CLOCK TOWER
クロックタワー ~The First Fear~
Original Console: Super Famicom
Original Release Date: September 14, 1995
Developer: Human Entertainment
Genre: Horror / Point & Click Adventure
Story: In September of 1995, a wealthy landowner named Simon Barrows adopted four teenage girls from the Granite Orphanage. These four girls, Anne, Lotte, Laura, and Jennifer Simpson were viewed as prospective daughters for this would-be widower. These mysterious Barrows lived in a secluded mansion in the hills of Romsdal, Norway, known to the locals as the Clock Tower. The girls arrived at the mansion before dusk, led by a custodian of the Granite Orphanage, their teacher Ms. Mary.
Upon arrival, they would discover that this mansion was bigger than any house they'd ever seen before. Ms. Mary went off to look for Mr. Barrows, and after a while, the girls found themselves alone. Anne wonders what kind of person Mr. Barrows is, while Laura admits that something about the house makes her uneasy. Lotte, Jennifer’s tomboyish friend, doesn’t believe she’ll ever get used to a place like this; this leaves her open to teasing from Anne, who shares a bit of a combative relationship with Lotte. After a few minutes, it becomes clear that Ms. Mary isn’t returning. Lotte ponders if she should go search for Ms. Mary, but Jennifer volunteers instead.
Jennifer goes to search for Ms. Mary in vain, but a scream from the main hall cuts the search short. When Jennifer returns to the main hall, she realizes she is all alone, as Lotte, Anne, and Laura are now missing too. What happened to her friends? Where did they all go? Most of all, why does Jennifer have the oddest feeling of being watched?
80/100
Development: Clock Tower: The First Fear’s development began in early 1995 when Human Entertainment employee Hifumi Kono, who, in an in-house company competition, pitched the best idea regarding a future game. Kono, who joined Human a few years previous, was a major horror film fan; his idea would be borrowed from several sources, two of the more prominent citations being Dario Argento’s 1985 giallo film “Phenomena”, and Tony Mylam’s 1981 slasher film “The Burning”.
According to Hifumi Kono, the development of Clock Tower was met with several issues, among them being a small budget, a largely lacking development team, and time crunches that ultimately saw many potential features of the game get cut before release. The game was originally designed to feature the use of the Super Famicom Mouse, but it was ultimately dropped because of the aforementioned issues. Some of the features that were missing in the Super Famicom game eventually were added onto the PlayStation 1 port in July 1997, which was renamed “Clock Tower ~The First Fear~” to better differentiate itself from the sequel, which was released several months beforehand. These additions are mostly aesthetic, with some additional rooms, and an optional enemy added in.
It’s with all this in mind that, unlike the few times I’ve reviewed Clock Tower in the past, I believe that this review is going to be more critical of the game itself, and less forgiving of the limitations put upon the development team. There’s currently a modded version of the SNES game, known as
Clock Tower Deluxe. This remodeled version of the game includes many of the features from the PlayStation version, as well as a few quality-of-life additions. Keep in mind that I will be looking at Clock Tower fairly and will regard its faults and interesting annotations concerning why certain design choices, or lack thereof, were made. This is what I mean by being more critical of the game.
Gameplay: Clock Tower is a Horror Point-and-Click Adventure game, in which the player controls a character through a mouse cursor, and can command said character to make certain actions with the cursor. Of course, you control Jennifer Simpson, the heroine of our game here. If anyone has played Maniac Mansion or Secret of Monkey Island, then you may already be familiar with how the Point-and-Click genre works; Clock Tower, however, is a far more streamlined version of this system, stripping back the potential word options like “speak”, “take”, or “use”, and instead making it so you only need one button to interact with objects or make observations.
On a traditional Super Famicom controller (or the SNES if that matters to you), the Y-Button is your go-to action button, encompassing many of the same actions from which the word choice actions would take in a traditional Point-and-Click Adventure game. The only word choice that is a variant is the “use” option, which, to use any items you’ve collected over the game, requires the usage of the A-Button to access one’s inventory. Using the A-Button to open up your inventory, and then using the Y-Button to select an item, will allow you to use that item on any object or location that you believe may correspond with the item in question. The Y-Button will also make your character move, if not concentrated on any specific area. Double-tapping the Y-Button will make Jennifer run in the direction of your cursor. The L-and-R-Buttons also correspond to cause Jennifer to go into a mad dash but in specific directions. These are useful for when you find yourself in a hairy situation and need to escape quickly in the opposite direction.
