Scissorman is scary as hell!!!!
Clock Tower's presentation is almost too good for the hardware it's running on. While on a technical level it's not THAT impressive, the way it builds tension and steeps you in the atmosphere of its (almost) derelict mansion feels ahead of its time by generations. It's more moody than horror staples like Resident Evil, and even its own PS1 era sequels; which are all still great games, they just lack that special something that the original Clock Tower has in spades.
This is a very slow game. I'm not just talking the overall pacing. Your character feels like she's wearing boots made of solid concrete. That's kind of the point, though. It makes you feel powerless, and ratchets up the stress of being pursued by the scissorman, who I must reiterate is very scary!(!!!) You think they just let anone have scissors that big? No! They're made for murder!
At multiple points in the game you'll be locked in a chase with scissorman, and your only recourse against him is to hide. You cannot fight him off, you will die. Unfortunately, some rooms are harder than others to find a good hiding spot, and not all hiding spots are made equal within the same room. If you pick a bad one, Scissorman will find you and kill you. To make matters worse, object selection is similar to an adventure game, and is every bit as slow as your movements. When you actually do find a place to hide, you have to commit to the arduous task of actually selecting the object and waiting for Jennifer's animation to finish.
This might sound miserable and... well, it kind of is. I think it works best in these encounters, but simply navigating the mansion while not being in the middle of a pursuit can at times get a little tedious, especially if you're unsure where to go or what to do (which for me was often.) This isn't bad on a first playthrough, really, but going back for the other endings is the point at which the plodding nature of the game started to wear on me.
Clock Tower is pretty short overall, despite this. It's the perfect game to pull out for Halloween, and can easily be beaten in a single run. With the lights out, I'd put this on the same level as Silent Hill for overall spooks.
Clock Tower's presentation is almost too good for the hardware it's running on. While on a technical level it's not THAT impressive, the way it builds tension and steeps you in the atmosphere of its (almost) derelict mansion feels ahead of its time by generations. It's more moody than horror staples like Resident Evil, and even its own PS1 era sequels; which are all still great games, they just lack that special something that the original Clock Tower has in spades.
This is a very slow game. I'm not just talking the overall pacing. Your character feels like she's wearing boots made of solid concrete. That's kind of the point, though. It makes you feel powerless, and ratchets up the stress of being pursued by the scissorman, who I must reiterate is very scary!(!!!) You think they just let anone have scissors that big? No! They're made for murder!
At multiple points in the game you'll be locked in a chase with scissorman, and your only recourse against him is to hide. You cannot fight him off, you will die. Unfortunately, some rooms are harder than others to find a good hiding spot, and not all hiding spots are made equal within the same room. If you pick a bad one, Scissorman will find you and kill you. To make matters worse, object selection is similar to an adventure game, and is every bit as slow as your movements. When you actually do find a place to hide, you have to commit to the arduous task of actually selecting the object and waiting for Jennifer's animation to finish.
This might sound miserable and... well, it kind of is. I think it works best in these encounters, but simply navigating the mansion while not being in the middle of a pursuit can at times get a little tedious, especially if you're unsure where to go or what to do (which for me was often.) This isn't bad on a first playthrough, really, but going back for the other endings is the point at which the plodding nature of the game started to wear on me.
Clock Tower is pretty short overall, despite this. It's the perfect game to pull out for Halloween, and can easily be beaten in a single run. With the lights out, I'd put this on the same level as Silent Hill for overall spooks.