REVIEW: CLOCK TOWER (1995)

REVIEW: CLOCK TOWER (1995)

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR CLOCK TOWER (1995)

Lock the doors, turn out the lights, keep your pets close, grab a baseball bat, and steel your nerves... Tonight, DOSeatDog reviews Clock Tower!

This creepy survival horror, point and click adventure was released for the Super Famicon (AKA the Super Nintendo) in Japan in 1995, and unfortunately never saw a North American release. As such, if you're not located in Japan, I hear by absolve you of any pirating guilt. That means you're going to have to use an emulator. And, for my money (or lack thereof) the ZSNES emulator is the best in the biz. Also, the game was never officially translated into English, but it's relatively easy to find a fan translation, such as the one I used from "ROMhacker" group AeonGenesis. Let us give them thanks and be grateful that someone would take the time to translate this piece of horror nostalgia. For the most part, the translation is excellent, even if there are a couple of grammatical issues here and there ("The Lattice's closed!"). And, after all, it's not as though "official" translations of early imported games were beyond reproach. At times the pioneer days of video games could be a real wild-west of engrish and too-literal-translation.

"I feel asleep!!!" - NES Port of Metal Gear (1987)

 "You! Invaders! Get you the hot bullets of shotgun to die!" - Battle Rangers (1988)

"All your base are belong to us." - The infamous Zero Wing (1989)

Another brief note: The SNES game is sometimes referred to as Clock Tower: The First Fear, which is what the 1997 remastered edition for PC and Playstation 1 was called (also, as far as I know, only released in Japan) to differentiate it from Clock Tower II, which was released as Clock Tower outside of Japan. Did you catch all that? It doesn't really matter. 

  

Clock Tower II (1996), known as Clock Tower wherever the original Clock Tower (1995) wasn't released

In the game you take control of Jessi- er, Jennifer Simpson. A sweet, unassuming young girl on the cusp of blossoming into womanhood. You're finally growing up! Your Hormones are raging, you're growing hair in unexpected places, you're starting to notice boys...

... Sorry

... And you and your three friends (Ann, Laura, and Lotte) have just been adopted by the reclusive Simon Barrows! The game opens as Ms. Mary, the headmistress of the Granite Orphanage, chaperons you through the country side on foot, toward the isolated Barrows Mansion (whose distinguishing feature is a massive clock tower, the game's namesake). Nothing bad ever happens in creepy isolated mansions, so it's probably safe to assume that you and your friends will start a brand new chapter of your lives in the lap of luxury. 

Or not. 

Be it in films, books, or video games; the horror genre has a tendency to be controversial. I get that. It's a genre that's designed to provoke. It's designed to explore the visceral under side of the human psyche; to tap into the animal part of our mind that exists to kill, breed, and survive. It's pure exploitation. But it's also one of the only genres that let's the girl be the hero, and ultimately, many horror movies can be boiled down to tales about female empowerment.  Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't kill Jason Voorhees with a machete at the end of Friday the 13th part II; teenage camp counselor Ginny Fields does. Sylvester Stallone doesn't eject the Xenomorph into space at the end of Alien; warrant officer Ellen Ripley does. Bruce Lee doesn't jump head first into Freddy Krueger's Nightmare World to bring an end to his killing spree in A Nightmare on Elm Street; sixteen year old high school student Nancy Thompson does. This motif plays out again and again across the genre. A diminutive, subdued girl discovers reserves of emotional fortitude and strength beyond what they ever thought possible in the face of impossible odds. The video game industry has been accused, fairly or not, of chauvinism. Women typically exist to be rescued by muscle-bound gladiators armed with massive guns. Even when you do get to play as a female character, she is often scantily clad, buxom, and perfectly proportioned. She is clearly designed from a male perspective to entice a male audience. Whether or not you agree with the feminist view point on video game discrimination, it's kind of refreshing to play a game as the archetypical horror movie protagonist: a teenage girl, struggling for survival against an unstoppable monster, unarmed and alone. 

The Xenomorph, lookin' for love in Alien 3 (1992) 

When Ginny met Jason, Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

Fred and Nancy, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Jennifer Simpson struggles against the Scissorman, Clock Tower (1995)

You take control of Jennifer after she has become separated from her friends in the lofty Barrows estate.Your task: find your friends, explore the mansion, and survive the night; not necessarily in that order. The interface of the game is incredibly simple. You won't find any gameplay tutorial telling you how to interact with the environment, but that's not really necessary. The game exists more as an interactive, cinematic horror experience. You move Jennifer from room to room, clicking on objects of interest and picking up items as you go. You use the items you pick up to help you progress. Pick up a key in one room to open a door on the other side of a mansion; grab a can of insecticide from the store room to hose down an intrusion of cockroaches in the meat locker. It's classic point and click action that will be instantly familiar to fans of the genre.

