when she becomes surprised (you get a close up shot of her eye in the bottom left screen) and while you don't need the panic button, you better hightail it out of there.  Lastly, if you die, you get the words DEAD END to tell you this, and you are returned to the main screen.  But don't despair!  Because the game is kind enough to give you another chance, by selecting CONTINUE off the main screen, you return back at the room where you met your demise.


Graphics - For the mid 90's, the graphics are actually quite something.  The faces of the characters look quite good work, and the mansion itself is done just as well, in an overall lush, rich yet imposing feel from its dark but plentifully skecthy colours, even though at times not everything can be well seen because of the low quality of them.  But seeing the looks on Jennifer's face in those shocking moments, as well as the quite graphic deaths in the game are nevertheless a disturbing sight to see, even by today's standards.


Music/Sound - Most of the music of the game is almost always the same kind of music with the odd change now and again.  Whether this is lack of money or time or plain laziness is unknown to me.  Nevertheless, the music is well timed in the game to seriously give you a further scare than you would on the sight alone.  It does its job well enough, and that job is to add another layer of adrenal-inducing anxiety upon you.
As for sound, there is little of it in the game, but what there is of it in terms of screams, moans, rattling, flapping and dripping, it's quite impressive for the SNES.  The screams sound like something off a scratchy 30s record which alone is something noteable for a videogame to do, and the rest of the sound effects are nicely timed even with the music.  One fine example of such a mixture is in one room in the game, which I hope you can find out yourself.


Whether you are more afraid of Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Chucky, or Samara, you know that all these forms of horror tales are fictional.  Yet it's not the realism that scares us when we can clearly tell they can never exist.  It's the thought planted in your head, the very tiny voice inside you that constantly pips up "how do you know that's impossible?  Didn't Shakespeare himself say there were more things in heaven and earth than we can possibly comprehend?"
It's a form of paranoia that keeps you on edge against any possiblity, even the unreal ones.  But then, some people just end up without a clue in those situations.  And when in any situation of fear such as poor Jennifer, it's either running until your time's up.....or braving the darkness of your own fear.


Final's Final Rating - 7/10