Underrated Games - Clock Tower - PlayStation 1
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#clocktower #ps1 #retrogaming #survivalhorrorgaming #gamereview #horrorgaming
00:00 Intro
01:23 What's This Game About?
02:16 Good Things # 1 - Super Scary Moments
02:57 Clip # 1 - Creepy Atmosphere
03:46 Good Things # 2 - Insane Replay Value
04:19 Clip # 2 - Surprise! Surprise! Unexpected Things
05:55 Good Things # 3 - Cool Kills & Plenty of Blood
06:31 Clip # 3 - Head Rolling Montage
08:00 Critics Hate # 1 - It's a Point & Click Adventure Game
08:48 Clip # 4 - Crazy Action! Beth Joins the Party!
09:47 Critics Hate #2 - It's Boring & Slow
10:28 Clip #5 - Unusual Main Character Selection + Creeper
11:54 Critics Hate # 3 - Not So Useful Hints & Pixel Hunting
12:36 Clip # 6 - Finally Found the F'N Spell!
13:49 Did I Beat This Game?
14:04 Clip # 7 - Stopping Scissor Man Once and For All!
15:54 Outro
Join serial killer survivor, Jennifer Simpson, and her newly adopted Mother, Helen, as they try to put an end to a scissor wielding maniac's rampage... but wait you might ask. Isn't there already a game called Clock Tower that was on the Super Famicom but never released in America? That's right! Add this to the list of chronologically confused games because this is actually Clock Tower II 2! But wait... doesn't this sound an awful lot like a very obscure Dario Argento movie called Phenomena? Right again! This video game franchise was heavily inspired by that film and the main character looks almost exactly like Jennifer Connelly.
In true classic horror B movie style, you will be unrelentingly chased by Scissor Man throughout this entire game. Scissorman is kinda like the Hunchback of Notre Dame mixed with the Terminator. He absolutely won't stop! A three level Panic system allows you to avoid two of scissor man's attacks, but if he catches you while your cursor is red - you're dead. This leads to some truly heart pounding and shocking moments as you search the environment for places to hide and even weapons to fight back!
There is plenty of reason to keep playing this game after you finish as it features a whopping 10 different endings. There are two main characters, 10 hints to be collected, two different levels for scenario B, and also some supporting characters that you can play as in some sections of the game. After beating the game three times, I thought I pretty much had seen everything the game had to offer, but nope there were plenty of shocking moments still to be found like this...
People die in this game in the most insane ways. Nobody is safe and off limits to scissor-man's murderous attacks. There was one moment in the game where I rescued a character for them only to be killed off literally seconds later. Some of the deaths scenes are truly gruesome but can also be unintentionally hilarious. This game might even have the world record for most decapitations from giant scissors ever in a game.
While this once was a very popular gaming genre especially during it's golden era with the likes of Monkey Island, King's Quest VI, and Indiana Jones... it's pretty much a dead genre today. A lot of people simply don't like these types of games and that was true back when it was released as well. One reviewer straight up said he didn't buy a PlayStation to play Point and Click Adventure games and enjoyed more action survival horror focused titles like Resident Evil. Hey at least they were honest and that's all you can ask for. This type of game just simply isn't everyone's cup of tea and that's cool. But hey at least it's not tank controls right? Everybody hates that? Right?
The game is split between story and scenario levels. The story segments have you travel to different locations on a map and talk to various characters to progress the story along. They can't be skipped and can become tedious to get through especially when playing the game after you've beaten it a few times. Honestly I'll admit these sections are a poor design choice and probably could have been eliminated all together and replaced with cutscenes. On the bright side, there are a few very important choices you can make during these which influence the outcome of the game. The option to choose your main character is maybe one of the most inventive I've seen.
Although you can collect 10 hints throughout your adventure, the usefulness of these varies greatly. Some are amazing and let you know how to change main characters while others are almost worthless. Some of this is most likely due to translation errors. The first two scenarios in the game are pretty straight forward but the puzzles really ramp up towards the end. There are two key items that you need to find in order to get any of the good endings and the game doesn't do a good job of explaining this to you. Finding these items is also made worse by some dreadful pixel hunting that is a common to point and click adventure games.