Y'know, for a mansion, this place is kind of a dump

There's no health bar, per se, in Clock Tower. Instead, the background of Jennifer's portrait will change color to indicate her level of panic. Various random and scripted events will effect Jennifer's panic level, and if it gets too intense, Jenifer will be unable to defend herself from the threats presented by the game environment, making you vulnerable to death. Running unnecessarily will increase your panic, as will triggering a paranormal event (usually by clicking on an object). When Jennifer's background flashes between red and blue, you need to mash the "panic button" as quickly as possible to defend against whatever is triggering your anxiety. I didn't quite get this at first, and was a little surprised when a parrot that I released from a cage flew around the room, causing me to panic and ending my game. Again, there's no tutorial, so figuring these things out requires a little trial and error; but, not much, because it really is a simple system. Point, click, button mash. The fun comes from the experience of being scared, not from the deep gameplay.  

Jennifer; feeling calm, cool, and collected in the religious study

Jennifer; on the verge of a nervous breakdown in a steamy bathroom

Too much panic will cause you to collapse, ending your game

The randomness of the game will keep you on your toes. Between different playthroughs, rooms will change positions. A surrealist painting will bleed as you walk by it the first time you play, and it won't the second time. A television will turn on by itself, a cat will jump out of a box. The element of the unexpected enhances the already incredibly creepy atmosphere of the mansion. Even the items you need to beat the game will change from one playthrough to the next; the first time I played, I had to collect a demon idol to open a certain trap door, the second time I needed to collect a sceptre. Some of this creepiness is purely random, and some of it is no doubt based on how you play; what steps you've taken as you progress deeper into the mansion. The mansion is, to me, almost a perfect horror environment. It's got everything you need, from massive empty foyers to cultist altar rooms. 

  

The demon idol

Clicking on the sink can give you a refreshing drink, or a handful of red red vino on tap

A pulsing organ will increase your panic

The randomness of the environment contributes to the massive replayability of the game, and extends to the number of different endings you can get. Some of the endings are considered "bad" endings, and some are "good". I bypassed most of the story of the game for one of the endings I got; running straight into a garage, finding some car keys, and high tailing it away from the mansion after a moment of contemplation on whether or not I should go back and save my friends. On another playthrough, the car I used to escape wasn't even in the garage. It was nowhere to be found. 

Ah, fuck it. Sayonara, suckers!

This is one of the game's "bad" endings

The breadth of the story changes upon repeated playthroughs, as well. My first playthrough, I smashed through a wall into a totally empty prison cell. The second time I played through, the prison cell contained the corpse of Jennifer's long deceased father, including a hand written note explaining the origins of the game's antagonists. Whether this was random, or whether it occurred because of an extra step I had taken while exploring the mansion, it's a pretty major piece of plot to be missing from any playthrough; but, ultimately the game isn't about the plot. It's about the atmosphere and the scares, and so even a missing piece of plot development like this doesn't really hurt the game that much. It just adds extra color to the experience when you actually do come across it. The game is meant to be played multiple times, and these variables make it easy to do so without getting worn out. I ended up playing the game three times, getting a bad ending once, getting a good ending the second time, and using a walkthrough to get the best ending the third time. I would highly recommend not using a walkthrough for your first time, unless you get absolutely stuck. It really lessens the sense of the unknown, which is all-important in a game like this. 

The prison cell was empty during this playthrough

It was decidedly not empty during this playthrough

Eventually, no matter how you progress through the game, you are going to have your first encounter with the game's primary antagonist: a demonic, horribly disfigured, psychotic little boy wielding a pair of shears as big as he is. This is Bobby Barrows, the Scissorman. He follows in the footsteps of figures like Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers in the grand tradition of unstoppable slasher villains. Where and how you encounter him, like much of the game, is random. He will pop out of a box in the storage room, or drop out of the roof in the music room, or sometimes he will randomly begin to pursue you in the hallways of the mansion if you've gone too long without an encounter. Whatever the case may be, once you have triggered an encounter with the Scissorman, he will not stop chasing you until you find a way to injure him, or hide from him; and, even then, it`s only a matter of time until he reappears to enact his vengeance. After you manage to shake the scissorman, you will be paranoid with each new room you enter, terrified that he might pop out from any corner. And just when that sense of tension begins to leave you, he will.

Interrupting scissorman's bathtime 

Hiding behind a cabinet. Sometimes it pays to not be three feet tall

Hiding under a bed

If he corners you, you may be able to knock him over and run away, assuming that your panic level is at an acceptable level. If he knocks you to the ground, he will dance around you with childish glee, relishing the terror he inflicts. This is not a little boy who has been sorely missing a mother's touch; it's a murderous, sociopathic demon who has been stalking and killing your friends, and would love nothing more than to decapitate you and somersault around your lifeless remains. The sound of his clippers opening and closing will be audible as he enters a room, heralding oncoming danger.

