This is the part where I come up with the immersive clever intro paragraph, but its hard to think of one for this game. What I can say is that now that I've finished pushing my eyeballs back in from playing Pokemon X, its time to suffer severe mood whiplash and go back to playing horror games. So let's see if I can pull some of you away from catching them all and talk about the most obscure game this month, Clock Tower.
Released in 1993 for the Super Famicom, Clock Tower was one of the scariest games for the system, and was considered to be one of the fathers of Survival Horror games, next to the likes of Alone in the Dark. The game was successful to be the first game in a series of games, but despite that, Clock Tower was never officially released in the US. All other games in the series did, meaning this series has some Final Fantasy Esq catch up, but no version of this game on any system has gotten an oversea release. This means I have to use the emulator in order to play and understand this game. Over 20 years after its original release, does this game still deserve its title of the father of horror games?
The plot starts with Jennifer, an orphan, being adopted with her four friends by Mary Barrows, a wealthy woman who lives at the Borrows Mansion. She takes
the five girls to the foyer and asks them to wait there while she gets Mr. Barrows. After taking way too long to come back, though she could have just been looking for a way around all the giant holes, the girls ask Jennifer to find Ms. Barrows. She heads out to find her, but turns around about ten seconds when she hears a scream and finds all of her friends missing. Soon Jennifer witnesses a boy with a giant pair of scissors killing one of her friends, and flees. Now Jennifer must avoid the boy known as Bobby Barrows, find her friends, and escape while discovering the secretes of the mansion, and the clock tower.
This game is a point and click adventure game, where you'll walk around, use item a on item b, and eventually make progress. You don't control Jennifer directly, but rather you use the on screen pointer to click on where you want to go. Using a d-pad to control a pointer is a bit strange, but you'll get used to it soon. Jennifer walks SLOW so that happens. You can press L and R to run, but as is the logical thing that would happen if you run in what she's wearing, she's prone to tripping, and it takes a few seconds to get up after falling. And if your unlucky enough for Bobby to be chasing you, your basically as good as dead.
Let's talk about the main enemy in this game for a bit, Bobby. As a kid, he'll walk slow and menacingly, but he will kill you if he catches up. That's where the panic button comes into play. When approached by Bobby, you'll enter a power struggle with Bobby, where you'll have to mash the B button in order to stay alive. If you win, you'll knock Bobby back, giving you enough time to escape. Unless you trip. Unlucky soul. Sometimes however, you'll lose anyway because your health is too low. You see that portrait of Jennifer at the bottom? That's your health. If its blue, your all good. If its red, your not so good. If its anything in between, your only mostly good. Not that dying matters though because the game respawns you in the room that you died in with full health, basically guaranteeing a victory against Bobby in the next power struggle.
Should you not want to get up close and personal with the freaky ten year old with the giant pair of scissors, than you can hide, and that's where the true terror in this game lies. If Bobby isn't in the room, you can try to hide. With luck, he'll walk away, letting you get back to your business. But you have to watch out though, because Bobby will pick up on your tricks and look in previous hiding spots, meaning you can't be the same one-trick-pony. Sometimes however, he'll look in your hiding spot anyway, and the paralyzing horror of Bobby slowly shuffling to your hiding spot will terrify you. That's the glory in this games horror. In Silent Hill and Yume Nikki, you had a means of defense. Some may have been a little less than good, but they were good enough to get you by. In this game, your defenseless against a being much stronger than you, and theirs nothing you can do except push him back, run away, and then hide like a little girl. And besides Bobby, theirs other entities in this house, disrupting the points where you feel safe, and reminding you that in this game, there's no safe haven. And that's pretty freaky.
In terms of presentation, for a Super Nintendo game, this look pretty good. For a sixteen bit system, character sprites are good looking, and the music is good at setting the mood. The soundtrack isn't something you'd want on your iPod, but its still pretty sweet stuff. And it seems the other ports of the game agree, because the presentation in the ports of this game remain largely unchanged, with the only exception being the Wonderswan version, which makes sense science that's an 8-bit system.
Like Silent Hill there's replay value to this game through the means of multiple endings. There are nine in total, and they are mostly easy to get. What ending you get depends on what you examine in the game, which will usually lead to one of Jennifer's friends dying. Some can be achieved in the same playthrough, but most like Ending S or Ending H, will require a replay of the game. And let me tell you, Ending S makes you WORK for your happy ending. I won't say anything more, but it will be very though, and don't be surprised if it becomes a guide dangit moment.
So Clock Tower came out twenty years ago. And people still claim its on of the scariest games of its generation. And their absolutely right. Despite being on weaker technology as some bigger name horror titles, Clock Tower provides scares in a way that most recent horror games wish to recreate. And I'll say straight up: This will probably be the scariest game talked about this month. Not to crap on the next game, because I love that game, but in terms of pure raw horror, Clock Tower will definitely deliver, and it totally gets my recommendation. I just wish there was an easier way to play it in the west. This game was released on multiple systems in Japan, but the most noteworthy one is the PS1 version, which adds additional scares, and an additional scene explaining something that happens in the sequel. If you can read Japanese, this is the best version, so play it if you have the means to do it. There's also a fan made remake in the works titled Remothered. Its not out yet, so I don't have much to say about it, other than it looks pretty good. It uses 3d graphics, offers new scenes, and it just looks like it'll be great. This ones definitely worth following. Leave it to the fans yet again to do what Capcom can't.
The Silent Protagonist apologizes for the delay. Life's just been ruthless recently. Also he says "It is always scissors". That'll be evident in the next game hint hint.
No comments:
Post a Comment