There is one caveat to running though, as it takes energy away from Jennifer. Jennifer’s energy bar is recognizable by her portrait, which sits in the bottom left corner of the screen. Her health/vitality runs the gamut of four colors (Note: There are slight differences in coloration between the various ports of Clock Tower. Just know that this is specifically for the SNES version). Blue = Fine, Yellow = Okay, Orange = Caution, Red = Danger. Think Resident Evil, but instead of green as fine, blue replaces it as well. Additionally, if you can’t tell the difference, Jennifer’s expression changes as well, as she gets weaker.
Recovering energy is a matter of Jennifer stopping to catch her breath and collect her thoughts. If one is running low on energy, the X-Button will cause Jennifer to stop walking and kneel down. With her resting animation, she will eventually regain her energy. Admittedly, in the SNES version, this takes a rather painfully long time to do so; realistically speaking, though, it makes sense for it to take a while for Jennifer to recover after running around so much. She’s not an Olympic athlete preparing to run the Boston Marathon; she’s a 14-year-old girl in rather formal wear running around in a creepy mansion that’s decrepit and starting to fall apart. Later versions of the game have drastically lowered the wait time for Jennifer to return to full health though.
Of course, running around isn’t the only thing that drains her health. A few of the interactive objects in the game do have the possibility of hurting Jennifer. Outside of the main stalker, Jennifer can have encounters with various hazards that can either lower her health or kill her outright. You, the player, will have the chance to avoid death by using a “Panic Mode” within the game. When Jennifer is in imminent danger, her portrait will begin to flash red and blue, indicating that Jennifer has entered Panic Mode. This is where our last major button comes in, the B-Button. The B-Button is designated as your Panic Button, for use whenever Panic Mode comes up. You’ll need to use it several times throughout the game. Of course, the biggest hazard to Jennifer’s health is none other than the main antagonist of Clock Tower: Scissorman.
Admittedly, the novelty of being chased by 9-year-old kiddo wielding giant scissors may have lost its touch as time progresses, but it’s less about his visuals, and more about how he messes with the player. Interestingly, he warps around the mansion; just when you think he’s behind you, he’s suddenly right in front of you. Scissorman can and will react to what Jennifer does in the game, and how he acts depends on how well you hide Jennifer. Several hiding spots await Jennifer to utilize, and all have varying degrees of success rates. The most consistent hiding spot tends to be a location that Scissorman cannot reach through conventional means. For example, on the East Wing Second Floor, there is a storage room in which Jennifer can climb over a dresser and hide on the other side. Scissorman will never follow Jennifer onto the other side, and will always go away because he is unable to “find” Jennifer. On the opposite spectrum, if one is extremely desperate, they can lock themselves in one of the two bathrooms in the mansion; Scissorman has a 50/50 chance of either leaving the room or breaking the door down and killing Jennifer.
Scissorman also has two types of attacks, depending on the circumstances. If Jennifer encounters Scissorman in a hallway and has plenty of room, Scissorman will attempt to knock Jennifer over. This creates a Panic Mode scenario, and Scissorman can be knocked over temporarily. Regardless of whether you succeed or not, it will always come at the cost of energy. Scissorman’s other attack is an unavoidable instant kill; it usually only ever happens when he has you cornered. Aside from hiding, there are also a select few items that you can use in desperation to fight off Scissorman. Most of them are one-time use only, and should only be used when no other options are available. Of course, there’s always a way out in any scenario, and being killed by Scissorman isn’t as back-breaking as one would believe.
Clock Tower utilizes the usage of a “Continue” function in the main menu. With it, you are plopped right down in the same room you died (or shut the game off) in; or, during a chase with Scissorman, you will be placed in the room you were in before you died. It’s a reasonably handy access point and makes it clear that the game isn’t out to punish the player for experimenting. You don’t need to save your progress because the game already does it for you; death is merely a stone’s throw away from being inconsequential, but I think that’s what I like about Clock Tower more than most other horror games. You don’t have to start over from the beginning (usually) or from a previous save spot, you’re always able to jump back in and approach the problem from a different angle.
When not being chased around by Scissorman, the game then enters into what I like to call “Investigation Mode”. Jennifer no longer automatically runs when she moves, and she is able to interact with objects that she couldn’t in “Chase Mode”. This tends to be the part of the game where much of the game’s plot and lore is discovered. The interesting thing about Clock Tower, though, is that not every playthrough will have the same story beats. At least, not exactly. Hifumi Kono and Human Entertainment deliberately made it so the Mansion would always be slightly different every time the game is played. Rooms will swap around, items may be in different places, and some key items may not even appear, replaced with others. I think this is what makes the game all the more interesting in my mind; it’s almost never a straight shot, but it has a dynamic story that is always twisting and turning.