PEEK-A-BOO!

Scissorman hiding in the roof, can you spot him?

The scissorman and his brother, Dan Barrows, are the byproduct of a ceremony performed by an occult religious order that the Barrows family exists to perpetuate. The whole adoption thing has been a farce to bring new victims into the fold, and you're next up on the menu. You can't really defeat the scissorman while in the mansion, only delay him. Eventually, if you can avoid one of the "bad" endings, you will encounter him in a dramatic final showdown in the titular clock tower, which has been designed by family Patriarch Simon Barrows as a fail safe to defeat his demonic offspring.

Apparently, some of the character design and events in the game are based off of the work of famed Italian horror director Dario Argento, particularly the movie Phenomena (1985) (recut and released as Creepers in the U.S.). As a fan of the genre, I'm somewhat ashamed to say that I've never seen an Argento film as of yet. But I'm well aware of his legacy and importance in the medium, and looking at stills from the movie online I can definitely see the resemblance between Jennifer Simpson from Clock Tower and Jennifer Corvin from phenomena, portrayed by Jennifer Connelly. That's a lot of Jennifer's for one sentence; it can't be a coincidence. The broad strokes of Clock Tower and Phenomena seem to be quite different though, plot wise. In Phenomena, the protaganist discovers that she has a psychic ability to communicate with insects, and uses her ability to track down a serial killer who has been haunting her campus. There's no such psychic insect manipulation in clock tower. Inspiration also seems to have been drawn from another Argento film, Suspiria (1977).

 

Jennifer playing Jennifer, the inspiration for Jennifer. Phenomena (1985)

Deformed child serial killer Patua, the inspiration for Bobby Barrows. Phenomena (1985)

The stained glass death scene in Suspiria (1977)

An inspiration for the stained glass death scene in Clock Tower

Like many horror films, the soundtrack of the game plays a big part in building the atmosphere of apprehension and fear. The opening theme of the game is reminiscent of great horror themes in films like Halloween (1978) or Phantasm (1979); and the scissorman chase theme will get your quicken your heart beat. Minor chords and dissonance will make you feel ill at ease, even when the scissorman isn't visible on screen. But, the way that the game uses silence is perhaps even more effective. When you are alone in the foyer, with no sound accompanying you except that of your own footsteps, the sense of isolation you feel will be palpable. It's just you, alone, walking through drafty halls; and him, the scissorman, somewhere out there lurking and listening.

Theme from Halloween

Theme from Phantasm

Opening theme from Clock Tower

Clock Tower chase music

The game is genuinely scary. The villain, the soundtrack, the environment of the mansion; they all work together to give you a lasting case of the heebie-jeebies. But, here's the thing: You need to be willing to go to a certain place psychologically to be scared by a game, or a movie, or anything. You need to lower your walls a little. In your heart of hearts, you know that the events being depicted on the screen aren't real, and knowing that can take some of the power away. If you play this game like the teenager in the movie theatre cracking jokes with his friends, then you won't be scared. And games like this kind of rely on your willingness to be scared. That being said, if a game is totally relying on you to artificially inflate your openness to fear, then I don't think you can consider it an effective horror game. That's not clock tower; clock tower is a creepy game that creeps up on you. I didn't even realize how uneasy I was feeling until I went downstairs to grab a midnight snack, and thought "Hey, maybe I'll just carry this hammer downstairs with me". Then, when coming upstairs, I decided to grab the cat and lock him in the room with me as an early warning system against ghosts and goblins. 

Oh yaaay, a wrecked child's bedroom, complete with creepy dolls

Just my feeling of impending doom, that's all

I love horror games, I love horror movies, I love being scared, and I'm open to the experience. I'm a fan of the genre, and the primal switch that it can trigger in the mind. But I know that not everyone can go there. Roller coasters aren't for everyone, sky diving isn't for everyone, and the horror genre isn't for everyone, and that's fine; but it works for me and I enjoy it. Beyond that, the 16-bit goodness that the Super Nintendo delivers is like bottled nostalgia to me, and while I don't consider myself an overly nostalgic person, sometimes it's good to take a deep drink. And Clock Tower is hovering at the pinnacle of the Super Nintendo's capabilities; it's a beautiful game, whereas it's sequel was developed during the naissance of 3D graphical capabilities and as a result looks kind dated. All told, the game is almost a perfect storm of things that I enjoy, so for me it was a must play. You might not feel the same way, but if any of what I've said resonates with you, then their is a good chance that this game should be in your "must-play-list" as well.