Clock Tower: Rewind review

• Reviews by Sam Amiotte-Beaulieu
• Published:

An enjoyable if occasionally dicey English language debut of one of horror gaming’s most legendary cult classics

I first played the original Clock Tower years ago through the Japan-exclusive PlayStation expanded edition Clock Tower: The First Fear. A group of us were sitting around a small CRTV, and my friend hooked up Sony’s official mouse and I was immediately hooked. This was the first time I had played a horror game with point-and-click controls, and even though we couldn’t understand much due to the language barrier, the scares came across just as effectively when a serial killer carrying a giant pair of scissors popped up on screen and began chasing us. That game never did come out in English, as the game many of us know in the West as Clock Tower was really its sequel, Clock Tower 2, in Japan. Until now. Needless to say, I was incredibly excited to hear that after nearly 30 years of being exclusively Japanese outside of fan translations, that very first Clock Tower was finally being officially localized into English and updated as Clock Tower: Rewind. Now that it’s here, I find myself torn – this is still the same game I know and love, but a disjointed structure to menus and game modes makes it feel like a missed opportunity.

Clock Tower is a survival horror game that was originally developed for the Super Famicom by Hifumi Kono at the now defunct Human Entertainment in 1995. You play as Jennifer Simpson, a teenager at Granite Orphanage who has just been adopted by the rich and mysterious Mr. Barrows, along with her three friends Laura, Anne, and Lotte, to live with him. The four girls are led to the opulent Barrows Mansion by Ms. Mary, a teacher with the orphanage who volunteered to take them to meet their new adoptive father. Upon arrival at the manor, however, things seem… off. There’s no one to meet them, and soon Ms. Mary walks off and disappears, leaving the girls alone in the entryway.

Jennifer decides to go look for Ms. Mary, but after you take control of her and leave the room, you hear a terrified scream and rush back to find that all your friends have disappeared. From there you’re left to wander around, but it won’t be long before you find you’re not alone. Other players may experience their first encounter differently, but while walking down the hall, out of the darkness I heard the sound of running water – a shower, perhaps? Through the nearby doorway I found a bathroom, and I slowly approached the shower with its curtain drawn shut. I apprehensively pulled back the curtain, only to be met with a dead body, dangling lifeless. Before I had time to fully grasp the horror of this gruesome discovery, a pair of massive scissors slowly rose out of the water that had pooled in the bathtub, held by what appears to be a small sickly man with gray skin and a sunken face under a mop of unkempt hair. I had come face to face with the deadly Scissorman, and if I didn’t start running, I’d end up just like the corpse in the shower. 

This is the typical structure of how you will progress: You explore Barrows Mansion, looking for clues about how to escape the murderous Scissorman while searching for your friends and uncovering the manor’s dark secrets. But that is honestly all the structure you’ll get; there’s no indication of where to go or even what your goal is, other than to save anyone still alive and get out safely. The game is incredibly obtuse in its design, without a map or any sort of guidance on how to make any progress – remember this is a title from 1995 at its core. Nor can you relax until you figure it all out. Scissorman will find you, and you will die. A lot. But this is part of what makes the game so memorable, and the dread of a stalker that could pop out of anywhere (he burst through the ceiling multiple times in my playthrough) constantly being a threat is what has made Clock Tower such a staple of the horror gaming genre.

Before all that, upon booting up Clock Tower: Rewind you’ll be greeted by a brand-new animated cartoon intro, along with the new opening theme song “Sharp Laughter,” performed by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn. The production values are impressive, making a statement that this is Clock Tower back and better than ever. The main menu is relatively simple, with the original Super Famicom box art displayed in the background and the menu options listing “Start Game,” “Extras,” and “Music Player” – more on the extras later. Upon choosing to start playing, you’ll receive two options for the version of the game you want: “Rewind” and “Original.” The latter is the game just as it was on the Super Famicom, while the former brings in many of the new elements and content from the previously updated 1997 version that I played, subtitled The First Fear, including additional in-game cutscenes and new items. While it is nice to see the original game included as it was, most new players will want to start with the more fully featured (and of course localized) “Rewind” version.

Once you’ve chosen, you’ll be greeted by a window that shows how to perform all the basic functions in the game. You control a cursor that is used for both interacting with the environment and for moving Jennifer around. In addition to the cursor option, you can press a key or button to have Jennifer start walking or running either left or right – she will continue in that direction, including opening doors in her path on her own, until you either change direction or press a separate key to stop or rest. Whenever you run, Jennifer’s stamina will slowly drain and her character portrait will change from blue (fully rested) to yellow to red (exhausted). You can rest at any time, which will replenish your stamina. But while Jennifer can be moved with key presses, you will need to highlight and interact with items and objects using the cursor regardless of which control method you go with. Most things you pick up will be moved into Jennifer’s inventory, easily accessed through a button press, but some key items will automatically be used without the need to do so manually.

