Clock Tower (SNES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
1,256A playthrough of Human Entertainment's 1995 point-and-click/survival horror adventure game for the Super Nintendo, Clock Tower.
You can find my playthrough of the Playstation version here: https://youtu.be/9mU3Vs8_qYw
The Japanese-exclusive Clock Tower for the SNES (also released as Clock Tower: The First Fear on PS1 and WonderSwan) kicked off the series back in 1995. The game that the US received as Clock Tower was actually it's direct sequel, and was known as Clock Tower 2 in Japan.
In this video I am playing from a rom that has been patched into English by the ever-talented Aeon Genesis translation group.
It's a real shame that this one never got an official release in some form in the west, because (at least in my humble opinion) it is by far the best game in the series. Clock Tower is quite understated in most ways, and does an expert job of building tension and atmosphere with its effective sound design (the rip-off of Michael Oldfield's Tubular Bells theme from The Exorcist works very well here) and it's classic 2D sprite work. I also think that this one is quite a bit easier than the first US game is to go back and play - the 2D graphics have aged far more gracefully than the sequel's awkward, chunky, and generally ugly 3D character models.
Clock Tower always amazes me for just how much it does within the limits of a 24 megabit SNES cartridge. This just isn't an experience you would expect to be able to have on a 16-bit console. It does horror better than most CD games managed for sure. In many ways it reminds me of SOS (another SNES game developed by Human). Both of them were quite forward thinking in their designs, but Clock Tower was a huge evolutionary step forward.
The game play is fairly simple, there are some basic puzzle-solving elements and the terrifying chase scenes, but the mansion is huge and the path you take through the game is entirely up to you. It's surprisingly non-linear, and the choices you make throughout the game can lead to one of nine total endings.
I went for the B ending in this playthrough. The S ending doesn't match up with the sequel, and the A ending requires you to skip certain sequences that provide a lot of the back story (like the secret room with the skeleton). Since endings A, B, and C are all considered canonical, I went with B as the best compromise between being thorough and ending in a way that is consistent with the PS1 follow-up.
It's Friday the 13th today, and since Clock Tower is probably one of the scariest games I've ever played, I thought that this would be an appropriate time to share it with you all. I hope you enjoy it!
_
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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