Clock Tower additionally boasts a multitude of different endings. There are 9 endings that can be attained through conventional means in Clock Tower, each with different conditions for unlocking them. Over half are generally considered “Bad Endings”, while there are four that are considered good endings. I won’t go into great detail about what each ending is, but I will point out that the secret “Best Ending”, Ending S, is considered non-canon because of the events of First Fear’s sequel. That being said, Endings A-C are considered canon with plenty of debate into which one is the “true” ending (my personal opinion being that Ending C is the true ending).
While there’s a lot to praise the game for, as far as its innovation in the early Survival Horror genre goes, there are quite a few things that do ultimately hold this game back. For some, it might be its snail’s pace plot progression, which admittedly never really bothered me. However, one of the biggest issues is that First Fear lacks a real quality amount of chases from Scissorman. It is entirely possible, even on the very first playthrough, to only encounter Scissorman a grand total of three times throughout the game, which for a survival horror game is really not ideal. Alas, Scissorman only appears through specific trigger points within the mansion; the sequel to Clock Tower at the very least fixes this issue by having Scissorman occasionally appear at random. It really pulls the game down somewhat to not have an element of surprise and tension. Of course, the hacked version of Clock Tower Deluxe mitigates this issue by changing Scissorman’s behavior entirely, but that’s a story for a different day.
The other issue is the idea of quiet time, which again, never really bothered me. Clock Tower’s atmosphere is always built around not being sure just what’s around the corner, but when much of the game doesn’t actually have a whole lot of stuff happening, it really can put a damper on things. Personally, there are always little effects that are going on in the background that some people may not even notice. That being said, there’s no accounting for taste, so your mileage may vary.
I think the most disappointing aspect of Clock Tower, from a gameplay perspective, comes from all of the cut content that was taken out of the game. There is a surreal surplus of sprites and objects that were just casually removed from the game itself (though left in the game code). For example, did you know that Scissorman used to be able to walk up and down stairs, and Jennifer could run up and down them? In Vanilla Clock Tower, neither can happen. There are also several objects that appeared to be used to attack Scissorman, which may lend credence to my personal theory that Scissorman was supposed to appear at random throughout the mansion, but they couldn’t code it into the game within a reasonable time, thus leaving the game feeling a little empty as a result. It’s a spectacularly short game; the best ending to the game can be unlocked in a little less than an hour. I don’t consider it a negative, since Clock Tower’s entire appeal is that it’s a short game that slightly changes narrative and story progression each playthrough. Yet the cut content from it I admit makes the whole thing feel incomplete and I wonder if the game was supposed to be longer.
Overall the gameplay pushes all the right buttons to be a rewarding and responsive experience and there’s enough meat to the bones for everyone to find something to like to the game. I don’t think its faults, as few as there are, take away from the total package; it merely leaves more to be desired.
89/100
Visuals: Where Clock Tower truly succeeds is in its presentation. Hifumi Kono and company opted to go for a more photorealistic set, and borrowed heavily from several sources. Jennifer Simpson for example is very clearly an Expy of Jennifer Connelly, but her in-game sprite is also based on an employee of Human Entertainment; they would take photographs of this employee doing certain actions and then would translate them into the game. Scissorman also borrows from both the killer from The Burning and Patau Bruckner from Phenomena. They don’t take away from the game, they’re just interesting notes.
The rooms within the mansion though are incredibly well-designed and each has a very specific motif to them. I’ve often heard complaints that the layout of the mansion is “confusing” or that it's difficult to know where you are in the Mansion’s group of hallways, but I’ll be honest. I find these complaints to be bushwah. Perhaps I’m being a bit unfair in saying that players should have no trouble figuring out where they are. The simple fact of the matter is that each hallway is quite different from one another; first off, the East Wing and the West Wing are divided by blue and red motifs respectively.
In the East Wing, there are three first-floor hallways and one 2nd floor hallway. The 2nd-floor hallway has a bird’s nest and an archway. The three first-floor hallways, from farthest right to left, are a hallway with an archway and window, a hallway with doors, and a hallway with an archway. In the West Wing, there are four hallways per floor, each the same as the one above/below it. From left to right, there is a hallway with windows, a hallway with doors, a hallway with an archway and window, and a hallway with statues.