While traversing Barrows Mansion, you will guide Jennifer through its various rooms and search any spots highlighted by your cursor. Some items clearly denote they can be picked up or moved, but due to the limited detail provided by the Super Famicom’s hardware, it is still difficult to tell what some of them even are (i.e. there’s pesticide in one of the storage rooms, but it looks like a random cylinder that doesn’t seem particularly noteworthy against anything else in the same room). Unfortunately, the vast majority of objects you need to progress towards a satisfying ending are not shown in-game at all. Instead, you will only be able to find them by sweeping for any and all interactive points with your cursor in every room you explore. This leads to a large amount of pixel hunting, and where specific items and rooms are located is randomized across different playthroughs upon the game booting up. It is highly unlikely that you will find everything your first time through, and if you’re going for the best possible ending, it is nearly impossible to do so without some sort of walkthrough or hint guide.

Most puzzle solutions are presented in a way that makes logical sense – the aforementioned pesticide helps clear some pesky insects in one section, for example. The problem is less in figuring out how to deal with a particular obstacle, and more so in checking to see if you have the needed item in your inventory at that time. Most items you acquire function as keys to unlock barriers both literal and figurative. Technically you can end the game fairly quickly by finding a working car in the garage that you can choose to drive away from everything. You’ll condemn your friends to be butchered by Scissorman and learn nothing about what was going on with the whole affair in the manor, but there’s nothing to stop you from doing so. Let’s just say it’s a short-lived escape in this ending, though. If you want to leave Barrows Mansion with any sense of satisfaction, you’ll have to scour every inch of it for hidden items and background lore.

Clock Tower: Rewind

Genre:	Horror, Thriller
Presentation:	2D or 2.5D
Theme:	Monsters
Perspective:	Third-Person
Graphic Style:	Pixel art
Gameplay:	Survival
Control:	Point-and-click
Game Length:	Medium (5-10 hours)
Action:	Combat, Stealth, Chase
Difficulty:	High

Of course, while you’re rifling around in cabinets and boxes for any sort of useful trinket or key needed to progress further into the depths of the house, you’ll have to deal with the ever-present threat of the deadly Scissorman. He will appear at random – sometimes you’ll be walking down a hall when you suddenly hear the sound of scissors being swished together and you’ll see the ominous killer appear from just off-screen. Other times you might be examining an old grand piano when Scissorman bursts through the ceiling without warning. The sheer variety of ways this psychopath can appear is incredibly impressive, and it’s multiplied by how many ways these encounters can play out – even in the same rooms across multiple playthroughs. Maybe he will pop out from behind a curtain you’re investigating, but other times you’ll examine the same curtain and nothing will happen. This randomized nature leads to a sense of unpredictability in these killer encounters, and is a big part in what keeps the experience engaging.

When you’re inevitably caught by Scissorman, the chase begins. He will follow you relentlessly, his omnipresent scissors clanging through the halls and letting you know he is right on your tail. In order to escape him, there are a number of places where you can hide or otherwise thwart him temporarily. You can cower under a bed, close the door in a bathroom, push a bookcase over on him… There are as many ways to evade Scissorman as there are ways for him to suddenly show up and ruin your day. But the success of many of these hiding spots is arbitrary in the same way that Scissorman’s appearances are – if you hide in a bathroom, he might give up on bashing the door down before he’s able to get to you. Or he might not.

At certain times you’ll have to face a “Panic” check, in which Jennifer’s portrait will flash while she is dealing with a particularly strenuous situation in-game. When her picture starts flashing at the bottom of the screen, whether you’re being attacked by Scissorman or scrambling up the side of a ledge to escape certain death, you’ll have to mash the “Panic” button to stand a chance at escaping. If your portrait is flashing and Jennifer’s portrait is red from exhaustion, you’ll automatically fail the “Panic” check and it’s game over. You’re able to re-load from where your last save took place, and as you can save at any time, you will typically only lose a small amount of progress so long as you’re diligent.

New to this version of the game is one additional input – the “Rewind” button, which can turn back a short amount of time. You can rewind at any time during gameplay, but you can only go back roughly 10 seconds. It’s an odd limitation, especially when the slow-paced gameplay typically means you can’t rewind any further back than entering whatever room you’re currently in, but it’s a nice feature to have. Being able to undo erroneous choices that either lead to your death or force you to wait for a long animation to play out can be incredibly useful in a pinch. I guarantee you will click on a set of stairs by accident and have to watch Jennifer slowly make her way up at least once, and being able to rewind that decision to avoid a 10-20 second animation is a godsend.

Gamepads and keyboard/mouse options are supported in exploring Barrows Mansion, but the overall implementation is bizarrely inconsistent, particularly for the latter. The original game’s controls weren’t exactly intuitive to begin with, but Rewind constantly changes how it can be navigated from one menu to the next. There is no way to control it using only the mouse, as you’re unable to access the inventory visible at the bottom of the screen like a standard adventure, for example, instead having to switch to keyboard to select items for use, which is particularly annoying when your very survival depends on doing so quickly. I wouldn’t be so bothered by this if there weren’t already two other versions of Clock Tower that are fully playable with mouse-only controls – Clock Tower: The First Fear on PlayStation and Clock Tower for Windows 95. Both versions are in Japanese, but the traditional point-and-click controls are somehow way better in these older editions of the game than they are here. My understanding is that Rewind uses the Super Famicom edition as a base, then added in the extra content and control options included in The First Fear. While it’s great to have all the story content included together in one package, it’s a shame that the controls didn’t see the same amount of care.

Unfortunately, this disjointed feeling extends beyond the controls. The animated introduction is incredibly gorgeous without a doubt, but this is the only point you see this particular art style used anywhere throughout the game’s 4-6 hour runtime (or more if you decide to try for all 9 endings). As you’re playing, suddenly a pop-up will let you know that you have unlocked a motion comic to be accessed from the Extras tab of the main menu. The motion comics were originally included as part of the physical documentation with Clock Tower: The First Fear, and it is a treat to have these available in English for the first time. But these pop-ups take up the whole screen during gameplay, and nothing is paused when it happens – I nearly died after receiving a message like this during a particularly tense chase with Scissorman.

The motion comics are fully voiced in English, and it’s nice to hear these characters brought to life through their dialogue. But these comics are the only parts of the game with voice acting, and they do not appear in-game organically. They can only be viewed from the Extras menu, making them feel like a completely isolated part of the experience. It would have been great to see them properly integrated, and ideally have the entire game voiced after getting a taste of what could have been with the comics, but unfortunately it was not to be.

The core Clock Tower game is largely untouched from its original form. The pixel art holds up incredibly well, with some of the most beautiful backgrounds and character animations of the 16-bit console generation. Dialogue is handled through text boxes appearing at the bottom of the screen, along with a zoomed-in portrait of the speaker’s face. Character interactions other than between Jennifer and the unspeaking Scissorman are sparse, but everyone who appears, however briefly, is meticulously detailed. Several set pieces have their own unique animations, including a painting appearing to ooze blood and a parrot flying around the room after you open its cage. It’s these small touches that make the game still an impressive sight to behold nearly three decades after its debut.

During exploration when you are currently “safe” from Scissorman, there is no music present and the only sound accompanying you is the echoing taps of your footsteps. The lack of music is used to great effect, amplifying the tension that at any moment you could come up against an unstoppable killer. When it happens, the score swells to a pounding chorus of electronic beats interspersed with sounds akin to crazed laughter. Along with the rush of music will come the constant snipping of the killer’s deadly scissors being gleefully brought together – sha shing, sha shing, sha shing, sha shing… In quieter moments when you find a particularly important piece of information, the game might play a gentle tune that evokes a more contemplative feeling rather than the panicked chase from a killer. Taken all together, the use of music and sound in Clock Tower remains just as chillingly effective in this version of the game as it always has.

Final Verdict

Clock Tower: Rewind is an enigma. Its mere existence is welcome, as it’s the first readily available, English-language edition of a game that has been hugely influential on horror gaming since it first released in 1995. The beautiful pixel graphics still hold up, and there are some welcome improvements to the base game now too, including the ability to run up stairs and the “Rewind” function as a useful feature for correcting mistakes. It’s in the blending of the old with the new that the remake starts to unravel, however, with inconsistent controls across menus, and voice acting only for a few brief motion comics that are entirely separate from the main game (and in a completely different art style). There is a rare demo version of the original Super Famicom release included in the Extras menu, but it is only in Japanese. None of the FMV cutscenes from Clock Tower: The First Fear or Clock Tower for Windows 95 are here, even if the in-game animations added in The First Fear are still present. There are high-resolution scans of original box arts, manuals, and game guides from the original releases, but these are not complete and are again only in Japanese. As someone who has loved this series for many years, I am incredibly happy that the game that started it all is finally making its way outside of Japan. I just can’t shake the feeling that it could have been something more.

Sam played Clock Tower: Rewind on PC using a review code provided by the game's publisher.