I find it rather difficult for anyone to get lost in a mansion like this unless they aren’t really aware of what floor they’re on in the West Wing, but even then, you’re always going to make some sort of progress no matter what you do. I believe people’s confusion begins when they don’t realize that rooms swap with each other at the beginning of the game. There are three sets of rooms that swap with each other at the beginning of the game. Nine rooms in total will be found in a different spot of the mansion, but never outside of their respective wings of the manor. The Mannequin Room and the Trophy Room will always swap with each other since they are rooms on the opposite floor of the West Wing window hallway. The Phone Room and the Religious Study in the East Wing will only swap with one another, the same reason being similar to the Mannequin and Trophy rooms. This leaves five other rooms in the West Wing to all swap around with one another. So out of 20 unique rooms in the Mansion, only 9 will be slightly rearranged each time.
As I mentioned earlier though, each room is meticulously designed to be unique from one another; and in the SNES version of Clock Tower, one room is inaccessible entirely (in later ports, it becomes a second bedroom within the manor). There’s something to be said about how creepy the vibe of each specific location is. It really is a testament to the team at Human Entertainment for still going all out with the visual presentation of the game; I think the sprite-based graphics lend themselves to better detail and more uncanny visuals compared to the early-3D polygonal graphics of its sequel, which… I’ll get to someday, eventually.
That being said, I can at least admit Scissorman looks goofy at times, with many liking him to a famous Australian guitarist; still, there’s less time to be gawking at him while he stalks Jennifer relentlessly and still is a pretty intimidating force of nature 28 years later. The other characters in the game are also fairly well designed, and each one has a very distinguishable sprite from one another (it helps that there are only 7 active characters in the game). Several cutscenes also have that photo-digitized look to them that is pretty fresh looking even on the SNES’s limited hardware. Overall, the visuals are probably the best thing about the game, and it’s such a unique experience compared to other games of its time I’d argue it's one of the most visually distinct games in all of the SNES catalog.
96/100
Audio: There’s a saying, as in many things, that “less is more”. Clock Tower ascribes to this edict, and it pays off in dividends. The entire game is built on the premise of building tension through silence. For the most part, the only thing you’ll hear is the pounding drone of Jennifer’s footsteps. However, Clock Tower has a major leitmotif that plays in almost all of its musical pieces, and it helps serve to tie the game together. When there’s music playing in the game, it means that something is happening; usually, you’ll be hearing the chase theme, “Don’t Cry, Jennifer”. It’s an excellent piece of music and one of the most memorable things from the game.
Still, Clock Tower is about the atmosphere, and its sound design choices are top-notch for a SNES game. When one is limited to a horror game filled with quiet moments, it’s those moments where sound effects are key to victory. Scissorman’s “snip, snip, snip” sound is incredibly effective at conveying an ever-prescient dread that he’s getting closer and closer. Some sounds play at random and have no other purpose other than to mess with the player and disorient them. In a horror game, if you aren’t able to mess with the player, then you aren’t doing a good job. The purpose of horror games is to manipulate the players into feeling the emotion you want them to, and Clock Tower does very well in unsettling the player through visuals and sounds. It also knows when to be loud, and when to be quiet. I think that’s what makes the game such a unique experience for a 16-bit game, it really is unlike any other game of its era.
95/100
Pros/Cons:
Pros
+ Excellent Atmosphere
+ Multiple Endings
+ Great Use of Music and Sound Effects
+ Scissorman is a Dynamic Antagonist
+ Rooms and Items are Randomize Every Playthrough
+ Progress is Never Impeded by Game Over
+ Easy to Memorize Controls
+ Excellent Visuals
Mixed
= Map May be Confusing to New Players
= Players May Find the Game Slow and too Quiet
= A Fairly Mediocre Story
= Puzzles are Not Very Difficult
= The Game is on the Short Side
= Jennifer Takes Some Time to Recover
Cons
- Scissorman Doesn’t Appear Outside of Triggers
- Cut Content Shows Lots of Missing Potential
- No SNES Mouse Compatability
Final Thoughts: If it isn’t obvious from my history, I love Clock Tower. It’s my absolute favorite game series of all time. The First Fear is a watershed moment for the Horror genre, and like Sweet Home and Alone in the Dark before it, and Resident Evil after it, Clock Tower serves as the basis for all horror games after it. It’s a true pioneer of the genre and has aged incredibly well in the last 28 years since its release. I do believe that of the 16-bit era of gaming, Clock Tower is a must-play for any fan of horror games or fans of obscure hidden gems for the SNES.
